Bible Study with Jairus

Deuteronomy 33:26-29: There Is None Like God, O Jeshurun

Introduction: Moses’ Final Blessing

Today we come to the last part of Deuteronomy 33, which is Moses’ final blessing to Jeshurun. Jeshurun is a name for Jacob, for the Israelites. It means God’s upright ones, God’s upright person, the righteous. Moses called the Israelites Jeshurun when he finished his prophecies regarding the twelve tribes of Israel.

We have already seen how Jacob’s prophecy was the foundation and the seed, given to each tribe according to the characteristics Jacob observed in his children. He then proclaimed their prophetic future with the help of the Holy Spirit. Now, character may not seem directly related to your future, but we always say your character determines your fate. How does a person form their character? God created each person in a certain way, but it is a mixture of God’s creation and pre-selection, the damage of sin working through your family and environment, and your own way of reacting. Those three things cause you to form a certain character.

Then your character shapes your perception. Everybody perceives the same situation differently. Simeon perceived his environment and chose to harbor hate toward Joseph and wanted to kill him. He thought the way to solve his problem was to get rid of Joseph. But Joseph perceived the same environment differently. He said, you meant evil, but God meant good. Your perception of God, of Satan, of yourself forms the foundation of your mind. Your mind determines your behavior. If you continue a certain behavior, it becomes a pattern. The pattern becomes your character. And your character determines your fate. It is not coincidence but a series of linked events and choices.

Based on this foundation, Moses developed his prophecies over the twelve tribes even further. And at the very end, Moses prophesied and blessed all of Israel as a whole. The message was: I have already given you individual blessings, but I know you are going to have a hard time, because you are going to forsake God and forsake His law. When I was alive, you still rebelled and stiffened your necks. When I die, you are going to fall into idol worship. And when you do, God is going to punish you.

But even that discipline cannot take away the love of God. Just as the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. If God gave up His only begotten Son, will He spare anything else? No. The purpose of chastisement and discipline is always growth in life, to know the nature of God, to have fellowship with His holiness, just as Hebrews 12 describes. God will discipline Israel, and He will discipline us, but nothing can separate us from His love.

Part One: A Recap of Jacob’s Prophecies Over the Twelve Tribes

I want to give a brief recap of what we have studied in Moses’ prophecies over the twelve tribes of Israel, because this is the crucial foundation for the closing message. The first part of this recap is Jacob’s prophecy toward each son, which was the seed. Then Moses’ prophecy developed from there. Let me walk through them one by one.

Reuben: The Snare of Lust

Reuben fornicated and defiled his father’s bed by sleeping with Bilhah. Why did this happen? Why Bilhah? Did she seduce Reuben, or did Reuben seduce her, or did they come together mutually? In Chinese we have a saying when dry wood meets fire. When a man and a woman are both filled with fleshly desire, they come together like dry firewood meeting a flame. They are going to burn. I explained in a previous session that Bilhah was likely a surrogate mother. She was given to Jacob by Rachel to produce children, and Rachel clearly said the children would sit on her own lap and be called her sons. So, Dan and Naphtali were probably taken from Bilhah and raised by Rachel.

Think about that situation from Bilhah’s perspective. I know many single mothers, and they are remarkable, busy women. If Bilhah had two children around her all the time, would she really have the time or emotional space for a man like Reuben? Yesterday I went to Washington, D.C. for an appointment and had to cut it short to drive an hour and a half back home to pick up my daughter from school. I had to cancel the person I was meeting with. He understood completely and said it reminded him of the same season in his own life. And I only have one child. After four o’clock every day, my schedule revolves around pickups and activities. If you have two children, you are even busier. And in those ancient times there were no piano lessons or tutoring programs, but feeding and caring for two children still consumed enormous time and energy.

