David:     Karen, I’m not sure my observations are accurate, but a topic that’s not preached about all that much is sin.

Karen:     Sin.

David:     Can you recall hearing a sermon about sin recently?

Karen:     Well, I grew up in a church that pretty much covered sin every Sunday morning. This is sort of an adjustment to positive theology.

David:     Maybe people don’t sin as much as they used to and it’s not as relevant.

Karen:     I don’t think that’s the problem.

David:     Well, this time together I would like to talk about a specific category of sins and not to make people feel uncomfortable, but rather to be of help if this sin is one with which they struggle. Sounds, okay?

Karen:     Sounds good.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:     Secret sins. That’s the category to which I was referring. Karen, who are biblical characters you think of when I say secret sins?

Karen:     Well, sort of the big guy is King David. I mean, he was an extraordinary biblical character. A poet and a musician and a warrior, a leader of men, you know, an extraordinary story. I don’t know why there hadn’t been more movies made on the life of David. But he lusted in his heart after someone else’s wife and took her to bed with him. And that caused him all kinds of problems because then he had to get rid of the husband who had come from war, not had conjugal rights with his wife, but she became pregnant. And so, David…

David:     …had to cover that.

Karen:     The husband was killed in battle because David commanded that the troops would withdraw from him in battle and leave him alone. So, well, quite a lot of secret sins going on there.

David:     They profoundly affected his life and eventually the Prophet Nathan had to come and see.

Karen:     Pointed to him.

David:     You’re the guilty party.

Karen:     You’re the guilty party

David:     Totally different type of thing, but I think back in the book of Genesis, Karen, the story of Joseph, a wonderful biblical character, but as a young brother, he was sold by his other brothers as a slave into Egypt. Actually, the brothers had wanted to kill him.

Karen:      They were planning to murder him. Weren’t they the sons of one wife?

David:      Several wives, yeah.

Karen:     Several wives. And this one, this was the youngest son of the father’s favorite wife, but he was also in his old age when this young boy was born. So, you can see how the jealousy lines up there.

David:     But those brothers carried that secret sin in their lives for years.

Karen:     So, they sold him to traveling passerby slave traders. Yeah. Can you imagine what that did to the group dynamic? Wow.

David:     I have one other just observation as we get into this topic, but this is in the book of Acts. Totally different, just tragic response that happened. This is Ananias and Sapphira. Married couple, it was the early church, and these people sold a property and came and gave money from that property to the church, which was kind of common in that time and said they gave everything. In fact, we’re asked about this. First of all, it was the husband. He said, “Yep, we gave the whole thing.” And Ananias no sooner got the words out of his mouth that the Lord struck him dead. I think the scripture says, “While they were taking him out,” pulling him by the feet probably, his wife came in and they asked her the same question and she lied in the very same way. Bam, she was dead. Yeah. So, a secret sin, that had a ramification.

Karen:     So, we’re asking our listeners to kind of go along with us here, any secret sins that they are hiding in their lives.

David:     We’ve been examining ourselves as we put these thoughts together. Nonbiblical names that come to mind related to secret sins.

Karen:     Oh, they’re huge, aren’t they? I mean, our history seems to be filled with secret sins that get acted on, people who commit fraud. You got a specific name?

David:     You know, one of our hobbies is Shakespeare and I’m thinking of the Macbeths.

Karen:     Yeah, the great classic drama where Macbeth…

David:      …murders the king Duncan.

Karen:      Because the witches prophesy that he will be…

David:     …will be great.

Karen:     So, he’s going to think about that the three witches and they’re never portrayed on stage as beautiful, lovely women. He’s look haggard and witch like.

David:     …but they somehow

Karen:     They introduced an idea…

David:     …of what it could be. I think of that scene where Lady Macbeth is walking in her sleep and her conscience is terribly troubled and she says, “Will these hands ever be clean?”

Karen:     Well, she’s trying to wash the blood off of them in her sleep. I mean, it’s an extraordinary…

David:     We’ve seen that play a number of times. You can see the actress ringing her hands. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

Karen:     Yeah. And you wonder how many people in the audience kind of relate to her because of things in their past or their present that are those secret sins and they feel like they’re never going to be clean from it.

David:     Do you think secret sins are a problem still or is that just kind of classic?

Karen:     I think in our morally collapsing generation, we were raised where a person’s word was as bond. If you said yes, you meant yes. If you said no, you meant no. And so that kind of morality, that kind of respect for truthfulness is just not a part of our age. It’s kind of who can get by with the most. So, I would say, yeah, there are lots of people who have lots of secrets.

