I keep losing the mic thing here, so if you see me duck down at some point during the service, I'm trying to grab this. Deuteronomy 18, verses 9 through 14. Please give heed, this is the word of the Lord. When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen. just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die. And the Lord said to me, They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, how may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. Thus ends the reading of God's infallible, inerrant, and life-giving word. At this time, please pray with me for the Lord to illuminate his words and to be with me as I speak and you as you hear the word of God this morning. We thank you, O Lord, for your word, and we thank you, O Lord, above all, for Christ and your Spirit, Christ who is revealed to us, who is our Savior, and the Spirit who communicates Christ to us and his benefits. We pray that he would come now and attend the preaching and reading of your word. Be with me as I As feeble as I am, attempt to bring this word, and with your people, as closed and dull and hard-hearted as we all are, so that we might understand, so that we might savingly understand, not only unto the saving of our souls as in justification, we have believed on the Lord Jesus and so have been set right with you, but also in sanctification, that you would transform us into his image. We pray now that you would, through the preaching of your word, conform us all to the image of Christ. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Well, you may be seated. Sorry. It was clear to me early in life, as far back in fact as I can remember, that my maternal grandfather, Salvatore Talacco, a name that perhaps already tells you a lot about our family's dynamic, but it was clear to me that my maternal grandfather was the voice of authority in our family and the source, in fact, of our family's cohesion. One of the ways that this always showed itself was by the fact that my grandfather insisted that everybody in our extended family, not just the immediate family, but our extended family, everybody who lived within a four hour radius, which was basically where everybody had to live to begin with, everybody had to be at his house every Sunday. No exceptions. This had no religious implications. This was more an Italian custom that my grandfather continued. But it was a custom that we lived with. It was a custom that conditioned our life in fact. And I can remember on a few occasions when my parents were so bold or perhaps so foolish as to think they'd tell my grandfather that we're not going to be there next Sunday because there was some other thing that had come up. And my grandfather would simply and firmly say, no, nothing else has come up. You will be here next Sunday. And we would, of course, be there next Sunday. But I can even remember some more serious occasions when siblings and others would squabble and decide that they were upset with each other. And they would say, well, we're not going to be here next Sunday if they're going to be here. And my grandfather, again, would always say, you will reconcile, and you will be here next Sunday. And they were there next Sunday. But that's just a glimpse of how things were with our family. But I remember at my grandfather's funeral several years ago, I remember thinking, what's going to happen now that my grandfather's dead? My grandfather's dead. He was the source of our solidarity in many ways. He was the one who brought reconciliation between us, forced it upon us really. He was the one who insisted that we were always there and always together. He was the voice of authority. And I realized then, and it's proved to be true, that we probably would never, as an extended family, all be together in one place at one time ever again. People are probably going to go their own ways, ways that they always wanted to go and would have gone if my grandfather was never in the picture. As lamentable as that is, I mean, we still see each other. We see each other, but not in those large groups that we used to enjoy. And some family members really just don't see each other at all. Well, the situation that I described is not unlike what's going on in this passage in Deuteronomy 18. This portion of scripture, in fact, is part of a series of sermons that Moses is preaching in light of his impending death. Moses is about to die, and so he's delivering these sermons to the children of Israel. And the overall character of all of these sermons is Moses is reminding them what God has done for them in the past. He's making predictions about the future, what's going to happen and what they're to watch out for and take heed to. And he's enjoining upon them to be faithful to God. He's telling them, remember what he's done. This is what he's going to do. Be faithful to him. And this text in Deuteronomy 18 has a special connection with all of that. It's part and parcel of all of it. But remember Moses here is about to die and this is not no white matter. Moses was the voice of authority in Israel. Moses was God's mouthpiece and he was a particular mouthpiece, a special mouthpiece. Nobody rivaled Moses in the entirety of the Old Testament. Moses was known, for example, as the servant of the Lord. That title is sometimes used for others, but nobody more than Moses, the servant of the Lord, or my servant. And we'll see in a few passages this morning, in filling out what it means to be like Moses, we'll