"Listen to Jesus" Deuteronomy 18:15-19 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Would you open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 18?

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

If I don't know you, my name is Dan.

I'm the college pastor here, and it is a joy to open God's word with you this morning.

One last week before Jesse returns to the pulpit, I was studying an Old Testament text as a kind of launch into the Sermon on the Mount in a few weeks.

Deuteronomy chapter 18.

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

Moses writes in verse 15, Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers.

It is to him you shall listen.

Just as you desired of Yahweh your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of Yahweh my God, or see this great fire anymore, lest I die.

And Yahweh said to me, They are right in what they have spoken.

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

And whoever won't listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

So reads the word of the living God.

Christianity is a religion of the ear.

From the very beginning, the very first thing that God did in creation was to speak.

And the very first thing that humanity did once we were created was to listen.

And then throughout the whole of the Old Testament, God continued to speak through his prophets.

And sometimes his people listened.

And then Jesus came and he spoke.

He healed the deaf.

And he gave sight to the blind.

And then he commissioned twelve preachers, one of whom preached on a feast day in Jerusalem, and 3,000 people did nothing more than hear with their ears, and the whole world was changed.

And then for 2,000 years, the church has been doing primarily one thing: gathering to listen.

You know, most of church history, people didn't have a Bible in their lap.

The Bible wasn't a thing that you saw, it was a thing you heard.

And us here today.

What did you come here to do?

To look at a balding middle-aged man for 30 minutes to smell church coffee.

No, I think you came to hear that Christianity is a religion of the ear.

Or as Martin Luther so eloquently put it, the ears are the only organs of the Christian.

This oral quality of Christianity, however, presents a problem for those of us living in the age of the AirPod.

There's a lot to listen to.

Podcasts, Spotify, phone calls, notifications, some of which will probably happen during the service.

Audiobooks, lessons, radio shows.

We have proven that given the option, we would rather fill the silence with a cacophony of trivia.

To the degree that now they have this thing called white noise machines.

If you can't even be silent, now just fill it with fuzz.

Where in the midst of all that static is there room to hear what the church has been listening to since its inception?

The voice of God.

An inventory of your ears.

What have we been listening to?

Whose words have we allowed to shape us?

Whose voice has authority in our lives?

Which mouths dominate our ears and run our lives?

And I believe that if we would listen to the ancient wisdom of Moses, then he would tell us there is only one voice that is needful.

And it's not his.

For the last few weeks, we've been studying several passages through the Old Testament.

Pastor Tom took us to Psalm chapter 11, where we heard about one hope when the foundation gives way.

Psalms 11 · chapter mention

In Psalm chapter 1, we heard about one way for blessing in this life.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

Psalm chapter 2, we heard about one king in whom we can find refuge.

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

This morning, we hear about one voice to whom we must listen.

And what you do with this one voice, whether you pay attention to it, whether you reject it, whether you're indifferent to it altogether, what you do with this one voice determines who you are and everything about your future.

Heaven and hell hang on your ears.

Who are you listening to?

Who are you listening to?

Now, why would we go to Deuteronomy to talk about who we listen to?

Well, for a couple reasons.

One, because Deuteronomy is the longest sermon or sermon series in the Bible.

If you were to listen to the whole thing, it would take two and a half hours.

And because it's a sermon all about listening.

The Hebrew word for listen, which shows up three times in our text, is the word you're probably familiar with.

You've heard it before.

The word Shema.

It can mean, in a very simple way, to hear something, to hear a sound, a voice.

It's used all over the Old Testament, uh, over 1,100 times.

And in the book of Deuteronomy is one of the strongest concentrations of its usage.

93 times this word Shema is used in Deuteronomy, 62 times with reference to hearing God, 26 times explicitly with reference to listening to the voice of God.

And if you were to structure Deuteronomy, you would see that there are four really sermons that Moses is preaching in the plains of Moab to the people of Israel as they're about to enter into the promised land.

And the center of those is this big long sermon, chapter 4 to chapter 26, where he is commending them to do one thing: to listen.

And to listen to God.

And let me show that to you.

Turn with me.

I just want to overview this for you.

Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 4.

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

I want you to see Moses say this over and over and over again.

Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 1.

Deuteronomy 4:1

And now, O Israel, listen.

Listen to the statutes and the rules that I'm teaching you, and do them.