So, Bilhah was probably not very busy and very isolated. Jacob likely did not spend much time with her. She was put into a very difficult position. And Satan used that human tragedy, that loneliness and vulnerability, to create an opening. Whether Reuben seduced Bilhah, or she seduced him, or they came together mutually, the Chinese idiom describes it well: dry firewood meeting fire. When you go to a barbecue today, you need gasoline to get the flames going. The picture is clear. Everything in that environment, every difficulty and every tragedy, is part of God’s plan to form us into mature sons. God is hidden behind every situation. You have to see the flaming fire behind every bush. Everything that happened to Reuben was not by coincidence. It was all working within the three-part structure: God’s hidden plan, Satan’s strategy to deceive and destroy, and the human reaction, either through sin or through vision.

The whole Bible operates within this three-part framework. Everything is about God and His nature and His leading, about Satan and his origin and his fall and his strategies in the past, present and future, and about man, created in God’s image, given authority, losing that authority through sin, being saved by God, regaining identity, and gaining the final victory. Every situation in life must be examined through these three lenses. What is God’s plan? What is Satan doing? And what is my own reaction?

God’s plan in the family of Jacob was clear: He wanted to produce the genealogy of Christ through Jacob’s descendants. But in the very beginning of the Bible, God never specified which son He would use. Only much later did the Bible reveal, through Micah and other prophets, that from the tribe of Judah would come the Ruler, Jesus Christ. And I want to say again what I have said before: God never said He hated Reuben. He said He hated Esau, but He never said that about Reuben. Reuben’s loss was entirely his own fault. He lost not only his earthly blessing as the firstborn but also the heavenly calling to be in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. That is an enormous loss.

There is a saying I heard somewhere, and I am not sure who to give credit to: if you truly know God, you will see the flaming fire in every bush. But if you do not have eyes to see God at work, you will only see the bush, even when the fire is burning right there. In other words, every single day we should be having encounters with the living God. God speaks to us through the Bible, through creation, through birds and animals, through our neighbors, our spouses, our pastors, through all the difficult situations of life. God is constantly speaking. The only question is, do you have ears to hear? Do you have eyes to see behind the human surface, and even behind the activity of the second heaven where Satan deceives and destroys, all the way into the third heaven where God’s hidden desire is revealed? You have to be able to see through all three layers.

Joseph could see through all three layers. That is why he could say to his brothers: you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. He could see human wickedness, Satanic strategy, and God’s overruling plan all at once. Reuben could not see through those layers. He only reacted with his flesh and his lust toward his situation. And I want to be direct here: that is how men make their biggest mistakes. They stop thinking about anything else and just react to the immediate desire. Hormones, lust, the impulse of the moment. And in Reuben’s case, there was also an element of hatred: he resented that his mother Leah was being put to shame, that he and his brothers were being neglected. So he may have used Bilhah not only to satisfy his lust but to humiliate his father in return for the humiliation he felt his mother had suffered. Lust was the surface reason, but inward there was also hatred and the reaction to a sense of being neglected.

Both the lust and the hatred were used by Satan to defile the bed of Jacob. And as a result, Reuben lost his earthly blessing as firstborn and his heavenly blessing of becoming an ancestor of Jesus Christ. That is a lot to lose. I sometimes think about meeting Reuben in heaven one day. What would you even say to him? Reuben might say, yes, I have deep regrets, but God found a way to redeem even me. My name is still on one of the gates of the New Jerusalem. What do you say to that? What can any of us say? Glory to God. Thank you for your grace. Amen.

Jacob summarized Reuben’s character as full of lust. He said, you were born when I was at the height of my strength. You were supposed to be my firstborn, the excellence of my power. But your lust became your undoing. You could not control yourself. That is the mistake so many men make today. If you ask Christians what their greatest regret is, many will say: if only I could have controlled myself when I was young, so many of my current problems would not exist. Lust is a bondage for human beings, for men especially. Though it affects women and relationships in all directions, if you were to survey ten men, nine of them would probably say: if I could have controlled my lower nature, I would have avoided so much damage in my life. Even Christian ministers have been disqualified for moral failures, some involving the most vulnerable. Lust, when given room to grow, can take down the mightiest spiritual leaders.

