The sermon 'Prophecy of a Prophet, Priest and King' by Scott Brown explores Deuteronomy 18:15-22, emphasizing its prophetic significance regarding Jesus Christ as a prophet, mediator, and king. The sermon connects the Old Testament prophecy to the New Testament, showing how Jesus fulfills the role of a prophet greater than Moses. It highlights the necessity of a mediator due to human sinfulness and God's holiness, illustrating this need with examples of physical impairments and spiritual blindness. Through historical and biblical context, the sermon underscores the importance of recognizing Jesus' authority and the dangers of false prophets. It emphasizes the continuity between the Old and New Testaments, urging believers to honor and obey God's authority, and to fear God rather than man. The sermon concludes by affirming Jesus as the ultimate prophet, priest, and king, providing guidance, salvation, and authority.

Deuteronomy 18 verse 15 to 22. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear according to all you desire of the Lord your God 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 say to me, what they have spoken is good. I will rise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him. But a prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the things does not happen or come to pass, that is the things which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken impressively.

You shall not be afraid of him." Father, I thank you for your word. You say that your word is a light unto our paths, and we prepare in our hearts, Father, to hear the message of today. Please help us to keep your word in our hearts. In Jesus' name. We have a very, very special opportunity this morning to enter into many of the details that display the glory of the gospel.

And this is a marvelous opportunity for us this morning to find ourselves saturated in the gospel because Every word here is a portent of the gospel. This text is one of the most frequently quoted texts in Deuteronomy in the New Testament. So it's very important to New Testament writers. But what we find here is the great assistance of God toward his people. He gives his people assistance to see the fire and to hear the voice of God.

That's what is on the table here, as well as many other things. And it reminds, it just reminds me of how much assistance we need to hear from God. Every person here sitting needs assistance. We need help from the Holy Spirit. We need God's help to know anything, to change anything, to be anything before God.

We are so dependent upon Him. And here we find that God gives sight to the blind and he gives hearing to those who cannot hear. It's a very interesting imagery that's here, the seeing the fire and hearing the voice because right here in our own congregation we have a very young man and a very well sort of an older woman who is, on the one hand, the younger having trouble with hearing and the other having trouble seeing. My own mother has had terrible trouble seeing lately. She Maybe didn't know this, but up until yesterday, she has been seeing two of you every time you would walk up to her.

When she's been looking at me every Sunday morning, she sees two. When she gets in the car, well, you know what that means. And so she hasn't been driving quite that much. So instead of closing one eye to see just one, to see the actual figure, she thinks, she has actually yesterday received a miraculous set of glasses. And now she sees one.

She will actually see you, not two of you. She won't see several hundred people here this morning. She'll just see however many people are here this morning. On the other end of the scale, we have a young man, David Hagen, who cannot hear very well at all. He's receiving great assistance and I believe because of an electronic device he is able to hear my voice preaching to him this morning.

When he is here I'm consciously praying that he will hear the voice of the preaching of the Word of God, even at his very young age of around two years old. But he's receiving assistance to hear. He could not hear without help. And this passage of Scripture, I think, is so beautiful because it shows us how much help we need to see the fire and to hear the voice. Now the context of this passage here is really, has grown out of what we read in Exodus chapter 19, where the people of Israel are found to be shaken and terrified because they saw the fire and they heard the voice and it was terrifying to them.

The glory of God was expressing itself not in a gentle rain, but in thunder and lightning and terror and it was absolutely chilling them to the bone. They saw the glory of God and they saw the wretchedness of their sinfulness. And there they are at the base of the mountain of Sinai with the thick darkness and the clouds. And it was a picture of terror, the terror of God, of knowing that your sins are exposed. Imagine if right now all of our sins were exposed through the loudspeaker and they were just enumerated one by one.

Jerry Orr thought this on the way here today. Dan Horn did that yesterday. What a terrible thing. We would not want to know all of the things that we have done because they are so enormously despicable to God. But what would we do?

What would we do before a holy God? This text helps us to see what has been done. So God spoke out of the midst of the fire. In Deuteronomy 433 we read this, has anyone heard the voice of God and survived? Well if you hear the voice of God regarding your sins, you don't survive.

No one survives without the blood of Jesus Christ. And we do hear the voice of God and survive under the ministry of His blood. God spoke out of the midst of the fire. They heard the sound of words. They saw no form, but there was only a voice.