Chapter 5, verse 1.

And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel.

And then chapter 6, verse 3, hear, therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them that it may go well with you.

And you're probably very familiar with chapter 6, verse 4, the great commandment, hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.

Chapter 9, verse 1, hear, O Israel.

You are to cross over Jordan today to go into dispossessed nations greater and mightier than you.

Chapter 13, verse 3.

Don't listen to the words of false prophets or dreamers of dreams, but walk after Yahweh your God and fear him and obey him and keep his commandments and obey his voice.

And then we arrive at this passage in front of us, Deuteronomy 18.

It is to him you shall listen.

And the whole book of Deuteronomy culminates, the kind of concluding sermon of the whole thing is chapter 27, verse 9.

Isaiah 27:9

He says, Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, Keep silence and hear, O Israel.

You get the picture?

And just in case it wasn't clear enough, he follows on that next chapter saying, if you will listen, blessing.

If you will not listen, curses.

This is a sermon with one unmistakable point.

It is listen to the voice of God.

And our passage, right in the middle of it, is one of the moments in this sermon where it launches out of its immediate context and points to the future, even to our day, even to you and I sitting here with a command for us.

This is no longer just Israel on the plains of Moab.

This is now you and I sitting here today.

Will you listen?

And to whom will you listen?

A command to listen to this prophet like Moses.

And as Moses does this, he gives us a kind of theology of listening.

And that's what we're going to look at this morning, a theology of listening in three parts.

The first of which, from this passage, is that you must listen to God.

Very simply, you must listen to God.

That is, not only is Christianity about your ears and about hearing from God, but all of humanity is made to hear from God.

You were made to listen to your Creator.

It is innate in who you are.

God made us to listen and specifically to listen to Him.

This goes all the way back to the very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, verse 26.

Genesis 1:26

God says to himself, let us make man in our image.

That is, God himself is communicative by nature.

And then when he creates human beings, the very first thing he does for them is to speak to them so that they would listen to him.

We were made to listen to God, and it is good to listen to God.

Which is why Moses says in Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 15, Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.

Deuteronomy 18:15

It is to him you shall listen.

The point is that God has always been talking.

He always has something to say.

All throughout Old Testament history, he sent these prophets, Moses, among them, so that he could speak to his people so that they would listen.

Why else did God give you ears?

But so that you could listen.

And it's a command.

He says, you shall listen.

You must listen to him.

And who is him?

We'll get to the identity of him later, but he's at least a prophet, meaning that he speaks on behalf of God, so when you're listening to him, you're listening to God.

Did you ever notice that God gave you two ears and one mouth?

Some of you got two mouths and one ear.

That's why the history of Israel, God's people, is like the foyer of a Baptist church.

It's just portraits of old preachers going back generations and generations.

That's the whole of the Old Testament.

They just called them prophets.

There's 36 prophets that are named in the Old Testament.

Some good, some bad.

Here's a few of them.

You know them.

Abraham, the first named prophet.

Aaron, Miriam, the prophetess, Moses, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonahem, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi, right?

Those are all the prophets.

Or at least a bunch of them.

And the point is, God has something to say to you.

He is speaking.

And so what ought we to do?

We ought to listen when God speaks.

It's not like God just made some demo tape and put it in Canaan Records.

And so I really hope someone picks that thing up and puts it in their eighth track and listens to it.

No, God intends to be heard.

All humanity needs to press their ear to heaven to hear what their creator would say to them, to explain their life.

And I think one of the reasons we know that all of humanity is made to listen to God is because everyone is awfully curious about what God would say, whether or not they go about it in the right way.

That's the context in Deuteronomy chapter 18.

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

The verses right before this, Moses is condemning all the pagan practices of people trying to hear from God.

Anyone who, he says in verse 10, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead for whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh.

The point is, all of these pagan nations, though they did not know God, they really wanted to hear from him.

They were trying to figure out how do I get a divine voice into my life.

And so they just appealed to all these apparently supernatural means.

They're all just ancient pagan ways of trying to find the voice of God.

And honestly, is it all that different today?

I mean, we've traded diviners for political commentators, but is it all that different?

We've traded sorcerers for government healthcare officials.

We've traded necromancers for modern secular psychology.

We've traded mediums and spiritists for self-help gurus.

I mean, our world is still trying desperately to hear from God.

