1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word this morning is
taken from Exodus 20:18-24 and Deut. 18:15-19 (Read the Text). The message is entitled, “What God Does for Sinners—A Prophet Like Moses,” dear brothers and
sisters in Christ.
2.
The Ten Commandments appear in the
news every now and again. Some time back a judge in the South had a controversy
about a Ten Commandments monument on the courthouse lawn. This sermon isn’t about
erecting monuments containing the Ten Commandments. It’s not concerned with
what we do to post the Commandments up, but rather with what they do to pin us
down. In other words, let’s think more about what the Ten Commandments say than
about how they are shown.
3.
If we want some insight into what
these Commandments really say and how their contents should impact human
beings, a good place to look is the event at Mount Sinai narrated in Exodus 20.
Here God first spelled these Commandments out for Israel. The whole scene was
frightening, with thunder and lightning and smoke around the mountain. Then
there came from the Lord God the demands that we call the Ten Commandments,
demands none of us can keep. They show us to be sinners faced by an all-holy
God. No wonder things looked so threatening in Exodus 20.
4.
How many people look at a Ten
Commandments monument today and come away with that same feeling? For that
matter, how we can read these Commandments in the Bible, but still not get the
point that Israel got in the text? There
is no problem with the Commandments themselves. they are good and right. God
has given them to us for our protection. The “First Table of the Law,” the
first three commandments, focuses on human responsibility toward God himself.
The “Second Table,” the last seven commandments, centers in loving and
protecting our neighbor and everything about his life.
5.
We sinners can look at the Ten
Commandments without truly coming to grips with them because we try to whittle
them down to our size. If their demands aren’t so demanding, then we really can
do what they say and pat ourselves on the back for doing it. Like people in
Jesus’ time, we imagine that we aren’t guilty of killing so long as we have not
caused anyone’s heart to stop beating. As Jesus pointed out, though, even to be
angry with someone is to break the commandment against killing. Or we figure
that we have not committed adultery as long as we have not overtly done
anything. Yet in reality, even a lustful look breaks the commandment about
adultery. Jesus reminded people that they had to see God’s Law for what it says
and for all it says. (See Matthew 5:21–28.)
6.
Do you know where the expression
‘facing the music’ comes from? The story begins in medieval Japan with a man
who wanted the respect that came from being a performer in the Imperial
orchestra. But there was a minor glitch: He couldn’t play an instrument. But he
knew what he wanted and pulled every possible string to accomplish his
purposes. Against his better judgment, the orchestra’s conductor consented to
let the man into the ensemble. He gave him a flute, sat him in the most
inconspicuous seat, and instructed him to try and fit in. With each musical
number, our man raised his instrument, puckered hip lips, moved his fingers,
and pretended to blow. He went through the motions, but not a tweet ever
escaped his flute. This deception might
have continued undetected, had it not been for the appointment of a new
conductor. This man’s first act was to tell his musicians that each of them
would have to audition. One by one the players auditioned and were restored to
their positions. Eventually all finished, except for the fake flutist. Frantic
with worry, he claimed to be sick. The doctor pronounced him ‘fit as a fiddle.’ Finally, the time
came for the audition. The flutist, unable to face the music, lost his
position, salary, home, his future.
7.
You and I have to face the music before God
the Judge. The Ten Commandments are God’s Word of judgment. There is no faking
it before him. The Judge sees and knows everything. He knows what you or I did
and failed to do. He knows about yesterday, the day before, and the day before
that. He knows what we will do tomorrow. Although we may want to weaken the
standards of God’s judgment, he will not relax them. His Law remains. Through
it he commands and demands. The very first thing he demands is that we fear,
love, and trust in him above all things. But we don’t. When the people of
Israel were faced with the terrifying reality of God’s Commandments they
pleaded with Moses: “You talk to us and
we’ll listen. Don’t let God talk to us any more, though, or we’ll die!”
8.
But, simply changing the messenger
doesn’t change the message. Remember: the Ten Commandments always say the same
thing. What difference would it make if Moses told the people God’s Law instead
of God himself speaking the Law? Either way, it was still the same law with the
same demands. In short, while we certainly can’t solve the problem of God’s Law
by trying to cut it down to our size, neither can we solve the problem of God’s
Law simply by saying it with a smile. For the Law remains the Law, and we still
have to face its music.
9.
