Waiting for the Prophet (Waiting For Arrival #1)
How are we doing this morning? Full? Yes — that’s a good place to be, especially right after Thanksgiving.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jake. I’m the worship gathering director here, and today I have the pleasure of bringing the message.
We are in the season of Advent. I don’t know if you can tell from the decor, but we are in full Christmas mode. You’ll hear Christmas songs sung throughout this entire month, and hopefully we’ll get just enough snow to be fun for the kids and tolerable for the adults.
What Are You Waiting For?
So let me ask you: what are you waiting for?
That’s not a rhetorical question. What are you looking forward to?
Snow. Presents. Rest. Those are all really good things to look forward to.
When I was a kid around this time of year, I looked forward to presents — so much so that I would go hunting for them around the house. My dad would be out doing chores, my mom was probably watching a Hallmark special, and I’d be scouring the place. I rarely found anything. But the anticipation of what I was going to get was just killing me.
I’m honestly a little surprised that with all the kids in here, nobody said presents. So I’ll take the blame for that one.
Stepping Into Someone Else’s Waiting
As we enter this Advent season and this new series, we’re going to walk through it together as a church family — and not just with each other. We’re walking with the global church.
The weeks leading up to Christmas Day, the weeks of Advent, are something the church has been observing since at least the late fourth century, around AD 380. And while church liturgy hasn’t always formally spelled this out, the four weeks of Advent have come to symbolize the four hundred years of darkness — the period between Malachi writing the last book of the Old Testament and the opening of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It’s known as the intertestamental period. Four hundred years of silence and waiting.
So as we celebrate Advent, we’re in some sense stepping into the shoes of God’s people from the past. Where they anticipated His first coming, we anticipate His second. Where they looked forward to His arrival, we look forward to His return.
Open your Bible to Deuteronomy 18:15–19.
Why Deuteronomy?
Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Old Testament and the final book of Moses. He wrote the first five, known as the Pentateuch. Those five are also called the Law, because they contain the laws and instructions God gave through Moses to the people of Israel.
Now you might be thinking: Jake, you just pointed out the decorations. It snowed a couple weeks ago. Shouldn’t we be talking about the Christmas story? Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the angels, the wise men, baby Jesus?
Here’s the thing. The first five books of the Bible lay the entire foundation for the arrival of Jesus. In them, God chooses and brings into existence the people and nation of Israel.
As God’s chosen people, Israel becomes the means by which God brings about and preserves the Old Testament we’re holding right now. They become the recipients of His covenant promises. And they become the people through whom He would enter human history to become the Messiah — not only to save Israel, but to save the entire world.
So God establishes His covenant people to stand on these promises. And then again and again, He sends prophet after prophet to remind them of His prophecy and His promises, and to call them to repentance and covenant faithfulness.
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers — it is to him you shall listen — just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, “Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.” And the Lord said to me, “They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:15–19)
Moses is at the end of his life here, sharing what God has spoken to him.
What Is a Prophet, Actually?
Throughout the Old Testament — all the way from the fall in Genesis 3 to Malachi 3 — God uses prophecy to point toward the redemption, restoration, and ultimate salvation of His people.
But what is prophecy? And what are prophets?
When you hear those words, who else in here thinks of a fortune teller with a crystal ball? Or in some cases a cult leader? Or, if you’re into fantasy, Gandalf?
That’s how prophecy tends to get portrayed across world cultures. But that is not what it means in the Bible.
Prophets served as spokesmen for God — communicating His will to His people, calling them to repentance from sin, and encouraging them to walk with Him in covenant faithfulness.
And while the biblical prophets did sometimes speak about future events, they were far more than fortune tellers. They were forth-tellers. Forth-telling means proclaiming a message directly from God — authoritatively, with clarity, and truthfully.
God’s prophets were Israelites who had radical encounters with His presence, and who were sent by God to speak His word on His behalf.
Moses, Israel’s Greatest Prophet
Moses is considered Israel’s greatest prophet.
He’s an Israelite who, by God’s providence, is rescued from mass infanticide and adopted by — of all people — Pharaoh’s daughter. When he’s older he sees an Egyptian beating an Israelite slave, rushes in, kills the man, buries him, and runs for his life.
He spends about forty years in the wilderness as a shepherd. And then he encounters God in a burning bush that isn’t consumed by the fire. God commissions him to go set the people of Israel free from slavery in Egypt.
