“God’s Hidden Ones“
God’s Hidden Ones
Pastor and author A.W. Tozer
December 14, 1958
Summary
In “God’s Hidden Ones,” Mr. Tozer emphasizes the importance of being a hidden people in God’s eyes, citing examples from Psalm 27 and Psalm 83. He highlights the significance of dissent in society and the importance of being a hidden people, even in times of great turmoil and destruction. Tozer also discusses the concept of God’s hiddenness and how it relates to believers living in a secular world. He concludes that God will reveal hidden believers in the time of trouble and will protect them from harm and encourages believers to remain hidden in God’s pavilion during times of trouble, trusting in His love and support.
Message
The New York office of the Alliance Witness sent out this telegram to Miss Betty Brown. Congratulations on again leading the Alliance Witness campaign in all our churches. The sustained record of the Chicago Alliance is remarkable. Your faithful work is deeply appreciated. Church, this the eighth leading churches throughout the country, and Canada that where our own church, Toledo, where William Bryan is pastor; New York where Paris Reidhead is pastor, Ottawa; Reverend Anderson; Vancouver with Irvin Brooks; Louisville with Reverend Epperson; Pittsburgh with Doctor Fraser, and Akron with Paul Kenyon. These are the eight leading churches. And this year we’re going to put some pictures in, and we’re going to have Miss Brown’s picture along with the lady who beat us out in New York, in percentages, but not in actual numbers.
Now, I want to talk a little while, not too long on, something that’s very wonderful and yet very, should I say, well known. But let me sum it up here as we gather near the close of the year. Psalm 27:5, in the time of trouble, He shall hide me in His pavilion. In the secret of His tabernacle, shall He hide me. He shall set me up upon a rock. And in Psalm 83:3, they have taken crafty counsel against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones, thy hidden ones, Thou shalt hide me.
Now, the Scripture here sets forth the truth which is well known and yet is not too much appreciated. It is that in the midst of the earth, God has a people. In the midst of the earth, God has a people. At any given time, God has had a people, and God does have a people. God will have a people and they are never very large in numbers. In the time of the flood you remember, there were eight persons. In the time of Israel there was a remnant. When Christ was on earth, they could almost count them, at first at least.
And the Scripture says, few there be that shall be saved. And in the book of Revelation, there’s that troublesome passage, which is interpreted variously, but stands there bothering us. It is the saying that there are 144,000 who shall be saved. Various interpretations are made of this, but there it is out of the world’s masses. And then, these hidden ones know they are God’s and God knows they are His, but the world doesn’t usually know that they are God’s. These that are hidden in God’s holy place, in His pavilion, in the secret of His tabernacle, were called his hidden ones, are usually dissenters and non-conformists. You know, it’s possible to be a dissenter and a non-conformist just out of meanness. That’s entirely possible.
My brother, very much like me in personality is gone now from the earth. I went home many years ago. I went home, and about election time, that is, to the old home and I said, well, who did you vote for? He said, I voted for the socialists. You voted for the Socialists? Yeah. But why? He said, a protest vote. He said, I didn’t want him to be elected particularly, but I just wanted to protest. Well, it’s possible just to be a protester and vote for somebody you don’t want to elect just because you don’t want to vote for somebody, you’ll pray will get elected. I know that thing. God knows it. You know it. We see them everywhere.
So, it’s possible to dissent just out of sheer contrariness. But on the other hand, if 99% of everything is wrong and there’s one fellow that says he knows what’s right, he’s got to be a dissenter. He’s got to be a non-conformist. And if ever there was a time when we need non-conformism it is now. There are these people of God, these hidden ones of God, they’re non-conformist, and they’re usually unsympathetic toward the things the world loves. And they’re at odds with the world’s ideals and philosophies.
