St John's Lutheran Church, Woodstock, IL http://www.stjohnswoodstock.com Feed of sermons preached at St John's Lutheran Church Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:00:00 GMT en-us Manual RSS Feed Generator (c) St John's Lutheran Church, Woodstock, IL Listen to the Prophet!

Listen to the Prophet!

Sermon Preached by Rev. Thomas W. Larson
Season of Epiphany – January 29, 2012
St. John's Lutheran Church, Woodstock, Illinois


Today's text: Deuteronomy 18:15-20
[Moses said:] "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."


Would you please pray with me:

Lord God, loving heavenly Father, we thank and praise You for how You spoke through the prophets, telling of the Messiah, the Savior, who was to come into the world. And we thank and praise You for how You have spoken through Christ Jesus, spoken words of amazing grace and unfailing love, words of truth. And we thank and praise You, heavenly Father, for how You continue to speak, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, through the prophets of today. We ask Your blessing to be upon this time of meditation, as we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text for our meditation this morning is the Old Testament lesson from Deuteronomy, chapter eighteen. In verse fifteen, the first verse of our text this morning, it says, "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" [Deuteronomy 18:15].

The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Pentateuch, those first five books of the Old Testament, written by Moses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In the Book of Deuteronomy, the people of Israel have journeyed from their enslavement in Egypt to the Promised Land. It's been a long forty years in the wilderness. Now they stand at the border of the Promised Land, and so the Book of Deuteronomy is full of teaching for the people. Our text brings assurance to the people that although Moses will no longer be with them as they journey into the Promised Land, God will not let them go unled or unspoken to — He is going to raise up a prophet.

There are a couple of questions that can come to mind as we look at that first verse that we need to understand if we are to deal properly with this text. First of all, when we're talking about a prophet, what are we talking about? If we look at the Old Testament, we can think of some of the prophets — the prophet Elijah, the prophet Elisha, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel; we could go on and on. What those prophets did was they proclaimed God's word to the people of God. They proclaimed words of Law, warning the people against sin, and they proclaimed words of Gospel, telling the good news of a God of love and a God of forgiveness, a God of life, a God of hope, a God of peace. The prophets were proclaimers, preachers, if you would, of the word of God.

So who is this prophet that's being spoken about in this text? In order to understand that we look to other passages in Scripture to make sure we have a right handle on it. This passage is used a couple of times in the Book of Acts in the New Testament. First of all, in Acts, chapter three, Peter uses this verse. In conjunction with the use of this verse, Peter says God has raised up this servant [Acts 3:26a]; in other words, God has kept His promise, the promise made through Moses in our Old Testament text for today. God has raised up this servant, Peter says, and then he goes on to say, "... sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness" [Acts 3:26b]. Jesus came to turn people away from sin, to turn people away from their wickedness, to turn people toward God.

If you remember last weekend, our sermon text came from Mark, chapter one. During the Epiphany season, we find out who it is that Jesus is; He's revealed to us. Last week we found that Jesus came into this world to be a prophet, to be a preacher, proclaiming the Gospel of God. In fact, last week's Gospel lesson, if you remember, gave us three points of the message that Jesus proclaimed. First of all, he said, "The time is fulfilled;" in other words, God had kept His promise. There stood the Messiah, there stood the Promised One of the Old Testament in their midst. The time was fulfilled — Jesus was here. In the second part of His message, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is at hand;" in other words, there stood the King. Jesus was there, and He's the one who brings us into God's kingdom, for we can't come to the Father any other way. There is only one way, there is only one truth, there is only one life — that way, that truth, that life is Jesus Christ. He's the one who served as our Savior, who went to the cross for us, suffered and died for us, rose for us on Easter morning. Then Jesus called upon the people and said, "Repent and believe in the gospel." Repent. Jesus called upon people, just as Peter was saying in Acts, chapter three, to turn away from their wickedness, to turn back to God. God spoke through Jesus.