So Moses goes, reunites with his brother Aaron, and they perform miracles to convince Pharaoh to let God’s people go. Pharaoh is obstinate, so God ultimately sends ten plagues to force his hand. Pharaoh finally relents, Moses leads the people out in freedom, and then he goes up Mount Sinai and comes down with the Ten Commandments.
If that’s not one of the greatest prophet origin stories ever, I don’t know what is.
And according to the Bible, Israel had over sixty recorded prophets. So Moses is one of the earliest — and still one of the greatest.
What Prophets Actually Did
What prophets cared about most was the covenant relationship between God and the Israelites.
God had rescued and recovered His people from slavery in Egypt, and He also invited them to become a nation that would represent His character to the rest of the world. That covenant relationship required all Israelites to give their allegiance and full trust to God.
But as we read through the rest of the Old Testament, that doesn’t happen. Israel’s leaders — their kings and even their priests — fail and fall and lead the people astray and break God’s covenant.
This is where the prophet comes in. The prophet reminds the people of their role in the covenant. And they did that in three primary ways.
1. They Confronted
Because they were sent by God, prophets constantly confronted the people for violating the terms of the covenant.
These violations were primarily idolatry — taking something that is not God and putting it in the place of God. They also confronted unsanctioned alliances with foreign nations, which led the people into worshiping foreign gods. And they confronted the injustices that were being allowed to continue.
Amos is a good example. One of the minor prophets, he calls out the Jews in the northern kingdom for abusing the poor — the words he uses are trampling the poor, crushing and extorting those in the most dire need — while simultaneously condemning them for idolatry, worshiping false gods instead of giving their whole hearts to God.
2. They Called for Repentance
We’ve talked about repentance here before, but for anyone unfamiliar with the term — or for anyone whose mental image is a guy on a street corner yelling at people with a sign reading “the end is nigh” — to repent literally means to turn around.
This call to repentance wasn’t merely “don’t do this, or else.” It was also a reminder of God’s mercy and His willingness to forgive if they would confess their sins and change their ways.
But again and again we watch Israel enter this downward spiral: enslaved to sin, cry out to God for help, God comes to the rescue, thank God, forget God, what’s this shiny new sin.
That became a cyclical pattern for generations. And it usually went from bad to worse, as the Israelites nearly threw themselves into exile under the rule of other nations at every opportunity.
3. They Announced the Consequences
The third thing prophets did was announce the consequences for breaking the covenant — often referred to as the day of the Lord.
They emphasized how God would deal justice against Israel for its own corruption, as well as against the violent nations surrounding them. And they sometimes communicated this with cosmic imagery — the land devolving into chaos and disorder, the sun going dark, the stars falling from the sky. Genuinely apocalyptic language.
They used that imagery to explain what was happening in their own local context, and to show how God would inevitably judge evil and wickedness and corruption in all of creation.
Overall, that imagery revealed how the events of their day fit into the greater story of God’s mission to eliminate sin, corruption, injustice, and violence once and for all. They cared about both the present and the future, and this kind of imagery let them speak about both simultaneously.
And it didn’t only point to judgment and exile. It also pointed toward future hope — the return of those in exile to a New Jerusalem, which in the end would resemble a new Garden of Eden, with everyone living at peace with each other and with all creation, under the reign of a Messiah who would ultimately restore the kingdom of God in a new creation.
They Were Not Impressive People
The prophets weren’t all profound, persuasive orators. Some were. Others lived on the margins, often performing strange but symbolic public acts to communicate what God wanted the people to hear.
Some of these were extremely odd. Ezekiel lay in the dirt and built a model of Jerusalem being attacked by Babylon. Isaiah walked around naked for three years to symbolize the humiliation of the exile.
And you know what’s even stranger than that? The people didn’t pay attention. They ignored them. They were shunned, especially by the leaders. Some were killed because of the warnings they carried. And they weren’t taken seriously until the warnings came true in the Babylonian exile.
So the overarching story of the prophets is one of both warning — sin and exile — and hope — redemption and restoration. God’s prophets were His mouthpieces, His ambassadors to those far off from Him.
What About the Reluctant Ones?
