The Latent Power of Sin

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. (Proverbs 9:17)

Sin gets its controlling power from its concealment. That is how the devil is able to run hordes of people who otherwise should be belonging to Christ.

Before I get to examples let us look at the life of David.

That he was anointed and sold out to God is not in question.

Like I always say, It is possible Bathsheba set him up for that fling.

That however does not mean I excuse or absolve him. Even God did not confront Bathsheba since David was the man in charge of the drama irrespective of the underlying circumstances.

Now suppose with me that he had immediately allowed remorse to lead him to repentance. What could have happened?

He could have called Uriah and confessed the sin. Or probably called a priest and confessed so that the priest could then wisely ‘handle’ Uriah. Then he would have compensated him for interfering with his marriage long before the pregnancy complicates things.

Uriah would then have two options. He could divorce his wife or forgive her.

But imagine how ‘shameful’ humbling himself before his junior soldier would appear! I believe that is what the devil suggested with glee to David.

That is why he tried a cover up. Uriah must be made to have sex with his wife to cover up for the fact that she became pregnant in his absence. Remember he even made him drunk when he became stubborn?

But God in His grace does not allow for that cover up. He still wants David to repent.

But repentance is shameful and the devil continues whispering since he was given an ear.

That is why the person who could feel guilty for cutting the edge of Saul’s cloak could plan the cold blooded murder of a loyal soldier to conceal his sin.

But that was not enough.

My observation over the years is that those random flings produce exact copies of the fathers.

That is why he decides that after murdering her husband he must then take her as his wife to cover up the initial sin. Then if the child resembles him few people would reason beyond the appearance.

But he ultimately has to face God. Like Adam before him he must face up to the fact that he had sinned against God.

But at what cost?

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. (Psalm 32: 3, 4)

Imagine the collateral damage on him and everybody else that was the product of concealing that single sin!

And David is not the only one.

Imagine what could have happened had Adam admitted to sinning instead of hiding and looking for excuses?

Again look at Achan in Joshua 7.

He took what was forbidden.

But he didn’t use it. In fact he hid it; actually buried it.

Of what use were those items in concealment?

Only to add power to the sin.

You see, it is in fearing the shame our sin releases that we empower it even more. We actually give it wings to soar to greater heights. Sadly it is to our detriment since sin has only one purpose; to destroy us.

Our fear of the shame that sinning threatens to bring opens us to an avalanche of concealment tactics that will continue increasing the power of the hold of sin in our lives.

Yet we will eventually have to face it. And we know that however hard we try to convince our self otherwise.

I am thinking of this recent case of a famed apologist whose sins ‘found him out’ after he died.

Apparently a couple had accused him when he was alive but everybody who knew him defended him so vehemently that the couple was completely demonized for attempting to defame the man of God’s name.

Now the board that had badly maligned a woman for claiming to have been sexually abused has to reach out in humility to her for forgiveness.

And I have been in such a situation when I trashed an accusation of a brother who later proved his accusers right, long after the damage had been done. I also remember being unable to see a full term pregnancy in a sister because my mind couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that she could become pregnant, especially because she ought to have at least told me since we were in fellowship. I do not know her circumstances since she died shortly after childbirth.

Secrecy is the power sin holds over us.

I suspect this sister died thinking that I dismissed her visible pregnancy when I didn’t see it. She probably died thinking that I dismissed her testimony when I had no idea she had had sex, whether she was raped or whatever. She may have expected an explosion of righteous indignation from me, her friend, and was broken when I didn’t confront her because I didn’t see.

Incidentally, the friend I had asked to accompany me to see her wondered whether I was blind not to have seen the pregnancy. It is thus possible that this girl thought things about me that were incorrect just because she assumed I saw her pregnancy.

I therefore understand those board members defending the apologist because I have been there more than once. I suppose I am now wiser from the instances I have burnt my fingers.

Incidentally that is where spiritual abuse operates.

I have written about it under ‘Hibernating Ministers’ where a ministry leader completely destroys a brother’s life or testimony and the whole congregation sees no need of verifying the facts because the leader is a god of sorts and so simply can’t falsely accuse anybody.

