Yet, at one and the same moment, they also were inspired while walking together, as they probably were doing, in some far-off part of the camp.  To the amazement of the people, and doubtless to their own amazement too, they suddenly began to prophesy, and crowds of listeners quickly gathered round them, as on Pentecost they ran together to hear the inspired apostles.  This unique experience was given by God, and received by the people as convincing evidence that Eldad and Medad were divinely appointed, and divinely qualified, equally with their brethren nearer the Tabernacle.  It is true that Joshua exhibited some jealousy and suspicion, and would have silenced them because the blessing had not come through Moses; but the great law-giver, with characteristic insight and generosity, would not heed the request—­“My lord Moses, forbid them.”  Calmly, yet decisively, the answer rang out, “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!”

In the experience of these two men there is imbedded valuable and permanent truth.  We regard it as an evidence, the more remarkable because given under a ceremonial regime, that God did not intend to institute any order of men outside the limits of which there was to be no liberty of prophesying and no fitness for it.  Nor is there any exclusively sacred place, be it tabernacle, temple, synagogue, or church, where alone such gifts can be conferred.  We believe that outside all sacred places, outside the churches of our own faith and order, and of any other churches, there are men, and women too, equally called of God with those within such limits, and the evidence that they are so called lies in the fact that in them also the Spirit of God is resting, and through them the Spirit of God is working.

This lesson, which still needs to be enforced in our own day, is perhaps best deduced from an incident so early and so simple as this.  Just as we may learn more of the way in which an engine really works from a simple model—­say of George Stephenson’s—­than from one of the complicated machines of the present day, so we may gain the more instruction from this incident, because of its very simple character, while its antiquity keeps it out of the confusion caused by modern controversies.

Eldad and Medad were men called of God to undertake holy service for the good of His people.  In their case the call was manifestly inward rather than outward.  Though truly chosen, they were not in the Tabernacle, nor were they wrapped in the cloud, and they received no ordination from the laying on of hands by Moses and Aaron.  The evidence of their call lay in their fitness for the work, and their fitness was due to the gift of the Spirit.  Yet all this occurred under a dispensation which was far more strict in ceremonial law than that under which we live.

What does it teach?  It surely confirms our belief that the word of God is not bound.  The exposition and enforcement of Divine truth is not to be confined to those who have received priestly ordination by some outward rite.  No man therefore has the right to forbid any preacher from exercising his functions on the ground that his orders are not regular, or because he has not been recognised by an Episcopate, a Presbytery, a Conference, or a Union.