Let's open our Bibles, if you would, to the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy in chapter 18. Deuteronomy chapter 18. As I begin this morning, we do have a business meeting scheduled, so I'm going to try to be as conscious of time as possible to allow sufficient time for that. So I'm gonna try to be a little bit shorter if I can. But as you're turning there, you might recall a couple of weeks ago that Brother Heil was here, and he brought a message about salvation in the Old Testament. Salvation in the Old Testament. And what we mean by that, or what he meant by that, is that salvation in the Old Testament, whether it be men, women, boys, or girls, they were not saved by some alternate path of works, but rather they were saved through a future hope in one, that one being Jesus Christ in whom all the Old Testament was pointing to, those Old Testament sacrificial system it was pointing to, that promised seed that was given to Abraham in which all nations would be blessed. I know as you're reading the Word of God, and especially in the Old Testament, it's easy to get lost in all the narratives that are there, but when we consider this book as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament writings, they are united in the fact that they point to man who is a sinner, who is in need of a personal salvation. Remember the words of Paul to Timothy. In 2 Timothy 3, verse 15, he says, And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which were able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Now those holy scriptures that Paul was pointing Timothy to was not the New Testament because the New Testament had not been pinned yet at that point and put together. The scriptures that he was pointing Timothy to was the Old Testament writings because, again, those Old Testament writings pointed to the need of a Savior, that promised seed. that would come in the line of David, the one that we call the Messiah. The words of the Old Testament point us to one who will come and cleanse us of our sins. Later today we're going to be in Luke chapter 16 and look at the account of the rich man in hell and that's actually what brought me to this message this morning because we're going to see the words of Abraham to the rich man when the rich man asked if he would send Lazarus to tell his brothers and Abraham replied in Luke 16 verse 29 it says, Abraham said unto him, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. You see, Moses and the prophets pointed again to that way of salvation. And if the children of Israel, if the children of Israel would have been diligent to search out the Scriptures, they would have seen it. And those that surrounded themselves in the presence of Christ and saw Him preach and teach and do the things that He did, had they been diligent to search the Scriptures, they would have realized that He was that one whom was spoken of, the one whom Moses and the prophets pointed to. Now, as I began to think in my journey there, as I began to think about what Abraham said, they had Moses and the prophets, I began to think, you know what, it's easy sometimes to see in the prophets and how they point to Jesus Christ. For instance, We read the words of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53 and it says, He is despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to His own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Is there any of us that can read those words and not think of Jesus Christ. We read the words of the king and prophet David in Psalms 22 and verse 16. For dogs have compassed me, the assembly of wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me, they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. Again, is there any way that we can read those words and not be taken to the very scene of the cross? The prophet Micah told us where he would be born. Isaiah told us he would be born of a virgin. Malachi told us he would come with healing in his wings. And Isaiah told us that he would come and cause the lame to leap and the blind to see. You see, We look back, especially at the prophets, and we see them through our modern lens, so to say, of having the whole Word of God, and we see how those passages point to Jesus Christ. But how about Moses? How about Moses, that great prophet? What about him? How did he point to Messiah? Because certainly he did, right? Besides the verse there that I spoke of in Luke just a moment ago, I want to remind you that as Jesus was walking along the road to Emmaus with the strangers following the resurrection, that He began to speak to them as they were troubled about the things that had taken place. And where did He start? He started with Moses. He began to expound to them that these things must be so. Jesus began that Old Testament journey with Moses. So again, as we consider the question of Moses, how is it that he pointed us to Christ? How did he point us to the Messiah? Your immediate response might be, well, he was the one in whom through the sacrificial law was given, right? And certainly the law of burnt offerings and sacrifices pointed us to the one who could fully take care of sin. But that's only part. That's only part of how Moses pointed us to the one who would be the Christ. You see, tucked in the words of the law itself, we read a few lines that Moses said about the one who was to come. So let's read, Deuteronomy 18, beginning in verse 15. Deuteronomy 18, 15, it says, The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me and unto him ye shall hearken. according