Scott Brown's sermon titled 'He Rides the Heavens to Help You' focuses on the key attributes of God as depicted in Deuteronomy 33:26-29, highlighting God's singular superiority, eternal refuge, and His active role in aiding His people. The sermon elaborates on Moses' final words, emphasizing God's matchless nature and his role as a protector who rides the heavens to help His people. It underscores the concept of God as an eternal refuge, offering strength and safety beyond earthly securities. Brown discusses how God holds His people in everlasting arms, providing not only protection but also control over enemies. The sermon also ties happiness to obedience, suggesting true happiness stems from recognizing God's sovereignty and goodness. God is portrayed as actively involved in the lives of believers, bringing comfort, salvation, and ultimate victory over adversaries. The message encourages believers to trust in God's power and presence, finding joy and strength in His divine protection and guidance.

Good morning. Our text today is Deuteronomy 33, 26-29. There is no one like the God of Jeshoram, who rides the heavens to help you, and is in his excellence on the clouds. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will thrust out the enemy from before you, and will say, destroy.

Then Israel shall dwell in safety, the fountain of Jacob alone in the land of the grain and new wine. His heavens shall also drop dew. Happy are you, O Israel, who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, the sword of your majesty. Your enemies shall submit to you, and you shall tread down their high place. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for this day. Lord, we ask that you will calm our hearts from the busy week. We pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit will just indwell us, Father, that you will speak to us. Lord help us to be worthy of the hearing and the reading of your word. I pray Lord that you will bless this reading.

I pray Lord that you will speak to our hearts. Bless God as he brings the word. In your name we pray. Amen. These are the last words of Moses before the children of Israel.

And of course before Moses has brought these very last words in chapter 33, he has already delivered three speeches, each with a different purpose. In chapters one through five in the first speech, he shows the sufficiency of God's care. And he says that he carried his children in his arms, like a father carries his son. And then in the following chapters from chapter five, the second speech is really an explanation of the goodness of the laws of God and there is a statement of the Ten Commandments and then an exposition of each of the Ten Commandments and then in the third speech he exposes just the depths of the punishment from our depravity and the terrible consequences that come from preferring the ways of the world to the ways of God. And particularly, it's summarized in chapter 28 in these terrifying curses, which are also mixed with blessings for those who would follow the Lord.

And he does all these things so that we would learn how to be a humble and a submissive people, a people who submit to him, who understand the goodness of all of his ways. And now that Moses has done this, his life is drawing to an end. He's in the last day of his life, in the last hours of his life, after he finishes uttering these words, he'll speak no more to men and he will make his way to Mount Pisgah and then God will kill him there and an angel will bury him. And so here in this chapter in 33, it really reads as a prayer, as Moses is laying out the blessings of God upon the people. And in the first part of the prayer, he extols the goodness of God.

And if you remember in the first few verses, he says, yes, he loves his people. And then in the second part of his final words, he utters a blessing for all of all of the tribes of Israel except for Simeon and Moses is exerting his last words on the most important principle of all of life, and that is the doctrine of God and what God does for his people and how he loves his people. Moses, in a lot of ways, he's like a father, you know, giving final words to a son in a critical moment in his life. He's like the Apostle Paul when he stood before the elders of the Church of Ephesus on the beach in Miletus, where he says, he says, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up. That's exactly what Moses does.

He is now in his very last words commending us to God and to the word of his grace. And in these words are words of the power of God explained and also many, many comforts. And here's just what I want to say before we dive in to this text. Whatever seems to be unraveling around you, whatever's out of control, whatever seems to be a great threat, this, what you find here in these words is truer than all those threats and difficulties that are upon you today. This is truer than anything you've been telling yourself regarding your situation before God.

And I just found it very, very helpful. The words begin with an explanation of just the superiority, the singular superiority of God. There is no one like the God of Jeshoran. That's how he begins this section. And this is, this really is, this principle is so important.

It is, it's absolutely the controlling principle of life. Your view of God determines everything. And, you know, it was interesting. I was asked recently by a young man who was seeking to be married and he wanted to be married and he wanted to know how he should prepare himself to be married and he asked me what he should know and what he should be and what he should learn before he gets married. And the first thing that I said to him, the first thing that came to my mind was, make sure that you understand in your heart, deep in your soul, the sovereignty of God.