Simeon and Levi: The Snare of Rage

Simeon and Levi were characterized by Jacob as men of fierce rage. In Chinese we have a phrase, lu nu, which means road rage. You know the feeling: someone cuts you off in traffic and you cannot control the anger that rises up. I drove to California a few months ago. I had not been back in about twenty years, and I was surprised by what I saw. I was driving at the speed limit, not even slowly, and a person just could not control his rage. He cut me off so aggressively that he almost hit me. So many tragedies happen because of uncontrolled anger. You end up in a fight. Someone gets killed. If you could ask people who are in prison today for homicide, the majority would say: if I could have controlled my anger in that one moment, I would not be here.

Simeon and Levi killed people as easily as you would swat an insect. They cut off the tendons and ligaments of oxen. Jacob said, I will scatter you throughout Israel. They could not contain their rage. Of course, Simeon was eventually transformed as well, becoming one of the pearl gates of the New Jerusalem. And Levi distanced himself from Simeon and was later transformed in a remarkable way. His fierceness, when it was redirected by God toward righteous zeal, became something powerful. We see it at Sinai when the Levites stood against even their own family members for the sake of God. Their ferocity did not disappear; it was redeemed and put to holy use. So, the prophecy of Jacob over each son was based on his direct observation of that son’s character.

Judah: Repentance and the Genealogy of Christ

Then we come to Judah. Imagine being Judah. Two of his sons, Er and Onan, were killed directly by God. This is not something God does often. In the New Testament, there was Ananias and Sapphira who lied to the Holy Spirit and died. Uzzah touched the Ark of God and was struck down. The two sons of Aaron who offered strange fire were consumed. Korah and his company who rebelled against Moses were swallowed alive by the earth. God does not kill people frequently or casually. He says plainly in the Old Testament that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked; He would rather they repent. But He clearly states in His Word that He killed Er and Onan. Both of Judah’s sons.

Then Judah’s wife also died. And Judah went down toward Moab, moving away from the promised land, falling into a compromised state. He wanted to satisfy his desires, and he was ensnared by Tamar in disguise. And out of that morally complicated situation, the genealogy of Christ was preserved. There is a Chinese saying: you carefully plant a flower and it dies, but a willow tree you never intended to plant grows and flourishes. Judah did not set out to produce the line of Christ. It happened out of his failure, his repentance, and God’s sovereign purpose working through all of it.

The key character quality I identified in Judah is repentance. Moses wrote in his blessing: Oh Lord, hear the voice of Judah. But how could God hear the voice of Judah if Judah had not cried out in repentance? One of the Chinese Bible translations renders this verse beautifully: Oh Lord, bend down your ear and hear the cries of Judah. That means God had to lower His ear almost all the way down from heaven just to catch the cry of this broken, repentant man. That image of God leaning down to listen is deeply moving. Judah cried out, and because he had a heart of true repentance, God blessed him.

Witness Lee, one of the founders of the Local Church Movement in which I came to faith, taught something that stayed with me: whenever repentance meets God’s forgiveness, a building of God is produced. He pointed to David and Bathsheba as the example. David sinned grievously, taking Uriah’s wife. Their first child died. But David repented, writing Psalm 51 with its cry for a clean heart and a renewed spirit. He came before God with what he called a broken and contrite spirit, which God will not despise. And God forgave him and blessed the union of David and Bathsheba again, and out of that union came Solomon, the builder of the temple. Repentance plus forgiveness equals the building of God.

If I apply that equation to Judah, it looks like this: the repentance of Judah plus the faithfulness of God equals the producing of the genealogy of Christ. And if I apply it even further, to us today, it goes like this: your repentance, plus God bending down His ear to hear you, plus His forgiveness, equals the Word becoming flesh in your heart. The Word became flesh two thousand years ago in the person of Jesus Christ. But the Word also needs to become flesh in your heart today, to live there as a spiritual life that must grow. When you are born again, you are not immediately mature. You have the baby life of Jesus within you. That life is real, it is the life of Christ, but it is in its beginning stage. You have to grow. You have to be formed. Just as every newborn must grow into adulthood, the life of Christ in you must grow into the fullness of a mature son of God.

