Deut. 29:29 9/14/25 a.m. “The Secret Things of God”
A couple of months ago we were up in North Dakota. There’s not a whole lot to see up there. A lot of farmland. But one thing they have that we don’t have down here in Oklahoma is SILOS. Now you may be thinking, “Well, I know where there are some SILOS.” Yeah, I do too but I’m not talking about GRAIN SILOS, I’m talking about MISSILE SILOS. Underground chambers that contain ICBM’S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. And on the tips of those missiles are NUCLEAR WARHEADS. There are ACTIVE MISSILE SILOS there now and then there are DEACTIVATED SILOS. For some reason they wouldn’t let us go to the ACTIVE ONES but they do have DE-ACTIVATED ones that you can tour.
And so we went up just to the North of Cooperstown, North Dakota to the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Control Center. It’s kind of amazing. You pull up there and there’s a lot of Barbed Wire but the building is not very big. Nothing really impressive. But this is what I want you to get. It’s not what you see above the ground that matters. It’s what you don’t see that matters.
I want to read just one Verse this morning. I have never preached from this passage before but let’s look at Verse 29 of Chapter 29 of the Book of Deuteronomy.
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
If you look on up to Verse 1 in this Chapter, Moses is speaking to the Nation of Israel one last time. He says,
“These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.”
Here they are, near the Promised Land. Moses would soon die there in the wilderness and Joshua would soon lead the Children of Israel across the Jordan River. Major things were getting ready to happen. 40 years before this, at Mount Sinai, the Nation of Israel had made a covenant with God. I want us to look at that covenant.
Let’s read Exodus 24, Verses 7 and 8.
“And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.
8 And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.”
The people are standing there listening to Moses. They had all agreed to make this COVENANT with the Lord. They had AGREED to OBEY HIM. And so Moses had SPRINKLED them with the BLOOD of the SACRIFICE. The BLOOD of the COVENANT. The COVENANT had been made and you might say CONSUMMATED with the BLOOD of the SACRIFICE.
And so we look at this Verse, 40 years later. Many of the people are dead. They have been through some really hard times and Moses says this right here.
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
And so let’s go to the Lord in Prayer.
Brother ____, would you lead us?
I. I mentioned the Ronald Reagan Minute Men Missile Control Center. We pulled up there and it didn’t seem like much. We went inside the front door. Paid our $10 a piece. Set down in front of a little TV and VCR and watched a video.
We then went on a little tour of the building. The kitchen area where the guards ate. The bedrooms where they slept. WOO HOO exciting stuff. I was starting to think, “Ten bucks ain’t much but man this ain’t much to see.” But then they took us into the front security area. It started becoming more clear just how tight the security actually was. And then they took us through a door and there was an elevator. We got on and it dropped us 50 feet into the ground. We got off the elevator and there was a door 4 feet thick that weighed literally thousands of pounds. Inside was two control centers that two missiliers would set at. And these two men would set there ready to punch in the CODES that would launch NUCLEAR WARHEADS all over the world.
And I’m telling you this because it kind of BLEW MY MIND that just a little shack out on the North Dakota prairie was hiding something SO POWERFUL and SO IMPORTANT.
There were NUCLEAR MISSILE SILOS down in the ground all around this SHACK that was controlled by TWO MEN setting at CONSOLES hidden under the GROUND.
And just a little side note here. The site that we were at just North of Cooperstown, ND was De-Activated. But there’s a lot of them that aren’t. Even this morning, as we’re setting here today, there are men and women setting 50 feet under the ground, below a little shack, behind FOUR FOOT thick doors ready to punch in codes that will LAUNCH a Nuclear War.
There are some things that are HIDDEN that people don’t know about. And there are things about the GOD that we serve that we don’t know. Things that are NOT on the surface. Moses told the people just before he died that “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God”
In the middle of Moses encouraging people TO OBEY, DO HIS COMMANDMENTS. KEEP HIS STATUTES. STICK to the COVENANT. In the middle of that he takes the time to tell the people, and through God’s Word, he tells us, that we don’t know everything. God NEVER TELLS MANKIND EVERYTHING. God has SECRETS and He has a RIGHT to have SECRETS. HE IS GOD. God is BIGGER, MIGHTIER and SMARTER than us and He always will be.
