A Prophet Like Moses

You'll turn your Bibles, please to Deuteronomy chapter 18 Deuteronomy chapter 18

Let us once more ask the Lord to give us guidance as we look into his word Our gracious Heavenly Father we once again ask that you would give us

Understanding that you would give us direction as we handle your truth Or that we would be blessed and that you by your spirit would once again help us to understand

What you have provided for us in the word we pray in Christ's name. I don't know about you, but That section we just read in Deuteronomy pretty heavy stuff

Very heavy stuff for those listening to the sermon. We just read through the last portion of the curses section that comes after Deuteronomy chapter 18 later on in the book and it

Was it was weighty stuff as you considered? You have the blessings.

Yes, but the curses tend to be Bigger yeah, that is the term bigger bigger greater

And downright frightening as you consider them certainly gives a little more meaning to an understanding of looking at what the content of this law is and God's seriousness in making these covenants

This morning. We looked at Deuteronomy chapter 17 and we continue now in Deuteronomy chapter 18.

I will Try to quickly read through the material and and then summarize the material in the time that we have this evening

The Levitical priests the whole tribe of Levi shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel They shall eat the

Lord's offerings by fire and his portion They shall have no inheritance among their countrymen the

Lord is their inheritance as he promised them again Let me just mention that countrymen. It's the same term

Brethren, we're talking about the Jewish people here the 12 tribes now this shall be the priest do from the people from those who offer a

Sacrifice either an ox or a sheep of which they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach You shall give him the first fruits of your grain your new wine in your oil and the first shearing of your sheep

The Lord your God has chosen him and his sons from all your tribes to stand and serve in the name of the Lord forever

Now if a Levite comes from any of your towns to Israel where he resides and comes whenever he desires to the place which the

Lord Chooses then he shall serve in the name of the Lord his God like all his fellow Levites who stand there before the

Lord They shall eat equal portions except what they receive from the sale of their father's estates

When you enter the land which Lord your God gives you you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations

There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter passes of fire one which uses divination one who practices witchcraft or one who interprets omens or a

Sorcerer or one who casts a spell or a medium or a spiritist or one who calls up the dead? Whoever does these things is detestable to Yahweh and because of these detestable things

Yahweh your God will drive them out before you You shall be blameless before Yahweh your God for those nations

Which you shall dispossess listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners But as for you, Yahweh your

God has not allowed you to do So Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you from your countrymen.

You shall listen to him This is according to all that you asked of Yahweh your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly saying let me not

Let me not hear again the voice of Yahweh my God. Let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die

Yahweh said to me they have spoken well I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to Them all that I command him it shall come about Whoever will not listen to my words, which he shall speak in my name

I myself required of him but the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name

Which I have not commanded him to speak or which he speaks in the name of other gods that prophet shall die

You may say in your heart How will we know the word which the Yahweh has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh if the thing does not come about or come true

That is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken has spoken it presumptuously

You shall not be afraid of him now

This is a fairly well known chapter. Well portions of it are fairly well known. I doubt too many of us had

Memorized exactly what the Levites were to be given or anything like that But I think it fits in the context that we had this morning once again, remember that this morning we were told that if you have a

Case that is too difficult for the local magistrates that they are to go to Jerusalem and they are to bring it to the priests to the

Levitical priests and So the Levitical priests have a very important function in the nation of Israel And so since they are not given a portion that is a land

The care for them is an important thing and and if they were not properly cared for by the people

And of course this would require the people to be involved in the offering of the sacrifices involved in in Doing the things to which the law had commanded well

That would lead to a real problem because if the Levites are now struggling just simply to Survive then it would be very easy to start to overthrow the legal system overthrow justice

By offering things to the priests who are desperate to have basic sustenance

And so you have here the command that these priests are do certain things that this is important to the functioning of the society itself and This is something that the people of God were to take seriously and we can tell again in the prophets and in the history of the

People of God that this was one of the problems that arose you ended up having false prophets they seem to hang around the court of the king and They would in essence prophesy what the king wanted to hear now, of course nothing like that happens in politics today

Politicians would never dare surround themselves people just want to tell them what they want to hear but this was a strange and odd thing that only happened in the ancient world and I'm being facetious in case any of you are wondering but It's a very clear example of how the hardness of man's heart and the evil of man's heart

Can even take a divinely established means whereby God can have peace with his people we can have peace with one another

There would be respect for one another there would be peace amongst the in the country and between brothers and sisters so on so forth man's heart will always be looking for ways to Usurp God's authority and to undercut that which would bring peace amongst men

And we see this here in the command that the Levites are to be Taken care of and that they are to provide be provided for by the people then we have again

And you'll notice it's almost becoming repetitive How many times we have the command the warning to the people of God?