see how that term is actually used in those passages. But you must remember that the children of Israel, they were delivered under this man. This was the man God used to speak to them. This was the man that God used to deliver them from the hand of the mightiest nation on earth. This was the man who would bring reconciliation when there were issues. People would go to Moses. He would solve the issue under God and with God's wisdom by his spirit. This was the man who would even interpose himself between the people and God when they sinned, and God's anger flared up against them. This shows you something of the gravity, the weight, and the moment of what's going on here. He's about to die. This man, who stood between us and God, and turned his wrath aside from us. If you saw that and knew that in person, you could imagine what you'd be feeling at that moment. In fact, everybody is about... more than that, I should say, that it's not just that these people knew life under Moses. By now, that original generation has died off and now the people that Moses is speaking to are their children. Children who grew up their entire lives in the shadow of Moses. So these people don't know a time without Moses. So this was a huge deal. And so the thing that Moses is setting out to answer here then is, what are you going to do now that I'm dead? How are you going to hear from God? That's the great question, and that's the burden of the text. So Moses, in Deuteronomy 18, sets out to answer this question in two basic ways. First, in verses 9-14, he tells them what not to do. Don't do this. Then, in verses 15-19, which is really the heart of the prophecy, he tells them what to do. This is what you're to do. This is what you're not to do. Very simple instructions. And then in verses 20-22, he gives some clarifying information on how they can further keep or understand what he's just set forth for them in verses 15-19. Well, turning then to verses 9 through 14, the first thing that Moses tells the children of Israel is not to learn from or imitate the pagan nations. Don't imitate their occultic practices, their religious practices, their vain attempts at trying to seek a knowledge of God and of His will or of approaching unto God. Don't practice those things, Moses tells them. They're not to learn such things. They're not even to permit those who do those things to live among them. They're to have no part in or among the people of God. Now, Moses doesn't just tell them not to do this. Moses gives several supporting reasons for it. One reason that Moses gives is simply because the land that God is... these are things that the Lord, who in his graciousness is going to give them this land, these are things that he hates. There's no further reason that needs to be given. Moses will give another. But simply, these are things that God hates. In fact, Moses uses that word three times here, the word abominations. And by repeating it, he shows or emphasizes just how revolting these things are to God. In fact, they're so abominable to God, they're so contemptible, that the Lord says that He's going to drive out those nations that currently inhabit the land. That's why that nation is being driven out. Israel is being given the land by grace. God is graciously giving this land to them. But the other nations are being driven out because of their wickedness, their abominable deeds, listening to soothsayers, causing their sons and daughters to pass through the fire. Sometimes I hear people talk about how terrible the Lord is in the Old Testament, as if somebody has the right to challenge the maker of all things with how he's dealing with his creation, or as if we know better, a sinful fallen creature. But sometimes they balk at this and they say, this is just terrible. But what they don't always take into account is how terrible the practices are that they're being judged for, those nations. They're being driven out on account of, among other things, they caused their own children to be burned and sacrificed in the fire. Something that never entered God's mind, we're told in the Old Testament. Something that God forbids, just among other things. Well, there's a principle here that applies to us as much as it applied to them. The grace of God, as in their case was giving them the land, the grace of God is not an open invitation to sin. Because what God is telling them is, if you learn to practice these things that those nations are doing, I'll drive you out as well. You don't get a free pass here. You are the people of God and as such are expected to worship and serve me the way those nations should have and didn't and therefore reap certain consequences. So the principle is that the grace of God is not an open invitation to sin. It's not a license to sin. And by the way, it's not just this general principle that applies to us, the specifics apply to us. The New Testament doesn't open the door to any of these practices. In fact, in the book of Revelation, you can go home this afternoon and read chapter 21, chapter 22, both passages, they state it in both cases, it says that those who practice this sort of thing, those who engage in immoral acts, sorceries, for example, it says these will be barred from access to the paradise of God. They will have no part in the Eternal City. Well, Moses, I said, gives more than one reason, he gives also a second. And this one is particularly instructive for us. Perhaps none of you here have ever been even