The Secret

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

THE SECRET

Judges 3:19-25

19 At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." The king said, "Quiet!" And all his attendants left him. 20 Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, "I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his seat, 21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. 22 Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. 23 Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them. 24 After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, "He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house." 25 They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead.

NIV

Who doesn’t want to get a secret message? Then putting a topper on that would be a secret message from God. Who would not want to hear a secret message from God? Of course in the case of this king, the message was an eighteen-inch sword stuck right into the fatness of the king so even the hilt was buried within the rolls of his stomach. Yet the point of this whole narrative is the desire to learn some secret, one that no one else is allowed to hear and know. On the whole, it is not a physical sword, but a sword nonetheless. We might be able to call, in some sense, a secret message as gossip. It would not be plunging a sword into the hearer, but it is certainly sticking a sword in the one whom the secret message is about. As far as receiving a secret message from God, it would never happen for God desires that all come to the saving knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ. God does not keep anything from us, nor tell us a secret message for someone else. God reveals himself and his truths to all who seek him. He holds nothing back or tells anyone a secret message. All throughout the days of the prophets, starting with Moses, God revealed truths to them to speak to all the people. There were times when the Israelites did not want to hear the truth from God. In fact, we see Jezebel who was married to one of the most evil of the kings of Israel who left God and began serving Baal, went and killed many prophets of God. Obediah, on the other hand, took many prophets of God and hid them in a cave to save them from Jezebel. It has been said that we no longer have prophets or apostles for the matter, that those two offices no longer exist. We wonder about that, for God gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers for the perfection of saints for the work of the ministry. If we no longer have two of the four then how can the saints, that is us, be perfected? Are those who are disposing of the apostles and prophets trying to silence the word of God? There are so many truths that some believers do not want to hear, and by closing their ears, or hearts and minds, to certain truths, they are telling God to keep silent, not to tell them about their secrets. We all may have some secret we are chained to that we do not want anyone to know, but God does and he wants to reveal his truth into our lives, so we can be free. With God, there are no secrets.