Do not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations that you're going to that you're going to drive out over and over again there is the

Expression of concern that the people are going to look about them And they are going to look at what the the other nations around them practiced or even the nations that they drove out or as we know historically failed to drive out completely and There is going to be a desire to go after these gods so there is going to be a wandering there is going to be a a tendency toward Idolatry a tendency toward an eclectic form of worship where you you?

Syncretistically join together other forms of worship with the pure worship of God This again is just simply the the heart of man

We become well apathetic and once you become apathetic

Then you you blame the worship of God for your apathy you blame the old ways for your apathy and so you start looking around for new ways of Doing things rather than looking at your own heart and asking yourself the question am

I am I really? Doing the things that I know that I should be doing it's always easier to blame somebody else

It's always easier to say well, you know When you think about it,

I mean what has Yahweh provided to us I mean the temple worship is not exactly the most exciting thing that's ever happened.

I mean there's no place in the temple for the praise band and You know they're the the high priest

He's wearing the same thing that he wore last season there's just nothing cool here and It's it's just It's just not meeting my needs

You know how that could happen it happened then you know what it happens today it happens today, too and I'll tell you a story

Once you've been an elder for a while you've met with some people who've who've left the church and Here's a truism

What you're told By them when they leave as an elder is not what they tell everybody else.

It's very strange how that works The real story comes through you know one person said to another person

There was an email and then there was a comment on Facebook And then there it went to this person and it eventually comes back to you that Funny the thing they said and it's normally a very spiritual thing well.

You know we're just we're just not getting fed And That's what you hear And that's the spiritual thing that you hear and then if you if you actually have the opportunity and frequently you don't because people just sort of disappear

But if you if you have the opportunity To dig in a little deeper and ask you know are you

Are you truly making use of of all the means that God has given to you

I? mean Really honestly if we start thinking about your

Your commitment to the study of the Word of God, and and we start asking about Your your service to others

Are are you are you looking to serve others in the church? Are you are you one of those people that works hard it may be?

Seeking to find ways that you can express your service to Christ through your being a servant to others

Maybe in teaching the young people or in you know things like that You know are you really making use of the of the means of grace?

Are you finding great delight in your study of the Word of God and and things like that and?

And generally you discover that the people who who aren't being fed are showing up with their mouths sewn shut

In other words if you if you come to the table, and I'm not talking about the Lord's table if you come to the service and You haven't prepared your heart.

You haven't given a second thought you just sort of stumble in your mind's distracted with everything else It's gonna be happening the rest of the week

And then go I just wasn't fed Is is that You think you might be taking that problem someplace else if you go somewhere else

Yeah, probably so oh the new the new context might make you feel a little better for a while But the reality is that the problem isn't so much where you are the problem is is an internal one and in the

Old Covenant you had a lot of people who were a part of the covenant community, but They didn't have a changed heart

They hadn't circumcised the heart they may have borne the outer signs, but the the heart wasn't changed at all

Can you imagine? how many times have we seen people young people raised within the church and They had that control that that That boundary that barrier that the

Word of God provided when they were young but there wasn't a changed heart and So when that that boundary is removed they become an adult

They leave they leave the home Should we really be overly shocked?

that an unregenerate heart Finally freed from the barriers placed upon it all of a sudden might find itself attracted to all sorts of False beliefs no belief at all life of sin

We've seen it happen We see it happen all through the Old Testament. We see people who?

Who outwardly bear the signs of the covenant, but inwardly their hearts are clearly hearts of stone?

and that heart of stone Gets really bored With the true worship of God doesn't find any delight in it

And hence it's going to be looking for something new looking for something fresh looking for something It's more exciting, and there's always something more out there

There's always something right outside the window of the church right outside the back door

Or in this case in the neighborhood across the next valley where the

Amorites still have a have a Temple that hadn't been driven out because of the lack of faithfulness of the people of God and so before long

All the high places are built up and the syncretism begins and all those curses.

We just read about eventually come to pass Consistent warnings over and over and over again.