God in his grace does something for
sinners, since sinners can’t live in his holy presence. He promised to send a
prophet like Moses. Notice Deuteronomy
18, which gives us a piece of the puzzle not found in Exodus 20. It turns out
that at Mount Sinai (Horeb), when the people pleaded for the Lord not to speak
to them, the Lord said they were right. They thought things would be better if
Moses spoke to them, but the answer God had in mind wasn’t Moses. “I will raise up for them a prophet like
you,” he told Moses at the time, “from among their brothers. And I will put my
words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him”
(Deuteronomy 18:18). This Prophet like Moses would be one of their brothers, a
fellow Israelite—someone who would take their side out of genuine interest in
them. God’s promised Prophet is none other than the one Mediator between God
and men, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). St. Peter cited this Old
Testament passage and referred it to Jesus. Christ, Peter proclaimed, is the
Prophet like Moses (Acts 3:22–23).
10.
This coming Prophet would be like
Moses, but also greater than Moses. If the Lord knew Moses face to face here in
this world (Deuteronomy 34:11), how much better does God the Father know the
Word who was eternally with God and who was God, and who became flesh—namely,
Jesus Christ (John 1:1, 14)! While Moses was a servant in God’s house, Jesus
was faithful over the house as God’s unique Son (see Hebrews 3:5–6). Moses only
reflected the Lord’s glory temporarily, but Christ shows forth God’s glory
permanently (see 2 Corinthians 3:12–18). And, of course, Jesus did what Moses
could never do: he died to take the place of a world of sinners.
11.
Therefore, Jesus brings a different
kind of message than the people got at Mount Sinai. This message of Christ is
not the Law. It’s not more unattainable demands that say, “do this or else.” Instead, Jesus brings the Gospel that says, “It is finished. It has all been done.”
You have already won, in Christ. His life and death in our place and his
victorious resurrection IS the Gospel. Moses could only give good news by
pointing to the coming Savior. Jesus did the very things that constitute the
great Good News for sinners. He did them for us and for our salvation.
12.
Realize what you have in Christ. The
writer to the Hebrews explained: You have not come to what may be touched, a
blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet
and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken
to them. . . . But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and
to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the
judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus,
the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better
word than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:18– 19, 22–24).
13.
“The story goes that a Montana
sheepherder got sick and was taken to the hospital in Fort Benton. His sheep
dog followed the master to the city and kept watch outside the hospital door. When
the sheepherder died, his body was taken to the train to be shipped back to his
family in the East. The dog, Shep by name, appeared at the train station, cried
for his master, and chased the train down the tracks. For the next five and
half years, Shep met every train that came into Fort Benton, hoping that one of
the passengers getting off would be his master. Shep became well known, and
kindly people took care of him; but he refused to be taken to anyone’s home. He
had one devotion: waiting for his master to return. Shep’s devotion didn’t
waver until the cold winter day in 1941 when he died.”
14.
Do you want a prophet like Moses? The
answer depends on how this prophet would be like Moses. A prophet exactly like
Moses would tell us God’s Law all over again. Even if he said it with a kinder
voice than Moses, it would still amount to the same law with the same demands. It
would tell you and me that we have to be devoted to keeping all of God’s
commandments all the time with much greater devotion than Shep the dog had for
his master. For the Lord demands that we be perfect.
15.
Or do you want the prophet like
Moses who was foretold in Deuteronomy 18? That is, do you want the Prophet who
is like Moses but who is also far greater than Moses and brings a different
kind of message than the one Moses brought on Mount Sinai? This Prophet went
beyond preaching God’s Law; he fulfilled it. He fulfilled it for you and me.
Knowing that we have a hard time even being as faithful as Shep the dog, he
remained faithful to God—perfectly—in our place. He remained also faithful to
us as he was faithful for us, even unto death on a cross. This Prophet and
more-than-a-prophet, Jesus Christ, faced
the music of God’s Law for us so we don’t have to.
16.
Think of how happy the reunion would
have been between Shep and his owner if there could have been one. Now think of
how ecstatic Jesus’ disciples were when he rose from the dead. He had shown
himself to be so much more than a Prophet. He is our God and Savior. How happy we will be to see this risen and
reigning Lord face to face in heaven! He is the Prophet like Moses, but so much
greater than Moses, and he is for you. The most basic thing God does for
sinners is to give us Christ. Amen. Now the
peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus until life everlasting.
Amen.