Because if you don't understand that, then you'll be bringing the woman of your dreams into a fitful culture that you alone will create rather than a culture that's created by the knowledge that God is sovereign over all things, that He is sufficient for all things, that He is almighty. And upon this principle, really, all marriage rests. Many marriage problems go right back down to a problem of the doctrine of God. That a husband or a wife does not truly trust God. And so they're fearful and they're fretful.

And if you're a fearful person with a little God, then you should not bring a woman into that culture. If you're thinking about getting married, and you have a little God, and you're fearful and fretful, do not bring a woman into that kind of culture. And if you try, we will be all over you, okay? Because it's so critical that you understand God if you're going to be married. If you're going to stand sort of in the place of leadership and headship, then you need to understand what that means in terms of God himself.

So what Moses says is, there is no one like the God of Jeshur. I love those words. Those are so helpful. He's matchless. There's no one like him.

Who is like the among the gods is the idea there. And you know, Moses is setting in contrast The idols of the heart with the God of the universe. The idols of the heart are fleeting, moth and rust destroy them. The music fads fade, the styles fade, but there is one thing that is eternal, and that is God. There is no one like the God of Jeshurun.

One of the privileges that I'm having now in my life as a father is to be reading a book that I read many years ago with my daughter, Claudia, the book Knowing God by J.I. Packer. I read it back actually in the 1970s. And I still have my old underlying copy. So I'm rereading this book now with my daughter.

And at the beginning of the book, Packer quotes a sermon that was preached in 1855 by Charles Spurgeon. And here's how Spurgeon began the sermon. And it all has to do with this fact, there is no one like the God of Jeshorin. Spurgeon said this, the highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy which can ever engage the attention of the child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the works, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of divinity.

It is a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity, so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity. But while the subject humbles the mind, It also expands it. He who often thinks of God will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. The most excellent study for expanding the soul is the science of Christ and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing can so enlarge the intellect.

Nothing so magnify the whole soul of man as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity. And while humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is in contemplating Christ a balm for every wound. In using on the Father there is a quietus for every grief. In the influence of the Holy Ghost there is balsam for every sore.

Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea. Be lost in his immensity. And you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated." And then he ends by this, I know nothing which can so comfort the soul, so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief, so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing on the subject of the Godhead.

It is to that subject that I invite you this morning. Well that was his introduction to his sermon. Now here that's what Moses is doing. He is drawing our attention to God. Moses is addressing his people as Jeshurun.

This time he uses it as a term of endearment. If you remember in the song of Moses he seems to be using it as a mocking in Deuteronomy 32 15. But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked. You grew thick. You are obese.

He forsook the God who made him and scornfully esteemed the rock of his salvation. So he's used this term Jeshurun before, just in recent days. And now he's using it rather than a term of mocking. He's using it as a term of endearment. I had a very funny moment this week.

Our family was in the home of one of the members of our church. And we were reminiscing about our studies in Deuteronomy and sharing the different things that we learned and that happened that were that were a blessing to us and there's some of the little the little children had memorized the song of Moses and that we and one of the in one of the little boys took his infant baby brother by the cheeks and said, you are fat. You are thick. You are obedient. And so it was such a happy time to just reminisce about all those things and see the children who had memorized Scripture.

But here he uses the term Jeshurun again as he used earlier. And I've just itemized here in this passage the way that Moses explains the goodness of God. And the first is he rides the heavens to help you. You have that? He rides the heavens to help you.

You have that? He rides the heavens to help you. This indicates his sovereign power over all things in the heavens. Now remember, the children of Israel have recently fought Og of Bation, that giant of a man, that fearful beast, and they defeated him. And now they're about to go out to war, and they understand that when you go out to war you need help from heaven.

