00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
So we'll be reading from the New King James. There are Bibles in the pews, if you'd like to join in with us. John 15. Right at the end of the chapter, we'll be beginning at verse 26 and then read through to the end of verse 15 in chapter 16. She got that blocked out now. So verse 26 in 15 through to the end of 15 in chapter 16. Again, paying careful heed to the word of God as we read it together, beginning then on verse 26. But when the helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the father, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father, he will testify of me and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. These things I have spoken to you that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God's service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the father nor me. But these things I have told you that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them and these things I did not say to you at the beginning because I was with you. But now I go away to him who sent me and none of you asked me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment of sin, because they do not believe in me. of righteousness, because I go to my father and you see me no more, of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority. But whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you things to come. He will glorify me for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the father has are mine. Therefore, I said that he will take of mine and declare it to you. We thank God for his word and trust he'll give us an understanding and appreciation of it this day. We're going to look at a number of passages today, so I'll not call you to turn to one in particular. We've been thinking about the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Two weeks ago, we considered his deity and today we want to, or rather last week, we thought about his humanity. And today we think about Jesus, our prophet. First Corinthians chapter one, verse 21 says, for since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. What an indictment that is of mankind. If you put all the great minds together, if you combine all the mainline religions, if you read all the great philosophers and if you sit at the feet of all the great thinkers, not one of them can bring you to a knowledge of your Creator. You listen to the great scientists of our day. They can't tell you the most basic things about life, about the universe, about ourselves. Perhaps you've seen That excellent, remarkable, really, documentary entitled Expelled by Ben Stein. And it's a fascinating documentary. I just want to tell you about one very interesting part of it. You know Richard Dawkins and that militant atheist from England, very articulate, very good communicator, but quite a wicked man. And he's being interviewed by Ben Stein and he's becoming quite uncomfortable because Stein is pressing him. He's saying, well, now, where really did things begin? How did things begin? Where does all this come from? And he presses him and Dawkins' response in a rather agitated way, he says, I don't know. And then he says, no one knows. Well, of course, we beg to differ. Someone does know. And he has come, and he has come in order that he might tell us the truths of the universe. And we're going to think about him today. We're going to think about Jesus, our prophet. Just turn to Isaiah chapter 61, and we'll read verse 1. Isaiah 61, the great evangelical prophet, and we're going to look at verse one. You know the passage. I'm sure you know that it's a messianic passage. And when you read the word me there, these words are really words found on the lips of Messiah. So 61 and verse one, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. And so this is what Messiah says. And Messiah says that God has anointed me, poured his spirit upon me in order to equip me so that I might preach the truth. Now, anointed ones in the Old Testament were prophets and priests and kings. These were men whom God set apart, and then they were anointed with oil, and these were individuals whom God had set apart for particular functions. And it is only in the Lord Jesus Christ that those three functions are brought together in one person. In the Old Testament, as you know, There was a prophet and there was a priest and there was a king, and nobody was allowed to usurp the place and the function of someone else. And if you're a prophet, you're not a priest. And if you're a priest, you're not a king and so on and so forth. But now in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus brings these things together. And it is the Lord Jesus who is prophet, priest and king in one person. Now, we might talk about The work of the Lord Jesus Christ in that way as prophet, priest and king, there is some other theologians today who like to talk in this way. They they talk about his work as being the work of revealing and reconciling and reigning. So he reveals the truth. He reconciles us to God and he reigns over us. And they prefer to use that kind of terminology. But we'll use these terms that Calvin first found in the Scriptures and drew together as those terms that so wonderfully set forth for us the glorious work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And today, then, we think about Jesus, our prophet. Now, we might ask, what does a prophet do? Or what is a prophet? Well, a prophet, very simply, is someone who speaks the word of God to people. That's what he does. He speaks the word of God to people. Just turn to Jeremiah, chapter 15 and verse 19. Jeremiah, chapter 15 and verse 19. We read these words, Jeremiah 15, verse 19. Therefore, thus says the Lord, if you return, then I will bring you back. You shall stand before me. If you take out the precious from the vial, you shall be as my mouth. Let them return to you, but you must not return to them. Now, the context is that Jeremiah is having some trouble and he's having great difficulty and he's going through great