What a great song. What a great,
great hymn. Not the labours of my hands can
fulfil those laws demand. Could my zeal, no, respite, no. Could my tears forever flow. All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. Do you know how many people believe
that? Not one of Adam's children believes
that. The children of promise, the
children of the Lord Jesus Christ believe that. The second last figure that Peter
mentions, as he's gone through these sermons in Acts 2, he has
taken us to the Prophet Joel and taken us to David, Psalm
110, Psalm 116. He now speaks of of Moses and then next week we'll
be looking at Abraham. So I thought we might read this
sermon, this great sermon. Just remember brothers and sisters,
2,000 souls were saved on this day. Acts chapter 3 verse 13.
The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our
fathers, hath glorified his son Jesus, whom ye delivered up,
and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined
to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One, and
the just, and desired a murderer be granted unto you, and killed
the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof
we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in
His name, hath made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yea, the faith which is by Him
hath given Him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And
now, brethren, I know that through ignorance you did it, as did
also your rulers. But those things which God before
had showed by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should
suffer, He has so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord. And He shall send
Jesus Christ, which was before preached unto you, whom heaven
must receive until the times of restitution of all things,
which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since
the world began. For Moses truly said unto the
fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you
of your brethren, like unto me, Him shall ye hear in all things
whatsoever he shall say unto you. and it shall come to pass
that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed
from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from
Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken,
have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of
the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers,
saying unto Abraham, In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the
earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised
up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every
one of you from his iniquities." This is a remarkable sermon,
isn't it? and contains remarkable promises. All the prophets, all
the prophets speak of Him. God had showed you beforehand,
verse 18, that God had showed you by the mouth of all His prophets. It means to announce fully beforehand. God has announced fully beforehand
that Christ should suffer He has so fulfilled, He's filled
it to the full. For Moses, verse 22, and these
are the verses we're looking at today, for Moses said, So
all the prophets, the first thing we need to take note of is that
all of the prophets, Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament and he wrote
a psalm that all of the prophets, all of the prophets speak of
one thing, the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's the sufferings
of Christ that He should suffer and it's the fulfilling of that
suffering. Moses in Deuteronomy 18 speaks
of this prophet that shall come. If you turn there, let's read
the verses that Peter has been led by the Holy Spirit to quote.
Now, Deuteronomy 18, verse 15. Once again, I love the wills
and the shalls of our God. It might take a long time. Moses
wrote these words 1,300 years before the Lord Jesus Christ
came. We think his promises are slow
in coming. They're not slow in coming, brothers
and sisters. They come exactly according to his sovereign purposes. The Lord thy God, Matthew chapter
18 verse 15, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet
from the midst of thee of thy brethren, like unto me. Unto him ye shall hearken, according
to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb in
the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice
of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more,
that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They
have spoken well that which they have spoken. I will raise them
up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee, and
will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them
all that I shall command him. and it shall come to pass that
whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak
in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet which
shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not
commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other
gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine
heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not
spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the
name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass,
that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet
hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him."
It was a fearsome thing in the Old Testament as it is today
to stand before people and speak on God's behalf. It is a fearsome,
fearsome thing. God's servants speak not the
words of men, but they speak the words of God. In the place
of God's authority, God's messenger and God's ambassador speaks with
all of the authority of God Almighty Himself. Well do we. pause in hearing the Word of
God and well do we pause in who we hear and what we hear. As
you well know from the rest of the history of all of the Old
Testament age and the rest of the history of this last 2,000
years, the world has been flooded with people who promise that
they are speaking in God's Name. In fact, if you go back to Deuteronomy
13 while you're there, it speaks of these prophets. If there arise
among you a prophet or dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a
sign or a wonder, there are prophets that will bring signs and wonders. And the sign and wonder come
to pass. Isn't that remarkable? The sign
and wonder come to pass. whereof He spake unto thee, saying,
Let us go after other gods which thou hast known, and let us serve
them. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet
or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God proveth you."