I listened to a little program last night. I usually listen at nine o’clock to the singing they have. There was a song, Jews, Catholics, Protestants on various nights, every Saturday nights have that on. So last night it was, I think, Protestant, but in it somewhere mixed up there was the United Nations. And they were reading the tenets of the United Nations with a ministerial solemnity and then singing in between the hymns and giving the impression that somehow God had taken up Alger Hiss and Stettinius and Truman, and a few more to the holy mount and given them the 10 words which eventuated in the United Nations. And I laid there, resting and listening. I wanted to hear the music, but I wasn’t ready to hear that.
So, I was lying there dissenting. And after it ended, I thought now, here you are, you don’t go along with this. What kind of fellow Are you? Isn’t it better to believe in human rights and better to believe in there being no war? Isn’t it better than not to believe in human rights, and I know that it’s true, but still am a non-conformist and a dissenter as far as any hope or possibility of saving the world through its own united efforts. It just can’t do it. We can’t do it and there isn’t any use to try. I honor a man, I honor that indestructible gentleman who got out of a hospital and got into an airplane and lit out for some part unknown, Mr. Dulles. I honor these men. I honestly do.
And I honor our very sincere and kindly President. And I honor those Englishmen and other men who are honestly, sincerely trying to bring peace on earth and goodwill to men. But when it comes down to accepting their methods, I have to be a non-conformist. They’ll never get it done. It’ll never happen that way. For the Bible tells us that until the end, there shall be wars and rumors of wars. A nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And when our Lord shall come, He shall come as a rock cut out of the mountain, hurled down onto the image, to destroy it.
So, I can’t go along with it and I shake it off. It’s soothing and soft and gentle and all the rest, but it’s false. It’s false. It’s based upon false premises. It assumes the validity of things that are not valid. It assumes the truth of things that are not true. And you can’t condemn individuals. You can’t be unkind, and you must speak with great charity as I’m trying to do. But you’ve got to be a dissenter. You can’t go along. It just doesn’t come that way. Democrats can’t bring us hope and Republicans can’t bring us hope. Nobody can.
Well, for the reason that we are dissenters, that God’s hidden people are dissenters, they usually draw the world’s fire; almost always draw the world’s fire. But they are secretly hidden and protected by none other than God Himself. He shall hide me in His pavilion. He shall hide me in His tabernacle. And they’re protected by the Lord Himself, not by withdrawing them from society. Withdrawing God’s hidden people from society would be the equivalent to drawing off all the salt from the carcass. There would be putrefaction and decay and a stench that would reach to the farthest space.
So, God allows His people to be scattered all around over the world, here and there. He doesn’t let them all be of one color. He doesn’t let them all be of one religious group, but they’re scattered every place. And they’re hidden, not by withdrawing, but by the protective providences of God. Notice how Moses was hidden in the cleft of the rock. Now, this hiding of Moses in the cleft of the rock wasn’t a type and isn’t a type, but it is a symbol that sings the song of the hidden life. The life is hidden with Christ in God. And though these hidden ones are visible and physical, yet there is something about them. They’re hidden because you don’t know they’re there.
The Ku Klux Klan tried to put on something like that a few years back. You know, I lived through the time when the Ku Klux Klan was riding so high that if you didn’t join them, you were condemned as not being a Christian at all. There are the days of the KKK. And I publicly, in the downtown where I was, they would come down the aisle with the bed sheet wrapped around them and a pillow slip over their heads with two peep holes. That was their garment. And they would come down the aisle and lay $500 on the table down in front of the pulpit. And of course, that bought the Preacher right there. They could have had him for $498, but they paid $500 for him. And after that he was on their side.
Well, I was right in the area where they were doing that. So, I got up one day and I said, now, the KKK may be walking in here some day and laying some money down here. But I said I have instructed the ushers to hand them their money back, lead them to the door, and physically expel them. We’re not for sale here. But you know, it wasn’t very long until the KKK had gone into a tailspin. But I didn’t know, why, if a preacher opposed them, they were bombing the preacher’s house or beating him up and I didn’t know what would happen. But I was a dissenter.