And Moses is reminding them of that because after Moses dies they are going to war in Canaan's land to destroy the nations that are there. And this what we see in the book of Joshua as This help from heaven happens all the time in the book of Joshua. It's an exciting story to see how God intervenes in nature, in the hearts of men in various ways, how he turns the hearts of people, or he changes something in the heavens in order to accomplish his will in battle. In chapter 2, the spies go out into Jericho. Rahab hides them in the flax.

And then Rahab says, The terror of you has fallen upon us, for we have heard." And then she rescued them as a result. But God was ruling the hearts of those people and had given them terror in their hearts. In chapter 5, when the Canaanites heard that the Lord dried up the Jordan when the priests put their feet in the water and the Jordan was dried up. It says that when they heard about that, their hearts failed. So God was superintending His will upon those wicked people, and their hearts failed.

Here, though, is a picture that I hope we can grasp every day, every night, as we're alive in this world. Could it be that we could not forget this? I pray that somehow we could understand this whole matter of God riding in the heavens. I don't know what kind of imagery that brings to your mind. You could put it in human terms and you could picture a horseman riding along the line of his troops.

You could picture celestial beings riding in the heavens because that's really what he's speaking about here. He is working, he's riding the fence incessantly to see its condition. Like the Lord Jesus, He is working as His Heavenly Father is working constantly working the heavens, working the earth, working the hearts of men. That's the picture that He's painting of God here. Remember the Lord Jesus said, a man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven.

Because he rides, he rides in the heavens and he is delivering gifts from heaven. Help from heaven. Help that can't be gained any other way, only from heaven. And we know that the eyes of the Lord look to and fro in every place. We know that He shall give His angels charge over thee.

So there's this picture of God riding in the heavens, superintending all that's happening in the heavens and on the earth. He also says something very fascinating that we should dial in on. In his excellency on the clouds. He's writing in His excellency on the clouds. And the term, excellency, is used to depict sort of a range of meaning, depending on the context.

It can mean haughtiness. It can mean pride. It can mean highness. It can mean swelling. It can mean arrogance.

Now, you might not think of God as arrogantly riding on the clouds, but that's actually your problem. Because God is riding in His excellency, in His confidence. You might say, well, I don't like the word arrogance or haughtiness. The lexical meaning of this word carries those ideas in them. But let's just be very clear about this.

God is very confident in his work. He will bring to pass what he has ordained, and he'll do it for his own glory. And this picture that's being painted here is God riding on the clouds in his excellency, in his own confidence, in his in his highness in that sense. For those who are rulers, we would say your excellency. And that's the idea that he's given.

Now, there are always two world views running in people's hearts. There's the first worldview is that God rules the heavens. The second is that man rules. There are those who are pretending that man does rule nature and that they've somehow created this world that is globally warming because they think that man controls the heavens. No, God rides on the heavens.

He controls all things by his own wisdom, for his own glory, and with his own vanquishing power, and no one gets in his way. And men often presume for themselves that their gifts, their energies, their creativity, their brains are the things that get them by. That's not true. The race is not to the swift. And here, it's here that often men rob God of his glory.

When they think that it's their brains, they think that it's their gifts that has gotten them by. That's not true. A man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven. And there are so many stories in history and about God changing the weather in order to secure a victory in battle and various things like that. But what happens to us often is that we're so susceptible to forget this principle that God rides in the heavens and that God is for us.

And so we're overtaken by fear. And we let the smallest things overtake us. We become obsessed and upset and distracted by so many fears. I'm confident there are a thousand fears in this room today. And here's what I just want to remind you of.

That God rides in the heavens and in His excellency on the clouds. And whatever your problems are, God knows them. And God is able to glorify himself through your life. And he rides in judgment as we see in Isaiah chapter 19. He rides so that you will rejoice.

In Psalm 68, We read, let God arise, let his enemies be scattered, extol him who rides on the clouds, by his name Yah, and rejoice before him. And then, and then David speaks about how God caused the heavens to drop rain. They came from the presence of God. And he says the chariots of God are 20, 000, even thousands of thousands. He's talking about the chariots in the heavens.

He's talking about the armies of the heavens that are doing business for God in the world. In verse 33, in Psalm 68, he says, to him who rides on the heaven of heavens, which were of old, indeed he sends out his voice, a mighty voice, a scribe's strength to God. His excellence is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds. So how do we apply all of this? Well, there's so many ways.

