Think God... Think Big

The Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel and bring them to the tent of meeting… and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them… So Moses gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and put it on the seventy elders. As soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied.

Now two men remained in the camp, Eldad and Medad, and the Spirit rested on them too. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” Joshua the son of Nun said, “My lord Moses, stop them.”

The reaction of the Great Joshua was to stop the two men from prophesying.

But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

What can we learn from this?

- Sometimes God acts outside of his specified command. I guess that’s okay, after all he is God and He can do what he wants.

- When others aren’t obeying God’s command just like we are we may get a little indignant… like Joshua did and rashly rebuke them. Maybe we should take a little time to think about that.

- How was Joshua going to stop Eldad and Medad from prophesying? It was God who caused them to prophesy. Was Joshua going to stop God?

- The Great Moses realized this and didn’t question God or get insulted… Eldad and Medad were prophesying great things about God himself! Moses might not have understood the mechanism but he understood the results.

Moses wished that God would give his Spirit to all humanity and that’s just what God did starting on the day of Pentecost when God poured out his Spirit (on all flesh) and fulfilled what the prophet Joel predicted…

“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy”

Joshua and Moses were both great men in the Old Testament but Joshua was focused on the minute details of God’s Word and couldn’t see God’s great plan for mankind. Oh that we could lift up our eye and see our great God like Moses did!