tribulation and he's beginning to doubt. And he's beginning to doubt God, and he even says something as shattering as what he says in verse 18. Will you surely be to me like an unreliable stream, as waters that fail? Are you not supposed to say that to God? And that's a sinful description of God. And that's not true. God is not a failing stream. He's not a mirage out there. And he seems to offer something. But when you get there, you're disappointed. No, that's not God at all. But Jeremiah is so troubled and so discouraged. He's thinking things like this and saying things like that. And God says to him, you need to return. That is, you need to repent. But of course, God is the sovereign God, and so God's the one who will bring him back. So you need to repent, and then I will restore you, and you will fulfill the function that I've given to you, the function of a prophet. But the reason I point you to this verse is to see the way in which God describes the work of a prophet, then you shall be as my mouth. That's what a prophet is. A prophet is someone who is like God's mouth. And so when the prophet opens his mouth, it's God who's speaking. That's what a prophet is. He's the mouthpiece of God. He's the voice of God to this generation. And through the prophet, God is expressing his word and his will. What a tremendous privilege to be a prophet. And you know that all of the Old Testament prophets, and there were a great number of them, and a great number of great prophets, but all of these Old Testament prophets are simply anticipating. They're looking forward. And there is an expectation of another prophet, a great prophet who is to come. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 1. and see what the writer of Hebrews says about this final one who comes, who is the prophet of God. Hebrews chapter 1 and verses 1 to 3. God at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets. And he has in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So he has spoken through the prophets down through the ages, but now in these days through his son. So Christ, our prophet, let's think, first of all, about the fact that he is the anticipated prophet. He is the anticipated prophet. Go back in your Bibles to Deuteronomy, chapter 18. Deuteronomy, chapter 18. And we'll begin at verse 15. We'll see that there was anticipation of a great prophet who was to come. Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse 15. The words of Moses. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, says Moses, from your midst, from your brethren. Interestingly enough, from your midst, from your brethren, that great prophet is going to be from amongst you. Remember, we talked about the tremendous significance of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has to be one of us in order that he might represent us. So He's going to come from among you, from your own brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desire of the Lord your God at Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire any more lest I die. And the Lord said to me, what they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren, and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And of course, yes, there would be and there came to be a tremendous era of prophets. You begin with Elijah and with Elisha, and then there is this tremendous era of the prophets. And we have the major prophets and the minor prophets. And you know that they're major and minor in terms of their size, not in terms of their significance. The size of their writings, not in terms of the importance of their words. And so God, in his mercy, sends prophets to his people in his kindness. He speaks to his people through these prophets and they bring the word of God. Sometimes there's a predictive element to it. Sometimes it's talking about the future. But prophecy, per se, is simply speaking the word of God to people, revealing God's word and God's will to these people. And so despite the fact that you have this tremendous era of profits, there is nonetheless an anticipation of someone special is coming. Some extraordinary profit, and even in the New Testament. Just turn to John, chapter one, even in the New Testament era, people are still looking. They're still looking and really longing for someone to come who will be like Moses. And so we read these things here in John chapter six and beginning at verse ten. People are, in a sense, looking around. They're anticipating. And they're searching. And so when Jesus comes along, these are the kinds of things we read. John chapter six and verse ten. Then Jesus said, make the people sit down. Now, there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down and number about five thousand, he took the loaves and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples and the disciples to those sitting down and likewise of the fish as much as they wanted. And so when they were filled, he said to his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain so that nothing is lost. Therefore, they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. They saw the sign. The miracles you see were signs. And the miracles were signs to reveal the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. In John chapter 2, when Jesus changes the water into wine, the Scripture says that that's where He began to do these miracles and signs and wonders and display His glory. And so now He feeds 5,000 and they see the sign and they see something of the glory of Christ. And they say, this must be the prophets. who was predicted, the prophet that God was going to raise up from amongst us, the prophet who is going to be like Moses and God would put his word in his mouth. This must be the prophet. Now, why did they need a prophet like this? Why did they need prophets in general and why did they need this particular prophet? Well, people need the prophets of God because they sit in darkness. Whether you're sitting in a university classroom or whether you're sitting in the seat of the great philosophers. The Bible says wherever you're sitting, you are sitting in darkness, you do not understand. Just turn to Luke chapter one. And we'll read verses seventy six to seventy nine. This is an indictment of of men, no matter what their situation and position. And it's a declaration that they do not understand, they do not see things as they ought. Luke chapter one, verse seventy six. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the highest. For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. And of course, he's talking about John the Baptist and then the Lord Jesus to follow. And you will prepare the ways of the Lord to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy of our God, with which the dayspring from on high has visited us to give light to those who sit in darkness. and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. And so, the forerunner comes to prepare the way for the Lord, and the role and function and purpose of the coming of the Lord is to bring light to people who are sitting in darkness. Now, they know some things, You go to university, you learn things, you talk to people and they are experts in certain areas and they know things, but they know nothing aright. When they do not begin, as our brother was saying earlier in the Bible class, when they do not begin with God, then they know something about certain things in the universe, but they do not understand it correctly. And they cannot understand it correctly until they begin with God. And the Lord Jesus has come in order that he might shine the light so that people might understand. And know the truth. God sent his prophet and he sends the prophet in order that people might see a turn to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17, this is Paul in Athens, Acts 17, verses 22 and 23, and notice what Paul says to these people, Acts 17, verse 22. So Paul stood in the midst of Areopagus and said, None of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar to this with this inscription to the unknown God. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing him, I proclaim to you, God. And then it goes on to explain who God is. The world, through its wisdom, did not know God, Paul says in first Corinthians. And here he says, you do not know God. He speaks to people sitting in the center of culture in the Roman Empire. This is where the intelligentsia lives. And he says, you do not know God. In fact, he's bold enough in verse 30 to describe them as people who are ignorant. He says, God, you know, he will not overlook these times of ignorance. And so he stands in the midst of the cultural elite and they're sitting there listening to him. And he says, you're ignorant. You do not understand. This is like it's like speaking at Harvard, it's like speaking at Oxford and telling the people there that they are. They're ignorant, they understand some things about the universe. But at the end of the day, they just don't know. Well, those who are familiar with the Old Testament knew this is the state of man, people are in darkness, their minds are benighted. And that's why there was such eager anticipation of a prophet. Of any prophet, but especially the prophet whom God would send, so there is the anticipated prophet, but then secondly, the qualified prophet. the qualified prophet. You go to a university and if you see a professor there, you know that they've examined him and they feel he's qualified in that particular area. And he's done some work and he's got some degrees and and so he's qualified to teach. And they check those qualifications before they hire him. Now, they might teach us, these folk, about minor matters in the universe. But the Lord Jesus is qualified to teach us not only about those kinds of things, but to teach us about all the most profound and fundamental matters of life. The Lord Jesus is qualified to speak to us and to teach us about God and about man. And about sin, and salvation, and purpose, and meaning in life, and what it's all about. And He can tell us about all of these things. He can tell us what is wrong with us. And He can tell us the way out. Because He is God's prophet. He is God's messenger to us. Just go back to Hebrews chapter 1 and let's think for a moment again about how significant it is what the writer of Hebrews is saying there in verse 1. God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son. And in fact, by a son. And what the writer is doing is he is lumping all of the prophets together. God, in various ways, various times in the past, he's spoken through the prophets. But he says, now things are radically different. Things are glorious now because now he speaks to us. Now he's talking about a whole new class. He spoke through prophets. Now he speaks through a son. He doesn't even say the son. He says a son. And we know from the rest of the Bible, it's the son of God. So there were the prophets. Thank God for them. But oh, now he's spoken and he's speaking through a son, he is qualified like no other. Let me show you why he's so well qualified. Turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 11 and beginning at verse 25. Matthew 11 and verse 25. You, I'm sure, know this passage. It's a it's a wonderful passage. Matthew, chapter 11 and verse 25. At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for it seemed good in your sight. All things have been delivered to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son and the one to whom the son wills to reveal him. Now, that is an absolutely extraordinary statement in verse twenty seven. Dr. Benjamin Warfield describes this statement as, in some respects, the most remarkable in the whole compass of the four Gospels. Even the great Gospel of John contains nothing which penetrates more deeply into the essential relationship of the Son to the Father. When Jesus says, no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and the ones to whom the Son reveals. What extraordinary things that says about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Another writer says that this is the climax of the synoptic