For fourteen years of my Christian life, I failed to see what was in the Bible expression, "The secret of the Lord." There was a secret the Scripture taught plainly and repeatedly. The veil in the Tabernacle and Temple, as it hid a certain part of the sanctuary from all eyes but one, and that person a type of Christ, confirmed the fact. Even in the Holy of Holies, the two angels bent over the ark as if in investigation and profound study, and so kept prominent the same truth. Later still, Paul speaks of "the mystery of the gospel hid for ages, but revealed in the last days to the saints." And still later, John writes about a white stone given to the Overcomer in the Church, and in it a new name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. For quite a while, we supposed this mystery and secret was God’s unseen, unrecognized presence in the world. After that we thought it meant Christ’s incarnation.

We were driven from these, and a number of other false conclusions, by the explicit statement of God’s Word, which at first we did not notice, that the white stone was given not to a repenting sinner but to an overcomer in the Church. The mystery of the gospel, hid for ages, was revealed in the last days to the saints. If it had been pardon spoken of, and the saving knowledge of God, it would have been a revelation to sinners and not saints. Then we remembered that pardon had been known from the days of righteous Abel to the present hour; but this peculiar revelation of grace made to saints was given in the "last days."

After this, we noticed that Paul declared plainly what the mystery or secret was: "Christ formed within us the hope of glory." Not Christ for us, or with us, but in us. Christ not appearing to a sinner; but Christ entering and dwelling in the Christian. The Divine Visitor transformed into a perpetual abider. The Savior alluding to it said to his disciples that on the condition of their keeping his commandments, He would come into them and take up His abode with them. The experience unquestionably came to Paul who says that it pleased God, after He had called him by His grace, to "reveal his Son in me." We all know that the occurrence near Damascus was not an inward, but an outward revelation of Christ. The reference is evidently to something that transpired at a later period. The blessed secret is that there is a precious, beautiful experience for the child of God. It is for them that fear him. Sinners do not fear God. The Bible says so. There is, then, a holy secret to be imparted to the Christian if he is willing to accept. There are several facts about the matter that impress the writer. One is, that it is the secret of the Lord.

This explains why we cannot make it clear to those who have it not. If a certain man has a secret, no one else but himself can tell it. People may guess what it is, but cannot know assuredly until he is pleased to declare it. This simple fact applied to the spiritual life will at once explain what has often puzzled the sanctified man. Filled with the blessing, yet he is unable of, and by himself, to make the experience clear to one who has it not. Letters are written, sermons preached, books loaned, and conversations are held in vain. The face fails to light up with appreciation, and the mind to grasp the meaning of what has been said. The sanctified man thought that all he had to do was to run home and tell his family, rush around to his church and pastor and proclaim it, and all would immediately see, agree, be glad, and seek and find. To his amazement, the countenances of his hearers remained heavy and cloudy, while some were grieved, and still others displeased. He told them carefully how he had obtained the blessing and thought they would follow him. He explained what it did for the soul and supposed they would understand. To his surprise, and sorrow, they did neither one nor the other, and he was left to marvel.

If he had remembered the Scripture, he would not have been astonished at the result. God had prepared him for the disappointment in the words, "I will give him a white stone, and in the white stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." And still again in the words, "The secret of the Lord." It is the Lord’s hidden truth, and it takes Him to reveal it.

A second fact is that there is a certain attitude or position needful to secure a secret. When one concludes to repose a confidence in another, he draws the proposed confidant aside and whispers, while the one thus trusted bends the head and gives undivided attention to the utterance which a little distance makes inaudible. So, in securing this secret from the Lord, it is not to be obtained in a careless way. There is the drawing aside from the crowd, and an attitude of the soul which corresponds to what is seen when we behold the bent head, rapt face, and fixed attention of the hearer to all that is being said.

Here again we see the failure of many Christians in the obtainment of the blessed experience. They do not observe the conditions that are inexorably demanded of those who would enter within the veil. It is not truer than if a man fails to draw near and listen intently to what is whispered to him in a noisy street. He fails to get the intended information. If a person neglects to wait in a certain manner upon God, he will never know the secret of the Lord, and therefore will never be wiser concerning the second work of grace in the soul. There are just as fixed laws in the spiritual as in the natural world. Happy is the man who obeys them. As a farmer does not and cannot make a good crop by laziness or an accident, so men do not rise and shine in the character world. They therefore are not caught up into great heights of the love and knowledge of God by a stumbling chance or by waiting with listless eyes and idle hands for something to happen. If the soul would see deep into the mysteries of heaven and grace, the vision will not come in a haphazard way. The wonderful experience of Daniel cost him weeks of lonely prayer and fasting on the banks of the river Hiddekel. It took all that was meant in the words "exiled to Patmos" to open the heavens to John. The baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire came at the end of ten days of ardent prayer and patient, faithful waiting on God in an upper room -- away from the busy streets and talking circles of Jerusalem.

Look where we will, the faithful working of this spiritual law is beheld. He who turns aside sees the flaming bush and talks with God. He who waits on the Lord renews his strength and mounts up on eagle’s wings. He who wraps the mantle about his head at the entering in of the cave and listens will hear the still, small voice. He who will lay all on the altar, and patiently, believingly, and prayerfully look upward, will be rewarded by the descending fire of the Holy Spirit, and the blessed secret of the Lord. It is simply absurd for a man to say there is no such secret when he refuses to comply with the conditions of obtaining the revelation, and it is lost time on our part to listen to their ridicule, arguments, doubts, and denials.

A third fact connected with the secret of the Lord is the remarkable effect it has upon the person who has been put in its possession and enjoyment. The writer has seen an individual tell another a secret, and instantly saw the face light up, a pleased look or smile overspread the countenance, and an almost indescribable expression spring in the eye that came from the consciousness of a new and valued possession. So, we have been impressed with the people of God who obtained this secret. It was their smiling looks, shining faces, and speaking eyes that first deeply impressed us with the distinctiveness and superiority of the gift of grace they were enjoying. The hard lines of the face had been changed into curves of pleasing repose. The lips, even when not speaking, seemed to declare inward rest. The eyes had a quiet, sunny look, like unto deep, clear springs. The voice possessed a note of gladness, and at times an exultant ring, which impressed the dullest spiritual hearer. It was the beaming light and joy of this secret that made the Irish gaze fascinated on Fletcher’s face, when they did not understand a word that he uttered. They said there was heaven in the man’s countenance.

Such a beautiful look the writer, when a young preacher, saw on the face of a lady who had been an invalid seventeen years. For all that weary time, she had sat in a large chair, crippled and stiffened with rheumatism, unable to do anything to help herself or others, quietly waited for death to relieve her from her acute sufferings. Six years were added to the seventeen and still, with a patient smile on her lips, and that holy restful light in her face, she waited for God to say it was enough and call her home. Of the hundreds who visited her, all marked the pure, unearthly joy which filled her, and that was not only seen in the eye and heard in the voice, but felt in her presence. The secret of the Lord kept her not only uncomplaining, but joyful through a quarter of a century of suffering.

She finally died and they buried her, sitting in her invalid chair, which she had transformed into a throne, and in which she had ruled over many hearts as a crowned queen among the daughters of God. She died with the sweet, old-time smile on her lips, and was buried with it still resting on her face. There she is under the ground today, sitting in her throne-chair, and waiting for the coming of her Lord, whose voice will make her spring from the dust to meet him in the air, and whose blessed secret kept her strong, patient, and victorious through many years of as great pain and sore trouble as almost ever fell to the lot of any of God’s children.

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