Jesus Foretold: The Prophet (MP 61)

Directly to Israel the Lord first spoke,
Mount Sinai aflame with flash and thunder;
So frightened, they shrank away from the smoke,
Lest they be consumed by God’s great wonder!
Through inspired prophets then God chose to speak,
Saving a special One until the last;
He planned to come Himself, believers seek,
Leaving their condemnations in the past!
The last Prophet’s words save men from sin;
Those who listen not must account to Him,
But who hears His words, eternal life win,
While those who do not, the Lord will condemn!
Of prophets from God, there will be no more,
Despite false ones from Satan by the score!

Scripture Quoted (NIV) (Brackets added]
Prophecy Made: Deuteronomy 18:18-19—“ ‘I [God speaking] will raise up a prophet [Jesus/God] like you [Moses] from among their [Israel] brothers; I will put my {God’s] words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet [Jesus] speaks in my name, I myself [God] will call him to account.’ “ (Written in the 14th century B.C.)

Prophecy Fulfilled: John 12:49-50)—“ ‘For I [Jesus/God speaking] did not speak of my own accord, but the Father [God] who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father commanded me to say.’ “ (Written in about 95 A.D.)

Prophecy Fulfilled: Acts 3:22-23—“[Peter speaking of Jesus after His ascension] ‘For Moses said, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his own people.’ “ (Written in the 1st century A.D.)

Commentary On: “Jesus Foretold: The Prophet
When the Israelites came out of Egypt, God led them to camp at Mount Sinai (also called Mount Horeb) where He gave them the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law. He had Moses assemble all the people at the foot of the mountain and spoke to them out of a covering of fire, smoke and cloud, complete with flashes of lightning, thunder and tremors of the mountain. God gave them the Commandments first in a thunderous voice. The people trembled in fear and shrank away from the mountain, afraid that they would die. They asked Moses to go up and speak with God for them, so that they would not have to listen directly to Him. For this reason God gave the prophecy quoted above in the book of Deuteronomy. Since God’s Master Plan called for Him to come to earth in form as a man as Redeemer from condemnation, the people’s request fit His Plan exactly.

Fourteen hundred years later, Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem of a virgin. During His ministry years He spoke to Israel words “commanded” by His Father. Jesus came as the “Son” of God, for His mother Mary was a virgin; Jesus was conceived by God, the Holy Spirit, who “covered” her—there was no sexual intercourse. In this way Jesus was a man, like all men, but He was free of the condemnation that came to all other men through Adam. Jesus fulfilled the words of Moses’ prophecy quoted above. Most of the Jewish leaders did not “listen” to His words, didn’t believe He was the Prophet sent from God, and they rejected Him. At the final judgment, those who reject Jesus as being sent from God will be sent to hell; as Peter said in the passage from Acts (above), they will be “cut off” entirely from the rest of Israel. By the “rest of Israel”, I mean the poor, uneducated non-leaders of Israel, for they did believe the words of Jesus.

God made use of “prophets” throughout the Old Testament, beginning with Moses. Jesus was God’s last Prophet, for in Daniel 9:24 His coming was to “seal up vision and prophecy”. However, an Arab descendant of Ishmael named Mohammed in 632 A.D., declared himself the “last prophet”, and recited words, supposedly from God conveyed to him through the angel Gabriel, that became to Islam a “third testament” called the “Kor’an”. Islam is a counterfeit religion of Christianity, begun by Satan to rob God of souls. Mohammad used the Deuteronomy 18 prophecy’s words that those who did not “listen” to him will be “called to account” to cut off the heads of any who did not confess Allah, their so-called god. Allah and God are vastly different beings, Allah based on fear and God based on love.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)