Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 5, 2024 | Deuteronomy - A Prophet in my Name

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May 5, 2024 | Deuteronomy - A Prophet in my Name · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  unknown: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you as we uh as we're in May here.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually the last month that we're gonna be going through Deuteronomy.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, take it in while you can, right?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be just got a couple weeks left.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, got a really fun passage this morning.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite kind of things to to preach about is how the Old Testament connects to the new.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um the nation of Israel is dealing with, as you are probably aware, if you've been with us through this series, they're dealing with what it means for Moses to leave them as their great leader.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they're kind of preparing for that, and Moses is preparing them for that.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there's kind of a great question that comes up is what happens when the great ones leave, right?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Who follows after them?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've grown up, I'm a lifelong K-State football fan, okay?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and um, you know, when you imagine being the coach who follows the guy that has the stadium named after him, that has the highway leading to the stadium named after him, that has the bronze statue outside the stadium, like that's a lot of pressure, right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then when Ron Prince didn't cut it, when Bill returned the second time, then we're still it's jury's out, right?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um we'll see.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the question always becomes like, can we ever reach the heights that were there under a great leader?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this is this is not just for sports, this is true in business, this is true.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: You somebody has a great small group leader in the church, and you're just like, they're moving on, this family is moving away, we have a ministry head, we have a somebody on staff or whatever it is.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they did such a great job.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Can we succeed without them?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what Moses is talking about.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, it's not just Israel who's asking these questions, but really Moses, as any great leader would do, is preparing Israel for this transition.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as he's doing that, you know, you might be aware that Joshua is the guy that takes over after Moses.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk about Joshua.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: But Israel has some other challenges that are facing it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And namely that as they're about to go into the promised land, Israel's getting too big for really just one leader.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Israel's getting too big to just kind of have the one guy, Moses, sort of running the show.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they're going to need to establish these offices and these different sort of roles so that as the nation grows and expands and fills the promised land, they can continue to move forward.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy chapter 16 through 18, we've seen Moses sort of introduce some of these roles.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that you have or formalize them, even though they might have existed already.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So he talks about how they're going to appoint new judges, and what the judges are going to do is they'll have all these legal challenges.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about the priests and how the priests will fill the land and ultimately attend to the tabernacle and later the temple in Israel.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, he talks about eventually, though he doesn't condone it necessarily, he says, eventually you guys are going to want a king.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do want a king, instead of following after God, this is how you are to appoint a king.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's establishing all these different roles and offices so that they will have leadership once he passes away.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: But there's one title that is particularly unique that we're going to look at this morning, because it is one that Moses has filled himself.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses has done such an amazing job as the prophet of God that really the biggest question on Israel's mind is who will be the prophet that comes after Moses?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Who will be the one that speaks with the authority of God, that has the ability to tell us what God is saying, and in fact, like, how will we know who the prophet is?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because they fill a particular role within society.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses, this is what he's going to talk about, is he's going to tell them how they will be able to tell sort of the prophets that are coming after him, who is good, who is not, how they should think about this role.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because as Israel is asking the question, they want to know who will tell us what God is saying and how will God communicate with us?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Very important question, especially as they're heading into the promised land.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we're in chapter 18 of Deuteronomy.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: We'll start in verse 15.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what Moses says The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: You must listen to him.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is what you requested from the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, Let us not continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God, or see this great fire any longer, so that we will not die.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord said to me, They have spoken well.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I will hold accountable whoever does not listen to my words that he speaks in my name.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the question first is what is a prophet?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: A prophet is one appointed by God to speak with the authority of God, sort of to the community, right?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses has had a bunch of different hats on, but this is one of the specific roles that he has had is a prophet to the people.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: The vast majority of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy have actually been Moses speaking God's words.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses would go into the tabernacle, and the cloud of God would descend on the tabernacle.