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The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy tells how the people of God, having spent 40 years in the Sinai desert, are just about to cross over the river Jordan into the Promised Land. Moses has been reconfirming and reminding the people of the fundamentals of God's law - his will and purposes for the new nation. The great message of this book - a message that is still so relevant for today - is that trust in God and obeying his law is so vital for human flourishing. And to hammer that lesson home at the end of the book Moses says that as soon as the people have crossed over the Jordan there is to be a special event. This will be a vast open-air ceremony, involving two mountains, where the consequences of obeying and disobeying God are to be spelt out in black and white. People will be told about the blessings that will come from keeping God's law and the curses that will come if they ignore or break it. Well, that is the context for our verse this morning - Deuteronomy 29.29. So will you now turn to Deuteronomy 29.29:

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

On the back of your service sheet you will see that verse printed out. You'll also see some space for any notes. And you'll see that my title for this morning is WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW AND WHAT WE KNOW - for that is the subject of this verse - Deuteronomy 29.29. This verse contains such a basic truth. Get this right and you will get so much else right. Get this wrong and you will get so much else wrong. Derek Kidner, the great Old Testament scholar and former vice-Principal of Oak Hill Theological College, London, said that this verse ...

... should be the remembered motto of every theologian, preacher and student of the Word.

So whether you are a novice Bible student, or an old hand, remember these words:

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

Well, this morning I want us to think first, about TWO PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS of this verse; then, secondly, ONE THEOLOGICAL APPLICATION.

First, TWO PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The first one is how it immediately applied to the future destiny of God's people – the Jews. God's people have been told what will happen in their new land, if they keep God's basic law: There will be national and individual blessing. But if they do not, there will be disaster and devastation. There will be "calamities", "diseases" (chapter 29 verse 22) and ecological and environmental disaster (verse 23). But how all this is connected with disobedience, they may not know or understand. It is secret to God. However, for all their ignorance and not knowing, the Jewish nation then was, and nations today still are, all subject to God's divine law. That is revealed. Nor does it need rocket science to see how true this is, and that civilizations collapse through a defiance of God and moral and spiritual decadence. Proverbs 14.34 is so right:

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

That is revealed.

Apply this today with regard to the future of Britain. It means you will take with a pinch of salt politicians and futurologists who predict good times or warn of bad times unless they relate what they say to vice and virtue and this nation's acknowledgement of God and his basic moral law. It is obvious that where there is a trust in God and hard work, discipline, sobriety, justice, sexual restraint, married families, care and compassion you will have strong communities. On the other hand where these are lacking you will have social decay. You cannot, of course, say how the future will pan out for Britain - or any other nation for that matter. That is secret to God. But you can say what the future needs to depend on for a good life - namely the following of God and his law. So much for the immediate application of Deuteronomy 29.29 and the destiny of nations.

But secondly, there is a more personal application. For each one of us needs to value and then share, as well as obey what God has revealed. What God has now revealed is much more than was revealed in the Sinai desert and in these last addresses by Moses. There is now not only the old covenant but the new covenant that came with Jesus and his life, death and resurrection. What has now been revealed is the whole panorama of biblical history and teaching.

And we are told in verse 29 that this revelation

belongs to us

. How, therefore, we should value this revelation! On our Foundation Sunday we should especially thank God for those founders who set up JPC to be committed to what God has revealed, namely "sound scriptural and evangelical truth." And it was costly for the Founders, not only in terms of cash but also in terms of emotional energy as many opposed what they were doing. And because they valued what God has revealed they believed we should "maintain" it and protect it from distortion and error. And then they said JPC should “promulgate” or, to use a modern word, "share" it.

Holy Trinity Gateshead (that is to be formally opened and dedicated tomorrow evening, with its launch next Sunday) is one way of sharing with others God's revealed truth. Seeking to use the electronic media and televizing material from JPC, as I have written in the current Coloured Supplement, is another way. Then our regular ministry at JPC to children and young people is an absolutely essential way of sharing the truth. Deuteronomy 29.29 tells us that ...

