"The Prophet"

It's the end of September already! Wow!

Today I got to talk to my friend who recently left for Germany. Samer will be starting classes next week if all goes as planned. Here is a picture he took by a lake while visiting Ilmenau the other day. I told him I wanted to use it on my blog. I just thought it looked serene and I liked it. Don't you?


In other news, I stomped on crunchy leaves while walking the neighborhood streets this morning. Crunchy leaves are quite fun! But I saw a dead deer on the side of the road, too. Must have been hit by a car last night or early this morning.

This afternoon I was enjoying the fresh autumn air while reading my Bible on the porch. After awhile I got to thinking of a couple of passages my dad wanted me to read. He requested that I read John 5 & 6 and share with him what stood out and what comments or questions that I had. There were several things I brought up to him, but the thing that came to mind this afternoon was this part from the end of chapter 5. This is Jesus talking.

³⁹ You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. ⁴⁰ But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
⁴¹ “I do not receive honor from men. ⁴² But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. ⁴³ I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. ⁴⁴ How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? ⁴⁵ Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. ⁴⁶ For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. ⁴⁷ But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”


I remember asking my dad how did Moses accuse these religious Jews and what did Moses write about Jesus. (Remember from verse 18 that these Jews wanted to kill Jesus "all the more" because He made Himself equal with God.)

So I was dwelling on this a bit and then remembered from chapter 6 where Jesus had just fed a huge crowd of 5,000 with only two fish and five loaves of bread. And when everyone had eaten his fill, they gathered 12 baskets of leftovers! John records: ¹³ Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. ¹⁴ Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”


Could it be that one place where Moses speaks of Jesus is Deuteronomy 18?

¹⁸ I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. ¹⁹ And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.


Jesus said in John 10

³⁰ I and My Father are one.” ³¹ Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. ³² Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?”
³³ The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? ³⁵ If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), ³⁶ do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? ³⁷ If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; ³⁸ but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”



Do you believe Moses was speaking of Jesus when he mentioned the prophet in Deuteronomy 18? Can you think of places where Moses talked about Jesus?