Don't worship mulloch Don't make your son your daughter pass through the fire

Don't go to one who uses divination God's in charge of the future. That's an act of faithlessness

One who practices witchcraft or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer all the natural religions where allegedly these people have the power over natural forces

One who casts a spell medium spiritist calls up the dead all these are ways in which people show unfaithfulness toward a sovereign

God They're all idolatry for whoever does these things is detestable to Yahweh, and yeah that word detestable.

You've heard it before to a va to a va Same term that was used

Leviticus 18 about homosexuality is very frequently used in regards to idolatry and not only are the idols to a va but the one who pursues the idols and the one who pursues the

Witchcraft and the omens and calling up the dead To a va detestable to Yahweh your

God and because of these detestable things Yahweh your God will drive them out before you and We see the destruction of many, but the people became apathetic and the people

Eventually stopped that process and it became a tremendous problem You shall be blameless before Yahweh your

God for those nations, which you shall dispossess Listen to those who practice witchcraft and to the diviners

But as for you the Lord your God has in the Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do so now here in the middle of All of these warnings and and you're gonna see how seriously

God takes them Just think back over the past few sections that brother

Callahan read that I had the joy of finishing up this evening The curses oh my

I'll drive you into other nations and even when you're in the other nations, you're gonna say in the morning I wish it was evening in the evening.

I wish it was morning. You won't even have peace there Wow Did you do you hear what was said?

It's amazing But right in the middle of all this all of a sudden Yahweh your

God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you from your countrymen. This is Moses speaking

You shall listen to him. Well Wouldn't that be Joshua well

Doesn't seem so I mean very often you'll have a a minor fulfillment and then a much greater fulfillment because It says this is according to all that you asked of Yahweh your

God in Horeb on the day of the assembly saying let me Not again hear the voice of Yahweh my God. Let me not see his this great fire anymore

I will die so you always said to me they have spoken Well, I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you and I will put my words in his mouth

And he shall speak to them all that I command him It shall come about that whoever will not listen to my words, which he shall speak in my name

I myself required of him but the prophet who speaks a word presumptuous my name Which I have not commanded him to speak or which he speaks the name of other gods that prophet shall die.

So We have a very practical application of a test of a false prophet

Now we've had two tests with false prophet remember back in Deuteronomy 13. Remember what the member we had there and Deuteronomy 13

We had the discussion of well, what happens if a prophet? prophesized something and it happens and then he says let's go after other gods

Well, you're not to listen to him A true prophet must remain consistent in the teaching of the character of God because God does not change and so even if someone gets something right and Once in a while somebody, you know, you can guess the future and you know guess things and and might impress someone especially if you have some knowledge of what's coming as far as You know, sometimes people have insider trading knowledge and that kind of stuff, whatever

But even if it happens and it says follow after the gods false prophet, but here is the other aspect of it and that is

Even if he doesn't teach you falsehood about who God is but he says such -and -such is gonna happen and it doesn't false prophet false prophet

But did you know what came before that Who is this prophet?

that I Will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you and I will put my words in his mouth

And he shall speak to them all that I command him all that I command him this prophet is going to be a perfect prophet

This prophet will not even be like Moses because Moses had a few failures Moses didn't get to enter into the promised land and while in some sense

Joshua his his successor does some of this even

Joshua is not perfect Even Joshua can be deceived the people fail even under Joshua's leadership every once in a while in the

Old Testament scriptures We come across a passage like this Happened all the way back in Genesis Where you have what we call the protean

Jellion? And you have these in the middle of a narrative discussing what what happens in in the creation of man and the fall of man you have this one who will bruise the serpent's head and the serpent will strike it as heel and and You just Have to sit back and go that was written how long ago?

and how would people have understood that at that time and then I think of Isaiah chapter 9 and The exalted language that's used there of this one who will come who will be

Wonderful counselor El Gabor mighty God Everlasting Father realm of being the one who creates all things sarshalom

Prince of Peace and there's no one that that really can apply to in the days of Isaiah and They're they're just found in in the middle of you're just reading along and okay here's another section about not not offering your children to mullet and yeah, that's that's pretty important stuff and and Here's a here's some stuff about the levites and here's some tests about False God false prophets and things like that and then boom all of a sudden here you have these words and you

You think well these were these were written so long ago and even in the most

Liberal understanding Everybody recognizes these words were written long before Christ Even the person that tries to make these things that are written during the intertestamental period or something like it even they have to admit and These things happen long before long before Christ These words were spoken

