Student Study Guide
Lesson 13
The Secrets of God
Section 1 - God Is a God of Secrets
Section One
With the foundational doctrines established and authority examined, this course now moves into new territory: the realm of personal, intimate relationship with God. This is not mysticism - it is the explicit testimony of Scripture. God is a God of secrets, and He longs to reveal them.
God does not act arbitrarily or without communication. He has always been a God who discloses Himself, who speaks before He moves, who shares what He is doing with those who are close enough to hear. The question is not whether God has secrets to reveal - it is whether we are the kind of people He can trust to receive them.
The promise in Psalm 91 is conditional. The one who abides under the Almighty's shadow is specifically the one who dwells in the secret place. Not the one who visits occasionally. Not the one who drops in during a crisis. The one who has made the secret place their habitation - their home.
Fill in the Blanks
1. God is a God of secrets - and He longs, with a longing that runs through the whole of Scripture, to them.
2. The question is not whether God has secrets to reveal. The question is whether we are the kind of people He can to receive them.
3. God shares His secrets with those who have earned that level of - those who will handle what they are given with the care it deserves.
4. The most comprehensive covering of Psalm 91 is reserved for those who have made the secret place their - not a place they visit, but a place they live.
Your Reflection
Section 2 - Secret Things and Revealed Things
Section Two
This verse establishes a spiritual principle of enormous practical consequence: as long as a truth remains unrevealed, it belongs to God. Once it is revealed, it belongs to the one who receives it.
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5. As long as a truth remains unrevealed, it to God. Once it is revealed, it to the one who receives it.
6. Knowing a scripture and having it are not the same thing. Once a promise of God crosses the threshold from to revelation, it becomes a living inheritance available for use.
The Salvation Example: On May 2, 1986, when the word was preached with clarity and the revelation broke through, that thing which had belonged to God became mine. The name of Jesus had been known for years - but it had not been revealed. Once the revelation broke through and I yielded to the authority of Christ, what had been a secret became a possession.
7. The secret things are His. The things become ours. Once healing, or any promise, is truly revealed to a person, it to them.
Your Reflection
Section 3 - Knowledge Is Power - In Both Realms
Section Three
The connection between knowledge and power is the testimony of human history. For centuries, gravity existed and operated, but humanity could not harness it because we did not understand it. When understanding came, power followed. All truth is parallel.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." - Hosea 4:6
The greater the spiritual knowledge, the greater the spiritual power. God possesses all knowledge and longs to release it. But He cannot simply pour it into the hands of an unsurrendered and undisciplined servant without serious potential consequences.
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8. God possesses all knowledge and longs to it. However, He cannot simply pour it into the hands of an and undisciplined servant without serious consequences.
9. Knowledge entrusted to one who has not been prepared to it will eventually be used for wrong purposes - even .
10. Moses at Meribah demonstrates this: access to revelation does not guarantee in the exercise of it.
The Gift-Character Distinction: "The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29). Once a person has received genuine revelation knowledge of how to move in the supernatural, that knowledge is theirs. God does not automatically repossess it the moment character fails. King Saul prophesied after God had already rejected him. The gifts remain operative even as the character deteriorates.
11. The gifts and calling of God are (Romans 11:29). This is precisely why God is careful with His greatest - He can only entrust them to those prepared to carry them.
Your Reflection
Section 4 - The Secret of the Lord Belongs to Those Who Fear Him
Section Four
The qualification for receiving God's secrets is not intellectual ability, years of church attendance, or ministry platform. It is the fear of the Lord. And the teaching that circulates on this is almost universally inadequate.
The fear of the Lord does not mean mere reverential respect or polite admiration. Look it up in any serious lexicon. The original Hebrew word means: "terrifying, dreadful fear." Not mere reverence. Not polite respect. Actual, gripping, transforming fear.
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12. The qualification for receiving God's secrets is not intellectual ability or ministry platform. It is the of the Lord.
13. The common explanation reduces the fear of God to reverential . But the original Hebrew word means ", dreadful fear." Not mere reverence - actual, gripping, transforming fear.
The Nitroglycerin Analogy: An experienced professional who works with nitroglycerin may not be in constant panic - but they carry an absolute, unwavering respect for its power that governs every movement, every decision, every procedure. They dare not be careless with it. There is no casual handling. No presumption. Every interaction is governed by the full awareness of what it can do. That is the quality of relationship God is describing when He speaks of those who fear Him.
14. The fear of the Lord is what governs every , every decision, every step - the full awareness of who God is, operating continuously. There is no casual handling. No .
15. "The fear of the Lord is the of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10) - not one component of wisdom, not a prerequisite. The beginning. Without it, wisdom in its deepest form is simply not available.
Your Reflection
Section 5 - An Encounter with the Fear of God
Section Five
In the late 1980s, preparing to preach on the fear of the Lord, something extraordinary happened during a time of early prayer in the sanctuary.
⚡ The Encounter - Study It Carefully
About an hour into prayer, something shifted. The presence of God came and stood before me. Not with natural eyes - but with a certainty that transcended the physical senses entirely.
He did not stand there as Lord and friend, Savior or comforter. He stood there as Almighty God - the full weight of who He is, without softening, without the relational warmth I was accustomed to in prayer. He said nothing. He simply stood there for an hour.
In the presence of that, I fell to repentance. I confessed sins I knew about, sins I had barely been aware of, things I had not examined in years. The presence of who He is, standing before me unfiltered, exposed everything in me that was not like Him. For a full hour I repented and confessed, and He did not speak.
When He finally did speak, what He said shook me to the core: "Son, everything I do, I do not do because of you. You are not worthy. Much of what I do, I do toward you. But I do it for Jesus. Because only Jesus is worthy."