And this voice and then the context that seeded that voice, the thunder, the lightning, the thick darkness, was a terrifying thing. And what happened there at the base of the mountain is that they realized that they did fall short of the glory of God. And they needed a mediator, so they cried out for a mediator. And Moses recognized, because God helped him to see it that they were right and they did need a mediator and the mediator that they were given was Moses at that time and he stood between God and the people because sin separates us from God. God is holy.

We are profane. And because we are who we are, we need a mediator. And because being mere men, we cannot take care of our problem on our own. So God here in this passage of Scripture gives us a prophecy of another prophet greater than Moses, another mediator greater than Moses. And so here in this passage, God meets sinful mankind and he gives him assistance.

He gives them eyes to see, he gives them ears to hear, and he gives them the help that they need. He gives three things. A prophet to teach us how to think and how we ought to live. He gives us a mediator or a priest to deal with sin in our lives And he gives us a king to serve as this king has singular authority. Now this passage of scripture gets, like I said, a lot of air time in the New Testament.

For example, Peter and John were actually arrested and thrown into prison for quoting this text. They were preaching in Solomon's portico and they were connecting this prophecy with the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 4 we learn that the scribes and Pharisees were greatly disturbed. They did not like this connection. They did not like it that Peter and John were connecting this prophecy with Jesus.

So 1, 400 years after this prophecy, Peter and John are preaching this text to the people in Solomon's portico. And the same, a very similar thing happened with Stephen. He's preaching out of this text in Acts chapter 7, and he connects Deuteronomy 18 with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the prophet who fulfills this prophecy of the coming prophet. So here we find in the book of Acts, two men are thrown into prison. Another man is stoned by preaching this dangerous message that Jesus Christ is the prophet that was foretold from the beginning.

And so Deuteronomy 18 is a discussion that, as you know, as you've been tracking with us in our studies in Deuteronomy, is continuing a discussion that began in 1618. I want to refresh our memory for how this fits in Moses' argument here. As you know, Deuteronomy is composed of three sermons. The first sermon is from one through four, and then the second sermon is a much longer sermon. And we're right in the middle of it now that ends in, I believe, chapter 27.

So Moses has been expounding on the fifth commandment, on the principle of honor and authority, that children should honor their fathers and their mothers. And that principle forms really the structure of society. Honor begins in the home, And then it's also delegated to civil authorities. And ultimately, all authority comes from God. So those who would throw off authority, those who would hate the authorities that God has given them, are finding themselves actually contrary to the authority of God, because it is God himself who establishes all authority.

So in 1618 what we read is that is that God gives instructions for appointing judges and officers and That's why we have judges and officers in our society. Most governments of the world have taken the cue here from scripture and have appointed officers and judges in the civil realm. And then in chapter 17, verse 1, God explains his authority over worship, that worship should be toward him alone. And he abolishes all idolatrous worship. And then in 178, Moses tells the people how to deal with difficult matters.

If you have a difficult matter and your officers and your judges can't solve it, what do you do? You take that matter to the priests and the Levites. And when you share that matter with the priests and the Levites, they go back to Holy Scripture. They come back with an answer. And then you're required to do what the priests and the Levites command you to do.

And so there's this whole system of authority that God is establishing. And then in 1715, Moses broadens out the discussion and he talks about how you appoint kings and what are kings supposed to do. Remember that beautiful passage, what are kings supposed to do? They're supposed to write out the law in their hand and they should keep it and meditate on it all the days of their lives. I know perhaps, I actually met a young man in our church yesterday who is actually writing out portions of scripture by hand.

This is a marvelous thing to do. This is something that God commanded kings to do. If you would be a king, submit yourself and write the Word of God in your own hand and meditate on it. You have to go so slow. But God gives directions to kings what they should and what they shouldn't do, what they should do with money and horses and women, and what they should stay away from.

And that they should place as the center, the epistemological center of their lives is the written word of God. So God here is giving the people all kinds of ways to understand how authority works in the world, because he has established authority for his own glory. And then in 18 he calls the people to rise up and give their money to support the ministry of the Word of God through the priesthood of the Levites. That this is what the people of God should do. That they should give their first fruits, the very beginning, not the last, not whatever might be left over, but the first fruits to establish and support financially the work of God in the world.