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Scripture tells us that God and Moses would speak.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord says, as one friend speaks to another, they had this very beautiful, intimate relationship that really was not captured by anyone else in the Old Testament.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses would then go out, face shining, and would reveal to Israel what God had told him.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as he does that, Moses is also kind of telling the community here in our passage how that job kind of started.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so what he references, he says, When you requested it from the Lord your God at Horeb, Horeb is the region around Mount Sinai.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's referencing, you know, 40 years earlier, roughly, when Israel is, they're rescued, they're redeemed from slavery in Egypt, and they go to the base of Mount Sinai, and they have the big sort of covenant ceremony.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: God says, I am your God, you are my people, like let us bring this together, and this is where the Ten Commandments come from, and all that, right?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: But as a part of that, God revealed himself to Israel supernaturally in a bunch of physical ways that intimidated them.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So Mount Sinai itself was sort of wreathed in cloud and smoke.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it says that the mountain itself was on fire.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture tells us that Moses had to basically like pick his way down the mountain because he was walking down, he was descending a mountain that was aflame.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was engulfed in fire, right?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then also we have the thunder and the lightning, and then you have God speaking out from this sort of smoke and mist and all of this.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Israel was terrified.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: They said, like, you know, Lord, we have never we are weak, we are unworthy to hear your voice, to speak with you directly face to face.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: We can't handle it.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so they ask God to basically put somebody up there to be the intermediary.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, back in Deuteronomy chapter 5, we talked about, you might remember that very specific role that Moses had as the intercessor or the advocate for Israel, how that prefigured Christ and tells us about how Jesus goes before the Father and says they're clean.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was a role that Moses had.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, another part of that role, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, he wore a bunch of hats.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is an important dude.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Another part of that role is that he also became the one who then sort of spoke on behalf of God to Israel.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so at Mount Sinai is when sort of this role of prophet was given a formal title.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: There have been people before Moses who spoke with the authority of God and shared his words.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: But this is kind of like Moses had his business cards, right?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like Moses was like, This is my job.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I speak on behalf of God.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is part of my role and function, unique to Moses and special for him.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Moses is doing this, he is also establishing and anticipating a future where another prophet after him will arise.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what he tells them is he says, They will have the same authority that I have, because the authority comes from God.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so as they tell you things, you're to listen to them because they are speaking God's words, not their own.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so these prophets there, they must listen to them, they must follow them, they speak on behalf of God.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: But what also happens is that the prophets that will come after Moses will not always have the same kind of initiation ceremony that he did.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It won't always be as obvious who the prophet should be.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the sad truth is, and this ends up becoming the case, is that there will be many people who arise after Moses and others pretending to be prophets of God.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Moses tells them next is he said, So now you have a responsibility.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: As you hear people speak with the authority of God, you need to learn to learn how to discern between what is true and what is false.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that the responsibility for doing that is actually on you, because there will be true prophets who come, and there will be false prophets.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there could not be a greater danger for Israel than accidentally allowing a false prophet to sort of raise up into that lofty place where they are supposedly speaking with the authority of God.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can understand why that'd be a huge problem.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So Moses gives them kind of some a test that they can proclaim.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, But the prophet who presumes to speak a message in my name, remember, Moses is speaking the Lord's words, so this is the prophet who presumes to speak a message in the Lord's name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: You may say to yourself, How can we recognize a message that the Lord has not spoken?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Implicitly, what we're saying is the true prophet is one that we should be afraid of.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Afraid in the same way that fear is used with God throughout Scripture, and that his holiness and our brokenness, that there's a divide between the two that makes us just sort of look up into God and his power and his wonder and his majesty and just say, we are not worthy, and we understand and actually have a respectful fear of his power and his judgment.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the prophet is one who actually embodies that as well.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing role.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's different than the judges, than even the priests and the kings.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even though each one of them sort of carries an aspect of God's character, right, or leadership, the prophet is one who speaks with God's own words.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big deal.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the test, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: When a prophet speaks in the Lord's name and the message does not come true or is not fulfilled, this is the big thing.