tempted to engage in some of these other things, necromancy and divination and calling up the dead. Maybe those have never been temptations to you, but look at what Moses says in verse 14. He says, for these nations which you will dispossess, listen to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you. Now it might seem that after Moses has already given this rather long list of things that God forbids, that God hates, that he wouldn't need to say anything further. But Moses knew the truth that Calvin, who sat at Moses' feet, would later express when he said that the human mind, fallen in sin, is an idle factory. We just churn out false ways of trying to approach God and know God and so forth. And so, lest the person say, Moses doesn't mention this particular vice, this particular novelty that comes down the pike, Moses says, simply, these things aren't appointed. That's why you're not to do them. And the implication, in other words, is anything that's not appointed by God as a means of communication of His will to us, anything that He has not approved, anything that's a product of our imagination or that of some false prophet or somebody else, is forbidden. It doesn't matter if it's on the list, it is forbidden. Well, that's the first answer that Moses gives. And then we come to that glorious section, verses 15-19, the heart of the passage. Here, Moses tells them that they're not going to have any need to chase after those things. They're not going to have to worry about chasing after these abominable methods because their God, again in His graciousness, is going to raise up for them a prophet. And by the way, this shows you something of how heinous sin is. When somebody sins, they are sinning against God's goodness. It's always against God's goodness. It's never because he hasn't provided what we need. When we chase after other things, such as Sue's saying and so forth, we're chasing after things that we don't need because God has provided for us the actual solution. Well, but what ought to immediately, and especially, arrest your attention here in verses 15 through 19, is that while Moses in context is addressing, as we've seen, an immediate need that the children of Israel had, because Moses is about to die, and even every successive generation after them is going to have it, they're going to have it. Every time this prophet dies, they're going to need somebody else to take his place. But even though Moses is addressing this immediate need, Moses just passes right over all of these prophets that God is going to raise up. We know the history of Israel. We know that God raised up many prophets. Pastor Roddy already mentioned several of them. He mentioned, for example, Elijah. He mentioned John the Baptist just before our Lord entered into his public ministry. Other prophets were raised up by God and Moses spends no time talking about them. He skips right over them. And you can see that he did that because notice in the first place, he does not speak of prophets in the plural. He speaks of a prophet, singular. But further, and here this one you won't necessarily see from your English translation, but he does something interesting. He completely upsets the ordinary order of words in a Hebrew sentence. In other words, he takes the word out of its normal word order and puts it at the beginning of the sentence so that it catches your attention. Any Hebrew reader would have seen this and say, He would catch his attention. Here's this singular term prophet at the beginning of the sentence, out of order. In other words, he was speaking somewhat like Yoda. But he's doing this to draw attention to it. He couldn't highlight it or italicize it. He didn't have a word processor. So one of the ways he did that was by changing the syntax, catching the attention of a Hebrew hearer. But then he did a third thing to indicate that he's throwing all the emphasis on one particular prophet. He tells us that this prophet will be like him. Moses says that this prophet will be like him. Now here you must understand, and as I'm saying this you might want to turn your Bibles to number 12 because I want you to see this from the Word of God. You must understand that being like Moses was not a criteria for prophethood. Now certainly, there had to be certain things that were true of Moses and these other people. But in terms of what's being spoken of here, other prophets did not have to be like Moses in terms of what's being spoken of here. And I'm going to show that to you. So if you're alarmed perhaps a little bit, I'm going to show you. But in Numbers 12, just to give you something of the context, In this context, Miriam and Aaron, the sister and brother of Moses, are basically looking for a reason to complain about Moses. Moses was the paramount leader in Israel, the special voice of God, as I've said. And they're looking for an occasion to sort of bump Moses out of his position or usurp Moses in their pride, the text tells us. And they find a pretense for this, that Moses has taken a Cushite wife. She was a believer. This, I believe, refers to Zipporah. And there's all indication that she was a believer. But she wasn't an Israelite according to the flesh. And so this becomes the pretense. And they speak against Moses. And then this becomes the grounds for them to say, has the Lord only spoken through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us? Okay, so that's what they're after. They're really after the top