And that has to do with this whole matter of authority. It has to do with honor. It has to do with honoring God in the world so that the ministry is well-financed. And then he commands the people in 18, verse 9 through 14, not to love or follow the world, and that God provides for his people, but not through diviners, not through sorcerers, not through worldly wisdom, not through the great pagan cultures of the world. Don't follow the pagans, that's what he's saying.

Follow me. And then now finally after all of this it seems as if he's reaching sort of an apex, a pinnacle, the peak of the mountain of all this of authority And he's establishing the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, the authority of the great prophet. And so that's the subject of this section right here. And it's a short section, but it's very profound. And it brings about a consciousness of the authority of God through His prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the mediator, who is the King.

And so I believe Moses has just sort of been piling up evidences of authority. And now he comes to the final authority, to the supreme authority in all the world, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And Moses is actually calling for the authority of Jesus Christ. That's why Jesus said, Moses wrote about me. Moses wrote about me.

And he's talking about this text of scripture right here. So this is a culmination. Now I really believe in this whole section. God is trying to woo us to himself. He's trying to demonstrate his love toward mankind.

How he establishes wonderful helps, authorities, concepts, people here and there. All kinds of guidelines to keep us from falling into the pit, from finding ourselves being wrecked by the devil. And now he's showing us our inadequacy. He's showing us a moment of desperate conviction of sin at the base of the mountain to expose the sinfulness of man so that man might be relieved, so that we would be saved, so that we would be rescued out of the black darkness and the thick clouds and the terrors of Mount Sinai, that his eyes would be opened, that ears would open so that we would see the greatness of his mercy. And then the passage ends with really a terrifying warning, and that is that not listening to this prophet will cause death, and refusing the sacrifice will relegate you to outer darkness, and the terrors of hell will be yours.

The terrors, the thick darkness, the black clouds will be upon you for all eternity." So it's really an amazing passage. The glory of the gospel is here. Every element of the gospel is here. The supremacy of God, the sinfulness of man, the adequacy of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, all of those things here are here in this text. And so these things are wonderful for us.

As we go into the text, let's just stop for a moment and consider something very carefully. I'd like for us to just be very, very tenderhearted in this matter. There is no hope for any church without their being saturated with the gospel, that the gospel is the central theme of everything in that church. And here we find, I believe, this sort of pyramid with the centrality and the supremacy of God, and then all the elements of the gospel layering out underneath them. And I pray that God would give us that, that when we gather together, when we sing together, our hearts are so moved by the glory of the Gospel, the sweetness of Jesus Christ, the goodness of His name, the terrors of hell, and also the amazing reality that we have a mediator.

And yes, it is true when we hear the word of God, we almost want to plug our ears because we're so sinful. But that's not the end of the story. We have assistance. We have a hearing aid. We see with new eyes because Jesus Christ can help his people.

And that's why we come together every Sunday. So let's have a church where there's such a saturation with the Gospel of Christ. So with that, let's now move into the text. We'll try to take the phrases one by one here. You have an outline in front of you, And I have eight points here that explain the ministry of the prophet, and the priest, and the king here.

And so first of all, the coming prophet is announced in verse 15. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet. Now, there are a number of words you could focus in on in this phrase. Consider these two words, for you, for you. God acts in behalf of his people and he blesses them and now he is declaring that he has done something wonderful For you for mankind for your blessing in in Acts chapter 7 verse 37 Stephen said this is that Moses who said to the children of Israel the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren him you shall hear So this is a prophecy of the prophet.

It's a prophecy of Jesus Christ. One thousand four hundred years before his coming. And the prophet, This prophet, the Lord Jesus, doesn't speak so much about the future as he does who God is and how one might please God. And this prophet speaks for God, he comes, he speaks with authority, and Christ is absolutely that prophet. Here's a principle here.

If you focus in on the term a prophet, that opens us up to a whole discussion about how God speaks to his people, that he's always spoken to his people through the prophets of different kinds. Abraham was called a prophet. Now Moses is a prophet and then of course we know the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi, all those prophets. There are many prophets that God sends and they and they speak his word. When the people thought that John the Baptist was the Christ in John 1.20, he confessed and did not deny.

