Jesus: A Prophet like Moses Trinity CRC, December 9, 2012 AM Series: Advent Images of Christ 2 Deuteronomy 18:9-22 (v.15) Rev. Richard delange Dear children of God, On my day off last Monday, I caught part of a Dr. Phil episode. He was interviewing John Edwards, the famous American psychic, someone who has (or claims to have) the ability to connect with your dead, departed loved ones. I contemplated showing a little clip of John Edwards at work on the Dr. Phil show but I just don t feel good about bringing something into our worship service that God says we are to stay away from. But I can show you a similar clip (if you will) that God gives us in the Bible in 1 Samuel 28. The story involves King Saul desperately trying to figure out what to do with one of his enemies. If you look in your Bible at 1 Samuel 28, Saul goes on the sly to the Witch of Endor. Because Saul had not listened to the Lord and became proud, the Lord told him that David would be the new king. From then on, Saul lost connection to the Lord and he is afraid. The Philistines are coming and Saul wants some divine direction. So he turns to the witch. And at Saul s request, she calls up Samuel, the Lord s faithful prophet, from dead. There s something very real about what happens. There s no denying it. But it s just a little comical as well. The first thing Samuel says is this: 1 Sam 28:15 Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up? It s like he s saying, Okay, Saul. Why won t you leave me alone even when I m dead! Then in the next verse we read, 1 Sam 28:16 Samuel said, Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has turned away from you and become your enemy? 17 The Lord has done what he predicted through me... 18 Because you did not obey the Lord, the Lord has done this to you today. 19 The Lord will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me That was really bad news for Saul. It s like the story where a guy says, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you are going to go to heaven. The bad news is you are going tomorrow. Samuel is saying, Saul, you re going to die tomorrow! And we read that Saul immediately fell on the ground, filled with fear (v.20). Clearly, Samuel speaks from the dead to Saul. John Edwards claims to talk to your dead loved ones and tell you what they want you to know. When he does it, however, the dead people only talk to him; you don t hear them yourself. So that leaves room for a good degree of skepticism. Nonetheless, I believe this kind of thing can be real. It s clear from the Bible that Satan has power as well. And God knows it as well so he tells us to stay away from spiritists, mediums and sorcery. We have a direct line to God, you might say, so we shouldn t dabble with these agents of Satan and false religion. King Saul knew he was doing was wrong, which is why he sought the witch s help on the sly. Our reading from Deuteronomy should have guided Saul. Verse 14 says, 1
Dt 18:14 The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. Israel of old was surrounded by nations who employed mediums to get messages for direction in this life from those who are no longer living among us. In the same way, we have psychics in our culture. And that s a growing business in our world, particularly as people turn away from following Jesus and knowing God s Word in the Bible. When you do not know how to discern God s leading and do not desire to seek God, then you end up falling for the false hope offered by a psychic. My dear friends in Christ, in our text today from Deuteronomy 18, God makes it clear that Jesus is a prophet like Moses and then some. Moses is speaking to Israel and, in the words of our text in v.15, he says this: Dt 18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. In Office We should see from our text that Moses is foreseeing Jesus as a prophet whom God will raise up. So Jesus is, first of all, like Moses in office. Dt 18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me... Deuteronomy is part of Moses last words to Israel. These are words of encouragement as the nation takes hold of the Promised Land to which Moses knows he is not going. Others will have to lead the nation. And leading as a prophet means guiding the people in the ways of the Lord God Almighty, Yahweh. Moses had led the people of Israel out of Egypt. He led them through the battle with Pharaoh as God sent plagues bloodied water, bugs, frogs, hail and finally the death of all firstborn sons all of it to urge Pharaoh to let the people go. Then Moses led the people up to the shore of the Red Sea. The people panicked and complained, fearing they would die as Pharaoh boxed them in. But with God on his side, Moses touched the sea with his staff and waters divided. The people walked through the sea on dry ground and watched in amazement as God closed the sea again when the last Israelite crossed over, leaving Pharaoh and his mighty army to drown. On the other side, the Lord provided water from a rock, manna from heaven and quail each day. Israel s prophet Moses faithfully led the people. But most importantly, Moses met with God face to face. That was incredible. He climbed Mt. Sinai different times and heard from God himself. And then he returned to the people and shared with them what God had said. That s what true prophets do. Stephen, a deacon in the early church, full of the Holy Spirit and power, intimidated the leaders of a Jewish synagogue with his wise words so they conspired against him and brought him up on false charges of speaking blasphemy against Moses and God. And while Stephen was speaking to his false accusers, he talked about Moses. In Acts 7, he said, Acts 7:37 This is that Moses who told the Israelites, God will send you a prophet like me from your own people. 38 He was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us. A prophet passes on God s living words. Isn t that a great way to regard and receive God s Word to us? 2
Moses the prophet brought God s Word to Israel. He gave them not only the Ten Commandments but many other instructions. One writer comments, These oracles are not fossils that time has preserved in rock. Rather, Moses tells the Israelites that the law of God is their life, for with it they are able to live their earthly lives to the fullest extent (Deut. 30:19 20; 32:46 47). Scripture repeatedly states that the Word of God is living (for example, Heb. 4:12). Do you consider it living words words that can direct our lives to the best life possible? After Moses, many other OT prophets brought the Word of God to the attention of his people. The prophets called people to follow God s ways so that they could live life to the fullest. They called them away from their sin, away from idolatry, away from immorality, away from greed and everything it leads to, away from pride and arrogance. They called them to follow God. God knows the best way for us to find the greatest joy and purpose in life. Satan, on the other hand, likes to wrap sin in nice packages like shiny Christmas paper, but in the end it s just a box of death. God offers life. Satan promises even better life but he delivers just death. As a pastor I see people too often who are pursuing life on Satan s terms. It looks good at first but then it turns out to bite them. You ve heard the news this weekend, I suspect. There were three impaired driving accidents in