The Lord your God is testing people. by the Word, which is
why 1 John says that you are to examine the Spirit, you are
to examine the people who preach to you, to see whether they speak
the words of God. You are charged by God. to test who you speak, who you
listen to. Beloved, first John Paul, believe
not every spirit, but try the spirits. Test the spirits whether
they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into
the world. Hereby know ye the spirit of
God. Every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that
confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of
God. And this is the spirit of Antichrist, whereof you have
heard that it should come, and even now already it is in the
world. He goes on in verse 6 to say,
We are of God, and he that knoweth God, heareth us. He that is not
of God, heareth us not. Hereby we know the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. There are two tests aren't there?
One is that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. That's not
talking about the physical historic reality of the Lord Jesus Christ
coming. You can read an encyclopedia
and discover that. It's actually saying that the
Lord Jesus Christ came in the flesh and He fulfilled absolutely
everything that was necessary for Him to be the Christ of God.
Every promise of God is yes and amen. And in His flesh He really
did all that God had said that He would do. He really did successfully
in His flesh put away the sins of all His people, particularly
and purposefully and successfully and sovereignly. And now He reigns. And the reality is, if you don't
hear the apostles, you don't hear from God. And if you don't
hear from the apostles, you will, as the promise in the scriptures
is, isn't it, and it shall come to pass, it shall come to pass,
it must come to pass, that every soul which will not hear that
prophet shall be destroyed from among the people." He's speaking
of Moses. How many people were destroyed
from among the people? How many people, how many adult
men of Moses' generation that crossed the Red Sea, that came
out of Egypt, how many of them went into the Promised Land?
How many? There were 600, over 600,000
people. Men, adult men. How many went in? Three. Three. Just three. As it was in the
days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man."
How many people came through the judgment of
the flood out of a population of billions? How many? Eight. It is just remarkably sobering,
brothers and sisters, isn't it? I worked it out on a calculator
last night. They had at least 40 funerals a day for 40 years
in the wilderness, my friends. At times there were great outpourings
of God's wrath upon them and they died by the tens of thousands,
but they died exactly according to the Word of God and precisely
precisely responsible, particularly responsible for their own wickedness
and their own disobedience. You see, that's the situation
that Peter is encountering here, isn't it? The Lord Jesus had
come like Moses. They had never seen miracles
like the Lord Jesus had performed. Remarkable miracles throughout
Israel. For three and a half years they
tested him and examined him. For three and a half years he
said to that nation, he said, I am God. I am your Christ. You have three and a half years