For those of you who know your Bible well, you might be thinking: What about Jeremiah? He was pretty reluctant to go confront his people. And what about Jonah? God told him to preach repentance to the Ninevites and he straight up turned around and ran. I saw that VeggieTales too. In theaters. I can’t tell if that’s a brag.
But here’s what we have to remember. While God chose His prophets, He didn’t choose them based on qualifications — you’re the most impressive candidate, you’re hired. Or voluntold.
It actually had nothing to do with the person and everything to do with the message. And as we see across the whole of Scripture, God regularly chooses flawed and thoroughly messed-up people to communicate His perfect and timely message.
Even in the cases of Jeremiah and Jonah. Jeremiah could not resist the divine compulsion to get the message to the people. And Jonah got caught in a storm, swallowed by a fish, spat onto the shore, and — as much as he hated it — preached a sorely lacking single sentence of impending doom to the Ninevites. And they repented, much to his surprise. If you read Jonah 4, you can feel his disappointment about it.
So Where Does Jesus Fit?
It’s been established throughout Judaism that Moses was and remains Israel’s greatest prophet. So how does Jesus fit into this?
Look again at what Moses said: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me — from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen.
Then Moses repeats what God told him personally: I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
In Moses’s immediate context, the people would have understood this to point toward Joshua. Joshua came after Moses, and Joshua did these things.
But remember what I said about prophecy: it often has a dual purpose. It holds both the present and the far-off future fulfillment in tandem.
And keep in mind that Jesus was from among the people of Moses. He was fully Jewish. He was born into poverty. And He held a fairly common name — Jesus is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Yeshua, which in English is Joshua.
Even at that basic level He meets the criteria. And like Moses, He has face-to-face encounters with God. He gives people words from God. And He even has the power to forgive and free people from sin.
True Prophets and False Prophets
If we look at the surrounding context of this passage, Moses is also dealing with two kinds of prophets: true and false.
The true prophet speaks the words God has given him. The false prophet presumes to speak words God did not in fact give him to say. What the true prophet speaks comes to pass. The false prophet says something prophetic-sounding that ultimately doesn’t happen.
And we’re not talking about vague prophecies. Vague prophecies are off the table. I prophesy that you’re going to get lunch today. Oh my goodness, he’s right, we had plans. I prophesy that you’re going to take a long nap sometime this afternoon.
No. The prophets of God spoke in clear detail. Something more like: After this morning’s gathering you are going to drive to a specific restaurant in Waverly, Iowa. You are going to sit in the southwest corner of the east room. The server is going to spill someone else’s drink on your right arm. And you’re still going to tip them — but instead of the fifteen percent you felt obligated to leave, you’re going to tip fifty-one. Also the sun is going to reflect directly into your eyes even though it isn’t in your line of sight.
That’s the kind of clarity we’re talking about. Even Jonah’s short message — yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown — was clear enough to land. And mind you, in Hebrew that’s five words.
But Why Jesus and Not the Other Sixty?
Israel had over sixty recorded prophets. How do we know none of them were who Moses was pointing to? We have Samuel. Nathan. Elijah. Isaiah. Jeremiah. Those are serious contenders.
What makes Jesus so different?
As time went on in Israel’s history, there developed an expectation among the Jewish people of a final prophet.
And look at what people said about Jesus. The crowds in Matthew 21:11 said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” In Luke 7:16 they said, “A great prophet has arisen among us!”
What caused those responses? Most scholars note that it wasn’t primarily His ability to teach, or even to foretell the future. It was the unanimous testimony of His miracles.
And I find it fitting that in that same verse in Luke — drawing on eyewitness testimony — the crowds also exclaimed, “God has visited his people!” At the end of that same chapter, Jesus is having a meal with Simon the Pharisee, who in his own mind has to reckon with Jesus’s controversial role as a prophet.
And back in Matthew 21, the chief priests and the Pharisees chose not to arrest Jesus because they feared the reaction of the crowds — because the crowds held Jesus to be a prophet.
What About the People Who Knew Him Better?
But those were people who maybe caught a glimpse of a miracle. They didn’t really know Him. What about people with more insight into whether Jesus was the real deal?
In Luke 24, after His death and shortly after His resurrection, Jesus falls in with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Now, the passage doesn’t say whose disciples they were — they weren’t part of the Twelve.