position. And then we start to read in verse 4, it says, And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting. The Lord Himself is going to speak, He's going to address them. And the three of them came out, and the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. And He said, Hear My words. If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision. I speak to him in a dream, not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed. The Lord is now angry at Miriam and Aaron. If you want to know how that all turns out, you'll have to continue reading. But at this point, what we learn is that Moses was special. There were other prophets in Israel, but they weren't like Moses. And what was it that the Lord said was the special privilege of Moses as his mouthpiece, as his servant, par excellence? It was that he spoke with God directly. He had an intimate relationship with God that the other prophets did not have. Elsewhere this is put as him having a face-to-face relationship with God. Here it says mouth-to-mouth. But Moses spoke with God face-to-face. Something not enjoyed by other prophets. Now I want to show this to you again. We really need to have this down. Look at Deuteronomy 34. And as you turn there, just note that this passage in Deuteronomy, it's the final chapter of the book, the epilogue, and it records for us Moses' death. And so it's recognized, has been recognized in the church for millennia, that this final chapter was added by a later prophet. A later prophet appended this to the Torah, recording for us Moses' death and telling us something about what happened after that. Well, in fact you can read in verse 5 it says, Moses the servant of the Lord, there it is again by the way, the servant of the Lord. Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab. But what I especially want to draw your attention to is verses 10 through 12. Verses 10-12 say, Since that time, since the death of Moses, and the time that this is being recorded by a later prophet, no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. There's that reference, face to face. And for all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land. And for all the mighty power, and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. Here we have a second thing that's noted about Moses. He especially, and like nobody else before or after him, performed wonders on such a massive scale in the sight of all Israel that nobody eclipsed this, as this later prophet tells us. Now this statement, by the way, it's very interesting, it actually follows, and we know that this is what this statement is intended to convey, because it follows immediately upon the comment that Joshua, Moses' longtime aide, had replaced him as the successor of Moses. He was the immediate successor. He was the immediate successor. We're told that Moses even laid his hands on him, did so at the Lord's direction, and the spirit of wisdom was poured out upon him, we're told. And so, for the following comment to say that no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, what you're supposed to see is Joshua was not that prophet. Now, I do think it's uncanny, really providential, inspired, that the one who succeeds Moses, knowing that there's going to be one like Moses to come, is actually named Joshua. You know what the name means, I imagine, most of you, many of you, but for those that perhaps don't, Joshua's original name was not Joshua, it was Hoshea. But it was changed by Moses deliberately to Joshua. And basically it's the same name that our Lord was given at his birth, Jesus. The difference is that Joshua comes translated into English from Hebrew. And Jesus comes to us translated from Greek into English. And so they come out differently. But it's the same Hebrew name. They bore the same name. So even there, in the choice of Joshua, I think God is foreshadowing what was to come. Who would be the true fulfillment of that? Because Joshua certainly wasn't. Verses 10-12 make that clear. Now this isn't just a weak inference. I think it's very solid there. But we can even see in later prophets that the expectation of the prophet like Moses was still alive and well in Israel. They didn't believe that the prophet had yet come. And so, for example, and you don't need to turn to this reference, but in Isaiah 63, just to recap something of what the passage is about, the people of Israel are lingering under the weight of their sin. The nation has now been chastised by God many times for their rebellion. In fact, among the rebellious things that they did was listening to soothsayers and diviners and false prophets and so forth. And so the Lord's hand was heavy against them, just like he said it would be. They had experienced exiles and other things because of the Lord's anger against these detestable practices. But the people recognized the graciousness of God. They know that God is a saving God, a covenant God, a promise-making, promise-keeping God. And so we're told that they began to long for the days of old. The days, in fact, of Moses. They say, where is He who set His Holy Spirit in the midst of them, who went at the right hand of Moses? It speaks of the angel of the Lord going at Moses' right hand, and of the Spirit dwelling in their midst and giving them peace. They're longing for this. In effect, what they're looking for is they want a new Exodus. And that's actually the subject of that long section of Isaiah. They want a new Exodus, which of