One of the failings of humans is that we get so comfortable in hiding things from others. We do so for a number of reasons. Perhaps we don’t want other people to know our deep, dark secrets; or maybe it’s because we feel a sense of entitlement to do what we want without dealing with a judgmental attitude.
When we do what we know is wrong, we want to do it in secret. And sometimes, we just like our privacy because there is no responsibility to others if no one knows what we are doing. For whatever the reason—good or bad—we all can get really good at hiding things from others.
The truth is that many times we get away with hiding things from others. Some people go years with a secret before anyone ever finds out. And the longer we get by with hiding things from others, the more confident we get in believing we can get away with hiding forever.
This is bad enough when we do this with each other. Lives or trusts can be destroyed when we hide things we should not be hiding. Perhaps we are involved in a secret sexual sin or a substance abuse habit. Maybe we are gaining our livelihood in an ill-begotten manner or we are skating through school on the work of others. Maybe we’re cheating the government on our taxes or misrepresenting the work we’re doing to our employers.
Whatever the secret sin is, it may often start out small enough, but these sins have a way of ballooning up on us. And before we know it, we find ourselves embroiled in things we would have never thought we’d be involved in. This is why secret sins can be so cancerous.
“It started out so small… I don’t know how it grew to be this bad,” is the refrain we can often hear when we start down the path of secret sins. And when we begin to test the secret waters with God, our destruction is close at hand.
“Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” (Ecclesiastes 8:11 ESV).
When we first sin against God, we are often covered with guilt. But the more we do it, the harder our hearts become and the more comfortable we feel that our secret sin is hidden from even God. We feel that way in our heart even when we know in our intellect that this is not true.
But the more time that passes, the less our secret sins bother us. We need to always remember that God is not man. We may be successful at hiding things from our spouse, our boss, and even the government. But there is zero chance of God not seeing all that we do in secret.
“But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out.” (Numbers 32:23 ESV).
Our sins will find us out. That should be a sobering thought. Adam and Eve tried to hide from God, but He saw them. Achan tried to hide his sin from God, but God called him out. And the same is true for every sin we try to hide from God. It’s not that He will eventually find it out, but God sees it all along as we engage in the secret sin.
In Numbers 12, Moses’ siblings, Aaron and Miriam, spoke against Moses and elevated themselves equal to him in the eyes of God. This was brought about by a beef they had with their brother’s choice of a wife.
“Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.” (Numbers 12:1 ESV).
Having this against Moses, they tried to lower his esteem in the eyes of the people.
“And they said, ‘Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?’ And the LORD heard it.” (Numbers 12:2 ESV).
What a chilling end to verse 2. “And the LORD heard it.”
As we struggle with secret sins or try to hide things from others, let us remember that nothing is ever really hidden.
God knows all.
God sees all.
God hears all.
If we can truly keep this in our minds at all times, then it will help us make better choices when Satan whispers in our ears, “Go ahead, no one will ever know…” This is perhaps the most destructive advice we can follow. Because even if we can pull the wool over each other’s eyes, we cannot pull the wool over God’s eyes.
Secret sins are only secret to mere mortal men. They are never secret to God. And the sooner we learn this and live by it, the better off we will be. When David committed his secret sin with Bathsheba, many people ended up dying as a result of his sins—Bathsheba’s husband, their son, and all the men who died in his family because the sword would never depart from his house on account of this sin.
Yet there is always a way out. Nothing is ever too far gone that God is not strong enough to help—if we but seek His help. Read Psalm 51. It is written by a man who was given to secret sin but reached out to the Lord for help. It is in this passage that we find the beloved verse:
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10 ESV).
Cleansing can be ours as soon as we come to fully understand that when we even speak things in secret, we remember…
“And the LORD heard it.”
What part of this struck you most deeply? Feel free to share or reflect in the comments.
My relationship with God is most lopsided. I can never give Him what He deserves, and He gives me far more than I deserve.