But He hems you in from behind and before. And from the heavens above to everything in the earth beneath, the armies of heaven are at work for God's people. He even controls the hearts of men. I've said it this way many times, God controls every synapse of every brain on the planet. Are you worried about what someone else is thinking?

Don't worry for another second. He controls every leaf that falls, every temperature that prevails. He controls everything. He controls the ups and downs of the economy. He understands and is governing everything in the world.

Nothing is hidden from his sight. And he will come with a strong hand to help. I was in my office this week and was with a brother and he was asking me how I was doing and I said, you know, I've actually had a time of struggle at the end of the year, at the beginning of this year, I just had been worried and just seeming like depleted of all energy, just completely out of gas. That's how I felt at the end of the year. And I was telling him that.

And he opened up to Isaiah 40. And he sat there in my office. And he read every word of Psalm 40 to me. And I was so thankful. Psalm 40 says so much of what's being said here to us.

Behold, God will come with a strong hand, Isaiah 40 10, and his arm shall rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his work is before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those who are with him." This is the God of Jeshurun. Who is like you?

Who is like the God of Jeshurun, who rides in the heavens and in His excellency on the clouds? So that's the first thing that God is. He is one who rides in the heavens. Secondly, he is eternal refuge. If you have an outline before you, you can see where we're going here with this.

He is eternal refuge. The eternal God is your refuge. Now, the phrase here emphasizes at least two things. First, there's the identity of the refuge. And then there's the length of time that there is refuge.

And so it causes us to ask the question, who is your refuge? Is God your refuge? Or is it something else? Is it your 401k? Is it your retirement plan?

Is that your refuge? Is your job, your stability, your security, your refuge. Well, if your refuge is in anything else but God, you'll never have a good refuge. You'll never have one that will sustain. Your job is not your refuge, and neither is anything else in this world.

There is only one true refuge and it is God. Psalm 46 brings it out like this. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we shall not fear, though the earth should change and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. Because God, God is our refuge.

That's what he's saying here. The eternal God is your refuge. And then there's the length of time. There's the identity of who your refuge is. It's God.

And there is no other. If you have something else that you're leaning on, you're leaning on a weak wall that will fall down. But the length of time is eternal. The eternal God is your refuge. That's why God is called the everlasting father, the ancient of days, the alpha and the omega.

That's why the gospel gives us the blood of the everlasting covenant. He is everlasting. We can speak of refuge in so many different ways. We can speak of the cities of refuge in Deuteronomy, which really proclaimed the glory of the gospel. That there is the avenger of blood who is seeking to destroy you because you broken the law.

You are a murderer. You are a liar. You are an adulterer. And the avenger of blood is after you. But there's a city of refuge that God has provided for you.

And that city of refuge is the Lord Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood. So we could speak about the cities of refuge. We could speak of Moses who said, for God, where are their gods? The rock in which they sought refuge. We could talk about the way that we seek refuge and all the wrong things.

We could talk about how Boaz spoke of this principle and how this dear woman whom he married had applied it in her life. In Ruth chapter 2, verse 12, we read, the Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given to you by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge. Ruth was a woman who had lost her husband, she had experienced great tragedies, dislocated from her people and having to move, but yet God was her refuge. She had lost the nearest and dearest things in life and yet she never lost for one second her refuge, and she knew it. And Boaz saw it.

Oh, you young men who are looking to get married, look for a woman like that. Look for a woman who only has her refuge in one place. If she has a tendency to place her refuge in man, she will always be a disappointed woman, because men always disappoint. But Ruth understood But Ruth understood those wings of refuge. And you women here, too, let me just appeal to you.

There's something in a woman that so longs for refuge and safety. More than a man. Way more than a man. It's a remarkable gift that God has given women. And yet it can go bad in you.

It can go sour in you. Where you are fitful and dissatisfied because you put your refuge in the wrong place. You've actually put your refuge in your husband. You've actually put your refuge in your children or your friend or your father or your mother. And there's no eternal refuge there.

