The Jesus Prophecy

Well, somebody said, Why don't you just come down front and teach to us?

So let's do that this evening.

You know, you guys uh it's interesting to me.

Go ahead, Melissa, seating patterns.

On Wednesday nights, this is where I would prefer to be.

But for whatever reason, when I first came here on Wednesday nights, everybody sat primarily on that section, and a few people would sit over here.

And uh so I had to orient myself towards that, and so uh this will be this will be new for me this evening.

If you have your Bible, let's open it to Deuteronomy chapter 18.

Deuteronomy 18 · chapter mention

And we covered the first part of this chapter earlier, but the the last seven verses of it uh take on a different subject.

And so we're gonna read verses 15 through 22, and the subject of this paragraph is the prophecy of Jesus.

Moses prophesies about Jesus in these verses.

And so beginning there in verse 15, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet.

Notice the capital P in most Bible translations.

From the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto him you shall hearken, according to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see his great fire any more that I die not.

And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.

I will raise them up a prophet, again, capital letter, from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

But the prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?

When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously.

Thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Let's pray.

Dear Lord, thank you once again for the opportunity to study your word.

Thank you for the resources.

Uh, thank you for the ability to comprehend.

Thank you for translation of scriptures in our language.

And Father, I just pray and ask that you would help us to utilize all of these resources and tools that are at our disposal to be the best students of your word that we can be.

But may we not rely alone upon our own intellect or upon our resources, but may we also realize that it is your Holy Spirit who helps us to understand.

And so, Father, I pray and ask that you'd open our spiritual eyes this evening, that your Holy Spirit's voice would be clear and loud in our hearts and minds as we search in the truth, and he affirms that in our hearts.

I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

In this passage, Moses foretells about a prophet, but it's not prophets in general.

And so he's not just saying, hey, there will be more prophets to come.

It's actually a very specific prophet he is prophesying about.

God is going to send you a specific prophet in the future.

And as we will see, this actually became a harbinger for the Jews.

And uh and when we get to the New Testament, it shows that they were looking for this prophet.

And so this prophecy here is a very important prophecy.

It's a well-known prophecy.

It is one that they have committed to memory, and by the time we get to the New Testament, they're looking for this prophet that Moses has prophesied about during the time of Christ.

The earmark of this prophet, and uh, and and I got to thinking about that, I and I like I hate to use a word that we I don't fully understand or don't have the definition on, right?

So earmark, most of the time I think of folding the page on a book, and so that is an adaptation of it.

But the origin of that word is that that's how they branded cattle, right?

And so before they would brand them, they would notch the ear and they would do it in a different pattern so that we would know who it is.

And so I just use that word, the earmark of this prophet.

So how are we gonna discern that this is that prophet?

Uh the earmark of this prophet is that he would be like Moses.

That's what Moses repeats twice, verse 15 and verse 18.

God will send you a prophet, he'll be like me.

He's gonna send you a prophet, he's gonna raise up a prophet, he'll be like me.

And uh this is one of the most prominent messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.

And when you look at the Old Testament, we know that there's hundreds of uh messianic prophecies and uh foreshadowings there, but there are some major ones that stand out if we were kind of doing, tier two, tier three.

And these tier one prophecies are like Genesis 3.15, the the first promise of a Savior.

Uh when God tells Adam that through the seed of the woman he'll raise up her seed and he'll bruise the head of the serpent.

Uh think of Genesis 49, 10, when Jacob says to Judah that a shiloh will come from his line and that he will have the scepter in his hand.

Or 2 Samuel 7, 13 and 14, where God tells David that he will give him a seed who has an eternal throne.

Of course, Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

We get that vivid description uh from Christ's view on the cross.

Isaiah 14, a virgin shall conceive and be with child, uh, bring forth a child.

Isaiah 53, the the the lamb that is silent uh before the slaughter.

You know, those are some of those tier one prophecies.

This would be in that same tier.

So this is one of those prophecies.

It's it's like the Daniel prophecy.

They all knew it, they were looking for it.

That's why they got triggered when Jesus is being questioned by the high priest.

Are you he that should come?

And he says, Well, you'll see when I come in the clouds.

And that was it.

That's enough.

Blasphemy, condemn him.

Why did that trigger them?

Because it was a Daniel 9 prophecy that they knew was speaking about the Messiah.

So this goes on that same level.

