Deuteronomy chapter 29. I want
us to look at the very last verse, verse 29. Deuteronomy 29 and
verse 29. The secret things belong unto
the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto
us and to our children forever. that we may do all the words
of this law. Now, if we look at this verse,
first of all, in the immediate context that you and I have been
studying in, in chapter 29, I think probably it is self-explanatory. Moses had been speaking here
in chapter 29, if you remember, of the blessings and cursings.
They were promised blessings if they would hear the Lord and
obey They were promised cursings if they didn't. We've seen that
there in verse 22 of chapter 29. So that the generations to come
of your children that shall rise up after you and the strangers
that shall come from a far land shall say when they see the plague
of that land and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon
it, and that the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt. Then he
goes on to compare it to Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 24, Even
all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto
this land? What meaneth the heat of this
great anger? And the men shall say, Because
they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers. And they listened as Moses pronounced
the cursing and the blessings of this chapter upon the children
of Israel. And he was speaking here, of
course, of the future generations, what would happen if they did
not obey the voice of the Lord, if they forsook Him. There in
verse 22, the generations to come shall say this of you. What
in the world has happened to this place that used to be such
a blessing? Now it is like Sodom and Gomorrah
when the Lord destroyed it. And it's the judgment of God
upon them because of their disobedience. And then I imagine as Moses was
preaching this to them, and maybe he was reading it because the
Lord had given it to him and he had written it down, and maybe
he was reading it to them, and you could see the curiosity.
You could see the concern on these people's face. When is
this going to happen? How is this going to happen?
Is it going to happen in my generation, in my children's generation?
Who are all these nations that we're going to be carried off
captivity into? And Moses saw this on their faces. And he said this. He said, That's
secret. That's secret. These secret things,
when it's coming, and what nations that's going to come against
Israel and carry you away captive. All that secret hasn't been revealed
yet. It's in the mind of the Lord.
But he said the things that's revealed belongs to us and our
children. In other words, there's enough
revealed. He's revealed enough that you
can know His will and believe Him and be obedient to Him. He
said that there in the verse we'll look at in just a minute.
If we go ahead and consider in the light of the context of what
he's going to say in chapter 30, look what he says in there
in verse 1. It shall come to pass when all
these things are come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which
I have set before thee, and thou shalt come, call them to mind
among all the nations, whether the Lord your God hath riven
you, and shalt return unto the Lord your God, and shalt obey
his voice according to all that I command thee this day. and
thy children with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that then
the Lord thy God will turn your captivity and have compassion
upon you and will return and gather thee from all the nations
where the Lord thy God hath driven thee." So here more questions
would arise about these nations and when this would happen and
how can they deliver themselves from this captivity. I'm sure
they were curious. I'm sure they were anxious. But
here's what Moses basically told them. Most of this stuff is secret. But God has revealed enough. For instance, look in chapter
29. Look in verse 9. Keep, therefore, the words of
this covenant, and do them that you may prosper in all that you
do. Keep His Word. Be obedient to
Him. That's what's revealed, isn't
it? And he said, that's all you need to know. And then he said,
if all of this comes upon you, if it's in your day and your
children's day or future generations and you find yourself in captivity
and you lack the prodigal, you come to yourself and say, what
have we done? Look how we rebelled against
our God. Well, he said, Here is something else that the Lord
has revealed. Turn unto Him with all your heart
and with all your soul, and He will deliver you from your captivity
and bring you again into your own land. So what Moses is telling
them here in the last portion of our text, all of these things
are revealed that you may do all the words of this covenant. So many of the things were secret. They didn't know them, and God
didn't tell them. But He told them enough. He revealed unto
them enough that they could do the words of this covenant, that
they could follow the Lord and be obedient to Him. And if they
didn't, then there's where the trouble comes. So all they needed
to know was what was revealed. That was enough, wasn't it? That
was enough. But boy, these Jews, I mean to
tell you, they were so curious. It seemed like what was revealed
was never enough for them. The Jews seek after a sign. Remember that verse? Even poor
Abraham, he had some of this in him when the Lord appeared
to him and said, Abraham, I'm going to give you all the land
of Canaan for an inheritance. You remember what he said? How
can I know? How can I know? Well, how can you know? His Word
told him. He just said, I'm going to give
you all the land of Canaan. And Gideon had that in him, didn't
he? The Lord appeared to him and said, O thou mighty man of
valor, I'm going to be with you and you're going to deliver the
children of Israel out of the hands of the Medianites. And
he said, Give me a sign. Give me a sign. The Jews always
wanted more, didn't they? What was revealed just wasn't
enough for them. The Jews came to the Lord Jesus
and said, Give us a sign that we may believe you. What do you
work that we might believe you? And he said, There ain't no sign
going to be given you, fellas. There's one sign already been
given you. That's the sign of Jonah, the prophet. As Jonah
was three days and three nights in the fish's belly, so I'm going
to be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. That's
the only sign you're going to get. But that wasn't enough for
him, was it? The Jews seek after a sign. But they didn't need it. All
they needed was there was enough revealed to them here and enough
revealed to them every place in the Old Testament, in every
generation, there was enough revealed that they could know
the will of God. That's all they needed. If anybody was ever without excuse,
for simply believing and walking in the light of God that was
given unto them. It was this Jewish nation. But
they were always curious. They were always wanting more,
always wanting a sign. Here's what David said. He said,
Lord, my heart is not hearty, nor my eyes lofty, neither do
I exercise myself in great matters or in things too high for me. And all David wanted was, give
me grace to understand and believe what's already been revealed.
