And verse 26, Deuteronomy chapter
20, I'm sorry, 33. If I've said 23, forgive me. Deuteronomy chapter 33 and verse
26. There is none like unto the God
of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in
his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge
and underneath are the everlasting arms and he shall thrust out
the enemy from before thee and shall say, destroy them. Israel then shall dwell in safety
alone. The fountain of Jacob shall be
upon a land of corn and wine. Also his heavens shall drop down
dew. Happy art thou, O Israel, who
is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy
help, and who is the sword of thy excellency. and thy enemies
shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon their
high places. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. God's love to us, God's love
to us his people, is the source and the spring of every blessing
that we possess. Be under no mistake, the fact
that we are who we are as his chosen people, what we are, as
the redeemed children of God, heirs of his promises and those
with a legitimate reason to hope in the eternal well-being of
our souls in the company of Almighty God. is due wholly and exclusively
to the love of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit towards us. And last week we spent a few
minutes and we looked at the fact that it was the love of
God that initiated our election and settled all our covenant
privileges in the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the love of God
that chose us, and the love of God that set us apart in Christ,
and it was the love of the Lord Jesus Christ that committed him
to come willingly, voluntarily, and to bear our sin and carry
our sorrows, to substitute himself for us under the wrath of God,
and to become our way of escape. It was the Lord Jesus Christ's
love towards us that sent him to die in our place. He, as the
first chosen of God, and we as all the elect chosen in him to
everlasting life and to be predestinated to be conformed to the image
of Christ, are blessed upon the footing and foundation of the
everlasting love of the eternal God. When we were thinking about
this last week, we thought about Isaiah 42 and verse one and how
it says there, behold my servant, that is Jesus Christ, whom I
uphold, mine elect and whom my soul delighteth. And then in
Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he has
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. That's the gospel. That there is the gospel that
God has revealed. The Gospel's not a request for
people to do something. The Gospel's not an offer that
is generally made to everybody in the world to respond in some
way. The Gospel is a declaration of
what God has done in Christ for the salvation of his people. And when we come together, and
when we meditate upon the Gospel, it must be upon this ground that
we stand. the everlasting love of God towards
his chosen, firstly in Christ, and then to all who are placed
in Christ at his will and purpose. These are our blessings. And
if we, in time, through the preaching of that gospel, are brought by
God the Holy Spirit first to hear it, and thereafter to believe
it, then the discovery of that love and the discovery of that
gospel is a game changer in our lives. It alters things. It converts us. It changes us. We are no longer what we once
were. We're no longer pursuing an end
of our own passions and desires. We're no longer self-justifying
ourselves with our own good works and our own good ways. We're
no longer thinking that we're perfectly acceptable. and that
we're as good as everybody else and better than most. We're no
longer thinking that we can make our own way through this world
and that we're doing very nicely, thank you. But rather we see
ourselves as what we really are. We see ourselves as worms before
the majesty of a holy God. We see ourselves as sinners who
are under the guilt of our rebellion and iniquities and transgressions
of God's holy will and law and we see ourselves without a hope
in this world but the justifiable judgment of God. When we hear
that gospel and God the Holy Spirit applies it to our hearts,
when that new creation is implanted in us, when that begins to flourish
and flower and we are converted through the regenerating work
of God the Holy Spirit, then everything changes. That's a
conversion. That's a game changer. And those
that foolishly teach universal love, they have robbed God of
that love that is powerful, efficacious, and purposeful to redeem and
recover and reconcile that people who are his own. We've asked
the question before and it bears asking again. If God's love is
the same for everyone, then what difference does God's love make
for a sinner? in their justification, in their
salvation and in their glorification. If God's love for everyone is
the same, then it is inconsequential in whether or not I'm a believer.