to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken. that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command. Here we have the promise of one that would come, and one who would be like Moses. And if you're studying the Word of God, and you're diligently studying the Word of God, and you come through this text, you have to wonder, who is that prophet who would come? Who is that one that would be raised up from their midst, so to say, and be as Moses was to the people of Israel? And if you're thinking about the day and time that Moses lived, the first thing you might think of is, what about Joshua? What about Joshua? Since he was the next leader of Israel, maybe that's perhaps who he's speaking about. Or maybe it was some other prophet. Maybe some prophet like Jeremiah. The fact is, as Jewish rabbis have debated a long time, long time about whether this scripture is speaking of one of them or whether it was speaking of the Messiah to come. And I believe truly in the light of the New Testament writings that Moses is not speaking of Joshua, that he's not speaking of any other prophet, but he's speaking about the Christ. More particular, Jesus Christ. And as such, it is my intention to show you some ways that Moses and Jesus were alike, so much that we can say that Jesus was like unto me. Let's consider first even the scene of their births. Moses was born in Egypt, right? During a time of the enslavement of the Jewish people down there in that land. We know that the people had grown large in nature. The Pharaoh was very scared that the people might rise up against them. He put them hard to labor and worked them very hard. And then, when that didn't work and squelched the population explosion that was going on among the Jewish people, he decided to get rid of the Jewish males by killing the newborn babies, right? You remember the scene? In Exodus 1, verses 15-16 it says, And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, in which the name of the one was Shipprah, and the name of the other, Puah. And he said, When you do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and you see them upon stools, if it be a son, then ye shall kill him, but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. This was by the way, an attack by Satan. This was an attack by Satan using the hard-hearted Pharaoh to get rid of that Jewish seed. But we know as we read the narrative of Exodus that his parents saved him away, built that little ark of bulrushes, right, and placed it in the bulrushes. We know that Pharaoh's daughter came and fell in love with him at first sight and raised him as his own. But what I want to draw your attention to specifically was the destruction of the infants that was taking place. Again, which was no more than an attempt by Satan to destroy the promised seed. And then when we fast forward to the New Testament, what do we see concerning the birth of Christ that reminds us of this event? And I think most of you know already In Matthew 2 and verse 16 it says, Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, then sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and all the coasts thereof from two years old and under according to the time which he diligently inquired of the wise men. Once again we see the destruction of infants taking place as Satan tried to carry out his plan once again. By the way, when Mary and Joseph fled to, where did they flee to? They fleed to Egypt, right? They fleed to Egypt. They sought refuge there to fulfill the words of Hosea 11 verse 1. It says, Out of Egypt have I called my son. So both, again, Moses and Jesus came out of Egypt. The fact of it is, I just gave you a couple things from the early life of Moses and we could go through and we could look at different things maybe perhaps in their lifestyles that they would have resembled each other and their characters that they would have resembled each other. But for the remainder of our time, let's consider how Jesus was likened to Moses in his position for the people of Israel because that's what our passage in Deuteronomy points us to, one that would come and do for Israel what Moses had done for Israel. So as we look here in Deuteronomy chapter 18 and we begin to examine the passage a little deeper, we see that It speaks of Horeb. Now, Horeb is another way of speaking of the mountain range where Mount Sinai was at. And Mount Sinai is what we are being pointed to. And it points to the time when the nation was called to gather around Mount Sinai. And as they were gathered around, God caused great thunderings and lightnings to take place, smoke coming from the mountain. As it were, the mountain was shaking. And the Jewish people were scared. They were scared. Perhaps you would be. I probably would be. They were scared because of what they saw and what they heard and they knew if that was as frightening as what it was, they did not want to stand in the presence of God. They didn't want to speak to Him face to face. They didn't want to hear His voice as it were face to face. In fact, Exodus 20 records the response of the people. In Exodus 20, 19 it says, And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die. In short, Moses became their intercessor. He became their intercessor between the people of Israel and God. Moses was to take the word of the Lord and relay the word of the Lord, and the people were to do the word of the Lord. Now, I want to be clear, Moses was certainly not the only intercessor when it comes to speaking of the Old Testament. The priest, for example, were intercessors as they made and prepared the sacrifices between man and