tradition, and he says the ontological, the relationship of being between the father and the son indicated here presupposes the preexistence of the person of the Lord Jesus. It is an astonishing statement. Just think about what he's saying. He's saying that the father knows everything about the son. And then it gets more glorious because he says the son knows everything about the father. This is infinite knowledge about the inexhaustible God. Because, you see, when someone says the Father knows all about the Son, you might so belittle the significance of the Son and bring Jesus down, as it were, to our level, but it doesn't seem like any great significant thing for the Father to know all about the Son. We know differently. But then to also say, as the Lord Jesus does, I know everything about the Father. That is a claim to have to have infinite knowledge about the inexhaustible God. He knows everything that there is to know about the infinite God. That's astonishing. And then, of course, he also says the son alone knows the father, because notice what he says. And no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son. So just in terms of being a natural state, nobody can know the Father and nobody can know the Son. Except the father and the son. Now, of course, we know from first Corinthians two and other passages that the Holy Spirit is included in the Trinity and the spirit knows the father as first Corinthians two makes clear. But our Lord Jesus point here is not to exclude the spirit, but to say that in terms of people. In terms of the realm of men, because he is the God-man, in terms of the realm of men, there is nobody like the Son of God, nobody like the Lord Jesus Christ, and nobody knows the Father except me, he says. He's saying that he is in a class by himself. He's saying that When liberals and others want to talk about the Lord Jesus and deny his deity and say, well, even though he's not God, we nonetheless should really listen to him because, you know, he was a man of elevated spirituality. He was a man head and shoulders above all the religious leaders who have ever walked the face of the earth. He was special. He was closer to God than anybody that we could ever think of. Maybe there were some who came close to Muhammad or a Gautama the Buddha, but Jesus was even above them. He was. No, the Lord Jesus will not countenance that kind of nonsense. He says, no, no, there is there is nobody else in my class. There's nobody else like me. Nobody knows the father. Except the son. And he can say that because of what we know from passages like John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And so he knows God because he is God, and because he is face to face with God. He is in intimate, personal, perfect, holy communion with the Father. And that's why He can come and spread the news. That's why He can come and tell us about God. Because the Bible says, if you turn to John chapter 1, that that is why He came. John chapter 1 and verse 18. Let's turn to that, because there we see something about the work of our Lord Jesus as prophet. John chapter 1 and verse 18. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God, or Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. That's how close He is. That's how intimate He is. He has declared Him. The Son of God has come into the world. Jesus has appeared. Grace has entered the world. And God the Son has declared the Father. He's explained Him. He has exegeted Him. When we come to the Bible, what we try to do is look at a passage and say, You read it and then you say, well, now, this is this is what it means. You try to exegete it. And that's what Jesus did with God. He comes into the world and he says, now, here is God. Let me explain it to you. And he can do it because. He is himself God, a very God. So he is the qualified prophet. Thirdly, he is the successful prophet. He's the successful prophet. Now, even before the incarnation, the Lord Jesus was busy revealing truth. John chapter 1 and verse 9, that was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. And so, as one writer says, all truth then really comes from the Lord Jesus and through the Lord Jesus. And all the truth, any truth that people grasp, You know, the truth that they're so proud of, that they're so happy that they understand that they strut around thinking that, you know, they can drop their pearls of wisdom before the ignorant masses because they may know. Even these things that people think they know and understand, even those things, the Lord Jesus has enabled them to grasp. The Lord who enlightens every man. First Peter chapter one and verse one. It was the Lord Jesus who was speaking through the prophets of old. First Peter one and verse eleven. These. These prophets of old were searching what or in what manner of time the spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. So even through the Old Testament prophets, it was the spirit of Christ. And so the Holy Spirit was using the prophets, but as a ministry of Christ, as it were. And so the Lord Jesus was functioning as a prophet even before this, but it is especially at the incarnation that he appears in this world as the great prophet of God. And he is a successful prophet, because what does he do? Well, first of all, he teaches us about God. That's what chapter one of John and verse 18 says. He has come and he has declared the father to us. By who he is. And by what he did. And so if you listen to Christ and if you watched the Lord Christ. You would have seen the father, that's what Jesus says in John chapter 14. Lots of passages to turn to please turn to John 14. John 14 and verse nine. Well, let's back up to verse seven, John 14, verse seven, if you had known me, you would have known my father also. And from now on, you know him and have seen him. Philip doesn't quite understand it, he says, Lord, show us the father and it's sufficient for us. And Jesus says, have I been with you so long and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the father. How can you say show us the father? Just look at me, he says. If you want to know God, just look at me. What a stupendous claim that is. The Lord Jesus is the revelation of God. Hebrews chapter one says he is the exact representation of the Father. That's why the writer of Hebrews is so excited. He says, oh, we love the prophets. But now God has spoken through a Son. What's so exciting about that? Well, it's because the Son is the exact representation of God. These guys were great. Isaiah was terrific, but he was a man of unclean lips, don't you know? Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. He is God. with us. Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24 says, Do not get excited about riches. Don't get excited about education and wisdom. Don't get excited about power. That's military power, any other kind of power that you can gather to yourself. He says, don't get excited about these things. People in the world get excited about these things. Don't you get excited about these things? They are passing and they are empty and they're futile in and of themselves. He says the people who understand get excited about the fact that they know God. And the Lord Jesus alone is the one who reveals the father to us. It is Jesus alone who can bring you to a saving knowledge of God. J.I. Packer, in his book, Knowing God, begins with a story about a man who was being persecuted by religious leaders in his own denomination, going through tremendous difficulty because of the fact that he was standing for the faith and they were persecuting him because they did not believe him. But Packer relates how that this man found comfort in this. The man said, well, you know, they've done this and that and the other, but. But I have known God. At the end of the day, what else matters? I've gone through this and this and this, but you know what? I've known God. And the Lord Jesus reveals the Father to us. The Lord Jesus furthermore comes to teach us truth. He comes to show us God. He comes to teach us truth. Christian people know the truth of the universe. You know the fundamental things about life if you're a Christian. The greatest minds in the world can't answer the most basic questions of worldview. They do not understand the most basic things about life and existence. They just don't get it. They do not know. A man by the name of Paul Davies wrote this. He said, I am impressed by the extraordinary ingenuity, felicity and harmony of the laws of physics. It is hard to accept that something so elegantly clever exists without a deeper, reasonable purpose. I have no idea what the universe is about. But that it is about something I have no doubt. There's a tremendous mind of our day in England. He says, I look around, I just don't know what it's all about. I know it's about something. But I don't know what that is. Listen to, well, the biggest brain of all, Stephen Hawking, in his book. The title's just gone now. What's his book? The famous one. That's the one. Yeah, this is what he says. He says, even if there is only one unique set of possible laws, it is only a set of equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to govern? Although science may solve the problem of how the universe began, it cannot answer the question, why does the universe even bother to exist? And then he says this. I don't know the answer to that. If you've read Hawking, you'll have noticed, I'm sure, there's a certain humility with this man, a real charm about him. But imagine that. That's the best we have. That's the biggest brain we can come up with. And he looks around and he says, I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know what it's all about. But Jesus comes to tell us the truth. Look at John 15, 15. John 15, 15, no longer do I call you servants, or we'd be happy to be called the servants of God if that's all we had. That'd be glorious. But Jesus says, I no longer call you servants for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I call you friends for all things that I heard from my father. I've made known to you. I put it down in my book and the spirit's going to teach you everything I've heard from my father. Pass on to you. That's the prophet that we have. Luke, chapter 10, verse 23. Luke, chapter 10. And verse 23, then he turned to his disciples and said privately, blessed are the eyes which see the things you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see and have not seen it and to hear what you hear and have not heard it. So Jesus talks to them privately and he says, you have blessed eyes and blessed ears because you see and hear things that other people long to hear. You and I, the Lord Jesus, has opened our eyes and caused our ears to hear. Matthew chapter 13, verse 10. Matthew 13, verse 10. Listen to what our prophet does for us. Matthew 13 and verse 10. The disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? He answered and said to them, because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them, it has not been given. If you're a Christian today, it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom. It's been given to you to understand what life is all about. It's been given to you to know and to grasp what it's all about and why you're here and what your purpose is in the universe, why you exist. You understand this. The great minds, they don't know. You know, because God has been gracious to you. He's opened your eyes. It's not that we're so bright that he's so good. So gracious and so kind, you know, we have as our motto text that we're going to declare the whole counsel of God. That's what we want to do with the church. We stumble and fumble our way towards trying to do that. But, you know, you can't do it unless you know something about it. And why do we know something at least about the whole counsel of God? God opened our eyes, given us to see and given us to understand. Now we thank God that he's come. The Lord Jesus has come to do more than just explain things to us. He's come to die. He came to shed his blood, he came to reconcile, he came to be a priest, he came