Sin - Do we expose it or hide it?
We either expose sin by repenting and confessing the sin in our lives or we try to hide it. Exposing, confessing, and repenting leads to eternal life. Hiding sin leads to eternal death because the wages of sin is death. Hiding sin means we live in shame, shame is bondage.
When John the Baptist was preaching people were coming, being baptized, and confessing sin.
Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 3:1-2
Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
Matthew 3:5-9
God tells Jeremiah to tell His people this.
And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has proved herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say,
‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD;
‘I will not look upon you in anger.
For I am gracious,’ declares the LORD;
‘I will not be angry forever.
‘Only acknowledge your iniquity,
That you have transgressed against the LORD your God
And have scattered your favors to the strangers under every green tree,
And you have not obeyed My voice,’ declares the LORD.
‘Return, O faithless sons,’ declares the LORD;
‘For I am a master to you,
And I will take you one from a city and two from a family,
And I will bring you to Zion.’
“Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.
Jeremiah 3:11-15
Acknowledge is the Hebrew word yādaʿ it means to know, learn to know, to perceive and see, find out and discern, distinguish, to know by experience, to recognize, admit, acknowledge, confess, be revealed, to cause to know, to make oneself known.
So God is telling his people to do this, and then He will give them the promises He has for them. If we do not follow God's instructions, no matter how hard and terrifying it may seem, we will not have the promises of peace on this earth and eternal life. Revelation tells us what Judgement Day will look like.
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelation 20:11-15
It says here we will be judged according to our deeds.
Deeds is the Greek word ergon; it means work, task, employment, of an enterprise or undertaking, a deed, action, that which is wrought or made a work.
Now we will look at God's guidelines for exposing sin.
“If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Matthew 18:15-17
1 Corinthians 5 shows us if we don't want to follow these instructions and just ignore the sin, then we are arrogant.
It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But for those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.
1 Corinthians 5:1-13
It comes down to whether we either confess and repent of the sin we have done, or it will be exposed either by the body or by God himself by what is written about you in the books on Judgement Day.
From personal experience, it is hard to always confess sin. What I have found is that when I've tried to hide it, I'm tormented by it, but when I simply ask for help exposing it, then I find freedom. I am no longer in bondage, and no one can find anything against me.
Scripture says there is an accuser of the brothern in Revelation 12:10; it tells us how to overcome him.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
Revelation 12:10-11
We overcome the accuser by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. It doesn't say Jesus' testimony, it says their testimony, this means my testimony and your testimony. This is my testimony of how I learned through the Holy Spirit teaching me how not to practice sin. I then go out and declare what I have seen and heard; this gives me freedom and power to overcome the accuser. If I expose everything shameful, no one can accuse me of anything; it is pointless. They have no power over me.
My testimony is that when I spoke the truth to some people, some of their families got extremely angry with their lives changing. Their family members tried to find anything they could to discredit me, but because I exposed my life to everyone, there was nothing they could find to slander me that was embarrassing or humiliating. The accusers had no power over me.
I encourage everyone to expose the sin in their life from their past, confess it, repent, and then use it as fishing bait to be a fisher of men. Everything will be used for the good of those who trust in Him.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28
When I first asked God to teach me how to fish for people, He told me to be transparent. As I did this, I found that by sharing my past with people, they learn that they can be set free from sin and death. My past life before becoming a new creation is my fishing bait. People hear my story, and it gives them hope that they can be set free. I tell them who I was, and they can see who I am now. I'm a completely different person. This is the power of God working in my life, and I'm free because I followed the word of God, asked for help when I didn’t know what to do, and share with anyone who needs help.