Deut No.12 A Prophet Like Moses

Now then, for the final time, we glean in dichotomy, and perhaps it's good that the last study in the series for the time being, leads us into a contrast between the Lord Jesus Christ and Moses. You know that in studying the Old Testament, there are certain characters who, if you examine their life and their witness in some detail, they configure, they give some indication as to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Obviously, they can't in any way absolutely illustrate for us all that the Saviour will reveal in his personality and in his teaching, for they turn into insignificance, really, in the light of the glory of the knowledge of God, which is to be discerned in Jesus Christ.

But as you engage in the study of the Old Testament, it's sometimes facetable, particularly when you're thinking of Bible characters, to see what manner they point forward to the Lord Jesus Christ in, how much they have to tell us of the Saviour. Now, particularly in this chapter that we're looking at, the 18th of the book of Deuteronomy, it's good for us to be able to run a parallel between the Lord Jesus and Moses, because it's something that is contained halfway through that passage of Scripture. But let's just get the whole into context for a moment or so, shall we? Here is Moses, you remember.

He's got all the Israelites in front of him, an old man just about to take his leave of them. This is his swan song in preaching, really. He won't be with them much longer.

He will soon be in the glory. God will bury him. But he wants to put down certain rules and offer certain pieces of advice by which the Hebrews shall order their lives when they move into the land of Canaan.

And in this 18th chapter, once more we find him very concerned about the treatment of the priests and the Levites, the sort of ministry, the professional ministry, if you like, in those days. He's very concerned that these men were set apart from the spiritual ministry, shall be looked after materially, their well-being shall be guaranteed by the rest of the Hebrew people. And so, as you would have read, if you were looking carefully, he puts down these instructions as to how these men are to be cared for by the Hebrew community, how they are to be looked after for the honor and for the glory of the Lord.

And then you discover, as I mentioned a moment or so ago, that Moses lays down certain prohibitions. Not only are the people to enhance the work of the two clergies, but if there comes some amongst the congregation of the Hebrews who prophesy, who enter into seances, who practice magical arts, then far from supporting such people, they and their ministry are to be rejected by the Hebrews. So here is Moses concerned to sustain a good ministry amongst the Hebrews, and concerned that they might expose people who will work for them, spiritual charms, and bring about problems.

And the basic thing that Moses is concerned about is locked up in that fourth and eighth verse. He wants the children of Israel to be perfect with the Lord their God. He wants a ministry that will be helpful, always to be available, so that when he is done, the divine words shall be communicated to the Hebrews, and he wants the Israelites to be so spiritually sensitive that any magician, that anyone who deals in witchcraft or the black art shall be severely censured and their ministry erased from the Hebrew community.

He wants the Hebrews to be in such an environment, such a spiritual condition, that the smile of God shall always be upon them. Now let's just stop for a moment, in case you don't see the relevance of that to the 17th century, or indeed to the Christian era. Why has God called you to enter into the family circle of the redeemed? I believe that the spirit is the equivalent in the New Testament to Israel in the Old Testament.

Now why has God called the church into being? Well, so that he shall have a holy people for himself. So it's a fisherman who writes in his epistle, you remember, that the church of Jesus Christ is to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are to be in such a state that God can always work out his purposes through us and by us.

So then I make that opening comment. It was necessary for the Hebrews to have a good ministry, and for them to be able to see the difference between the charlatan and the true prophet. And it's necessary for us in the Christian community to be able to detect a man who is really speaking the word of the Lord, and to expose heresy, and to cut the latter from amongst us.

Now, it's not that Moses is in any way scared of the whole panorama of the miraculous. It's not that he is in any sense suggesting that a man may not see into the mind of God, and claim to speak for the Lord God. Indeed Moses says in the 15th through to the 20th verse, that that is how he understands his own ministry.

It's not often that we hear Moses referred to as a prophet, but indeed he was a prophet. He was a man who foretold, and also was in foretelling the message of the Lord God. And he says that not only does he engage in prophetic ministry, but God will constantly give to the Hebrews, and eventually in an absolute fashion, prophets, the prophets, who will declare God's absolute inspired word to the community of the Jews.

And then in the final verses, once again Moses goes back to the old warning of trying to steer the people away from being taken in by false prophets, false magicians, and so forth. So I want to stop really, and concentrate your attention on those verses from the 15th down to the 20th, where Moses acknowledges that he is a prophet, and predicts that one will come, who in an absolute fashion shall gather up the divine word, and communicate that to the people. And of course Moses is talking about none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, a fact which I shall establish, if you question it at this moment, in a little while.