David:     Let’s not just talk about other people. Let’s get very personal.

Karen:     Oh dear.

David:     Do you identify at all with the term secret sins?

Karen:     I really understand the concept. I think more in the past, partly because of the spiritual disciplines, people have graciously introduced me to or going to scripture and trying to be obedient and then understand why obedience works in those cases, as far as what to do with our sins, the whole process of self-examination. I don’t know how much that is integrated into our everyday lives, but certainly very important. Certainly, a topic that the church needs to be helping people develop self-examination, self-awareness.

David:     Not to make people feel guilty, but to be helpful to them and to free them.

Karen:     To free them from the power of secret sins in their life.

David:     Yeah, in fact, these are the words of the psalmist you referred to before. “When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”

Karen:     Wow. Yeah.

David:     So that’s what we want for people to be able to do.

Karen:     Again, that psalmist was King David, who we talked about as a classic secret sinner.

David:     Well, probably to some degree, all of us are classic secret sinners. Although I believe over a period of time, people like David can confess their sins and find freedom of that.

Sometimes there’s the ramifications that will continue on for a long period of time. That’s unfortunate, but at the same time, there is a freedom that comes from the awareness that God has forgiven you, those secret sins. If I reduce what we’re just wanting to communicate as a freeing process, it would be this simple sentence: secret sins need to be named and confessed. Okay. Secret sins need to be named and confessed. So, if we name our secret sin, I think probably that’s the easier part for people.

Karen:     I’m not sure it’s easy for the novice. I think that what we do is rationalize our secrets. “I was mistreated. And so, I got back in a vengeful way and did something that I’m ashamed of now.” Or “I was raised in an abusive family and so I still had pain from that. And I modulate my pain by drinking too much.” So, it’s that kind of thing rather than…

David:     …excusing it.

Karen:     Excusing it or to explain it away, rather than facing it right on, such as David did in that psalm.

David:      We didn’t have much choice.

Karen:      He was cornered, as we have said before, but that’s often the way the Lord works. He corners us until we really recognize our own errors and take responsibility for them. And then begin to say, “I’m not going to do this anymore and I want to change, God help me change my life.” So there has to be this transformative thinking process that needs to go on.

David:     In that short sentence I gave, I’m going to emphasize the last word because that’s where people really find help.

Karen:     Repeat it again.

David:     Secret sins need to be named and confessed.

Karen:     Okay.

David:     And all that makes sense, except that I’m not sure most people know how to confess to the degree that they feel like they’ve been released from this, they’ve been forgiven.

Karen:     Well, I think when there’s self-awareness, the procedure seems to be, you confess it to yourself, you say, “Oh, wow, I really blew it. I cheated that grocer when they gave me too much money back, $2 more than they should have, and I didn’t take it back, but I have a tendency to try and get away with this sort of stuff.”

So, we say it to ourselves, and then we say, “Okay, you can’t do that anymore, and that’s a lack of character. God will not be pleased with that.” But I think what we’re being taught to do is to, first of all, confess it to God, but probably have an open confession. The rule is this, as long as things are secret, they have power over us. Anything you hide from others that is wrong or ill doing or what would become categorized as sin, if we hide it and keep it secret, it has power over us.

When we take it and bring it into the light, when we name it for what it is, it freezes from the tentacles. It’s like someone has dug their fingernails into your soul. It releases us from the tendency of that thing to have power over us.

So, Scripture gives methodologies whereby we can overcome these hidden sins in our lives. Their past power on us or their present power on us, and that is confession, and that generally, for most of us, is going to have to be open confession.

David:     For the most part, I think people we’re talking to, that probably means going to someone who is trusted and saying, “I can’t seem to find release from this just between myself and the Lord, so I’m asking you to hear me, and I would like for you to pronounce that I have been forgiven because of God’s word.” And that’s usually going to be a minister, Karen, or a priest.

Karen:     Well, it can come in a lot of ways. It depends what’s going on in a person’s life. I mean, a lot of what happens in the psychologist’s office is coming to terms with those things that have gone wrong in our past and then coming to terms with our own error. But that openness is great, but sometimes there isn’t the reminder from those people because they work in a secular field, and some are not faith-based people. But they often have to pronounce the fact that you are forgiven. You need to hear that from another person’s voice very often.

David:     That’s the goal of the minister many times.