to test me and prove me. You have three and a half years
to examine me as a lamb fit for the slaughter without sin or
blemish. And here are these people. Still,
on this day, on this great day, after the day of the Pentecost,
when there's been this remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
and the Church has been gathered, and the shed blood of the Lord
Jesus now is blood applied to the hearts of people, we stand
in awe and wonder, and we think, isn't it wonderful that 3,000
were saved on that day? Isn't it wonderful another 2,000
were saved? Isn't it wonderful, as read through
the Book of Acts, that more and more are saved? Please remember,
brothers and sisters, God always, throughout time, always has a
remnant, and it's a small remnant. There may have been a million
people in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. 3,000 is a great
outpouring of God's Spirit on those people, and a great, a
great marker of the fact that our God sits in heaven, and he
reigns, and he rules in the hearts of people, and he will not lose
one of his. But it's always a remnant, brothers
and sisters. It's always a remnant. That's why hearing, hearing is
so important. Hearing, we know and we spoke
about it last month that the hearing eye and the seeing ear,
both of these are from the Lord. No wonder Isaiah begins in Isaiah
53. Who has believed our report?
Who has believed our report? The reality is the children of
God will believe the report. And they will believe the report
that God makes about His Son. They will believe the report
that Peter has declared here. And they'll believe what Peter
says about Moses. So here they are, this law-abiding
crowd. And you've got to be reminded
that both in your flesh and in the Jewish nation and throughout
our world, the great battle isn't it, the great battle that is,
the battle that encompasses the scriptures, is that great battle
between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, between
the children of Adam and the children of God. And Moses plays
a vital role in all that. Moses was raised up Moses was
raised up to be a deliverer of the people of God from the bondage
of Egypt. Moses in so many remarkable ways
typified the Lord Jesus Christ, but in the scriptures Moses typifies
the law of God. And what Peter is wanting us
to see here as he lays the foundation for the Church is that salvation
is by grace. Just put yourself in the position
of all those people that heard on that day. There you are, wicked
in unbelief, blood on your hands. You have denied Him, you have
taken Him and crucified Him, and that's the reality of your
sin. How on earth do you think that
you could ever go back to the Law to fix that? How do you ever think that you
could imagine that you would go back to the Law of Moses to
somehow start to polish yourself and to make yourself shine a
little bit better? The thought is preposterous,
is it not, brothers and sisters? And yet the church was plagued
with people that thought that somehow by going back to the
law of Moses they could make themselves more sanctified, by
going back to the law of Moses that somehow they could enhance
or polish the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and add a little
bit of my work to it. And that's exactly how we are
all the time in our Adam flesh. That is what Adam flesh is doing
all the time. Why is legalistic religion so
successful and so pervasive throughout the world? The simple answer
is it appeals to the flesh of men. It appeals to the promises
that we receive from Satan in the garden, doesn't it? You shall
be like God's. Do this and live is the covenant
of works. You shall be like God's is the
reward of that covenant of works. The only people, the only people
who will turn away from the law and their works are people who
have been wounded by God in their hearts. If God leaves your heart
unchanged, you will live as a legalist all of your days. And if God
leaves your heart unchanged, you will meet God on the Day
of Judgement like the people in Matthew 7 did, and you will
say, Lord, Lord, look what I've done, look what I've done, look
what I've done. And you will hear the most appalling
words that could ever be heard by a human being forever. I never knew you. Away from me. The reality is that if people
had listened to Moses, they would follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
They would have followed Him. All the prophets in the law prophesied
unto John. If they'd listen to Moses, they
would listen to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's just read some
of the testimony of the Lord Jesus about Moses. In John chapter
5, the Lord Jesus says, in verse 24, He says, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, that he that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me, hath everlasting life. This is the Lord Jesus,
a prophet, speaking words of promise, and shall not come into
condemnation, but is passed from death to life. Down in verse
39, he says of these people, that they have not the word abiding
in you, for whom He has sent Him you believe not. Search the
Scriptures. This is what people are doing,
aren't they? They're doing it today all over the world. They
did it in those days. Search the Scriptures, for in
them you think ye have eternal life, but they are they which
testify of Me. And you will not come to Me that
you may have life. I receive not honour of men,
but I know you. that ye have not the love of
God in you. I am come in my Father's name,
and ye receive me not. If another shall come in his
own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe which receive
honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from
God only? Do not think that I will accuse
you to the Father, there is one that accuses you, even Moses,
in whom you trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye
would have believed me, for he wrote of me." If you believed
Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. In Luke 16, We have that story of Lazarus
and the rich man. It is a real event. It is not a parable, brothers
and sisters. Parables don't have names in
them. This is a real event of two people that went to their
destiny, and one was sent to hell and the other one went to
heaven. And the one in hell, he says
in verse 27, he said, I pray ye therefore, Father, that thou
wouldst send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren
that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this
place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They
have Moses and the prophet. Let them hear them. And he said,
Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead,
they will repent. And he said unto them, If they
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded,
though one rose from the dead. Absolutely no amount of evidence,
no amount of evidence gives faith. Faith is the gift of God. If God has given you faith, brothers
and sisters, simple rest, reliance and trust, if you have put all
of your eggs in one basket in the Lord Jesus Christ and you're
just relying on Him, you're just resting in Him, treasure that
precious gift, brothers and sisters. It's not given to multitudes,
it's given to a few. Moses, of course, in so many
remarkable ways, typified our Lord Jesus Christ. I just wanted
to look at a few of them today. I've given you the list that
Arthur Pink drew up. He had 75. I could only get 74
on my sheets of paper, so you'll have to go searching for the
75th one. I'll give it to you if it's gone missing and troubled
you. But we'll just read through some of them. It's just a remarkable
list. But it is just a great picture
of the fact that all of the prophets, all of the prophets speak of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Number 38 is his prophetic office. He was a prophet, wasn't he?