But in this text, not only does Moses say, Hey, there's a prophet that's coming, God's going to raise him up, you'll know him because he's going to be like me.

He also warns them that there will be false prophets.

And he tells them how they can discern between the legitimate prophets and the imposter prophets.

And so he says that if their prophecies are not fulfilled, they're not legitimate.

They're false prophets.

So there is a prophet that is coming, a specific prophet that is coming, but watch out for false prophets.

This is how you'll be able to tell the difference.

A prophet was a representative sent by God with a message of divine revelation.

See, what's the basic definition of a prophet?

That's a it's a man that is sent from God.

He's got a call from God, he's been given a message from God, which is divine revelation, and he delivers that message.

So Moses is a prophet, he's delivering a message from God.

Samuel was a prophet, Isaiah was a prophet, Elijah was a prophet.

They were prophets, they had a message from God.

And so let's look at this text and see how Jesus fits the profile and fulfills this prophecy.

First, let's look at Moses, because uh we're told here that he's gonna be like Moses.

Well, what can we pick out about Moses?

I mean, it doesn't mean he's gonna look like him.

We don't have any renderings, right?

He I'm not sure he looked like Charlton Heston, but Charlton Heston played a good Moses.

And so what does it mean he'll be like Moses?

Well, think about it.

Moses had an extraordinary relationship with God.

What makes Moses stand out?

And so realize there's gonna be a lot of prophets between Moses and that prophet, right?

Some of them that I just named, all legitimate prophets, but they are on a different par than Moses.

And so Moses has this extraordinary relationship with God.

Numbers 12, verses 6 through 8 says, He said, Hear now my words, if there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision and will speak unto him in a dream.

Numbers 12:6–8

My servant Moses is not so.

And so God says, This is how I deal with all the other prophets.

Vision, dream.

I don't deal with Moses that way.

My servant Moses is not so.

Who is faithful in all mine house?

With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold.

And so Moses has what is described as a face-to-face relationship with God.

Now we know that when he requested to see God, God said, No man can see me and live, and he just allowed him to see the back of his glory.

Uh and yet God has this direct relationship with Moses that he says he's not going to have, doesn't have with any other prophets.

Not only did Moses have an extraordinary relationship with God, Moses had an extraordinary reputation with God's people.

And so his reputation was extraordinary.

Deuteronomy 34, verses 10 through 12 are the last verses of the book of Deuteronomy, and this is how it concludes.

Deuteronomy 34:10–12

And there arose not a prophet since in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all that great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.

Now you have to realize that's an epilogue to the book of Moses.

The book of Moses is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

And this is an epilogue.

And so Moses died, and this is written either by a scribe or what was called in Greek, an aminuensis.

It was like a secretary, if you will.

And so we know that they were used.

If you remember, Jeremiah gave the word to Baruch, and he wrote it down and delivered it.

And so Paul had people who wrote letters for him.

This is not uncommon.

And so there's somebody who has assisted Moses in the writing of these books as a secretary.

And they write an epilogue to the book of Deuteronomy, the last part of Moses' book.

And it's written posthumously after he has dead, and it declares him to be unequaled by all other prophets.

And so Moses has this extraordinary reputation among the people of God.

And then Moses had an extraordinary role with God's word.

Moses was the author of the book of the law.

And as I said, that book of the law consists of those five books in our Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, number, Deuteronomy.

It was all one unit, subdivided in the original.

And when you think about the book of the law, you think about the book of Moses, it is the foundation of the Old Testament.

And actually, the law becomes the chief designation for the Old Testament.

So you understand that nobody in the Old Testament called it the Old Testament, because it wasn't old then.

And nobody in the New Testament called it the Old Testament.

What did they call it?

Well, Jesus and the apostles refer to it as Moses and the prophets.

And you'll find that in places like Luke 16, 31, 24, 27, 24, 44, John 1.45, Acts 28, 23.

It says, in Moses and the prophets.

And if it doesn't say Moses and the prophets, they use an epithet, the law and the prophets.

Sometimes it's the law of Moses and the prophets.

And so we find the law and the prophets used multiple times in the Gospels and in the New Testament.

And so that means that not only was Moses the foundational prophet of the Old Testament, but he was also the principal figure of the Old Covenant.

And so from our perspective, we know it is the Old Testament because there was a New Testament given.

And the Old Testament correlated with the Old Covenant, the covenant that started with Abraham and then was solidified through Moses.

And then there's a new covenant in Christ, and it has a New Testament with it.

