Psalm 25:14
14 The secret [cowd] of the LORD [Yahovah] is with them that fear [yare'] him; and he will shew [yada`] them his covenant. [bariyth] KJV-Interlinear
14 The
secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, And He will make them know His
covenant. NASB
The word for secret, ‘cowd,’
refers to a couch or cushion where people sit in private. It is a reference to
people who have something in common, such as friends or an inner circle or
group of people. It also carries the connotation
of intimacy and thus what goes on or is said among them remains a secret. It is the knowledge that is not disclosed to
anyone except those that are in the inner circle or group.
And here the secret is Bible
doctrine. It is can be known only to
those who are believers, and then only to those believers who learn it. And those who thoroughly learn doctrine are only
those who pursue a daily study in order to readily learn and understand and
inculcate its content within and into their life.
It is these same people
who have enough respect for God, due to their understanding of doctrine, which
comes from their learning process. That
same learning process that the Bible teaches and mandates for each and every
individual.
God reveals all that
comes from Him, through His word. He
reveals promises, mandates, expectations, principles, responsibilities,
warnings, and so forth through His written word. If you do not study His word, then you cannot
learn its content.
Certainly
people can become aware of doctrine just by living and breathing in this
world. For doctrine is the knowledge of
good and evil, of right and wrong, of the many stories that are conveyed in the
Bible, and there are probably very few people on this planet that know nothing
about something in the Bible. Who has
not heard of Adam and Eve, or of the Flood of Noah, or of the birth of Christ,
and such?
But
having an awareness of stories or moral standards is not membership in the
inner circle of the spiritually mature who really understand doctrine and all
of its many faceted applications to life and to history.
There
is far more to doctrine than the simple stories or parables from the Bible.
A
child can understand the little things of life, but it takes an adult, a mature
adult, to understand and even to command the bigger things of life. And the mature adult has had study and
learning and experience with which to function in life, and have the wisdom to
know how it all fits together.