He is a prophet. He was a priest. Moses and Aaron
are among his priests. Moses took the blood and put
it upon the horns of the altar. He took the fat and burned it
on the altar. He is a priest, and Christ is a priest. He offered
himself without spot to God. He was a king. Moses commanded
us the law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob,
and he was king in Jeshurun. And our Christ, our Lord Jesus
Christ, is king. He has a kingdom. He rules over
his kingdom. He rules over all this creation
for the sake of his kingdom. He is a king. Our Lord Jesus
Christ is a judge. Moses sat to judge the people
and they stood by Moses from the morning till the evening.
He was, of course, a leader. And he was, quite remarkably,
typified our Lord Jesus Christ. because he stood, he stood between
the Lord and you. Number 43. There is one God, there is one
God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Moses was a chosen servant of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Behold my servant whom I uphold,
mine elect. Moses was one who was engaged
in covenant engagements and Christ is the mediator of a better covenant
and it goes on and on. And over the page number 51,
one of the things that typified Moses and typified the Lord Jesus
Christ was His intimate communion with God. And there arose not
a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew
face to face. And so on earth Christ was the
only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father." And his message. He was the one
who spoke for God. He was the mouthpiece of God.
Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord. This Hebrew is one that so beautifully
opens, isn't it? God who at sundry times and in
diverse manners spoke in times passed unto the fathers by the
prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us. by His Son."
Notice the word His is in italics. God had in these last days spoken
to us by Son. The last word of God to the human
race is the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't have to have any other
words. The Lord Jesus Christ is the last word. whom he had
appointed heir of all things, by whom he also made the worlds,
who being in the brightness of his glory, and the express image
of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his
power, when he had, and I love these words brothers and sisters,
listen to them and read them with me, when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty
on high. He was. He was a prophet. He was like unto Moses. He was raised up out of his brethren,
is our verse in Acts 3.22 says. God will raise up unto you of
your brethren. He was made like us. He was. He was the great type,
our Moses, of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's just read on. In
his prophecies, he's erecting the tabernacle, the place where
God could meet with people, and people could meet with God on
the basis of a priest, on the basis of a blood sacrifice. And Moses finished the work.
And the Lord Jesus finished the work that the father gave him
to do. And Moses came out from that work and he blessed the
people. And the Lord Jesus led his disciples out to Bethany
and he lifted up his hands and he blessed them. And he was appointed,
wasn't he? One of the great pictures that
shows us that you cannot get into heaven by the law is that
God took Moses and took him up onto Mount Nebo and put him to
death and buried him. God buried him out of sight altogether. It's not Moses that gets you
into the Promised Land, brothers and sisters. It's another one,
isn't it? It's another. It is Joshua who
so beautifully typifies the Lord Jesus Christ. That was his name,
Joshua. He takes his people in. And he takes his people in. As
number 74 says, he takes his people in on the basis of a death
accomplished, isn't it? Moses my servant is dead, now
sought for a rise, go over this Jordan, thou and all these people
under the land, which I do give to thee, Joshua 1.2. As the Lord
Jesus said, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it brings forth much
fruit. Moses typified our Lord Jesus
Christ. He was the prophet, wasn't he? He was a prophet that the Lord
God sent unto them. how on the Mount of Transfiguration,
just turn there to Luke chapter 9, it's a glorious picture yet
again. Please remember brothers and
sisters that these are beautiful pictures that the Lord God had
laid in the history of Israel, in the history of the church.
And yet the Church was assaulted again and again, and the Church
is assaulted these days by people who want to say, you must go
and do something, you must be involved in progressive sanctification. And you measure your progressive
sanctification by your obedience and your law-keeping, and the
great confessions of faith. The great confessions of faith
put people back under the law as an obligation and yet again
and again and again the scriptures make it so abundantly clear.
