You Can’t Know All God’s Secrets

The secret things belong to the LORD our God.

Deuteronomy 29:29

We would be less than honest if we denied the tension that exists between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. God is in control, but man is responsible. An old Puritan preacher had a wise perspective on the dilemma. He said that he just preached both God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility as hard as he could. In Luke 22:22, Jesus said, “And truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!” Do you see both parts of the tension in this verse? It was determined by God that Jesus should be betrayed—but “woe to that man” who does the betraying.

A key verse in all these matters is Deuteronomy 29:29: “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.” The secret things are God’s determined, sovereign purpose. Our problem is wanting to know all God’s secrets. But our responsibility is to take what God has revealed and work to understand it and implement it with all our heart—and leave everything else to God.