Nothing is hidden from God
God is very concerned about our thoughts, intentions,
motivations, desires, and attitudes. If you are interested in
pleasing God, then you must begin by paying close attention to
these things, and by asking God to help you rectify them where
necessary. This is why David said earnestly in Psalm 19:14, "may
the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be
acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." He
recognized the central importance of thinking thoughts that are
pleasing to God, who knows all things and who sees into the very
depths of our inner beings. "Let my meditation be pleasing to
Him," he says in Psalm 104:34. We should be very careful about
what we meditate upon, and about what considerations lie behind
our words, actions, and deeds.
God hates hypocrisy. That is, He despises it when we think
evil thoughts while pretending to be good. God is not nearly as
interested in our actions as He is interested in why we perform
those actions. Jesus said to the Pharisees in Luke 16:15, "you
justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your
hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable
in the sight of God." Words and actions that look good outwardly
are detestable to God if they proceed from evil motivations. And
our inner thoughts cannot be hidden from God. It says in I
Chronicles 28:9 that "the Lord searches all hearts, and
understands every intent of the thoughts." And, of course, the
entire 139th Psalm is devoted to this topic. "O Lord, Thou hast
searched me and known me," David says. "Thou dost know when I
sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thought from
afar. Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down, and art
intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a
word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, Thou dost know it all." Then,
a little later, in verses 7 and 8, he says, "where can I go from
Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend
to heaven, Thou art there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold,
Thou art there."
David knew that there was no way to escape from God's
knowledge of his thoughts and intentions. Because he knew this,
he earnestly entreated Him to help him to think thoughts and to
be driven by motivations that were pleasing to Him. This is what
he means when he says in verses 23 and 24, "search me, O God, and
know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if
there by any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting
way." He is not saying, "I know that my heart is right. Search
it and see for yourself." Rather, he is asking the Lord to
reveal to him whether there is any wickedness within him, so
that, if there is, he can, with God's help, deal with it and
rectify it.
David knew full well that his thought life was crucial to
his standing before God, and that if he had evil thoughts and
intentions, that he was subject to God's wrath. He was well
aware of what Moses had written in Genesis 6:5 and 6, about the
reason that God had judged the whole earth by means of a flood in
the days of Noah He had said that "the Lord saw that the
wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the
Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and He was
grieved in His heart." Here we see that the whole reason that
God was sorry that He had created mankind was that the thoughts
and intents of all men were constantly evil, and that they
meditated continually upon wickedness. They probably delighted
in plotting against one another, asking themselves, "how can I
get even with my enemies," or, "how can I seduce so and so," or,
"how can I arrange my life so that I can become rich, even if it
means doing so at the expense of others, or of society," or, "how
can I gain greater power, influence, and authority over my
contemporaries?" Sounds a little bit like our own day, doesn't
it? You can be sure that God is not pleased with thoughts of
this nature, and that they will provoke His judgment. If you
have mediated upon questions of this nature, ask God with all of
your heart to help you to rid yourself of them and replace them
with preoccupations that are pleasing to Him, such as, "how can I
help my enemies," or "how can I be a blessing to others, even if
it means living simply for the rest of my life?"
You can be sure that your thoughts, whether evil or good,
will eventually blossom forth into deeds. It is interesting
that, both in Revelation 2:23 and in Jeremiah 17:10, God says
that He searches the minds and the hearts of men, and that He
will give unto each man according to his deeds. Our thoughts and
our actions are so closely related that God is able to judge us
on the basis of our deeds, even though it is our thoughts that
concern Him.
Many people think that if they do something evil in secret,
that nobody will know the difference. Nothing can be further
from the truth. In Numbers 32:23 it says very plainly that if
you sin against the Lord, you can be sure that your sin will find
you out. The converse is also true. If you do good out of good
motivations, this will eventually become unmistakably clear to
everyone. You can be quite sure that the good deeds that you
have done out of a pure heart will also find you out. It says in
Revelation 14:13, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from
now on, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds
follow with them." Their deeds follow with them. In other
words, the good that they have done with altruistic motivations
flow with them past the grave into eternity. They will become
known to all perpetually.