And they don't know where to find it.

Where is God's voice?

But the problem Moses says is that when you listen to all those ways of trying to find the voice of God, he says in verse 14, they just listen to fortune tellers and diviners.

All you're doing is listening to man when you try to do that.

You're not actually hearing God.

So it's worth asking a question, even at this point, who do you listen to more?

Do you listen to earth or do you listen to heaven?

Do you listen to man or do you listen to God?

Do you listen to that which is essentially meaningless and trivial, or do you listen to that which is full of meaning and glorious?

The voice of God.

You and I were made to listen to God, therefore we must listen to God.

You say, okay, well, let's roll basic.

I'm in.

Great.

Point me in the right direction.

I'm there.

That's where it gets a little complicated.

Because though you and I must listen to God.

We can't.

You can't listen to God.

That's what Moses himself says.

He says, Let me not hear again.

The voice of Yahweh, quoting the Israelites.

You know, the word their listen or hear, it doesn't just always mean allowing a sound to hit your ears and come in and register in your brain.

It also tends to imply what should follow on from listening and hearing, like obedience and understanding.

So when he commands them to listen to him, he's really not saying only to hear what God says, but actually to obey it, to do it.

The reason that we can't have God in our ears is that in our sinful nature we don't want God in our hearts.

Sin, in other words, makes us bad listeners.

Sin, in fact, according to Moses, makes listening to God deadly.

That's what he says in verse 16.

He says, I'll raise up a prophet, just as you desired of Yahweh your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of Yahweh my God, or see this great fire anymore, lest I die.

Moses is reminding Israel of what happened at Sinai.

Horeb is just another word for Sinai.

What happened at Sinai when they first met God, who had delivered them from Egypt, and they were at the foot of the mountain, and God introduced himself in a stunning fashion.

Turn with me to Exodus chapter 19 to see this for yourself.

Exodus 19 · chapter mention

Exodus chapter 19.

Exodus 19 · chapter mention

The people of Israel come through the wilderness to the base of Mount Sinai.

Moses speaks with God.

God says, I'm going to talk to them on the third day, consecrate them, they do.

And then, Exodus 19, verse 16, on the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.

Exodus 19:16

Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain.

And now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because Yahweh had descended on it in fire.

The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.

And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.

Yahweh came down on Sinai to the top of the mountain.

And he spoke, chapter 20, verse 1, all these words.

He speaks the Ten Commandments through that thunderous voice.

When God speaks, it is a terrifying thing.

This is the voice of Yahweh.

I don't think you and I have ever heard anything this loud.

Probably.

Some of you may have been like in a hurricane or really severe thunderstorm.

I remember I was in a hurricane when I was a kid.

I slept through it.

So obviously it wasn't this loud.

When this was going on.

It is violent, cacophonous.

It is surrounding.

It is revealing.

And it is terrifying.

That's why the psalmist writes in Psalm chapter 29: the voice of Yahweh is over the waters.

The God of glory thunders.

Yahweh over many waters.

The voice of Yahweh is powerful.

The voice of Yahweh is full of majesty.

The voice of Yahweh breaks the cedars.

The voice of Yahweh flashes forth flames of fire.

The voice of Yahweh shakes the wilderness.

The voice of Yahweh strips the forest bare, and all in his temple cry glory.

It is a horrifying thing to come face to face or ear to mouth with the voice of God.

Why is that?

I mean, the voice of God at Sinai, I mean, it was thundering, it was deafening, but even that, it was just God whispering.

Why is this so terrifying for us?

Because it's what he's saying intrinsically by declaring these Ten Commandments and thundering from this mountain, what he's saying is holiness.

I am holy.

And you are not.

For us sinful creatures, just one peep from the holy God, and we are undone.

That's why back in Deuteronomy chapter 18, they said, don't let us hear the voice of God anymore.

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

We can't stand to hear God's voice.

Give us something else.

This is too much.

We will die if we keep listening to God like this.

In fact, Moses rehearses for us in Deuteronomy chapter 5 earlier in the sermon what Israel's response was.

Deuteronomy 5 · chapter mention

It's very clear.

Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse 23, and as As soon as you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me and you said, Behold, Yahweh our God has shown us his glory and greatness.

Deuteronomy 5:23

We have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire.

This day we have seen God speak with men, and men still live.