Isaiah 55, Verses 8 and 9,
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
This last week was NOT a good week.
A. NOT for me. I’ve had a few rough days this week. I’m not gonna go into it. But please don’t worry about me, I’m ok. I’m finer than a FROG HAIR.
B. But it’s also NOT been a good week for our congregation.
Chris and Lindsey got hit by a car. Got banged up a little bit. Praise the Lord it looks like they’re gonna be OK.
Sister Leaha White got sick and had to go the hospital. Emergency surgery. I’ll be honest, the first time I went down to see her in the ICU I was worried about her. Praise the Lord, He has touched her and she’s doing much better.
Brother Josh Anderson got sick and wound up in the I.C.U. over in Owasso. He’s doing better and is out of the hospital.
C. This last week has NOT been good for our nation. Charlie Kirk, a 31 year old husband and father, was gunned down on a college campus in Utah. He was an outspoken political conservative but more than that he was an outspoken FOLLOWER of JESUS. He ALWAYS spoke the HARD TRUTH but he spoke it in LOVE.
Never calling names or mocking someone who didn’t agree with him. Never using FOWL, VULGAR or NASTY Language. He stood up for the UNBORN. He stood up for CONFUSED CHILDREN. He stood up against those who would HURT our children. Charlie Kirk died as a modern day Martyr.
So I think it’s natural that we ask the question WHY? Why did Chris and Lindsey get hurt? Why did Josh and Leaha get sick? Why do Clarence and Roger have to battle cancer?
Why did God allow some Pschopath to murder a young father and husband? Well I don’t know. These things are some of the secrets of God. They are some of the things that we can’t see, they are under the surface, and I guarantee you there’s a whole lot more behind the scenes that we just don’t know.
The Apostle Paul understood this. 1st and 2nd Corinthians are letters that he wrote to the church there in Corinth. A church that had a lot of problems. A lot of division. And so he FOCUSED on LOVE when he wrote the 13th Chapter of 1 Corinthians. The IMPORTANCE of LOVE. These people had to LOVE one other. And in Verses 11-13 he said,
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
This Verse is telling us that someday things will be made clear. Someday we’ll understand WHY we had to go through some of these trials. Why we lost loved ones along the way. Why sickness came. Someday we’ll see what was UNDER all of the MESS that we may have went through in this life.
And so Moses prepares to die and as the people prepare to cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land, God wanted them to understand,
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God”
II. And then the rest of that Verse starts with the word “BUT.” And that word means to the contrary. The opposite.
“but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever”
Can I point out a few things from this right here?
#1 God does REVEAL some things to you and I and because He does, we better pay attention.
#2 The things that God GIVES US TO KNOW belong to us. They are OURS to keep.
#3 They not only belonged to this group of people that Moses was talking to, they belonged to the GENERATIONS that would come after them. THEIR CHILDREN!!! And I’m gonna say this. They belong to you and I today because of this next point.
#4 These things that were REVEALED were ETERNAL. In other words, they are still around today. How can that be? Something that spoken 4000 years ago is still around. Well ... here we are!!! Skiatook, Oklahoma, September 14th, 2025, and we’re still talking about God’s Word that Moses spoke to God’s people. It’s kind of hard to argue against that isn’t it?
God’s Word reveals things to you and I today.
God’s Word belongs to us. It’s ours to keep.
God’s Word will continue on from generation to generation.
And God’s Word is ETERNAL. It will NOT PASS AWAY. Jesus told us in Matthew 24, Verse 35,
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
I told you when we pulled up to that Missile sight it wasn’t very impressive. Just a small building with some barbed wire around the perimeter. But the more you looked around the more peculiar it seemed. And the longer we were there the more we learned.