In Acts, chapter seven, once more this verse from Deuteronomy, chapter eighteen, verse fifteen, this prophet who is to come was referred to by the man named Stephen. If you remember, Stephen was one of those seven men chosen — remember they were taking care of the widows, and the disciples had so much to do that they asked God's people to select seven men who would take care of this important duty, and Stephen was one of those seven men who was selected for that important duty. Stephen confessed his faith in Jesus Christ and he became a martyr. Just before being stoned to death, Stephen quotes this verse [from Deuteronomy]. In conjunction with quoting that verse, he talks to the people about how they had betrayed and murdered the Righteous One. So obviously, he's talking about Jesus.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy in our text. The problem was, although Jesus called upon them to turn away from their wickedness, they didn't listen. They didn't listen to Jesus; in fact, they rejected Him and His message. They crucified Him. Of course, the good news is that He didn't stay dead. They crucified Him but death could not keep under its power. We have a God of life, a God who has power over death and the grave. So on Easter morning, Jesus rises from the grave and He proclaims victory — victory over sin, victory over death, victory over Satan himself. He won. Jesus rose. Jesus lives. By God's grace, His winning is our victory. He rises and so, the Bible promises, we too will rise. He lives and we have the promise that because our Redeemer lives, we too will live, and we will live eternally. What good news that is for us to share this morning and week after week as we gather here in worship.

So what can you and I take from this text, from Deuteronomy, chapter eighteen, our text for this morning? How do we listen to Jesus today? In Ephesians, chapter four, Saint Paul talks about gifts that Christ has given to His Church, gifts in people that Christ has given to His Church. Among those people listed as gifts to His Church are pastors and teachers, pastors and teachers sent by Christ to equip the saints, to equip God's people, for works of ministry. How do they do that? By the preaching of God's Word, by the teaching of God's Word, because God's Word has the power to change people. Remember that God works on us from the inside out. God changes hearts. We so often sing those beautiful words of King David: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." God does that by the power of the Word as He calls us to turn away from wickedness and to turn to Christ and there find forgiveness and there find life, there find salvation in Jesus Christ.

Saint Paul, writing to a young pastor by the name of Timothy, said to him, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" [2 Timothy 2:15]. How is it that a pastor, or any one of us, rightly handles the Word of truth? Again, in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter four, verse two, God gives directions on how to handle His Word; He says, "Do not add to what I command you, and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you." We rightly handle the Word of truth when we do not add new teachings to the Word. And I always think, why add new teachings? We're not so good at keeping the old ones, so why add anything more to it? And we certainly keep God's Word when we don't subtract from it. When God's Word makes a claim, we don't say, "Well, you know, it was different back then and it's different now." We keep God's Word as it is. Those points are really made in the last two verses of this morning's text.

Look at verse nineteen; it says, "Whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him" [Deuteronomy 18:19]. I don't know about you, but that last part was kind of confusing to me. What does it mean, "I myself will require it of him"? In looking at it in the NIV translation, it's a little bit clearer; it says, "I myself will call him to account." Those who show lack of respect for the Word of God, who don't listen to it, who don't heed its instructions, they will be held accountable. A defense is not, "I didn't know any better." That won't cut it on Judgment Day. God has given us His Word so that we will know better, so that we will heed its instructions, so that we will live by it, so that we will fix our eyes on Jesus.

Then the last verse, verse twenty; it says, "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." [Deuteronomy 18:20]. That's a pretty big warning for those who proclaim God's Word, for those who preach God's Word — they, too, are held accountable. For them to speak God's Word and call it God's warning when God hasn't said it, they'll be held accountable. Look in Jeremiah, chapter twenty-three. In that twenty-third chapter of Jeremiah the Lord says, "I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, 'The LORD declares' " [Jeremiah 23:31]. He will call them to account.

But there's also a word in that verse, a caution to the hearers of God's Word. So often people quote the Bible, "Do not judge." Here's a case where you had better judge. You'd better judge those who proclaim the Word of God. Are they actually proclaiming it or their own dreams, their own thoughts, their own whatever. In the Book of Acts there's a story that I really like; it's the story of Saint Paul's missionary journey, and he's in the city of Berea. He brings the Word of God to the Bereans there. It says that after Paul preached to them, proclaimed to them, they went and they search the holy Scriptures to see if what he said was true [see Acts 17:11]. What a wonderful example — an example for those who hear the Word of God that they judge what is being proclaimed to them, not by their own thoughts and attitudes, but they judge that word by using the Word, by studying the Scriptures, by examining if what was said to them is true.

God says, "Listen to the prophets, listen to the prophet." He called upon people to listen to His Son. He calls upon people to continue to listen to the prophets today — to listen to God's Word that calls people away from wickedness and to Him who has forgiveness, to His Son, Jesus Christ, to the one who died and who rose again, who has won the victory. May God bless us as we continue to proclaim and hear God's Word and strive to live by that Word so that our lives might be a blessing here until that day when God calls us home. Amen.

Now may the peace of God, a peace that far surpasses all understanding, guard and protect our hearts and minds in the victory that is ours in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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