necessity requires a new Moses. And that's in fact what we see prophesied by Isaiah over and over and over again. One example of that is in Isaiah 42. Listen to what the prophet says. Behold my servant. My servant. It's a reminder of Moses already. But in the context especially, because again, this whole section of Isaiah is talking about a new exodus, the need for a new exodus. And God is here promising a new servant who will lead that exodus. It says, Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. Those words might sound familiar to you. That's in the Greek version of this that the Jews translated before the coming of Jesus. It says, "...in whom I am well pleased." Those are the words that God the Father spoke of the Son at His baptism, you'll recall. But it goes on, "...I have put my Spirit upon Him. He will bring forth justice to the nations." Now this is remarkable. What Isaiah has done here, he's already alluded to Moses and to this person that he's talking about as the new Moses by calling him his servant in the context of these New Exodus passages. But remember that Moses in Deuteronomy 18 said God was going to raise him up for the children of Israel. He'd be from among them, for them, one of your own brethren. But here the prophet escalates what is said about this one. He's not simply going to be for Israel, he'll be for the nations. He will bring forth justice to the nations. In fact, that's even more pointedly stated in another servant passage in Isaiah. Isaiah 49. It says, "...it is too light a thing..." He's talking about his servant. "...it is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." This one is so great. The Lord's favor so entirely rests in Him. He says that it's too small. It's too small for you only to be for the redemption and the reclamation of Israel. You deserve the nations. The nations belong to you. Now when you hear this sort of thing, a ton of passages should come flooding into your mind. Already it should be obvious this is messianic. The whole thing is messianic. From Deuteronomy 18 on. It's messianic. Psalm 2, where the nations are promised to the Son. The Lord said to me, you are my son, this day I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession. And it's also a reminder of the great Abrahamic promise. Long before Moses, when God told Abraham that he would be given a seed, and through that seed, all nations and families on earth would be blessed. So this is the theme that runs throughout the Bible, and these passages all hang together. They all are messianic. They all point to the same thing. Well, this prophecy then in Deuteronomy 18, illuminated by other passages in the Torah, in the Law of Moses, that we've seen, Numbers 12, Deuteronomy 34, as well as these later prophetic references filling it out, all of them tend in this direction, pointing us already to what you knew when you walked in here and when you heard that. I'm sure you didn't hear it, Deuteronomy 18, and wonder who the prophet was speaking about. You weren't like the Ethiopian eunuch. Remember when he was, when Philip came to him and he's reading the prophet Isaiah and He says, who's this talking about? I don't know. And Philip explains it to him. Well, you came in here this morning already knowing. But there's one special thing that I want to highlight here in how our Lord fulfills this. Maybe you've never thought of this, but it's glorious. It's altogether glorious. How does our Lord fulfill this? We don't have time. If I can borrow a line from the author of Hebrews, time would fail us if we tried to show all the ways the Lord Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. It would fail us. The Lord Jesus fulfills it in countless ways. But there's one special way that I want to emphasize. Recall that the distinguishing feature of Moses' uniqueness as a prophet was that he spoke face-to-face with God. And he performed miracles. We'll throw that one in too. Maybe we'll say something about that. I'm told you're not supposed to say we in the pulpit, pardon me. But you're also probably not supposed to correct yourself. The chief distinguishing characteristic of Moses is that he spoke face-to-face with God. But there's something very interesting, something you'll probably all be reminded of suddenly as I say this. But remember what happens in Exodus 33? Right after, in 3310, it says that Moses spoke face-to-face with God. We have one of those face-to-face encounters. But then just 10 or 11 verses later, Moses says, Lord, show me your glory. And how does the Lord reply? No man can see my face and live, Moses. What's going on here? Is this a contradiction? On the one hand, we're told that Moses spoke face-to-face with God. That was his chief distinguishing characteristic, his main claim to fame. But then ten verses later, we're told that he could not see God face-to-face. What we're given here, essentially, is that even though Moses saw God face-to-face, this was an accommodation to Moses. Even in the case of Moses, God had to humble himself to some extent. He had to lower himself. Calvin used to say that in Scripture, every word of God is like a parent lisping to a little child. God has to lisp to us in his word, and he has to condescend to us. Pastor Roddy prayed earlier of the greatness of God and how marvelous it is that he would condescend to us. Puny creatures. Creatures of dust. The infinite God who spoke worlds into existence. That God condescends and speaks to us. Well, in