Now we we know We know that these words were applied to the

Lord Jesus Christ and Where are they applied to the Lord Jesus Christ well

Acts chapter 3? You have the preaching and teaching of The early church, and if you'll turn with me there

Acts chapter 3 verse 21 Actually back to verse 20

And that he may send Jesus the Messiah appointed for you Whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which

God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from ancient time Moses said the

Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren To him you shall give heed to everything. He says to you and will be that Excuse me it'll beat that to every soul

That does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people and Likewise all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and his successors onward also announced these days

It is you who are the sons of the prophets and the covenant which God made with your father's saying to Abraham and your seed all the families there shall be blessed so here in one of the earliest sermons of the early church

Very shortly after that period of time when Jesus walked and talked with his disciples and Did what he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and how all the prophets had testified?

concerning him and So in one of the first sermons that those apostles get to preach to their fellow

Jews This is the interpretation given of Deuteronomy chapter 18, so it seems pretty obvious that what we have here is the interpretation

Provided by the Lord Jesus himself to the Apostles now being preached to the people

The Deuteronomy chapter 18 this prophet like Moses Raised up from among the people who has been given the very words of God, and he speaks them perfectly

He communicates all of them to the people. This is a prophecy of the coming

Messiah now Would there would there be prophets who were raised up by God after Moses will of course?

There is there are all sorts of shadows and types and and echoes

But the fulfillment is found in Jesus now. I mentioned this morning

That my Muslim friends think the Deuteronomy chapter 18 is about Muhammad and I point out.

There's a major problem with this they like to say well look Arabs Jews were all the children of Abraham One through Isaac one through Ishmael, so we're all we're just cousins.

We're all countrymen. We're related to one another That's why I pointed out to you in Deuteronomy chapter 17 that what it's talking about is brethren and those brethren

Are clearly delineated as being in the nation of Israel you will not put a foreigner

Someone outside of Israel over you as king using the very same terminology, so whatever you do with Deuteronomy chapter 18 whoever this prophet is has to be of the people of Israel and so very clearly

This cannot apply to Muhammad who by the Muslims own teaching is clearly not

Jewish and Is not descended from that line but is only related as far as going back to Abraham and So I simply take them to Acts chapter 3

I allow them to see that the church had interpreted this way long before Muhammad ever came along point out the reality of what the prophecy is actually saying and of course

I have Not in my experience encountered a Muslim well of course once I debate a

Muslim Then the next time if we debate the same subject, and I would hope that they would have tried to interact with what

I have said Though I can think of a couple of times what that hasn't been the case which is very depressing actually

They just repeat the same old arguments They repeated before as if I had not actually been there and said anything last time which is which is not a good thing but Try to explain to them the fact that even though they've been taught this that contextually there is no possible way

That Muhammad could be the one who fulfills this though. They like to argue well Muhammad gave laws just didn't give laws

Well yes, he did, but I guess they're not really thinking about the Sermon of the mount and the fulfillment of those things but there is that issue that is raised, but Obviously for many people the problem.

They have with this being fulfilled in Jesus is just simply the idea This has got to be supernatural if it's fulfilled in Jesus This was written well,

I would say 1 ,400 years before Christ There's arguments about exactly when the exodus was there's the early exodus and late exodus theories between 1 ,400 and 1 ,200 and all the rest that kind of stuff, but and and even the liberals put it about 700 years before Christ But it doesn't matter which position you take the reality is you still have to deal with the fact

That there are these texts Written right here in the ancient

Hebrew language Which defy any Understanding outside of their fulfillment in Christ, and this is so striking that the

Self -consistent naturalist the self -consistent person just doesn't believe in supernatural scripture doesn't know comes the

Bible with the full Presupposition that this is just men talking about God This isn't

God communicating with us. This is just men talking about God To be perfectly consistent what they've had to do people like John Dominic Rawson is you have to Turn the story of Jesus into fiction and The fiction writers are ransacking the

Old Testament to find texts like this and go, huh? I Could let's let's let's make the

Jesus figure fulfill these things So because they have to deal with the reality that well, we've got the

Dead Sea Scrolls dread it all that Demonstrates for all to see that this was the state of the scriptures prior to the time of the writing in the

New Testament and so What are we gonna do? Well? We'll just say that the

New Testament writers made Jesus up and made him fulfill these things and So they take all the prophecies and put them here and go, okay

Then the story of Jesus had to sort of go along these lines to sort of make it fulfill all of this stuff

It's what you got to do now as I mentioned in Sunday school this morning that runs smack dab into all the historical evidence that Gospel stories were written when they were written.