Judah’s repentance, plus God bending down to hear the cry, equals the birth of Jesus Christ, whether in flesh physically the first time two thousand years ago, or as a repeated act in your heart today. Judah’s character was described by Jacob as milk and wine, as the one from whom the scepter would not depart, through whom the King, the Shiloh, the prophesied Jesus Christ would come. And Judah also became a mediator between his father Jacob and his youngest brother Benjamin. It was Judah who offered himself as surety, saying: if Benjamin is harmed, let it be on me. That willingness to take the place of another is a type of Christ. It was that offer, that act of self-giving from Judah, that finally convinced Jacob to let Benjamin go to Egypt, which then set the stage for the fulfillment of God’s entire plan through Joseph.

Judah did not begin as a man of noble character. I mentioned in a previous study on Judah that his scepter, his authority, was lost. The scepter, the ring, the belt, all the symbols of authority and kingship represent what was given to man through Adam and what we lost. Adam lost it. Judah lost it when he chased after Tamar thinking she was a prostitute. He literally handed over his ring and his staff, the very symbols of his authority, to a woman at the roadside. But what came of that encounter, through repentance and God’s redemption, he got it back. That is why Jacob prophesied that the scepter would not depart from Judah again.

Dan and Naphtali: Two Brothers, Two Responses to the Same Wound

After the four sons of Leah, Rachel could not conceive, so she gave her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob, and Bilhah bore Dan and Naphtali. I believe Dan was characterized as a snake sitting in the road, biting the horse’s heel and throwing the rider, because he was wounded and twisted by his upbringing. Rachel said she would raise Bilhah’s children on her own knees and call them her own sons. So Dan was likely taken from Bilhah and raised by Rachel. He probably believed Rachel was his mother.

But then when Rachel had her own biological son, Joseph, everything changed. Suddenly Dan discovered he was not truly Rachel’s son. He felt abandoned, neglected, betrayed, fooled. The whole world seemed to have turned against him. And the four sons of Leah, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, were their own tight group, born of one mother. They were like four young lions who ruled the family territory together. Dan, the son of a maidservant, was an outsider trying to find his place.

I can imagine the kind of conflict that would have erupted. Maybe Dan got into a fight with the sons of Leah. Maybe they taunted him: you are the son of a maid, not Rachel’s real son. How dare you act like you are one of us? He defended Rachel, and they threw it back in his face. I once interviewed an American woman who had adopted a Chinese girl. They had a wonderful relationship for years. But when the girl reached her teenage years, she suddenly cried out at her mother in public: you are not my mom! And she went through an intense and painful period of trying to find her biological parents. She eventually traveled to China, spending significant money, trying to trace her origin. All the orphanage had was her name and her birthday, because she had been abandoned on a bridge. They never found her birth parents. The trauma, the emotion, the identity crisis of growing up as a Chinese-American orphan adopted into an American family: it is intense and not easy. Many adoptees need to know where they came from and why they were given up. They have to hold onto hope that even if their birth mother could not keep them, she still loved them.

If Dan went through something similar, if he found out his real mother was Bilhah and not Rachel, and especially after Joseph arrived and Rachel poured all her love into her own biological son, Dan would have felt cast off and betrayed on every side. The world hates me, so I will hate the world. I will hide in the road like a snake. I will bite the heel of the horse and throw the rider. I will try to hurt everyone who passes by. That is Dan’s character: not evil for the sake of evil, but a wounded person lashing out from a place of profound rejection.

Naphtali went through the same experience as his brother, born of the same mother, raised in the same household, experiencing the same rejection. But he watched what Dan became and said: “I do not want to be like that. I went through this too, but I am not going down that road.”  Either you follow the destructive pattern of those around you, or you go the opposite direction. Naphtali chose the opposite.

Naphtali was described by Jacob as a swift deer let loose, who gives beautiful words. I see his character as someone who experienced the deep joy of forgiveness. When you choose forgiveness instead of bitterness, when you release what was done to you, something breaks free inside. I experienced this myself. Before I came to faith in Jesus, I could not forgive a relative who had deeply hurt me. After I received Jesus, I wrote that person a letter of forgiveness. I poured out love toward them. And what I felt afterward was exactly like a deer suddenly let loose, free and full of a joy I could not contain. Some translations of Naphtali’s blessing say he gives beautiful words, glad tidings, blessing words, not just fawns but blessing from the mouth. When you are filled with forgiveness, you become full of glad tidings for everyone around you.

