Hebrews 4:13; Numbers 32:23; Ecclesiastes 12:14; Psalm 90:8
All things naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Be sure your sin will find you out.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secrets sins in the light of Thy countenance.
WILLIAM BRADSHAW (1571-1618): God needs no other light to discern our sins by but the light of His own face. It pierceth through the darkest places; the brightness thereof enlightens all things, discovers all things. So that the sins that are committed in deepest darkness are all one to Him as if they were done in the face of the sun. For they are done in His face, that shines more, and from which proceeds more light than from the face of the sun. So that this ought to make us the more fearful to offend.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): O, what can be hidden from the all seeing eye of God? Darkness is no darkness to Him; wherever He comes there is a profusion of light―for God is light!
WILLIAM BRADSHAW: Our sins are not only then in His sight when they are a committing and whilst the deed is doing; but ever after, when the act is past and gone and forgotten, yet then is it before the face of God, even as if it were in committing: and how should this make us afraid to sin!―God sets our sins before Him; this shows He is so affected with them, He takes them so to heart, that He doth in a special manner continue the remembrance of them.
WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Consult the Word, and thou wilt find that God usually hath put them to shame in this world, who have promised themselves most secrecy in their sinning. So Ghazi played his part cunningly enough, which made him so bold to come before his master, and impudently lie to his head, not dreaming the least that he was aware of his sin; yet this man is found out, and for the garments he got of Naaman by a lie, he had another given by the Lord, which he was to wear as a livery for his sin, for he was clothed with leprosy: a garment more lasting than the two changes of suits he had from the Syrian; for this lasted him all his life; neither was it then worn out, but to be put on by his children after him, II Kings 5:27.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Hypocrisy is a hard game to play at…Secret sinner! if thou wantest the foretaste of damnation upon earth, continue in thy secret sins; for no man is more miserable than he who sinneth secretly, and yet trieth to preserve a character…O the misery of secret sins! One may well pray, “Cleanse thou me from secret faults,” Psalm 19:12.
WILLIAM GURNALL: As He sees when thou shuttest thy closet to pray, and will reward thy sincerity: so when thou doest it to sin in secret, He will reward thy hypocrisy. The Word tells thee of an informer which thou hast in thy own bosom―conscience, which goes along with thee, and is witness to all thy fine-laid plots, and what it sees it writes down, for it is a court of record…and the pen with which conscience writes down our sins hath a sharp point, it cuts deep into the very heart and soul of the sinner.
C. H. SPURGEON: God has made men to be so wretched in their consciences that they have been obligated to stand forth and confess the truth.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Be sure your sin will find you out. That is, God will certainly reckon with you for it, though you may make a light matter of it.
THOMAS GOUGE (1605-1681): There is no sin so secretly and closely committed, but that shall be discovered to the view of all. There is scarce a wicked person in the world, though never so formal, but has at some time or other committed some such sin in secret, which he or she would not have others to know for all the world. But know for certain that at the day of judgment, all the world shall hear of it. For then all thy secret sins and close villainies shall be discovered, and laid open before the angels, men, and devils―yes, not only thy words and actions, but also thy secret thoughts and imaginations, how vain and wanton, how filthy and abominable they have been shall appear to the view of all. Never therefore adventure upon the committing of a sin the hope of secrecy, because ye seem safe from the eyes of others. For suppose your sin lie undiscovered to the last and great day, yet then shall it come out with a witness, and be made manifest to the view of all.
WILLIAM GURNALL: Yea, be he a saint, yet if he goes about to save himself from the shame of a sin, by any secret plot of wickedness, he takes the direct way to bring that upon him which he contrives to keep off. Uriah’s blood was shed only as a sinful expedient to save David’s credit, Ah, poor man! all comes out to his greater shame. David shall know that God will be as tender of His own honour, as he is of his credit; “for thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun,” II Samuel 12:12.
ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): If we care so little for the honour of God’s name as to be unconcerned for secret faults, we may expect He will care as little for the honour of ours, and will give us up so some open vice that shall cover us with infamy.
THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): All men’s secret sins are printed in heaven, and God will at last read them aloud in the ears of all the world.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Secret things, both good and evil, will be brought to light, and brought to account, in the judgment of the great day, Romans 2:16; there is no good work, no bad work, hid, but shall then be made manifest…Sin will, without doubt, find out the sinner sooner or later. It concerns us therefore to find our sins out, that we may repent of them and forsake them, lest our sins find us out to our ruin and confusion.
C. H. SPURGEON: Secret sins, like private conspirators, must be hunted out, or they may do deadly mischief.
THOMAS GOUGE: Now I know no better way to prevent the discovery of your sins at the great day, than here in this time and day of grace to call yourselves to an account, to search and examine your own hearts and lives, and then to judge and condemn yourselves for your manifold sins and transgressions, for as the apostle speaks, “If we judge ourselves, we shall not be condemned of the Lord,” I Corinthians 11:31. Oh therefore, let us here often keep a day of judgment in our own souls and consciences, by a serious examining of ourselves for the sin, and then let us in all humility prostrate ourselves at the throne of grace, pleading the mercy of God and the merits of Christ for the pardon and forgiveness of them all; giving no rest to our souls, till we have some comfortable evidence and assurance, which will cause us to lift up our heads with joy at the great day of account.
WILLIAM BRADSHAW: We should never rest till we have by repentance moved Him to blot them out. Yea, to this end we should ourselves call them to remembrance. For the more we remember them, the more God forgets them; the more we forget them, the more God remembers them; the more we look upon them ourselves, the more He turneth His eyes from them.
WILLIAM GURNALL: God is privy to thy most secret sin.
OBADIAH SEDGWICK: Secret sins will become public sins if they are not cleansed.
