Deuteronomy 18:15-20 * February 1, 2009 * Epiphany 4 * Pastor Pagels

In the name of Christ Jesus, dear friends:

The people were getting restless, and perhaps they had a right to be. Because of the sins of the previous generation, they had been forced to wander in the wilderness for forty years. The desert was hot and dry, and had it not been for the miraculous provision of manna and quail God’s people would not have survived.

But by God’s grace they did survive. And now, four decades later, some four hundred years after Jacob had moved his family from Canaan to Egypt, the time had finally come. The time had come for God’s people to take possession of the Promised Land.

There was a sense of anticipation in the air, but there were also some anxious faces in the crowd when Moses summoned the people for what would be his farewell address. When the Lord called him to lead Israel, he was eighty years old. Forty years has passed since God had spoken to Moses from the burning bush, and the end of his life was near.

For many Israelites, Moses was the only leader they had ever known. He stood up to the mighty Pharaoh in Egypt. He pleaded for the people when they sinned against God in the wilderness. He parted the Red Sea. He drew water out of a rock.

Moses enjoyed a special relationship with God. Moses spoke to the people on behalf of God. Moses spoke to God on behalf of the people. And even though the people didn’t always appreciate him, even though they complained about him and even considered rebelling against him, they were now being forced to consider the reality of life without him.

After so many years as Israel’s leader, Moses knew the people. He knew their hopes and fears. He knew they needed the assurance that the Lord would be with them long after he was gone. And so he gave them a promise. He promised that God would give them another prophet, a prophet in the mold of Moses.

There was only one problem. Moses didn’t mention this prophet by name. I suppose the logical choice would have been Joshua. He was Moses’ second-in-command. God had chosen him to be Moses’ successor (Deuteronomy 3:22). But I can still imagine people in the crowd asking each other: “When Moses said that the Lord would send us another prophet, do you think he was talking about Joshua or someone else? And if he was referring to Joshua, then why didn’t he say so?”

When the Old Testament lesson was read from the lectern today, maybe you asked yourself a similar question: The words of Moses are easy enough to understand, but exactly how and when was his prophecy fulfilled? That’s a good question, a question that deserves some consideration, a question that God answers for us in his Word…

WHO IS THIS PROMISED PROPHET?

Even though Moses doesn’t provide us with a name, he does give us some information about the identity of his successor. Moses and the prophet who would follow him have three things in common. First, like Moses the promised prophet would be chosen by God from among God’s chosen people.

Moses was a full-blooded Hebrew from the tribe of Levi. Even though he was raised like an Egyptian prince, he never forgot where he came from. In fact, it was his nationalistic pride that got Moses into trouble when he killed an Egyptian slave driver who was mistreating a Jewish slave.

With that background, with that shared ancestry, Moses said to the people: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers” (15a). “Don’t look for him among the Ammonites or the Moabites or the Canaanites. You have God’s word that he will come from Israel.”

“And you don’t have to hold elections to decide who it will be either. The Lord will raise him up for you. The Lord will reveal his identity to you. You don’t have to do anything special to prepare for his arrival, but when he does come ‘you must listen to him’” (15b).

The verses that come before our text explain why Moses added that last phrase. Earlier in the chapter Moses warned the Israelites not to get tangled up in the detestable practices of their heathen neighbors: “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead…The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination” (Deuteronomy 18:10,14).

Why? What drove these people to sacrifice their children to idols? Why did they seek out sorcerers and spiritists? Because they wanted to know the future. Because they thought that by doing and saying certain things they could manipulate the future. But instead of bringing good fortune to them their idolatry only brought God’s judgment upon them.

Moses didn’t want his people to share the same fate, but after forty years he knew how fickle they could be. He remembered how quickly they replaced the Lord with a golden calf. How foolish they were, and yet how familiar their story is. We have God’s Word. We have the testimony of God’s apostles and prophets. And yet it is so easy to forget. It is so tempting to look for something else, something easier, something we think is better.

People devour Oprah’s book of the month, while the Bible gathers dust on the shelf. So many people attend self-improvement seminars and support groups, but how many spend as much time with God in prayer? One person says: “I know what God’s Word says about what I’m doing, but my situation is different.” Another person says: “The Bible was written so long ago. It’s old. It’s outdated. It doesn’t have any relevance for my life today.”