He was revealing a secret. Nothing any believer receives from God comes on the basis of their own worthiness. Not their devotion, sacrifice, or years of faithful service. It comes because Jesus ever lives to intercede, because the Father is preparing a bride for His Son, because Christ alone is worthy.
That revelation, received in the atmosphere of genuine fear, broke something open that has never closed. Not discouraging - deeply freeing. My standing before God does not rest on the fragile ground of my own performance. It rests on the immovable ground of Christ's perfection and worthiness. The fear of God opened a secret that changed everything.
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16. He stood there not as Lord and friend, Savior or comforter - but as God. The full weight of who He is, without softening, without the relational warmth normally experienced in prayer.
17. The presence of who He is, standing before me unfiltered, exposed everything in me that was not like Him. For a full he repented and confessed - and God did not speak.
18. God's secret revealed in the encounter: "Much of what I do, I do you. But I do it for . Because only Jesus is worthy."
19. The revelation was not discouraging - it was deeply . My standing before God rests not on my own but on the immovable ground of Christ's perfection and worthiness.
20. The fear of God does not diminish the believer - it them to receive what only the fearful can be trusted with.
Your Reflection
Section 6 - Beholding Him and Being Changed
Section Six
Fill in the Blanks
21. The AMPC adds: we "continued to behold in the Word of God the glory of the Lord." It is a , ongoing, habitual beholding that produces transformation - not a single encounter.
22. The word "transformed" in 2 Corinthians 3:18 is the Greek - the root of our English word "metamorphosis." It describes a change that is not cosmetic or behavioral but , at the level of nature itself.
23. This transformation is not automatic. Not everyone who sees Jesus will be like Him. It belongs to those who behold Him in the , revelatory sense - who dwell in the secret place, who fear Him, who pursue knowledge of Him with the intensity of someone searching for treasure.
How it works: As the secrets of who He is are progressively revealed, the beholder is progressively changed. God longs for a people who look like Him, carry His nature, reflect His character, and move with His authority. That kind of people is formed in the secret place, in the atmosphere of the fear of the Lord.
Your Reflection
Section 7 - The State of the Church - and the Hunger God Is Looking For
Section Seven
There is a direct connection between the absence of the fear of God in the church and the absence of genuine power and revelation.
The diagnostic: A minister who has not been in the secret place cannot take others there. The state of the preaching class in America is a prophetic indictment. People who live in the fear of God do not casually compromise - they tremble at His word. They are undone in His presence. Those who have not been in the secret place are unable to give what they have not received.
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24. A minister who has not been in the place cannot take others there. You cannot give what you have not received.
25. But there is another group: people scattered across the world - some of them nobody's from nowhere, with no platform, no reputation - who are for God. Genuinely, desperately hungry. And God is for them.
26. The secrets are in His word, but from the mind of natural man. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).
27. The man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God - they are foolishness to him, because they are discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).
The invitation is open. God is not reluctant. He is the one initiating, longing to share what He has held in trust. But the qualification is non-negotiable: Show Me your fear. Show Me your honor. Show Me your reverence. Show Me your commitment. And He will open to you the treasuries of heaven.
Final Reflection
Lesson 13 - Practice Test
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Part A: Multiple Choice (5 questions · 2 pts each)
1. According to Deuteronomy 29:29, what happens to a truth once God reveals it to a person?
2. What does the lesson say the Hebrew word for "fear of the Lord" actually means?
3. What was the secret God revealed to the author in the encounter described in this lesson?
4. What does the Greek word metamorpho (2 Corinthians 3:18) describe?
5. According to Romans 11:29, why is the fact that gifts can continue operating even when character fails so sobering?
Part B: True or False (6 statements · 1 pt each)
1. According to Amos 3:7, God sometimes acts without first revealing His secret to those He has drawn into intimacy with Him.
2. Knowing a scripture and having it genuinely revealed to you are the same thing, producing the same spiritual authority and inheritance.
3. The transformation described in 2 Corinthians 3:18 is automatic for all believers who have accepted Jesus as Savior.
4. The fear of God positions believers to receive what only the fearful can be trusted with - it does not diminish them but prepares them.
5. The promise of Psalm 91 is available to all believers equally, regardless of whether they dwell in the secret place or merely visit occasionally.
6. God is reluctant to share His secrets and must be persuaded through much prayer and persistent intercession before He will reveal them.
Part C: Fill in the Blank (5 items · 1 pt each)
1. The secret of the Lord is with those who Him (Psalm 25:14).
2. The secret things belong to God; the things belong to us and to our children forever (Deuteronomy 29:29).
3. The fear of the Lord is the of wisdom (Psalm 111:10).
4. The Greek word metamorpho describes a change not cosmetic or behavioral but - at the level of nature itself.
5. "My people are destroyed for lack of " (Hosea 4:6).
Part D: Short Answer (completion credit)
1. What is the difference between knowing a scripture and having it genuinely revealed to you? Use the example from the lesson to illustrate.
2. Explain the nitroglycerin analogy. What does it teach about the fear of the Lord, and how does it correct the common "reverential respect" understanding?
3. Why does God not simply pour His greatest secrets into every willing believer? What is the reason for His careful stewardship, and what does it produce in those He does trust?
Part E - Before You Leave
On a scale of honesty: are you pursuing God's secrets with the intensity of someone searching for silver and digging for hidden treasure (Proverbs 2:3-5)? What does your current prayer life actually reflect?
What specific change would demonstrate a genuine, growing fear of the Lord in your daily life - not as emotion but as governing awareness?
Write a prayer asking God to reveal Himself to you in the way He revealed Himself to the author - without softening, in the full weight of who He is: