Your Sons & Daughters Shall Prophesy - Prophetic Gifts Today In The New Testament Church

Makeup: Traits That Characterized a Prophet

known; others became famous for their activities. Each, however, was true to the divine call. This is the bottom line of the prophet's makeup. If you keep my outline on "The Setting of a Prophecy" (chapter 3) in mind, the differences in people, times and historical settings will blend more eas ily so we can discover the basic calling of each prophet.

The Place of Moses

What was the place of Moses? Numbers 12 records the awesome story of God's dramatic solution to sibling rivalry when a jealous brother and sister challenged the prophetic authority of God's servant Moses. Using Moses' marriage to a Cushite woman as a pretext for criticism, Aaron and Miriam quickly came to the real issue: Moses' prophetic standing with God. But while they were still uttering their complaint, the Lord suddenly spoke. The two brothers and sister were summoned to the Tent of Meet ing, and "the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the door way of the tent" (Numbers 12:5). He called Aaron and Miriam forward, then made a classic statement that clearly established Moses in an entirely different category from other prophets: "Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. Not so, with My servant Moses, he is faithful in all My house hold; with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark say ings, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?" (verses 6-8). Moses was not just an ideal kind of prophet. In fact, he is not even called a prophet in this text, nor is he set up as the first and greatest of the prophets. All other authentic prophets are not considered inferior; they belong to the same select group of true prophets. Moses, however, is in a class all his own-an entirely different category. When God said, "Not so, with My servant Moses," He assigned Moses a position separate from all His other servants. God spoke clearly and distinctly to Moses with no ambiguities. Moses was faithful and trusted in God's "house" or "household." This refers not to a physical house but to the entire dispensation of the Old Testament (see Hebrews 3:5). It includes the Law and the covenant and the dealings of God with His peo ple. Young comments, "Moses' commission . . . comprised the entire house of God, so that he might be regarded as an over-servant." 17 63.