Sin Detected and Exposed

Numbers xxxii. 23. And be sure your sin will find you out.

The Great God is a terrible enemy to all sin. He cannot look upon it without abhorrence. He solemnly commands men not to commit it; and if they have committed it, he requires them to repent of it, to forsake it, and to repair to the blood of Jesus Christ that it may be washed away. This is their only hope; and he urges them to do this, so that “their iniquity may not be their ruin.”

Yet, strange to say, there are very many persons who will sin; they love to sin; they are determined to sin, be the consequences what they may. But they do not mean to be found out; they sin secretly, and have an inward hope that their wickedness will never be known.

Now, God says to all such persons, “Be sure your sin WiWfind you out.” Nothing is more true than this; and I wish, by God’s blessing, so to exhibit and prove this truth, that all may see, and feel it; may forsake their sins, and find mercy. I remark, therefore,

I. In the first place, that the man who indulges himself in secret sin has, within his own bosom, a conscience which will betray him.

He is acquainted with his own sin; if nobody else knows it, he himself knows it. King Solomon said to

Shimei, the Benjamite, who abused David in the day of his calamity, and cursed him, “Thou knowest all the wickedness which thy heart is privy to, that thou didst to David, my father: therefore the Lord shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head.” No man need expect to keep his sins secret, so long as he knows them himself. He may forget them, and for a while lose sight of them; but when his memory comes to be refreshed, and he is reminded of them; when he is forced to call them to remembrance, and cannot help reflecting upon them, nor divert his mind from the melancholy subject; the only relief he has is to make them known. I have known of men who stole money from their employers, and nobody knew it but themselves, whose conscience was so burdened with the sin, that they could not rest until they had gone and confessed it, and made restitution. I have read of a murderer, who had wickedly killed one of his fellow creatures, and who never was detected by all the search that could be made, who, years after the crime was committed, was so troubled in his own conscience for what he had done, that he went one day into open court, and told the judges that he was the guilty murderer. Men will always expose their own sins when they find greater relief of mind in confessing them than in keeping them secret. And they had often rather confess them, and know the worst, than suffer the slow flame to be always burning in their own bosoms.

There are sins with which no man can trust himself. His conscience will tell of them. When he was about to commit them, she tried to prevent him; by all the means in her power she tried to restrain him. She whispered in his ear, not to do the fearful deed; and told him at the time, that if he would not listen to her, she would expose him. She was on the spot, and recorded it in her memory. And because he silenced her, and abused her, and treated her as an enemy, the time is coming when she will be revenged, and publish his wickedness to the world. That man is always miserable who has a guilty conscience. “A fire not blown consumes him.” Conscious guilt renders him suspicious that others know all about him, and makes him afraid of everybody. He “trembles at the shaking of a leaf.” He often suspects he is known, where he is unknown. If he is in the midst of friends, the sudden appearance of a strange face disturbs him; and the thought passes through his mind, perhaps this man knows me! In the midst of laughter, his mirth is boisterous, or his heart is sorrowful. An equivocal remark, an incidental inquiry, a scrutinizing glance alarms him. Like the guilty monarch of Babylon, whom we read of in the Bible, surrounded by his guards and princes, and amid all the delights of music and the revelry of feasting, he is terrified by a sentence which he does not even understand.

In the time of prosperity and glee, men may still the voice of conscience, though they are actually chargeable with atrocious crimes. But when calamity overtakes them, conscience is not always so easily silenced. More than twenty years rolled away, and Joseph’s brethren appear to have had no compunction for selling their own father’s son as a slave to the Midianites. They had kept the secret, and no doubt thought that it would remain buried in their own breasts. But in the providence of God they were sent into Egypt themselves, and by a cluster of circumstances which they could not foresee, they stood agitated and trembling in the presence of that very brother whom they had so wickedly sold. He knew them, but they did not know Mm. And conscience could no longer sleep. They looked at one another, and all seemed to have, at once, the same self-reproving thoughts. And they said unto one another, “We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us!”

Conscience is the great betrayer of secret sin. It is one of the laws of God’s government, that the apprehensions and forebodings of the mind under remorse shall, sooner or later, force the offender to the confession of his own guilt, and constrain him to be the publisher of his shame. No vigor of intellect, no strength of nerve, no sworn purpose of secrecy is able to stand out against the urgent pressure of a guilty and incensed conscience. When God commands her to speak, she will speak, and speak out, to the confusion of all the workers of iniquity. As nothing can suppress the inward complaints, so nothing can suppress the outward murmurings, of that inward condemnation which a guilty and terrified mind feels when bleeding, writhing under the agonies of an accusing conscience. You can go into no society where conscience is not one of your associates; you can enter no solitude where conscience does not follow you; conscience can make you pale on your lonely pillow; and even sleep, when it covers you with its heavy pall, does not so overpower the mind, but agitating dreams and visions creep stealthily beneath its folds, and this unwelcome messenger whispers, “Thou art the man!”