You might find, and I hope you do find, a kind of refuge in your husband. I hope you find a kind of provision, a kind of shepherding, a kind of headship, a kind of protection that God has commanded men to provide for their wives. So I don't want to let any men off the hook, including myself, for this. But at the same time, it takes two hands to clap often. And often a man's indolence causes his wife to greedily seek refuge in a place where it can't be found.

And at the same time, as she's seeking the things that God has designed for her to have, she is deprived from it by her husband. So those are the two problems in a marriage. But here what we find, God is an eternal refuge. You know, when I think about this whole matter of God being your refuge and your strength, this question comes to mind. How many times has God rescued you?

How many times has God bailed you out and given you another lease on life? How many times has that happened? Lots of times. So he rides in the heavens to help you. He is eternal refuge.

Thirdly, he holds his people in everlasting arms. He says, and underneath, underneath are everlasting arms. Don't you love that? How many times has your arms gotten tired? Like Moses, with Aaron and Ur standing in the mountain of battle, and Moses was raising his arms, and they got tired, and they fell down.

But God was kind, and he provided Aaron and Ur to hold up his arms. Our arms, our arms get tired. We become weary and, but God's arm never tires for all of eternity. He carries you in your heaviest burdens, and you can Cast your cares upon Him and lighten your load as He carries you. Arms indicate strength in the Bible.

And so they are strong arms. He carries you in arms that are stronger than anything around you. And the Bible says that no one can pluck you from his hand. No one can get you out of the everlasting arms. Everything that happens is ordained by Him, and everything that He ordains is supported by him.

Isaiah 46.3 says this, listen to me, O House of Israel, and all the remnant of the House of Israel who have been upheld by me from birth, who have been carried from the womb. Even to your old age, I am he, and even to gray hairs, I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear, even I will carry, and I will deliver you." You know, there are, this passage says that even from the womb he carries, You know, there are a number of babies that are going to be born here in the next few days, probably. Yeah, hopefully. Some of you are saying hopefully in the next few hours, maybe, even.

Well, there may be actually a baby born this week to my son and my sweet daughter-in-law, Monica. And My confidence is that God will uphold this child from his birth as he has you. You might not even be converted. You might not even be a believer today, but he still causes his reign to fall on the just and the unjust. The sun comes out every day, you receive food and clothing and shelter.

He is carrying everyone to their final destination, by the way. Some he will throw into hell for all eternity, and others he will uphold with his everlasting arms of love. So not only does he ride in the heavens to help you, not only does he provide eternal refuge, not only does he hold his people in everlasting arms, fourthly, he actually controls your enemies. He controls enemies, verse 27. He will thrust out the enemy from before you and will say, destroy.

So get the picture that's happening here. Of course, a scene is being anticipated in the promised land where there's a battle and their enemies there and there are two things that happen. First the enemy is thrust out from before you. In other words, something happens, the enemy is thrust out by God and then when that happens a command is given, destroy. So this is a real scene that Moses is speaking of that will take place in the promised land.

And so it's both a promise and a command. The promise is that he will eject the enemy. But then, after that, the children of Israel have a responsibility to destroy. It's a military picture. And if you read the book of Joshua, you see this happening a number of times.

If you go to Joshua chapter 7, verse 1, we read, when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you. Notice the agency of God. Notice that it's God who does it. He casts out the nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgishites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you. And when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them.

You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them." That's the picture. God will push them out and then you have a responsibility. He says, thus you shall deal with them. You shall destroy their altars, break down their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire. We see a very similar thing in Joshua chapter 8, where Joshua chooses 30, 000 men to go up and to defeat Ai.

And what happens is that they flee And then they're told, stretch out your spear before Ai. And they took it. And they struck the city. And they took the king of Ai alive. But when they realized that their enemies were fleeing, then they utterly destroyed them.

That's the picture that he's painting here. And here, God is sovereign over the enemies of God. And this is a principle that we need to really understand today. You know, what does it mean that God will destroy your enemies? What does that mean for you?