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because God in him, in God, there are no lies.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: God does not speak lies, he does not tell falsehoods.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is actually against God's character and nature to even do such a thing.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so God, by definition, is truth.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything that God speaks is truth.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, if God, a prophet rather, says something is going to happen and it doesn't happen, well, they're not a prophet.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are certain situations, just briefly, where like God would say, Jonah's a good example of this, where they would peach, preach, excuse me, a message of repentance, uh, in that case to Nineveh, and um God would say, If you don't repent, I'm going to destroy, you know, Nineveh, and then they repent, and so that doesn't end up happening, but that's different than somebody sort of making a prediction that doesn't come to pass.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: In that case, it was sort of contingent.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless, the prophet is one that, because of God's truth, reveals themselves.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the people should be able to tell the difference.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: They need to avoid false prophets and they need to discern the true prophets.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, to kind of give a quick example of this, right, in fact, I think a really good example, we're going to briefly look at the prophet Jeremiah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because what we're going to see in the prophet Jeremiah, which is math, you know, like, I don't know, 900 something years in the future, right?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: What we have there is a prophet who is experiencing how what Moses has commanded in Deuteronomy has sort of become broken.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to see that there is a true prophet and a land filled with false prophets.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to kind of be able to see the difference between the two, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what a true prophet sounds like.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is Jeremiah.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to me.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I chose you, God says, before I formed you in the womb.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I set you apart before you were even born.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 9.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord reached out his hand, touched my mouth, and told me, I have now filled your mouth with my words.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: See, I have appointed you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and demolish, to build and to plant.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that ends up being sort of Jeremiah's mission, as he is a prophet in the southern kingdom of Judah, right?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because by this point Israel has split into two kingdoms.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: The northern one, pshh, it's been gone for a while.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: They were worse than the southern kingdom.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Southern kingdom needs to repent, or else they're going to go into exile as well.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's basically Jeremiah's whole message.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is like you need to change, turn from what you've been doing.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: You need to return to the Lord, you need to be his covenant people, or else, you know that stuff Moses was talking about in Deuteronomy about the blessings and the curses of the covenant.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're about to experience all the curses of the covenant.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is Jeremiah's job.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: As you might imagine, that's not a popular message.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: People don't really want to hear that everything they've been doing is wrong and they must repent and turn to God.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we see later on in the book of Jeremiah is there's this conflict that ends up coming about between the true, righteous prophet of God, who is anointed by God with his words, with his authority, in fact, even over kings, to speak his word against the false prophets in the land.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what's sad about this is that the king, who is corrupt, has surrounded himself with prophets who are saying that they are anointed by God, who are saying that they have the authority of God, but in fact they are just saying what the king wants to hear.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: They are saying the message that is tickling to the ears.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so because of that, there's a conflict.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is how Jeremiah talks about it.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Later on in chapter 23.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord of armies says, again, speaking God's words.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: They are deluding you.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: They speak visions from their own minds, not from my mouth.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: They keep on saying to those who despise me, The Lord has spoken, you will have peace.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: They have said to everyone who follows the stubbornness of his heart, no harm will come to you.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: The message of Jeremiah is harm will come to you if you don't turn from what you're doing, repent, and follow after God.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so the prophets that are saying, these false prophets, right, who are they's sycophants, right?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're around the king.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're only saying the things that he wants to hear.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they are just, they are not coming from God's word, even though they are saying that they are in his name, they're acting in his name.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what we end up seeing a lot with prophets, especially later on in the Old Testament, is it's kind of like the few, the proud, over and against the multitude who are just kind of trying to keep the status quo.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And yet it is the prophet of God who has the authority and the word of God to speak.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, Moses is kind of anticipating this future.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you need to be able to have a discernment about you when these people come saying that they are in my name, because not all of them will sort of have a here are the Ten Commandments type moment, right?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like Moses did at Mount Sinai.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Sometimes they will come out out of nowhere, but what they say will be true, and you can test it and you can know that it comes from God.