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Colin Smith: Blessed are you, O Israel. Who is like you? A people saved by the Lord. And remember as Moses says these words that this is the man who was raised in a palace in Egypt. He was surrounded by opulence and wealth in his early years. Is that what it means to be blessed?

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible Weekend with Pastor Colin Smith. I'm Steve Hiller. Glad you're listening. And Colin, when a lot of us think of blessing, a lot of us probably do think of wealth and material blessing. But really that word blessed is so much more. It's so much bigger than just that material wealth, isn't it?

Colin Smith: Yeah, that's right. And think of this. Moses counted it a joy to give up all that was his in Egypt in order to take his place with the people of God. And he suffered a bit through that. I mean, he was not appreciated. He was criticized and there were times when they were very antagonistic towards Moses. But for Moses to be among the people of God was to be under the blessing of God and he wouldn't change that for anything. And I hope that today you're going to have a sense that whatever else is going on in your life and whatever you wish would be different, this gift of belonging to God in Jesus Christ makes you blessed.

And that's something that you wouldn't want to change for all the world.

Steve Hiller: Well, let's open our Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 33 as we begin a message called Enjoy the Blessing of God. Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: You know by now if you've been here that these are the last words of Moses all the way through this book, but coming to chapter 33 they really are the last recorded words of Moses before God's people entered the promised land. You remember the broad sweep of the story that Moses had served these people now for 40 years. He had led them out of Egypt. He was the one who had given them the law as he'd received it on Mount Sinai. He had endured 40 years leading them in the desert. But now Moses is going to die before the people enter into the promised land.

And so if you have your Bible open there, you'll see that in chapter 34 the book ends with the death of Moses. Moses climbs Mount Nebo, chapter 34 verse 1, and God shows him the promised land. And in verse 4 of the last chapter there, God says to him, this is the land that I promised on oath to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it. And then chapter 34 and verse 5 we read that Moses the servant of the Lord, he died there in Moab right there as the Lord had said.

The Lord buried him in Moab. That's a sort of Bible quiz question. Who buried Moses? God himself buried Moses. That's what the scripture says. I I tried to picture what that exactly was like. We're not giving any detail. God buried him. And for that reason to this day the scripture says no one knows where his grave is. So that's chapter 34 is the death of Moses before God's people go into the promised land. So chapter 33 and especially the end of chapter 33, these really are the last recorded words of Moses. Now if you look at the beginning of the chapter, you'll see in verse 1 that it begins there with Moses giving a blessing.

This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced on the Israelites before his death. And then if you just look over the chapter as a whole, you'll see that there are particular blessings for each of the tribes of Israel. So there's a blessing in verse 6 for Reuben, verse 7 for the tribe of Judah, verse 8 for the tribe of Levi, verse 12 from the the tribe of Benjamin and so forth and so on. And all of these blessings that run through this chapter 33, they sort of rise together in a great crescendo that comes to its climax in verse 29 which is our focus today where Moses almost seems to explode out of this list of blessings.

And And he says gathering it all together, blessed are you, O Israel. Who is like you? A people saved by the Lord. Now I want us to see in this last message of this series that this blessing is not only theirs, but it is yours or it can be yours through Jesus Christ. Now let's ask this question. What does it mean to be blessed? What is this great blessing that Moses is speaking about? And remember as Moses says these words that this is the man who was raised in a palace in Egypt. He was surrounded by opulence and wealth in his early years.

Is that what it means to be blessed? Then at age 40 everything changes for Moses. A sudden calamity means he leaves Egypt. And for the next 40 years he scratches a living in the desert. He's a shepherd. So for 40 years this man has experienced life at its very best. For 40 years this man then experienced life material in this world at its very hardest, at its very lowest. Then everything changed again. And God called Moses, you remember, to confront Pharaoh, then to lead his people across the Red Sea, then to go up the mountain and to be in the presence of God in Sinai.