Well, what they tried to do is this, their power lay in their anonymity. Nobody knew who they were. They never published their lists. And when they appeared, they all appeared with their pillow slip over their head. Nobody knew who they were. They were supposed to be God’s hidden ones. Well, they weren’t God’s hidden ones. They were hidden all right but hidden I had thought rather flimsily behind a bedsheet.
But the power of God’s hidden ones lies right in this, that the world doesn’t know always who they are. Incidentally, the KKK has gone the way of all the earth. They said in that day, you can’t be a Christian and not be a member, and now the people say you can’t be a Christian and be a member. And I didn’t move either direction. I just stuck my ugly chin out and walked down the way. You’ve got a little of that to do, you know. Don’t carry it too far, you’ll get mean. But keep being non-conformist and God will help you if you’re charitable and loving.
Well, there was Moses and then there was Job. Job was hidden by a hedge, a hedge of God’s protective commandment, and Satan had to get special permission. And there again, it wasn’t a type, but it was an example of how things are. Satan had to get special permission to attack Job, and he has to get special permission to attack any of God’s hidden people.
Then when Jesus came to the world, He was hidden by the sovereign will of God. He was born in the manger and how many knew that he was born there. One of the greatest events, the greatest event in the history of the world up to that time, took place right there. And outside of the shepherds, the simple shepherds on the hills, the three wise men, who knew that he was born? Nobody knew it. Mary hid these things in her heart and Joseph just puttered around. So, nobody knew as much that He had come. He was hidden among them.
And when he grew up and ran around with them and played over the back lot with them, they didn’t know who they were bumping elbows with. They didn’t dream, they didn’t dream those boys of Bethlehem that played and raised about and played hide and seek, they didn’t know. Little Jesus taking his place along with the rest, the time he could spare away from helping his supposed father, sweeping up around the carpenter’s shop. Nobody knew who this was. He was hidden there; hidden right in plain sight. And that’s the way God hides things, always. He hides them right in plain sight.
And here was the Lord of glory walking around right in plain sight, and they didn’t know who He was. And they didn’t know, and they kept on not knowing until even when one of them would betray Him. He had to kiss Him in order to let them know who He was. And when He went to be baptized, that Dove had to descend on Him and rest before John the Baptist would know who he had been preaching about. He was preaching about an anonymous somebody that was coming, but he didn’t know who He was.
And when He finally came and was baptized, John looked at Jesus and said to himself, this, this is an amazing man here. Who is this? But he wasn’t sure. And he said, I don’t think that you ought to be baptized by me. Let’s reverse that. There’s something about you. Jesus said, suffer it to become all righteousness, so he baptized Him. And as he baptized Him, the Dove came down and John knew. John knew who he was, and John knew why that strange something had touched his heart.
But for the most part, nobody knew. He was hidden in plain sight. And it says, no man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come. And they hated Him and didn’t know why. Because God had blinded them and confused them and frustrated them and made a fool of the whole world, because His hidden Messiah walked among men. He hid Him there in the womb of the Virgin. Hid him right in the crowds and among the multitudes. And hid him in Joseph’s new tomb, and now He’s hiding Him in the heavens. And when He comes back for His people, He will come back as a thief who always comes traveling incognito, always comes undercover and slips in and takes away treasures and goes again.
Well, now these are hints, I say, of a higher truth. And they hint at the truth that God has opened a way into His kingdom and into His heart. For the individual, that the individual may enter, we mustn’t forget that. And that while living right here below on this earth, people are in the heart of God hidden, in the midst of the heart of God even while they walk in the midst of life. And don’t you think we’re not in the midst of life, Brethren.
A man wrote a book called “In the Midst of Life.” Well, don’t think we’re not in the midst of life. You travel around a little and most of you do. You know we’re in the midst of life. Read your newspaper. Listen to your news broadcasts. And you know that the world is busy, very, very busy. And in the middle of this and walking up and down in the middle of it are people.