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: But let's go back to our passage in Deuteronomy, though, because there's something very interesting that we've kind of skipped over, okay?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: As Moses is preparing the nation of Israel for a new prophet, you might expect, the same way that he did with judges, priests, and kings, he uses the plural form.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, like, there will be many who come after you, which is true.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: There are many prophets and prophetesses who came after Moses.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: But yet what we see in Deuteronomy 18 is that he seems to be speaking about a prophet, which is different.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Alright?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I will, let's look at kind of the second half of this passage.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: I will hold accountable whoever does not listen to my words, that he speaks in my name.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So there's nothing particularly unusual about that passage except that Moses isn't talking about the office of prophets that will sort of continue, and God will normally always have one or a couple even in that role.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like Jeremiah was a contemporary of Habakkuk and possibly Obadiah, which, yes, are books in your Bible.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um but anyhow, Jeremiah was really kind of in a line of succession.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: But Moses seems to be saying that there is one that's coming.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So let's, before your mind travels to where it is going, um, let's just think about being Israel for a second, right?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Their mind is just who's next?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Who is right after Moses?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy who's definitely right after Moses is Joshua.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua has like been the dude for 40 years.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is a long succession plan.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what Joshua has done is set himself up to be a great leader for Israel, and in fact, he is.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: We'll learn more about him next spring when we get to the book of Joshua.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Joshua is a great leader.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: He leads Israel, particularly he's his role that God gives him is kind of the military guy.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so as they go in and take over the promised land, Joshua's, you know, leading the charge.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: But Joshua, he does have a different relationship.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: After Moses, God kind of splits his communication more evenly between the high priest and Joshua, whereas Moses was kind of like, you know, he's the guy.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua has a little bit less communication with God, but still, he is speaking with God's authority.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes he is speaking God's own words.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so our assumption would be that we're talking about Joshua here.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: A prophet would come, and you might think that it would be the guy who comes after me, after Moses.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: But let's look at the end of Deuteronomy here.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 34.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's two very interesting verses that kind of tie pick up this theme, and we're going to see something interesting happen.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua, the son of Nun, which is kind of his like full family title, was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the Israelites obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But no prophet has arisen again in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have Joshua here, and this is not a condemnation of Joshua.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like this verse here is saying that the Holy Spirit, one of the ways that the Holy Spirit worked in the Old Testament, was that he kind of anointed the leadership of Israel.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so oftentimes you see that the leaders of Israel, though not everybody had the Holy Spirit, oftentimes the leaders did.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what's up.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Moses basically kind of like hands off, there's a better way to say that, but the Spirit of God to Joshua.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Joshua is able to sort of speak and move with the not only the authority of God, but some of the wisdom and discernment, and he has the skills that he needs to be a great leader, and he is a great leader, faithful to God, good leader Joshua.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this kind of part here where we're made very aware that Joshua was not the prophet that Moses was talking about.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua was not the guy, actually, that Moses was saying would come after him, and in fact, the one that the Lord was saying would come after Moses, who was like Moses, which is a huge deal.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Moses kind of stands alone in the Old Testament.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: There are many great individuals, but Moses is a guy who was after God.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're putting him up there with the Davids, and even Moses had a special role, particularly in the way that so many of the things that Moses did sort of prefigure or anticipate what Christ later did.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful to look at the connection between the two.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Moses was probably the greatest leader in Israel's history.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea that a prophet would come who was like Moses, we understand that even though there have been many great prophets and prophetesses that came after Moses, none of them were at that level.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, fast forward now to the New Testament.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're like fourteen hundred years later.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the nation of Israel is looking for the prophet.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: They are looking for the one.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is different.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see in a second.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is different than the Messiah, who is also, because of the prophecy of Daniel, is supposed to be coming around this time.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't know if you knew this, but there was anticipation in the nation of Israel when Jesus came that the Messiah should be coming onto the scene around that time.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: They were looking for him.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is why, for instance, when John the Baptist, who's the dude who came right before Jesus and was like, prepare the way, you know, like Jesus is coming, okay?