Do You Want to KNOW the Secrets of the Universe?

By Dr. Brandon Steenbock, Family Minister

This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it — the Lord is his name: Call to me, and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.  - Jeremiah 33:2-3

Do you want to know the secrets of the universe? Do you want to see the truths that other people, in their blindness, cannot see? Do you want to peek behind the curtain and know what’s really going on? 

Good news: There’s a fount of knowledge, a portal to secrets only a few know. It’s called… Youtube. There are videos that will tell you all the things you never knew about what is really happening in the world. 

Snark aside, there is a hunger inside us all to KNOW. To explore the “great, unsearchable things.” The secrets that hide beneath the surface of our everyday lives. “Ignorance is bliss…” but nobody wants to be ignorant. 

We want to KNOW.

I have a small sign on my door. A motto for life, really. “I seek knowledge and understanding.” Step into my office, and you’ll see multiple shelves of books; my basement at home is the same. That desire to KNOW? I feel it in my bones.

But I hear a warning in my head. Do I want all the answers, all the secrets? Wasn’t the desire to KNOW the serpent’s first temptation? Is there a warning, before I get on my knees and say, “Lord, tell me all the great and unsearchable things”? 

If you read this verse in context, you’ll see God reveal to Jeremiah Jerusalem’s coming destruction for their sin and unfaithfulness. How could anyone have predicted that God would allow his chosen people to suffer this way? Who would have guessed that God would use an unbelieving, heathen nation to bring punishment on his own children? There is a great, unsearchable thing here… and it is terrifying. Sin is serious. God’s judgment is heavy. He works in unexpected ways. 

If I want to KNOW the secrets of the universe, I have to wrestle with the depths of evil and its consequences. With the wrath of God that burns against sin because sin destroys his good creation and his people. God’s workings are unfathomable. 

God also reveals to Jeremiah his mercy, when he restores the remnant to peace and prosperity. Not just to the restoration of Israel, but the restoration of all things. The mercy and grace he will pour out on all people, when he does away with all sin and corruption, destroys death once and for all, and brings everlasting peace and prosperity to the earth. 

If I want to KNOW the secrets of the universe, I have to wrestle with the deepest truth, the greatest and most unsearchable thing, which God has already revealed: That there is goodness that overcomes evil. That there is mercy that lasts beyond all judgment. That there is love that endures into eternity. That God’s most unexpected workings are the workings of salvation and redemption that come through Jesus Christ.

And he has been telling us this since the beginning. Since the first sin, God has been promising good things and fulfilling those promises. What more do I need to know? What secrets could possibly be better than this? 

I don’t need to search YouTube for these secrets. I don’t need to peek behind the curtain. God has already shown us this great, unsearchable thing in his Gospel. I just need to keep going back to it. And then I really will know.