Jesus the Prophet Part 2

God's words from the Prophet:

Early in the Bible God speaks about Jesus:

“I will put My words in His mouth, and He will tell them everything I command Him.” (Deuteronomy 18:18)

Does that ring a bell, with something Jesus said?

Yes, He said : “My teaching is not My own. It comes from Him who sent Me.” (John 7:16)

See how much harmony there is in God’s Word, and how the Old and the New Testaments are woven together!

Moses told the people: “You must listen to Him.”

And we read in Matthews account, when they were on top of the mountain, where Jesus’ appearance became like the sun in all it’s brilliance, and God the Father spoke to them, and said:

“This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!”

Are we listening to Him?

Where do we hear His voice?

In the Apostle Peter’s first letter, he tells us that all of God’s prophets had the spirit of Christ within them.

So, whenever we read the Bible, we are hearing the Spirit of Christ speaking to us.

Moses told the people: “You must listen to Him.”

God the Father said on the mountain: “Listen to Him!”

Surely that is the most important thing for us to do, to listen to Jesus, the Word of God?

In Deuteronomy, there is a warning to those who do not listen to the Prophet.

That is, that God Himself would call them to account, that God Himself would deal with them.

In the New Testament there are warnings also.

For example Jesus said:

“Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46)

He then goes on to explain what happens, to those who are obedient, who are like those who build a house upon a rock, but the ones who hear His word, but don't put them into practice, are like those that build a house on sand, and the torrent struck it and it was totally destroyed.

John the Baptist said:

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” (John 3:36)

That is a hefty warning.

Basically, those who choose not to listen, and who are disobedient to Jesus Christ are under God’s anger.

So often the non believers are told that God loves them.

This is true, but when that’s the only thing they are told, it is deceiving them if they aren’t given this clear warning.

So let’s return to the original meaning of a prophet as a revealer of Divine things.

Jesus Christ, as the prophet, does reveal things.

Who or what does He reveal?

Firstly:

God Himself:

In His prayer to God the Father, Jesus prays:

“I have revealed You to those whom You gave Me out of the world.” (John 17)

Jesus reveals the invisible, Almighty God, as our Heavenly Father to us.

Secondly, Jesus as Prophet reveals:

What God’s will and purpose is:

Or in other words He reveals what is on God’s heart.

And how does He do this?

It is by teaching.

Teaching dispels the darkness, which is ignorance.

Peter speaks of the word of the prophets being as a light shining in a dark place. (2 Pet 1:19)

And see how strongly Paul writes to the Ephesians:

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding, and separated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardening of their hearts.” (Ephesians 4:17)

Notice, Paul associates darkness with ignorance.

The presence of Jesus walking around Galilee is described as LIGHT. He wrote:

“....the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” (Matthew 4:15 & 17)

And why should the light shine there?

Because the next verse says:

“From that time on Jesus began to PREACH.”

Preaching and teaching should bring light, and it should drive out the dark ignorance. Someone who is blind cannot appreciate the beautiful view from on top of a mountain.

So someone who is spiritually blind cannot appreciate the beauty of Christ.

Paul wrote:

“The god of this age, that is Satan, has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ....” and “God...made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

What are the things that Christ teaches?

Let’s break it down into 3 subjects:

Firstly, He teaches us:

To see into our own hearts:

The further we are away from God, the less we know of what evil there is in our hearts.

The religious people in Jesus’ day just didn’t know what was in their hearts.

Jesus had just said that: “You can’t serve both God and money.”

Well, they all sneered at Jesus and they thought:

“How ridiculous! We’ve all got loads of money, but that doesn’t stop us from worshipping God!”

But Jesus said to them:

“You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.”

They just could not see that their love of money, was detestable to God.

If we are far from God, then we will have difficulty in seeing the motives of our hearts.

In other words;

What is the real reason why we did something, and not what it looked like from the outside.

Paul wrote: “The Lord will bring to light what is hidden in darkness, and will expose the motives of people’s hearts.” (1 Corinthians 4:5)

So how much evil, and darkness is there in our hearts?

Jesus said: “For from within, out of the heart come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” (Mark 7:21)

When Jesus the Prophet starts to shed light upon us, by the power of His Word, we begin to see into our own hearts.

We discover the darkness that lurks within us.

So do we willing come to the light, to have some things exposed in our lives?

Jesus said:

“This is the verdict; Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come to the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done, has been done through God.” (John 3:19)

Secondly, Jesus teaches us:

To see the vanity of the things of this world:

Before Christ our Prophet teaches us about real treasures, we set up all of our happiness here on this earth.

All of our hopes, our desires, and all of our affections are centred around the life that we live here and now.

There was someone in the Bible who was incredibly rich, he stopped at nothing in getting pleasure for himself, he also pursued learning,and creating wonderful buildings and gardens, etc, etc.

His name was king Solomon.

Let’s take to heart what he wrote after he had experienced all these things, and had achieved all these things. He said:

“I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labour. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 2:10)

Why is that?

Because, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

While your heart is all concentrated on this earth, those things will ultimately fade, and fail.

For true happiness, your heart needs to be focused upon Jesus in heaven.

Thirdly, Jesus the Prophet teaches us:

About the excellent unseen things:

Paul wrote:

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

We need to have the same focus as Moses had:

“By faith he left Egypt not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.” (Hebrews 11:27)

Have we experienced Jesus, the great Prophet, opening our hearts, and our eyes to eternity, and of His love, and for revealing to us great things about the Kingdom of God.

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Moses & Jesus images: thanks to GSP 100,000 clipart CD.

Wise men image: thanks to ‘The Pictorial Dictionary’ published by The Educational Book Company, London.