And that is so opposite from the truth revealed in scripture
that it doesn't bear preaching or believing. And that is why
we have to reject and we have to expose this fallacy of free
will teaching. There is a little verse that
I want to draw your attention to this morning, and it's found
in Deuteronomy chapter 23 and verse 5, and I want to mention
it, perhaps just as if I can, in this introductory part of
our thoughts this morning. So we're in Deuteronomy chapter
33 for our reading, but in Deuteronomy chapter 23 and verse 5, we read
these words. Moses, it's part of Moses' blessing
of the people of Israel prior to them going into the promised
land, entering into Canaan, an entrance that Moses himself would
not be party to. He would get to see the promised
land but not enter into it. But he speaks, as he is doing
in this 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy. He does so for a number of chapters
as it were a last will and testimony of God's goodness and grace to
the people of Israel. But we see beyond that and we
see that not only is the nation Israel of the Old Testament being
addressed, but spiritually we see that there are applications
here for all God's people of all time, the elect of God, the
church in the wilderness, the church of Jesus Christ. And here's
what the faithful Moses says. Israel had been cursed by her
enemies. And Moses says this to the people
of God. The Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing
unto thee. Why? Because the Lord thy God
loved thee. When God loves us, even curses
are blessings. They are the means, curses are
the means to our blessing. They are the route by which we
traverse this world, this time state of our life here upon earth
to the glorious end that the Lord Jesus Christ has for us.
and the curses of this world, whether it's that great curse
that occurred at the fall, whether it's the curse of sin in our
life, whether it's the cursing of Satan against the Church of
Jesus Christ, whether it's the curses and opposition of our
enemies in this world, he makes them a blessing to us. Which is why, no doubt, James
The Apostle can say in chapter 1 verse 2, in encouragement of
the Lord's people in their troubles and in their trials, in the midst,
as it were, of those very curses, he says of them, and it's unexpected,
you'll agree with me, My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall
into divers temptations. When these curses come on you,
when these troubles, these trials, these problems come on you, count
it a joy, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh
patience. This is the end This is the purpose,
this is the end and the objective of these curses, these trials,
these various temptations. It works patience that we may
be perfect and entire, that we may be complete, that we may
be righteous and holy in the Lord Jesus Christ, wanting and
lacking nothing. And Paul exhorts believers to
continue in the faith, knowing we must, through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom of God. God brings these curses into
our lives. He brings these diverse temptations,
these troubles and trials, but they emanate in our blessing. And today I want to provide you
with some more biblical support for this truth of scripture,
this gospel foundation upon which we stand in the form of this
lovely little verse from Deuteronomy chapter 33 that we read together. Verse 27, here's what it says
again. The eternal God is thy refuge
and underneath are the everlasting arms. And he shall thrust out
the enemy from before thee and shall say, destroy them. Now, as we've mentioned, the
context of this verse is Moses' last words. to the children of
Israel and it's a blessing that he is laying upon the children
of Israel as he speaks to them here at the end of his life.
He is about to die and they are about to enter into the promised
land. However, we don't restrict those
words to that time and that place. but we look beyond and we discern
the spiritual reality and especially we discern the Lord Jesus Christ
of whom Moses spoke. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
tells us that. He says in John 5, verse 46,
he wrote of me. So when we read the writings
of Moses, we're looking for Christ. And Christ is evidently writ
large upon the pages of our Old Testament scriptures. No less
here in Deuteronomy chapter 33, no less here when we read of
the fact that the eternal God is thy refuge and underneath
are the everlasting arms. He is speaking of Christ and
he's speaking of Christ to all the elect of all time and all
places. And there's two points that I
want to make to us this morning and then just a short application
and we will be over. But let me make these points
if I may. The first one is this. The eternal
God is our refuge. Is that not a wonderful promise? Is this not an amazing thing
to have declared to us from the pages of the word of God? The eternal God is thy refuge. Listen, God is eternal and he dwells
in the presence of his own eternity and he created the world and
he created men and women, and he populated this world, his
creation, with the men and women that he created. And then that
eternal God speaks, and he personalises, and he particularises, and he
says to his people, I am thy refuge. Men talk about insurance to protect
their wealth and their valuables, but a greater ground for confidence
than these six words we shall not find anywhere in this world. and a greater reason for hope
we shall not find, nor a safer place to stand than this phrase
from Moses' lips. So let us turn our eyes to this
eternal God of whom Moses spoke. And let me just say this, that
few could speak more knowingly of God the Lord Jesus Christ
than Moses. We're told of Moses that the