Nothing can be concealed when it comes to the deeds that we
have done and the motivations that were behind them. We read in
I Timothy 5:24 and 25, that "the sins of some men are quite
evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins
follow after. Likewise, also, deeds that are good are quite
evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed."
In fact, it is because of this very principle that Jesus
tells us in Matthew 10:26 that we don't have to fear our
persecutors for the very reason that "there is nothing covered
that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. He
goes on, in Luke 12:2,3 to say, "accordingly, whatever you have
said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and whatever you
have whispered in the inner rooms shall be proclaimed upon the
housetops." If we are to save ourselves from profound
embarrassment, we must conduct ourselves realizing these truths,
moment by moment.
You have nothing to worry about if you walk in integrity,
but if you don't, watch out! As Solomon said n Proverbs 10:9,
"He who walks in integrity walks securely, but he who perverts
his ways will be found out."
Do you remember how the sins of Achan found him out in the
seventh chapter of Joshua? He thought he could get away with
hiding some of the spoils of the conquest of Jericho, in direct
disobedience to the command of the Lord. Even though he was one
of several hundred thousand men, he was not able to get away with
it, and he had to be stoned, or executed, for His disobedience.
This story has a direct parallel in the New Testament. Luke
records in Acts, chapter 5, verses 1 through 11, that Ananias and
Sapphira wanted to look good, but they weren't willing to pay the
price. They wanted to be respected and honored as was Joseph the
Levite, who had owned a tract of land, but sold it, bringing all
of the money from the proceeds and laying it at the apostles'
feet. But when Ananias and Sapphira did this, they secretly held
back some of the proceeds, yet they wanted everyone to view them
as totally self-sacrificing, giving of all of their substance to
the work of the Lord sacrificially, just as Joseph the Levite had
done. Because Ananias and Sapphira engaged in deceptiveness in
their bid for honor and respect, their sin found them out, and
God sovereignly struck them dead.
I believe that this was necessary, because God cannot
tolerate sin, and His presence could not have continued with the
early church if Ananias and Sapphira had gotten away with this
even for a short season. The power of the early church would
have been circumvented if it had lost its purity. Hypocrisy has
a leavening effect, and if it had been allowed to remain in the
infant Church, it would have spread rapidly, destroying its
ability to function as a witness to God's holiness and power.
In the parallel story of Achan, because there was sin in the
camp, thirty-six people died, as we see in Joshua 7, verse 5. In
other words, if we allow sin amongst ourselves, then we are
subject to God's judgment. If Ananias and Sapphira had not been
stricken immediately, then the entire infant Church may have
become guilty of allowing sin to remain within its midst.
Perhaps this is why, in A.D. 55, more than twenty years
later, the Christians in Corinth were beginning to have problems.
Paul wrote to them and said, in I Corinthians 11:30, "For this
reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But
if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged." Why
were many of them becoming weak and sick, and dying? If there is
sin among the members of the Body of Christ, then healing is
impeded, and those who are already susceptible to sickness worsen
and die, even if they themselves are innocent. Paul's complaint
was that, at the communion table, people were not discerning the
body of Christ rightly. In the body of Christ, there is neither
rich nor poor, slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female.
Paul complained that the Corinthians had divisions among them,
probably due to distinctions that they were making amongst
themselves on the basis of money and class. Because of this,
when they were meeting together, they were not truly eating the
Lord's Supper, but they were eating and drinking condemnation
unto themselves. The rich were looking down upon the poor.
Therefore, as we come to the Lord's Table later today, let us not look down on one another because we are rich or poor, black or caucasian, male, or female. Rather, let all of us, in our hearts, consider all of the others to be higher than ourselves, that we may please the One who knows our hearts, and who knows us better and more intimately than we know ourselves. This we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Richard M. Riss
Union Bible Church, Old Bridge, N.J., July 5, 1992