(Ver 1.3)  This is “Part 11” in a series of Bible lesson about “How God Hides Spiritual Truth in the Words of Natural Truths”.  If you would like to begin reading from the start please select “Part 1“.  Today is a lesson on Understanding that there are many Hidden Spiritual Secrets of God in the Old Testament.  I have written on this subject before, but God won’t let me get away from it.  He keeps bringing it back up again and again for a reason.  I guess there are still so many people in the world who need to learn this, that He wants to keep bringing it back up until they get it completely.  What we find in every in-depth Bible study is that there are many subjects in the Old Testament that are clearly hidden and only revealed by God to those in the New Covenant.  This is the number one reason why the natural Jewish people did not see or understand their God given Holy Book of the Law or the books written by their prophets.  The cause for this inability to understand the truth comes from the the basic design of God’s Word.  God has written to the Jews a highly complex book of hidden spiritual information using some natural words, rules, instructions and the historical stories of some natural people and places.  I can see these realities looking at them from a New Testament perspective, but they cannot observe them from their Old Testament point of view.  I call this technique of God’s writing “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight” and today I am going to discuss a number of these hidden subjects concealed within the words of the Old Testament.

Mat 13:35  That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

It is very clear from my Bible study that God has an immense number of hidden subjects in the Old Testament.  Of course if you did not know this, your attempt at understanding the O.T. would be severely hampered.  Not knowing how the Old Testament was designed, written and constructed with these hidden and concealed pieces of spiritual information means that you are attempting to interpret and understand the Bible using only your mental capacity and that is clearly not talented enough to achieve the necessary level of intelligence, maturity and wisdom to overcome God’s ability to conceal these things from you.  It would be like you attempting to crack a 128 bit encryption with your calculator and if you understand code systems you know this is virtually impossible to do anyway using a large scale computer.  In other words God is so much smarter than you, that without His help to understand what has been written is why we see so many confused people in the world today searching for the truth.  So here is a list of some of the hidden subjects in the Old Testament books:

1. Jesus, the Personal Appearance of God on the Earth in the flesh.
2. Why Jesus Came to the Earth.
3. The Death of Jesus.
4. Salvation
5. Satan
6. Resurrection
7. Faith
8. Seeds
9. Spiritual things like Fruit, Gifts
10. God’s Spiritual Family
11. The Kingdom of God
12. The Creation of the Church and the New Covenant
13. The fact that there were Hidden Secrets was clearly a Secret

These are just a few of the hidden subjects of the Old Testament that God has revealed to us in the New Testament.  I have written several blogs on many of these subjects and if you have read them and understood them, then you know that God is pretty smart.  I plan on doing more of these topics that I have not touched on before in the future so hang in there and keep reading my blogs.  You will be glad that you did as we continue.

THE HIDDEN JESUS

Let’s go through the list of subjects and briefly touch on them for an introduction.  Jesus of course is described on almost every page of the Old Testament, but using very complex hidden methods of concealment.  These can range from multiple names, titles and descriptions, symbolism, analogies which are hidden allegorical natural stories and even indirect prophetic statements where He is not directly named.  For example, Jesus can be called an “angel”, (Gen 48:16), “Shiloh” (Gen 49:10) or “Rose of Sharon” (Song 2:1) or “Branch of Righteousness” (Jer 23:5) or “Sun of Righteousness” (Mal 4:2) to name a few hidden names of Jesus in the O.T.  If you want to see more names of Jesus you can go to my list “Names, Titles, Symbols of Jesus”.   There are probably more hidden references to Jesus in the Old Testament than any other hidden subject.  This is mainly because He is the most important subject for you to know.  I have another Bible lesson on “The Hidden Jesus in Genesis” and this may help you to see more of the techniques that God has used to conceal Himself in His Word.  If you have not read my series on “God’s Methods of Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight” then you should definitely do that very soon.