a 24 hour span with 2 deaths. Satan tries to convince people that getting drunk is really living it up. The more you drink the funnier you are and the funnier everyone else is. The more you drink the more you laugh. But that s not true when you look at the news and see that two drunk drivers are responsible for killing two more people in our province. I m sure those drivers aren t laughing today. And a lot of other people are now crying. What these drivers believed was living it up is now a nightmare for them as they face charges of drunk driving causing death. That s the kind of life Satan offers. And it s so, so far from the life God s Word encourages us to pursue. The prophets were always calling God s people to pursue life on God s terms. But then the voice of the prophets fell silent for 400 years. At the beginning of the New Testament, the voice of John the Baptist is like one of the Old Testament prophets calling God s people to repentance. But during the previous 400 years the term prophet became a way of referring to the coming Messiah. That s why after Jesus fed the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish, we read in John 6:14, Jn 6:14 After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world. Jesus is indeed the fulfillment of all the prophets before him. He s the one the prophets of old said was coming. And Peter after Pentecost uses the very verse that is our text from Deuteronomy 8 to point back to Jesus as the one who brings real life to people who believe in him (Acts 3:22). Jesus is the Prophet with a capital P who like Moses knows God face to face and in whom God s revelation has reached its culmination, says John Stott. So think about it. Moses was raised in the palace of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. From childhood, he saw the way Egyptians lived and the way they followed false gods and sought mediums, spiritists and people like John Edwards. But Moses, by God s grace, 3
recognized the emptiness of that life. He recognized the hopelessness of that life. God took hold of his heart and Moses got to talk to God face to face. The book of Deuteronomy closes with these words: Dt 34:10 Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, 11 who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. 12 For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel. No one, that is, until Jesus came. For the Lord Jesus came into our world as a baby in Bethlehem. He came from the palace of heaven, born in a stable, to live among us, to bring us life both here and for eternity. And like Moses who turned his back on the religions of Egypt, to be a prophet for God Almighty, Jesus our Prophet like Moses in office calls us to live a life devoted to God and doing God s will. And he empowers us to do so. In him is life to the fullest. In Authority And that leads us to our second and final thought about Jesus being a prophet like Moses. He s also a prophet like Moses in authority. And therefore we must listen to him. As I was researching a bit about John Edwards, I came across a segment of one of his shows in which a young lady from BC called him to hear what he could find out about her departed father. The interesting part of that discussion was that she talked about how, at the funeral, they played a DVD on which her dad was recorded in church rededicating his life to Christ. I thought, Wow. So if this girl is a Christian like her father, and she s now calling a psychic, she s really not doing what God wants. In desperation, Christians can and sometimes do turn to the wrong place for direction. But if Jesus is our Saviour as well as our Prophet then we must listen to him. He should have ultimate authority in our lives. The people in Moses day were warned to stay away from mediums and spiritists. King Saul also knew that God did not allow his people to inquire of the dead. Why? Because such things have a dark spiritual side. If you look back to the history of the Canaanites whose land Israel was going to receive, you can understand why God commanded his people to stay away from their pagan ways. The verses just before our text give us a little explanation with some big insight. Dt 18:9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God. Do you see it? It s a package a package of evil. If you engage spiritists and psychics and the like, you are opening the door to other evil things. Did you hear it at the beginning there? It includes even sacrificing children in the fire. Now I m sure that seems 4
like a stretch for everyone here. Or maybe not. I believe some of our African sisters and brothers have seen how such pagan practices are still carried out in parts of the world today. But closer to home again, the lesson is that any false religion we follow will come with a price for our children. You might not sacrifice them on the altar of Baal or another Canaanite god. But when Jesus and his Word is not your sole and supreme authority for doctrine and life, then we see parents even those who confess Christ putting their children on the altar of pleasure, the altar of recreation, the altar of work, the altar of money, the altar of success, and the altar of other things that take priority over Jesus and his Word. We know what God says in the Bible about seeking first his kingdom, but we chase our own kingdom instead. And that s the kingdom our kids go after when they grow up. They wander from the Lord and go after the things we gave priority to over Jesus. That s something for all of us to seriously consider. God keeps the standard high saying our goal must be blamelessness. Another translation says You shall be perfect. And the word translated perfect means entire, whole, from the Latin integer, which is related to integrity. Does that make sense? It s saying, If you confess to love Jesus as your Saviour, then you should listen to him and his Word too. That s integrity, my friends. Following Jesus with integrity means asking for forgiveness when you know you ve not followed him as you should. It s asking for the Holy Spirit to help you again and again when you fall. We don t follow Jesus perfectly, but that s the goal of our life. That s what happens when Christ is your only authority in life. You listen to him! My friends, Jesus wants the best for you. He has life to the fullest in mind for us. And that s why he came to be our Saviour. He wants to save us from the snares of life under Satan s dominion, life which never lives up to what Satan promises, but leads instead to sorrow and disillusionment. John calls Jesus the Word made flesh. He is God s Word in the flesh. He s the true Prophet of God. And as that true Prophet he brings us the words of life, including direction and comfort in our lives. In this Christmas season and always when we might most miss loved ones, Jesus says, trust my word. He says that to us in all our circumstances. Trust his word. Trust what he tells us in the Bible. Trust what the Holy Spirit confirms in our hearts. Don t seek spiritual guidance and advice from spiritists or anyone who is not a follower of Jesus and his Word! Dear people, let us trust in Jesus alone and celebrate that he came as the Prophet who fulfills all promises of the Messiah and one who continues to call us to new life. That s the life we find by following him with our whole heart and seeking to obey his direction for us in his Word. 5