“The Prophet.” If that’s all I say, who do you suppose I’m talking about? Millions in the world, particularly in Arab countries as well as in places like Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia, would say that I am talking about Muhammad, the founder of Islam. They claim that he is God’s most important spokesman, the man God used to get religion back on track after it had been “corrupted” by Judaism and Christianity.
To Orthodox Jews, however, the title “the Prophet” would refer to Moses who is considered to be the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. And indeed he was. The Bible says that there was no other prophet that God treated like Moses. God spoke to Moses face to face while he communicated with other prophets through visions and dreams (Numbers 12:6-8). Moses was like that one guy at work whom the boss will call into his office to chat, but with all other employees the boss will communicate through texts and emails. God also used the prophet Moses to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt, and it was through Moses that God gave the Israelites all their worship laws which so carefully governed their lives for the next fifteen centuries.
But in his farewell speech to the Israelites, Moses said that God would raise up another prophet like him from among their own ranks. The New Testament tells us that this was Jesus (Acts 7:37). Jesus is of course even greater than Moses and so we could call him THE Prophet. Jesus is the greatest because he gives us the ultimate revelation, he provides ultimate mediation, and therefore he deserves our ultimate attention.
In the verses before our text, Moses warned the Israelites not to be like the inhabitants of Canaan whom they were about to drive out. These people had the habit of consulting fortune tellers to give them information about the future. There was no need for the Israelites to do that because through Moses, God had told the Israelites everything they needed to know at the time. God had told them how they were to worship him with animal sacrifices. God also gave them a series of religious festivals like the Passover to annually remind the people of how God had rescued them from slavery. These festivals also pointed ahead to how God would rescue them from sin and bring them to heaven through the work of the Messiah, God’s appointed savior. In the eleven months they spent at Mt. Sinai, the Israelites learned more from God through Moses than had ever been revealed before in the history of mankind.
But the revelation that God had given through Moses was not everything he wanted his people to know. It was like a movie trailer which gives you a pretty good idea of what the feature film is about, but it doesn’t reveal all the details. For that you need to actually go see the movie. That’s what Jesus came to provide. He was the feature film, the fulfillment of all the prophecies and the one whom God had been teaching the people about through the sacrifices. When Jesus finally came he made God’s will known to the people more completely. For example, many Israelites had started to think that as long as you look respectable and keep your nose clean by not committing any of the big sins like murder and adultery, then God was pleased with you. But Jesus revealed that sin starts in the heart. And so simply hating someone is the same as murdering them. And having dirty thoughts about someone is the same as sexually assaulting them.
Jesus also made God’s forgiveness better understood. By Jesus’ day many people thought that you had to earn forgiveness by being good. But Jesus made it clear that he had come to earn forgiveness for all. Think of how the Pharisees wanted to follow Moses’ law to the letter and stone to death a woman caught in adultery. Jesus, however, used that as an opportunity to teach forgiveness. But at the same time he made it clear that he wasn’t giving a blank check to that woman to go back to sin. No, Jesus said to her, “Leave your life of sin” (John 8:11). Jesus was a much more important prophet than Moses because he would provide the ultimate revelation – a revelation which focused on himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
But Jesus was greater than Moses for another reason. He would provide the ultimate mediation. To understand this point we need to go back to the time when Moses climbed Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. Do you remember the scene? That mountain was all ablaze and smoke billowed up from the top. There was lightning and the sound of a trumpet grew louder and louder as the earth shook under the Israelites’ feet. At first God spoke directly to the people who had assembled at the bottom of the mountain, but God’s voice was so terrifying that they begged Moses to have God to speak to him instead. God was pleased with this request and he promised to use Moses as their mediator – someone who stands between two parties.
As a mediator Moses wouldn’t just relay God’s messages to the people, he would also plead on the people’s behalf. Moses did just that after the golden calf incident. Even though he was furious that the people had so quickly abandoned their promise to worship the true God, Moses climbed back up Mt. Sinai to plead with God not to destroy the Israelites. Moses even offered himself as a substitute. Moses invited God to destroy him if he would let the rest of the Israelites live. It was a wonderful sentiment, but one which God could not accept because Moses had his own sins that he could have been punished for.
No, God had another plan to deal with the sin. He would send a better, a greater prophet in the person of his Son, Jesus. Jesus would offer himself for the sins of the whole world, and not just for the sins of the Israelites. He did this even without our asking or begging, or even before we realized we needed forgiveness. Jesus died even to pay for the sins of the very men who crucified him and the disciples who abandoned him. This truth is highlighted in the words Jesus spoke after his resurrection. He should have stepped out of the tomb and proclaimed: “Just wait until I get my hands on those guys!” Instead when he appeared to his scared and doubting disciples he said: “Peace!” It was a message of forgiveness from the ultimate mediator.
As THE prophet Jesus deserves our ultimate attention. God himself made that point when he said: “If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account” (Deuteronomy 18:19). How well do we give Jesus our ultimate attention? Have you followed every word in this worship service without giving in to distractions? Do you give Jesus your ultimate attention during home devotions, or are you often just trying to get through them so you can get to bed, or get on with dessert?
Of course you can hear everything Jesus says to you, but listening to him means putting his words into practice. And so when Jesus urges us to forgive, he’s not just outlining an ideal for us to shoot for; he expects us to be forgiving. And when he commands purity, it’s what we will strive to be even though our friends may mock us for taking God’s Word so seriously. When Jesus promises to provide, we can show our trust in that promise by honoring God with generous offerings. You can give Jesus your ultimate attention like that because he is more than a prophet; he is the Son of God who loves you and has promised to rule this world for your good.
Another reason we will want to give Jesus our ultimate attention is because God said that there would be a lot of competing voices. Through Moses God warned that there would be prophets claiming to speak in his name, but they would only be trumpeting whatever came into their heads. That was the case with Muhammad. He said that angel Gabriel spoke to him and told him to fix religion. But what he did was tell his followers that while they should get rid of their idols, they had to earn God’s grace by being good people. That work-righteous attitude isn’t only prevalent in Islam, you can find it in Christian churches too. But anyone who says that Jesus only gets us closer to heaven, is not a prophet from God. What Jesus accomplished was to give us heaven. Through faith in him that gift becomes ours. We don’t need anything or anyone other than Jesus.
When people of this world talk about THE prophet, you can bet they’re not talking about Jesus. Even we Christians usually don’t speak of Jesus in that way, and for good reason because Jesus is more than a prophet - a mere spokesman for God. Jesus IS God, and your Savior! Give him your undivided attention now and always. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
Explain: What God told Moses was the movie trailer. What God shared and did through Jesus is the feature film.
How did Jesus make God’s law better understood? How did he make the gospel clearer for his audience?
In what ways did Moses serve as a mediator? What made Jesus a better mediator than Moses?
As THE Prophet, Jesus deserves our ultimate attention. What often distracts you from listening to Jesus? Write a prayer asking God to remove those distractions.