I went over to, after the board meeting in New York Thursday, I dictated some letters and then I went over and got my suitcases and went over to the Grand Central Station. And when I stepped into the Grand Central Station, I heard somebody singing, only believe, all things are possible, only believe. And I thought, I’m not hearing right. There’s something’s happened to my head, because they don’t sing like that in Grand Central Station. But I went on down and I searched around. Who is it? A high, thin, rather strident, but pleasant voice singing. And then I noticed up on the balcony here was a little boy about 11 years old and an old lady with a little organ. And she was sporting background music and he was standing.
He’d stop and turn the pages and then he’d step up to the microphone, raise his good-looking little face high and sing. And he sang, into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart Lord Jesus. And he sang, only believe and he sang some Christmas carols. And every time he’d sing, he would get applause from the great hundreds of people. You see, the airplanes, many of them being on strike and the weather being so bad and all the rest, the trains were loaded as I’ve never seen them since the last war. And of course, that meant masses of people milling everywhere waiting on their trains, just the time also when the suburbanites were going out, the commuters.
And they stopped. Everybody stopped and stood looking. I finally got their direction of sight and I saw the handsome little fella standing up there, stiff as a ramrod, about eleven singing in a voice that hadn’t changed yet, into my heart, into my heart, Lord Jesus.
Well, I didn’t ask what denomination he was. I didn’t find my way back up around there and say to the old lady of the organ, are you an Alliance woman? I knew she was one of God’s children. You don’t sing songs like that and not be one of the Gods hidden children. Not very hidden in that instance. But you know the Christmas spirit was on that dirty Vanity Fair we call New York, and so they applauded the little fellow loudly every time he sang,
Well, God has His people I don’t know where they came from. Maybe they were Pentecostal people. Maybe they were Southern Baptists. They could have been Alliance. Maybe they were from some mission and didn’t belong to any church. I don’t know. But I know a little boy there with his handsome little face up turned, singing in rapture and was telling the people of the great city of New York that the Lamb had come and He would come into the hearts of the people.
Well, God has His people, friends, and He has them everywhere. And they’re right down here in the midst of life. You may sit down beside one of them and they don’t all start talking religion to you. You know, some people tell you they all talk religion to everybody they sit down beside. Wilbur Smith told me one time he said, you know, I have an awful time with that. He said, I’m not friendly enough. He said, when I sit down in a train, I’m shy and I want to read. And he said, I don’t talk to people about their souls. I don’t do much of that either. So, lots of people have sat down alongside of me and didn’t know I belonged in heaven. And when you’re waiting around for the upward journey, maybe I should talk to everybody I meet, but I’d be a lovely nuisance if I tried it.
Well, while living right here below, you know, as I say, in the midst of life, you can belong to another kingdom, an eternal kingdom, and belong in another world. Maybe you may sit down somewhere in a public place alongside of a man and you don’t know who he is. Maybe you’re listening to a concert or something or riding on a train or in a subway, sitting alongside a man you don’t know. Maybe he’s an ambassador. Maybe he’s the big man in this country or from one of the one of the countries over there. They travel around like that.
So, we sit down beside a man, or a woman and we don’t know who they are. We know that if they use bad language, we know they don’t belong to God. But just generally we don’t know, because God has them hidden every place, belonging to another world and yet hidden in the midst of life.
Now, these same people have a secret covenant with God. You know, sometimes you sit down alongside of a communist and you don’t know it. That communist is a card-carrying communist. And he owns fearsome, furious, fevered allegiance to Moscow. And he’s sitting right there beside you and you don’t know it. He’s dressed like you. His suit is generally like yours and unpressed like mine. And he just generally looks like you, and you don’t know you’re sitting beside a man that only has the external shell of being an American. Inside of him, he hates every liberty we have and every decent thing that’s here.
