Advent is a time of expectation and excitement of the return of Christ. However this advent season we want to return 2000 years into the past and reflect on the excitement the people of Israel would have had as they awaited the Great prophet who was to come, the great King who would arise and the great priest who would offer the final sacrifice. We will explore each of these over the coming weeks; today we will look at the Great prophet to come.
Deuteronomy 18 contains the great prophecy from God through Moses to the people of Israel “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers” (Deut 18:18). In order to understand this promise of God we must understand what a prophet is and what a prophet does. In the Scriptures, a prophet is a spokesperson for God. Essentially God communicates a message to the prophet and the prophet declares the message to the intended audience. Sometimes that audience is an individual, like Nathan communicating God’s message of judgment to David for killing Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, and marrying his wife (2Sam 12). (2Sam. 12:9-10) Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
At other times, a prophet declares a message to an entire nation, like Jonah declaring to Nineveh “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned” (Jonah 3:4) or Isaiah’s message of hope for Judah, “Remember these things, O Jacob, for you are my servant, O Israel. I have made you, you are my servant; O Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you (Isa. 44:21-22).” And occasionally prophets also declare messages to the entire world about the great events of time, like Daniel’s and Ezekiel’s prophecies about the end of the ages.
In this ministry of declaring God’s words, prophets are to be totally accurate and never to lead people away from the true worship of God alone. (Deut. 18:20-22) But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death.” You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.
All of this background is included when God declares that he will raise up a prophet like [Moses]. But that is just the beginning of the job description. For the word declares that Moses was a special prophet among all the prophets. First, he was humble. (Num. 12:3) Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. So any prophet who follows in the footsteps of Moses must be humble as well. Second he was faithful, completely sold out to God and his plans, with a heart devoted to the Lord. (Num. 12:7) But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. Third, he had the unique opportunity to communicate with God in a way that all the other prophets didn’t enjoy. (Num. 12:6,8) When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams…With him [Moses} I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; and that verse ends with these words, [and] he sees the form of the Lord.
So, not only must the great prophet meet the general conditions of declaring God’s word, truthfully and in a way that points people to the true worship of God, but he must also be humble, faithful, have the distinction of speaking to God face to face and seeing the very form of God. But there are two more qualifications that I would be remiss to mention. First, Deut 34:10-12 declares, Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt — to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
The prophet like Moses must be a wonder worker, a performer of miracles. He must display the mighty power of God for all the people to witness. Second, he must expound the law and teach what God requires from his people. I don’t have a single verse for this, but given that Moses declared the entire civil, ceremonial and moral law to the nation of Israel, it doesn’t seem far off to include this in the qualifications for being the prophet like Moses.
Now how many people do you think could possibly qualify to fill that position in history? 1 in a 100? 1 in a million? 1 in a billion? I would go so far as to say that there is only 1 person ever who met and exceeded all the qualifications that were just expounded from the Word of God: His name is Jesus Christ. In fact, to help you understand the probability that Jesus could fulfill any 8 prophecies, Josh McDowell calculated this at 1017. Professor of Mathematics, Peter Stoner, calculated it at 1021. The American Scientific Association then reviewed Stoner’s work and stated, “The mathematical analysis … is based upon principles of probability which are thoroughly sound, and Professor Stoner has applied these principles in a proper and convincing way.” [1] To understand how much 1017 and 1021 are let me give you a picture. The smaller number, a one followed by 17 zeros is “ equivalent to covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep, marking one of them, mixing them all up and having a blind-folded person select the marked one at random the first time.”[2] The larger number is like, 1 followed by 21 zeroes is like blanketing the entire landmass of the earth 120 feet high and repeating the experiment in blindfolded random selection.[3] Both are impossible, impossible unless God himself causes it to happen.