Like that's astounding.

Now therefore, why should we die?

For this great fire will consume us.

If we hear the voice of Yahweh our God anymore, we shall die.

For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire as we have and has still lived?

We can't handle it.

They're right.

They're totally right.

They can't hear my voice and live.

What he even says in Deuteronomy 5 is they're right in all that they have spoken.

Oh, that they had such a heart as this always to fear me.

They're absolutely right.

They cannot hear my voice and live.

For a sinner, the only thing worse than not hearing from a holy God is hearing him.

You know, the first time this word Shema, the word for hear or listen, the first time it's used in the Bible is Genesis chapter 3, verse 8.

Genesis 3:8

It's right after the fall.

Adam and Eve have sinned, they know that they're naked, they cover themselves, and then it says they heard the sound, or even maybe translated the voice of God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And when God approaches Adam, what's going on?

Adam says, Well, I heard you walking in the garden and I was afraid.

One like that before.

We used to be able to talk.

What changed?

We're not holy.

So we can't hear the terrifying voice of a holy God.

And you know what the irony is with Adam?

Because the text says Adam listened to the voice of his wife, he can no longer bear to listen to the voice of God.

I don't think it's all that different for us, is it?

I think if we're being honest, all of us have chosen some human voice over God's voice.

The salesman convincing you you need a certain kind of life.

It's the CEO convincing you you need this kind of promotion.

It's maybe the family or the friends convincing you to lead a life that God would not have you lead.

The voices of TV, social media, or most likely, it's the very familiar voice of yourself in your own mind and in your own heart.

You would rather listen to you than to him.

Now, because of that, we cannot bear to hear God's ear-splitting, mountain-shaking voice, because we know what he'll say.

He'll say, Holiness.

I'm holy and you're not.

And that means for us certain death.

So what are we supposed to do?

I mean, those are two contradictory propositions, aren't they?

You must listen to God.

You can't.

What are we supposed to do with that?

We need God's words more than anything, yet it's the very word that God would speak that signs our death warrant.

What?

Could we listen to then?

How can we hear the voice of God?

The answer in the Old Testament is a prophet.

A prophet.

But Moses comes and Moses goes and we've got the same problem.

Elijah comes and Elijah goes, we've got the same problem.

Isaiah comes and Isaiah goes and we've got the same problem.

We still cannot hear directly the unfiltered voice of God.

We cannot enjoy fellowship with him because of our sin.

So what's the answer?

That's what Deuteronomy chapter 18 solves for us.

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

A prophet like Moses.

And his name is Jesus.

The only way to resolve this horrible tension that we must listen to God, but we can't listen to God, is to listen to Jesus.

To listen to Jesus.

That's what Moses says.

Verse 18, God himself speaking to Moses, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.

And in verse 15, he gives the command, to him you shall listen.

Jesus is the prophet that Moses prophesied about.

Who would make God's voice accessible to man?

Now, there are a lot of folks who would argue that this passage is actually the right way to interpret it, is that it's about a succession of prophets.

That this is essentially setting up the prophetic office for the rest of the Old Testament, and Jesus is just kind of the culmination of that.

I don't think that that's the right interpretation, and let me give you a couple reasons why.

Reason number one, it says God will raise him up.

Now that's true of a lot of the prophets, it's also true of Jesus.

Secondly, it says he'll be from among your brothers.

That's also true of a lot of prophets, it's certainly true of Jesus, it's not true of Muhammad, but it says that he will be a prophet like Moses.

A prophet like Moses.

Numbers chapter 12, there's a debate between Aaron and Miriam and Moses about his prophetic office, and God comes down and settles it and says, you know what, I talk to a lot of prophets, and I give them visions and I give them dreams, but I don't talk to anyone like I talk to Moses.

Numbers 12 · chapter mention

I talk to him face to face, literally in the Hebrew, mouth to mouth.

And the very end of the book of Deuteronomy says this.

And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.

Moses got to go all the way up on the mountain to behold the form of the Lord.

He came down and he delivered a law that all of the other prophets in the Old Testament were beholden to.

There was no other prophet in the Old Testament that delivered another law.

They were just building on the same one.

So by the time you get to the Old Testament, you've cycled through a whole bunch of extra prophets, and you haven't gotten to another one like Moses.

You've gotten to some who are kind of like Moses.