Lord knew him face to face, whom the Lord knew face to face and
particularly that he saw Christ personally. This man Moses spoke
to the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. This man Moses learned
first hand from the lips of Christ who Christ was and what he was
to his people. This man Moses is a first hand
witness and a testifier of the eternal God. and in numerous
types, whether it's in Egypt, whether it's in the tabernacle,
whether it's in the priesthood, whether it's in the way in which
the man of God set before the children of Israel the pictures
and types of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses spoke faithfully of our
Saviour and Redeemer. Christ is the eternal God. and
the revelation of the truth of Christ is designed to first dispel
our ignorance and then be the ground of our hope and our trust. God is eternal. That is, He is
from everlasting to everlasting. He is the Ancient of Days. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the First and the Last,
the Beginning and the End. Our God is before all things. It's conceptually impossible
for us to grasp this, but the testimony of Scripture is so,
and we believe it. He is before all time. He is
before everything which is and which ever was and he is beyond
all things that ever will come. He is the great I Am of the burning
bush who revealed himself to Moses as the I Am, I always have been, I am now, and
I always will be, holy, the creator of everything. And this is the
same Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever, the one who
is called in Scripture, in Isaiah, the everlasting Father. Or we
might paraphrase that as the Father of Eternity, the God of
Eternity, and the God of eternal life. And this is the one of
whom Moses speaks. And at moments like this, even
as we pause and dwell upon Moses' words, language stumbles and
falters. Because all we can ever know
of the Eternal God is what He has revealed. to our finite minds. Our brains are limited. Our thoughts
are constrained and constricted. Our imaginations and conceptions
can only go so far and no matter how far they go, God is beyond
that. He is the unknowable, untouchable,
unreachable God that dwells in the majesty of his own presence
and we could never reach him except he reveals himself to
us. And this is his revelation. For thus saith the High and the
Lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in
the High and Holy Place. That is God who is speaking to
Isaiah his prophet in chapter 57 and verse 15. But how can
we possibly begin to conceive or understand the majesty that
is set before us here in this one who is the eternal God, our
refuge? But that is what he has revealed.
The eternal God is our refuge. Have you ever considered yourself
as a refugee? If we're believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ, if we are the elect of God, we're refugees. And we
have found refuge in Christ. May God always make us sympathetic
to those who are fleeing in trouble and in need because they are
a picture in this world of what we are spiritually. They too
are travellers in this world as we are spiritual travellers
and we are refugees in that typical form. In the Old Testament, in the
books of Moses, there is a picture given to us of cities of refuge,
six cities that were set in position throughout the promised land. the new land of Canaan into which
the children of Israel came. And these cities of refuge were
places to which people who had been involved in crimes or had
been involved in incidents or who had even become manslayers
could flee for safety and for a safe trial. They were called
cities of refuge. and they are a picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And that's where the meaning
would have been understood by the Jews or the children of Israel
who heard Moses at that time say that the Lord God, the eternal
God is our refuge. They would understand of fleeing
to that place of refuge. Christ is the place of safety
and shelter for his people from their danger and their enemies. There a man's enemies could not
touch him. There he fled for peace. And our enemies are many. Our
enemies are law and justice. Our enemies are sin and Satan.
Our enemies are the world and the grave. Our enemies are death
and hell. And we can flee to Christ. We can flee to the eternal God,
our refuge, and we can find peace there. We can find refuge, safety,
shelter in Christ from our enemies. And to the Lord Jesus Christ,
sinners flee and they are assured that he will be a refuge for
their soul. Lord Jesus Christ is called our
hiding place. We read that hymn by Daniel Herbert
about finding a hiding place where we could go for refuge. A covert, if you like, from the
storm, a harbour in the midst of the tempest, wind and sea. in his person, in the person
of Christ, in his accomplishments, in the shedding of his blood,
in his perfect obedience as our glorious head representative,
mediator, substitute and surety, we find refuge as his redeemed
people. Oh, the price that He paid was
His own precious blood. He died there on the cross. He
shed that blood for the remission of our sins. And we find in Him
a hiding place. As the elect of God, He is our
hiding place from all eternity. And we were, as that elect people,
placed The Bible calls it sanctified, set apart, placed in the Lord
Jesus Christ, in the eternal covenant of God. And we are the
elect, secretly, in Christ from eternity. That was an act of
the eternal God, who is our refuge. And we are openly in Christ,
in conversion. When the gospel comes to us,
conversion isn't a putting up of our hand or a speaking of
some formulary of words or going out to the front or kneeling
at a bench or writing our names in a book, that's not conversion.