But allow me straight away to run this parallel between Moses and the Savior, and let's see some glorious anticipations of the ministry of the letter by that of the former. Now we're told concerning Moses and the Lord Jesus, Moses in that prophet which is to come, that both men shall have a similar background, a similar background. Look at the 15th verse, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren.

And again that's repeated in the 18th verse, I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee. And there are so many comparable things about the background of Moses with that of the Lord Jesus. I mentioned one or two by no means exhausting them on the notes that have been published.

Here's one that's not on the notes. Both these remarkable men had mothers who were godly. Not much is said about the mother of Moses in the Pentateuch, but she must have been an incredible lady.

I was reading Alexander White's books on Bible characters just a little while ago, and he says that the name of Moses' mother could be translated God thy glory, God thy glory. One wonders if he had some sort of revelation about the birth of Moses and the particular place in history that he was going to occupy. One wonders if it was from this godly mother as well as from his father that Moses derived some of his spiritual qualities and characteristics.

For that is a thing that is going to be repeated again in biblical history. Remember how the apostle Paul in congratulating Timothy puts down some of his spiritual success on the human level to his mother and to his grandmother? Well, here is Moses, born with a godly parenting, and I hardly need to tell you that the mother of the Lord Jesus was a unique lady, she who was blessed with the favour of the Lord God, used incredibly for the fulfilment of God's purposes, and from her womb is born Jesus the Christ. Well then, both of these men had remarkable mothers.

And let's continue, and also draw out this comparison, that both of these men were born under the sentence of death. Remember how Pharaoh had decreed a policy of genocide. He was so concerned that the Hebrews were growing so profound, and all male children were to be drowned in the sea.

But do you recall how Moses' mother and father conspired that plan whereby they would preserve the life of their infants? And the instrument of death, the river Nile, was to become the very instrument of salvation as they created that, made that perfect little cradle boat, and put Moses in it, keeping his life and his ministry for a further period of youthfulness. And similarly, the Lord Jesus Christ, born under sentence of death, or head of the tyrant, so jealous, having heard that someone else of the kingly blood had been born in his particular locality, decreed the death of every infant under two years of age. So, both Moses and our Saviour had remarkable mothers, and were born under sentence of death.

And Moses, you remember, had a most remarkable education. Stephen makes reference to this in his sermon before the high priest. He talks about Moses and the university background that he had in Egypt, and how he was filled in all the knowledge of the ancient world.

How he was being prepared by the Lord God, in the best academies of his day, for the ministry that was to be his in the future. Ah, but you say, where's the common denominator there? Because you don't read about the Lord Jesus being a qualified man. No, indeed, his opponents, those who criticized him, said that he's a leper man.

He's not a proper rabbi. He's an upstart from Nazareth. But those who discern it, when they read the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, they find there a man who's skilled, with humble knowledge, a man who has been to the university of nature itself, who back in Nazareth was able to see the beauty of the lilies in the field, and come to amazing theological conclusions about the creator of those flowers.

One who could see within the mustard seeds growing in Joseph's gardens, back gardens, some spiritual fruits, which later on would be passarded before the people. The Lord Jesus Christ, who had within himself all the treasures of the wisdom of the most high God, pondered and reflected not only on the world of nature, but upon that innate wisdom with which he was born, and eventually in maturity, as he consented men and women with a tremendous truth of God. He was to hear comments made about him that were never made about his contemporary teachers.

No man speaks like this man. He has authority. We can understand what he's talking about.

Jesus Christ, greater than Moses, with an education not in any specific natural university, but schooled by the Spirit of God, under the orbit of the fulminant of heaven, gaining messages from nature itself, which eventually he shall be able to pass on to those who will listen. And so we could continue. And what about the inauguration of the ministry of these men? Here is Moses and he's been looking after his father Jethro.

His father-in-law Jethro speaks, you remember, on the way backwards with Midian. There he sees a bush that starts to burn and yet is not burnt out. And as he investigates this phenomenon, he is ordained for the ministry.