speaking to Moses, God has to condescend. And so there's a sense in which Moses doesn't get the full reality of this face-to-face encounter with God. It went beyond that of any other prophet. But it had its limits. Oh, but what about our Lord Jesus? What about our Lord Jesus? Did He have a face-to-face relationship with God? Did it fall short of that which Moses asked for and was denied? Certainly not in John 1,1. You probably heard me say this passage so many times, but there's so much there. In John 1,1 it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the force of it in the Greek is that the Word was towards God. The Word was face to face with God. And then it says, and the Word was God. The Word could be in this eternal face-to-face relationship with God without being consumed, as Moses would have been, because the Word is everything that God is. The Word is God, John tells us. In fact, we're told in verse 18, it says, No man has seen God at any time. This is John 1, 118, the prologue, the end of it. No man has seen God at any time. Not even Moses in this sense. But God, the one and only, or the only begotten God in the ESV. It says, He has made Him known. He has made Him known because He has seen the Father. And this is very instructive, incredibly instructive, beyond, again, this in itself just opened wide to make many points. But one of the implications of this is that no person can know the Father apart from the Son. And so, in one sense, this allows us to say, this is how the prophecy is relevant, first of all, to that generation. Because it means that the voice of authority who spoke through Moses was the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of any knowledge that we have of God. In fact, we're even told in the New Testament that it was by the Spirit of Christ that the prophets spoke. So it was always the Spirit of Christ in them who bore witness. And who bore witness, in fact, to His own future coming when He would speak to us through His own lips and not through that of other prophets. And so this is how Moses' statement to them is not irrelevant. They could look forward to that future prophet because that future prophet would be speaking to them already as He had already been speaking to them through Moses. And that's why it's also relevant to us, because in these last days He has come in the flesh and spoken to us directly. And that's what the author of Hebrews tells us. And by the way, this tells us something further. Because the Lord Jesus is that perfect representation of God, the author of Hebrews puts it this way, he says, He is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of His nature. And that's why the author of Hebrews can say that the revelation of God is finished, final, in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no further need for any prophets to come after Him. The author of Hebrews says, in the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at various times and in many ways, but in these last days He has spoken, and the tense there means it's definitive, it's final, He has spoken to us by His Son. So with the coming of the Lord Jesus as the full embodiment of what God is, the revelation of God to us is complete. Once the New Testament Scriptures are put down in writing for us, everything that we needed to know about Him, there was nothing further that we needed. I'm often reminded, by the way, when... when people suggest that they need these other methods of knowing God, further dreams, further visions, tongues, and words of wisdom, and all the things that people come up with. One of the things I'm quickly reminded of is the passage in John 14. John's Gospel, so it's part of that same theme we've already seen in the prologue. In John's Gospel, do you remember what happens when Philip comes up to Jesus? Jesus has just gotten through saying, I'm going to the Father, and don't worry, I'm the way, the truth and the life, I'm the way to the Father. You know the way, you don't have to worry that I'm leaving. And He's going to tell them, He's not going to leave them as orphans, He's going to give His Spirit to them to be with them. He'll indwell them, and they'll be His mouthpieces. But Philip says to Jesus, Lord, this is great. I'm paraphrasing here. This is great and all, but just show us the Father. Show us the Father's glory, similar to Moses' question. Show us the Father and that will be sufficient for us. I like to think of Philip as sort of a Pentecostal at the time of the Lord Jesus. He wanted something more than Jesus. He wanted more, more information. How does Jesus reply to him? Thomas, have you been with me so long and you don't know me? He who has seen me has seen the Father. The one who spoke with God face to face from all eternity, who is all that God is, who is the radiance of His glory, has come in the flesh, they've beheld Him. And they're asking for something more. Well, that's essentially what people are doing when they chase after other words and believe that there are further things to be had other than what they have in Jesus. I worked at a... Christian bookstore in my early 20s before I worked for Mr. Bland. But I worked at this bookstore and I remember at one point they hired this guy on who was something of a youth pastor, as he explained it to me, a part-time youth pastor. I don't know what that meant. He was a part-time youth pastor, and we were talking, and one of the things he really wanted to talk about