Sermon Deuteronomy 18:15-20 God Will Raise a Prophet for You

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon Deuteronomy 18:15-20 God Will Raise a Prophet for You

First Presbyterian Church of Ocean City MD

February 1, 2015

Good morning. It is a great pleasure for Grace and me to be able to worship with you this morning. As your Interim pastor it is my role to equip the congregation to discern God's call for a new pastor. You have said goodbye to Alex and his family. You are welcoming Grace and me. And it is appropriate at this time of transition to look carefully at the roles of pastors, elders and members of church. We will get to this, but first let's pray.

Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy Heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen. (John Calvin)

Moses was approaching the end of his life. After forty years of leadership of the people of God and at the age of 120 Moses was ready to move on. God had told him that he would not be accompanying the people as they entered the promised land. So Moses began preaching sermons about the transition. And in today's scripture we read about the role of the prophet. Let's listen to Moses.

Deuteronomy 18:15-20NIV 15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”

In the ancient world there were three branches of government not unlike the branches we have in government today. In Washington we have the Congress, President and Supreme Court. In the ancient world they had priests, elders and prophets. Let's look at each of these.

The ancient priests were church workers. They all came from the tribe of Levi. Their job was to do what was necessary to facilitate the worship of the LORD God of Israel. When the people of were on move in the wilderness they would carry the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant containing the ten commandments and anything else needed for worship. When a new source of water and grazing land was found they would setup the tabernacle and commence worship of God. When the water and grazing land dried up the Levites would pack everything up and move on.

So who might be the Levites, the levitical priests, in this church today? The Protestant reformers were quite clear about this. All believers in Jesus Christ are priests. So, all of you are priests. And that means that you do the work of facilitating the worship of God. You provide the resources and effort needed for the church to function. You teach Sunday School classes. You sing in the choir. You prepare the sign out front. You fold the bulletins. You bring food for today's lunch and you cook breakfast. You care for the sick, the aged, and the poor. You, the congregation, are today's levitical priests. And from what I can see so far you take this job very seriously, and you work very hard at it.

The second branch of government in the ancient world, in addition to the levitical priests were the tribal elders. The responsibility of the elders was to make sure that the Law of Moses, the Torah, the first five books of our Old Testament, was read aloud to everyone in the tribe every seven years. And they were responsible for enforcing the Law of Moses in their tribes. Elders became judges with the responsibility of seeing God's will being done in the community. To do this God provided for them the Holy Spirit.

So who in today's church performs the role of the tribal elder? This would be the ruling elders of the church. The ruling elders on session are responsible for having the Word of God proclaimed here in Ocean City. They do this by providing for and maintaining a building where the God's word can be proclaimed each Sunday. They purchase Bibles and hymnals and musical instruments. They hire secretaries, musical directors and teaching elders. The teach adults, children and youth. And they make sure all the bills are paid. These are our elders, and from what I see so far they take their job very seriously and work very hard.

So far we have looked at the levitical priests and the tribal elders who had similar roles to the members and elders of this church. Now let's turn to the final branch of government in Moses' day. This was the office of the prophet.

The people in Moses' day needed a prophet to speak with God. They were afraid to speak with God by themselves. They were literally scared to death. If they came into God's presence without being pure and holy they would instantly die. So they had to find someone with sufficient holiness and courage to go into the presence of God with their petitions and ask God for his favor. They had a prophet for 40 years, Moses. But now with Moses' retirement they needed to find someone else. And Moses told them what to look for.

The first thing that Moses told them was that the selection of a prophet was not their choice to make. God chooses his own prophets and raises them up. So the people, priests and elders all had to enter into a discernment process to find who it was that God had selected to serve a prophet.

The second thing that Moses told them was that the prophet God would select would come from them. God would not select a prophet from outside of the worshiping community. Rather the prophet would have shown himself worthy by living a holy life, meditating regularly on the Word of God, and engaging in worship every Sabbath.

The third thing that Moses told them was that the prophet God would select from their midst would be given God's own words to speak to the people. This meant that everything the prophet spoke must come out of a rich prayer life and dedicated study of the word of God. A prophet who loved God and diligently prepared would then be able to proclaim God's word to the people of God.

There were two tests that people were to apply to a prophet's words to see if that prophet was true or false. The first was that the message of the prophet had to be consistent with the teachings of Moses that their was only one God, the LORD God of Israel? And the second was that the message of the prophet had to be consistent with the experience of the people of God. In other words, did a prophet's prophecy turn out to be true?

So who today would have the same role as a prophet in Moses' day. Who comes into the presence of God daily in prayer? Who diligently studies the Word of God. Who loves God more that anything else? Who loves the people of God? Well, this would be a pastor.

The pastor of the church must pray and meditate on scripture every day. The pastor of the church must diligently study the Word of God. The pastor of the church must be called by God from a worshiping community. And if the pastor's word's are consistent with the Word of God in scripture, and directs the people's attention to God as revealed in Jesus Christ then they are the Word of God for the congregation.

The protestant reformer Heinrich Bullinger, writing in the Second Helvetic Confession put it this way:

“Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be invented nor is to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good.”

So as we look for a new pastor what are we looking for? Well, we want a man or woman who was a faithful member of a Presbyterian church. We want someone who was called by God into ministry. We want someone with sufficient education and self study that he or she knows the Bible well. We want someone who prays and meditates on scripture every day and develops sermons from his or her prayer life and study. When we find this person his or her words will be for us the word of God.

There is one thing that a pastor cannot do that the prophets of Moses's day did. A pastor cannot come into the direct presence of God. A pastor cannot be holy enough. No pastor is free from sin. No pastor has clean enough hands to come before God's throne. Pastors need their own mediator. They need someone who is holy enough to appear in the presence of God. Who might this mediator be?

It is Jesus Christ, who lived a sinless life and now stands before God on our behalf. Jesus Christ hears our prayers and communicates them to God. Jesus Christ hears God's response and whispers it in our ears. So in looking for a new pastor you want someone who has a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.

So now we go about the work of the church. The priests have prepared a table for all of us. The elders have hired an interim pastor to proclaim God's word and administer the sacrament of communion this day. And we are about to offer up our prayers to Jesus Christ our mediator with God. Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, we come before you today in worship. We have heard the word of God read and proclaimed. We are about to join with you in communion around this table. And we are about to offer up our prayers. We ask you to listen to these prayers and bring them to your Father in heaven. Amen.