He is sent back to the Hebrews in Egypt and he is to lead them out of this bondage of that land. And our Lord Jesus Christ, no experience quite the same as Moses's inasmuch as he never heard a bush start to burn. But when he was immersed in the waters of the Jordan, he was to hear with equal clarity and with greater answer to a voice coming from heaven, saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

Would you like more comparisons between our Saviour and Moses, more common denominators? What about the sacrifice? The sacrifice of Moses, Hebrews 11 verse 24 brings it all out. Here are all the listeners of Egypt at the feet of Moses. Here he was as Pharaoh's daughter, or rather as the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, destined for a tremendous career with much authority and influence.

But he gives it all up and he aligns himself, he associates himself with a people who are in servitude. And he chooses their bondage and their poverty over against the freedom and the riches that could have been his as one who was recognised as an Egyptian. And the Lord Jesus, the amazing thing for us Christian people as we run this parallel to its inevitable conclusion is that the Saviour had so much in heaven in the way of prestige and influence.

All the riches of the universe belonged to him, yet he pushed it all on one side. To use the language of Paul, the daring language of the Apostle and Philippians, he answered himself of all these things and he became a man like you, like me, but without sin. And the Apostle brings a whole of this remarkable renunciation of the Lord Jesus together when writing to the Corinthians he says, you know, the grace, the graciousness of our Lord Jesus.

How though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that in his poverty he might make others rich. Now in no way am I suggesting that Moses is an equal to the Lord Jesus, but what I am saying is that within his life, within his background, there are these pointers which direct the way to the Lord Jesus. That great prophet which was still to come.

So they had backgrounds which were pretty similar. And in the very exercise of their ministry there is a common denominator. Going back to our text, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren.

He will be right unto me and unto him you shall hearken. In what way was the ministry of Moses in anticipation of that of the Lord Jesus? Well in the 16th verse of this chapter, still with Deuteronomy 18, we read of the people's dilemma, the Hebrews' predicament when they came to realize that on that smoky mountain of Sinai, God was revealing himself in a special way to their race. They were afraid.

They said, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire anymore that I die now. They were frightened. They realized that God was pure, that God was holy, that God was powerful.

They on the other hand were impure. They were weak and so they required more than anything else some person who would stand between God and themselves and not only intercede for them, but communicate their needs to the Lord and God's revelation to themselves. In other words, Moses becomes a mediator, the one who stands in the middle and communicates the divine message.

There's a better example, but I don't want time to get to win this evening. There's a better example in the six chapters of Deuteronomy which I leave you to look at for yourself. Moses is a mediator, bringing the word of the Lord to the Hebrews.

Now how do you understand the ministry of Jesus Christ? Well when you go into the New Testament you find that one of his titles is that he is the son of man. But on the other hand there's another description given to Jesus which seems to be the opposite, almost seems to be a contradiction. He is God the son.

How can this be? Son of man and son of God. Well there's no contradiction really. What those two titles are doing is indicating, underlining the office of mediator which our Lord Jesus shall fulfill.

He represents man for God. He represents God for man. He stands in the middle.

In conclusion, there is only one mediator between God and man. The man Christ Jesus. So as Moses stands in the gap for the people and communicates their requirements to the Lord and the Lord's requirements to the people, so does the Saviour Jesus Christ.

Now closely associated with the office of mediator is that of intercessor. And did we not last week or the last time that we gathered together spend about three quarters of an hour in a most delightful occupation of inquiring into the intercessory ministry of Moses. What a powerful man he was in prayer.

And I was so concerned that a larger congregation heard the ministry of Moses in that respect that last Sunday night I took up the same scene and extended it and gave a picture or tried to present a word picture of Moses interceding before God in prayer and even allowing those words to come out of his mouth, that unfinished sentence in which he makes mention of the possibility of God blotting his name out of the divine book, unless the people were forgiven for the transgressions which they had committed. Time and time again you find Moses going into that pavilion, that cloudy pavilion on the top of Spaniard and interceding before the Lord. Forty-odd days without food, sometimes also without water, he will spend time in the presence of the living God.

And Jesus? Well, Moses's testimony seems to be tremendous in this area, but it is clipped by the man from Nazareth. Oftentimes you find a record in the Gospels that before the sun ever broke, before it ever reached that position of authority in the Middle Eastern sky, the Savior was to be found on his knees at daybreak in some private spot, bringing before the Lord the knees of his disciples, of the Jews, of the world. Our Savior was prevailing in prayer before his Father on many, many an occasion.

