624-1 GOD’S HIDDEN ONESAugust 2, 1981
Henry F. Kulp
Colossians 3: 1 - 4 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Here we have a truth that is absolutely thrilling, one that I want you to appreciate and understand in your everyday life.
1/ Here God takes that which is positional, and applies it to the experiential part of life. Experience and doctrine go hand in hand.
2/ He starts out by saying, we are risen with Christ. Here is our position, and the word, if, is a first class position. If, and it is true, you are risen with Christ. It is not conditional in any sense of the word. We are risen with Christ, because we believe in Christ. We were baptized into His death, burial and resurrection.
3/ The word, risen, SOON - A’GUY - ROW, and this Greek word is used for the believer in union with Christ, resurrected with Christ, but not in a resurrected body. Even though we are still living on earth, God counts us to be in Christ in the Heavens.
Ephesians 2: 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
Says we are seated in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This means every believer in this dispensation. The dispensation of the grace of God, is risen with Christ and seated with Christ in Heavenly places.
4/ PASSIVE VOICE is not our work, but God’s work. The subject of the sentence has the action of the verb produced in it. It is not something we can do, we cannot resurrect ourselves. We cannot place ourselves in union with Jesus Christ.
5/ SEEK - ZAH - TET - O means TO SEARCH FOR, DESIRE TO POSSES, TO KEEP ON PURSUING TO INVESTIGATE.
6/ ACTIVE VOICE this time the believer produces the action of the verb—he seeks, he investigates, he pursues, he desires, he searches for.
7/ IMPERATIVE MOOD—it is the strongest command you can get in the Greek. Actually, it should be read, keen on desiring to possess, and endeavoring to obtain things from above.
8/ How do we keep pursuing and trying to obtain things from above? —Only through the Bible. It is the only work we have—the only means we have of getting things from above. Remember, we are commanded to do this.
9/ Colossians 3: 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Here is a challenge to a good mental attitude. Set your affection—that means you’re thinking—on things above. Again this is active voice—the believer produces this action. It is again an imperative voice—it is a command. So it should read, keep on thinking about things above.
10/ Again the only way you can do this is by studying the Bible and hiding it in your heart, and your mind.
11/ Isaiah 55: 7 - 9 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
There is a principle here that we need to see as far as our thinking is concerned. My thoughts are not your thoughts. What we think normally is not what God thinks. Again, it is necessary that we go to the Word of God.
Proverbs 23: 7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.
What you think is what you are. It is not what you appear to be, but it is what you think that counts.
12/ Now I would like to look at some of the Scriptures that have to do with our mental outlook.
1/ II Timothy 1: 7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
We are to have a sound mind. A believer does not automatically have a sound mind. He gets this sound mind by knowing Bible doctrine, and obeying it.
2/ Philippians 4: 6, 7 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Here is how you have stability of the mind.
3/ Love is a mental attitude.
I Corinthians 13: 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
4/ Worldliness is a mental attitude. Evil is not something that you do, it is something that you think. When you do it, it is bad, when you think it, it is evil.
Matthew 9: 4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?
13/ Colossians 3: 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Here is where we get our title, your life is hid with Christ in God. It is perfect tense in the Greek. Something that has happened in the past with results that are permanent, and of course it is the passive voice in the Greek—it means you didn’t hide yourself, but God hid you. Have you thought about this matter of being hidden in Christ with God? It is a permanent situation for we are members of His Body and we shall always be members of His Body. Not of a nation, not of a covenant people, but we are with Jesus Christ.
14/ This is PRESERVATION. Here we have preservation and eternal security.
15/ Let us look in the Bible and see God’s Hidden Ones.
Psalm 83: 3 - 5 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:
Of course, this is talking about the nation Israel—not the church the Body of Christ, but we have a beautiful truth here. Here Israel talks of the enemies of the nation of Israel, the Gentiles. They have taken crafty council against Thy people and have consulted against Thy hidden ones.
Israel recognizes they are hidden in God and the enemies said, come and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. And you can see how successful the world has been in its hatred for Israel. Israel here was hidden in God and safe, and again we can say for Israel—it is preservation.