In the New Testament we are consistently told that Jesus taught the people. Specifically, (Matt 7:28-29) the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. And again, (John 14:24) These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. As he taught the people, he taught them the message of God concerning repentance, holiness, and redemption. Furthermore, his words were accurate, for he is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). His words conformed to the prior revelation of God and upheld the commandments of God – (Matt. 5:17) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And he always pointed people towards the worship of God, even when he had the option of worshiping Satan he declared, (Matt. 4:10) “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Those first three generic qualifications of being a prophet would be nearly impossible for anyone to meet. But the next 6 are impossible for anyone other than Jesus to fulfill. For the prophet must be humble, and in Christ, true humility is defined, (Phil. 2:5-8) Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! Christ was more humble than Moses. He was not only willing to die for the people of Israel; he actually did die for the sins of humanity. True humility is willing to lay down ones own desires, even comfort, in order for God’s plans and purposes to be fulfilled. And so we find Christ declaring in his humility, (Luke 22:42) “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
Christ was faithful to God. This, too, is a necessary corollary to his humility. But it is worth stating. He was committed to God and his plan of redemption just as Moses was committed to God and the redemption of Israel. The Word declares, (Heb. 3:5-6) Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And Rev. 1:5 reminds us that Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Christ lived his life in complete accord with the Kingdom of God – this is faithfulness.
Furthermore, Christ spoke clearly the words of God. Sure they may have come in parables, but they always came with interpretations and the assumption that people could hear and understand what was being taught, for they were the very words of God being declared to the people. For Jesus repeatedly said, (Matt. 15:10) Listen and understand. He chided his disciples with words like this, (Matt. 16:9) Do you still not understand? (Matt. 16:11) How is it you don’t understand? Statements like you have heard it said, but I say to you (Matt 5:21ff) when taken in conjunction with the declaration that (John 7:16-17) “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own make it clear that Christ was hearing the very words of God and communicating them to humanity, just as Moses had done 20 centuries earlier.
And where the Word said that Moses saw the form of God, Christ didn’t just see the form of God, but he saw God directly and always has seen God. Listen to these words from John, (John 6:46) No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. For Jesus alone (John 13:3) knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God. He lives in God’s presence. Not only that but (Col. 1:15) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. He is greater than Moses for he not only sees God, but he is God!
And as God, he performed many miraculous signs and wonders, displaying the mighty deeds of God – healing lepers, mutes, the blind and lame, even doing what Moses was never able to do. He raised the dead man Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter. Even his detractors recognized that he performed many miracles. (John 10:32-33) but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews…
In every aspect Jesus fulfills the requirements of being a Prophet like Moses, yet he was more than just a prophet. He was the one who was prophesied throughout the Scriptures as the Messiah to come, a descendant of King David. In fact, the Apostle Matthew, in his Gospel goes to great length to help his readers see how Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies. Just listen to a few of these passages. Matthew shows how the miraculous birth fulfilled the words of Isaiah 7:14, (Matt. 1:22-23) All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” — which means, “God with us.”
Recalling the promise God made through Micah about the place of the Messiah’s birth, he writes, Matt. 2:5-6 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”
Of the sojourn in Egypt we are told, Matt. 2:15 …And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son. Of the slaughter of the innocents, Matt. 2:17-18 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” And countless other prophecies are declared fulfilled in Christ, up to and including the return of Elijah in the life of John the Baptist as the Messiah’s forerunner. In fact, Matthew records more than 15 other instances of the fulfillment of prophecy in the life of Jesus Christ. Search them out this season. Read them and enjoy them. I have included the Matthean prophecies in the bulletin for your use this season.
People of God, as we enter into Advent this year, rest assured that Jesus is the Prophet like Moses, more than that, he is the one who was prophesied and He alone can take away the sins of the world and lead us into communion with God and man. Worship him heartily and revel in the incarnation this holiday season!
[1] Peter W. Stoner, Science Speaks (Chicago: Moody Press, 1958), 5.
[3] Stoner, 97-110.
Sermon Outline
- What is a prophet?
- Visions and dreams
- Totally accurate
- Not lead people away from worship of God
- What kind of prophet was Moses
- Most Humble
- God spoke clearly, face to face and saw form of God
- Expounded Law, instituted sacrifices, etc…
- Miraculous signs and wonders, mighty power and awesome deeds in sight of Israel
- The prophesied Prophet
- How was Jesus like Moses but greater
- Other Prophesies
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