was dreams and visions. And I just have to be honest with you, that whole conversation nauseates me. I think, to begin with, there's so much in Scripture, I wonder how you have time for these other things. The Scriptures are rich, I've already told you several times, I can't go down this road because there's so much here. But this guy was talking, and I remember I kept trying to direct the discussion to Jesus. I wanted to talk about Christ. And so finally, I thought I had my in, I said to him, I said, If you were to meet a guy on the street and he had five minutes to live, what would you tell that man? Would you talk to him about dreams and visions and how you talk in tongues and so forth? I said, what would you tell him in those minutes? And I'm assuming, I was assuming in good faith that he would give me the right answer. And he was befuddled. And so I thought I'd help him out a little bit and give him a jump start. I said, well, for example, you'd begin, you'd tell him, maybe, that man has fallen in sin and God's angry with sinners, but he has provided a solution in his son, the Lord Jesus, who is both God and man. He was God, he became man, he's the second person of the Trinity. And the guy said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, what are you talking about? I said, what do you mean, what am I talking about? What do you mean, whoa? And he said, Jesus is God. I said, where are you hearing that? He says, I've never heard that before in my life. And I used to have a pretty quick tongue back in those days. Maybe I still do a little bit. But I said, yeah, you've never heard that before in your life. It's because you're listening to the voices in your head. You're not listening to the voice of Christ speaking in Scripture. Because it's very clear in Scripture. But maybe not clearly articulated by those voices that you're listening to other than Christ. Remember, that's the great requirement, the burden of the prophecy. Over and over again in the ESV it says, listen to him, other translations, hear him. That's what's repeated. This prophet's going to come, hear him. Now consider just how egregious it is not to listen to that person once he's come. In other words, not to listen to Jesus. What does this mean? Remember what happened when Miriam and Aaron opposed Moses? Because he was the unique prophet that God had raised up, we spoke with him mouth to mouth. It says, the Lord's anger burned against them. How much more must the Lord's anger burn against those who refuse to listen to his Son, the greater Moses, the man in whom all his favor rests? How much greater must it burn? There's more here in the prophecy. I won't spend too much time in this latter part, but it provides a great contrast for us. In verses 20 through 22, Moses goes on and he tells them, here's some criteria. If there's going to be a prophet that's raised up, you're going to need to have some things to ferret out false prophets from true prophets. And so Moses tells them some of those things in verses 20 through 22. There's a number of things here. I'm not going to comment on all of them. You can see them yourself. But one of the things it says, notice, it says that if they speak in the name of other gods, don't listen to them. And in Deuteronomy 13, we're told even if they perform a sign or wonder, you're not supposed to listen to them. Everything that God says must be true of that person. None of the criteria can be missing. Everything has to be there. It's a package deal. They have to speak in the name of the true God. If they claim to be the prophet like Moses, they better have miracles. Moses performed miracles. That was part of his chief distinguishing characteristic. All these things must be true of him. Well, we have an interesting contrast, I mentioned, a relevant one to us, in the founder of Islam. Some of you know that I spend a lot of time interacting with Muslims. But just to mention one thing here that's very interesting, very relevant. Muslims believe that Deuteronomy 18 is actually a prediction about Muhammad. He needed something to give him some credence and so he appealed to the earlier scriptures. And he said that this passage was about him. But you know what's interesting? One of the interesting things about Muhammad was he eschewed the very idea that anyone could have a direct encounter with God. And not just other people, but himself included. He said that, I have never seen him. And the description that he gives of the being whom he did encounter, which he later would tell people was an angel, is positively downright demonic when you listen to it. This being would manhandle him, would choke him, would throw him to the ground, and when Mohamed would get these revelations, he would flop around on the ground, his eyes would roll back in his head, he would hear ringing in his ears, he would froth at the mouth. This is either a description of epilepsy or demon possession. It looks like the Gadarene demoniac in the Gospel of John. Well, not to leave you on that note, but I do want to make at least some comment there of the value of that final concluding comment in verses 20-22, but I don't want to leave you on that. Going back to John 5, the passage Pastor Roddy read for you this morning, I wonder if you noticed several things. The one thing that should have been clear is when Jesus said, if you don't believe in me, then you're ultimately not believing in Moses. Because if you believed Moses, you'd believe