Go back to Moses for a moment. Here he is saying to the Lord, blot my name out of your book, unless these people are to be forgiven for the sin that they have committed, that sin which just begets real guilt and remorse. Now hear me.

In one way, remarkable manner, it is true to say that the Savior, by his example, if not by his actual words, prayed the same prayer, his name, for three days, was blotted out of God's book, so to speak, that awful time when he who knew no sin became sin, when the pure Son of God took upon himself the responsibility of the sins, the law-breaking, of people like you and me, and the sight became so repugnant in the eyes of the Father that he turned his back upon the Son. And you remember that cry that came from the lips of the Nazarenes? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you blotted my name out of your book? The humanity of Jesus riding on top of his divinity. For a moment, as that cry left his heart lit and a comprehension, the understanding of that cry was found centuries ago in Moses, when in intercession before the Lord, he suggests the possibility of his name being blotted out of God's book, and perhaps, too, making an atonement for the sins of the Hebrews.

The latter suggestion is rejected. It was impossible, for Moses could not have the purity, he could not vouchsafe with God for the spiritual well-being of his people, but one shall come, a greater than Moses, that prophet, who will offer his purity on the altar of Calvary, and for hours, heaven would record a period when the name of Jesus was numbered with those of the transgressors, and when he bore the sin of man, to the extent that his name was blotted out for a period of time. Moses, the mediator, Moses, the intercessor, predicting the ministry of one who even now in the glory ever lives to make intercession for you and for me.

Moses, the saviour, the political saviour of Israel, for without Moses they would never have been led out of Egypt, without Moses they would never have got to the border of the promised land. Jesus, the captain of our salvation, the one who is mighty to save, filling out to perfection the office predicted by the ministry of Moses centuries before. And then finally, under this little heading in which we're working out the ritual ministries of the Lord Jesus and Moses, and how they overlap to some degree, there is that incredible thought that both men were reflective of the divine glory.

You can't spend time in God with prayer and not be changed with personality and sometimes visibly of faith. Yes, I would underline what I've said now. I don't believe that what Moses experienced sometimes on the mount was just unique to Moses and one of these special people in the Old and the New Testament with whom faith and I have seen people who have had a glory about them when they have spent time in prayer before God.

Do you remember how Moses comes down, shiny eyes mount on one occasion and the people, they realize that something remarkable has happened to Moses. They start looking in the eyes. The brightness of the glory of God has rubbed off on Moses.

Moses who lived for the glory of God knew something of the irradiation of God's own glory and his personality reflected in his face. That that was just a fragment of all that was to be seen in the wondrous personality of our Lord Jesus. Do you remember how on the mount of Transfiguration he's irradiated to change to the extent of the glory of God.

It's seen by the disciples who accompanied him, reflective, mirrored absolutely in the sun. But perhaps even more wonderful though less sharp into human eyes was the fact that Jesus lived for the glory of God. I have finished your work.

I have glorified you on earth. So was his comment in the high priestly prayer. So then we have seen these common denominators, if you like, concerning the recent ministers of Moses and the Saviour.

Mediators, intercessors, on the human level Moses the Saviour, on the divine level Jesus the Saviour and those who reflect the glory of God, though Jesus in absolute fashion. But the final thing that I want to concentrate on, and logically we must do this from the 15th verse, is that both men were prophets. Both men were inspired by the Lord God.

In Acts chapter 3 and verse 22 we find the New Testament comment identifying the Lord Jesus as the prophet who Moses was referring to in this passage of prediction from Deuteronomy. For Moses truly said unto the fathers of prophets, shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me. Him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.

That's Jesus speaking and he identifies those words with Jesus as Stephen does in the 7th chapter of the Acts. Stop there just for a moment. I'm reading a very wonderful book just off the press.

I like to get hold of books as soon as they become available in the UK. And this book, God Has Spoken by Jim Packer, the author of Knowing God, makes reference to the term prophet. And Dr. Packer tells us that the Hebrew word prophet has two connotations.

In fact there are two distinct terms which he used. One gives you the impression of a seer, that is a person who foretells the future, who looks into the future and tells what is about to happen. And then the other word which describes a prophet in the Old Testament is that of one who calls, like the town choir of medieval days in this land of ours.

Now in both those capacities Moses finds his ministry. He is a seer. He looks into the future.

We've seen him do this on several occasions. He's got a good idea that when the Israelites go into the land of Thomas there'll be problems, there'll be apostases, there'll be backsliding. So he tells them what to do when they come to their senses.

