Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

Rebellion Against God

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: Rebellion Against God

Genre:

Track: 21

Dictation Name: RR181L21

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jesus said Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Let us pray.

We come again, our Father, into thy presence, grateful for our past and present mercies, thanking thee, our Father, that we who are so often foolish in all our ways, are protected by thy grace. We thank thee that hitherto thou hast blessed us, and we thank thee that, in Christ, the best is yet to come for us. Give us grateful hearts. Teach us to sing thy praises, to be grateful, thankful, and obedient. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is from Numbers 11:24-30. Our subject: The Holy Spirit and the Elders of Israel. Numbers 11:24-30. “And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the Lord, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle. And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders: and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease. But there remained two of the men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad: and the spirit rested upon them; and they were of them that were written, but went not out unto the tabernacle: and they prophesied in the camp. And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid them. And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them! And Moses gat him into the camp, he and the elders of Israel.”

We continue again with the great forgotten chapter, a chapter that was once a favorite of preaching and now is almost never heard about. At God’s command, seventy elders had been chosen to assist Moses in the government of Israel. These men did so during the wilderness journey. They were not doubt, at times, some real help to Moses. They were to bear the burden of government with Moses and under his authority, but a grim fact must be called attention to. All seventy of these men perished in the wilderness. They were among those who were sentenced to die for their apostasy, yet these men were, at this point, possessed by the spirit of God. They gave vent, the text indicates, to ecstatic utterances, and preached with what Kennedy called a holy frenzy. These were clearly charismatic experiences, but they were no assurance of salvation. Even Balaam and Balaam’s ass could prophesy on occasion, but this gave them no assured place among God’s elect.

This is an important fact. Israel was denying God’s mercy. They were denying the value of His miraculous manna. They were an ingrate people, and that’s what this chapter is about; ingratitude, and that’s why it’s not preached about. God was now about to judge the people in two dramatic ways. First, the seventy elders were overcome by the spirit of God so that they transcended themselves. This was a very real and very dramatic event. It witnessed to the power of God, not to the salvation of the seventy. It meant their greater condemnation in the sight of God.

Second, besides the supernatural experience of the elders, we have reference to the miracle of manna, and then in verses 31-35, to the miracle of the quail. Not one of these three supernatural facts brought any awareness of God and of God’s requirements to Israel. Although Moses died in the wilderness, near the edge of Canaan, we are told of his faith. Caleb and Joshua, because of their faith, were the two men of the older generation who entered Canaan. We are told very plainly of the unbelief of all the others of the older generation and God’s judgment on them. In Hebrews 3:17-19, we read, “But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.”

What we are plainly told, and what we see plainly, is that a man’s life may be marked by miracles greater than any we know, and by charismatic experiences like those of the day of Pentecost, and because of unbelief, he can go to Hell more quickly than others. The test is a faith that bears fruit. As our Lord says, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” We must remember also, as 1 Samuel 10:12, and 1 Samuel 19:24 tells us, that King Saul was possessed by the Holy Spirit on an occasion or two. This did not make Saul a saint of God.

Two of the seventy elders; Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp for some reason, but they, too, were subjected to the same experiences. When this was reported to Moses, Joshua was concerned and said, “My Lord, Moses, forbid them.” Now it was commonly held that Moses was envious and spoke for that reason. Joshua, who was present apparently with Moses, simply was upset that two men, who had not come to the sanctuary, should apparently be prophesying. The unconcern, real or not, of Eldad and Medad, were the summons to the sanctuary was what concerned Joshua. Moses recognized Joshua’s concern. “Envious thou for my sake?” “Do you feel that my authority has been diminished because God’s spirit came on these two men independently, men who didn’t come here?” Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His spirit upon them. The absence of Eldad and Medad meant that the people in the encampment were witnesses also to this supernatural event. This made their subsequent {?} all the more evil.

Now, to understand these verses more clearly, we need to remember that in verse 16-18, God requires two things of Moses. First, the seventy elders must be called together to receive God’s spirit. Second, the people must sanctify themselves because on the morrow, God would give them meat to eat. God is thus making clear that if manna is an insufficient witness to you of my providential mercy and care, then two further miracles will reinforce the people’s condemnation; the possession of the seventy elders by the Holy Spirit and the miraculous provision of the quails. The plague that struck them then was God’s judgment for their willful blindness to His providential care and deliverance. The more God does for us, the more evil it becomes if we despise His goodness. The calling of the elders and the provision of the quails is thus essentially related to the plagues which followed. No matter what God did, the people were ungrateful and blind to His mercy. It does tell us a great deal abut the character of Moses, that he rejoiced on hearing that even the absent Eldad and Medad were ecstatically praising God.

Joshua was fearful of a separate area of authority for Moses in God’s sanctuary being created by this event, but Moses expressed his delight. Israel was marked by the sin of discontent and ingratitude, but not so Moses. The charismatic utterances of the seventy elders were not repeated on other occasions, although they continued for some time on this particular day. They were ecstatic rather than predictive utterances. If they had continued, it would have made no differences. Men are saved by God’s grace. No other way. The charismatic utterances and the quail which came the next day were both miraculous gifts of God, and both were judgments on Israel because of their ingratitude. We are plainly told that the spirit was put upon the people by God. It involved neither faith nor grace on their side, anymore than it did with King Saul. It was not a subjective experience. It was an objective fact. It said nothing about the men who received it, other than the fact that God made a witness through them.