Nothing is more evident to me than the hardness of the human
heart and the wicked self-righteousness of people that they would contemplate
those things. On the Mount of Transfiguration
in Luke chapter 9 In verse 30, there were two men that talked
with him, Moses and Elias. Moses and Elijah returned. Moses didn't get into the promised
land in his flesh, but he did get into the promised land as
a resurrected child of God. There he was on the Mount of
Transfiguration, one a picture, of course, of the law and the
other one a picture of the prophets who appeared And they talked
with Him, they talked with the Lord Jesus who appeared in glory
and what did they speak? Listen to what they speak. This
was the conversation between these two men that were raised,
resurrected to meet the Lord Jesus in glory on that mountain. And the Lord Jesus deity shone
through His humanity and He appeared there in the brightness of His
glory. And they spoke, what was the
conversation about? Just a few simple words. They
spoke of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. They spoke of his decease. That
word decease means exodus. It's a word for departing out
of this world. It's a word for death. The scripture
writers use the word exodus. They spoke of his exodus which
he should accomplish at Jerusalem. Countless millions and billions
of people have died, as will us. What on earth will we accomplish
in our death? What do you accomplish by dying,
brothers and sisters? But the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
something by dying, didn't he? In his death, in his exodus,
he accomplished the salvation of all of his people. That's
what the conversation is on the Mount of Transfiguration. It's
Heaven's conversation, brothers and sisters, that comes to this
earth. And what happened? What happened? A cloud came down and Moses and
Elijah vanished from sight as if In very wonderful picture
way they were saying that we are now out of the way. The law
and the prophets prophesied unto John, now he has come, now he
has come, he has fulfilled all that they prophesied about. They
vanished and there was no man to be seen except the Lord Jesus
Christ. The point of all this, of course,
brothers and sisters, is that prophets speak of Him all the
time. They speak of Him in every particular
way, in every particular pattern. But the point for us today and
the point for the Church in that day is that these pictures, and
Peter raising up Moses here is to show again and again that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. And for those who think they
keep the law by anything they do, they will find on the Day
of Judgment that they have transgressed every last little bit of it.
But worse than that, they will have to their account the horrible
sin of unbelief. How do you establish the law?
How do you perfectly obey the law of God in this body of flesh,
in this world? You look to Him. We establish
the law by faith, by faith. We simply look to Him. See, God's
children love the law, don't we? We don't despise the law
of God. We go to the Ten Commandments
and we see in there things that thrill our heart. We go there seeing them fulfilled
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't go there thinking that
this is something I must do. Because no sinner ever thinks
he can, just like the sinners on the day of Pentecost and this
other day, had no thought. Those that were pricked in the
heart, those that gladly received the Word of God, those that were
wounded by God, They had no thought that anything they could do could
fix their problem. The hole was too deep. The judgement
was too severe. The evidence was in and they
were charged as guilty before God. Those who think they can
do anything other than fulfil the law by faith have no knowledge
of two things. They have no knowledge of themselves
and they have no knowledge of the character of God. Just listen
to the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt, I am the Lord thy
God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before thee. We have other gods before us
all the time. We are manufacturing gods all
the time. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, that is on earth beneath, or that is in the water underneath
the earth. How many idolatrous views of God do we have in our
flesh all the time. But these laws are in the hand
of the Saviour. These laws kept for us by our
mediator. When the legalists wanted to
make people remember the Sabbath day, my friend Greg was booked
to preach in Scotland some years ago and they asked him what he
was going to do after the service. And he said, well there are some
old ruins up the road, my wife and I were going for a drive
on Sunday afternoon. And the elders came back to him
and said, we found someone else to preach, you don't need to
trouble yourself anymore. This is in 2000, brothers and
sisters. He says, remember the Sabbath
day and keep it holy. When have you rested completely
in the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Sabbath? He rested completely. We're not resting on the Sabbath,
we rest in the Sabbath now. It's kept by the Lord Jesus Christ. We establish the law by faith.
He said in that Sermon on the Mount, think not that I've come
to destroy the law and the prophets. I've come not to destroy, but
to fulfill. They're fulfilled. And if they're
fully filled by Him, then you can't add anything more to a
fully filled glass. They're fully filled by Him.