Gad and Asher: Fighter and Peacemaker

At that point, Leah decided she was not going to be left behind. She gave her own maidservant Zilpah to Jacob, and Zilpah bore Gad and Asher. Now Gad belonged to the tribe of Leah in a general sense, but he was not born from Leah herself. So, he probably experienced a kind of discrimination within his own tribe. The family of Jacob was like a family with a Republican side and a Democratic side, all living together and fighting constantly. When I was working as a reporter in Los Angeles, I interviewed a Democrat who told me Republicans are selfish, do not care about immigrants, have no love. Then I interviewed a Republican who shot back: why don’t you give healthcare to everyone in the world? You are a hypocrite. They fight. Every country has its left and right. Every family has its factions. Jacob’s family had the party of Rachel and the party of Leah, and even within those parties there were further divisions between the sons of the wives and the sons of the maidservants.

Gad belonged to Leah’s side by association but was not one of Leah’s own sons. So, there were tensions from multiple directions. Jacob described Gad’s character as someone who would be raided by raiders but would raid at their heels in the end. Gad is the fighter who gets knocked down and gets back up swinging. He does not stay defeated. I am not certain exactly what battles Gad had with his brothers, but based on the household dynamics, he must have fought on multiple fronts. And Moses developed that further in his blessing.

Asher was described by Jacob as producing royal delicacies, food worthy of a king’s table. Moses developed Asher’s calling much further into something beautiful: a ministry of reconciliation. Asher is the most blessed among his brothers. Every brother loves Asher. His food is dipped in oil. His sandals are made of iron and bronze. And Moses says his days will be like his strength. I explained in detail in a previous teaching on Asher’s blessing: when the brothers dwell together in unity, when the dew of Hermon falls, when the holy oil pours from Aaron’s head down through his beard and down to the hem of his garments, Asher is the feet. The anointing of the Holy Spirit fills the entire person all the way from the top of the head to the very bottom of the feet. When Asher’s feet are dipped in oil, it means the unity of the Holy Spirit, the unity in Christ Jesus, the unity of brothers, has saturated this person from head to foot. Asher represents the ministry of reconciliation, the person so pure and so blessed that the brotherhood gathers around him in unity.

How can your feet be dipped in oil? The oil has to flow all the way down and pool there. Andrew Murray, the great South African preacher from a couple of centuries ago, asked why there is so much disunity among denominations and so little unity among the people of God. His answer was that we lack the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He compared the Holy Spirit’s outpouring to a rising tide. When the water level is low, every rocky shoreline separates this bay from that bay, this pool from that pool. Each body of water has its own fish, its own people, its own work of God. But when the tide of the Holy Spirit rises, the way a tsunami raises everything, all those separating rocks and shorelines disappear beneath the flood. Every separated group is reunited by the water covering everything. Habakkuk said the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. The work among the twelve tribes of Israel is not finished. The work among the body of Christ is not finished. We are all works in progress. We all need the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We all need the growth of life in Jesus Christ.

I should not forget to mention Issachar and Zebulun, because God remembered Leah and gave her two more sons, and also a daughter, Dinah. Issachar was described by Jacob as a strong donkey crouching between its burdens, someone who found rest was good and the land pleasant, and who bent his shoulder to carry the load. Moses’ blessing says he will rejoice in his tents. The character I see in Issachar is the stillness of a prophet. You have to be still and quiet before God to hear His voice. The donkey is content to rest and to carry. Then Zebulun was described by Jacob as one who would dwell at the shore of the sea and become a haven for ships. Moses said he would go out rejoicing. And I brought in Isaiah 9, which prophesied that the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, though held in contempt for a time, would in the latter days see a great light, a people sitting in darkness would see a great light dawn upon them.