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist comes out there and they're asking him all these questions.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: They say, this was John's testimony, rather, when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites, like, the people who should be on top of this, who are you?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in that question meant, are you the Messiah?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't deny it, but confessed, I'm not the Messiah.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: What then they asked him?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are you Elijah, the one who is supposed to sort of bring the Messiah into the fold?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I am not.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Are you the prophet?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, he answered.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you then?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: They said.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are you doing?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: We need to give an answer to those who sent us.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: What can you tell us about yourself?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, John the Baptist fills a very important role.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus kind of later affirms to him that he is sort of the Elijah that is preparing the way for the Messiah.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: John just didn't say that about himself.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: But what I want to draw out from this, right, is that, okay, he's not the Messiah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's not the Elijah that's supposed to prepare the way.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are you the prophet that we've been waiting for?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have been waiting for one who would come and speak with the authority of God, who was like Moses, who would lead us like Moses towards the promised land, basically.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Elijah, or excuse me, John the Baptist says, no, I am not.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, we are working towards the truth, which is that Jesus is the fulfillment of this role.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: But even in that time, right, they weren't sure who Jesus was.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And while Jesus, during his earthly ministry, had some of these titles floating around him, they could never really latch on to him.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Later on in John chapter 7, we can see that they weren't sure who Jesus was, but they knew he was important.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: When some from the crowd heard these words from Jesus, they said, This truly is the prophet.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, this is, I believe, after the feeding of the 5,000.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: This truly is the prophet.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Others said, This is the Messiah.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: But some said, surely the Messiah doesn't come from Galilee, does he?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was always a hang-up that they thought that Jesus came from this backwater town of Nazareth, and nothing great could ever come from there.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Surely the Messiah that's going to lead us into all greatness and glory does not come from Nazareth, right?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: But you can see that even the title of the prophet, they're looking for both of them, and they think that they are separate people.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, as Moses was created this anticipation, and perhaps not even a full understanding, it's not like the nation of Israel back in Deuteronomy is like, oh, okay, we get it.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're waiting for the Messiah too.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: He was just talking about a prophet.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But later on, what's going to happen in the last passage we're going to look at this morning is how Peter, after the death and the resurrection of Jesus, he is speaking to hordes of people who are coming to Christ in Jerusalem.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in many of the sermons that he has, he is kind of expounding on this idea that, so, okay, Israel, like you missed the boat, you killed the Messiah, but actually that was a fulfillment of prophecy.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that he rose again was a fulfillment of prophecy.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And now I want you to understand who he truly is.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: He is the Savior, and also, as Peter says in Acts 3, Jesus is the prophet that you have been waiting on.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Acts 3.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And now, brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, which might sound mean, but actually he's giving them some grace.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: His idea is that, right, like you didn't have all the facts before you, and you made a terrible decision, but you didn't know everything.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just as your leaders also did.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: In this way, God fulfilled what he had predicted through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus, who has been appointed for you, as the Messiah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So now we've this is just prophetic language from thousands of years of the Messiah, and Jesus is the fulfillment of that, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Which also in part proves that those prophets were true, based upon the test of Moses.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, that Jesus is the fulfillment.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: He is the Messiah, He's the Savior.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: But also, and then he kind of gives kind of a intersperses that with what Jesus is doing right now, heaven must receive him until the time of the restoration of all things, which God spoke about through his holy prophets from the beginning.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: But then look what he quotes: Deuteronomy 18.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Moses said, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: You must listen to everything he tells you, and everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be completely cut off from the people.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so Peter reveals, as a preacher here, as he's preaching this message, he reveals God's truth, which is that Jesus is the Messiah and the prophet.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me take a step back.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is a lot of things.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: He wears even more hats than Moses did.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus is, as we find out in the book, he is the perfect judge, right?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: He is the perfect priest, the high priest, he is the perfect king.