But this is not all: I remark

II. The man who practises secret sin may expect to be detected and exposed by the providence of God.

“Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.” That God is everywhere. He is present with all his creatures, and with every one of them at the same time. He is in all places, even the most distant, without being separated by distance, or confined by space. Go beyond the height of the heavens, he is there; beyond the length of the earth, and the breadth of the ocean, he is there. The king’s palace, and the seaman’s cabin, alike contain him. The most lonesome as well as the most populous haunts of iniquity, the most hidden recesses and the deepest caverns of wickedness are always under his immediate inspection. Impious the thought, and vain the attempt, to fly from the face of God. Neither land, nor sea, nor earth, nor heaven, nor hell itself, has any retreat for man, where he can lurk unseen, and remain hidden from that all-seeing eye to which even the blackest darkness is not dark, and night itself is as light as day.

In a thousand ways, unknown and unsuspected by men, he can expose their sin. Strange indeed is it, that they should ever be so infatuated, as to persuade themselves that they can keep it secret when he undertakes to bring it to light. They may be politic and wise in their commission of it, while their very policy and wisdom may be so directed by his providence as to indicate the means of its discovery; and the very plans on which they have relied for concealing it may proclaim their guilt. How often has it been verified in the history of crime, that wonted forethought and prudence so forsake the transgressor, that it would seem as though he was determined to be his own accuser! Studied secrecy is sometimes too artful and defeats its own designs. While men are attempting to circumvent the providence of God, they are only throwing themselves into his hands, and giving his providence the better opportunity of circumventing them. Man is wise, but God is wiser; he is artful, but God is above him; it is in vain for the artful transgressor to say, “Can he see through the dark cloud?”

We are told in the Bible, that “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth, to show himself strong in behalf of them whose’ heart is perfect toward him.” Are they not also ever present, and ever wakeful to detect the secret transgressor? Your eye cannot see him, your ear cannot hear him, your touch cannot feel him; yet are you everywhere encircled with God. You cannot be so unknown, but he knows your downsetting, and your uprising, and understands your thoughts afar off. You cannot be so forgotten, but he remembers all your wickedness. It is a comfort to good and Christian men, that amid all their sorrows — sorrows unknown to the world — sorrows which they may not or cannot disclose — He who sees the sparrow and the worm, and counts the sands on the shore, sees them all. And what a discomfort to the wicked? How withering the thought, that God sees them; watches them; follows hard after them! What fearful terrors to the secret transgressor, amid sins which, it may be, neither friends nor foes have witnessed, and which no human being knows, that the great Witness and Judge sees them all; that the next page of his providence may disclose the public record of them, and that his own voice will rehearse them, though the recital should make every ear that hears him to tingle.

Nor is this all: I remark,

III. There are others besides the Almighty God, who know more of the secret wickedness of men than they themselves suppose, and who are interested to tell of it.

Men know it, and will tell of it too. Your guilty accomplice knows it; all your guilty companions know it. Now it may be for their interest to keep it secret; but it will not be so always. They may be sworn to secrecy; but their oath of secrecy will be laughed at and broken when the time comes that their selfishness and pride shall be the gainer by the perjury. Your friend may know it; but he may become your enemy. Your dearest friend may know it; she that sleeps in your bosom; your wife, your child may know it, and may chide you With it in a moment of inconsiderate rashness; or may turn against you in order to protect themselves. Or they may whisper it in the closet; or may utter it in their dreams.

There are others, besides men, who know and may declare it. There are invisible spirits everywhere about you; spirits of good, and spirits of evil. Evil spirits know it, for they tempted you to commit the wickedness. They helped you to excuse it, and when you hesitated, they promised to cover it with the veil of secrecy. But the devil is not to be trusted with such secrets. He is a liar from the beginning. He is very artful in getting men into difficulty, and very faithless in getting them out of it. He only waits permission from his great Sovereign, not only to proclaim your folly, but to aggravate your shame. He at least despises you for being the victim of his devices; and is just mean enough to triumph over you when you have fallen. He is your greatest enemy, and would cover you with confusion. He is quite familiar with scenes of wickedness. He notes and marks them, and visits them to see who is there, and to offer his counsel, and lend a helping hand in all their iniquity. And, believe me, no sooner do they become the victims of his subtlety, than he glories in it, and boasts himself that they were taken captive by him at his will.

There are good spirits, too, everywhere hovering around men. These winged messengers of heavenly mercy, are ever and anon fulfilling their errands of love; and never more opportunely than by warning the tempted of their danger, and suggesting those more virtuous resolutions which may break the snare of the Evil One. Through their watchful ministrations, many a dark and dreary path is changed as though by magic, and becomes radiant with light and beauty. Though unseen by you, they saw the sin you vainly hoped to conceal. They stood near you, and entreated you, with silent and matchless eloquence, not to touch “that abominable thing which God’s soul hateth.” They came down from heaven on purpose to resist the seduction of those foul spirits that were tempting you. They could have foiled the adversary but for you; but you would not listen to them. And when you committed that deed of wickedness, they noted it down. They were grieved that you committed it, and wondered at your presumption. And they have preserved it in long remembrance, and are witnesses against you. You would not be diverted from your purpose; and now these holy and angelic ones stand ready, when your trial comes on, to bear witness against you. I remark also,

IV. In the fourth place, there is still another witness to your folly, though the time for his testimony is not yet arrived: I mean the great Revealer, Death.