THE HIDDEN REASON FOR JESUS

Why did Jesus come to the earth?  There are so many hidden reasons for why Jesus came to the earth that there is no way I can get into them all in this brief synopsis.  To provide salvation for us is one of the key reasons for God’s personal appearance on the earth, but definitely not the only reason that Jesus came.  I think I wrote a lesson called “The Top 10 Reasons Jesus Came to the Earth” and you should probably check that out if you have not read it already.  When you begin to realize that God is multi-dimensional and able to accomplish multiple things in one planned work then you start to realize the extreme intelligence of God.   Too many people think one-dimensionally and only accomplish one task at one time using a single threaded approach to life.  This is like computers of old, which were sequentially threaded devices that could only do one instruction at a time.   However, in today’s modern computer world with multi-processor capabilities it is much easier to visualize the mind of God who clearly is speaking to millions of people on the earth simultaneously.   That is pretty awesome stuff if you asked me.  I will challenge you to go through the Old Testament and find the concealed reasons why Jesus was prophesied to come to the earth.  It is a fascinating Bible study to do.

We know from reading 1 Corinthians 2:8 that Satan did not know that the death of Jesus on the cross was his greatest mistake.   Had Jesus not been slain and shed His blood, the world’s situation would be exactly the same as before Jesus came into the world and that was not a good situation to be in.  We can clearly see that Jesus coming into the world to die was a hidden secret from God.  We can further explore this information in many other verses of the Bible.  I like the words of Ruth where she revealed to us that it was only “death that was a separating force” that could divide her from her mother-in-law Naomi.  God uses His death on the cross to separate Himself from the evil one named Satan.  This is not a widely taught subject, because I believe it is a new subject revealed in the last days by God.

THE HIDDEN SATAN

In reading the Old Testament there is seldom any direct reference of the spiritual being named Satan.  When he is mentioned it is widely using some symbolic title like the “serpent” in Genesis 3:1.  Other times God speaks of an individual like the “Prince of Persia” (Dan 10:13) and this is Satan.  Still other times there is the “King of Tyrus” in Ezekiel 28:12 and this is widely believed to be a hidden reference to Satan.  If you would like to read more “Names, Titles, Symbols of Satan” then you should go and do that.  Why does God hide our enemy in the text of the Old Testament writings?  It is a fascinating concept to consider.  Why does God hide any information in the Bible?   From my view point, there is no reason to describe Satan in great detail since in the Old Testament the human race could not do anything about him.  Satan is called the “god of this world” in the N.T. (2 Cor 4:4).  Therefore we realize that as the god of this world Satan had ultimate control or influence over many of the things that transpired here.  I know that goes against the theology of a lot of confused individuals who believe that God is in control of everything that happens, but that is just too bad because the Bible teaches us some quite different realities.  I believe that Satan was hidden from  plain view for the safety and protection of the people in the O.T.  If people would had known about him in greater detail, probably many more people would have made him their god.  In addition to this other than being in the protection of obedience to God’s word there was nothing that any human on earth could do about Satan.  It was not until Jesus died that Christians were again given authority over Satan as you can read in Luke 10:19.

THE HIDDEN SUBJECT OF FAITH

Faith is a subject that was definitely hidden in the Old Testament very well.  In the Old Testament God honored the people’s faith and allowed many people to perish because they had no faith.  You can clearly see this in the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness.  They sent 12 spies into the Promise Land to check it out and they come back and only 2 had a good faith filled report.  The majority came back with the evil report of doubt and unbelief.  Everyone that did not believe the good report died in the wilderness over the course of time, but these two men named Joshua and Caleb led the younger generation into the Promise Land by faith.  You can read about what happened in this Old Testament story in the book of Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, where God said the children of Israel failed to mix their faith with God’s promise so they did not enter into His rest.  Faith is therefore a dominate New Testament revealed truth that was not made known to those in the Old Testament.  Galatians 3:23 clearly teaches us that faith was a revealed New Covenant reality.  This literally means that faith was previously hidden to those under the law.  If you would like to read my latest series on “Understanding Bible Faith” then please do that.  In this series I talk about the Genesis or beginning of faith and I teach you that faith existed eternally.  Therefore the subject of faith was a factor in the Old Testament the same as it is a predominate factor for the New Testament.  Being concealed in the Old Testament does not mean it cannot be found for those that are truly seeking to know and find it.  I challenge you to do this and you will be enlightened beyond word’s descriptions.

