Captured by a twice repeated phrase in Deuteronomy 4. A phrase which will be repeated nine more times in the Old Testament, most often by Isaiah. A phrase which to try and write about is, by it’s definition, impossible. For how do you put into words thoughts concerning something the likes of which there is no other?

Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides Him. . . . know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

(Deuteronomy 4:33-35, 39 ESV)

There is no other . . . That’s what I’m chewing on this morning.

No other. Nothing. None. Nada. Nobody. Zero. Zilch. A big goose egg. Know that the LORD is God; there is no other.

Or, as Barrett put it in his book on God, the one core conviction that the people of God need to have at the core of their being is that “God is someone than whom none greater can be conceived” (Barrett, Matthew. None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God. Baker Publishing Group.) If the wording of that stretches your mind a bit, it’s meant to . . . just as trying to comprehend a God who is like no other is meant to.

It’s what the people who have heard God’s voice are to know. It’s what those redeemed from Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm are to get. It’s what those who have seen the means of deliverance executed on their behalf are to take from it all. That the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

We have heard the voice of God. For “in these last days [God] has spoken to us by His Son” (Heb. 1:1). To know the Son is to know the Father (Jn. 14:9-10). Thus, to know Jesus is know that the LORD is God; there is no other.

We have heard the voice of God. For all Scripture is God breathed (2Tim. 3:16). Thus, His voice is heard every time we open our Bibles and experience again an encounter of the divine kind as the Spirit of God in us reveals God through His word, illuminating words, thoughts, concepts, and wisdom communicated directly by the Maker of heaven and earth. How come? So that we might know afresh the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

We have seen the power of deliverance. A blood-stained cross. An empty tomb. A risen Savior. An ever-present Helper. A sure hope. A glorious promise. Knowing firsthand what it means to be a people taken for Himself, a chosen race, a holy nation, a people claimed for His own possession (1Pet. 2:9-10). Before our eyes we’ve seen it, we’ve experienced it. Know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides Him!

There is no other!

Sit in that for a while. Lay it to your heart. Let it wash over you. Let it waste you. Let it prime the pump of worship within you.

By His grace. For His glory.