Secret Things

by JAS. MARTIN | Category: Secret Things | Nov 1958

"The secret of the LORD is with them that fear Him." Thus wrote David in Psalm 25.14, in a sad and desolate day when he was bereft of earthly "counsel and friendship" (R.V.M.). But he had sweet communion with the LORD. His wise son, Solomon, also knew this truth, and had he bound it about his neck, as he counselled his son to do, his would have been a happier story; for it is thus he wrote in Proverbs 3. 32, " His secret (counsel) is with the upright." Amongst some of the last words of Moses, Israel's greatest leader, the same truth is recorded that " the secret things belong unto the LORD our God" (Deuteronomy 29. 29). Not only are there divine secrets, there is a secret place of the Most High, and he that dwelleth there "shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Psalm 91). Those who seek the counsel and fellowship of the Lord will have reason to bless the God of heaven, because He imparteth wisdom and knowledge, and revealeth the deep and secret things, as Daniel learned to his great joy. The turmoil of nations need not disturb the man of God, for his God can even change the times and the seasons, and remove kings and set up kings (Daniel

2.17-23).

"Now the natural man (that is the unregenerate man) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ... because they are spiritually judged" (1 Corinthians 2.14), but the Spirit Himself searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." This is He who was in the counsel chamber of a Triune God, who can take of the things of Christ, and declare them unto us. We have not been privileged to live in that day when Christ, the Image of the invisible God, was incarnate here on earth. In His day every one that heard from the Father came unto Him (John 6.46), and every one that was blessed to know Him knew the Father also, and those that saw Him had seen the Father also (John 14). Believers in the Lord Jesus are indwelt by His blessed Holy Spirit and, if spiritually minded, may say, "we have the mind of Christ." Our lives would be more fruitful, our homes more lovely, and the assemblies of God more fertile, if it were more evident that we had the same mind in us "which was also in Christ Jesus " (Philippians 2).

These secret things are called in the New Testament " mysteries," deep things of God. In those early days of the history of the church of God in Colossae disciples were being troubled with such things as meats and drinks and festive days, and were in danger of being subverted to various errors by vainly puffed-up men (see Colossians 2.16-18). To them, and to us, Paul makes manifest the "mystery which hath been hid from all ages, ... which is "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1.26, 27). Well might Christians rejoice in the riches of the glory of this revealed "mystery" - A presence hidden to the world, but manifested to His own.

JAS. MARTIN | Nov 1958
Secret Things