Often the devil’s lies come wrapped in pretty packaging, but ultimately they destroy faith. That’s why Moses warned the people. That’s why he told them to protect themselves from false prophets and listen only to God’s prophet, a prophet who would speak the very words of God.

The Lord said: “I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him” (18b). Moses was God’s mouthpiece, but he wasn’t a robot. It wasn’t like Moses’ voice changed to a “God voice” every time God wanted to send a message to the people.

But at the same time, the people never had to wonder if Moses was promoting his personal agenda. When Moses read the law to the people, he didn’t add anything. He didn’t change anything. Even though Moses wrote it down, it was God’s law. And when Moses finished speaking to the people, he could say with confidence: “This is the word of the Lord!”

Moses said: “That’s the kind of prophet the Lord will send you. You can be confident that he will speak the very words of God. When he speaks, he will speak on behalf of God. And that leads to the third similarity between Moses and the promised prophet. Both would be mediators.

Shortly after the Lord led the Israelites out of Egypt, he brought them to Mt. Sinai to give them the law. That doesn’t sound that bad, does it? What I failed to mention is that the mountain was shaking violently, and that it was covered with fire and thick, black smoke.

When the people approached the mountain, they started shaking too. They were so afraid that they said to Moses: “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die” (16). Essentially they were saying: “Moses, we don’t want to go up the mountain. We don’t want to go anywhere near the mountain. You go up there for us. You go and talk to God and come back and tell us what he says.”

Instead of condemning the people for their lack of faith, the Lord said: “What they say is good” (17). And he made Moses the go-between between God and God’s people. Moses was a mediator for forty years, and according to Moses the prophet who would come after him would serve in the same way.

Now you’ve heard all of the clues. Moses said: “The promised prophet will be a lot like me. He will be chosen by God from God’s chosen people. He will speak the very words of God. And he will be a go-between between the Lord and the people. The question is: Who in the Bible fits that description?

In a certain sense all of God’s prophet do, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, Elisha, etc. God handpicked all of them. God spoke through all of them. They were all mediators, but they weren’t all like Moses. Moses was special. Moses was unique. At the end of Deuteronomy, it says that “since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face” (34:10). And yet Moses declared in no uncertain terms: “God will raise up for you a prophet like me.” So who is it? Who is the prophet like Moses who knew God face to face?

If you don’t know or if you aren’t sure, don’t be discouraged because Moses’ clues aren’t the only clues we have to work with. In the New Testament both Peter and Stephen quote these words of Moses (Acts 3:22 and 7:37), and when they do they apply them to the same individual. Philip told his friend Nathanael that he had found the one Moses had written about in the Law (John 1:45).

The statements of these men are helpful, but the statement that solves the mystery of the identity of the promised prophet came from the man who said to his critics: “If you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote about me” (John 5:46).

Those words came from the lips of JESUS! Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy. Jesus is the prophet like Moses, but Jesus is so much greater than Moses. Both men were sons of Israel, but Jesus was also the Son of God. When Moses spoke he spoke the Word of God, but Jesus was the Word of God made flesh. Moses served as a mediator between God and God’s people for forty years in the wilderness, but Jesus is the mediator of an eternal covenant. God chose Moses to lead his people, but God sent his Son Jesus to save all people.

It might give us a sense of accomplishment to be able to say that we’ve solved today’s riddle. We have figured out who Moses was talking about in Deuteronomy 18, but if that little piece of Bible trivia is all we leave with today then we’ve really missed the point. As important as it is to know what this text means, it is even more important to know what this text means to me. So what does it mean? Why is it important? Why is it significant? How does this truth relate to my life?

Let me tell you how. More than anything else prophets were called to share God’s Word with God’s people. And as our prophet Jesus still speaks to his people today. When we are weighed down by guilt, he lifts us up and says: “Take heart…your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9:2). When we are worn down by all of life’s problems, Jesus opens his arms to us and says: “Come to me…and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). When we worry that we haven’t done enough or that we need to do more to make sure that we will get into heaven, Jesus looks down at us from the cross and assures us: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

There are so many more examples, so many more passages, so many more pieces of comfort, and they are literally at your fingertips. God’s Word is God’s gift to you. God’s Word is the way God’s prophet speaks to you. And my encouragement for you is the same encouragement Moses gave the people of Israel: Listen to him! Open your Bibles. Read your Bibles. Let Jesus speak to you. Let Jesus feed your soul. Let the Word of God fill your heart with the peace of God. Amen.