The Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost
What God Hides, No One Finds
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus
Christ! Amen. Here are the opening Words of today’s Old Testament:
It is the glory of God to conceal things,
But the glory of kings is to search things out.
Dear Christian friends,
The Hebrew word for “glory” in this verse more literally means
“massiveness” or “heaviness” or “weight.” Another translation would be
“abundance” or “large amount.” When this Hebrew word gets used in a more
figurative sense—in the sense of “glory”—then we are talking about
reputation, or character, or honor, or thing that someone is best known
for.
· “*It is the glory of God to conceal things*”—that is, it is God’s
character and reputation to conceal things. “*Concealing things*” is what
comes to mind when you think of God; “*concealing things*” is His
reputation and status and weight.
· Not so with the civil government, which this proverb refers to as
“the king.” “*It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of
kings is to search things out*.” It is the government’s job to know stuff
about you. If you ever want to get a taste of how much can be known about
you, just request a credit check on yourself. Your eyes will bug out. The
government knows how and where you spend your money. The government knows
where you live and who lives with you. The government knows your lifestyle
and your history and your preferences. If need arises, it will not be too
difficult for any branch of the government to find out a whole lot more
about you. Get your wires crossed with the government, and everyone will
eventually know about it. Today’s Old Testament might even suggest that, if
the government knows a lot of stuff about you, it is merely doing its
job. “*The
glory of kings is to search things out*.”
Our Father in heaven gains no glory in searching things out. Our Father in
heaven does not need to search things out. He is the all-seeing God
(Jeremiah 23:24), the all-knowing God (John 16:30), the God who even
numbers of hairs you have on your head (Matthew 10:30)—and He does not time
to count them. Knowledge is child’s play to our God. That is part of the
reason why Psalm 139 is such a good psalm for us Christians to pray:
O Lord, You have searched me and You know me!
You know when I sit down, You know when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and You are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, You know it altogether (vv. 1-4).
No, the Lord our God gains no glory—no reputation, no honor, no weight—in
doing simple things, like figuring stuff out. “*The glory of kings *[and
other lightweights] *is to search things out*.” The Lord our God finds His
weight and reputation in directly the opposite way: “*It is the glory of
God to conceal things*.”
It might do us some good to think about a few of the things that our God
glories in covering and concealing:
1. First, God has hidden Himself from us. He gains glory and honor by
hiding Himself from us. In the old days, during Israel’s exodus from Egypt,
God hid Himself in “a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and tempest,” as
it says in the Book of Hebrews. Now in these Last Days, the Lord our God
has hidden Himself in the person of His Son, Jesus. “*In Christ, the whole
fullness of dwells in bodily form*” (Colossians 2:9), concealed in human
flesh and hidden behind a beard. “*It is the glory of God to conceal
things,*” including Himself, so that we poor sinners might not cringe and
die in presence of His holiness (Job 41:10, Psalm 76:7, Nahum 1:6,
Revelation 6:17). By hiding His deity under the human nature of His Son
Jesus, our God now allows us to stand in His presence without fear, there
to live forever.
2. God also gains glory by hiding the details of the future from us.
Concerning the Last Day, our Lord has said, “*No one knows, not even the
angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only*” (Matthew 24:36).
Concerning the length of your earthly life or the length of mine, God has
said, “*Every one of the days I formed for you are written in My book*”
(Psalm 139:16)—but He has not shown us His book. Even those who have died
still wait upon the Lord, and some of them continue to pray, “*How long, O
Lord*?” (Revelation 6:10) because they do not know. The Lord our God gains
glory and honor by concealing the future from us because such knowledge is
simply too difficult for us. If we knew all the details, we would use those
details either as a license to sin or as a reason to despair. “*It is the
glory of God to conceal things*” so that we may pray to Him in simple
faith, “*Teach us to number our days, O Lord, so that we may gain a heart
of wisdom*” (Psalm 90:12).
3. What else does God glory in concealing? It might be His favorite
thing and His greatest glory that He conceals and hides our sins. As it is
written in the psalm, “*Blessed is the man… whose sin is covered*” (Psalm
32:1). Another psalm: “*You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You
covered all their sin*” (Psalm 85:2). With what has God covered our sins?
Nothing less than the blood of Jesus, which has been sprinkled upon you in
Baptism and poured out for you in the Holy Communion. Because the blood of
Jesus covers us from head to toe, completely hiding all our sins, “*we
confidence to enter the holy places*” (Hebrews 10:19) without fear. “*We
have been brought near by the blood of Christ*” (Ephesians 2:13).
Therefore, we “believe in the forgiveness of sins” (Apostles Creed), even
though we may still feel the pangs of guilt weighing upon our hearts. We
stand before God and we do not tremble, for “*as many of you as were
baptized into Christ have put on Christ*” (Galatians 3:27). You have “*clothed
yourselves with Christ*” (NIV), because the Lord your God has made you His
Joseph (Genesis 37:3), and Christ is the magnificently beautiful robe that
has been given to you by your Father.
4. Among the many things that our God glories in concealing, there is
one hidden thing that is perhaps the most amazing thing: you and me. Our
God glories in concealing, hiding and covering—not our sins alone, but our
entire lives! As the psalmist has said, “*You are a hiding place for me, O
Lord*” (Psalm 32:7). Isaiah: “*in the shadow of His hand He hid me*”
(Isaiah 49:2). And these wonderful Words from the Apostle Paul: “*Your life
is hidden with Christ in God*” (Colossians 3:3). What does this mean? This
means, among other things, that we are safe and secure! The old evil foe
may seek to find us, but he cannot. The unbelieving world may desire to
take our lives, but the full extent of our lives cannot be seen by them,
much less destroyed by them. We ourselves might look into the mirror and
feel the urge to start singing the hymn stanza, “Change in decay in all
around I see” (LSB 878.4). “*But we have already died, and our lives are
hidden with Christ in God*.” Why is that a good thing? It is good
because “*what
we shall be has not yet appeared. However, we know that when Jesus appears,
we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is*” (1 John 3:2).
This is what the Lord says:
It is the glory of God to conceal things,
But the glory of kings is to search things out.
Maybe you go home today and re-read the rest of today’s Old Testament. It
speaks several warnings about how you might interact with the king—that is,
the government—on account of its “*glory in searching things out*.” When
dealing with the government, there might be times when it is best to
tiptoe.
There is no reason for us to tiptoe around our God! He already knows it all
and He already buried it all, right there in His Son’s borrowed tomb. “*It
is the glory of God to conceal things*.” What God hides, no one finds! When
His time finally comes to bring things to light, even then only the best
and brightest things will be seen.
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