Karen:     Let me go back to where this can happen. You can have a small group of people that you have met with monthly for three or four years, and so there’s a trust level and a safety level mixed gender group, or it can be a group of men, a group of women. So, at that point, if you will say to them, “I’ve been being convicted of something that I’ve held in my heart for too long, would you enter and prayer with me and so can I tell you what it is and will you hear my confession?” That’s a holy moment. And then those people will respond.

David:     This is in James in the New Testament says, “…confess your sins to one another”, which is exactly what you’re talking about.

Karen:     And that’s often what happens when one person leads with that kind of vulnerability than others lean forward. Eyes are intently focused on that person who is confessing. And then often people will say, “Well, as long as I add it, there’s something I wish you would pray for me about confession that grows.” It has impact on the group, or it can be between spouses. There are times I say to you, “I was really cranky today. I’m sorry that I got cranky and was overtired.” And you accept that confession from me. And that’s a hugely healing thing. However, the church provides a format and a formula for this. So, you want to name some of those things?

David:     Well, churches have communion services. Sometimes they go by quickly and there’s not the seriousness that there should be. And other times the confession is made very significant in that service, especially if the sermon has been on that topic. And if you preach on that topic, you are almost certain that you are dealing with people on a very intimate level. So, the confession time, say at a communion when you go to the rail and you lean and you say, “Lord, I don’t want to partake of the elements without you first hearing me say that I have been unfaithful in this given area, you do with my words or my actions.”

In fact, those things are already said in the formal confession of the church in many churches. It’s just significant. It’s been against your thought, word and did. I’ve only done what we’ve left undone. And as you say it with a congregation, you’re saying it yourself along with the awareness that God knows exactly what is going on. You can say, “Pastor, I have sinned,’ and that person can pray over you, not even naming it. It may not be that’s the time to name that sin.

It’s also possible, Karen, apart from the formal services of the church, to actually set up an appointment with the minister. Let’s say someone is listening to us and says, “You just haven’t scratched my itch quite yet. A couple more words you can give. I’m not going to go to a high church. I’m not going to go to a liturgical church. I’m a part of the Assembly of God and Methodists.”

Karen:     I just find a worthy spiritual leader and just say, “I have this thing that’s been haunting me and I need to tell it to someone and I need as scripture is moving me to do to confess that. And will you listen to me do that and pray for me?” There isn’t anyone I know who has spiritual depth who wouldn’t avail themselves to do that. Even sometimes just good friends, David.

David:     And even some that’s very fair and I’m very much a churchman. Even going to the church, no one’s there. You just go up and you kneel at the rail. And if someone comes in, you take it as providence and you say, “I’m here because I’ve sinned and I’m just asking for forgiveness.” And if the person says, “Can I help you?” You say, “Yeah, just put your arm on me. I may pray out loud. I may not pray out loud, but just be here with me.”

It’s taking those steps. You will know whether you are released because God has heard you. And either the person will speak it to you, if you have that need or God will speak to you and say, “You are forgiven. I love you. You know, go and sin no more.” That great word from Jesus to the woman taken for adultery.

Karen:     That’s such an extraordinary story and many of our listeners may not be biblically literate. So, in this highly sensitized, feminized conversation that we’re having in these modern days, a group of men, hypocrites probably.

David:     Probably some of them religious men.

Karen:     Yeah, had brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. The Old Testament law, they would stone her. And anyone who has watched video, there’s a modern stoning of people will know how horrific an act that was. So, they brought her to this young, rising Jewish rabbi, Jesus.

David:     They ask him, this is what the law says, “Should we stone her?”

Karen:     Putting him on the spot.

David:     And the story is so beautiful. Jesus doesn’t respond to them right away, but he just starts to write with his finger in the ground. Probably dusty. And my guess is that he writes the name of someone in the group, plus that person’s secret sin. Then another, and it says one by one, they began to leave because they’re dealing with someone who knows them intimately now. And finally, they’re all gone. And then what does he say to the woman?

Karen:     He looks at her and says, “Does no one condemn you?” “No one, Lord.” And what does he say?

David:     He says, “Neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more.”

Karen:     Ah, it’s just an extraordinary, extraordinary story.

David:     I have found in my own life, that’s how Jesus is. He basically is very gentle and gracious. “I understand. I’m not condemning you anymore. You’re forgiven. I’ll go and sin no more.”

Karen:     So, what we want people to hear as they’re wrestling with a secret sin is the fact that when they go to God, and some of this is going in tears and agony and saying, “I have sinned against you, and I have sinned against my fellow humans. And this is the name of my sin. Will you please forgive me?” Then what they need to do is listen in their inner selves. Remember, hear those words that Jesus spoke to that woman, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

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