... the things revealed belong [not only] to us [but also] to our children for ever."

We, and all Christians, have a duty to communicate God's truth (as it is in the Bible) to our children. But as Andy Gawn mentioned on Wednesday, at the prayer meeting, there is the "25:1" principle. What is that? Well, it is the fact that children can be in Sunday School for one hour a week with Sunday School teachers and youth leaders. But probably they will have 25 hours a week communication time with their parents. So at home you need to be praying with your children and teaching them God's truth. The chances are they will get little help from many of the schools they go to. So parents need to value what we know – what God has revealed – and then share it with the children. The goal, of course, whether we are young or old is not just theological information, but trusting God and obeying his word and law. And not just the bits we like, but all of it:

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

Yes, there is a lot of darkness that the believer has to negotiate in this journey of life towards heaven. There is much we do not know. But we have a lamp that gives light and tells us what we can know. As Psalm 119 verse 105 puts it:

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

However, when you come to read the Bible – "God's Word Written" (as Article XX of the Thirty-nine puts it) - it is very necessary that you keep this “Deuteronomy 29.29” principle firmly in mind. Some do not and with unfortunate consequences.

So secondly, ONE THEOLOGICAL APPLICATION of Deuteronomy 29.29.

I want to refer to Article XVII – Of Predestination and Election, one that I read earlier and the longest of the Thirty-nine Articles (and I shall be referring to its original version - so you will have to concentrate). But what does the Bible, not the article, actually teach about predestination? The clearest passage on the subject we had as our New Testament reading (and that contains the JPC verse for the year for 2008). So will you, now, turn on to Romans 8.26-39. This has to be one of the most sublime passages in the whole Bible. And it tells us that there are things we do not know as well as things we do know. Verse 26 says there are times

we do not know what we ought to pray for.

But verse 28 then says:

we do know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

According to verse 28 we certainly can know five things. One, God works in our lives - he is sovereign and acting. Two, God is working for the good of his people. Three, God works for our good in all things - so that includes those hard and difficult times as well as the good ones. Four, God works in all things for the good of those who love him - that is a condition. There is no bland optimism here that "all will be well" in spite of what people do. No! God's good and his salvation are not for those who reject him but for "those who love him". And, five, those who love him are described as those who have been called according to his purpose. Their love for God is a response to his prior love for them. 1 John 4:19 puts it like this:

We love because he first loved us.

Those are five truths we know. We may not understand them - there are secret aspects to God's call, for example. But we can be hugely encouraged to know that God is working sovereignly and providentially and ordering all things for our good. And there is no denial of free will here, please note. That is a mystery – one of the "secret things that belong to the Lord our God" – how divine sovereignty and human freedom coexist. But they do. The Bible makes it plain they do. Remember Joseph, when Prime Minister in Egypt, saying about the cruelty of his brothers (in Genesis 50.20):

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.

But back to Romans 8 – we are then told in verses 29-30:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

So we also know there are those whom God foreknew. This is not God being aware of people who will choose to trust him and accordingly predestining them. No! It is more in the Hebrew sense of "knowledge" that involves "love". So those whom God foreloved, he predestined - he planned for their salvation (and this we are told in Ephesians 1.4 was "before the creation of the world"). Human salvation is from first to last the work of God. God is truly sovereign in our salvation. It, indeed, began before there was human faith and obedience. So it is not the result of any effort on our part. We did not save ourselves. That is why we thank God for saving us through Christ dying for our sins and rising again and giving us new life by the Holy Spirit. Faith, in one sense, is thankfully accepting what God has done. And that is why we pray for others to be saved - for God needing to work in their lives. All that is clear. That is revealed.

So Article XVII of the Thirty-nine says:

Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel [listen] secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he has chosen in Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour.

