By The Grace of God

There is none like God, O Jeshurun,

who rides through the heavens to your help,

through the skies in his majesty.

The eternal God is your dwelling place,

and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:26-27)

As you look to the months, years, and decades ahead, where does your confidence come from that you will make it to the end? How do you know that thirty years from now (if God should give thirty more years) you will still be loving Jesus, trusting Jesus, following Jesus?

Some of us are prone to find confidence in our own resources. We look to the barns we’ve built — our spiritual habits, our accountability, our past victories — and we assure our souls that the future is secure. Others of us have little confidence. We feel our weaknesses, we see the coming troubles, and we wonder how we’ll hang on.

Moses took a different route. In his last recorded words to the people of Israel, he tells us where genuine confidence comes from. Behind Israel was the howling wilderness; in front of them was Canaan, a land filled with nations mightier and more numerous than them. Yet here, in this precarious position, Moses arms Israel with a shield in one hand and a sword in the other: there is no God like your God, and there is no people like God’s people.

None Like God

On the brink of the promised land, Moses turns to Israel (also called “Jeshurun”) and says, “There is none like God, O Jeshurun” (Deuteronomy 33:26). Of all the gods Israel had heard of — of all the deities of Egypt behind them and Canaan before them — there was none like their God.

Yet notice where Moses goes to show God’s incomparable greatness. Many of us associate the greatness of God with his holiness, his sovereignty, his immensity. But in this passage, Moses sees the greatness of God in his mercy. “There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help” (Deuteronomy 33:26). God is incomparable not merely because he is mighty, but because he bends all his might to save the weak.

And he not only saves them, but he gives them a home: “The eternal God is your dwelling place,” Moses says, “and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27). Israel had just watched a generation vanish from the earth. They also knew they were hearing the last words of their leader, and that so many of their greatest fears lay just on the other side of the Jordan. So Moses tells them, “In this world of constant change and loss, you have a constant home. When the ground falls out from under you, the everlasting arms are still there.”

From where he was standing, Moses had seen enough of God’s ways to know that there was none like him. Yet we have seen far more than Moses. He knew that God rode the heavens; we know that he walked the dust. Moses knew that God helped his people; we know that he humbled himself to the point of death. Moses knew that God rested his everlasting arms beneath his people; we know that he stretched them out upon a cross.

Every future care finds a resting place here: today, tomorrow, and for endless ages still to come, there is none like our God and Savior.

None Like You

And if there is no God like our God, then there is no people like God’s people. As Moses goes on to say, “Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you?” (Deuteronomy 33:29).

There is no people like God’s people. Not, of course, because of anything in the people themselves. Moses has not been shy throughout Deuteronomy to tell Israel the truth. Israel, according to Moses, is small, weak, and stubborn (Deuteronomy 7:7; 9:6). Considered in themselves, there were plenty of people like Israel. So too with us.

Scripture does not tell the story of how an incomparable God and an incomparable people were fortunate enough to find each other. No, it tells the story of how an incomparable God raised up a weak and sinful people and made them, by his grace alone, incomparable. Hence, Moses describes Israel’s uniqueness this way: “Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord?” (Deuteronomy 33:29). They are not a people numerous or mighty or smart, but a people saved.

As we look ahead to the future — whether decades from now or minutes from now — the most important statement we can make about ourselves comes in the passive voice: “I am saved.” Saved by him who rides through the heavens to my help. Saved by him whose arms are everlasting. Saved by him whose blood covers my sin.

Only this assurance can keep us loving, trusting, following, and fighting all the way to the end: “There is none like my God, and I am saved by him.”