(Ver 1.3)  This is Part 8 in a series of lessons on the methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible for us to find.  By studying these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word.  So far I have covered seven different methods of hiding information without using standard modern encryption methods that make the text completely unreadable.   You see the intelligence of God and the spiritual nature of God both are contributing factors to how God is able to accomplish hiding complex information using words that are clearly readable by every man.  It is very much like how God created animals in our world that have the natural ability to conceal themselves using their surroundings and blending into their backgrounds.   If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.

Technique 8: Telling a Story without Giving Any Details or Explanations

This next technique for concealing truth in the Bible is found extensively throughout the Old Testament.   When you realize that nothing in the Bible is found there by chance or accident, you suddenly begin to understand that every story has a purpose whether you comprehend it or not.  God did not put any stories in the Bible just to fill up the pages because He couldn’t think of anything else to say.  In other words even if there is a strange story of a daughter having sex with her father Lot after she gets him drunk in Genesis to give him children then it is there for a reason and we just don’t normally understand what it is because we are only thinking naturally and not spiritually.  All that we can do is just read the story until God reveals to us what it means.  God usually does this by showing us other verses in the Bible that clear up the reasons for it being there by shedding additional spiritual light on to the natural subjects found in the story.  This is a very tricky method of hiding information in the Bible in plain sight.  You can find this technique on almost every page of the O.T.  Genesis starts it, and then Exodus continues it.  As you progress through the Bible you find it repeated in Kings and Chronicles, along with Samuel, Joshua, Ester, Ruth, Daniel and etc.   These books all contain natural historical stories of real people in real places doing real things at specific times for specific reasons.  God chose these stories to show us and teach us some very valuable greater spiritual truths but he never told us that directly in the story.  What we understand is that out of the entire history of man on this planet, God specifically selected these specific stories as being significant for us to know and to understand.  However, God never tells us why they are there nor does He explain what these people did to get mentioned in His book for eternal notoriety.   That is until you see the “why” revealed in the New Testament.

1Co 10:11  Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

Here in this verse God gives us one of the clues that I talked about in the last lesson in this series to some degree about types and shadows.  What we soon realize is that there are overlapping truths being progressively revealed to us by God.  Today’s subject about hidden meanings is related to the last lesson of hidden types and shadows, but today’s lesson changes it slightly to reveal a new distinction in the subject.  Here in this verse in 1 Corinthians, God informs us that the things that are written in the O.T. were written as “examples” for us to learn from.  God is of course speaking of natural things in natural stories that teach us about spiritual truths that have been hidden from our reading abilities until we have been given the spiritual eyes to see them and to understand them internally and not just mentally.   The Greek word translated as “ensamples” here is a word that means “to stamp”.  This is representative of a process that occurs when they stamp out money or coins.  Using engraved templates or plates they stamp out a coin using extremely high pressure to form the words and pictures that are easily recognizable when viewed.  That concept is exactly what God is saying to us in this verse about things that are written in the O.T.  God is saying that those natural things that were written originate from a spiritual pattern that cannot be observed by physical senses.   In other words we have never seen the engravings that make the coins that we have in our pockets but we can see the coins.  We can still know and understand that they are directly related in a one for one comparison by close examination.

I am going to give you a prime example of what I am talking about.  Faith is a subject that is vastly hidden in the Old Testament, but one that is widely spoken of in the N.T.  The word faith only occurs 2 times in the KJV of the Bible in the O.T, yet when you read Hebrews chapter 11 and see that God says that many of the stories found in the O.T. Bible are only there because that named person had faith.  Then you should begin to see what I am trying to teach you today.  Nowhere in the O.T. is this stated.  Therefore, this is a key method being revealed to us of one way that God has conceived to hide information in the Bible for us to find.  Because the reader of the O.T. did not understand the spiritual principles and laws of faith the acts are clearly missed by the reader.

If you go and read Galatians 3:23 you can see that God says that “faith” was a hidden subject that was later to be revealed after Jesus was raised from the dead.  If you did not know it, faith is a spiritual subject found in the entire Bible.  Why would God have to hide a spiritual subject in the Old Testament and then reveal it later in the New Testament?  That is a very good question to figure out the answer to.  I believe the answer is because God had a spiritual enemy named Satan who He had to keep from knowing too much and to soon.   I would highly recommend that you take a minute and go and read chapter 11 of Hebrews very closely and then come back to this lesson.  What we see in this chapter is that God lists approximately 16 people from the O.T. by direct name and many others are inferred by associated indirect references.  Here is my list of the direct named references of people from the O.T. with faith found in Hebrews 11:

1. Abel
2. Enoch
3. Noah
4. Abraham
5. Sarah
6. Isaac
7. Jacob
8. Joseph
9. Moses
10. Rahab
11. Gideon
12. Barak
13. Sampson
14. Jephthah
15. David
16. Samuel

You can quickly look down this list and see the names of several famous people and recognize them to be O.T. Bible stories of renowned character and great exploits.  God is revealing to us here in this chapter of Hebrews why they are mentioned in the Bible at all and God says it is because of their faith.  God is revealing to us that there was a determining factor to their success on the earth and that this determining factor was their “faith”.  Knowing this information should actually dramatically change your perspectives when you go back and read their stories found in the O.T.   When you read these O.T. Bible stories you should now begin to see how that “faith” plays a major role in what the Bible says that they accomplished.  But, now you will also have to stop and get God’s definition for what faith is and then go back and reread the stories to see how they used their faith to please God to get their names written in His eternal book.  Most of these stories reveal some very profound concepts of faith in action.  However you would not have known this until God tells you about it in Hebrews 11.  Of course if you never see what Hebrews 11 says then you would remain ignorant to the truth.  Therefore, this is a direct pattern to other subjects that can be found in the Bible also.  You can apply this principle to your study of any subject in the Bible to see how the O.T. stories give us examples of them each.

For instance what about the subject of spoken words?  Can you find out what someone said in the O.T. and then find out what happened to them?  Sure you can.  What about the subject of “love” can you learn how that God says love is the fulfillment of all of the law and how these men and women in the Bible used God’s definition to get mentioned in the Bible?  Sure you can!  This is a great revelation hint to finding the hidden truth in the Bible.  I hope you enjoyed this lesson and learned something from it.  God Bless you until next time.

If you would like to continue reading this series of lesson on how God has concealed information in the Bible you can go to “Part 9“.