It's lovely, isn't it? We've kept the law, brothers
and sisters. You who believe, we have kept
it perfectly to God's satisfaction. That's why the law of the Spirit
of Life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and
death. We are free. We are liberated
from all of that law. Moses was a prophet. The challenge in Acts, isn't
it, is for people to call on the name of the Lord. Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You cannot
call upon the name of the Lord and be looking to the law and
to be looking to your works in any way whatsoever. Moses spoke
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He spoke of his death. He spoke
of his resurrection. He spoke of his exaltation. He
spoke of his kingdom. He spoke in Genesis of the Lord
Jesus as the seed of the woman. In Genesis 12 he spoke of him
being the seed of Abraham in which all the nations will be
blessed. In Genesis 49 he's the Shiloh, he's the one to whom
the gathering of the people would be. He is the great prophet. The prophets speak of him all
the time, don't they? You think of the prophets. We've
just been looking in these sermons in Acts, the prophecies that
David prophesied about the Lord Jesus Christ. In Psalm 110, Thy
people shall be willing on the day of thy power. They spoke
again and again. As Simon did while I was away
out of Psalm 22, I spoke of the fact that he would be humiliated
and rejected of men and yet he would have a triumphant resurrection
and in that triumphant resurrection all of his people would be blessed.
He is, like the prophet David said, he is a king, he is David's
lord as well as David's son. In Isaiah he is the lamb. He
is that righteous branch of Jeremiah. He is that shepherd. Read Ezekiel
34 and read the promises of God about this great shepherd that
searches out his people and he goes over hills and dales and
he brings them to himself and he makes them to lie down and
he makes them to rest. In the midst of a wilderness
he provides a pasture, Psalm 23, he makes his people to lie
down beside still waters. The Lord Jesus is, at the end
of the Old Testament, when the last of them spoke, when Malachi
spoke, he is the messenger of the covenant that was to come.
He is, as Daniel said, the Messiah who was cut off, but not for
himself. But the law also In Matthew 11.13
it says, the law and the prophets prophesied until John. So there
was, according to the word of God, there is a prophecy, there's
a prophecy, a prophetic element in the law. All the prophets and all the
law prophesied unto John. So the law can be taken as those
first five books of the Bible and it can be taken as all the
commandments that are given from Exodus 20 and on following on. And what did the law bring us? How was the law prophetic? Everything
the law said about sacrifice, from the sacrifice in the garden,
that covering of God's provision to cover the shame of Adam and
Eve, every sacrifice, every blood sacrifice, pictured the Lord Jesus Christ
every time the Jews went to the temple and sacrificed a lamb. The picture was about the Lord
Jesus Christ. Every time that high priest took
that blood on the Day of Atonement and went into the Holy of Holies
and came out with a work finished for a very brief time, God was
showing that he accepts a sacrifice. He accepts a substitutionary
sacrifice. It's an acceptable sacrifice
because it's a sacrifice of God's It's a perfecting and it's a
sanctifying sacrifice. Every time, every time they met
at the temple, they were proclaiming something about the Lord Jesus
Christ. And yet when He came physically to that temple, their
legalistic religion had so blinded their eyes that they couldn't
see Him who it was all about. See, Moses knew that salvation
was by covenant and salvation was by grace and salvation was
by the work of God in the hearts of people. See, Moses was a special
child, wasn't he? But Moses was commissioned of
God because God remembered the covenant that he'd made with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Moses began his ministry because
of a covenant. Moses knew that he was one who
had found grace in the eyes of God. Moses wasn't saved by his
works. Moses couldn't be saved by his
works. I think I read it some weeks
ago. I love what Moses said in all that task of bringing the
people up. He says in Exodus 33.13, Now therefore I pray thee,
if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that
I may know thee, that I might find grace in thy sight, and
consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, My presence
shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And Moses said
unto him, If thy present go not with me, carry us not up hence. Moses was a man who found grace. The law is no help to a sinner. The law is a comfort to the self-righteous,
to those who have never known themselves to be sinners. Moses was a prophet. He prophesied
of the Lord Jesus from Genesis through to the end of Deuteronomy.