God. Doing what God had commanded them to do as they would bring those sacrifices for sin. Likewise, when Jesus came, He came. in that way too. I'm going to get to that in just a minute, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Another way we see intercessors in the Old Testament was prophets, right? Prophets came and they spoke between God and man, delivering God's word so that the people might come back to the will and the way of the Lord. So it's in those two ways that we want to look at Jesus and how he was an intercessor as both a priest and a prophet. We'll start with the prophet first. When Jesus came, he came and he spoke the words of God to the people of Israel. You know, one thing that's curious about Jesus and how he differed from so many of the teachers at that time is Jesus didn't get up and say, I agree with Rabbi Gamaliel. I agree with Rabbi so-and-so. I believe that this is what, you know, we should do and that kind of thing. No, Jesus came and he spoke with authority. You might recall the words of Matthew chapter 7 verses 28 and 29. It says, And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. He spoke with all authority because He had all authority. And that authority was testified by God Himself as He spoke in the presence of Peter, James, and John there on the Mount of Transfiguration. In Matthew 17, 15 it says, While He yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. Jesus spoke the words of God to the people, and it was the job of the people to hear those words of faith and repentance. He was an intercessor as He walked this earth, just as Moses was. And again, you might recall that I spoke about the priests and how they were an intercessor before the people in that they made sacrifices, right? They offered up those sacrifices. Even the high priest, as you think about how he went in on the Day of Atonement and made atonement by sprinkling the blood there upon the mercy seat for the people of Israel for that year. Moses himself was a great priest. for the people of Israel. Likewise, Jesus also became intercessor in his role as priest and, indeed, high priest. Now, as I say that Jesus became as a priest, if you know much about the lineage of Jesus Christ and you are an inquiring mind, you might wonder how Jesus could be a priest and could fulfill that role without being a Levite. Because after all, Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, right? The kingly tribe, not the priestly tribe. And the answer to that question is really a message in and of itself, maybe even more than one message. But the Lord made an oath. The Lord made an oath through the words of David that he would bring up someone after the order of Melchizedek, which was a kingly priest all the way back in Genesis. priests not of the Levitical order. We don't have the depths and times to go into all of that in the book of Hebrews, but I'd like to share with you a little bit about the everlasting priesthood of Jesus. So if you would, turn with me over to the book of Hebrews, the book of Hebrews in chapter 7. And we're going to begin in verse 21. And I have to admit this is a hard piece of scripture to find a place to start and a place to stop that is appropriate because it's all appropriate. Hebrews chapter 7, beginning in verse 21, it says, For those priests were made without an oath. That is the Levitical priest. But this was an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord swear and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. God made an oath, God made a promise that one was going to come after that order. By so much as Jesus was made surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But this man, because he continueth forever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore, he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's, for this he did once when he offered up himself. The law maketh men high priests, which have infirmity, but the Word of the Lord, which was since the law of the Son, who is consecrated forevermore. Based on what we have just read, we see that Jesus Christ now stands indeed as High Priest at the right hand of God where He ever liveth to do what? Make intercession for us. Again, what was Moses? An intercessor between man and God. When you go to the Lord in prayer, praying in Jesus' name, you are praying to an intercessor who has counsel with the Father. When you cry out for forgiveness over the sins in your life, you are calling out to one who is our advocate with the Father, the one who ever lives to make intercession for us. Now, let's think back to Moses once again, as he functioned in that role as intercessor, as one who was a prophet, as one who was a priest. And there's one other way that he made intercession for the people that is very curious, again, that I think points into the fact that this Messiah who would come would be like unto me. And for that, you have to turn with me to Exodus 32. Exodus 32. Now, as you're perusing through Exodus 32, undoubtedly, some of the text here will jog your memory of exactly where our text is taking place, because now Moses has been gone up on Mount Sinai for quite some time, and the people got worried that Moses is never coming back, that something has happened to him, and they want a God that they can see, they want a God that they can feel, so they call Aaron to say, make us a God. Make us a God, and he says, give me your earrings. Off your women, off your children, give me your earrings. He took that gold and melted it down and made this golden calf and said, there's your God. There he is. People began