Well, We often so run in fear of our enemies, not recognizing God's sovereignty over them. That He does control every synapse of every brain of every enemy as well. And that God is stronger than the devil, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. He finally destroys the works of the devil. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

God is doing business with your greatest enemies. Death, the devil, the condemnation from your breaking the law. God deals with those. He deals with your just condemnation for breaking the law through the blood of his son by giving you a sufficient sacrifice for all of your sins. And then he covers all of your long-term liabilities by finally destroying all the works of the devil for all of eternity and throwing him into the lake of fire and God is doing business with your enemies your enemies may be afflicting you but you can always know their end Paul said it like this in Romans chapter 16.

He said, the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." And then there's the result of this. He causes his children to dwell in safety. Verse 28. So he'll say, destroy.

Then verse 28, you see the logic here. Then, then Israel shall dwell in safety. The fountain of Jacob alone in a land of grain and new wine, his heavens shall also drop dew." So this is a promise for the children of Israel that if they obey then God will cause them to dwell in safety. Now They may not have always felt safe, but they were safe. And so this is another picture of divine protection and also provision.

He speaks of new wine and of dew. It's interesting that he uses the term new wine. And I believe this is exactly what Joel was speaking about in Joel 2, verse 19, where he says, behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil and you will be satisfied with them and I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations. And it will come to pass that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. And also, on my men servants and maids servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and the earth." You know this is a figure, a picture, it's a type of the New Covenant. The new wine and the oil, they mean something.

They are foretastes, They are types of something that will come later on. When Moses says this, I believe he's prophesying of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the new wine And what Jesus spoke of when he said that new wine must be put into new wine skins, that he's speaking of those things. He speaks of the dew, which has to do with the blessing of God, the distilling of the dew as drops on the tender herb that make it grow and flourish it. So he's saying that when there's this kind of obedience, then there is this kind of blessing. And this is fulfilled in the New Covenant and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Isaac was blessing Jacob, he said, Therefore may God give you the dew of heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine." And so here is a picture of God controlling his enemies and the fact of safety of his people. And then number five, not only does he do that, but God makes you happy in verse 28. Happy are you, O Israel. This is a declaration of a stated fact. Happy are you, O Israel.

And let me suggest that it's a declaration of the true nature of Christianity. That it is in God and in God alone that people can be happy and that there's no true happiness except in God. Anyone who tries to seek happiness anywhere else, out of any other well, out of any other basket, is looking in the wrong place. There's no happiness there. Many years ago, John Piper wrote a very controversial book called Desiring God, And the basic principle of the book is that if you would be happy, there's only one place to find it.

And if you're not happy, you haven't found it. And that was very disturbing to many people. But it is often a sign of unbelief. Lack of joy in the Lord is often presented as a sign of unbelief. In Deuteronomy 28, in the passage on the curses, this is made very plain where Moses says, moreover, these curses shall come upon you and shall pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep his commandments or his statutes which he commanded you.

And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder and on your descendants forever." Why? Why? Because You did not serve the Lord with joy and gladness of heart for the abundance of everything." So because there was no joy, it was not service in gladness of heart. It was service, but not in gladness of heart. And that's a curse on man.

The words here are, happy are you. But if we just rearrange them and say, are you happy? What does that mean to you? Does that help you to understand what he's saying here? There's a spiritual lack when there's a lack of happiness in the heart of a believer.

And I do think that we can go through periods of unhappiness, so I don't want to be misunderstood here. But we have to understand that when we're in those times, The solution is repentance. The solution is filling yourself up with the mind of God. Unhappiness is often just a symptom of disobedience. It's a symptom of rejection of God.

It's a symptom of not believing in His promises, but believing all kinds of other voices. And so you're not happy. Because instead of being filled with songs of deliverance whenever you're afraid as David said you're filled with songs of your own destruction because because you have set aside the Word of God for the sake of your own passion. Unhappiness says, God's not riding on the heavens to help me. God is not in His excellency in the clouds.

God is not my eternal refuge. God is not holding me in His arms. God is not controlling my enemies, and therefore I'm not happy. If someone can say, I believe in inerrancy, but I'm not happy. I think that's a problem.