And so when we look at that, we understand Moses is not just the foundational author, he is the principle of that old covenant.

As a matter of fact, he makes reference to that covenant interaction with God at Mount Horeb when he says, the people said to God, don't speak to us like that anymore.

It's too scary.

Let somebody else speak to us.

And in that reference Moses made there in Deuteronomy 18, he says, well, that's one of the things that that prophet is going to do.

He's going to speak to you the word of God.

And so we see that this Moses stands out above all the figures in the Old Testament.

It's not to say that he was perfect, not to say that he was superhuman, but it is to say that he had this extraordinary position, and that he says the prophet God's going to send is going to be like me.

And so I would say whoever that prophet is, he's going to have this extraordinary, he's going to have this extraordinary relationship with God.

He's going to have this extraordinary reputation with God's people.

He's going to have an extraordinary role with God's Word.

And so let's go to the New Testament now and see how this prophecy, which by the way, is never mentioned again in the Old Testament.

Mentioned here in Deuteronomy 18.

You can read the rest of the Old Testament.

You'll never find anybody asking about that prophet until you get to the New Testament.

And then it floods onto the pages in the Gospels and in Acts.

And so we look at Jesus.

First, we we we see it when John the Baptist comes.

John the Baptist is the forerunner of Christ.

He comes on the scene.

He's preaching.

There is this awakening in Israel.

There is a buzz.

And imagine this comes after 400 years of silence.

This comes after the destruction and the rebuilding of the temple.

This comes after some major empire changes.

And so the people of Israel, like they were in the book of Judges, have been under the oppression of the enemies for their disobedience, their calling out, they are repentant.

God sends John the Baptist.

John becomes, begins preaching in a way that they're not used to.

And man, people are coming and they are repenting.

And so the religious leaders send to John.

And it says in John 1, 19-21, this is the record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?

And he confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ.

And so he says, I'm not the anointed one, I'm not the Messiah, I'm not the Christ.

And they asked him, What then?

Are you Elijah?

Right?

Because Elijah was said to come back, and he said, I'm not.

And then they asked him the big question, are you that prophet?

And he answered, No.

This prophecy of Moses was so well known and so looked for that all they had to say was, Are you that prophet?

They didn't have to say, are you the prophet that Moses prophesied about in the book of the law?

They just say, Are you that prophet?

And so we realize that this was familiar territory to the Jews of that day.

Of course, John answers no, for though John was one of the greatest prophets, right?

Jesus said, no greater than John the Baptist, though he was one of the greatest prophets, he was not that prophet.

And so he went on to say that he was preparing the way for that prophet.

He's preparing the way for the Messiah.

He is preparing the way for the Christ.

Again, in John chapter 6, we find this popping up again.

John 6 · chapter mention

And it happens after Jesus feeds the 5,000, and the crowd begins to hum this same tune, John 6, 14.

Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world.

Now listen, they've had prophets, and they even consider John to a prophet, but they are saying, Jesus must be that prophet, that prophet that Moses told us God was going to raise up.

The same thing happens in John 7, chapter 7, verse 40.

Many of the people, therefore, when they heard this saying, said of a truth, this is the prophet.

And so again, all of these are references back to the prophet that Moses said would arise back in Deuteronomy 18.

But this prophecy doesn't end with speculations, right?

Those are just speculations.

He must be that prophet.

Surely this is that prophet.

It actually gets direct citations from the apostles after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

So remember, after the crucifixion, resurrection of Christ, that's the foundation.

Then the apostles are those foundational stones, those building blocks that are being laid.

And so they are coming in and they are preaching and teaching doctrine.

They're teaching the theology that Jesus taught to them.

They are laying the foundation for the church that is going to grow.

And so it's important to see what they preach about.

They always preach about Jesus as being the only way of salvation.

They preach the death, burial, and resurrection.

But listen to this excerpt from Peter's sermon in Acts chapter 3, verses 20 through 22.

Acts 3:20–22

It says, He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto your brethren, like unto me, him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.

So these inspired apostles, these spirit-empowered apostles, are preaching and they are saying, Jesus is that prophet.

Moses said that God would raise up a prophet like him.

That is Jesus Christ.

And so this was an established doctrine in the New Testament church.

If you would have visited the church at Jerusalem, perhaps the church in Antioch, and you asked them who is that prophet, they would have said that Jesus is the fulfillment.