And for 40 years Moses experienced God as nobody else had known him. And so at 120 years of age, three equal periods of his life, the old man looks back over everything that he's experienced. And this is his wisdom. He's saying the greatest blessing you can know in life in this world, no matter how rich or how poor, and I've seen both, Moses could say, the greatest blessing you can know in this world is to know God himself. Whether you were born in a palace, whether you've eeked out an existence in the desert. He says to God's people, I've seen both.

And I tell you nobody else has got what you've got. Who is like you, O Israel? A people saved by the Lord. Let Let's just pause here for a moment. He says, who's like you? You're a people saved. Isn't that a wonderful Bible word? Saved. Not being saved, not hoping that one day you might be saved. You are a people saved. You're blessed. In New Testament terms we can say we are blessed because there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then Moses says something even better. He says not only are you saved, but you're blessed because you're saved by the Lord.

Do you see that there? It's God who stepped into your life. It's not that you're saved by some sort of system, some kind of religion, some kind of mechanical process. No, here's what has happened. God has stepped into your life. God has seen your plight. God has come down to deliver you. God has committed himself to you forever. Israel, he says, you are blessed like no one else. Whether you talk about the richest or the poorest, nobody's got what you've got. You're a people saved by the Lord. Now this is his conclusion. And of course it fits exactly with what our Lord Jesus says.

Do you remember in his prayer to the Father in John 17 and verse 3, the Lord Jesus says this. This is eternal life. You say what's eternal life? What What's the greatest thing I can ever know? Jesus says to know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Now you may think knowing God sounds easy. But I tell you that by nature it is impossible. How can you know God since you cannot see him? God is invisible. God does not speak in an audible voice. God is spirit. God is eternal. Everything about God is beyond the range of our five senses.

So knowing God would be absolutely, completely and utterly impossible unless God had made himself known. And that is where Moses begins. If you look back in verse 1 of chapter 33, he's talking about the blessing that is Israel's and here's where he begins. The Lord came down from Sinai. Verse 2, he came with myriads of holy ones. See he's saying understand this is the great blessing that is uniquely yours, O Israel. God came. This God that you could not otherwise have known, he came to you. The invisible God made himself known at Mount Sinai. He came down and his glory it was revealed right there on the mountain.

This God who inhabits eternity, here's what he did. He broke into time and he spoke. And myriads of angels, notice that phrase in verse 2, they were there in attendance. The whole event was glorious when God came down. It was unlike anything that had ever happened before. Now as Moses begins to explain this marvelous blessing in which these people have come to know the God who saves them. Here's something marvelous for us to grasp today that it's often neglected. That in order for God to make himself known to us, he speaks to us in language we can understand.

Now this is a marvelous truth. I want to take just a moment on it and you'll see why. We begin with trying to set this up for you this way. Years ago I heard Professor Don Carson from Trinity University ask a fascinating question. He said if you were challenged to explain to a group of stone age people what an electric light bulb is and how it works and what it does, how would you go about doing it? Now you begin to think about that. You know you're transported back in time and you got to explain to people in a stone age culture so they they don't have metals, wires or anything like that.

And your your challenge is to try and explain to them an electric bulb that lights your house or lights your room. How would you go about it? They've never seen a light bulb. They have never seen a piece of wiring or a cable. So how would you explain this to them? Well, surely what you would do is something like this. You would look around at their world. And you would see they have no cables, but they do have vines. And vines have long thin sort of trailers going there. And so you might say, well, you know here in in the world from which I come there are it's like vines that come along on poles and they come into your house.

Well, if you think you can do better, you tell me later. And then you're trying to explain a light bulb. And how do you explain a light bulb to people in a stone age culture? And you look around and you see the sunrise and you say, well, you know it's it's like as if a little sun were in your room at night so that you can see even when it is dark. The point is a very simple one. If you want to communicate to people who know nothing about the world in which you live, you have to use language that people these people can understand.

And what that means is that you have to use language that is drawn from their world because they cannot penetrate yours.