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like all of those roles that Moses was creating for the nation of Israel, Jesus, one and all, fulfills them.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: But Peter brings out these two because the Messiah and the prophet were two particular people that they were waiting on.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And instead, what he says is that it was not just anybody or two jokers that came along, but rather it is God himself who fulfilled these things.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is when we find out that it is not just we are waiting on a prophet that is uh like Moses, but one who was greater than Moses, and in fact is the greatest, and he speaks with the authority of God, not because he has the word of God, but because he is the word of God.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Gospel of John makes that clear, that Jesus is God's word made flesh.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who would have thought when God told Israel, I will raise up for you a prophet from amongst your brothers who will speak with my authority, that he would be talking about himself.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: God, as a second person of the Trinity, came and was the word made flesh.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so God himself was the great prophet that came to Israel.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: God himself was the Messiah.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: God himself was the one who is carrying out and fulfilling all of these things for the nation.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I get this stuff amps me up.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I just think it's super neat that God is uh revealing these things and the way that he does it and how he drops breadcrumbs throughout the Old Testament.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds me over and over again why reading the Old Testament is important.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about what this means for today, right?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because we actually still have the same question that Israel was asking.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not who is going to be the next leader, right?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're following after Christ.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: But as they would say, who will tell us what God is saying and how will God communicate with us?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is alive at the right hand of the Father.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's in heaven, he is interceding for us.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are many things we could say about Jesus being alive right now so that we can have a relationship with him.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: But he is not talking and speaking, God is not talking and speaking in the same way that he did in the Old Testament through the prophets that he would raise up, nor in the same way that he did with Jesus in his earthly ministry.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is the way that we are supposed to be able to communicate and hear from God today?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is your Bible.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: God has now left us his word in his holy scriptures.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that is in here is God's word.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way that Israel was supposed to listen to and respect the authority of those who were speaking on behalf of God because they were sharing God's own words, that is the same authority and the same care and attention that we are supposed to place with the Bible.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think part of the reason why we don't necessarily look at the Bible the same way that we would look at maybe a prophet that would come up, um, like Moses or something, is because, frankly, it's so easy to access.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've said this before, but I mean, I really think that if, you know, it was us, let's just say like a thousand years ago, we don't have the printing press.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like the only copies of scripture are in a different language, and they're in a scroll that the priest keeps behind the altar and are only brought out a couple times a year.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is not something that has been around forever.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is now actually in our age that God has made scripture not only accessible, but easy to read and available to anybody who might like it in thousands of languages.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: That hasn't always been the case.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: But this is what God has given to us now in this age, so that we might be able to understand what he says and we might be able to hear his words.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: There is no difference between, like let's just say, us reading Deuteronomy when Moses is speaking God's words there, and having stood in the assembly of Israel and hearing Moses speak them for the first time.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: We just get a written account instead of a verbal one.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Same authority, same words.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is God still speaking to us.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first of kind of the two applications that we have this morning is that we read the Bible to hear from God.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And just as you would say, you know, like, how who do you have as a good friend that you do not spend time with, right?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have to ask ourselves, like, is it fair to have an expectation that we would have this deep and abiding and fulfilling relationship with God when we don't read his word?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: When we don't read the communication that he has given to us.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Bible has everything we need to know about our life, about faith, about salvation, about the past, present, and the future.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that we could ask for that is carrying us until the time when Jesus returns is revealed in Scripture.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it does not answer literally every question, but we have everything that we need from God to be able to have faith.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, we don't read it.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've brought this up before as well, and so excuse me for saying it again, but I think that if we, if there was like a price tag placed on understanding God's word, on being able to read it, I think we would care a lot more.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody said, you can have this for four easy payments of one million dollars.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you would understand, and you would mortgage everything, you hopefully you would, to be able to understand what this says.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because you couldn't peer into it, you couldn't crack it, you couldn't listen to it, you couldn't understand it until you had, you know, paid a fortune.