Why
should I want to be forgiven for secret sins?
We
do not know what sins David may have been guilty of but he wanted to
be forgiven them all. We should also want to be forgiven our secret
sins. Sedgwick suggests why.
1.
They may become public sins otherwise
When
you weed the garden you know the rule that you need to pull them up
by their roots. Sometimes a serious fire starts with only a small
spark. Unless the spark is extinguished there will be a great fire.
James 1:15 describes how after
desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is
full-grown, gives birth to death.
The instinct of a baby in the womb is to be born; sin too wants to
break out and act. If
you indulge sin in your heart, do not be surprised if the next thing
that happens is that it breaks out in your life. If you have thought
about a sin, when an opportunity to commit it arises you are more
ready to act. Spurgeon
makes the same observation.
One sin easily leads to another. When we sin a sin the first time it
may be hard but the second time is easier and so on until we are used
to it. Secret sin is especially dangerous in that way. We need to be
done with secret sin before it becomes open sin. Sincerely seek
forgiveness for that and you will not fall into the other.
2.
They are the most likely to deceive us
All
sin deceives us to some extent but secret sin the most! They are most
likely to prevail because
We
do not judge secret sins as strictly and spiritually as open sins.
We
are often tempted to think of them as not being sins at all or small
sins at most. We tend to think something like this. To stab someone
dead or cause a wound is a great sin. It is not so bad but still a
sin to speak in a nasty and unpleasant way so that someone is upset.
As for thinking horrible thoughts about someone and raging against
them in our minds, that is not really sin – or is it? Adultery is
obviously sin as is looking at pornography. It is also a sin to
fantasise in your mind about someone. Sin is always trying to excuse
itself. Secret sin is the most likely to succeed. It should not.
Many
people are at least outwardly reputable. The
truth is that most people learn by a certain age not to commit too
many outward sins. We commit few in public, and perhaps not many in
private. However, on our own and in our hearts we may commit many
sins. Now we need in one sense to be most careful over the sins that
deceive us most easily. We ought to be very concerned therefore not
just to be forgiven our known sins but our secret ones too. Are we?
3.
Sin's strength is inward
You
are familiar with the fact that when you are ill the problem is often
within ad so you need to get a drug into your system to be well
again. In many cases simply rubbing on ointment will solve nothing.
In a similar way, we need forgiveness for secret sins first and
foremost.
4.
God looks mainly on what is within
Psalm
66:18, 19s If
I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;
but
God has surely listened and has heard my prayer.
Psalm 51:6 Surely
you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the
inmost place.
In
other religions you will find outward conformity is all that is
required. The concept of hypocrisy is particularly Christian. This is
because God looks at the heart. We sing a song about this with the
children at our church. It begins
Girl
so pretty, boy so smart, Man looks on the outside but God looks on
the heart
Charming
manners, friendly grin. Man looks on the outside but God can see
within
Sedgwick:
“The
man is to God what his inside is. If you work wickedness in your
heart, God will
destroy
you. Plaster your visible part with all sorts of pious expressions:
if yet you can set up a form of sinning within, you are notable
hypocrites. The Lord sees you to be false and rotten, and He will
discharge Himself of you …”
Three
horrible sins wrapped up in one
The
sin itself. Often the worst sins are committed in secret. Murderers
usually murder when they think no-one will see. Adultery is usually
secret. Some say the only sin that matters is getting found out.
That is heresy. Spurgeon says “A sin is a sin, whether done in
private or before the wide world … Do not measure sin by what
other people say of it. Measure sin by what God says of it and [by]
what your own conscience says of it …”
Hypocrisy.
The
hypocrite can get little pleasure from secret sins. Spurgeon says
“Hypocrisy is a hard game to play at: it is one deceiver against
many observers; [certainly] it is a miserable trade that will earn
at last, as its certain climax, a tremendous bankruptcy. Ah! Ye who
have sinned without discovery, Be
sure your sin will find you out
(Numbers 32:23); and bethink you, it may find you out ere long.”
Atheism.
We seldom think of it like this but secret sin is a form of atheism.
It is pretending God cannot see or that he is not there. Psalm
94:7-9 They
say, The
LORD does not see; the God of Jacob takes no notice. Take
notice, you senseless ones among the people; you fools, when will
you become wise? Does he who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he who
formed the eye not see? Spurgeon
warns “There is no hiding it from God! Thy sin is photographed in
high heaven. The deed, when it was done, was photographed upon the
sky; and there it shall remain. … thy vices are all known, written
in God’s book. He keepeth a diary of all thine acts.”
(We
closed with words from Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs
“Take
heed of secret sins. They will undo thee if loved and maintained: one
moth may spoil the garment; one leak drown the ship; a penknife stab
can kill a man as well as a sword. So one sin may damn the soul”.)