Discipleship was actually common in Jewish culture. You’d leave your job, step away from your family, and go live with and learn from a rabbi. It was a 24/7, 365 arrangement — nearly a lifetime commitment. So when we see Jesus in the New Testament with disciples constantly around Him, that was a normal arrangement.
These two on the road had more familiarity with Jesus than the average person. They don’t recognize Him, and they don’t know He’s been raised. And when this stranger asks what they’re discussing, they say: “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.”
Before they even realize who they’re talking to — and it takes them a while — they describe Jesus to His face as a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.
What About His Own Disciples?
But maybe those two didn’t know the real Jesus either. If anyone could verify whether Jesus was legitimate or a fraud, surely it would be His own disciples. They’d have the tell-all if anything being ascribed to Him wasn’t true.
In Acts 3, after the resurrection, Peter and John have just healed a lame beggar at Solomon’s Portico. The people are amazed and crowd around, and Peter starts preaching:
Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One… and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses… (Acts 3:12–15)
And then, a few verses later:
Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.” And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. (Acts 3:22–24)
So even those who had the closest relationship with Jesus — those who could have spilled the tea on even one of His flaws, had He any — point to Jesus not only as the final prophet, but as the final fulfillment of these prophecies.
Do you know what that means?
Everybody Jesus came into contact with had absolutely no reason to doubt Him. From the people far off to those closest to Him. From those who hated Him to those He healed.
All of it points to the fact that Jesus is the prophet — the one Moses pointed the people of Israel toward at the end of his life.
Moses was the greatest prophet. Jesus proved to be greater still.
Moses performed numerous miracles. Jesus performed even greater ones.
Moses and the prophets pointed to a final prophet. Jesus is that final prophet — who came and fulfilled, by conservative estimate, well over three hundred prophecies. With even more to fulfill when He comes again.
So What Are You Waiting For?
What are you looking forward to?
I know for some of us Christmas is something we genuinely anticipate. We have our traditions. My wife’s family visited us this weekend and we did Thanksgiving and Christmas in the span of two or three days. That’s a tradition I look forward to. And some of us have had our houses decked out with decorations since October. I know, because I’ve seen them.
But for others of us, Christmas can be a really hard time. Maybe because there’s relational tension with certain people. Or maybe because a special friend or family member won’t be taking their place at the table this year.
I want you to know that our pastors, our elders, and I genuinely look forward to walking through this season with you.
Remember, the candle we lit today isn’t only the hope candle — it’s also the prophecy candle.
So as the people of God in the Old Testament looked forward to the coming Messiah foretold by the prophets — the one who would bring them home from exile, who would bear their griefs and carry their sorrows, who would be pierced for their transgressions — and as the first-century witnesses encountered this Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…
Would you also look forward to Him?
Would you also place your hope in Jesus this morning? Would you look to Christ as your all in all — as the one true prophet who says and does exactly what He says He’ll do, who has proved His unwavering faithfulness time and time again?
Would you place your hope in Him?
Come to the Table
I can’t think of a better way to apply this passage and set our hope in Christ than to take communion together.
As we move into this, I want us to be clear about what we’re doing and what this is about.
This is the gospel. This is the good news of what God has done to accomplish our salvation and redemption. That while we were dead in our sins against God and others, Jesus lived the perfect life we should have lived, and Jesus died the death our sin deserved. He was buried for three days, and He was raised to life again by the power of God.
If you’re a Christian — whether you’re part of this family or visiting this morning — we invite you to partake with us. Taking the bread, which is Jesus’s body nailed to the cross in our place for our sins. And drinking the juice, which is Jesus’s blood shed for the sins of many, by which our sins are washed away and we are made pure and white as snow.
And if you’re not a follower of Jesus — if you can’t yet come to a place where you can trust Him as Savior, Lord, and friend — I want you to know we are so glad you’re here. We actually started Riverwood for you. And because we love you and want you to know Him, we’d ask you to abstain from the elements. Not to keep something from you or put pressure on you, but because of what these elements mean.
But if God is stirring something in you this morning — if by His Holy Spirit He’s drawing you to Himself, even if you’ve been wandering a while — come find me after the gathering, or find one of our elders. We want to pray with you and walk this process with you.
If today becomes your spiritual birthday, we would love to be part of that. We would love for today to be the day you place your hope and trust in Jesus.
Let’s take these elements together.