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: But instead we have it for free, and yet we don't avail ourselves of it.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are many, many Christians, the polls and statistics are sad about how many of us open our Bibles.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I want to do is I just want to encourage you that just as Israel was so concerned about how will we hear the word of God, the answer to us is we can go to our Bible at any time of day, at any point in time, and we can hear God's word.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, this is also true that God's word, Scripture, is still speaking to us today, that this is still God's means of communication to his people.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: That we can go in and read the word, and yes, it hasn't changed for a long time, but yet the truths of scripture, because God has said them, continue to be true, and God continually reveals things to us through his word.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go today and tomorrow and ten years from now, and God continues to speak to you as he speaks to me in a personal relationship because of what he has written long ago.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Scripture says that the Word of God, Hebrews would say, is uh moving and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing to the point of joint and marrow.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: That it is something that cuts deep because it is still, like a snake that has died, right?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Its fangs are still sharp and can still bring venom.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like there is nothing about this already just being a written, completed work that changes its potency.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, that we can grow deeper in our relationship with God by reading his word.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, if we choose not to read his word, we shouldn't have an expectation that we will drift away from God.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because just like Israel, who stops listening to the prophets and stops discerning God's word, we get to Jeremiah and he goes, How have you gone so far astray?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have stopped listening to God's word.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: The second point, though, that we need to take from, I think, the message this morning is that we still have a responsibility to guard against false prophets.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there is a conversation about what it means to be a prophet today.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the spiritual gift of prophecy is a real thing, though I'm cautious when I hear somebody say that they have it.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: That would be my short, the short version of my belief.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that because Paul uh says that there were those with the gift of prophecy in the Corinthian church, which comes about after Christ's resurrection.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if somebody just walked to me and said, God gave me a word to speak to you, I would say, Hmm, okay.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because I believe that the primary way that God speaks is through his word.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe we have a significant need for prophecy today.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: But setting that aside, the main point is though, anytime we hear a message, and this includes what I'm saying to you right now, you have the responsibility to assess it, and you have the responsibility to test it to see whether it aligns with God's word.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, one of the functions, one of the roles that God as the Holy Spirit does within all believers now is gives them the ability to discern between what is true and what is false.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is why you at times are able to sort of you hear a message and you go, I don't know exactly why, but that doesn't sound right to me.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because everything that is said should be something that aligns with God's word.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you have a responsibility to be able to do this.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what is difficult and what is challenging is that people who speak on not necessarily on behalf of God, but in the office or with the authority of Scripture, and this would, like I said, include what I am doing right now, is that it is not always true.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have somebody who is broken and fallible and messed up saying, This is what I believe Scripture is saying, and I believe that I'm sort of guided and inspired by the Spirit, and I pray that I would bring truth, but not every word that I say is truth.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Only God's word is complete truth.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so you must have the discernment to be able to say, you know what, I'm not going to be influenced by, and this is true for anybody, the size of somebody's church, right?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: How charismatic they might be in speaking.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to be swayed by them telling me things that I want to hear in fact that if they just keep doing that, that might be a danger sign in and of itself, right?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: But rather, I'm going to be on guard against people who are, like Paul would recognize, there are still false teachers today who are speaking and who are leading churches or have programs or write books on behalf of sort of Christianity and yet are leading people astray because they do not have the gospel.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they are not preaching the gospel, but rather something that is interesting.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, just like the prophets back in Jeremiah's day, who go, hey, everybody's fine, that it can still be something where we confuse ourselves into believing that they're true, because they say they come with authority, but in reality they don't have a message from him.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, generally speaking, I stay away from the guys who have private planes and can't stop talking about the apocalypse.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those are normally kind of my guardrails.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that those things are necessarily sinful in and of themselves, but you just have to kind of get into that space.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: And part of it is that I just see it more often.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, if you've written 15 books on how the world is going to end, like you've written more than revelation, okay?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like there is there is not necessarily that much more to glean than what we have already brought out over the last 2,000 years, yet people continue to take world events that are happening every single year and say, well, this is the sign that Jesus is coming, you know, in six months.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think in many cases those people are charlatans and should not be trusted.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think most of all they want to sell books.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think that people who have a message of prosperity and happiness, that just by trusting in God that basically everything good is going to happen to you, I don't think that you should trust those people because our world is broken and we live in a fallen world, and we bring sin upon ourselves, and other people bring sin upon ourselves, and just the world does in general, and sad, bad, broken things happen in our lives, and that doesn't mean that God is absent.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, you know, anybody who is constantly asking for money, you're like, why are we doing it?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we need money in many cases to move the kingdom forward.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not everything can be done for free, but at the same time, if every single thing is particularly that you would be rewarded if you do it, these are false teachers.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: So my point broadly, right, is that it is up to you, though.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't, sometimes people come and they say, Do you trust this person?