me. Moses wrote about me. So Jesus is obviously saying he is the one of whom Moses spoke in passages like Deuteronomy 18. No passage fits what Jesus is referring to there better than Deuteronomy 18. But what you might not have noticed were several other things. Now we didn't read the whole context. It's a very long context. But just to give you some of that, in John 5, Jesus has just healed a man who had a withered arm. He's restored this arm to life. The arm is gone and Jesus restores it. The Pharisees get upset for this dastardly deed. They don't like the fact that Jesus has healed a man's arm, just like when Jesus healed the blind man. Jesus did that terrible thing of giving a man sight and they were all upset. I imagine you'd all be upset, you know, your hurt back or whatever it might be that you're struggling with were healed. And you'd want to kill Jesus too, right? Well, they did. And what happens is they accuse him of violating the Sabbath and Jesus said, my father's been working to this day and I too am working. I'm just doing what my father does. And what that leads to is they say that you're blaspheming because you're claiming to be the Son of God. You're claiming to be all that God is. You're claiming to be equal with God. And that's not acceptable. And then Jesus gives this long description and context of just what he's doing and how this is all proven and why they should be listening to him and so forth. But one of the things he does is he draws from the Jewish custom of a father discipling his child or training his child in his trade. So, for example, in some Gospels you read that, in Mark's Gospel, you read that Jesus was a carpenter. In another Gospel you read he was the son of a carpenter. Well, he was a carpenter precisely because his father was a carpenter. He was in his father's workshop watching what his father does. Everything that he saw his father, his earthly father, his adoptive father, Joseph, everything he saw him doing he was imitating. His father builds a bench, he builds a bench. That's what he's doing. And what Jesus is saying is, it's just like that between me and God the Father. I have always been at his side. And everything he does, I behold. I behold him. I see him. I do exactly what I see my Father doing. You see the implication. He sees the Father. He's always seen the Father. Just like an earthly child sees his father. And then he goes on to say about those who rejected him. What does he say? He says, you have never at any time heard his voice or seen his form. What's the implication? I have. I have seen his form. What is it that Moses was distinguished at? He saw the form of the Lord. And Jesus is saying, I've seen the Father, and I've seen Him from all eternity. And that is our great comfort, is it not? The One who has spoken to us can speak to us finally. He can speak to us authoritatively, declaratively. Every way under the sun that's relevant to us, He can do it. And we can trust it. We can believe it to be true. It's not second-hand information. Jesus knows the Father. He's been with the Father from all eternity. That's why Jesus said, for example, in Matthew 11, I don't recall if I quoted it already, but it bears repeating. Matthew 11, Jesus says, no man knows the Son except the Father. Nobody knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. So Father and Son have an absolute knowledge of each other. But we have a revealed knowledge. Jesus has to choose to reveal it to us, and he has. That's the glory of it in Scripture. In 2 Corinthians 3, the Apostle tells us about the great contrast between the Old Covenant and the New. And among the contrasts that he paints there is the contrast between that partial knowledge that Moses brought and the greater knowledge that Jesus brought. He says that Moses saw the glory of God face to face, and he had to veil his face, remember? Because the people were frightened to see this, so he had to veil his face. But in Christ we're told that veil is removed, and we behold God face to face in the person of Christ. Obviously we only see it dimly to some extent through the scriptures because we don't yet have that immediate face-to-face relationship with Christ. But we do have it through the scriptures and by the Spirit applied to us even now. And we long, this is the great longing, this is the great thing that we're looking forward to, and this we'll close with. The great thing that we're looking for is to behold God face-to-face. And what are we told will happen on that day? That we will be transformed into His likeness. But that's what's happening even now as we hear His Word and we see Him in some sense in Scripture. He is transforming us into His image. And for that reason we should look to the Lord Jesus Christ always and seek that greater conformity to His image that we have promised to us in Him. And with that, let us pray. Lord, we thank you for Christ. We thank you that he is all in all, that he is sufficient for us, that we need nothing beyond him. We pray that we would always look to him and only to him and not turn to abominable ways, ways that are displeasing to you, ways that you have not approved. And we pray that we would do that and that we would live in terms of it and we would seek his face and we would seek to glorify him in order that we might on that day, that great day, behold him as he is. And it's in his name we pray. Amen. At this time, please stand and let us sing, Be Thou My Vision, number 642. you