There was like these MUSHROOM looking things coming out of the ground. What we didn’t know until later is they were VENT SHAFTS that went 50 feet down into the ground to give Air to the MISSILERS that were setting at the control modules.
Something we couldn’t see, but found out later that there were HUGE PRESSURIZED CABLES that went out from that command center to every MISSILE SILO in that complex.
There were VIDEO CAMERAS for miles around the compound. There were MOTION DETECTORS that would alert the guards if anything even got close to the fences.
There was SO MUCH going on there but yet at first you only got a little glimpse.
Listen folks, I don’t understand everything that goes on in this world. Like I said earlier, there are some things I never will understand. But Jesus did gives us a little glimpse of what’s behind it all in Matthew 5:43-48,
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
It all comes down to God’s LOVE. HIS LOVE FOR ALL of MANKIND. Can I comprehend God’s LOVE? No I can’t but I do see it.
The DEPTH of God’s love is something I can’t fathom but I do know that it’s real.
Sometimes it’s like it’s below the SURFACE you can’t see. He ALLOWS BLESSINGS to come upon those who are His enemies and at the same time He allows BAD THINGS to happen to His children. Why? I’m not sure, but Jesus uses this as an example to you and I. We are to STRIVE to be like GOD.
This scripture we read in Matthew 5 is so true. It’s easy to be KIND and SHOW LOVE to those who return it to you. It’s EASY to love your wife and children, your brothers and sisters. But what about those who are our enemies? Verse 44 tells us we are to LOVE EVERYONE, just like God does. He LOVES HIS ENEMIES enough to allow BLESSINGS to come upon them along with His children. It’s hard to FATHOM, it’s hard to see, but we do get a glimpse of it through Jesus.
III. In closing, I mentioned at the beginning that God CONSUMMATED this COVENANT with Israel by Moses taking the BLOOD of the SACRIFICE and sprinkling it upon the people. I want to read Exodus 24, Verse 8 one more time.
“And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.”
And today we can still trust in the BLOOD. We can still put our FAITH in the BLOOD. Not the BLOOD of an animal sacrifice. But the BLOOD of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. His BLOOD was SHED for you and I on the Cross of Calvary. And so I have put my FAITH in HIM. Hebrews 11:1 tells us,
“Now FAITH is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
We can’t always SEE God, but that doesn’t make Him any less real.
We can’t always FEEL GOD, but He is still with us.
We went to church on Sunday morning up at a little church in South Dakota and then we headed to Fargo, North Dakota. We spent the night there and got up Monday morning and headed towards Cooperstown. We took off out of that little town, really nothing there, up Highway 45 through the Farmland. We were looking here and there for a BIG BUILDING Right? And we didn’t see anything until we came upon that little building in the middle of NOWHERE. I told Rachel, “That can’t be it can it?” But there was a little sign out by the Highway. “Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site.” I told Rachel, “This sure don’t look like much.”
And so maybe you can call it FAITH. We pulled in. I’m so glad we didn’t keep driving. I LOVE HISTORY and as I’ve told you it was an experience I’ll never forget. If you ever get the chance to go up there, I would highly recommend it.
Man just thinking about those U.S. Air Force officers setting down there 50 feet underground, 24 hour long shifts, knowing that at any second they could get the call to launch a NUCLEAR ATTACK. Here’s the deal. So far, they have never gotten the call. That doesn’t mean they won’t. Across our nation today there are still people setting at the control modules ready to push the buttons. And what they do MATTERS.
Deuteronomy 29:29 says,
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
Some things belong to God and some things belong to us. And the things that belong to us MATTER. WHY?
“that we may do all the words of this law.”
I don’t know where you stand with God this morning.
I don’t know if you’re close to Him or if you’ve pushed Him away.
I don’t know if you once knew Him but now you’ve turned your back on Him.
Maybe there are things you don’t understand. Listen, sometimes we just have to accept things in faith and go on.
Psalms 145:18 tells us, “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.”
Why don’t you call upon Him today.
Let’s Pray