He, too, is everywhere about your path and about your bed. Wherever there is life, there is Death. He is in the sea, as well as on the land; with his gigantic strides he compasses the wide circumference of this inhabited globe. The utmost extent of human skill, and vigilance, and vigor, cannot resist his power. He is in the whirlwind and in the gentle breeze. He watches aloft, and he sits below on the foaming billow. He comes on the burning rays of the meridian sun, and in the tranquil moonlight. He is imbodied in the atmosphere. He is borne along throughout the unruffled voyage of human existence, and lurks unseen on many a lee shore. Wherever we move, and to whatever point we direct our steps, in every place, and time, and circumstance, he is there. Men do not move hand or foot, but he observes them; nor form a passing thought which he does not see, nor speak so much as a single profane word which he does not hear.

How terrible the thought to a wicked man, that Death is so near him, — just waiting for the patience of God to come to an end, in order to strike the blow! The thoughtless sailor braves the storms and perils of the ocean, and fetches at last the circumference of the globe, and comes home, and finds that he has been sailing round this little ball of earth only to die. Or perhaps he sleeps where the sea-weed grows, and the sea-monsters nurse their young ones, and the coral rock is anchored — where heroes sleep, and navies are forgotten.

This is no illusion. Death’s grim form stalks alike amid the frequented and the solitary abodes of men. His spectre hovered there over those scenes of almost forgotten wickedness. His ghastly eye was there; on his ear fell that soft whisper, those still, and almost sepulchral breathings, that were not meant for mortal man to hear. All-pervading, unrelenting Death, will reveal that unknown wickedness. Nothing shall have power to silence his testimony. He shall come into your windows on the land, or stand by your hammock on the sea; he shall have a place near that bed of languishing, and there recount your crimes, find out your sin, and fill you with his reproaches.

I have but one more, and

V. A fifth remark, which is, that after death, there is a judgment.

This is heaven’s high and unchangeable decree. “God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness.” We do not know when that Day will come; and only know that then every man must give an account of himself unto God. The morning of that Day shall break on this slumbering world when men think little of its coming. The graves shall be opened; the sea shall give up her dead; men and angels — all, all shall appear at the judgment seat of Christ.

Who shall say, that Day is not near to him? There is amazing emphasis in those few words, “after death, the judgment!” The hour seems indeed far distant; but it will be as soon as time, with his eagle wings shall have finished his short career on earth. Intervening ages pass rapidly over those who sleep in the dust, and in the caverns of the great deep. There is no dial plate there, on which to count the hours of time. No longer is it told by days, or months, or years, nor by observation of the heavenly bodies; for the planets which mark these periods are hidden from their sight. Its flight is no longer noted by events perceived by the senses; for the ear is deaf, and the eye is closed. The busy world of life which wakes at each morning, and ceases at every night, goes on above them; but to them all is silent and unseen. The greetings of joy and the voice of grief, the revolution of empires and the lapse of ages, send no sound within that narrow cell. Generation after generation are brought and laid by their side; the monumental marble tells the centuries that have passed away; but to the sleeping dead the long interval is unobserved. Like a dream of the night, when, with the quickness of thought, the mind ranges time and place almost without a limit, there is but a moment between the hour when the eye is closed in the grave, and when it wakes to the judgment.

We sicken over the sins of men, and sometimes wonder why they are not always found out in the present world. But at that Day everything will be revealed just as it is. “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God.” The Son of Man shall come with power and great glory, and “before him shall stand all nations.” Sovereigns and slaves shall be there. Rich and poor, young and old, male and female, seamen and landsmen, shall be there. Deeds of solitary and associated wickedness shall then stand forth; long forgotten deeds shall then be remembered; deeds till then unknown shall be disclosed. Deeds committed under the veil of night shall then be set in the light of God’s countenance. Deeds done in foreign lands, or in the islands of the sea, and far away from human eyes, shall no longer lose then’ atrocity in the distance of place, time, or retirement; but every ear shall hear of them.

The sentence of men will be of little moment then, compared with the judgment of God. Yet will his judgment be sanctioned, justified, honored by the unanimous voice of all the universe. And what is never to be lost sight of by the man who would fain cover up his wickedness, the magnificent scenes of that Day, and all its solemn splendor, impressive and affecting as they will be, will be lost sight of in the more impressive and affecting developments of the character and conduct of men. God will do justice to the secret transgressor then; and the secret transgressor will be forced to do justice to himself. His history shall no longer be secret; nor shall he ever again ask the question, “Will it ever be known V The truth will then never be forgotten, and the sentence will eternally vibrate on his ear,” Be sure your sin will find you out!’’