And so we find it again in the inspired sermon of Stephen before his martyrdom, Acts chapter 7, verse 37.

Acts 7:37

He says this at the as he's preaching to that hostile crowd, and he so elegantly takes them back to the call of Abraham, and he walks them through the trajectory of God's people, and does it in such a way that they can't make any objection, not until he gets to Jesus.

And as he is building that case against them, he says in Acts 737, This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear.

And so again, if you were to go read that.

Whole context, you would find that he is preaching to them that Jesus is the fulfillment, and he is using this well-known prophecy to bring it to their attention to say, Jesus is that prophet.

But not only do we find this prophecy speculated by the crowds, is he that prophet?

We find it preached by the apostles.

Yes, he is that prophet, but we also find it confirmed by Scriptures.

Listen to this principal verse in John 1.17.

It says, For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

Anytime you see those correlations set beside of each other in Scripture, that's noteworthy.

Just like this morning when we saw there in Romans 5 that it puts Adam alongside Jesus, and we dig into it and say, hey, there's a whole lot more to that.

It's not random.

And we see the same thing here in John 1.17, that the law came by Moses, right?

That's the chief designation for the Old Testament.

And grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

Well, we call this the age of grace, that grace has been dispensed in a magnificent way in the New Testament.

And so you find that being a designation also of the New Testament.

And so we have this parallel here that as Moses was to the old covenant, so Jesus is to the new covenant.

Again, this little verse draws that direct correlation between the role that Moses played and the role that Jesus fulfills.

And to that, uh add to that the succession that is described in Hebrews 1.

And so again, can we find any confirmation that Jesus is that prophet?

And I think that Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 gives us a succession that identifies Jesus as the terminal prophet, right?

That last one that they're looking for.

Hebrews 1, 1 and 2.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manner spake in times past and of the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things.

And so again, Hebrews 1 gives us this succession.

God has spoken in the past by prophets, but in the last times he's going to speak to us by his Son.

And so we find Jesus as this capstone that God is sending.

And really, the New Testament writers are simply expounding on what Jesus taught them.

And so, in addition to the speculation of the people, the declaration of the apostles, the affirmation of Scripture, we also have the confirmation of Christ himself.

Did Christ say anything that we could connect back to this?

And I believe that he does.

Luke 22, if you remember, after he has been resurrected, he is returning, and he is walking with those disciples on the road to Omaeus, and they are confused.

We thought that he was the one.

We thought that he was the Christ.

And it says in Luke 22, 27, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

So do you think that he went through the entire writings of Moses and did not touch on Deuteronomy 18?

So he goes through the book of Moses, right?

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus numbers, Deuteronomy, and he points out all the things that are talking about him.

Surely he would have picked out Genesis 3.15.

Perhaps he would have touched on the ark, how that uh Noah in the Ark was saved from the judgment of God.

No doubt he touched on Genesis 49, the prophecy concerning Judah and Shiloh who would come.

And then we find that he probably touched on this.

I am that prophet, or Christ is that prophet.

Again, Luke 22, verse 44, he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me.

Luke 22:44

So again, Jesus says, Moses wrote about me.

John 5.46, he said, For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me.

And so when we're just looking at this text, Deuteronomy 18, it sure looks like everything lines up, and we can find this confirmation of Christ that says, yes, Moses did write about me.

Well, we're going to have to find it, right?

Because you read through the book of Moses, and nowhere does he say Jesus.

Nowhere does he say Christ.

Nowhere does he say Messiah.

But he does talk about the Lamb of God.

He talks about that prophet.

He talks about other things that are pointing us to Jesus.

And if that were not enough, let me conclude by showing you how Jesus passes the two litmus tests of Moses' prophecy.

One of Moses' litmus tests was that a legitimate prophet can be authenticated by the fulfillment of their prophecy.

So when he says, look, be on the lookout, there's a prophet that's coming that'll be like me.

But also be aware there'll be some impostors.

There'll be some fakes.

And the way that you'll know that they're fake is if they prophesy something and it doesn't come true, that word did not come from God.

And so I would say the most prominent example of this is that Jesus prophesied that he would be crucified and that he would rise again.

And we find that in places like Mark 8.31, 931, Matthew 16.

Jesus says, they're going to take me, they're going to crucify me, but I will rise again the third day.

Did they take him?

Yes.

Did they crucify him?

Yes.

Did he rise again the third day?

Yes.