He hates the sound of the church bell, the Christmas carol. He hates the name of Jesus. He is a dedicated, sold out, fanatic communist. I don’t know if you ever sat beside him, but you could because there are 1000s of them in this country. And you and he, why, Lazarus and others in the lower world couldn’t have been any different from each other than you and he. If you’re a Christian, a child of God, everything he’s dedicated to you hate, and everything you’re consecrated to, he hates. And yet, you ride together, pay your fares, get up and go up the same stairs out onto the street and go into the same store and shop. And yet, you’re both hidden.
You don’t know who he is, and he doesn’t know who you are. And it’s impossible that we should always tell them. Some people wear big badges in order to let everybody know. But I don’t know that always works. It may be all right, I’ve seen a few badges I’d like to wear, but for the most part I wouldn’t care for them.
Well, we belong to another kingdom, an eternal kingdom, a world that’s invisible, but real. We have a secret covenant, and our dedication is unto God above. And God says in the time of trouble, I’ll hide you, and we’re given over to the belief that we can know God. We can know Him in personal experience, beyond all logical conclusion and above all reason and reasoning. We can know Him through Jesus Christ the Lord who walked around on the earth. People say, I don’t see anything very saintly about you. Well, no, we eat like other people. We clean off the walk when it snows, and we do everything else just like other people.
But God has a people anyways. He has always had a hidden people, a people for His own possession, a peculiar people, Paul calls it; a royal priesthood, a holy nation composed of people. You say, who are they, Alliance people? Some of them are, thank God, some of them are. Some of them are. But not all of them are. They are scattered all around.
I may shock some of you terribly, but I think that there are Christians here and there, scattered in the Greek Orthodox and in the Roman Catholics. Ask me to explain it. I can’t explain it. I don’t know. As a Christian with the information and the light I have, I couldn’t possibly run around crossing myself and wearing chains and believing in the Virgin Mary. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t possibly do it. I couldn’t possibly believe in that jolly old gentleman that they crowned over there the other day in Rome. I couldn’t possibly do it. He’s a nice old fellow, there’s no doubt at all and very bright. But I don’t think he’s the Holy Father at all. He’s not married. But how could he be?
But I can’t believe in that, and I can’t take all that trash. But I am not going to say that nowhere in the midst of all this, that some of the old people didn’t find Jesus while they prayed. I believe they have. And I believe that some of us harsh, bigoted Protestants are going to find that out sometimes. Maybe the Lord will let us introduce one of them to us and let us blush just for our own sanctification in that great day. But I think the system is vicious and rotten. And I think the whole hierarchy from the kind old gentleman down is organically bad.
But I think that even in Sodom God had a few. And I believe that even in Rome, there may be a few. If they had the information, you have and the light you have, they’d come out. They don’t have it yet.
Well, the Lord has His people everywhere and they’re the hidden ones, God’s hidden ones. I was thinking this morning of the song, rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. But that’s a prayer to be hidden. But this is a promise that we shall be hidden. In the time of trouble, He shall hide me in His pavilion. Is it a prayer to be hidden? Well, that’s legitimate. It is a promise that we shall be hidden. We are hidden, hidden in the Rock of Ages, hidden.
He’s hiding us from what? Well, I want him to hide me from my past for one thing. I don’t want the incarnation of the Tozer that once was ever to follow me into the world to come. I want to be where, if there’s such a thing, the ghost of Christmas past can’t find you. And the ghost of my yesterdays can’t haunt me. I don’t think there would be any such ghost. That’s all imaginary. The Bible says He will remember it no more against us forever. And if God doesn’t remember your sins, I don’t care much who else does.
So, God hides us from our past and he hides us from our failures, and He hides us from our tragic weaknesses. And He hides us because of our vulnerability. We’re so vulnerable and so easily killed. On the farm, turkeys are the most vulnerable things that I ever knew. If there’s anything else more vulnerable, we didn’t have them around where I was. The hen will sit four weeks on a great big pile of Turkey eggs as patiently and nice and tenderly and hatch them all out, and then take them out and in 24 hours have nine out of the 12 dead. She doesn’t know how to take care of her own babies.
