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.
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