Could he have faked that?

No.

And so he passes one litmus test.

His prophecy comes true.

The other proof is that this prophet would be like Moses.

And I just want to want you to consider a few similarities between Moses and Jesus.

Both were under threat of death as babies.

Were they not?

Moses is born in a time when they're killing all the male children.

His mother has to hide him for three months.

She puts him in a low basket, sends him down the river.

Jesus is born.

The wise men come.

Where is he?

It's born king of the Jews.

Herod says, Well, you know, we found out.

He's probably over in this town.

And then he executes all the babies that are two years old and younger during that time.

So there's a similarity, is it not?

They are both under threat.

They're both attempted to be eliminated in infancy.

And I'll tell you, that's just satanic.

Even though Satan isn't named, that's of Satan.

He is trying to thwart what God is doing.

And so if he can kill the baby, he thinks he can kill the whole process.

And so not only were both under threat of death as babies, both came out of Egypt.

Moses was born in Egypt, was he not?

And came out of Egypt.

Jesus was taken down into Egypt as a baby when Joseph was warned of an angel in a dream that they were seeking his life.

And then it says, so that he could fulfill the prophecy that God called him out of Egypt.

And so there's another similarity.

Both of these guys come out of Egypt.

Here's another.

Both attempted to save their nation.

Do you remember before Moses came back in full force, he first tried to go and lead his people, and they rejected him.

They threw him off.

Jesus comes unto his own, and his own knew him not.

They didn't receive him.

So both attempted to save their nation.

Both were rejected by their brethren.

Moses is rejected.

Who are you?

You're going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian?

And Jesus is rejected.

Both went away and came back.

And so Jesus went away to death.

He died and three days later rose again.

For all intents and purposes, Moses was dead for 40 years to everybody in Egypt.

He's gone for 40 years.

And then all of a sudden, he comes back.

And so we have that leaving and returning.

Both performed miracles.

That's how it was validated.

There was of the Lord.

Moses says, Well, how are they going to believe me if I go back and I tell them I'm speaking for you?

And God says, What do you have in your hand?

And he says, A staff.

Throw it down, right?

It turns into a snake.

And he runs, you know, does a little girl scream and runs away.

And then God tells him to pick it up and it turns back into a staff.

Hey, put your hand in your bosom and bring it out.

Huh, it's covered in leprosy.

Put it back in.

And so God validates his work through those miracles.

And then, of course, Jesus performs many miracles during his earthly ministry to validate that he is the Messiah.

Both spoke God's word.

Moses is the main spokesman for God.

He lays the foundation for Scripture.

Jesus speaks for God because he is God.

Both established a covenant.

You know, I find the covenant so interesting.

Maybe sometime we'll do a deep dive on those.

But those major covenants have a few parallels to them.

And so both of those covenants, when you think about it, of course we know that they're both sealed with blood.

But both of those covenants have a meal associated with them.

So the Passover meal was associated with the Old Covenant.

Lord's Supper is associated with the new covenant.

They both have a day of worship associated with them.

The old covenant day of worship was Saturday.

The new covenant's day of worship is Sunday because that's the day that Jesus rose on.

And so we find both are involved in the establishment of this covenant that God makes with his people.

And then final observation I made about it is that they both delivered their people from bondage.

Ultimately, they're the ones who delivered their people from bondage.

And really, that's probably one of the primary likenesses.

Moses was a deliverer.

And Moses is the one who comes in under the power of God, and he faces off with the enemy that has them in bondage that they cannot get out of themselves.

Right?

They have been in that bondage for hundreds of years.

They cannot shake off that bondage.

And Moses comes in and by the power of God they are released from that bondage forever.

Never again do they go into bondage in Egypt.

They get oppressed by some other nations, but never do they go back into that bondage.

And Jesus dies on the cross to deliver us from the bondage of sin.

And once you've been delivered by Jesus from the bondage of sin, you never go back into that bondage.

You might be oppressed by a few things.

You might make some side trips wandering off the path, but you're never back under that bondage.

And so I conclude that Deuteronomy 18 is prophesying about Jesus.

Let's pray.

Pray that it would give us confidence in your word.

And Father, I just pray and ask that you would help us to have your word in our mouth and to speak at any time we have an opportunity to do so, knowing that your word is powerful.

Your word is life changing.

Your word is the power of God unto salvation.

And uh, Lord, may this just be another testimony of the proof and the power of your word.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.