Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast. And did you ever see Ghostbusters?
SPEAKER_01I didn't see it when it came out. I was alive when it came out, but I was not allowed to watch it like so many other things that happened in the late 80s and into the early 90s. They were bad, and therefore I did not see them when they came out. But later, when I was old enough to, you know, fully rebel, because now I'm in my 20s or whatever, I went back and I caught up on a lot of that stuff. And I'll admit, in retrospect, I was like, yeah, okay, I see why maybe my parents thought this wasn't the best idea for the teenage version of me. I get it now. Also, there are a lot of observations that you make when you watch movies that have been out for 10 or 12 years and that are in the ether and everybody knows about, but you're just getting around to them for the first time ever. And when it came to Ghostbusters, my observations are as follows: one, that Bill Murray, jeepers creepers, he's just incorrigible. That guy is funny. He really does the dry humor the way I like it. Bill Murray, man, he won me over with that movie when I saw it as a younger gentleman. Observation number two. I don't remember what it was. I've only ever seen the movie the one time, the one rebellious watch in my 20s. So I don't remember exactly what the deal was, but you got is it Sigorni Weaver that's in that show? Am I remembering that right? Rick Moranis is in there for sure. And they all end up playing these prophetic roles in this complicated cult of Zool, and all of these things have to happen in order to unlock the prophecy and fulfill the, you know, whatever, it's nonsense. But also, you know, as a gentleman in my 20s who've been around the Bible a little bit, I was like, well, I'll give them this. Prophecy can be pretty complicated, and it can leave people scratching their heads. And so part of the wonder of Ghostbusters is who are all these different characters and how do they fit together? And you wonder that as an audience member. Well, completely on the other end of the spectrum from like, you know, dark evil things all the way over to like good, glorious, awesome things, you've got a lot of prophecy in the Bible, and the prophets had been basically quiet for 400 years between the time of the Old Testament and the time of the New Testament. And that's a lot of time for speculation to build up and for people to wonder who's gonna play what role and what's the exact order of events, and who's the metaphorical gatekeeper and key master, and who's supposed to show up when, and there's a new Elijah in there somewhere. And we get a little glimpse into this swirling mass of prophetic speculation that was going on in the religious community in the world of Jesus in the first century AD. We get a little glimpse into that in John chapter one, because we have this scenario where we've had you know a couple thousand years of history with God interacting with his chosen people, the descendants of Abraham. There have been a lot of ups and downs there. They've learned some lessons along the way, like knock it off with the idolatry, and God is indeed the one true God. They've learned the God has a long memory, but they've learned that also the God is forgiving. And they've also learned that there is some eternal king who is supposed to sit on the throne of David forever, and he's supposed to reign over this amazing age for all of eternity, where God's justice reigns supreme and his mercy is on display, and everybody glorifies God. And so by the time you get to the first century and you know, the beginning of the life and public ministry of Jesus, there's everybody's eager for this, but they have very different visions for what it's going to look like. And because of that, a lot of messiah wannabes pop up during this time in the first century AD. And there's some speculation that maybe John the Baptist is one of the, I mean, maybe he's the Messiah. I mean, he's somebody because he's leading this religious revival. It's working. People are very excited, they're going out to the desert to see him. So the religious leadership goes out there to see John the Baptist, this wild man, out in the desert, to figure out who exactly are you? Are you the metaphorical key master, gatekeeper? What role are you? And and here, what they want to know, first of all, is are you the Messiah? Now, this is John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely. I am not the Christ. Okay, so you're not that role. Okay, well, all right. There are other roles in all of this swirling prophetic lore that has a lot of speculation built up around it. So they go right to the next question. They asked him, then who are you? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Okay, well, it checks two things off the list. You know, they've got all these like moving pieces on their felt board in terms of who John the Baptist is and what the timeline is, and you got some red yarn and thumbtacks and stuff in there. They're trying to piece together what the heck is going on with the prophecy here, so that they gotta keep asking. So now they ask, are you the prophet? He answered, No. Okay, well, the prophet? I mean, what is that supposed to mean? Now, in my Bible, you can take a look at yours and see if it's the same way. Prophet has the P capitalized. And I think that's probably a very good translation. I mean, this was written in all caps in the original language, so we you know, the the people who are professional translators, they have to take drawn context to figure out things like this. But I very much agree with the decision here to capitalize the P in Prophet, because I think both John and these prophecy speculators both know who this guy is, and it's a reference, I believe, to somebody Moses predicted was going to come along later on. Now, a couple of weeks ago we talked about this, so we're not gonna go all the way down the rabbit hole right now, just a little ways down the rabbit hole. If you remember in John 1:17, at the end of the prologue, this verse, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. So we went and we dug into how Jesus is the fulfillment of everything that Moses taught and did, and then you know, we looked at how Moses is pro-Jesus, and we looked at how John seems to be making the argument to the skeptical Jewish portion of his audience who are concerned that Jesus might represent some sort of idolatry. Blasphemy and idolatry are a pretty big deal. So John the evangelist is making the case. No, worshiping Jesus is obedience to the second commandment. That is the one about only worshiping God and not having idols, and worshiping Jesus is following through on what Moses points to or pointed to back in the day. Well, what did he point to? Here it is. Deuteronomy 18, 15 has Moses saying this as he looks to the distant future. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. That's a pretty juicy little passing morsel right there. I mean, you got five books of Moses, and he says all kinds of stuff in them. But here's this one little thing. I mean, that's gonna stick in the back of people's brains forever. Oh, wait, wait a second. There's a prophet? When does he show up? What do we do? How will we know that it's him? Well, the idea here, I mean, Moses seems to be indicating you should know, you should recognize him when you see him. So this prophet doesn't get a name. Maybe the prophet means the Messiah. It could be. I mean, in the end, I think it turns out that it does mean the Messiah. Maybe it means, you know, maybe some people think it means uh, you know, another uh Moses or another Elijah or another Isaiah or something like that. I mean, there are a lot of different types of prophets in the Old Testament, and clearly the prophecy speculators who are here questioning John the Baptist, they view the prophet as something different than the Messiah or the Christ and different than Elijah. Well, either way, John the Baptist's answer is no, I'm not that. Um, you know, did John the Baptist know that the prophet meant the Messiah? Did he know that's who Moses was talking about there? Well, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. But you and I know, with the benefit of the rest of the Bible, that definitely the prophet Moses was talking about is not John the Baptist, it's Jesus. How do we know? I'm uh we're gonna look at it in a different part. I'm gonna turn to a different Bible verse because I got a Bible here. You can hear it. Look, could I make those sounds if I didn't have a Bible here? I got a Bible here, and I I found the passage. Acts 3, starting in verse 22. This is Peter talking to the religious leadership, who, I mean, just a little while earlier had killed Jesus. He says to them, 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 people. Indeed, all the prophets, from Samuel on, as many as have spoken of, foretold these days, and you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, Through your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed. When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways. I mean, I I could read you more context here, but that's already enough for you to see that he's talking about Jesus and he names Jesus by name in flow. It is abundantly obvious that Peter is saying, uh, you guys, remember you sent messengers out to go and inquire of John the Baptist about this prophet because you really care about prophecy and you really want to get it right, and you want to you want to make sure that you don't make any mistakes, and that you got the key master and the gate master and the doormaster, and like everybody all lined up, and you got your little felt board with all the prophets in order and when they're supposed to appear and all the signs and everything, so you can read the signs and get the end times right. Well, uh, you totally whiffed on it. You asked the right question, but you totally whiffed and uh you you killed the prophet that Moses said would come. So I guess pretty bad job on that. A lot of paraphrase there is mine, but that's the gist. Acts chapter 7, another guy has a crack at that same group of religious leaders who just got done killing Jesus. This dude's name is Stephen, and in verse 37, Stephen says to them, just moments before they hit him with rocks until he dies, Stephen says, This is that Moses who told the Israelites, God will send you a prophet like me from your own people. He was in the assembly in the desert with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers, and he received living words to pass on to us. And at that point in Stephen's speech, he's already made it very clear that he's pointing all of this toward Jesus, and then these guys are getting the religious leaders are getting more and more mad. And at the end of Stephen's speech, he calls them out. He says, You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears, you're just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. You have received the law that was put into effect through angels, but have not obeyed it. And then they get real mad and they kill him, and Saul, who becomes Paul, helps him do it. And then in John chapter 5, and this is kind of recap because we covered some of this with the prologue, but then in John chapter 5, Jesus himself says effectively, I am the prophet, who Moses pointed to in uh 545 through 47. Jesus says, But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you don't believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say? And then just to round the thing out, we're going to turn back a couple pages to Luke 24, right at the end of the story of Jesus according to Luke. Jesus has been crucified and resurrected, and he meets up with a couple of disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they're pretty sad because Jesus got executed and they like Jesus, and they don't recognize the risen Jesus, and he starts talking to him, and then Jesus gets very direct with him. He says, How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And then it says in Luke 24, 27, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. So, from the beginning of Jesus' public ministry through his whole life into his resurrection or post-resurrection conversations, and then on into the early church, we get confirmation after confirmation that Jesus is that prophet that Moses predicted all those years ago in Deuteronomy 18, who God was going to raise up and who Moses said, I mean he cast this instruction forward into time for all of the descendants of Abraham. When this guy shows up, listen to him, recognize him, and listen to him. And the religious leaders completely whiff on it. But again, we have the benefit of the Bible here and the benefit of hindsight. So let's just add this all up and see where we're at with trying to figure out who John the Baptist is, who Jesus is, how it fits together here based on John. Okay. One, he got asked if he was the Christ. We found out that Jesus is the Christ. John the Baptist is not. Two, John the Baptist got asked if he is Elijah. We found out that he is not the reincarnation of Elijah, and Jesus is not Elijah. But later we find out that John the Baptist is the fulfillment of the prophetic role of Elijah. Third, he got asked, Are you the prophet? The one predicted by Moses. And we find out that John the Baptist is not the prophet, but we do find out that Jesus is the prophet. So again, we've got the benefit of hindsight here, but you know, there's a bit of a prophetic riddle. I think prophecy always makes more sense when you look at it in hindsight. And there's always some kind of wondering about who's what and how it all fits together at this point. I do not begrudge the religious leaders for not knowing and for trying to figure it out at this point in the game. I think I'm on good footing to say, I guess I do begrudge them for not figuring it out after everything that Jesus said and did throughout his life. However, I would also say I'm grateful to the religious leaders for going out and trying to sort through who plays what role and how does all this prophecy fit together because it gives us a really clear outline of who Jesus is, who Jesus is not, who John the Baptist is, who John the Baptist is not, so we can get our bearings as the story continues to unfold. Fun, fun, fun. I've had a lovely time today. I hope you have as well. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.