"Do I really have to get rid of my sin??"

This blog concludes my remarks about secret sins.
The very reason we have so much unbelief today is because we have so many people who love their sins and desire to stay in them. Many people have no god or they will fashion a belief about God so that it comforts them or allows them to live their life without the conviction of sin. Many people will have no god because God interferes with their lusts. They would not be able to go on with their evil pleasures if they allowed themselves to believe in a god over and above them. It is for this reason that people hate God and hate His servants - because the truth is too hot to handle.
If you would send along a preacher who would not tell them of their sins they would hear him gladly; but when the truth of the gospel comes with power then men can't bear it (or they sure don't want to hear it!) When the gospel message tramps upon a rascals' vice, sin or iniquity, it is then that they become obstinate, and refuse to believe.
We could probably triple our church attendance and have people standing in the overflow section of the sanctuary and have tons of folks believing the gospel even more, if they were allowed to live in their sins as well. Think about it! How many drunken reprobates would be a "christian" if they could live peaceably with their sin.  How many thieves, how many philanderers, liars, schemers or arsonists would come to church if they could believe and yet retain their sins.
There is just one huge problem. Faith and sin can never stand side by side; or righteous together with unrighteousness. The gospel would cry, "down with it," "down with it," and the man of guilt would say "not so, down with the gospel."  For the sinner, it is too hot to handle so it's easier to turn aside from it.
No one in his right mind wouldn't say there is a "pleasure" to sin. Hebrews 11:25 says that Moses chose to suffer affliction with the children of Israel, rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. You got that last word, right? "Season", like summer, winter, etc. Seasons don't stay forever, they soon turn into something else. Just like the "pleasure of sin" for a season.  Before long the pleasure turns into pain, hurt, then destruction, ugliness, anhilation, etc.
The scripture reads this way, "Except you be converted and become as little children, you can in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven." The sinner says, "I will not be converted then; I am not going to be a child, I am a man, and a man I will be. I would rather be a lost man than a saved child.  What? Am I to surrender my judgement, and sit down tacitly to believe in God's Word?"
And so in his arrogance and pride, he says, "I will not".  Like Satan, he declares it would be better to go to hell and "be with his friends" than to serve in heaven. Thus he goes away an unbeliever, because it is just too humbling a thing to give in to God; too humbling to say, "I surrender myself".
 Our church has started, "In Just 40 Days",  a time of humbling, seeking and allowing God to work deeper things in our lives.  How about if in the next 40 days church, we pray some of these rascals in.

Hidden source of visible Damage - Pt 3

  There is a misery that goes with secret sin.  It is a master with unequaled cruelty and never-lessening demands.  Its name is "misery".
Think about it reader, the sinner who makes a profession of religion, and yet lives in iniquity, is the most miserable. A person who is a drunkard in the world is not ashamed of his sin. He doesn't even call it a sin. He will be forever miserable when he is called before God, but here in this world, he feels that he has his "happy hour". 
A foul-mouthed rebel who cusses and swears up a storm, says, "thats the way I am". He's not ashamed of it and doesn't even try to hide what he is. He's not really miserable he is just downright ignorant, crude and base.
But the professing Christian, the one who God has called out from his darkness, the man who claims to walk with God, who is united to a church, who hangs out with God's people and fellowships with them, but then lives in sin, what a miserable existence he must have! 
It reminds me of the voles in our garden. They stay hid most of the time, eating up our fruits and veggies, but every once in a while they have to come out from their cover, only to quickly run back into hidding. Men (or women) who have hidden sin are like that as well. They run out now and then, hard pressed by their desire; but then, concern and great fear of being discovered, pulls them back. It is a miserable situation for them.  They are never sure they have not been seen. One day driven like the slave they have become, they wonder out with cunning and secrecy and manage to conceal and hide their problem; but the next day something else comes, and they live in constant fear, telling lie after lie, to make the last lie appear truthful, adding deception to deception, in order that they may not be discovered.
It is a terrible thing for the church when we have men who accompish things in the "Big house". You want to celebrate their work with a great big, 'that a boy', then you recognize (or find out about) their secret works and recoil with pain. It adds great hurt and causes great stress for the sheep and the church when we have to live life constantly on guard for the person who requires two faces in order to get by.
If you get to a point in your life where you are serving God with less than "all your heart",  then don't pretend to serve him with all your heart. 'No man can serve two masters". Don't do it. Don't even try to do it, because life will be forever miserable.
Above all, beware of commitments, actions, conversations, places, people or things that you do that you will find it necessary to conceal.
There is a great poem written by Thomas Hood called 'The Dream of Eugene Aram,' you gotta read this poem it is an amazing work on the topic we have been discussing.

Hidden Source of Visible Damage Pt 2

Before I continue, I have to admit that I know nothing of identifing a pretender.  In all my years of ministry, I can recognize damage and hurt a whole lot better than I can identify a pretender.  My experience is that by the time you learn someone is "living life out in the open in a Christian way", yet they are involved in "secret sins while the doors are closed", usually you've already been stung.

Pretenders are generally pretty normal people who conduct outwardly upright lives. I have found them to be congenial, generous, easy to have trust in and socially well-adjusted.  But they indulge in some sin which the eye of man has not yet detected. It would definetely change our opinion, our acceptance, our confidence and trust in them (the Penn State Jerry Sandusky type comes to mind). On the outside you think they have their 'A' game on but behind closed doors they're dealing with some lust or vice that has totally seduced them. 

So, pretender, whatever it is, I want to say this to you. You are a fool for this one reason: your sin is not a secret, it is known, and it will one day be revealed; maybe very soon. But be aware that it probably won't be revealed till Satan is sure that it will cause the most irreparable damage possible to you and anyone around you, especially those you love.

Please know that your sin is not a secret for three very powerful reasons: 1) because Satan and his cohorts know and see it, they are the ones who have seduced you and drawn you deeper into a pleasureable dellusion; 2) you know it and feel its power over you 3) The eye of God, whose face you are sinning before, has seen it.

There is no secret chamber where you can hide. There is no dark cellar where you can conceal the damage done to your body,soul and spirit. If you were to dig a hole as deep as hell, there is not enough earth on this globe to cover your sin. If you were to lay it on the gound and cover it with a mountain, those mountains would tell the tale of what is buried underneath it. Cast that sin into the sea and a thousand babbling waves would tell the secret out. There is no hiding it from God.

This world that we live in is like the glass beehive we see when we go to Trax Farms; the bees and all they are doing is visible and revealed to those watching.  You can look right in and see the bees doing their wonderful honey making process the same way our lives are transparent to God who sees our good and our evils.

It is a for-certain-fact that our eyes are weak. We cannot, as human beings, see into the darkness. We cannot see things that are unknown to us, but God's eyes can penetrate the blackness and read the thoughts of man. He sees those acts when we think ourself most concealed.

You may be saying within yourself, "Nobody knows". Well I am here to tell you that God's eyes are now looking through those concealing clouds and is even now starring right at you. Neither our visible acts or our secret innermost thoughts hidden from God. He knows them as well.

Pretender, get that hidden sin removed.  The blood of Jesus Christ was shed to set you free from all sins, overt and covert.

Part 3 of 5 next week..."The Misery of Secret Sin"