Conversion is when the gospel comes to us and we see it and
we understand it and we grasp it and we know that it is the
ground of our standing in Christ. When we are placed in Christ
through the gospel, then once again we may say that we are
openly in Him in our conversion and we are securely hid with
Christ and we are hid in the eternal God from wrath and from
judgment and from separation. That judgment that is to come
and that separation that will take place will be nothing to
us because we are safe in Christ our hiding place. We are reconciled
to God by the blood of Jesus Christ. We are at peace with
God because Christ has taken away God's wrath against us and
he has carried God's judgment on his own shoulders. So Moses
says, the eternal God is thy refuge. And here's the second
thing that Moses says, underneath are the everlasting arms. Is that not a beautiful image,
a beautiful picture that we have there? I was thinking about it
and thinking about the way in which we might conceive that
or picture that in our minds. When a child looks into the face
of her father, she does not see the arms that support her. but
they're there. They're present, they're strong,
they're enabling, they're comforting and they are underneath her.
They are underneath her as they lift her up and as they hold
her so that she is able to commune face to face as Moses did. with her Lord and Saviour as
the Bride of Christ. How gracious of our God to thus
describe himself in physical terms to us. Everlasting arms
with which we can understand and conceive of this way in which
God, the eternal God, the unknowable, the unreachable God, has revealed
himself that we may know him in Christ. How gracious of him
to use these pictures so to describe his dealings with us. The invisible
God is a spirit and he doesn't have a body like men and women
have a body. And yet God repeatedly describes
himself as having bodily parts. He sits in the heavens. His feet
are upon the earth. We read about him holding a cup
in his hand in the psalm that we read together this morning.
We know about the hand of God. We know about the eye of God.
We know about the heart of God. But God doesn't have a body like
men. He condescends to speak to us
in these human terms that we might better grasp the things
that he has done for us, his grace and his kindness and his
provision towards us. in the person of Jesus Christ.
And so the eternal God prepared a body for God the Son, that
he might come into the world and fulfil these great works
of grace and redemption and covenant purpose that the eternal God,
our refuge, designed and desired for us. and underneath are the
everlasting arms which uphold us and draw us and comfort and
console us and bring us into the experience of his presence.
Let me make a little aside here, if I may, for the benefit of
maybe some of the younger people that are listening to us and
others as well, because we all benefit from hearing these things.
But the Bible uses such language and we can too. We can too. So a person like you or like
me, we might talk about seeing God in a new way. or hearing God speak to us in
the gospel, or sensing God's presence close by us, or feeling
the touch of the Lord in our lives. And maybe if you're young,
you'll hear people saying things like that, but I don't want you
to be confused by that language. and I don't want you to be disheartened
by those words and think that in some way you're missing out
on some spiritual experience because you've not seen the Lord
or you've not heard Him speaking or you've not been touched by
His presence as if it's some sort of sensual thing and physical
thing and tangible thing that we experience in our lives. These
physical things, people are using the language of the Bible, the
language of God himself, and it's not wrong to do so, but
it needs to be properly understood. I don't want you to doubt that
God speaks to you just because you don't hear something in your
ear, because God speaks to us spiritually in our heart. He
speaks to us in the gospel. He speaks to us by his spirit.
