Doing What God Says

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."

Deuteronomy 29:29

Regardless how much a person might know, there is abundantly more that they do not know.  When it comes to the secret things of God, there is much we cannot know or understand.  The complexity of life and glory of God revealed in nature and His word are merely the edges of His ways.  The more we learn of God and the things He has made, we realise there is much more we have yet to understand.

Moses wrote of secret things that belong to the LORD our God:  some mysteries He chooses to reveal in His time, and other things He chooses to keep secret.  The thrust of the passage, however, is not to focus on what God knows that we cannot know.  The truth is God has revealed Himself and His wisdom to us and has given us things to take to heart and put into practice.  The book of Deuteronomy contains many warnings to God's people of the danger of departing from faith and obedience to Him:  plagues, sickness, fires and deadness would pollute the land, even as sin had corrupted the people.

When people saw the desolation of the land, they would wonder what was the cause.  The answer was given in Deuteronomy 29:25-27:  "Then people would say: 'Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; ²⁶ for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know and that He had not given to them. ²⁷ Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against this land, to bring on it every curse that is written in this book."  God revealed beforehand what would happen should His people depart from Him, and thus they were to order their lives according to the knowledge of His law.

The timeless principle held forth by Moses is applicable to the new covenant established by Jesus Christ.  There remains much we do not know, but the things God has revealed are gifts for us to the end we would put them into practice.  We should heed the exhortations, warnings, directives and promises God has provided that we ought to own and share with our children forever.  See how the wisdom of God is eternal, that those who fear, trust and obey the LORD will live beyond our short years on this planet, for God is the God of the living.  How blessed and privileged are those to whom God has revealed Himself, and blessed is the man who does what God says.