Steve Hiller: Well, we're going to have to pause here for just a moment. You're listening to Open the Bible Weekend with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called Enjoy the Blessing of God. It's part of a larger series called Take Two, the Power of a Fresh Start. And if you missed any of the programs in our series, you can come and listen online. Just come to openthebible.org and you can stream the program or you can download an MP3 for free. You can also listen if you have the entire series on CD. It's a great way to go back and listen to Pastor Colin's teaching whenever it fits your schedule.

You can order a copy of the series Take Two when you call us at 1 877 open 365. That's 1 877 673 6365 or you'll find ordering information at openthebible.org Back to the message. Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Because we cannot know nor begin to imagine eternity, in order that we may know him, God describes himself in language that is taken from his own creation. So Dr. Herman Bavinck says in the classic book that he has written on the doctrine of God, he says if God were to speak to us in divine language, no one would understand him. And so for that reason God speaks to us in language that we can understand. Now here's what that means. And once you see it, your your eyes will pop when you see it all over the Bible because it's everywhere.

God describes himself therefore in order to accommodate himself to us and so that we can understand him, we who have not been in eternity and cannot see him. God describes himself in terms of the human body so that in the scripture, for example, you read about God's face. Though God is spirit, he does not have a body. But how else are we to understand anything about the God who is spirit? So the Bible accommodates to us. God uses language from our creation so that we can understand. He speaks about his face. He speaks about his eyes.

He speaks about his ear. He even speaks about his nostrils. You can check that out in Exodus 15 and verse 8. Theologians call this and here's the big word of the day that you can ignore if you want to. Theologians call this anthropomorphism. That's anthropos meaning man, morph form. It is God describing himself in human form. And as you begin to think about that, you'll quickly realize that this goes further right throughout the Bible. God not only describes himself in terms of the human body, but he describes himself in terms of human emotions. So we read, for example, of God rejoicing or God grieving or God having zeal.

You remember in the Christmas reading the zeal of the Lord of Host will perform this. Or even you read in Deuteronomy 32 and verse 6 verse 27, I'm sorry, of God dreading. This is an accommodation to human language so that we may know him. Or thirdly, God describes himself in terms of human roles or even professions. He describes himself as a husband. He describes himself as a father. He describes himself as a shepherd. And more than that God even delves into the realm of his own created order to give us language that we can begin to discover something about him.

For example, he is a rock. He is a refuge. He is a strong tower. He is a shield. He is a hiding place. Now quickly you will realize that that this is all over the scripture. Dr. Bavinck says scripture calls upon the entire creation to contribute to the description of the knowledge of God. Everything that has breath is to praise the Lord because everything that has breath in some way reflects his glory. Even the sun and the moon and the stars in Psalm 148 are invited to praise him because they are the work of his hands.

And in some way they reflect his glory. So that beautifully John Calvin says there is not an atom in the universe in which you cannot see at least some spark of God's glory. Isn't that beautiful? Not an atom in the universe. Now the point here is simply that God speaks to us in language that we can understand. And so when Moses wants to communicate what the blessing of the eternal God actually looks like in your life today, he uses in this chapter four wonderful anthropomorphisms. And I hope you will come to love them and enjoy them as much as I do in the scriptures.

Here's the first verse 3. God's hand, God's hand. Look at this. Verse 3 surely Moses says to the Lord, it is you who love the people and all the holy ones are in your hand. Here's what it means to be saved, folks. Here's why when you know the Lord you are blessed like nobody else. When you know God you are in his hand. When you know him, your life is not a matter of random chance. Whatever surprises, whatever disappointments are going on in your life or may come your way, you are in the hand of the living God and he cares for you.

Jesus said taking up this picture, he said, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. He says, no one shall snatch them out of my hand. There may be many failings in your Christian life. There may be many times when your faith is running incredibly low. But thank God with me today that your salvation, your security does not rest on the strength of your hand holding on to God, but it rests on the strength of God's hand holding on to you. Isn't that good news? That security in an uncertain world. And Moses says to the people of God, you are blessed.