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know this person?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know everybody.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you have the ability to assess these things for yourself because you have this.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what ultimately we are basing everything off of.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And even when it's hard or when the truth is difficult, this is what we're basing everything off of.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let me wrap up by saying when we go to Deuteronomy, and the people of Israel are asking, who is going to be the spokesperson of God for us?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Moses, you have been in that role.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Who will do it after you?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: What Moses said, though, I don't know if he even fully understand what God was saying through him at the time.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: What Moses said was, it's not even going to be Joshua or Jeremiah or one of the others.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually Jesus that you're waiting on.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he is the one who's going to speak with all authority, with all truth and power.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And as he said in Deuteronomy, anybody who doesn't listen to him, to his words, they are going to condemn themselves because they have rejected truth.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: So as we pray here, I just want to encourage you to read God's word, to understand it, and knowing that it is a lifelong journey of hearing it.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that even by the end, we will not approach sort of a full knowledge until we are with Jesus Christ in the future.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: But yet it is worthy to read and to be a part, have have it be a part of your life every single day, because it is God talking to you.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And second of all, as you hear other people tell you what God is saying and what is coming from his word, that you would have the discernment to recognize that some people don't have the right message, even though they say that God said it.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you for the truth that you have revealed in Scripture.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for the promises that you have laid out like breadcrumbs throughout history, pointing us towards your faithfulness and your goodness.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: God, most of all, we thank you for Jesus, who is the Messiah, who is the prophet.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lord is the one who speaks with the authority of God, who reveals this truth to us, who is your word made flesh.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: And God, also that flesh, that person died on the cross, was crucified, and rose again so that we might have full life with you.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would give us and develop within us the discernment that comes from your spirit so that we might be able to tell what is true from what is false.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because, Lord, there are many people today who are false teachers.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, God, that everything that I speak would be something that comes from truth.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: For I have no desire to speak falsehood, though I am broken too.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would give our church the ability to discern these things, to protect ourselves from wolves on the outside.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, who have a message that does not come from you, and that we would seek out your truth because we can read it for ourselves.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: As we transition now to a time of communion together as a church, we're reminded that God has preserved for us in his word the truth about what the Lord's table is supposed to mean every time we take it.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul says when he takes the elements.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he was talking about what Jesus did at the Last Supper.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, This is my body which is for you.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way also he took the cup after supper, and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we proclaim your death and your resurrection until you come again.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: We proclaim the truth of the cross.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: God, that you died for the sins of mankind and shed your blood, and that it is through your body, risen again, God, that we might have hope and a future with you in eternity.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you that these things are preserved for us by your will and your word, that we can read them anytime we want.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that that is a privilege that we should not look lightly upon.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: But rather, Lord, we would choose to continually immerse ourselves, to read your good word, Lord, as much as we can, because you are still speaking to us through it today.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: And God, finally, that you would help us to make sure that we always put the pure and untainted gospel before our ears, that we would not follow anybody who has a false gospel, anybody who is a false teacher, and that, Lord, you would help us to discern who they are and what their message is.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: God, that you would protect us, your flock, your people, from hearing things that are untrue.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for the truth that Jesus has died for our sins, and that we can trust in Him and know you forevermore.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in His name we pray.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for being with us this week.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's already been said, but we're about to go to a potluck together as a church.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you didn't bring anything, we'd love to have you.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you there.