We live in a day of many uncertainties. In fact, our modern culture denies the reality of certainty altogether. In the thinking of many people, there are no absolutes. Uncertainty exists as to whether anything can be considered right or wrong. Truth is relative to these people, and they consider that what is true to you may or may not be true for someone else. Our modern society cannot even define male and female. This confusion is a symptom of a relativistic culture where the foundation of absolute truth is removed. In our generation, evil is called good, and good is called evil.
In contrast to this moral confusion, the God of the Bible is a God of Truth. In the “Song of Moses” recorded in Deuteronomy chapter 32, the children of Israel were to sing about one of God’s essential attributes—truth. “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (verse 4).
Foundational to Christian civilization is that God is a God of truth. Without this basic pillar of absolute truth, our society is built on shifting, unstable sand. The song of Moses does not say that God merely speaks truth. The song affirms that God IS truth, and He is a God OF truth. Truth is a necessary and inseparable part of His nature and His attributes. We can trust what God says. We can rely upon what He promises, and we can believe what He reveals. Our faith is not built upon unstable sand but, according to the beautiful words of the song of Moses, our faith is built upon “The Rock” (verse 4).
The Hebrew word for truth given to us in Deuteronomy 32:4 is אֱמוּנָה (amunah). It comes from the verbal root אָמַן (aman). Our expression Amen is derived from this Hebrew root. Whenever we say amen in church or in our prayers, we are expressing faith by verbally giving our agreement that we rely entirely upon what has been said. To say amen to God’s promises is to trust that those promises are true. The only reason that we can ever say amen to anything is because we serve a God of truth.
What if this fact were not the case? The false gods of pagan antiquity were gods born of human imagination. Later in this song of Moses, the children of Israel sang, “For their rock [false gods] is not as our Rock [the one true God]” (Deuteronomy 32:31). Instead of man being created in the image of God as the Bible reveals, these false gods were made in the image of man. They were deceitful, unreliable, finicky, and untrustworthy. These false gods had to be appeased by gifts and sacrifices. For example, the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel had to dance upon the altar and cut themselves with knives while shouting wildly, “O Baal, hear us” (I Kings 18:26).
Elijah, the prophet of Jehovah the true God, mocked these prophets of the false gods. Maybe, he suggested, their god was asleep or perhaps away on a journey and could not hear them! By contrast, when Elijah prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel to show the people that “thou are the LORD God” (I Kings 18:37), he had absolute confidence that his prayer was heard. Why? Because the God of Israel is a God of truth. He is the God of the Amen. What He has promised, He will most certainly do.
Can you say amen to God? Do you have absolute confidence that His Word is truth? Or have you been influenced by our relativistic world and believe that there are no absolutes? Have you taught your children that there is an absolute standard of right and wrong, from which man ought not to dare deviate?
One of the earliest recorded hymns ever sung by God’s people, Deuteronomy 32 is a bedrock of our faith and our very understanding of Who God is. When was the last time that you sang the song of Moses or even read it aloud with your family? Are you familiar with the song of Moses? Realize that one day, the victorious saints are going to be singing the song of Moses around the throne of the Lamb. In the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John wrote: “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints” (Revelation 15:3). Prepare now to join in the worship of the Lamb!
We can prepare ourselves for that great day by becoming familiar now with the song of Moses. Sometime this week, open your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 32 and read these words of praise and worship with your family. Our faith is not a faith of wishful thinking. Our faith is a faith of certainty because we serve a God of truth. In a world of relativism, we have a standard of truth because we have a God of truth.
It is this standard of truth that gave the Apostle Paul the confidence to say to the church at Corinth, “For all the promises of God in him [the Lord Jesus] are yea, and in him Amen” (II Corinthians 1:20). To the words of Moses and to the words of Paul, we can add our own confident amen knowing that we serve a God of truth.