Why? Because as someone who is saved by the Lord, your life is in his hand. And that means you are utterly secure. Then look on in verse 3. He speaks about God's feet. And here are the references to wisdom. At your feet. They all bow down and from you receive instruction the law that Moses gave us. Now you see the point here. The people of God are coming to a great change. Moses has been with them all of their lives. And he was the one who always seemed to know what to do. Moses knows what to do.

And now what are they going to do without Moses? And the great question surely for God's people, a question we often ask, where can we find wisdom? Who should we trust? How can we make good and wise decisions? And God's people received instruction from God himself through the law, Moses says here, that had been given by Moses. Now you see the point here. It's very wonderful. When you read the scriptures, you are sitting at the feet of God and you are listening to his voice. People all the time are asking this question and many folks are in confusion about it.

How do I hear the voice of God? How do I hear the voice of God? Here's how you hear the voice of God. See Moses is saying he speaks. He He gives direction how through the law that he's given to Moses. When you listen to the scripture, you are hearing the voice of God for this is the word that God himself speaks. Think of that beautiful picture in the New Testament. Remember Mary when Martha was busy in the kitchen. And what was Mary doing? She's sitting at the feet of Jesus. She's listening to the very words of God coming from the mouth of the Saviour.

Listen, when you have your Bible open, when you are reading the word of God, you are sitting at the feet of God. At your feet they all bow down and from you they receive instruction how the law that Moses gave us. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. You are not left without guidance. You have a shepherd. And here's how he speaks to you. When you read the scripture, you are sitting at the feet of the Lord and you are listening to his voice. It's why we want the word of God to be central in our worship. So that with a Bible open we can see what God says and build our lives upon it.

Steve Hiller: Pastor Colin Smith helping us look at what it means to be blessed here on Open the Bible Weekend. Our message is called Enjoy the Blessing of God. And it's part of a larger series in the Book of Deuteronomy called Take Two, the Power of a Fresh Start. And if you ever miss a broadcast in our series, come and listen online at openthebible.org. Again, that's openthebible.org. Well, Open the Bible is able to be on the station because of your generosity. So thank you for supporting Open the Bible with your financial gift. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to say thank you by sending you a book called What Is Wrong with This World?

It's written by Tim Keller. And Colin, why would we need this book?

Colin Smith: Well, I think because diagnosis has to come before prescription. I mean, you know if you went to the doctor and said, I have a pain in my stomach and the doctor immediately just said, oh, well, I'll give you these tablets, you would immediately say, well, wait a minute. Have you paused to diagnose as to what the problem actually is? And it strikes me that we have so much conversation that's going on all around us about how to put the world right. Who's asking the question, what's wrong with the world? That's the question that's at the heart of this book.

And really until we've understood accurately what the core of the human problem actually is, conversation about what's going to be the answer is going to float above the realities that we're dealing with. So this book by Tim Keller, it's a wonderful read. It is a thoroughly biblical examination of what is wrong with the world. And he puts it like this. If we are to stand any chance of answering the question of what is wrong with the world, we must begin with sin and end with the unfeeling love of God who chooses to save us from it.

I think that encapsulates something really important that every Christian wants to grasp.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you a copy of this book. Again, it's called What Is Wrong with This World? Is our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. You can give your gift online. Come to our website openthebible.org or call 1 877 673 6365. That's 1 877 open 365. Or again, the website is openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time. Open the Bible Weekend is a listener supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: At Open the Bible, we're grateful for like-minded organizations committed to sharing the gospel around the world. And to that end, I'd like to commend the work of Global Fingerprints. You know in the Book of James, God calls us to help orphans in their distress. That's a clear command, but it's not always clear how we should obey it. And this is where Global Fingerprints comes in. Through Global Fingerprints, you can sponsor a vulnerable child to help meet their physical needs and ensure they hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to commend Global Fingerprints to you.

They're focused on equipping the local church to care for children. And where there is no church, they help to plant one. If you'd like to help a vulnerable child, you can find more information on Global Fingerprints at our website openthebible.org/gf. That's openthebible.org/gf.