The other day my three-year-old grandson was overheard telling his older brother not to tell mommy something. It’s clear that we don’t have to teach children to sin. At age three or 93, it comes quite naturally to all of us. Sadly, our tendency after sinning is not to repent because we have displeased our divine adoptive Father, it is to add another offense by trying to cover it up. Only God can judge the motives of the heart, but it seems that often there is a greater degree of premeditation involved in the coverup than there is in the original sin. Consider the scene in the Garden of Eden. Shortly after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit they attempted to cover it up—Adam blamed Eve and she, in turn, blamed the serpent. Neither took responsibility for their actions.
Coverups serve to support the claim of Romans 1:18-20 that the unrighteous suppress the truth, and that they will be without excuse because “what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” People cover up sin because in their hearts they know it is wrong and they know there is a God that will hold them accountable. For this reason even the most hardened hearts perpetrating the most serious sins seek to hide their actions.
One such heartbreaking account is found in 2 Kings 17:7-18. It begins with a description that the people chose to forget that God had saved them from a life of slavery and opted to pledge their allegiance to false gods that God had driven out of the land. Then verse 9 reads, “And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.”
The natural course of sin is to lead to more sin. James 1:15 says, “Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” This progression is on full display in the account of the idolators in 2 Kings 17. After abandoning God and committing their hearts to idol worship, and then trying to keep it a secret, their sin carried them into even greater and more abhorrent sins. They “despised His statutes” and “abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God” which eventually led to them destroying their own children and unashamedly committing demonic acts before God. In this case their sin was, indeed, full grown and brought forth death.
Accounts like these are upsetting, but God has chosen to include them in His word. One reason is to demonstrate that, while this particular result is extraordinary, the course that unrestrained sin takes is quite ordinary. It’s downright predictable. Sin leads to more sin with the ultimate target of death.
As believers we know that we continue to sin until we are in glory, but there is no cause for fear. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The child of God will persevere in the faith and God will sanctify us along the way. He will remove the stain of sin every single time we truly repent of it. We are wise, however, to reflect on the decisively wicked disposition of sin. It is lunging toward death.
Here is the point. When we sin we are immediately faced with an opportunity. We can scramble to find a way to try to hide (suppress) the truth or we can repent and enjoy the immediate blessing of a promise-keeping God that forgives.
“Let us then not be ashamed to confess our sins unto the Lord. There is indeed shame when each makes known his sins, but that shame, as it were, ploughs his land, removes the ever-recurring brambles, prunes the thorns, and gives life to the fruits that he believed were dead.” -Ambrose of Milan