Numbers 32

Found Out

Be sure your sin will find you out. Numbers 32:23.

Boys and girls, the text this morning is one which most of you have heard at least once, and many of you have heard much more often than once. And whether you have heard it once or often, I am pretty certain you particularly dislike it. I am not going to repeat it to you now, but you will find it in the last half of the twenty-third verse of the thirty-second chapter of Numbers.

I shall not repeat it, but all the same I am going to talk about it; for though it is perhaps not a favorite, it is one of the truest sayings in the world. Kings and queens know how true it is, and so do humble men and women.

Long ago the educated Greeks were so awed by this belief that they imagined that when a great crime was committed the birds and beasts, and even the earth and sea, became conscious of it, and banded themselves together to track the evildoer and force him to confess his sin.

That was a strange idea, but there was a spice of truth in it. For nothing in this world can be really hid. We safely bury our naughty deed like a little seed in a dark hole of the earth. We poke it well down and cover it up carefully, and go away trying to forget it and hoping we are done with it for ever. But we forget that every little seed has the power of growing into a plant, and one day we shall be faced by the plant that has sprung from that naughty buried deed. Perhaps when we see that plant we shall not recognize it as the fruit of our hidden sin, but it will be that and nothing else.

Shall I tell you what your crop will be if you bury a number of little lies, several mean deeds, and many evil thoughts? You may never notice it yourself, especially in its first stages, but your friends will realize it. The fruits of these little lies and these mean deeds and these evil thoughts will appear where? On your own face. They will look out of your face for all the world to see. And the world will say, “I can't trust that fellow: he doesn't look honest!” or “Beware of that girl! She has meanness written all over her.” Your sins will have found you out.

Now there is one hopeful thing about all this. It is that when we have done wrong, when we have buried our sin and tried to forget it, we can ' t forget it. Buried though it is, it keeps reminding us it is there; and if we have any conscience at all, we are thoroughly miserable and unhappy. That is our one hope. Shall I explain why by telling you a story?

A man who was in a position of trust took a considerable sum of money which was not his own. He began without having the slightest intention of stealing. He just took a little to tide him over a difficulty, intending to replace it. Finding himself unable to do this, he took a little more to cover the first default, and so went on until he was driven to live a life of fraud and deception. But he never knew a moment's peace: he lived a haunted life. At last the time came when he was discovered. He confessed before the court, and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. But, strange to say, with his confession the terror lifted. He felt he could pray, he came to himself and to his Heavenly Father. Being found out was his salvation. The very law which broke his heart raised him up to seek God.

And that is the way to do with your sins to confess them, to dig them up if they are buried; better still, never to bury them, but to take them straight to God and ask Him to help you to do what is right in the way of undoing them. He will not fail you. He will give you the necessary courage. And He will take the sins you have brought to Him and will destroy for ever their power to harm you, to find you out.