So what happens is that often you're a Christian intellectually, but you're not a Christian emotionally. Happy are you, oh Israel. Happy are you. We're getting ready to go into the Gospel of Matthew and when we hit the Beatitudes, we find this repetition, happy are you, happy are you. And we learn much about true happiness there.

So we'll delve into this subject with a lot more detail and nuance when we get there. But let's be very clear. Christianity, true Christianity, gives birth to happiness. False Christianity doesn't. And I would just suggest that if you are not happy, then you either ought to be confronted by God and repent and be saved, Or you ought to repent for being disobedient by forgetting that it's a God.

There is no God like the God of Jeshurun who rides on the clouds to help you and remember who God is. And so there we're here we're being challenged here this morning on this whole matter of happiness. And it's appropriate for us to ask ourselves these two questions. You know I pray that we would be the happiest church in the world, because God is our Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ was the happiest of all the disciples, as we learn in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 9.

Where it is said, you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. So there are degrees of happiness. Jesus had a higher degree of happiness than his companions. Maybe it's because he was not as clueless as they were, intermittently and forgetting.

God has given this to us so that we would not forget how great He is, so that all of our happiness would be in Him and that we would be these kind of happy people. Happy are you, O Israel. And then, number six, He saves. Not only does He ride on the heavens to help you, Not only is He your eternal refuge and holds you in everlasting arms, not only does He control your enemies, not only does He make you happy, but He saves. Who is like you?

A people saved by the Lord. The shield of your help and the sword of your majesty. Who is like you? A people saved by the Lord. Now he's drawing a contrast between the people who are saved by the Lord and the people who are not saved by the Lord.

Those are the only two divisions of mankind. There are two families. There are the families of the devil, their father is the devil, and they're the families of God. Their father is their heavenly father. And there are the people saved by the Lord.

And so the emphasis is upon two things, the Lord and his salvation. And Speaking of the Lord, he says two things. He is the shield of your help. The shield of your help. Now let me ask you.

Where else do you run into this word shield? The shield of, or the sword of your majesty. The sword of your majesty. The shield and the sword are things that are depicting God and what He is to you when you are saved. He is these two things.

He's a shield and He's also a sword to you. He is being personified in these two images. What is God like? I mean, he's like many things. Who is like in yoga?

I mean, there's so many illustrations. We're here too of them. A shield and a sword. The Apostle Paul quotes this in Ephesians chapter 6, where he says, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace." And then he says, above all, above all, take on the shield of faith, with which you are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

So here God says in Deuteronomy that he is the shield. He is a shield of hope. And here we are called to put on the shield of faith in which we quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And then Paul says, and take on the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. He saves.

He saves by those two things, by his shield and by his sword. Those two things. By hope, the shield of hope, he saves us in hope. We're people who are filled with hope. And through the sword of His Majesty.

The sword of His Majesty. Now, we could speak of the very character and nature of the Word of God and how it declares the majesty of God. The reason it's so important to preach the Word of God and to open it, because it always declares the majesty of God. And when we gather together, it's so important that we understand what we are doing. When we gather before this testimony, this sword, we are setting ourselves before the majesty of God.

It's the sword of His majesty. And so we ought to revere it and be very careful with it. It's not a joking matter. It's not a casual thing at all. It is the sword of His Majesty.

And that's why when someone stands up to read, that person should be very well aware of what they are doing. They are holding up the sword of His Majesty. And their hearts ought to be so bowed down before it and ready to speak it, not casually, but with the force that it has as the sword of His Majesty. When we handle it in our homes, let's not play make it light at all, but it is something incredibly significant. When we open this thing, We are speaking about something of enormous significance.

And then, seventh, he makes his enemies submit. Verse 29, your enemies shall submit to you. God's people are never without enemies. Let's acknowledge that. True believers will always have true enemies.

That's just the way that God has wired the world. In this world of tolerance, nobody wants enemies. Everybody wants to do whatever they can not to have an enemy. That's from the devil, brothers and sisters, because God does, in his kingdom, in his wisdom, in his love, arrange a world so that there would be enemies. If you do not have enemies, check yourself.