He confessed, I am NOT the Christ. John was saying, I'm not that guy. I'm a prophet. I'm a little pea prophet. I'm not a capital people.

I am not the prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a forerunner to the prophet who is coming. This whole concept of prophecy is embedded in everything in scripture, that God speaks to his people, that God has something to say. We're not left here in some deistic confusion, confused mass of humanity where we don't have anything to listen to. We have God to listen to.

And God is saying, listen to me and my prophet. When Jesus was announced that the repentance center would receive living water in John 740, There were many, it says, many from the crowd when they heard this saying. They said, truly, this is the prophet. They got it. They understood it.

They understood that Jesus was the prophet. The Lord Jesus said, if anyone believes in me, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. And the people, many of the people said, yep, that's the prophet that Moses spoke about. In Acts chapter 3, we read Peter saying that he would send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before. For Moses truly said to the fathers, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren.

Him you shall hear in all things, whatever he says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people." That was Peter's sort of paraphrase of this text right here in Deuteronomy as he was preaching in Solomon's Portico. Now, the prophecies abound in the Old Testament for the Lord Jesus. There's prophecy that indicates that he would come from the line of King David in Isaiah chapter 11, that he would be preceded by one who would announce his coming, Isaiah 40, verse 3. That would be John the Baptist.

That he would be born of a virgin, Isaiah 714. That his birth would occur in Bethlehem, Micah 5 2. That he would be rejected by his own people, Isaiah 53 3. That he would be betrayed by a friend, Psalm 41, 9, that the price for his betrayal would be 30 pieces of silver, Zechariah 11, 12, that a potter's field would be purchased with the betrayal money, Zechariah 11.13, that he would be slain in the silent Passover Lamb of God, Isaiah 53.7, that he would be condemned and executed like a criminal." Isaiah 53, 12. That his hands and feet would be pierced.

Psalm 22, 16. That no bone in his body would be broken. Psalm 34, 20. That exactly what his dying words on the cross would be, Psalm 22, verse 1, that his garments would be claimed by others by casting lots, Psalm 22, 1, that he would be buried with the wealthy in Isaiah 53.9. Now, the Lord Jesus could not have controlled, as if he were a man, any of these outcomes so long ahead.

But no, he is the prophesied Son of God. He is the prophet that Moses is speaking of, and he is the prophet that all the prophets spoke of. He is the prophet that Abraham spoke of, and he is the prophet that that speaks of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in Genesis 315 and the announcement of the war against the seed of the woman and who would be victorious in that war. So he is a prophet who is prophesied. So the coming prophet is announced as he is announced in many places in scripture.

And then secondly, what is he like? What is he like? Verse 15, Moses says, he's a prophet like me. Those two words are really interesting. Like me, Jesus, Moses says that Jesus is like him.

How ostentatious, how presumptuous can you get? But that's exactly what we learn here. Jesus Christ is a prophet like Moses. Here are a few things that you should conclude from this. First of all, he's like Moses.

He's not Moses, right? He's like him. But if you like Moses, you'll like Christ. If, correspondingly, if you don't like Moses, you can't like Christ. If you don't like Moses and say you love Christ, you're a liar.

If you don't like the laws of Moses, you can't know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ." And so, you know, this was just very clearly recognized by those who saw the Lord Jesus. In John 1, 45, Philip, he found Nathaniel, and he said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. They understood the likeness that was there. They connected Jesus with the law of Moses and what he said there. We believe in the continuity of the Bible.

We don't believe that there are two Bibles. We believe there's one Bible with two covenants in it. And there is continuity between the two. And the difference between these prophets is explained in different ways. In John 1, 17, we read that the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

That's one of the great differences between Moses and the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus is like Moses. Here's some ways that they are alike. They are alike in that they came with the very voice of God. They came with a voice of authority.

Moses spoke for God and so did the Lord Jesus. Jesus said, I only say what I hear my father saying. And Moses spoke in the same way. He spoke literally for God. They were alike in meekness.

The Bible says that Moses was the meekest of all the prophets. And the Lord Jesus himself said, Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am meek and lowly in heart the Lord Jesus was also meek their qualities were similar they both delivered from bondage Moses is the deliverer from the bondage of Egypt, and the Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of this picture, this shadow that we have in the Old Testament as he delivers his people from the bondage of sin. Both of them renounced riches. In Hebrews 11 verse 24 we read that Moses refused to be called Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. The Lord Jesus did the same.

