LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE: DEUTERONOMY 18:15-22
KEY VERSE
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen: to him you shall listen.
Deuteronomy 18:15
INTRODUCTION AND STUDY.
Almost everybody will tell you that you can trust them, that they would always do what is true and right, that you can always count on them. It is extremely important to have people that you can trust especially when you, your family, and your nation are going through difficult times. You need someone who can guide you, help you, take you in the right direction and protect you from the things around you that aren’t right for you.
Moses was a powerful servant of God who God appointed to lead the nation of Israel. He was not only a great leader but he was also a prophet. While he lived and before he died he led the nation of Israel out of Egypt where they had been held as slaves. He was a powerful, strong, faithful servant of God and he held a special position as far as God was concerned.
It is very difficult to find someone that one can trust like Moses, who will be able to talk to God and get guidance from God directly. Many people will tell you that they talk to God and God speaks to them but it would be advisable that you check whatever they are saying to you to make sure it does not conflict with the instruction that God has given in the Bible.
A prophet is one who was anointed to represent God with men. Because of this position prophets bring new revelation from God and every time this revelation comes it always works out perfectly as the Prophet and said. Moses was in the Covenant with God and he always encouraged the people of Israel to be faithful to the Covenant of God. When God was speaking to the children of Israel when they came out of slavery in Egypt and had crossed through the Red Sea where God destroyed the armies of Egypt that wanted to capture them, God spoke to the people at Mount Sinai and His voice was so loud and the Mountain at Sinai burned with fire so brightly that the people were afraid to listen to the voice of God when the fires were burning on the Mount Sinai. So the people told Moses that he should talk to God and then tell them what God had said for they did not feel safe when God was talking to them and fires were burning and raging for they thought that the fires would destroy them.
Moses stood between the people and God and God would tell him what He wanted the people to do. Moses therefore was a great leader as well as a great prophet and he knew what would happen to the nation of Israel if they did not obey God. As a matter of fact in the chapter we are studying Moses predicted what would happen to the nation for he knew that sometimes they were very disobedient.
After traveling for 40 years in the wilderness the people of Israel were ready now to enter the land of Canaan which had been promised to them. The people in Canaan were terrible people. Their lifestyle was totally against what God wanted for people. They did all kinds of demonic things. They practiced witchcraft and divination such as reading tea leaves, reading palms, making charts about the stars telling people these horoscopes determined what they were like, what would happen to them, and how they should behave to avoid trouble and get blessings, looking in to a crystal ball to determine what would happen in the future.
They practiced all kinds of child abuse, offering children to their pagan gods. They tried to cast all kind of spells and do voodoo to hurt people. They claimed that they communicated with people who had died. They also claimed to have special knowledge and powers which would make them be able to do all kind of things, good or bad to others.
Nowadays the TV and movies are filled with people claiming to have supernatural powers, doing all kind of things no human can do. We see all kinds of movies and books filled with magic and witchcraft which try to make young people believe that those kinds of things are good.
But God tells us that these people only want to deceive young people so they make these stories seem exciting and attractive. They are not to be trusted.
Because of these exhibitions of power and violence people thought that they could be trusted and that they did not have to listen to the Lord God for these people behaved as if they were substitutes for God.
God did not want the people of Israel to get involved with these wicked practices when they got into the land of Canaan. They needed a prophet and leader like Moses who was faithful to God and who knew exactly what God wanted His people to do. Since he was a prophet Moses would be able to tell the people what God would do to them if they were disobedient.
The nation which consisted mostly of young people under 20 years of age was just about to go into the land of Canaan but Moses knew that he would not go into the land with them so Moses
promised them that God would raise up one of their countrymen who would be a prophet like he was and who would be able to lead them, guide them, protect them, encourage them, and save them from the wicked practices being done around them. This prophet would deliver them from evil even more than Moses would have been able to deliver them.
The people looked forward to seeing this prophet come. It took a long time for Moses’ promise to be fulfilled.
The Scriptures tell us that Jesus was this prophet. When John the Baptist came be told the people that he was baptizing that Jesus was the Messiah and Jesus was also this promised prophet.
Not only would Jesus be a prophet but he would be a priest, and also King who would rule over them.
We should always therefore bear in mind how important Moses was but even more we should remember that Jesus was the most important person for the nation of Israel and for ourselves also.
He brought salvation to us and so we should listen to Him for He knew exactly what God the Father wanted human beings to do before He took them into His family and gave them eternal life.
Jesus knew everything about us and everything that would happen on the earth. He knew that the other people who said they knew the future and encouraged people to trust them would lead people astray.
So the only person we should trust is Jesus. Parents have been placed in our lives to teach us about Jesus and to show by their lives that they are obedient to what Jesus wanted.
Jesus will deliver us. He wants us to take that message to everyone that we meet for Jesus and ourselves love them and do not want them to be fooled by the demonic things that some people practise. We want them to be saved and have eternal life