He just spoke of Him again and again and again. In sacrifice,
in every picture of the temple was a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. From the mercy seat out to all the others, I love that
picture in Isaiah. When Isaiah saw the Lord Jesus
Christ in that temple, his train filled the temple. If the Lord Jesus Christ and
his train, and his train of course is his church, because where
the Lord Jesus Christ goes, his glory and his church go with
him, just as a bride with a long train, wherever the bride goes
the train follows along. His glory and His train filled
the temple. If it filled the temple, what
couldn't you see? If it filled the temple, you
couldn't see the candlestick, because the candlestick pointed
to Him. You couldn't see the showbread. You couldn't see the
altar, but you saw Him. You couldn't see the mercy seat,
but you saw Him. His train filled the temple. His glory filled that temple. All of it is a shadow. All of
them were shadows. And the light, the light of the
Gospel, shines on the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
if you're looking at Him, you don't need to look at the shadows,
brothers and sisters. You just look to Him. Moses was
a prophet, just like the Lord Jesus. He was rejected by people. that Moses was a prophet who
spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ and realised and knew that there
must be a work of God in the hearts of people. Let's turn
to the end of Moses' life in Deuteronomy 29 and 30. The Law of God is holy and just
and good, but it makes no one holy and it justifies no one
and it creates no goodness in people. If you believe, you are
justified from all things, but you could not be justified by
the Law of Moses. But Moses' Law, in the giving
of his Law, he realised at the end of his days that there were
some that were going to believe and there were some that were
going to reject him. He says in Deuteronomy 29, he
speaks of the words of the covenant. And then he speaks of the fact
in verse 2, he said, you've seen all that the Lord did before
your eyes in the land of Egypt under Pharaoh and to all his
servants and under his land. These people of Israel had seen
all that the Lord Jesus had done for those years, the great temptations
which thy eyes had seen, the signs and those great miracles,
yet, verse 4, the Lord hath not given thee, given you a heart
to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear till this day. Only God gives a heart to see
and eyes and ears to hear. But Moses trusted. Moses trusted God. See, men will
trust themselves. If you look down in Deuteronomy
29, 19, and it came to pass that when you hear of the words of
this curse, no matter how many threatenings there are, No matter
how many threatenings there are, when people hear the words of
this curse, he blesses himself in his heart saying, I shall
have peace. That's what people are saying
to themselves, aren't they, again and again. I shall have peace,
though I walk in the imagination of my heart. I shall have peace. And what do false teachers do?
They bring peace, peace to people who have no peace. If you get
peace from God, brothers and sisters, no one or no thing in
this world will ever take it from you. If you have your own
peace, then God may, in judgement, just leave you to go that way. But Moses trusted in the covenant
purposes of God. If any of thine be driven out
into the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy
God gather thee. And from thence will He fetch
you, the Great Shepherd will fetch you, and the Lord thy God
will bring you into the land which thy fathers possessed and
thou shalt possess it. He will do thee good and multiply
thee above thy fathers." And what's He going to do? To create
belief, to create love for God. How does it happen? And the Lord
thy God will circumcise thine heart. I can't get to the hearts
of people, but God can circumcise your heart. He can take out a
heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. God will circumcise
thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy
God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, that thou mayest
live. The only people who love the
Lord God, people talk about how much they love God, The only
people who love him are those who have been wounded in the
heart, circumcised in the heart. He knew, Moses knew, at the end
of his days, that the Lord God was going to have to circumcise
the hearts of people to bring them to himself. And I thought we might finish
with Moses the prophet, speaking those words that we read at the
beginning of our service in Deuteronomy 32. It's Moses' last song. And if you read it all you'll
see that Moses had no illusion about the fact that people were
going to find other gods. They were going to find another
rock that's not like our rock. And he speaks to the heavens,
doesn't he? He speaks to the heavens. All of God's preachers
want to be heard by the heavens and if the heavens hear, then
God's word will come from heaven. It will come to this earth and
it will do its work and it goes back always having achieved a
purpose which is beyond the wit and understanding of men. He
says, give ear, O heavens, and I will speak and hear, O earth,
the words of my mouth. Moses, like the Lord Jesus Christ,
was a man of prayer. He committed everything in faithfulness
to his Father. Hear, O earth, the words of my
mouth. Then he speaks of his teaching.