to give it life, he came to shed his blood and give us his own righteousness. He came to be our savior and our substitute. And so we thank God for that, because we don't just need to be enlightened. We need to be changed. We need to be forgiven. We need to be cleansed. And so he comes as the king and the prophet and the priests talk about that more later. We thank God for that. But he has come in order that we might understand he's come to teach us the truth. What's more, he's come to enable us to understand the truth. It's not just enough for us to have a Bible. Some of you have Bibles in front of you, but you don't get it because you're not Christians. If it doesn't make sense to you. Here's the reason, it's because the Bible says that your mind is darkened. I'm not trying to be insulting, this is what the Bible says, you can read about it in Ephesians chapter four or Ephesians chapter two. The Bible is saying that when you read this, you just don't get it. That's the way we were, I read the Bible when I was not a Christian, it seemed stupid to me. Made no sense at all. And the reason it doesn't make any sense to you is not because there's something wrong with this, because there's something wrong with you. Your mind is twisted and darkened. That's what that's what sin does to us. But you see, the Lord Jesus is everything to us. He not only is the embodiment of truth, he not only comes to speak the truth to us, he not only comes to reveal the father to us, but he comes and enables us to understand these truths. He gives us his spirit. And First Corinthians, too, says that the spirit opens up our eyes so that we see. And the mist, you know, you're driving along and the mist says foggy and all of a sudden it just dissipates and then you see everything. That's what it's like when you become a Christian. God just opens your eyes and you see. And so the Lord Jesus. Speaks about God to us, he speaks truth to us, enables us to understand, and then one day he will speak truth in greater clarity than we've ever imagined, he will come to teach us truth perfectly. In one way or another, the Lord Jesus all the time is teaching us. If you're a Christian, you're growing all the time. If you're a Christian, He's teaching you all the time. You are growing in the grace and the knowledge of Christ all the time. But one day, you will see Him perfectly. One day, John says, You will open your eyes and you will see the Lord Jesus as he is. Paul says that we see the glory of God in the face of Christ. And one day he will gaze unhindered on that face and you will see God. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. The Lord Jesus reveals him to you. He already has, and one day he will do it in a manner you can't even imagine now. One day you will see him as he is. Two things in conclusion. First of all, listen to him. If you're not a Christian, you need to listen to him. The father said, this is my beloved son. Listen to him. If you're not a Christian, I'm sure you have listened to the cacophony out there, you've listened to the myriad voices, you've heard their songs, you've read their books and you realize, I'm sure they have nothing to offer you. They have no answers. Perhaps in high school you read William Golding's Lord of the Flies, and maybe you enjoyed the way he just kind of peels back the various layers of the onion to show just, oh, what a horror man can be. You cut below the surface and you see what people are like. But there's no answer. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, he says, come to me. He says, this is what man is like. These are the kinds of things that come out of the heart. Horrific things. But he is the answer. In fact, he is the answer. He is the one who can deliver from the horrible nature of human sin. That's why he says, come to me and trust me and believe in me. And you'll be saved. So you need to listen to the Lord Jesus Christ. Read the word. Don't just criticize the Bible and not Christians, but read the scriptures. If you're really serious about coming to grips with things, read the Bible. Get into the Bible. Read what God says. Listen to the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear him. Obey him. Come to him. He's your only hope. He's your only hope. And then if you're a Christian. Listen to him, listen to him, the father says, this is my beloved son, hear him. The Lord Jesus is still teaching us, he's still being a prophet to us by his spirit, through his word. And so Peter says, grow, grow in the grace and the knowledge of Christ. Paul says, in fact, this is happening. If you're a Christian, you are growing. Second Corinthians 318. You are growing all the time as you gaze upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, gaze all the more. Drink in his words. In the Lord Jesus, the fount of all wisdom and knowledge. Just dive in and enjoy it and drink, delight in it. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord Jesus Christ. He's your prophet. Listen to him and drink in his words. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for the gift of your spirit. And today we especially thank you for the gift of your son. We thank you that he is God. He is man. He is our king. He is our sacrifice and our priest. And he is the one who declares the father to us. We praise you for him and we offer up our worship and adoration in his name and for his sake.
Jesus Our Prophet
Series Person and Work of Christ 2009
The Anticipated Prophet – as per OT prophecies, the people were looking for a prophet like Moses who would come and shine the light on those sitting in darkness
The Qualified Prophet – Jesus is infinitely qualified to speak for and about God because He is God
The Successful Prophet – the Lord Jesus comes and shows us about God, teaches us truth, enables us to understand truth, and facilitates the beatific vision
Sermon ID | 1125091056300 |
Duration | 49:15 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday - AM |
Bible Text | John 1:18 |
Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2025 SermonAudio.