By: Obed Pineda
“For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.” (1st John 3:20)
Its Sunday morning and you are already in your seat as worship promptly begins. You are curiously intrigued by the title of that morning’s lesson and ponder as to what it may be focusing on. You have read the Scripture assigned to the subject and meditate as to what the connection may be. Finally, the speaker appears behind the podium, ready to commence his lesson and you listen more attentively than usual because your curiosity has been heightened by the enigmatic title. However, as he teaches you to realize what the focus of his lesson is and a sudden mixture of a cold and hot sensation begins to travel through your body. You instinctively turn to your loved one nearest you (perhaps a parent, a sibling, or a significant other) and pose the silent question with your eyes, “Did you tell him something? How does he know?” The response is subtle shaking of the head, denying any ill-doing on their behalf. What began for you as a promising lesson, suddenly becomes a nightmare that seemingly does not end quickly enough. Throughout his entire sermon, your guilty shame makes you feel like a huge spotlight has been pointed at you directly, exposing your deeds to the world. Your initial thoughts are laced with indignation and anger because who is he to judge you. Yet, when you arrive to the conclusion that indeed there is no way possible he personally knows about what is shaming you during his sermon, you understand then that his lesson was not tailored specifically for you. Once you have accepted that what he is imparting from behind that pulpit is unbiased and true to God’s word, you come to empathize with Asaph as he penned, “Thus my heart was grieved, and I was vexed in my mind. I was so foolish and ignorant; I was like a beast before You” (Psalm 73:21-22, emphasis added). The illustration portrayed in this composition is one that we have all experienced either recently or at some point in our past. The embarrassment that converts for us a cold room hot, is a direct result from the exposure of our sin. David relates as he proclaimed, “There is no soundness in my flesh, because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are foul and festering because of my foolishness” (Psalm 38:3-5, emphasis added). Still, it is fascinating to wonder how a man who has no idea about our foolish deeds done in the dark, could expose them out openly into the light as if he were aware? The answer is that the power is not in the man speaking, but in the Word, he is speaking from. This irrefutable reality is verified by the Lord as He told His disciples that those who were going to crucify Him would be inexcusable of their sins for, “if I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause’” (John 15:22-25, emphasis added). This knowledge imparted by our Master in the upper room reveals the resplendently bright luminosity God’s Sacred Word has. The primary reason the Bible has this outstanding ability to expose man’s deepest secrets is that it is undeniably inspired by the Omniscient and Omnipresent God. Once more, King David expressed, “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted will all my ways…Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there” (Psalm 139:1-3, 7-8 emphasis added). His beautiful poetic description of God’s omniscience and omnipresence was seared in David’s mind by the prophet Nathan’s revelation, “You are the man” (2nd Samuel 12:1-7). After Jehovah God’s prophet had astutely shown David the extent of his sin and disclosed that the parable was about him, the Lord declared through His prophet, “Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun” (2nd Samuel 12:11-12, emphasis added). Thus, having heard his secret exposed by the lips of Nathan the prophet, David understood that there was nothing man could hide from the Divine eyes. Nevertheless, it is important to make note of the king’s reaction toward the servant of the Lord. Holy Writ heralds, “So David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord’” (2nd Samuel 12:13a). Although it was Nathan who was notifying the king about the discovery of his sin, David accepted that it was Jehovah who was speaking against him; not Nathan. The pressure of the guilt that he had kept at bay within his heart, erupted the dam of his remorse and allowed him to sincerely seek forgiveness from the Lord. Instead of having the common reaction of “killing the messenger,” the king after God’s own heart confesses that, “when I kept silent my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:3-5, emphasis added). It must be understood that the purpose for the Bible to be world’s greatest spotlight is not to mock or jeer our shameful actions, but to remind us that “the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:17, emphasis added). His inspired Word shines its holy light on our minds to separate us from the path of death, and to reflect for us the path of life. Therefore, those who speak from Scriptures are walking as children of light and are “finding out what is acceptable to the Lord” striving to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them…all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light” (Ephesians 5:10-11, 13 emphasis added). So, the next time the preacher makes us shift uncomfortably in our seats and experience an inward mixture of hot and cold, let us be grateful that our moral conscience still works and imitate the king’s humble repentance for verily he assures us, “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart – these, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17, emphasis added).