That's all I need, he said, what's already been revealed. So that's,
if we consider this verse just in the context here of what you
and I are studying, it fits pretty good, doesn't it? But I think
we should consider it also in a broader context, and it's still
true today. The Lord has revealed so many
things today in His Word, but I'm telling you there's so many
secret things that's with God that we'll never know. And we
only know it as He reveals it to us in time. Think of this,
things of nature. There's men today that's earnestly
They're craving after the knowledge of natural things, natural knowledge
about this universe, the stars, where the universe ends, how
old it is. They're studying the depths of
the sea and what's down there, what's in the sea. They want
to know more about our bodies, how we're made, and how we function. A lot of people seeking after
a lot of natural knowledge. And boy, we've learned a lot
of knowledge, haven't we? I was watching a documentary the other
night, and I love science. Don't know hardly anything about
it, but I love science. And I was watching the documentary
on the Hubble telescope. You remember a few years ago
they sent up the Hubble telescope, and man, they have learned so
much about this universe. Years ago, we thought the universe
consisted of the Milky Way galaxy that we live in. And they said,
boy, if we can just get out there far enough, we can know how big
the universe is and we can count all the stars and know all the
planets. Well, once they became acquainted
with the universe and they sent up this Hubble telescope, they
saw it has no end. I was watching him the other
night, and I thought he was so amusing. They said, we got outside the
Milky Way galaxy, this telescope. They said, now we've counted.
Now listen to this. We have counted a billion galaxies. And most of them are bigger than
our Milky Way galaxy. And each galaxy, they said, has
approximately one billion stars. And you know what, the statement
this guy made, and I had to chuckle when he said it. He said, we
found out that the stars cannot be counted. And I just chuckled. Listen,
I wrote this down to make sure I didn't miss this. Listen to
what he said in Jeremiah 33, 22. If he'd have asked us, we
could have told him that. But they wanted to search it
out, and God's given them the means to do it. So bless their
hearts. I'm glad they finally found out what you and I know
all along. Listen to Jeremiah 33, 22. The host of heaven cannot
be numbered, neither the sand be measured. And this one guy,
he said, if you could gather all of the grains of sand in
this earth, all the seashores and all of the sand in the desert,
Every grain could be counted. It would not outnumber the star.
Now, ain't that amazing? Ain't that amazing? But they've
studied all of this, you see. This is what God's revealed.
But I'm telling you, there are things that they still don't
know, even about nature. They're studying the sea, and
you hear them talking about studying the things that's in the sea,
and now they found out all the little creatures. They just found
out all the little creatures in the sea and about how you
and I, our bodies are made. And they're amazed. The more
they find out about our bodies, medical science is absolutely
astounded how the body works. And they've come to find out
that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Ain't that amazing? These secret
things belong to God. The things that's revealed belong
to us and their children and they're just searching out what
God has told us all along. I wish they wouldn't get so pompous
about it and so proud because God's known it all along. He
just didn't let them find out about it. A lot of secret things in Providence,
isn't there? Providence is full of the secret
things of God. And the only way you and I know
them usually is after it happens. It's after God brings it to pass.
Because we don't know what's going to be in the next five
minutes. We don't know what's going to
happen to it. We have to wait until it's revealed. And only
when it happens do you and I say, That was in God's providence.
He has revealed His providence. We look back through history
and we see kingdoms that have risen and fallen, kings, monarchs,
empire, presidents. We see them raise up and we see
them put down. And what do we see then? We see
the hand of God's providence at work in it. And whether a hurricane goes
up the coast And they try to generalize where it's going to,
but they can't really tell where that thing's going until it's
gone. And then they look at its path,
and here's where it went. And you hear the meteorologist
say sometimes, the storm took a sudden turn, and we know not
why. We know why, don't we? He plants
his footsteps in the sea, and he rides upon the storm. Trust
not the Lord thy feeble sense, the old writer said. Trust Him
for His grace. Behind the frowning providence
He hides a smiling face. But you can't see that smiling
face until He reveals it. And something awful, a storm
comes or a flood comes and you think, man, that's awful, until
He reveals that He's over that storm. He rides upon it. The mystery of providence. The
Bible says that God works all things after the counsel of His
own will. That He doeth according to His
will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
this earth. His will in everything. Now that's
a mystery, isn't it? And you and I can't see the ins
and outs of that. We just can't. Those secret things
belong to the Lord. Every wave that dasheth against
the seashore, Every bird that flies in the air, every grain
of sand in the desert, every star that lives and dies, every
birth, every life, every death, every son of Adam, every tick
of the clock, everything, everything, everything is working by order
of Him who sits on this throne. Now that's the greatness of our
God in His providence. They come to David and they said,
David, where's your God now? Everything seems out of control.