When God is described in Exodus 20:5 as a jealous God, it means one who maintains His right, one who maintains His rights. That’s what true jealousy is about. A jealous husband or a wife, where there is infidelity is one who is maintaining his or her rights. False jealousy is a false belief about rights. We are God’s creatures, and as His property, he can give us gifts or recall them at will. God was thus maintaining His rights in the events of Numbers 11. He gives His people, as evidence of His mercy, manna, the gift of the spirit, and then the quail. At the same time, He sends through the camp a consuming fire; death, and later again, a plague; death. God, as a jealous God, maintained His rights as against a people who are ungrateful and complaining. What could have been signal blessings became curses.

This is why, in the early history of this country, when people had it rougher than any of us have ever had it, they began the celebration of Thanksgiving, which was applying the harvest festival of the Old Testament to New England, because they knew the grace of God even in the face of all the difficulties they had.

We are told in 1 Samuel 15:22-23, “And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.” These words are spoke to Saul, who had been given charismatic experiences. Men can, at times, be lifted above their normal character and abilities by a variety of ways. Here, the cause is directly from God and it is supernatural. Seventy men became for the day, greater than themselves. The true test of a man, however, is his day by day faithfulness. “Behold to obey is better than sacrifice.”

It is a mistake, therefore, to regard this episode as a spiritual high mark, anymore so than what happened to King Saul. We have contemporary analogs to this in revival experiences of some people. During World War 2, more than a few men had foxhole experiences, or conversions, which subsequently proved not only to have no valid results, but led to contemptible attitudes on their parts. Some mocked what they did when they were afraid. Others treated it as a joke. God is granting these seventy elders, and by granting them this experience, He was compounding their reprobation. As I’ve said before, in the past two weeks, this chapter and my childhood was seen differently than it is now, and it was widely preached upon by on, and the strong emphasis I heard was perhaps because all the preachers I heard, including my father, were Armenians who had been spared from the massacres, and they were not given to a sweetness and light theology.

We need very urgently a return to the meaning of Numbers 11, because we live in a nation much given to ingratitude, and we are surrounded by people who are ingrates, and God judges such men, and He judges such a generation. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee for all thy mercies and blessings, and thy providential care. We thank thee that, in a world where there is so much evil, so much suffering, and where all over the world men are experiencing horrors that we only know remotely, thy hand has been upon us for good. Give us a grateful heart. Teach us to thank thee. Make us again a grateful nation. May thy judgments upon our nation and the world be redemptive judgments, whereby through the judgments they are recalled to grace, and to a knowledge of thee and thy word. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] I think the false jealousy that you spoke of is fallen man’s {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes. Fallen man has way of turning his sins into virtues, and feeling very proud of himself, as though somehow, what he was doing in his sin reflected a very, very noble character on his part. There are people who have lived in wealth that exceeds many times anything we have known here, combined, all of us, multi, multi, multi-millionaires, and they have one sad fact in their lives, and they spend the rest of their life indicting God and man for what happened, but it’s not only some very wealthy people who do that but some of modest means. They seem to believe that because they say yes to Jesus, somehow they should be spared all troubles. There should be no sickness and they should never die, they should just be raptured into heaven. Yes?

[Audience] Well, hearing about Bangladesh and the cholera that’s spreading on Peru, throughout Latin America . . .

[Rushdoony] And among the Kurdish refugees.

[Audience] And among the Kurdish refugees, and various and sundry other calamities, and then reading the complaints of the American people is quite a contrast.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and it’s a scary one, because God hears the complaints more than we do, and we will not escape His anger, because God is a jealous God. He maintains His rights. I was really amazed in reading the most recent National Review, perhaps you’ve read it, about the comparative intelligence of various peoples, and if we were to believe that, we’d have to say the Far East is going to be the pre-eminent race of the future. The one thing that the article does not touch on is the moral, the religious angle. The article turns to countless ages of evolution, whereby supposedly the people of the Far East were, through the survival of the fittest, made superior. Well, why weren’t they superior before this? And why is it that over the generations, the Christian era, the Christian West, took people who were barbarians and performing human sacrifices routinely, and the English peoples who were running around naked, painted blue when they were going formal, and made them the greatest people of all history. There has to be a moral or religious factor, and this article acts as though that did not exist. It was something about the ice age in the Far East that produced the superiority of the Japanese, and the fact that we have abandoned the work ethic, and have become a nation of ingrates, somehow has nothing to do with it. I think with that article, which you have perhaps seen, National Review reached a new low. Yes?

[Audience] Well, it’s like anthropological clap trap, {?} to write.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Anthropological clap trap does abound today, and it’s very prevalent. Science supposedly speaks with infallibility. I was interested to hear recently, among other things, and so that there will be no reprisals against him, I will not name the man who told me this, but we think of laboratory tests, when you go to a hospital, or to a doctor, as infallible. None of them are. You can have a different result on the blood pressure depending on how tightly your bound, which arm is used, whether you were nervous when you went in, or whether you were relaxed, so that your blood pressure results and a great many other results are conditioned by so many factors. They are worthless, very often worthless, unless you have someone who knows how to interpret the relative value what they turn out, and most lab tests are similar. We do not have the exactitude that supposedly is a part of the scientific world, but we have come to believe that the sciences of so-called hard sciences and soft sciences can give us unvarying truth, and it’s not true. Are there any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that the will of men shall not prevail, but that it is thy will that shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thou hast made us. Thou hast ordained us for thy purpose. Oh Lord, our God, maintain thy rights over us, and make us mindful of thy rights over us that we are thy creation, thy property, made to do thy will. Grant us grateful hearts. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.