Secret Sins! # 1

Secret Sins! # 1

"How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults!" (Psalm 19:12).

It is the desire of a holy person to be cleansed, not only from public sins, but also from private and secret sins. "O wretched man! Who shall deliver me?" (Romans 7:24), said Paul. Why, O blessed Apostle! What is it that bewilders you? What is it that molests you? Your life, you say, was unblamably before your conversion and since your conversion (Phil. 3:4-7). You have exercised yourself to have a conscience void of offence toward God and men (Acts 24:16). Yet you cry out, "O wretched man!" Yet you complain, "Who shall deliver me?"

Truly, brethren, it was not sin abroad, but at home. It was not sin without, but his sin within. It was not Paul's sinning with man, but Paul's sinning with Paul. It was that "law of his members" warring secretly within him against "the law of his mind" (Romans 7:23). This made that holy man to cry out so, to complain so.

The private and secret birth of corruption within Paul, was the cause of his trouble. That was the ground of his complaint, "Who shall deliver me?" I remember that the same Paul advised the Ephesians to put off the former conduct so that they could put on the renewed spirit of the mind - intimating that there are sins that are lurking within, as well as sins walking about (Eph. 4:22-23).

True Christians must not only sweep the door, but wash the chamber also. My meaning is this: We are not only to come off from sins that lie open in the conduct, but also labor to be cleansed from sins and sinning that remain secret and hidden in the spirit and inner disposition.

In What Respects Are Sins Called Secret?

For the resolution of this, know that sin has a double reference:

It may refer to God. And so no sin or manner of sinning is really secret. "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?" said the Lord. "Do not I fill Heaven and earth?" said the Lord in Jeremiah 23:24).

It is true that wicked men with an atheistic folly imagine hiding themselves and their sinful ways from God. "Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plane from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think "Who sees us? Who will know? (Isaiah 29:15).

Yet there stands no cloud, nor curtain, nor moment of darkness or secrecy between the eyes of God and the ways of man.  "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." (Heb. 4:13).

Sin may also refer to man. And thus, indeed, comes in the division of sin into first, open sin - and second, secret sin. Now, in this respect, sin may be termed secret in these ways:

1. In respect of the person sinning: when his very sinning, formally considered, is hidden himself. He does a thing that is really sinful, but he does not apprehend it to be so. We see this in the outrages Paul breathed out against the Church in the times of his ignorance - which he did not know to be acts of sin, but thought to be motions of a warranted zeal. In this sense, all the obliquities that may be fastened, at least upon ignorance, may be called secret sins.

2. In respect of the manner of sinning - thus sins may be termed secret either when they are colored and disguised, though they fly abroad - yet not under that name of sin, but appareled with some semblances of virtues.

When they are kept off from the stage of the world. They are like fire in the chimney. Though you do not see it, yet it burns. 

When they are kept not only from the public eye, but also from our own eye. The carnal eye of him who commits the sins, does not see them. He does see them with the eye of conscience, but not with an eye of natural sense. Even those persons with whom he converses and who highly commend his ways, cannot yet see the secret discoursings and actings of sin in his mind and heart.

Brethren, not all of these actings of sin are external! They are not all visible. But there are some, yes, the most dangerous sins acting within the soul, where corruption lies as a fountain and a root. The heart of man is a well of wickedness. A man says in his heart, that which he dares not speak with his tongue; and his thoughts will do that which his hands dare not execute. Well then, sin may be called secret, when it is sin and acted as sin in the heart, where none but God and conscience can see.

~Obadiah Sedgwick~

(continued with # 2)