This was fulfilled when Matthew 4 records that after Jesus heard of John the Baptist’s beheading, He withdrew from Jerusalem into Galilee, into the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. The religious center despised Galilee. They said: no prophet comes out of Galilee. What good thing can come from there? And that attitude is still with us today in different forms. What great word can come from a Chinese person? People judge books by their covers. But God has always raised up the greatest movements from the most despised places and the most unlikely people. I compare Issachar and Zebulun to the prophet and the apostle working together to build the foundation of the New Testament church. In Moses’ words, calling people to worship God on the mountain and bringing in the harvest from the sea of the Gentiles and from the sand of the Jewish nation.

Joseph and Benjamin: The Greatest Promise Requires the Greatest Trial

Then we come to the sons of Rachel. When God finally remembered Rachel and opened her womb, the greatest promise came alongside the greatest battle. Joseph was one of the greatest instruments God ever used, and the preparation for that calling required one of the greatest trials any human being has ever endured. Joseph is not an exception to this principle. Anyone who is called to be greatly used by God must go through a proportionally deep process of preparation. I went through ten years of what felt like spiritual barrenness, with countless prayers that seemed to go unanswered. If your calling is among the greatest, your battles and trials will be among the fiercest. That is not a punishment. It is preparation.

When Joseph was born, everything changed for Jacob. God spoke to him: it is time to leave Padan Aram, the land where Laban is your captor, your Pharaoh. You have experienced the life of Joseph being formed within your household. Now you can leave captivity. Joseph’s life represents the freedom that comes through the gospel, through Jesus Christ, through God. When you have that life, you can leave whatever is holding you captive, whether it is represented by Egypt, or Padan Aram, or Pharaoh, or Laban. And you can go toward Jerusalem, where you will produce Benjamin, because Benjamin is born on the way to Jerusalem and Jerusalem is in the land of Benjamin. Benjamin represents freedom in the land, the outward freedom of worship.

I have said this again and again: if you do not have freedom in your heart, you cannot maintain freedom in the land. William Penn said it: if you do not serve God, you will serve Pharaoh. That is why the Chinese serve a dictator. That is why the Muslim world serves dictators. That is why Europe is losing its freedom. That is why America has known freedom: because a significant portion of its people have had the freedom of the gospel in their hearts. When that inner freedom erodes, the outer freedom will follow.

Part Two: Why Moses Closes with These Words

That is the first part of the recap, the characters of the twelve sons and the development of Moses’ prophecy from Jacob’s foundation. Now we come to the second part: why does Moses close with these particular words after finishing his prophecy over all twelve tribes?

Moses says: 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. He thrust out the enemy before you and said, Destroy! So Israel lived in safety. Jacob lived alone in a land of grain and wine, whose heavens drop down dew. Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs.

To understand why Moses says this now, we have to bring in Romans 8. When you hear this interpretation of Romans 8, you will see the perfect connection with Moses’ closing words.

Romans 7 and 8: The Problem and the Answer

Paul’s experience in Romans 7 is that he cannot overcome the sin living in his flesh. He knows what is right, he wants to do what is right, but he keeps doing what he hates. He discovers he is free from the law of sin and death through the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. But this freedom does not come automatically. You still have to set your mind on the things of the Spirit in order to experience life and peace. If you set your mind on the flesh, you have death. The problem is that believers tend to set their minds on the flesh. Like Reuben, like all the tribes of Israel, like modern Christians, we drift back toward the flesh. Rage and lust are among the two greatest reasons men commit crimes, break up their families, and ruin their testimony. If you asked ten men in any church what their greatest ongoing struggle is, most of them would name one of those two things.

So the people of God, whether ancient Israel or the church today, keep setting their minds on the things of the flesh rather than the things of the Spirit. They do not understand God’s calling to bring many sons into glory, which is what Romans 8 is building toward. All creation is groaning and yearning to see the sons of God revealed, because when the sons of God come into their full inheritance and glory, all creation will be released from the bondage it has been under since the fall. But we do not care about that. We are occupied with the temporary pleasures and the immediate sins of the flesh. We do not care what creation is waiting for. We do not care what God’s eternal plan is. Even with the Holy Spirit living within us, we resist Him. Galatians 5 says the flesh and the Spirit are in direct opposition. The Holy Spirit wants to bring you to conviction, repentance, and transformation. But your flesh says no, I am not doing this. Even after receiving Jesus, even as believers, we resist the Holy Spirit’s leading. I have done it many times myself. I feel ashamed to say it, but I have deeply experienced resisting the Holy Spirit. Receiving Jesus into your heart is one step. But the Holy Spirit wants to bring you into further growth from that point forward, and our flesh resists that growth.

