Prone to Wander

There's something uniquely powerful about songs. They carry truth in ways that stick with us long after sermons fade from memory and conversations blur together. We leave church humming melodies, lyrics bouncing around in our heads throughout the week. Songs like "Amazing Grace," "How Great Thou Art," and "It Is Well With My Soul" have endured for over a century, still moving hearts today just as they did generations ago.

Consider "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," penned by Robert Robinson in 1757. For 268 years, believers have sung those haunting words: "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord. Take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above." The truth hasn't changed. We are still prone to wander, and we still desperately need God to seal our hearts to keep us faithful.

But what if a song wasn't just written about Scripture, but was actually given as Scripture itself?

A Song Written by Divine Commission

In Deuteronomy 31, we encounter a remarkable moment. Moses stands at the threshold of Israel's entrance into the Promised Land, knowing he won't cross over with them. In this pivotal transition, God commissions Moses to write a song—not just any song, but one that would serve as a witness for God and against His people.

God tells Moses plainly: "You are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them" (Deuteronomy 31:16).

God knows what His people will do. He knows they will rebel, forsake Him, and chase after false gods. Yet even knowing this, He gives them His Word anyway. He enters into relationship anyway. And remarkably, He gives them a song to sing—a song that will remind them of His greatness, their rebellion, His provision, and ultimately, the path to life.

What God's Word Reveals

The song Moses teaches Israel in Deuteronomy 32 unfolds like a multi-layered revelation, each verse peeling back another truth about God and humanity.

God's Word reveals God's greatness and glory. The song begins with a call to heaven and earth to listen, proclaiming the name of the Lord and ascribing greatness to God. "The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he" (Deuteronomy 32:4).

Without specific revelation, we might look at creation and sense a distant Creator, but we wouldn't truly know Him. The stars declare God's glory, but Scripture tells us His character—that He is faithful, just, righteous, and intimately concerned with His people.

God's Word reveals mankind's rebellion and corruption. Immediately after declaring God's perfection, the song pivots sharply: "They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation" (Deuteronomy 32:5).

It's a hard truth to swallow. The God who created them, established them, and blessed them abundantly—and this is how they respond? But before we point fingers at ancient Israel, we must recognize ourselves in their story. Apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, we are exactly like them: created by God yet rebellious, blessed yet ungrateful, called yet wandering.

God's Word reveals God's gracious provision. The song reminds Israel that God found Jacob "in a desert land, in a howling waste of the wilderness." He encircled him, cared for him, kept him as the apple of His eye. Like an eagle catching its young when they fall, God bore them up and guided them to abundance.

They didn't deserve it. It wasn't their righteousness or power. It was purely God's gracious choice. He picked them because He is God, and they are His allotted portion.

This is a difficult truth for us to grasp because we want to believe our awareness of God triggers His work in our lives. But God has been working from before the foundations of the world, predestining, electing, preparing. Every breath we take as His people is a breath of grace.

God's Word reveals mankind's wandering ways. Despite all God's provision, the song continues: "But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked... Then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the rock of his salvation" (Deuteronomy 32:15).

In abundance, they forgot God. In blessing, they turned to idols. We face the same danger. We struggle through hard times desperately clinging to God, then when blessings come, we drift away, thinking we've somehow arrived on our own merit.

The wisdom of Proverbs 30:7-9 rings true: "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, 'Who is the Lord?' or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God."

God's Word reveals God's just judgments. The song doesn't shy away from the reality of God's righteous anger. He will bring judgment on His rebellious people, and He will use godless nations to do it. Then He will judge those nations too. And He is perfectly just in all of it.

This is uncomfortable for us. We want a comfortable, controllable God. But the God of Scripture is the God who kills and makes alive, who wounds and heals, from whose hand none can deliver. He is sovereign, holy, and just.

Yet even in judgment, there's a glimmer of hope. God will avenge His children and cleanse the land for His people.

God's Word reveals the way of life. After teaching the song, Moses tells Israel: "Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life" (Deuteronomy 31:46-47).

God's Word is not empty—it is life itself.

From Written Word to Living Word

As essential as this song was for Israel, it was incomplete. The written Word sustained them, but it wasn't the end of God's plan. At just the right time, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

Jesus didn't come merely to add to the written Word but to fulfill it, to embody it, to be it. He declared, "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). He is "the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).

The written Word was given so we might come to know the living Word and find eternal life.

Living in God's Word

God's people are prone to wander, but His Word has been given to guide us in faithfulness and guard us from idolatry so we can truly live. So what do we do with His Word?

• Know it. Read it, study it, hear it preached, get familiar with it. Through the written Word, the Holy Spirit introduces us to the living Word.
• Trust it. Knowledge without faith is useless. God calls us to respond not merely with intellectual assent but with wholehearted trust.
• Sing and speak it. Let it be the content of our conversations, the songs on our lips. Faith comes by hearing, and the Word that works is the Word proclaimed.
• Live according to it. God's Word never changes or shifts. It remains true every day. "The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever" (1 Peter 1:24-25).

In a world of constantly shifting wisdom and endless opinions, God's Word stands firm—a song that echoes through generations, calling wandering hearts home.