God Conceals... Introduction Believers like prophecies, particularly prophecies of the end time. However, God concealed many things concerning the end time until the end time. Briefly, we know that the Tabernacle on Earth today, which contains God’s presence, provides the essential connection with heaven to maintain life on planet Earth. As the end time approaches, believers will begin to understand those prophecies about the end time because those obscure verses will relate to events and people shaping up to the prophecies today. However, that which God concealed about other mysteries will be revealed, as we will see. Dan. 12:9 He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time. We do know that God will rule through His adopted Son, Jesus, over all nations, as God intended in the beginning. The Biblical term for a kingdom or a nation is mountain. The analogy being that a mountain soars high above the plains and valleys as a great nation rises high above the lowly nations of man. Like a republic or federation, the Kingdom of God heads the leagues of nations. Is. 2:2 Now it will come about that Still the how and when God concealed. Dan. 12:9 He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time. God tells Isaiah that the words are sealed. Is. 29:11 The entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed book, which when they give it to the one who is literate, saying, “Please read this,” he will say, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” Kings, however, can search out the thing God conceals. Prov. 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, Is. 48:6 “You have heard; look at all this. Whereas God conceals, He will reveal to leaders, to kings, for example. Dan. 2:28 “However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days. This was your dream and the visions in your mind while on your bed. He will also reveal the amazing facts of the end time by the Spirit within to the leaders of God’s Kingdom on Earth today —— His chosen ones. 1Pet. 2:9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; God made His people leaders, some will rule countries and cities, but even before the end time, God made them His Children who inherit ruler ship from Him. 1Cor. 12:28 Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church: first are apostles, second are prophets, third are teachers, then those who do miracles, those who have the gift of healing, those who can help others, those who have the gift of leadership, those who speak in unknown languages. Even in ancient times, God gave various children of Israel authority to appoint judges. Deut. 16:18 “You shall appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your towns which the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. Revealed Things What God reveals to people lays the foundation of a great relationship with God and His attendant promises arising from people attending to God’s Word of Life and Life more abundantly. God shows people how to live the better way of life, a way in harmony with God’s creation, which is good. Psa. 78:2-7 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old, Which we have heard and known, And our fathers have told us. We will not conceal them from their children, But tell to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done. For He established a testimony in Jacob And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers That they should teach them to their children, That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, That they may arise and tell them to their children, they should put their confidence in God And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments, God keeps things secret from people, but the things revealed have immense impact on people’s lives. When people accept God’s Word and keep it in their minds, they have the mind of God and behavior becoming His People. Deut. 29:29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law. The greatest of all revelations, the foundation and Words of Truth, God put into His Commandments, which He wrote on stone, but more importantly on the hearts and minds of His People. Deut. 4:13 “So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. Ex. 34:28 So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. Ex. 31:18 When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God. While most people refuse to accept the Words of Life, the few who do, God give insight into mystery of life. When people dwell on the Words of Truth, these Words cannot be kept only within but must burst out in eloquent speech and worship of God. Deut. 6:7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. Deut. 31:12 “Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law. God withholds His secrets from unbelievers, but reveals His covenant to those in awe of the Creator and Father of all people. Psa. 25:14 The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him, Eph. 1:9- 18 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory. For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, Gen. 2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” God did not intend that mankind completely understand the depth of the Creation because man’s mind does not yet have the capacity to comprehend such a great thing. God explains this to Job. In describing the nature of nature, we begin to get some inkling of the complexity and power of the Creation. Even today, science cannot explain how it all happened or what is its underlying power. String theory may hold some insight, or maybe not. The depths of the Creator and Creation remain a mystery. Job 11:7-8 “Can you discover the depths of God? Can you discover the limits of the Almighty? “They are high as the heavens, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can you know? Job 38:4-21 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; When I made a cloud its garment And thick darkness its swaddling band, And I placed boundaries on it And set a bolt and doors, And I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop’? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, And caused the dawn to know its place, That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, And the wicked be shaken out of it? It is changed like clay under the seal; And they stand forth like a garment. From the wicked their light is withheld, And the uplifted arm is broken. Have you entered into the springs of the sea Or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this. Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place, That you may take it to its territory And that you may discern the paths to its home? You know, for you were born then, And the number of your days is great! Where is the way that the light is divided, Or the east wind scattered on the earth?” Job 38:24-38 “Who has cleft a channel for the flood, Or a way for the thunderbolt, To bring rain on a land without people, On a desert without a man in it, To satisfy the waste and desolate land And to make the seeds of grass to sprout? “Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? Water becomes hard like stone, And the surface of the deep is imprisoned. “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, And guide the Bear with her satellites? “Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, Or fix their rule over the earth? “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, So that an abundance of water will cover you? “Can you send forth lightnings that they may go And say to you, ‘Here we are’? “Who has put wisdom in the innermost being Or given understanding to the mind? “Who can count the clouds by wisdom, Or tip the water jars of the heavens, When the dust hardens into a mass And the clods stick together?” Noah God reveal to Noah the mystery of the coming storm, and he built the ark because He believed God as He began to reveal the mystery to this ancestral ruler of all future rulers on Earth . Abraham Abram left home to trek a new land because he believed God’s Word. He, further, attempted to sacrifice his first-born son of promise because He believed God by observing the creation, the stars filling the heavens. God’s further revealed His mystery to this ancestral ruler of Israel. Moses Moses wandered the wilderness for forty years because he trusted God’s Word without understanding His depths. Because his faith was so strong, God gave him leadership of His People and brought the Words of Truth to him. Moses carried the Ten Words, written on stone toward the people. These Words the ruach (mind) of God became written on the minds of mankind. As said above these covenant Words of Truth, freed the people from the hopeless slavery of sin and wickedness resulting in sin, pain, despair and death. God revealed to Israel’s great leader His great plan for His people. Solomon God favored Solomon with great insight into the ways man in relation to the Language, Word or Mind of God. His proverbs still hold today, many millennia from him. 1Kings 4:29 - 30 Now God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of mind, like the sand that is on the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. What is the Mystery of God’s Will? Eph. 1:9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him. Unlike the kings of old, like David or Solomon, the leaders, present and future, today are the believers chosen by God. Even though the mystery of the end time, which God determined, still remains hidden. However, God revealed to saints of old many mysteries, which the saints of today also understand. Col. 2:2 – 3 that their hearts may be encouraged as they are knit together in love, to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Eph. 1:7 – 8 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight Indeed, the mystery God reveals that the Gentile believers became God’s People, just like Israel. Blood and genes take a back seat to language, which reveals God’s Word. That Word of God contains His thoughts, His commands and indeed, His very mind. When that mind unveils His Word, the people who listen and accept it have the same mind in them. Col. 1:26 – 27 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Those who have the mind of God become “fellow heirs” with those born in the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Eph. 3:3 - 9 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; Conclusion God conceals His plan of salvation from the many. However, to the few He discloses the mystery of salvation. |