Elijah, Jeremiah.

But ultimately, no Moses shows up again until you get to the New Testament.

Turn with me to John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

The Pharisees, and just want to take you kind of on a brief tour through John to see this.

The Pharisees meet John the Baptist, and they ask him this question.

This is John 1, 21, and they asked him, What then?

Are you Elijah?

He said, I'm not.

Are you the prophet?

And he answered, No, meaning there is some expectation that there would be one prophet who would come, who would be the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 18.

And John says, That's not me.

So who is it?

Turn to John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

Jesus says in John chapter 5, verse 37, and the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me.

John 5:37

This is 5.37.

His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and yet you do not have his word abiding in you, for you don't believe the one whom he sent.

You search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me.

Skipping down to verse 45.

Don't think I'll accuse you to the Father.

There's one who accuses you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me.

But if you don't believe his writings, how do you believe my words?

And then you know what happens in the next chapter?

Jesus shows up and gives bread.

I wonder what other prophet did that.

And you know what the response of the people is?

Chapter 6, verse 14.

This indeed is the prophet who is to come into the world.

Jesus is that prophet.

And in case you weren't convinced by Jesus himself and his own testimony and the testimony of the crowds, Peter in Acts chapter 3, preaching a sermon after healing a lame man, says, Moses said about Jesus, the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers, and you shall listen to him whenever he tells you.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

Okay, there it is.

Peter tells us this is about Jesus.

Friends, Jesus of Nazareth is the prophet like Moses, to whom we must listen, but he is not simply a prophet like Moses.

He is a prophet that is greater than Moses.

Because he does not only speak for God, he speaks as God.

And when you hear the voice of Jesus, you hear the voice of God.

And the voice of Jesus, the Son of God, unlike Sinai, does not devour you and kill you.

Because, as the hymn says, He has hushed the law's loud thunder, he has quenched Mount Sinai's flame.

When Jesus hung on a cross, he made God listenable.

He made it so that your and my sinful ears, through faith in him, could finally hear the voice that thundered from Sinai say, Well done, my good and faithful servant.

Only through Jesus, only through the gospel, only through his death and resurrection can we listen to God.

But while his voice is a voice of invitation, it is still a voice of command.

And that's where Deuteronomy chapter 18 ends.

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

He says, if you don't listen to him, he'll require it of you.

You really got to listen to this guy.

Or, as the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 12, see to it that you don't refuse him who is speaking.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

What does Jesus say?

Jesus says, My sheep hear my and they know me.

The question is, who are you listening to?

Jesus says, He who has ears to hear, let him Who are you listening to?

Jesus says, Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Whose voice are you listening to?

Let me be real direct for a second.

If you refuse to listen to the voice of Jesus as he calls you to repentance and faith in him, then on the day when you meet Jesus, he won't listen to you either.

You will be crushed under his wrath.

You will hear only the voice of Sinai and not the voice of Calvary.

Saying it is finished.

But today, friends, today his ears are open.

He calls two sinners who can't come to God, saying, Come to me.

All who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

I'll open your ears, and I'll let you hear what you need to hear.

And you can hear the voice of God for the first time without fear.

Whose voice are you listening to?

You know, we're about to go through the Sermon on the Mount in just a few weeks.

If our series, however many six years we spend in there, if our series in the Sermon on the Mount doesn't change you, it's not because Jesus isn't speaking.

It's because you're not listening.

And Moses, Moses of old, would beg you listen to him.

Listen to Jesus.

I can read it for you.

Jesus preaches a sermon on a mount, but he shows up another time in his ministry on a mountain, Matthew chapter 17, where he's transfigured.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

His heavenly glory is revealed before the disciples.

And guess who's there?

Moses, Elijah.

And Peter kind of blunders through it.

Let's build some tents.

Well, no, not quite.

Missing the point.

And it says this in Matthew chapter 17, verse 5: He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is God himself speaking from heaven.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.

Listen to him.

When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.

But Jesus came and touched them, saying, Rise and have no fear.

And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus.

We want to hear your holy words.

Words of eternal life.

And we know that we can't.

So we confess to you the dullness of our ears and we ask, open them.

Open them so that we might listen to Jesus.

Change us.

Cause us to not only hear, but to obey.

And do it all for the sake of his eternal worship.

We pray in his name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with folks.