Knowing God

Moses starts his preamble in chapter 33 with God coming down on Sinai to give the people the law, rather than with God’s calling of the patriarchs or with Jacob’s twelve sons. There’s a very good reason for that. His blessing upon the people is a blessing upon the nation. In a sense, the nation began at Sinai. It did begin with God calling a people to Himself, beginning with Abraham, and then their multiplying in Egypt and coming out as a great people. But they were formed into a nation at Sinai because they were given the law and had been instructed in the right way of approaching God.

Next we come to Benjamin’s blessing (v. 12). He was the second child of Rachel, and the son whom Jacob loved especially, which is why Moses calls him “the beloved.” The most important thing is not that Benjamin was beloved by Jacob, but by the Lord. Everybody wants to be loved. If you’re greatly loved by someone else, that’s a wonderful thing. But the most important thing of all is to be loved by God because His is a perfect love that is never going to change or fade away. If we are loved by God through Jesus Christ, nothing in all heaven or earth is ever going to separate us from that love (see Rom. 8:38-39).

Deuteronomy 33:26-29 are the very last words of Moses, the author of more biblical material than any other single human being. In these last words he confesses that there is no god like God. Isn’t that wonderful? Now if Moses could praise God like that, shouldn’t we do that too? We sing, “O, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise,” and yet the one tongue we have is so often silent. Moses spoke of the glory of God. May we do it too, and do it more and more as we go on in life and experience more and more of His glory and His grace. If we do that in life, then when our time comes to die, we’ll be able to testify of His grace and His glory even then.

I don’t know what’s going to come into your life or my life this year. You might go through very difficult things. God allows such things to happen to His people. But in these serious trials the people of God triumph and show forth His grace because they have their eyes on God and they want to serve God. That needs to be true of us, throughout our earthly lives, until Jesus comes again.