They’re vulnerable. They get so many diseases. They pick up so many germs from the ground and die of pip and worms and I don’t know how many other things. And the people of God are vulnerable, you know. They’re just really vulnerable, sensitive and easily killed. I mean to say, of course, humanly speaking, actually that Eternal Life which was with the Father and which was made real unto us and which is in our heart. You can’t kill that. I don’t mean that. But I mean, that we wilt quickly, and we’re easily knocked out. God always has them carry us out and bring us to. But we’re easily knocked out. We knock out easily.
Then He hides us in His pavilion. He hides us in His heart. With all my heart, I believe that God’s children are as safe now, as if they were in heaven. I believe that. Somebody quoted me, before a district superintendent and a board and said, Mr. Tozer said if you didn’t believe in election, you were crazy. And the superintendent said, he never said that. So, they had an argument. I don’t want people arguing over me. But what I said was, I suppose that I believe in election, but I don’t believe in election, period, I believe in election as understood and interpreted in the light of the rest of the Scripture.
But I believe that God’s hidden ones are God’s chosen ones. And they’re chosen according to His eternal purpose, and they’re chosen according to His foreknowledge. That doesn’t mean that you have to come whether you want to or not as some teach; and it doesn’t mean that only certain ones can come. Anybody can come that will come. But they’re chosen in Him before the foundation of the world by the foreknowledge of God. I believe that. And they’re protected and kept and held in His blessed hand. You know, that if your salvation had depended upon your faithfulness, you wouldn’t have followed Jesus Christ one month. He kept you. He held you. You were hidden, hidden.
The baby born into the world is a helpless, vulnerable little thing which soon will die. My fifteenth grandchild came here about, I don’t know, two months ago, a month ago, I don’t know. It’s all happening so fast. I can’t keep up. But they said, oh, he’s home. He’s awful. They said, he’s all nose. But the other day, yesterday, we got the report that he had developed a chin and forehead to go along with his nose and becoming quite handsome. But I do know one thing, that he was unutterably vulnerable when he came. And all that they would have had to do would be to turn their backs 20 minutes and he would have been dead, but now he’s growing by leaps and bounds because somebody hit him, took care of him, nourished him, protected him.
God keeps His people; God is keeping you friend. This is a cold weather we’re having now. And a vicious wicked world we’re in. You never know when you listen to the news broadcast whether they’re going to say, Berlin was bombed, Formosa was attacked. You never know. You never know where trouble is going to start. But you do know one thing, in the time of trouble, He shall hid me in His pavilion in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me. I know that. God will hide us in His tabernacle, in His pavilion, and we’ll be God’s hidden ones, thy hidden one. That’s a beautiful expression. You and I ought to believe in it.
We’re having a bit of difficulties; everybody knows in our local church here. I don’t mean trouble. There’s nobody fighting anybody. Nobody’s enthusiastic enough to fight anybody else. You know, that’s trouble with us. We haven’t gotten enough energy to get in trouble. We all love each other and hope for the best. But we will have difficulty and some things are going to have to be changed. But in the meantime, would you keep one thing in mind, God Almighty, that planted this plant back there years ago, hasn’t withdrawn His kindly, loving smile from it. He’ll keep us and He’ll lead us through.
And few years from now, we’ll look back and say weren’t we a bunch of weaklings to worry, when God had His plan, all laid out for us. You keep believing, Brother and Sister, you keep trusting and don’t pay much attention to Santa Claus and keep your eyes on Jesus Christ, the Lord of Christmas and the Lord of the new year and all yours in the coming years. And you will come out all right and so will I and so will we and so will this church and so will our fellowship in the days ahead. Amen.