The Christ became poor, yet he made many rich. Both performed miracles, the great miracles that we saw in Egypt and in the wilderness. Moses actually performed many amazing miracles. At the same time, the Lord Jesus performed miracles with his people. Both had followers who were baptized into them.

In 1 Corinthians 10 we read, all were baptized into Moses. In Galatians 3 we read, as many as you were baptized put on Christ. So there's a baptism that corresponds to both of them. Both provided food for their followers, one the manna in the wilderness, the other the bread of life and the breaking of the loaves. Both were lawgivers.

Moses was the greatest prophet. And the Lord Jesus recognized the greatness of Moses. He said, do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me.

For he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? It is an evangelical tragedy that so much of evangelicalism has set aside the words of Moses. When Jesus said, if you believe his writings, you will believe mine. The connection is so clear here.

Moses was faithful in all his house, but Christ built the house. That's the difference. That's the difference. Moses was the greatest prophet, but not exactly the greatest. He was the greatest earthly prophet who was only a man.

Christ the God-man was the supreme prophet. He brings a better covenant. He brings a better sacrifice. He brings a better mediation. He brings a better everything because he is the supreme prophet.

So what is he like? He's like Moses. That's what this king, this prophet, priest, and king is like. And then next, from whom does he come? Verse 15.

From your midst, from your brethren. So he comes very clearly here from the midst of the people of Israel. And this is very consistent with other Old Testament prophecies of Jesus. One of the key passages to read alongside of this is Hebrews chapter 5. And Hebrews chapter 5 lays out many of the qualifications of the priest and what the priest does.

The priests are appointed by God in verse 4 of Hebrews 5. The priests offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. In verse 1, The priests make intercession for the people. But it also shows in Hebrews chapter 5 how they are selected. In Hebrews 5.1, we read, every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God.

So this choosing out from among people has a purpose to represent people, to represent a specific people. And the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, represents all of mankind who bows the knee to Him. And so He has chosen from among the Brethren. And then next, what shall you do when He comes? What shall you do when He comes?

It says here, Him you shall hear. Him you shall hear. The woman at the well knew this and she understood the Messiah's mission in John 425. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming who is called the Christ and when he comes he will tell us all things. That woman who had many husbands understood that Christ had something to say to her, that the prophet would speak and there would be ears to hear.

But there would be a help. The ears would be unstopped. There would be assistance, just like this little boy in our congregation who has amazing help so that he can hear, just like this old woman who can now see. She can see because of an assistance that took place. But that's what will happen.

The human race, some of them whose eyes are open and whose ears are unstopped, they will have capability there. Jesus said in Matthew 10 verse 14, he said, whoever will not receive you or hear your words when you depart to that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. There's this whole matter of hearing. You speak, and sometimes people don't hear. But the purpose of the gospel is so that people would hear.

And how would they hear without a preacher? And so it begs us to enter into this ministry of God, to both speak and then to call, call for hearers, and pray that God would open the ears of some. In Matthew 11, 5, we learn the sign of the Lord Jesus is that the blind see and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And that's our part of it. We enter into this ministry of the prophet.

He is our prophet, but he's also our example in prophecy. That we would do that very same thing. That there would be a work of evangelism constantly working among the people of God. That our mouths would never be shut, But that we would understand that there are blind, and there are those that cannot hear. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10, whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light, and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops." Our ministry is similar to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus said, go and tell John the things which you hear and see. He said, he who has ears, let him hear. And so what, what shall you do when he comes? You will hear. And I know that we're here today because we have heard of course everyone's ears have not been open to the gospel in this room I'm sure Everyone's eyes have not been open, but God God can open them pray that God pray that God would open your eyes pray that God would open your ears.

If you call upon Him, if you call upon Him, He hears the prayers of those who cry out for mercy. And so here what we learn is that this prophet speaks and then people hear. And then he sets his his hearers on the ground to speak some more so that more would hear and see and what will he say verses 15 to 18 this Perhaps is the heart of the passage. Verses 15 through 18. What will he say?

At the end of verse 15, him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the Lord your God in 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." So here we're back to this moment of terror, the thick darkness, the lightning, the black clouds. And the glory of God was there. And they recognized that they were not a holy people, and they would die without a mediator. They are like Isaiah was when he saw the glory of God, and he said, woe is me, for I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live amongst a people of unclean lips." That was happening there.

Now, there was a sense of their own insufficiency. There was a sense of their own brokenness before God. No one can be saved without this brokenness. No one can be saved without seeing their sins. No one can be saved unless they see their rebellion and their duplicity and their self-serving and all of the sins, their filthiness, their rank, desperate rebellion against God.

No one can be saved unless they see that. If you're not saved today, though, and you see it, you see your sin, You see that you fall short in every way. You see the hardness of your own heart. Cry out to God and ask Him to save you. Cry out to God and say, save me, a sinner.

Be like the people at the bottom of this mountain who cry out and say, no, Lord, We can't take it anymore. We need a mediator. We need someone to stand between us, someone to sacrifice, someone to plead our case. We have nothing to plead with. We have no case.

We are sinners. We are bound for hell. If you're a child, you're today. And that's how you see it now. You see your sin.

You see that you fall short. Repent. Repent and believe in the gospel. Because that's what was happening here at the bottom of the mountain. There was a consciousness of a need for a mediator and Christ is that mediator and His grace is sufficient.

The goodness of the law, the goodness and terrifying nature of the law is this. And that is that it exposes our sin. It shows us who we really are. It undoes us. And it makes us completely unable to have a case before God, to plead before God for our usefulness to him, because we have none.

And so here is an exposure of our need for a mediator. The confession that we use as a church, the second London Baptist confession, has a really long section on the mediator. I'm going to read some of it to you. I won't read it all, but there's a fairly extended section that I want to read very slowly. So listen carefully now.

It pleased God in His eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, in accordance with the covenant made between them both, to be the mediator between God and man, to be prophet, priest, and king, the head and savior of His church, the heir of all things, and the judge of all the world. To the Lord Jesus He gave from all eternity, a people to be His seed. These in time would be redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified by the Lord Jesus. The Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, being true and eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory, of the same substance, and equal with Him, who made the world, who upholds and governs all things which He has made, did, when the fullness of time had come, take upon himself man's nature, with all its essential properties and common infirmities, with the exception of sin. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her and the power of the Most High, overshadowing her so that he was born to a woman from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham and David in accordance with the Scriptures.

Thus two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion, so that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, yet he is one Christ, the only mediator between God and man. So this is the mediator that Moses is bearing witness of here in Deuteronomy chapter 18. And he is a mediator, and he will speak the words of God when Jesus fed the 5, 000. The people understood it. They understood who he was and They said, those men who were there, when they saw what Jesus did, they said, this is truly the prophet who has come into the world.

And then he perceived that they were about to take him by force and make him king. So he got out of there as fast as he could. Because he wasn't that kind of king. And then in verse 19 we run into the question, what will God do to those who will not listen? What will God do to those who don't hear and who don't see?

And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words which he speaks in my name I will require it of him. Remember Stephen said God will destroy them. He quotes this. And instead of saying, I will require it of him, he says, God will destroy them. And that's what happens to all of mankind who rejects the voice of Jesus.

It will be required. There will be judgment. There's one life to live and then comes the judgment. And it is eternal judgment. And it is devastating in its pains and sorrows.

If you think you know some sorrow today, it's nothing compared to the eternal sorrows in heaven. It will be required. Jesus says, I will require it of him. I will require it. Yes, the Lord Jesus is full of grace and truth, but he also does cast into everlasting darkness those who stop their ears from his voice and do not receive his mediation.

So if you refuse to listen to his voice, he will require it of you. Are you waiting until you get older to be saved? Are you waiting to experience something? You want to have your fun now? You don't want God to rob you of something now?

You want to wait? Do you really want to wait to have your ears come open and you hear and you be saved from it being required from the head from the hell that is the destiny for all those who won't hear to come upon you would you wait no no no today today is the day of salvation The urgent call of the gospel is always, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. That's consistent with the preaching of the gospel all through the book of Acts. Urgent appeals. I appeal to you the same way that Peter was and that Stephen was.

Come, believe in the gospel. That's what he's appealing for here. Why? Why should you believe in the gospel? Because hell is long and it's terrible.