What a great description of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are a comfort to the hearts
of God's people, aren't they? The Lord Jesus speaks. Whatever
he speaks is true. Our God cannot lie. His promises
cannot fail. His purposes cannot be diminished
in any way at all. He will be glorified in his church
and in his people. that he's teaching, my doctrine
shall drop as rain, my teaching shall distill as the dew. as the small rain upon the tender
herb and as the showers upon the grass. Has the Word of God
been that to you, brothers and sisters? How often have you turned
to the Scriptures and found that there is a refreshing in them
that you had never imagined there would be, just a word from God,
a glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ in His glory, Moses speaks of
this, and it's like the gospel, isn't it? The rain comes from
heaven, and the gospel comes from heaven. New birth comes
from heaven. You must be born from above.
The gospel is a blessing wherever it comes, and the gospel acts
sweetly and unperceived. It comes like dew at times. You don't hear it. You don't
hear it. It just falls gently. They are
born from above and there is in the rain life, life of heaven's
watering. Also, it comes by grace. You cannot make it rain. It comes not produced by anything
on the earth. It comes as something distilled
from heaven. The Lord Jesus said, My words
are spirit and they are life. And what's the doctrine? What's
the Gospel message? It's the same Gospel message
that the apostles proclaimed on the day of Pentecost. It's
the same Gospel message that comes from heaven. I will publish
the name of the Lord, a scroll of greatness unto our God. You see the very comfort of God's
people, the doctrine that distills like dew from heaven, is the
character of God. The very character of God as
revealed in the scriptures and in the Lord Jesus Christ is the
great comfort for God's people. Henry Mayne said, to believe
God is no small thing. It's the evidence of a heart
reconciled unto God. It's the proof of our being weaned
from our own words and deeds. It is a clear sign of the true
conviction of sin. It is honouring to Christ and
our only Redeemer. It is the essence of true worship
and the root of sincere obedience. be thanked, that God be thanked,
that you were servants of sin, but have obeyed from the heart
that form of sound doctrine which was delivered unto you." That's
the church's one responsibility, isn't it? Not to entertain, not
to do other things, but to publish the name of the Lord. I love
what Ezekiel 36 says, isn't it? God does all things for His own
name's sake. Salvation belongs to Him. Salvation
comes from Him. Salvation returns so that all
the glory is His. Salvation is by grace. And what a great description
of our God. What a great description of our
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the rock. His work is perfect. For all His ways are judgement. A God of truth and without iniquity. Just and right is He. Our God
is a rock. There's no question whatsoever,
isn't there, that the rock that he's speaking of there is the
Lord Jesus Christ. He was that rock that was cleft
that Moses could hide in to see the glory of God. He was that
rock that followed those people for 40 years through that wilderness.
and that rock from which those streams of living water flowed.
He is the rock. There is only one. You might
read later on in the passage you'd find that Moses says that
they're rock. The rock of other people is not
like our rock. They have a rock, don't they,
all the other religions of the world and all the other denominations.
They have a rock, but it's not like our rock. Our rock, when
you meet a rock, you've met something of substance. You've met something
that you have to move because it will not move for you. You've
met something that's more solid and more firm. You've met something
that's unchanging. You've met something that is
a foundation. It is repeated again and again.
It is that rock that God laid in Zion. It is that rock that
Peter has been speaking about, isn't it? Isaiah spoke of him.
Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious
cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste. He that believeth shall not make
haste." If you're like me, brothers and sisters, I'm trying to make
haste all the time. In unbelief we're always making
haste. But to believe is to rest in
a finished work of a sovereign God. To believe is not to go
back and be under the law, to make haste and to do and to do
and to do. His work is perfect. His work is perfect. He perfectly
fulfilled the law. He perfectly fulfilled all the
punishments that the law required. He perfectly suffered the death
that the law required. The wages of sin is death. He perfectly fulfilled all of
that law. A perfect righteousness is wrought
out, justice is fully satisfied, a perfect peace is made, full
atonement for sins, and the whole work is finished. If it's perfect,
brothers and sisters, you can adore and admire perfection,
but don't you dare touch it, because you can't touch it without
admiring it. because you don't need to touch
it. His work is perfect. A God of truth and without iniquity. A rock to stand on. A rock to be hidden in. A rock to rest your soul upon. A rock that Moses hid in. Moses
was a prophet. He saw God by hiding.