Are you a believer? If there are not people in your life who are not disturbed about your message, then it may be that you may not be giving the right message, and you may not be giving the Gospel, which always divides. The gospel was meant to divide so that all things would be summed up in Christ. And so here he makes his enemies Submit. You see this in the book of Joshua.

In chapter 10, five kings attack Joshua. And the Lord makes the sun and the moon stand still. He's riding in the heavens to help them. And then we read in 10.24 of Joshua, so it was when they brought out those kings to Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel and said to the captains of the men of war who went with them. And here's what Joshua said, and it's really a fulfillment of what Moses says here.

Come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings." And they drew near, and they put their feet on the necks of the kings. Can you imagine that? Five kings with feet on their necks. Just like here, your enemies shall submit to you. This is actually the plan of God.

He is working as it's prophesied in Psalm 110, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. It's God's intention to make his enemies his footstool, and then to finally destroy them. He brings them into submission, and then he does business with them in a vanquishing way after they submit Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord There is not one single person on the planet or has ever lived on the planet who will not say Jesus Christ is Lord. They will either say it with such happiness in their hearts, or they will say it weeping and gnashing their teeth. But God will bring all of his enemies into submission.

God will right every wrong. He will take every transgression and bring it to justice. We often worry about transgressions not brought to justice in this nation or that city or whatever. But God sees everything. He will bring everything to justice.

He will make his enemies submit to him. But there's more to this. He is speaking to people about their enemies. So there's a whole range of meaning here as well. That the enemies of the people of God will be brought to submission as well.

This is this vision of victory that God has for His people, that His people will victorious, be victorious, and their enemies in the world, their physical flesh and blood enemies will submit to them at some point. One of the commentators on this verse said this, that In the most danger from enemies, you are the most secure. And then, number eight, he raises you up to destroy idols. And here are the last words of Moses before he dies. And you shall tread down their high places.

This has to do with dealing with idolatry in the place that you live. And it is the business of the church to deal with idolatry of the heart, the idolatry that's in your church, and there is in this church and every church, and in the idolatry of your community and in dealing with idols. Christians cast down idols and destroy idols. Pagans embrace them and pet them and are nice to them. In this whole discussion of how you structure and present the Church to the world, there's this whole matter of contextualization.

Often, contextualization is nothing more than petting idols of people. But here you shall tread down their high places. This is what God has called the true church to do. There's a tendency for people to think that the church is a place that makes peace with the culture. That's not true.

The church is not meant to make peace with the culture, but to tread down the high places. And that often causes lots of problems. The gospel does turn brother against brother and father against son, and sometimes husband against wife, as the high places are being torn down. So he rides in the heavens to help you, Brothers and sisters, dear brothers and sisters, He rides on the heavens to help you. Have you grasped that today?

In His excellency on the clouds, He's riding and He is eternal refuge and He's holding you in everlasting arms. Do you see that in your heart? Do you feel it in your heart that there is no one like the God of Jeshurun who rides in the heavens to help you? Do you feel that in your heart and know it to be true for you? That's the most important question in the universe.

So these are the last words of Moses and what will be yours? Nobody knows what their last words will be Because unlike Moses, for most of us, death will take us up as a surprise. When Adoniram Judson died, the American missionary to Burma, his last words were, I go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school. I feel so strong in Christ." Those were his words. Voltaire, that enlightenment reprobate, I'm abandoned by God and man.

I shall go to hell, O Jesus Christ!" And then he died. David Hume, the atheist, in an awful scene, had his last words, I'm in the flames! Thomas Hobbes, the political philosopher, said, I take a fearful leap into the darkness. But Moses says, There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides in the heavens to help you, and in his excellency on the clouds. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

He will thrust out the enemy from before you and you will say and will say destroy. Then Israel shall dwell in safety the fountain of Jacob alone in the land of grain and new wine. His heaven shall also drop due. Happy are you, O Israel, what sweet last words! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help and the sword of your majesty.

Your enemy shall submit to you, and you shall tread down the high places." Let's pray. Let's pray. And now, O Lord, I pray that you would help us to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. To Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.

Amen.