The article then says the goal of predestination is to make believers Christ-like; and that predestination is followed by God's calling, justification, and final glory, described as "everlasting felicity". But the article also suggests that this doctrine of predestination can be misunderstood in a negative way. So the concluding words are key:

Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.

What is behind needing to know what is "generally set forth to us in holy Scripture" and those words, "expressly declared unto us in the Word of God"? Well, the answer is this.

Regarding the doctrine of Predestination, some of the Presbyterian Reformers not only talked about "predestination to life" as the Anglican Reformers did here in Article XVII. They also said, I quote, that …

… the rest of mankind, God was pleased ... to ordain ... to dishonour and wrath for their sin"

That is called "reprobation" or predestination to death and hell. That produces a double predestination. But that is to go beyond Article XVII and, surely, "God's promises ... as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture". Our Anglican reformers realized that you had to be very careful with the doctrine of Predestination. Pastorally, if presented wrongly, it could do more harm than good. That is why they were so keen to keep the balance and proportion of the Bible. Nor are we to be more severe in our logic than the Bible. You see, the Bible shows that Jesus did not positively teach a predestination to hell.

In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats he speaks of the faithful believers in Matthew 25.34. They are "blessed by my Father" and inheriting "the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." They certainly were predestined. But with regard to the "eternal punishment" of the unfaithful who are (Matthew 25.41) "you who are cursed" (but with no mention of "my Father" as the curser), Jesus speaks of "eternal fire prepared [not for you] but for the devil and his angels." Then in Romans 9 Paul writes more on predestination. In chapter 9 verses 22-23 he says:

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory.

Note, one, "what if". Paul is hypothetical and not dogmatic. Then, two, God's sovereignty in this section is clearly a sovereignty of mercy. God is withholding immediate judgment (verse 22) ...

"What if God ... bore with great patience the objects of wrath."

And, three, Paul explicitly mentions in verse 23,

objects of his mercy whom he [God] prepared in advance for glory,"

while in verse 22 Paul does not mention God as the agent. In verse 22 Paul refers simply to "objects of wrath [there is no 'his' in the original] prepared for destruction" not "prepared by God for destruction".

Then take Peter who says in his first letter (chapter 2 verse 8):

"they stumble because they disobey the message - which is also what they were destined for [again there is no agent - it is not 'destined by God for'].

Of course, logically if God is sovereign over all, logic says there must be a predestination to badness and hell as well as to goodness and heaven. But Jesus and the apostles did not teach this. They did not deny it. But they did not positively say God directly predestines people to hell. This is a mystery. Surely this is one of the

"secret things [that] belong to the Lord our God".

Old Bishop J.C.Ryle warned of over-systematizing.

I believe," he said, "it is possible to be more systematic than the Bible in our statements.

This side of heaven not everything is revealed. But sufficient is revealed. As Paul famously said in 1 Corinthians 13.12:

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

In some things Deuteronomy 29.29 teaches us that we simply have to say, "we do not and will not know" the answer in this life. But because there are difficulties in the doctrine of predestination, it is tragic not to hold on to all that is clear about its implications, including the wonderful fact that our God is sovereign over all. Yes we are free, but, mysteriously, at the same time God is in total control and somehow he can reweave even our mistakes and misfortunes into his good plan. Perhaps you are going through a bad time at the moment. Well, remember God is in control; so trust him. "Predestination" is not an excuse for apathy or complacency or not working to resolve your problems. But it is a ground for great confidence and encouragement. For God can and will see your through as you trust and obey him.

I must conclude with a final, very brief, application. Perhaps someone here this morning is holding back from a commitment to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. And it is because there is some one thing particularly that you do not understand. But if that is because God's ways are higher than our ways and so somethings are "secret" to him and beyond human understanding, how foolish! For it is as you trust and obey that things will either become clearer and you will understand. Or you will see how your problem is one of those things that you will never know in this life. So remember:

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29.29).