Jesus And Moses Series

INTRODUCTION

- I have received many questions about many things in the Old Testament.

- Why all the blood, why all the sacrifices?

- Why didn't God send Jesus early on in the history of the world instead of when He did?

- Why do the Christians of today even need the Old Testament?

- Today, we will examine Moses and Jesus.

- For the nation of Israel, Abraham was the father of the nation, Moses was the nation's deliverer, and David was the nation's ruler.

- Moses was considered the greatest of all.

- If you read the Mishna, published at the end of the second century A.D., you clearly see how the religious leaders viewed Moses.

- The Mishnah is an edited record of the complex body of material known as oral Torah that was transmitted in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D.

- The Mishna was not uniform in its teaching; it contained all the arguments on various topics by various Rabbis.

- Mark Moore said a Jewish Rabbi told him that you would get five opinions if you had three Rabbis in a room.

- When it came to the teaching of Moses, none of the Rabbis would challenge what Moses taught.

- That is how highly regarded Moses was viewed in Jewish culture.

- You can also see this was still the view of Moses during the ministry of Jesus.

- So that we can appreciate the teaching of Jesus on a deeper level, it is vital for us to understand how highly regarded Moses was.

- All Jewish life was built on the teaching of Moses, then here comes Jesus doing what looked like He was challenging or disrespecting Moses, when in fact, He was not doing either.

- When the Jewish leaders often came at Jesus, it concerned what Moses said.

- The message today is another one of the foundational passages of the Bible.

- In our sixth week of Core 52, we will see the relationship between Moses and Jesus.

- Understanding this relationship will enable us to better understand how Scripture fits together.

› So far in Core 52, as we've been looking at these 52 essential verses of Scripture, we've seen subtle hints of how God planned to rescue humanity one day.

› All the way back in the Garden of Eden, even as God was announcing the consequences of Adam and Eve's sin, there was this small clue of what was to come.

› This is what God tells Satan, the serpent, in Genesis 3, "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

› Just a subtle hint of what would happen on the cross and then in an empty tomb.

› There was another hint in His covenant with Abraham.

› God promised that the whole world would be blessed one day through Abraham.

› Not just Israel.

› Everyone.

› God keeps leaving these crumbs, showing that this all leads to something.

› This is going somewhere. (Dan Raymond)

- Let's turn to our verse for the week.

Deuteronomy 18:18 (NET 2nd ed.)

18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.

SERMON

I. Moses was a shadow of Jesus.

- In the context of our passage, Moses taught the people that they were to stay away from occult practices that they had been exposed to during their time in Egypt and that would be waiting for them in the new land they were to inhabit.

- In the couple of verses before verse 18, Moses tells the people the following:

Deuteronomy 18:15–17 (NET 2nd ed.)

15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you—from your fellow Israelites; you must listen to him.

16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the LORD your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the LORD our God anymore or see this great fire anymore lest we die.”

17 The LORD then said to me, “What they have said is good.

- You see, this isn't the first time Moses has told the people that God is going to have to do something bigger and better in the future.

- Israel, and indeed all people, need somebody greater than Moses to lead us out of what really holds us captive and into true freedom.

- One day, Moses promised that God would send a new leader like Moses, but even better than Moses. (Dan Raymond)