and we hear spiritually as we are given to understand the things
that he is saying to us. Faith is not what we see and
what we hear and what we feel physically and tangibly in this
body and in this world. Faith is trusting. the Word of
God, trusting the promises of God, trusting the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ and trusting the Gospel when it is preached
to us about the Lord Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 11 verse 1 we read
these words, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. Hoping, we hope for these things
to be so because God has said it and we have grounds and reason
to believe that the faithful God will do that which he has
promised and that's faith. in the things that the gospel
teaches us. These are the things that we
hope for. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. For we walk by faith, not by
sight. We hear with spiritual ears. We see with spiritual eyes. We feel the Lord near to us,
but not in a physical, but a spiritual experience, though we employ
this physical language to describe it. Brothers and sisters, boys and
girls, men and women, anyone who hears me in this sermon,
do not deny the Lord's approach to you. because it seems different
from how someone else explains his approach to them. God deals
with us as individuals and he brings us into his family as
individuals and he binds us together in his great congregation as
those who were once lost sheep who are brought into his fold. The arms of God are the truths,
okay? They're not physical arms. These
are not God's great big huge arms that are underneath us.
as if he's supporting us and holding the world up or something
like that. The arms of God, when it speaks
about the eternal God is our refuge and underneath the everlasting
arms, it is talking about the truths of God, the promises of
God, the actions and the works of God, the providences by which
God deals with us. brings to pass his purposes in
this world. These are what hold his elect
and support us in our walk in this life, comfort us in the
midst of our troubles, protect us against our enemies. These
arms of God preserve his church and people until that which he
promises, that for which we hope, comes to pass. Remember what
we said earlier, we might say Lord hurry up and do these things
but God's timing is best and so we wait by faith looking forward
to the fulfilment of these promises that he has made and in these
arms of his grace and his mercy and his truth and his promises
and his actions and his providences in these arms we are embraced
by the love of God. In these arms, the love of God
embraces his little ones and the covenant promises and purpose
of God hold us up and cause us to look into the face of our
God and see there his love towards us. Gracious promises that shield
us from harm and discouragement redeeming blood that covers and
conceals our souls from our enemies. You know, I think I've said this
before. Some of you will perhaps be wearied
at my repetition, but I love the word comfort. I love that
word comfort and I love its etymology. I love where it comes from and
what it means and what it carries and conveys. Spiritually speaking,
it means to come into the fort or the fortress of God's protection. So when you talk about comfort,
it's come into the fort. Live peaceably within the walls
that I've built around you. Live within the everlasting arms
of protection that I have set around about you. You know, sometimes we all need
a cuddle. Sometimes we need to feel someone
close and the physical comfort of personal affection. Well, what we need physically,
this verse is the source. to us. This verse is for you
this morning. This verse is the Lord giving
his little ones a spiritual hug. Lord God thrust out the Canaanites
before Israel as they entered into the promised land. That
was both historically true, although it took a while for it to be
accomplished and we can read on in the history of Joshua,
the judges as to how all these things transpired and unfolded. But it was historically true,
the promise that God had given the children of Israel. And it
is true typically also in a spiritual way. Because when the Lord Jesus
Christ came into this world to destroy our enemies and to deliver
our souls and to secure our inheritance, just as he did with Old Testament
Israel, he does with his spiritual Israel, his spiritual Judah. He did it when he died on the
cross for us. That one act by which our eternal
God saved our lives and secures our refuge and our heritage and
our inheritance. The fact is certain It's done,
it's happened. You know, the Old Testament Jews
that had eyes to see these things and ears to hear these things,
you see, they were using those physical terms again to describe
that spiritual reality. But when they had eyes and ears
to see and discern spiritual truth, they had to look forward
to the promise of Christ's coming. We have the privilege of looking
back on a completed, accomplished work. And thereby the end is
assured. And the Lord God will have his
people comforted. Come into the fort. He will have
us loved. He will have us embraced in his
arms of grace and love and mercy and providential well-being.
The everlasting arms of an everlasting God. Arms of grace and mercy
and goodness that are suitable for all God's elect. for all
of eternity. And as our Saviour went to the
cross, he told his disciples, yet a little while, and the world
seeth me no more, but ye see me. Because I live, ye shall
live also. John chapter 14, verse 19. May
the Lord Jesus Christ give us grace to see him with the eye
of faith, to hear him in the gospel, to taste his goodness,
and to snuggle in the arms of his love. Amen.