Paul says: do not quench the Holy Spirit. But we do quench Him. He is in us but unhappy, like a fire that has been smothered. So, Romans 8 continues by describing what happens next: the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words, too deep for human language, but not too deep for God.

The Conversation Within the Trinity: A Revelation

When I received the revelation of this passage, I understood it something like this. When we are not setting our minds on the things of God, when we are living in fleshly sin and resisting the Holy Spirit’s leading, the Holy Spirit goes before the Father and speaks. He says something like: Father, what are we going to do with this person? I have spoken to him again and again. He keeps quenching me. He keeps rebelling against my leading. I have warned him many times, and he just does it anyway. He cannot seem to overcome his sin. What are you going to do?

The Father says: well, we are going to need to arrange some discipline. Let some difficulty come his way. Let his circumstances speak to him in a way he cannot ignore. Let someone close to him confront him, or let something go wrong that gets his attention. I am not describing God as an angry punisher. I mean this the way Hebrews 12 describes it: as a loving Father disciplining His children for their good. I can give you a small personal example. The Holy Spirit once very strongly told me not to do something, not to carry a heavy load of packaged grass. I was doing it out stubbornness. The Holy Spirit strongly told me “no”. I went ahead anyway because I was stubborn. I hurt my lower back. I have a lot of experiences like this. I am not proud to share them, but the principle is real. God arranges circumstances to discipline us when we will not listen to the Spirit.

Then Jesus Christ, our Advocate, our Lawyer, speaks on our behalf. He says: Father, do not do more than he can bear. You love him. If you press too hard, he will not be able to hold up under it. Do it precisely. Give him the lesson, but do not break him. And the Father agrees: we will not break you. We will give you what you need, but we will give you grace alongside it. There is a Chinese saying: the ear of the grain will not break the stem. If you have seen rice or heavy grain growing in a field, the grain ear can be very heavy, but the healthy stem does not break under it. A good plant holds the weight. That is what God does with us. He loads us with trials calibrated to our capacity. The difficulty will not break you, because breaking you was never the purpose. The purpose is the fruit of righteousness.

So out of the Holy Spirit’s unspeakable groanings, God the Father arranges the discipline, and Jesus Christ is always pleading and strengthening you through it. You will experience suffering. That is what Romans 8 is describing when it talks about continuous suffering in this present age. And then, as if in direct response to the danger that suffering will make us doubt God’s love, Paul writes the great conclusion: no, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Once you have suffered, once someone you prayed for died, once God did not heal you or deliver you the way you asked, the temptation is to think: does God really love me? Paul addresses this directly. He says: do not doubt the love of God. If God gave His own Son for you, will He spare anything else? He will give you all things. But you have to grow to the level of maturity where God can trust you with those things. You cannot receive everything automatically. You have to grow into it.

And so the dynamic is this: your flesh resists the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit intercedes with the Father, the Father arranges discipline, Jesus pleads for you and strengthens you through the trial, and the result is growth. The result is maturity. The result is the fruit of righteousness. And in the end, Paul says with full confidence: all things work together for good for those who love God. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Not death, not life, not angels, not rulers, not things present, not things to come, not height, not depth, not anything in all creation. That is the absolute final word.

Moses’ Closing Words to Israel: The Same Message

This is exactly what Moses is saying to Israel in these final verses of Deuteronomy 33. Moses is about to die in chapter 34. He has finished blessing each tribe. And now he speaks to the whole nation with his last words. He essentially says: I know you. I know what you are going to do. When I was alive, you still rebelled. When I die, you are going to do even worse. God’s severe discipline is waiting for you. There are centuries of it ahead. But do not lose heart. Do not ever forget who God is, and do not ever forget who you are. You are Jeshurun. You are the upright ones. That is what God calls you, even knowing everything you are about to do. You are called to be a holy nation, a treasured people, a light to the world. You are His testimony. And there is no one like your God. He rides through the heavens to help you.