Your enemies seem like they've defeated you. You're on the run
for your life. Where's your God now? And you
know what David said? He's where he's always been.
He's in the heavens. And you remember what he said
he did? Whatsoever he hath pleased. Now that's an amazing God, isn't
it? That's an amazing God. And He has these secret things
that nobody knows what He's doing, even in the natural realm and
in His providence, until He's pleased to reveal these things.
But think about this. Think about the person of God.
Think about God Himself, not just what He's created and now
He rules and opposes and guides everything, but think about the
very person of God. He has revealed Himself in the
Bible, but my goodness, how little is known of Him, the old prophet
said. How little is known of Him. These are parts of His ways,
but how little are heard of Him, Job said. Such knowledge is too
wonderful for me, David said. It is too high for me. He is
too high for me. I cannot attain unto Him. Listen
to this, "...great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. His
greatness is unsearchable. Hast thou not heard? Hast thou
not known that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creators of
the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary, and there
is no searching of His understanding?" Oh, the depths, Paul said. of the riches of God, the riches
of His knowledge, the riches of His wisdom, how unsearchable
are His ways, His judgments, and His ways are past finding
out. Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Can you and I search
the depths of His mind? He is too glorious, ain't He?
He declares Himself to be from everlasting to everlasting and
our poor finite minds just fall before such a glorious being.
We cannot get our hands around Him. He is indeed God. We cannot enter into the depths
of His mind or search Him out in His eternal attributes, His
eternal perfection. We know that He is a triune being,
God in His Trinity. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. And we talk a lot about the Trinity,
but how little we understand that. How little we understand
and can comprehend the Trinity of the glorious God. One God
revealed in three Persons, the Father, who has an only begotten
Son, who is as old as the Father and equal to Him, and a Holy
Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, that proceeds from both
of them? Who can understand such a God?
And the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, we talk so much about
Him, but we know so little of Him, do we? Jesus Christ is the
God. the only God, and yet He's 100%
man. He's fully divine and He's fully
human. He's 100% God as if He's not
man. He's 100% man as if He's not
God. How can we enter into Him? Those
who know Him the best say He's incomprehensible and His saving
attributes. We may know a lot about Him.
But we know nothing compared to who He is and His glorious
person and the Trinity of our God. And the whole realm, the
whole realm of personal salvation, everything is secret. It's all
with the Lord until our Lord reveals it. You go back all the
way before the foundation of the world And there's where He
penned the names down of every soul that was ever going to be
saved. Revelation 13, verse 8, is that it? "...whose names were
in the book of life before the foundation of the world." But
who in the world can go up there and look on that book? That's
secret, isn't it? That belongs to the Lord. We
can't know anything about personal salvation until He reveals it
to us. We can't even know ourselves.
We can't even know our own hearts until He reveals what we are,
that we're poor sinners. Poor sinners. We can have these
notions, you see, in our heads that, oh yes, I know that I'm
a sinner. But boy, let Him show us. Let Him show us the desperate
need that we have and the only way that need can be supplied.
But we can't know anything, can we? We can't see ourselves accepted
in the Beloved. We can't see ourselves complete
in Him. We can't see anything until He
reveals it to us. It's all with the Lord. He said, My salvation is near
to be what? to be revealed. And it may still
be near, but it still has to be revealed. Salvation. And how
easy it's received when the Lord makes it known, but how impossible
until He does. That's why there's no sense getting
mad at people. There's no sense getting angry and mean with lost
people. Salvation is the Lord. It comes by revelation. And the
Lord Jesus Himself said, Father, You have hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and You reveal them unto babes. He has to take the things of
the Lord and the things that He has decreed, the things that
He has purposed, and He has to make it known unto us. And all
of us have talked about this. It has happened to me. It has
happened to Wayne. It has happened to Larry. It has probably happened
to everybody here. We read the Bible, didn't we? And read over
everything. Read over the Gospel. Read over
the grace of God. Read over the substitutionary
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. How can you do that? Because
you can't know it. You may get some notions in your
head, but you can't know it savingly until He reveals it. The secret
things belong to the Lord, but those things that He reveals
belong unto us and to our children. Turn with me right quickly over
in 1 Corinthians. It's a very familiar passage,
but turn over there with me and let's read that. 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. Here's what the Apostle Paul
was talking about. Look in verse 6. 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. Look in verse 6. 1 Corinthians
2 and verse 6. Howbeit we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect, among those who are mature, yet not
the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers or princes of this
world, which comes to nothing, that comes to naught. But we
speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. even the hidden wisdom which
God hath ordained before the world unto our glory, which none
of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it,
they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it
is written, I have not seen, nor heard, Neither hath it entered
into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for those,
for them that love him," but look at this, "...but God hath
revealed them unto us by His Spirit." He has not revealed
all of it unto us. But if you are here and you love
the Lord, one of the things that He tells you is that He has got
things laid out for you that are incorruptible. That is undefiled
and that fadeth not away. He has revealed that in His Word
to you. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the Spirit of man which is in him?
Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the
Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God,
which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned." Can't know anything, can we? Not savingly, apart from
Revelation. That's the only way we can know
it. We have to be taught. of the Lord by His Spirit. The Lord comes to us and He makes
us know two things. Somebody is always asking me,
what does a man have to know to be saved? And I always begin
by telling them this, mostly it depends on who is teaching
you. That is what it depends on, who is teaching you. Is the
Lord teaching you? And that is what matters. And it's in the light of these
two things that the Lord teaches us that He teaches us everything
else. One is that He's the only Savior.
And the other is that I'm the greatest sinner. That's the two
things that He teaches us. That's what Paul was writing
to Timothy and he said, This is a faithful Savior and worthy
to be accepted of all that Jesus Christ came into this world to
save. We'll never get over that, will
we? He came down from heaven. He took our humanity. He died
upon the cross. He rose and ascended back. And
why did He do that? To save. He's the Savior. And who does He save? Sinners,
of whom I am chief. And you know, everything else
we learn in that life, we never forget those two things. We're
like the old husker. Is that what they call him, the
husker? They asked him what he knew, and he said, I know these
two things. I'm a great sinner, and Jesus is a great Savior.
That's what he said. I'm a sinner, and Christ is the
Savior. That's enough to know, isn't
it, if He's taught you? But we learn everything in the
light of that, and there's a reason for that. John Calvin said there's
one criteria, there's one condition for growing in knowledge. And
he said, that's growing in the grace of humility. And boy, the
thing that keeps us humble and keeps us low is this, I'm a sinner
and nothing at all. And Jesus Christ is my all in
all. And everything we learn is in
the light of those two things. And if we don't learn them with
humility, and we think we know everything, and we think God's
raised us up to teach everybody else and straighten everybody
else out, we'll wind up finding out the truth about ourselves.
We're just puffed up in knowledge. And we don't know anything but
just what He's made us to know. That's it, isn't it? The secret
things belong to the Lord, and when you come to salvation, everything's
secret until He reveals it. The last thing quickly, just
as we found out about these Jews, the reason for this revelation
the things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children,
that we may do all the words of this law." And we could say
it this way, the Lord reveals it, that we may hear, that we
may finally hear and believe what we hear and practice what
we believe. And it's not just for revelation's
sake. If we just say we know it and
we don't believe it, what good does that do? And if we say we
believe it and don't practice it, what good does that do? Revelation
comes for this end that we may hear and believe and do. James said, Be doers of the Word,
didn't he? And not hearers only, deceiving
your own selves. The Son of God is revealed to
our hearts for a reason, that we may worship Him who has been
revealed to us. He asked that blind man, Do you
believe in the Son of God? He said, Who is He, Lord, that
I might believe? He said, I that speak unto you
am He. And he said, Lord, I believe.
And he worshipped Him. That is why the revelation of
God's Son comes to our hearts, that we may worship Him. when
we receive the knowledge, the revelation of our sins are forgiven. That has an end to it, that we
may follow God as dear children and walk in love. He calls us
out of darkness and He reveals this to us that we may praise
Him for it. Lord, gather us from among the
nations that we may praise Thy glorious name. When He saves
us from the devil and He reveals to us that He's done it, why
does He do it? That we may go tell others what
great things the Lord has done for us and has had compassion
on us. When He reveals to us that we're
risen with Christ in a new birth, He does that that we may then
set our affections on things above and not on things on the
earth. And when He makes our hearts
to know that the Lord is coming again and all of these things
are going to be dissolved, what's the end of that revelation? That
we may be holy in our conduct and diligently and be found of
Him and peace without spot and blemish and hope to the end for
the grace that's to be brought unto us. So we can't know things
until God reveals them, can we? And when He reveals them, when
He makes them known to us, He has a good end to that, that
we may believe it and do it and practice what we believe. I hope
that was a blessing to you. We'll begin there in chapter
30, the Lord's willing, next week.