FINDING THE HIDDEN SECRETS OF GOD

There are just so many hidden subjects in the Bible that I cannot fully speak to all of them in this introduction.  What I wanted to do was to get you interested in searching your Bible for hidden information.  Learn to open your eyes to spiritual things and then read your Old Testament using new ways to look at this old natural information.  It will amaze you if you believe it and allow God to teach you these things.  Remember when the early church was first started, the only Words of God that they had were the writings of Moses and the Old Testament prophets?  So Peter and the other apostles were limited to teaching the church only from these O.T. books.  Keep this in mind when you read from them and see if you can see what they used to teach Jesus, salvation and all the other hidden subjects.

Act 17:2  And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,

Paul preaches using only the Old Testament and He starts churches in many cities where he later writes them letters from prison.    We know that churches in Ephesus, Galatia, Rome and Corinth were started this way.  Until Paul was thrown into prison the only Bible the church had were the Old Testament writings.  They then had to be able to see that Jesus was there along with many of the New Testament concepts that have been since written about and expanded in the New Testament.

Act 18:28  For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.

You should be able to do the same thing that Apollos did here in Acts 18.  You should be smart enough to learn every verse that you can in the Old Testament so that you can show Jews their Messiah is Jesus.  If you have a legal mind and can speak like a lawyer you will be able to convince many of the Jews that Messiah has come.  But, do not go and speak like an ignorant fool to someone who knows more than you do.  You are going to have to study and become more informed than they are.

Act 8:30  And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?

I’ll wrap this Bible lesson up with a short story of how God will cause some amazing supernatural things to occur when a man is hungry to know the truth.  In Acts 8 is a story where we hear a question from Phillip that is still relevant today.   A man from Africa was reading the book of Isaiah and Phillip ran to him and asked him a very basic question.  If it was easy to understand what you were reading then it would be unnecessary and even stupid to ask someone this question.  However, it is very obvious to me that understanding what you read in the O.T. is the ultimate goal, but that this does not automatically happen just because you read it.  In doing this advanced Bible Study blog, I have met many men and women who know how to read these verses, but I have met few who can see what they mean.   Having the eyes of your understanding enlightened to see the truth, this is what God desires to do today.

Act 8:31  And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.

This Ethiopian man was an extremely intelligent individual and possessed great wisdom based upon his answer to Phillip’s question.  I have had far less intelligent men and women write me ignorant comments.  This foreigner Gentile man came all the way from his country to Jerusalem to read God’s words written by the prophet Isaiah.  I believe God notices people who are hungry and thirsty for the truth and this is why Phillip was sent to him.  I believe that God will help any man or woman who truly desires to know Him in this way.  The man displayed a key quality for learning and it was called being open minded to hear about what you do not understand.  If only more of my reader’s had this quality they would benefit the same as this man did.

Act 8:32  The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:

Act 8:33  In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.

Act 8:34  And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?

Do you see the heart of this man?  He had so many admirable qualities that caused God to do supernatural things to get him the answers to his questions.  First off the man was humble and this opened the door for God to do mighty things.  Next, the man was hungry for the truth no matter what it was.  Then this man was open to hear the truth and this allowed him to hear with his spirit.  Finally, after hearing the truth spoken to him from a complete stranger, this man believed it and was saved.  Wow, what a powerful story that God has given to us of how salvation works.  Here we have a story of how a foreign man saw a hidden Jesus in Isaiah and that allowed God to send another man to him to help him understand the truth.  This is an extremely valuable lesson for what to do and what God will do in response.  Begin to understand that the Bible has many complex hidden mysteries and then seek to know them.  Allow God to answer your questions however He wants.  It may be Him sending you someone with the answer to knock on your door.  It may be a complete stranger that you do not know.  It could be a blog on the internet.  God can use anyone, anywhere but you are going to have to be ready to respond.

So we have looked at a lot of different scriptures today.  We talked about God’s hidden subjects and the fact that they still exist in the Bible today.  If you do not believe that, then you should go read Revelation and tell me what it all means.   I’ve studied Revelation for many years and I’m a long way from knowing everything that is written there.  In fact if you search the internet you cannot find two people who completely believe everything the same 100 per cent.  I believe that God is revealing this information before He returns for us.  But, we are going to have to be like the Ethiopian and be open to hear and learn the truth.  Ask questions and allow the answers to come from God.   Learn the hidden information in the Bible and see them for the spiritual truth that they are.  God Bless you until next time.

If you would like to continue reading in this series, please go to “Part 12” next.