I want to share something from a prophetic experience I was given. I was taken into heaven in a prophetic revelation.  I saw Jesus and we chatted briefly.  There was a woman serving there, helping newcomers understand what they were experiencing. It was like a welcome center of heaven and people who came to heaven will go through this door to heaven. They see Jesus first. After meeting with Jesus, we were ushered into this welcome center. My spirit was allowed to be there and observe for what felt like a couple of hours, asking questions. At one point, I caught a glimpse of something moving at tremendous speed in the background. I was told it was the Father. He was riding on something, and He passed so quickly that I only saw a blur, like smoke. I did not see His face or form. I saw Jesus face to face in that experience, but the Father passed too quickly for me to take in. I was deeply impressed and also a little disappointed that I had not seen more.

The woman who was serving there told me something important. She said that God does not need a vehicle to travel. God Himself moves with infinite speed. But whenever God travels, His vehicle always follows Him. It is the opposite of us: we have to go where the vehicle takes us. God moves first, and the vehicle follows. I do not know whether the vehicle is carried by the four living creatures or what exactly it is. I only saw something like smoke. That was that fast. And the Bible clearly speaks of God riding His cherubim, riding through the heavens, in many places throughout Scripture.

When you are in the middle of a desperate situation, praying and feeling like God is far away and moving slowly, the truth is He is faster than light. God can hear your prayer, make His decision, and be at your side in what feels like an instant. A thought, a cry, a desperate reaching out, and God is already there. I once saw a video of a woman standing on a beach who wrote the name of God in the sand in her own language and asked, is there a God? The wave came in and stopped at the edge of that writing. Then she wrote the word God, and the water immediately rushed over that place. It was a small and quiet miracle, but the message was clear: God heard the question of a heart reaching out and responded in that very moment. When you are saved, He rides through the heavens to help you. I was given a couple of experiences like that.

Moses continues: the eternal God is your dwelling place. This means that despite everything, despite your rebellion, your idolatry, your failure to set your mind on the things of the Spirit, the eternal God is still your home. You have to overcome the tendency of your flesh toward idol worship because the eternal God is your dwelling place. And underneath are the everlasting arms. He thrusts out the enemy before you. Your idols are nothing. Israel will live in safety. Jacob will dwell alone in a land of grain and wine, and the heavens will drop down dew. Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord? The shield of your help and the sword of your triumph. Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs. As David said in Psalm 110: my Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Israel will receive the final victory.

Conclusion: Do Not Lose Heart

Moses’ final word to the whole tribe of Jacob is this: you are going to go through severe trial and discipline. It may last for a very long time. But do not, do not ever forget who God is. Do not forget who you are. And God will eventually bring you back and bring you the victory over your enemies.

This is the same message as Romans 8. The problem, for ancient Israel and for us today, is immaturity. We do not set our minds on the things of the Spirit. We pursue the things of the flesh. We commit spiritual fornication. We go after idols whether they are the literal idols of ancient Israel or the idols of money, status, lust, and rage that occupy our minds today. So, we need discipline. The Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son work together to bring that discipline, and to hold us through it, and to bring us out the other side as overcomers. Eventually God’s purpose will be fulfilled. Eventually you will become an overcomer. Eventually many sons will enter into the glory of God and all of creation will be released from the bondage it has been groaning under since the fall. That is what Romans 8 promises and that is exactly what Moses was pointing to.

The fundamental issue is that we are not yet mature enough. The Israelites were babies spiritually. They could not consistently follow the law. They even had a veil over their hearts. So they needed discipline. And during that discipline, do not lose heart. Do not lose heart about who God is. Do not lose heart about who you are. And do not ever, ever doubt the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That is all for today. I hope you received something. Tomorrow we will hopefully finish Deuteronomy 34, the last chapter. Then we will seek God’s leading about whether to move into Joshua or something else. Thank you for tuning in. Please pray for this ministry.  Share this teaching, comment, and repost it. And please write us a Google review by searching Jairus Bible World Ministries on Google Maps. Thank you very much. God bless you.