The Secret Place
The Secret Place is not a location but a position. In this Ignite class I want to share some insight from Smith Wigglesworth on how to enter the Secret Place. Psalm 91 explains:
“He who dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”
Psalm 91: 1
As believers, the Father calls us to come into the Secret Place of His Presence through the finished work of the Cross. It is the place of Holy intimacy where we are invited to come to know Him and be known by Him. Being a Christian is not about what Church we attend or holding fast to the traditions of our fathers, but a living, vibrant now relationship with the Living God.
Smith said:
I know there is a secret place in Jesus that is available to us today. My brother, my sister, you have been nearly weighed down with troubles. They have almost crushed you. Sometimes you thought you would never get out of this place of difficulty, but you have no idea that behind the whole thing, God has been working a plan greater than all.
Our new identity as believers is the life hidden in the Secret Place. It is here that we find our validation and our purpose, and it is here that we are transformed. Our lives become consumed in Him, and we lose our old life and find our new life in Him.
Smith further explained:
In order to understand His fullness, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit. God has a measure for us that cannot be measured. When you are in this relationship, sin is dethroned, but you cannot purify yourself. You are cleansed from all sin by the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. We are His life; we are members of His body. The Spirit is in us, and there is no way to abide in the Secret Place of the Lord except by holiness.”
We see the type and shadow of the Secret Place in the Holy of Holies, the holiest place where the Presence of God was found dwelling amongst His people. But entrance into this holy place was impossible because of sin. For His holiness would repel and bring death to all sin.
Years ago, I had a son with a heart issue, and he was rushed into hospital and put in ICU. He desperately needed surgery, but no surgery could be done until they knew he was stable and free from infections. The doctors explained that from the moment of birth, we are contaminated. My son had half a heart and was surviving because of the hole in the heart. It was, therefore, necessary to prevent any stimulation that would cause the hole to close. As a result, in those difficult days, we were not allowed to talk, touch, or stimulate my son. His life was on the line. It was heartbreaking to watch my son suffer and I desperately wanted to let him know we were there. But he remained in a deep sleep and in pain. We were right there, but our touch or our words would kill him.
In the same way, the Father has been right there longing to reach us in our darkest hour with His love, but His touch would kill us. He knew there was only one way to save us: He would send His Son as the perfect sacrifice.
We need Him. But since the Fall, we have run from Him and hated Him and His ways because the truth was that we are running from ourselves. We were created for such fellowship and without this fellowship, we remain empty and void. Often as we enter into the Secret Place, we come with a baptism of tears and brokenness. Smith Wigglesworth explained:
After I was baptized with the Holy Spirit, the Lord gave me a blessed revelation. I saw Adam and Eve turned out of the Garden for their disobedience. They were unable to partake of the Tree of Life, for the cherubim with flaming sword kept them away from this tree. When I was baptized, I saw that I had begun to eat of this Tree of Life, and I saw that the flaming sword surrounded it. It was there to keep the Devil away. How marvelously He keeps us so that the Wicked One cannot touch us. I see a place in God where Satan cannot come. We are “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). He invites us all to come and share this wonderful hidden place. We dwell “in the secret place of the Most High” and “abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Ps. 91:1). God has this place for you in this blessed realm of grace.
The story of the Cross is the revelation of His love and provision to restore us to fellowship with Him. As I discovered with my son, the only way I could hold him again was through death. The Lord knew no man could redeem the life of another or pay the price. The cost was too great, and the gorge separating us from Him too deep. We were bound, stuck, and held captive by the cruelest of enemies, Satan.
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
1 John 4: 16
As we draw near to the Secret Place, we see the bloodshed and horrific price paid by the Lord for our salvation. He paid the highest price even though we had rejected Him, and we were unworthy. If we are to enter we must have our eyes opened to see the price He paid and to be wrecked by it.
Entrance into the Secret Place comes through much brokenness and many baptisms of tears, for the real us must be exposed. Paul explained:
However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.”
1 Corinthians 15: 46
So many believers miss this critical truth. We have been programmed and typically follow the form and fail to press into the substance. We must all too often pray to enter into prayer. We quit before we ever press past the veil and have a divine encounter with Him. We are satisfied with the form and walking in the traditions of our fathers.
Smith explained:
But when a man labors in prayer, he groans and travails because his tremendous sin is weighing him down, and he becomes broken in the PRESENCE of God; and when properly melted he comes into perfect harmony with the divine plan of God, and then God can work in that clay.
You look at the account of the woman at the well. She failed to recognize Jesus and only saw Him as a Jew. But the Lord drew her by a simple conversation that provoked her and revealed her real need. She truly needed the living waters. She walked in the customs of her fathers, and she was walking in sin. But she played the religious game, so many played and excused her sin until the day of divine appointment. That day, she could no longer run. She knew she needed Him. Smith said:
“Do not be satisfied with a life that is not wholly swallowed up in God.”
The call of the Secret Place to all who are thirsty and desperate. It is for all who refuse to be satisfied with the fabricated and want the real encounter. They understand they need Him, and they finally see He is calling them to come and meet with them. The running is over, and before them stands a new day and a new hope.
Smith explained:
“When you lose your heart and Another takes your heart, and you lose your desires and he takes the desires, then you live in that sunshine of bliss which no mortal can ever touch. God wants us to be entirely eaten up by this holy zeal of God, so that every day we shall walk in the Spirit.”
We read things in the Word, and we miss the deep truths the Spirit seeks to reveal to us. But today, as we stand naked in His Presence, we finally hear and know.
“Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For ‘the two,’ He says, ‘shall become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him… Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
1 Corinthians 6: 16-17, 19-20
The word in Greek for ‘temple” here is actually the word for Holy of Holies, or the type of the Secret Place. The Lord wants to come and be enthroned in the secret place of your heart. The heart is where we keep the issues of life, and we guard it because to expose our hearts makes us seriously vulnerable. To be vulnerable on this fallen planet is dangerous and we all carry scars from tough lessons learned. Yet it is in this complete vulnerability to Him, that we are finally whole and secure. This total surrender can only happen in the safe place of the Secret Place.
Everywhere we look, we see the blood, and all things point to the depth of His mercy and love towards us. We no longer want entertainment or to know about Him. We want Him. Smith explained:
We want none of the entertainments that the churches are offering. When God comes in He entertains us Himself. Entertained by the King of kings and Lord of lords! O, it is wonderful.
Going back to the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan women at the well in John chapter four. The woman said:
“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
John 4: 20-24
The Lord was showing her that her worship missed the mark, and sadly so does the worship of many so-called Christians. Our true worship is not about following a formula, but pouring out our heart to Him in the Secret Place.
Smith said-
At the PRESENCE of the real Jesus all else goes.
And
Yes, there is a power, a blessings, an assurance, a rest in the PRESENCE of the Holy Ghost. You can feel His PRESENCE and know that you know He is with you. You need not spend an hour without this inner knowledge of His holy PRESENCE. With His power upon you there can be no failure. You are operating far above the natural realm at all the time.
The Secret Place is the real pursuit of Him because we desperately need Him and love Him. It is not about putting on a show, but rather a giving of the heart. We don’t seek to follow Adam and Eve and run and hide. But rather, we come into the light of His Presence.
As we enter, we see the blood of Jesus which breaks and melts us. The price He paid becomes real and we are humbled and honored. We don’t deserve the right to come into His Presence, but we must honor the blood. So we come in boldness and humility. We come because He has the Words of Life.
