You can take every precaution, but you really never sin in the dark. It is very unlikely that you will successfully conceal your sin from me. And it is impossible to conceal your sin from God. I speak from personal experience, painful and humiliating personal experience. I’d really rather not document them here, but I will relate an experience I had one day that reminds me of the truth.
Early one spring morning, about 1990 or 91, I left my garret study to walk in the hills and woods and meditate on the resurrection accounts of Scripture. The early morning air was alive with bird song. Wild violets carpeted the floor of the woods. All was green and fresh and cool on that spring morning. I had my hand made walking stick. My testament. Binoculars. Cool breeze swept over the hill and the day was glorious. I found a place on a high hill overlooking a wide valley. The highway lay in the bottom of the valley. The Kokosing River cut across it flowing east toward the Walhounding. I never tire of thinking about that place. No phone calls. No intercom. No other people. The house, nestled among corn fields white in the sun on the floor of the valley. A band of water we called Yoder Creek coursed through the bottom trees lining its banks.
Movement caught my eye, an old truck coming from the east. I noticed it because of its character, a 50-something Chevy with the narrow bed and fenders. It was a dull weather-beaten green. It slowed and stopped on a secluded stretch of road. There were two men in it. They must have thought they were completely out of sight. I watched them through my binoculars. They glanced furtively down the road both ways and when they were satisfied no one could see them, they yanked three or four old tires out of the bed of the truck and threw them in the ditch. Satisfied that no one knew, they hopped back in the old truck and chugged down the road.
At first I was disgusted with the men. After some reflection, I realized I had done what they had done many times. Acted as if I could sin without being exposed. As if no one would ever know or suffer because of my sin. As if I would never have to answer for myself.
One morning, God laid a proverb heavily on my heart. “Whoever covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will find mercy.”
You can’t sin in the dark. People will probably shout your secrets from the housetop some day. Others you love will suffer. You are breaking the Father’s heart and one day when all hearts will be made manifest you will have to answer to an all-seeing God. “The eyes of the Lord are upon us?beholding the evil and the good.” “When I kept quiet my bones grew old with in me.” (Ps 32:3).