He's a seer, he predicts. But he's also the town choir for the New Jerusalem. He speaks for the Lord.

His message is an inspired message. And so he claims authority for what he has to say. And the book of Deuteronomy is examples of this.

So I'll just give you one or two that's obvious. Deuteronomy 4.14, no need to turn to it. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statute and judgment.

And again in the same chapter, the 36th verse, out of heaven the Lord God made thee to hear his voice that he may instruct thee and upon earth he shall do his great fire. Moses is a seer. He's a crier.

He proclaims the word of the Lord. Now any prophet worth his salt will not only claim inspiration for his message but also relevant at least to the needs of the people in his day he will claim sufficiency. Nothing else to be said to the people in Moses' ministry.

So we read him saying in the second verse of the fourth chapter, you shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish or from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. The verse is almost repeated in a later reference which I give you in the notes. That's Moses' doing.

He is saying that the word that he has received is an inspired word, it's a sufficient word, and it can't be modified, it can't be manipulated, it can't be added to, it can't be subtracted from. It's a word that has come from the Lord God himself. Now Jesus does exactly the same but he puts his claim to authority into a higher key as you will see in a moment or two.

Jesus is the seer. He foretells. He will speak of things which are yet to be before the dawn of the eternal age to which I made reference on Sunday morning.

He talks about the apostasy that is to come. He speaks about the wars and the rumours of wars and the earthquakes and so on and so forth. All these things which will mark the advent is coming the second time.

But not only is that he foretells, he's a foreteller. He's again the palm crier, so to speak, of the new Jerusalem. And the words which he has to proclaim, he says they're not his words, he says they are words that God the Father has placed in his mouth.

The words that I received, I have received from my Father. Now he acknowledges the authority of the Old Testament revelation. He doesn't say that the law seems to precede us as some of our rather weak brothers in evangelicalism today are suggesting.

He does not say that in any way the Ten Commandments have now been modified at all. Rather he makes this pronouncement on the ministry of Moses, think not that I am come to destroy the law, I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. But he'll go beyond Moses and beyond the authority that Moses had.

You see Moses can appeal to the Lord and say rest, rest the Lord. Jesus can take Moses' teaching and extend it. He can amplify it, not change it, but amplify it and give it an even deeper exposition.

But when he does this, he won't appeal to the Lord God, he will appeal to his own innate authority. So for example, my eye falls on Moses' teaching on adultery. The Lord Jesus Christ said, verily, verily, I say unto you, and he goes on to say that a woman who is looked upon with lust has had adultery committed with her as far as the man is concerned.

I express that clumsily but you know the picture that is in view. So what does Moses' final claim? That his ministry was inspired, that unless people listened to what he had to say then it would be to their spiritual detriment. So in the 30th chapter and the 19th verse he sums up almost the last piece of his ministering to the Hebrews.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live. And when he speaks about the prophet which is yet to come, he says in the 19th verse of the 18th chapter, and it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my word which that prophet shall speak in my name, I will require it at him. So this evening we've learned that both the Lord Jesus and Moses had mutual backgrounds.

There was also a common denomination that their ministry was exercised for others. And then there is an appeal to the divine inspiration which both have. But when you consider Jesus and then Moses, then the latter fades into insignificance because the one who has all the glory and all the preeminence, as Moses would well discuss the ministry, is the Lord Jesus.

For in certain fashions he anticipated and pointed the way to the greater ministry that was to come. Moses was like a bulb that shines in the tabernacle in the twilight of the evening. But on a Sunday morning when the light of the sunshine is outside, we can't even see that bulb when that has been placed on.

The one becomes insignificant in the light of the other. When full light has come, the artificial light fades. So Moses was a pointer in adequate in many ways.

But those who have sensitivity when they read the book of Deuteronomy and the rest of the books that tell of Moses's ministry, see their anticipation of that great prophet who came in the person of Jesus to our world. So may God have blessed your hearts with cleanings from the book of Deuteronomy. Now Father we thank you for your goodness to us and as we commit these recent studies to you, so we ask that those of us here who have been attending to this book of Deuteronomy may have been helped and into today and live lives which bring honor and glory to your name.

We thank you that you took a man like Moses and used him to your honor. So take us and as Moses anticipated Jesus in certain things, so may we illustrate Jesus in our lives as well as dialogue for his sake. Amen.