Israel's God and God's Israel

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

Deuteronomy 33:26-29

There is none like to the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heaven in your help, and in his excellency on the sky.…

I. ISRAEL'S GOD. Truly, when Moses looked upon the gods of Egypt — a country so superstitious that the satirist wrote of them, "O happy nation, whose gods grow in their own gardens" — when he heard the wild mythology of their idolatry, he might well say, "There is none among them that is like unto the God of Jeshurun," Perhaps Moses had seen those vast catacombs of idolised animals which Egyptian discoverers have lately opened, where the crocodiles, cats, and birds, which had been worshipped in life, were afterwards carefully consigned. Wise as Egypt professed to be, she preserved her dead gods in myriads. Truly, the fancies of the most civilised nations have invented no deity comparable for a moment to the living God who made the heavens and the earth. Moses, in the particular words here used, seems to intimate that there is none like the God of Jeshurun as the ground of our confidence, Now, ye who have trusted in God, remember there is room for you to trust Him still more; and the more you shall confide in Him, the more emphatically will you declare, "There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun." If we rely upon men, we put trust in fickleness itself. Fall back upon yourselves, lean upon your fellow creatures, trust upon earth-born confidences, and ye fall Upon a rotten foundation that shall give way beneath you; but rest upon your God alone, and the stars in heaven shall fight for you, and things present and things to come, and heights, and depths, and all the creatures subservient to the will of the omnipotent Creator, shall work together for good to you. seeing that you love God and are depending upon His power.

II. ISRAEL'S SAFETY." "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Two sentences, with a little variation of expression, containing essentially the same sense. God is first said to be the refuge of His people, that is, when they have strength enough to fly to Him He protects them; but it is delightfully added, "underneath are the everlasting arms," that is, when they have not strength enough to flee to Him, but faint where they stand, there are His arms ready to bear them up in their utmost extremity. I will mention some times when a Christian needs these arms peculiarly. These are when he is in a state of great elevation of mind. Sometimes God takes His servants and puts them on the pinnacle of the temple. Satan does it sometimes; God does it too — puts His servants up on the very pinnacle, where they are so full of joy that they scarce know how to contain themselves, "whether in the body or out of the body they cannot tell." Well, now, suppose they should fall! for it is so easy for a man, when full of ecstasy and ravishment, to make a false step and slip. Ah! but, in such moments, "underneath are the everlasting arms." They are safe enough, as safe as though they were in the valley of humiliation, for underneath are the arms of God. Sometimes He puts a man in such a position in service — there must be leaders in the Lord's Church, captains and mighty men of war — and the Lord sometimes calls a man and says to him, "Now, be Moses to this people." Such positions are fraught with temptation; but is God's servant in greater danger than an ordinary Christian? Yes, he is, if left to himself; but he will not be left to himself, for God does not treat His captains as David treated Uriah, and put them in the forefront of the battle, to leave them, that they may be slain by the enemy. No, if our God calls a man to tread the high places of the field, that man shall say with Habakkuk, "He will make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places." "Underneath are the everlasting arms." Another period of great need is after extraordinary exaltations and enjoyments, when it often happens that God's servants are greatly depressed. In the wilderness, all alone, you hear Elijah cry, "Let me die, I am no better than my fathers." Yes, the man who never was to die at all, prayed that he might die. Just so, high exaltations involve deep depressions. But what was under Elijah when he fell down in that fainting fit under the juniper tree? Why, underneath were the everlasting arms. So shall it be with you who are called thus to fall into the depths of depression; the eternal arms shall be lower than you are.

III. ISRAEL'S FUTURE. You have seen a man in our streets with a telescope, through which you may see Venus, or Saturn, or Jupiter. Now, if that gentleman, instead of revealing the stars, could fix up a telescope, and undertake that everybody who looked through it could see his future life, I will be bound to say he would make his fortune very speedily, for there is a great desire amongst us all to know something of the future. Yet we need not be so anxious, for the great outlines of the future are very well known already. We have it on the best authority, that in the future as in the past, we shall meet with difficulties, and contend with enemies. My text, like the telescope, reveals to those who trust in God what will become of their difficulties, and we see that they are to be overcome. God will work, and you will work. He shall thrust out your enemies, and He shall say to you, "Destroy them." It is a grand thing to go straight on in the path of duty, believing that God will clear the road. Like the priests, when they came to the edge of Jordan, and saw the billows rolling up, yet on they went, and not so much as one of them was touched by the waves, for as they put down their feet the waters receded. Oh, it must have been grand to be the first man in that march — to see the waters flow away before your feet! So shall it be with you: the water shall come up to where you are, yet it shall not touch you; you shall find it disappear as you by faith advance.

IV. ISRAEL'S BLESSEDNESS.

1. "Israel then shall dwell alone." Dwelling with God in communion, having with Him one object, one affection, one desire, we dwell apart from the rest of mankind, coming out daily more and more from them, and desiring to be nearer and nearer to Christ, and farther and farther from men. Here we dwell safely; nowhere safe except when alone with God, but always safe then.

2. Abundant provision. "The fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine." God's people are to be supplied from a fountain, and around that fountain there shall always be a superabundance of corn for their necessities, and of wine for their comfort and their luxury. Those who come to God receive no stinted allowance, they are gentlemen commoners upon the bounty of God. There is a daily portion allotted to them, and it is measured on a princely scale, equal to the dignity of the new birth. We drink from an ever overflowing fountain.

3. Celestial unction. "Also His heavens shall drop down dew." How we want this! How dry we get, how dull, how dead, unless the Lord visit us! The Oriental knew the value of dew. When he saw the green pastures turn brown and at last dry up, till they were nothing but dust and powder, how he sought for the shower, and the dew; and when it came, how thankful was he! When that dew of the Holy Spirit is gone from us, what dead prayers, what miserable songs, what wearisome preaching, what wretched hearing! Oh, there is death everywhere when the Holy Spirit is denied us; but we need not be without Him, for He is in the promise —"His heaven shall drop down dew." The words read as if there were much dew, superabundance of moisture. So, indeed, we may have the Holy Spirit most copiously if we have but faith enough.

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