That's why you should believe in the Gospel. On the contrary, there's a merciful and faithful high priest for you. He's your mediator who stands between you and God. And he cleanses you from all unrighteousness so that you can stand before him. And then, how do you detect the true and the false prophet?

So, Moses has given us ways to know who the true prophet is. And interestingly enough, 1, 400 years later, a lot of people understood it. And people lost their lives for it, thrown into prison for it, hung for it, and stoned for it. But how do you know the true and the false prophets? Verses 20 to 22 show us that.

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods. So here, as we come down to the end of this exposition of the fifth commandment. Moses is bringing us warnings about idolatry, about following the wrong king. And what we learn here is there are at least two qualities here that I want to bring out. First, He speaks what is not commanded, verse 20.

He speaks what is not commanded. That's the sign of a false prophet. He invents, he creates, he brings something in new that the people would love more. He's more exciting than the Bible. He's like the man that could fulfill the dreams of the rich man in Lazarus.

The rich man is in hell and he's crying out and he says, Oh, send someone, send someone to tell them. And The voice of the Lord comes back and says, they have Moses and the prophets. They have what's written. You want to give them something that God has not given. You want to give them something more interesting.

You want someone to come back from the dead. You want a show. You want some kind of a circus performer to come and help get their attention. And no, he says no. Moses and the prophets said it.

That's all they need. That's all they need. Scripture is sufficient. A sign of a false prophet is that he brings up things that are not commanded. He speaks presumptuously.

He speaks what is not commanded. And That's how you know. How strictly, how strictly are we to stay with what God has said? Very strictly, very strictly. Secondly, he speaks not from God, but from the world.

He actually speaks in the name of other gods. In other words, what are other gods? These are not statues. These are the multitude of idols that exist. The great idolatries of the world that are in our hearts, this is what he's talking about.

It's a religion from idols. It's a syncretism. It's a mix. It's a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of whatever. But he speaks not from God, but from the world.

We understand that we are not to add or subtract from the Word of God, lest we become a house of inventions in the Church of the Lord Jesus. And then lastly, He answers the question, how should you relate with false prophets? Verse 22. How should you relate with false prophets? He says, the prophet has spoken presumptuously.

You shall not be afraid of him. That's how. That's how you should relate to the false prophets. Don't be afraid of them. You ever heard of the term fear of man?

Fearing what people will think of you, fearing the false prophets out there, fearing those who would have you be conformed to the world. He's saying don't be afraid of them at all. Fear God. Fear God. Don't fear man.

Don't fear the false prophets who invent their own things and who speak from the world. Don't fear them. Fear God. There is one whom you should fear. You should fear God.

The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And so there should be a godly fear of God upon us. The law was given through Moses and it should cause us great fear. But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and that should cause us great comfort. But if we don't hear His voice, if we don't take His assistance, then He'll cast us into outer darkness, and so we should fear Him.

Jesus said, don't fear man who can kill the body. Fear God who can kill the soul. So how should you relate to the false prophets? You don't fear them at all. You are the happiest guy in the world around the false prophets.

You're not afraid of them. You're not their little puppet. You don't have to fit in with them. You fit in with them because you fear them. You're afraid to say what's true because you fear them.

We're afraid to speak what God has said Because we fear the wrong God. But he says, no, don't fear them. Don't fear. Don't fear man. Fear God.

David said, but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children, to such as keep his covenant and those who remember his commandments and do them. The Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. Now there there's a reason not to fear man because God's kingdom will prevail for all eternity. And so what we have found here is God has given us a beautiful picture of a prophet, our prophet, that we have heard and need to continue to hear. He's given us a priest, our mediator, who stands between us and God in dealing with our sins, to bring us to the place where we need to be in humility before God.

And then our King to show us that there is only one King, and there is only one to fear in this world. He in this passage is a prophet and a priest and a king. And I pray that God would constantly give us consciousness of Him as we go out our week. We're going to scatter from here and go our ways into our homes and in our businesses. There's no greater blessing than to walk in the world and know that there is a prophet, to know you have a priest, and to understand that there is a king and he alone should be feared.

The happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you for giving us this vision of authority, this beautiful authority that comes alongside to help a faithful and merciful high priest, a true witness, and a mighty king to carry us all the way to the end. Oh Lord, I thank you. I thank you so much for this kingdom that you have brought us into.

In Jesus' name, Amen.