16/ Isaiah 32: 2 And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
Here it says, a man shall be in a hiding place from the wind. Of course, this man is no other than the Messiah-King, the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, He brings salvation to Israel, He is the hiding place. Than He satisfied—rivers of water—then the shelters, the shadows He gives in a weary land. If only Israel had recognized that Jesus Christ the man was to be their hiding place, and will be in the future.
17/ Psalm 143: 9 Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.
This is the Psalm of David. You miss something if you do not really look at this in Hebrew. David did not say, I flee unto Thee, hide me. David literally said, I flee unto Thee, hide me with Thee. So it means not hidden and forgotten, not hidden and forsaken, but hidden and consoled and protected.
18/ But do you realize, what David cried for, we have. We flee to Jesus Christ, and we are hidden with Him in God—let the troubles and trials and tribulations of this life come, and we are secure and we are preserved in Jesus Christ.
19/ Psalm 32: 7 Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.
The word, Selah, means STOP AND THINK OF THAT. So read this and stop and think. Thou art my hiding place, Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.
This is speaking of the coming tribulation, when the nation Israel shall see the wrath of God poured out upon it and upon the nations of this world as they rebelled against God, how will the Nation Israel ever survive the time of Jacob trouble?
If you read, Revelations, Chapters 6 - 19
You will never in the flesh, understand how Israel will ever go through it but she will.
20/ Israel will say, because You are our hiding place, have preserved us from trouble, with songs of deliverance, we shall sing them.
21/ Do you realize, again, what Israel has talked about, we have in this present day of Grace? We have even that which is better than they will have.
22/ We are hidden in God in Christ, and the storms of life can beat down upon us , but we have songs of deliverance right now that we should think about every day.
23/ Thessalonians 1: 10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
Let’s compare it with I Thessalonians 1: 3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;
Here He talks about your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope. In verse 9 He tells us you turned to God from idols, and that is a work of faith, and then he says, to serve the living and true God, that is a labor of love. Then he talks about waiting for His Son from Heaven, which is the patience of hope. So you see, verse 3 is illustrated in verse 9, 10. For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
24/ But let us see this waiting for His Son from Heaven, will deliver us from wrath to come. The word, from, is EK in the Greek, and it means out of. Who will deliver us out of the wrath to come? Again, the tribulation we just read about in the book of Psalms, and the church will not go through it. We will be delivered out of it. This is one of the songs of deliverance.
25/ I talked to a man not too long ago who said he got saved because he read about the Tribulation and it frightened him, and he said, I’d better be saved, so I will not have to go through it. So, you see, we have a song of deliverance that we can sing. We will not go through the tribulation—the day of wrath, because we are hid with Christ in God.
26/ Hebrews 2: 14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
Here is our second song of deliverance. We are delivered from the fear of death. It does not say we are delivered from death, but rather from the fear of death. When we sing this intelligently, we can face death and not be afraid. We may fear the way we are going to die, but we don’t fear death, because it means absent from the body, present with the Lord.
27/ Galatians 3: 13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
Here we read, we have been delivered from the curse of the law. We realize the Mosaic Law, all 613 commands of the law, were not given to the Gentiles, but to the nation Israel, but the curse of the law is death, and we all have been delivered from that curse. The law was given that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may become guilty before God, but we know we have been delivered from the curse, and we can sing this song, day by day.
28/ Galatians 1: 4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:
Here we read that Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil age. Have you ever thought how evil this age is? Look about you, the whole world is in turmoil, the whole world is rebelling, violence, hatred on every side. Is there any turning back from this situation we are in? Not at all, there is no way to turn back.
I appreciate President Reagan, I think he’s been the first President we can look up to in a long time, and I certainly have appreciated what he is trying to do. It may help for a season but the die has been cast.
29/ We praise God we have been delivered from this present evil age. This is one of our songs of deliverance.
30/ We are hidden with Christ in God. This is a place of preservation, this is a place of security.
30/ Colossians 3: 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Here we have presentation—manifestation. We are going to appear with Him in Glory.
AMEN
Ref: 08/02/1981 / 624-1 GOD’S HIDDEN ONES / 01/23/2021
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