to worship after the idol. Not just worship and by bowing down we see there was a lot of lewd action that was going on in the way of the heathen. As you look and see in this chapter, it was a dark day for the children of Israel. One of the darkest. In fact, notice the words of the Lord in Exodus 32, verses 9 and 10. It says, And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, that I may consume them, and I will make of thee a great nation. The people were fit for destruction. because of their sinful rebellion after all that God had done for them and bringing them to this point. But Moses spoke up for the people before God and he went before the people. He came down off the mountain and he destroyed that idol, right? Broke it up, ground it up. Those that would not repent of worshiping after the idol were killed. But now look down with me in verse 30. You may have never really thought about this too much. In verse number 30, as Moses prepares to gain the forgiveness of God for the sins of the people, he says, and it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said, ye have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up unto the Lord peradventure. I shall make an atonement. for your sin. Now I want to remind you of how atonement was made for sin. It came through the shedding of blood. Did it not? It came through sacrifice. It was through the shedding of blood even there at the very garden after sin had entered into the Garden of Eden. that God clothed Adam and Eve through the shedding of blood. Sacrifice was made, blood was shed, and blood was shed thereafter to make atonement for sin. The law with all of its sacrifices, day in and day out, was all about appeasing God for the sins of men. But notice our scene. Because Moses doesn't take a lamb with him. Moses doesn't take a red heifer. Moses doesn't take a goat. He says peradventure, I shall make atonement for your sin. Those are important words, folks. Verse 31 says, And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, O this people have sinned a great sin, and I have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin, and if not blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written. Now I hope you understand the fullness of the scene that is going on here, because Moses is willing to die for the people of Israel before God. He is willing to die, to stand for them in the gap over the sins that they have done. And if God would have said, I'll forgive them and take you, Moses would have laid his life down. But you know the rest of the story. You see, Moses came down off that mountain. Moses came down off that mountain. You know why he came down off that mountain? Because Moses could not make that kind of intercession. He could not do that. Why? Because Moses was a sinful man. Moses was a sinful man because he too had fallen short of the glory of God. Moses was a man that was close to God, And again, as the Word of God says, it says, He spoke to God, as it were, face to face, like a friend, but Moses was not perfect. Moses had sin in his life. Moses was not spotless before God. And God rejected Moses' offer. In verse 33 it says, And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever has sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book. Moses was unable to make a perfect sacrifice. But the Christ, the one who was like unto Moses, came to bear the sins of the people who were fit for destruction. Hebrews reminds us of His station, His intercessor in His pureness. In Hebrews chapter 4 verses 14 and 15 it says, Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, for we have a high priest which cannot be touched with the filling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. When Jesus was on this earth, He went through all the things that we go through in this life, yet never did He lie, cheat, steal, never did He break the commandments of God. In all things, He did the will of the Father. He was perfect. Peter calls him a lamb without blemish and without spot. No other man, no other woman has walked this earth without sin except the God-man, Jesus Christ, who was likened to Moses in the fact that he was willing to die for the sins of his people. In Philippians chapter 2 verses 6 and following it says, "...who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in the fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Jesus came to die to save us from our sins. Moses could not do that. Only the God-man, Jesus Christ, could do that. And as such, He has become the mediator of the New Covenant as much as Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant. That New Covenant that is not based upon the spilt blood of bulls and goats, but is based upon the blood of Jesus Christ. It is an ever-living sacrifice. just as Moses sprinkled the blood of the animals there on the mercy seat of God, so too Christ has entered into the holiest of holies there in heaven and sprinkled his own blood upon the mercy seat that we might have forgiveness. His actions were in the similitude of Moses in that he was an intercessor for the flock of Israel, our indeed, our great and good shepherd. And as such, when the New Testament says to look unto Moses and the prophets, we can clearly see that it pointed to Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah. My prayer is today, my prayer is today that you too can look at these things and see that prophet that Moses spoke of that would rise up and be likened to himself. That you can not just look at that, but trust in Him that you might have life everlasting. Let's bow our heads in prayer.