I was given some church board meeting minutes discussing me and some presenting completely false facts about me for no reason. And the same people are very respectable spiritual leaders.

No wonder God told me to let them be instead of challenging them since doing so would have accomplished nothing and going to court is scripturally wrong. In any case it was a clear case of someone choosing to openly lie and so was aware that he was sinning.

Again I have met people who have been destroyed by spiritual leaders so badly with no opening for seeking redress for the same reason.

Anyway, we were looking at sin and the concealment of the same. I have diverted to let us appreciate the fact that the board members are like us. They trusted that minister so much that they could not imagine him doing what he was being accused of. They could not imagine he could hide a sin so grievous from them. I believe it must have been the same with David. Chances are that even Nathan must have struggled handling that truth due to knowing the king for so long.

Such kind of trust is the reason spiritual abuse and exploitation is so rife. It is human to take advantage when people place unquestionable trust in your person whether it is in the ministry or the way we see with popular politicians.

But did sin disqualify David’s past dealings with God? Did the sin trash his former psalms?

That the sin was a blot on his testimony is not in doubt. In fact that is what makes his past more valid, only that it is in his repentance that it finds glory.

Sin does not make a minister a fraud. It just makes him human who has let go of God, the same God who had made him what he was and the same God with the capacity to restore him to what He had made him, and even better.

Too many words, it appears. But it is important to realize that sin does not nullify the work of God in a person who was at one time sold out to Him.

But sin weakens the delivery of a minister, something those in fellowship with him and God can ‘feel’.

I have read some believers say that they sensed something amiss in the delivery of the apologist though I do not know whether it can be related with his sin.

I also remember wondering why a very popular preacher (I won’t say who) would teach very solid stuff and why such stuff was ‘impotent’ to effect change. Until much later when I found out that he headed a pyramid scheme of sorts. Then I understood.

I also remember a friend whose sermons changed almost as if from the flip of a switch that I later came to know was caused by a gift.

Incidentally, even from a point of compromise or sin God is still able to use them to deliver His message.

Remember Balaam? His greed led him into going against God and His revelation to the point that he became lead counselor at bringing down Israel. Yet do you realize how accurate his prophecies were? And we know he was killed with God’s enemies in rebellion without repenting.

I have written about that in a post ‘Useful Rejects’ on the blog. But the truth of the fact is that God uses us because we are available. And that is why it is important to internalize Philippians 1: 15 – 18.

The apologist was serving God irrespective of his spiritual condition. His delivery was, and I believe, is as potent as it was before we knew of his sin.

Again suppose God lifts a veil over our thoughts and exposes them to others? I do not want to go into actions because God starts His judgment in the heart. Who would gladly allow us to be an example to them? Who would swear to the fact that we could never do something we are accused of?

Yet God does not disqualify us from ministering to Him.

Other ministries and partners have started to trash, disown and deregister him from their forums. And the guy is dead and so has no way of knowing or feeling the impact of your actions.

Why do we not use the standard we would love to be applied on us? And why throw kicks at a dead horse?

I am not excusing his sin. Those who know me know that I am unflinching when it comes to judging sin.

But sin does not negate grace. We should therefore be thinking restoration as we deal with sin in leadership; and everywhere else for that matter. We should be thinking healing.

He has left a family that is devastated by the revelation. How could the family know what the board never suspected? They therefore need our love and prayers and a lot of support.

But the thrust of this post is that concealing sin is the most dangerous thing a believer, and more so a leader can do because not only does it give the devil an upper hand in killing our spiritual lives, it gives him the time to build on a narrative as the accuser of the brethren to trash our confession and Christian life.

It therefore means that the earlier we confess our sins, the faster we can be forgiven and restored and of course receive back our testimony.

We would appear more wounded than those who conceal but we will be better because no contrary narrative exists against us. We also are not scared of the shame of discovery because we revealed our sin ourselves.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1John 1: 7 – 10)

Let us allow God’s grace to override our search for self-esteem through wanting to appear as without sin. Sin will kill us in more ways than physical.