They're rooted in history. They're written from that time period. They're written by different people The idea that this is all made up Even just the the thing

I mentioned in Sunday school this morning the field of blood That was known amongst the people of Israel even at that point in time.

It's just the idea that you have that kind of conspiracy It sells well in the dark corners of odd bookstores in certain cities, but it just simply doesn't make any sense the only

Consistent reliable the way of reading these texts is to have to admit

There are things in the Old Covenant in the Old Covenant scriptures that simply point to a fulfillment beyond themselves that takes place in Jesus and many a

Believer in Christ has come that conclusion out of an intimate knowledge of the

Old Testament scriptures themselves They've looked and when the

Spirit of God opens their eyes to see these things they recognize there is only one in which these things could be fulfilled and The time has now passed with the destruction of Jerusalem with the dispersion of the people after 8070

For many of these prophecies that specifically had to do with with the lineages and the tribes no longer people

Just don't know any longer the time has passed many of these things could be fulfilled any longer It had to have been fulfilled before 8070 whom

I wonder who it could have been Yes, well we know who it was and we know how that fulfillment took place

And so we have even here in the midst of a a text that is talking about Prophets and how we were to know and to know who is a true prophet in a false problem

And it just goes on to talk about cities of refuge. It's not like hey We're gonna have a really high point in the text here.

We're gonna have a big prophecy coming up. No. It's just it's just there It's just in the midst of God's dealing with people all of a sudden you have these bright blinding lights

That point away from themselves to a much greater fulfillment now you and I would probably

Rather that there was you know Maybe some divine music that would come along with it to sort of get you excited and warn you here comes something neat You know some introduction that says and God is now going to give you clear evidence that this is sacred scripture because he's going to give you a prophecy that Doesn't work that way doesn't work that way

That may be how we would do things, but that's not how God did things He gave us so many of these indications of the coming of Christ right in the middle of just dealing with his people just dealing with his people and That's how

Deuteronomy 18 comes to us. Is it a prophecy of Christ most certainly is fulfilled

Acts chapter 3 Did it have a place in that day certainly did?

but many Many of a saint down to the ages had to have contemplated these words and gone well,

Joshua Isaiah Is there's not something more here

Is there not something more and once the Spirit came and the mind is opened up able to see all the way through the prophets here is this thread and Just as just as you may have seen a tapestry, and I've talked about the tapestry before Where there is one particular brilliant thread?

If it's a woven fabric you won't see it all the time will you? it'll appear here, and then it appears here, and then it appears there and It's the thread is still in all those places between it.

It's just not visible and Then it comes comes before and you see it You can see it's brilliant color and then and then for a while, and there it is again

That's very much what we have in the beautiful threads of scripture as they're woven together

And especially as we see the prophetic witness the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ We should not be afraid

We live in it. We live in a day of Naturalistic materialism we live in a day where where people will look at us, and they'll say you so you

You think that? books that were written long ago and in the

Bronze Age We're supernatural and predictive future events like the coming of Jesus you actually believe that and And Just as Paul said the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness

But there is that pressure upon each one of us And sometimes we draw back and on the other hand we have the gullible people out there

Who believe all the wild and wacky prophets running around? Who are just there clearly to make money, and we don't want to be like them

We want to be the same Christians you know and so you put the two of them together and the tendency is to to back away and be

Embarrassed by the supernatural elements of scripture, but the fact is we can't be We can't be

Because they are part and parcel of what is given to us in the text of scripture Itself even here in Deuteronomy chapter 18, let's be thankful for it

Let's pray together our gracious Heavenly Father once again.

We thank you for your word, and we would ask that you would help us to Not be so influenced by the way of the world around us the unbelieving world the world that's eyes

Are fixed upon this creation that never look upwards To see the

Creator that that think that everything that is important is Something you can see or smell or taste or way all the natural world

Oh Lord We are so deeply impacted by that because we live within that milieu all the time

Help us to be exposed to your word by your spirit help us

To accept what it says to believe To recognize that you were preparing the way long before Jesus is coming you gave us these words

We see it now in fulfillment This is to be a bulwark and a foundation of our faith

Because as you were faithful to your promises, then you will be faithful to the promises you have made to us as well