Deuteronomy 30:11 When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing
Decisions, decisions, decisions. We will face decisions today whether we know it or not. Some decisions are almost subconscious. Others are minor decisions. Still others are major decisions. The major decisions stand on the shoulders of thousands of micro decisions we make every day, which makes them significant. Would you want a word from heaven if you could about today’s decisions? Assuming that God has an opinion about decisions, wouldn’t you like to know what His opinion might be?
Israel was comprised of people who had experiences. They had seen fire, smoke, and commandments written on stone, and heard the voice of God. Deuteronomy 29:2 says, “Ye have seen all the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt.” Verse 1 says, “These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel.” They had been given God’s mind in granite so to speak and had seen God work in amazing ways, yet, like us so often, they were unperceptive. Deuteronomy 29:4 says, “Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.” Psalm 106:7 is God’s commentary on this where it says, “Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him.” They didn’t get it.
Some people just know how to read the room. They come into a room and know what is going on. They can sense it and see it. With other people you wonder if there is anything behind the eyes. There is just a dullness. Sometimes I am dull that way. I just don’t get it. The people of Israel were people who had experienced. They had seen and been given God’s truth on stone, but they were unperceptive. They had the capacity to be deceived. Deuteronomy 29:19 says, “And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart.” That is a deceived person, someone that says, “I know I’m not doing the right thing, but God is going to bless me anyway. It will work out all right.”
Some things seem to be secret, hidden from us altogether. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” So, there are some things that will always be a mystery. I need to be able to be patient and say to myself, “God has not revealed this in His word. I may not know the answer to this particular question, but that is ok. I know enough to live a life of success if I know enough of what God wants me to know.” So, we can be unperceptive and deceived or we can have the truth withheld from us.
The bottom line is that you may not know everything you want to know, but you will know as much as you want to know and are willing to do. Deuteronomy 30:11 says it this way, “For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.” There are things that are hidden, but the things that God wants me to know God has told me in His Word. Verse 12 says, “It [the things we need to know], is not in heaven that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.”
In other words, the truth we need today is not hidden. That means a couple of things. It means we have agency. When I have life and death and good and evil set before me, I don’t have to be a genius or know the answers to all the mysteries of the world to know what is right and wrong regarding the decisions that confront me if I will know what God has said and trust Him for it. So, I’ll know as much as I want to know and am willing to do. That means I have agency, a choice. It means I have power. Someone says, “Knowledge is power.” Maybe, but acting on knowledge and the truth is the real power.
Second, if I am not doing, I am not loving God. This false dichotomy of “I love God but I don’t really obey Him” or the idea “I slavishly do all the things I am supposed to do so that means I love God” don’t work. I am to love, hear, heed, and obey God. Those are all the same. Verse 20 says, “That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and obey…his voice.” If I am not doing, I am not loving. If I am not doing, I have no light. If I will just act on what I know to be true right now, then I will cultivate a love for God and light for my path, both of which I need and are accessible to me today because I can know as much as I want to know and am willing to do.