YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT

I want to focus on the last part of the verse:

“Be sure your sin will find you out.”

God said this to ancient Israel. And He says it to you too: “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

Make no mistake. You do have sin. Lots of it. Go through your life. There are things you physically did. There are things you said. There are thoughts and attitudes. You are selfish. Perhaps you have hurt others. But most important, your heart is not for God. It is for yourself. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

You may think, “I’m OK. My sin will never find me out. It will go away into the dust of time.” No, it won’t! “Be sure your sin will find you out!” God said it. God is smarter and stronger than you or I. God remembers. So, you had better listen to Him when He says, “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

Just how will your sin find you out? In many ways.

Your sin will find you out in your body. This is especially true if you do obvious, physical sins. Women think they can have sex with many men, and even abortions. But many times, they can’t have children. And they can’t have a lasting relationship – because their lifestyle isn’t set up for that. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

Men think they can get drunk or take drugs. Your sin will find you out in your body. I just went to the funeral of a young man. He drank heavily. His body was an absolute mess. How old was he? Thirty-six! His sin found him out. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

I’m thinking of another man in his early thirties. He used to go to our church. Some of you would know the name if I said it. He was a nice kid. My children played with him and his brother. But he dropped out of church. And he dropped out of life. He smoked marijuana, and he still does. So, he dropped out of school. I think he takes other drugs. He drinks alcohol. Now he is totally wasted, body and mind. He doesn’t do much of anything. My son tried to find him, to speak with him and help him, but he couldn’t find him. How old is this guy? Thirty-two! His sin found him out in his body.

I’m thinking of another man. He went to our church. He witnessed to many people. He was talented. But he dropped out. He moved to San Francisco. He became a homosexual, what they call “gay.” How old is he? He’d be about 65. But he’s dead long ago! His sin found him out.

I knew another “gay” man. He claimed to trust Jesus. He went to church. He stopped his sin. He even got married and had children. But he went back to his sin and they broke up. He was two years older than me. But he died at 67 – of a horrible disease. His sin found him out.

And your sin will find you out in your character. Your personality. What kind of person you are. If you become a Christian and start walking on the righteous path, you will get better! The Bible says, “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). Your choice to trust Jesus and follow Jesus will also find you out. It will help you in your body. It will make you a better person. You will have more good and less evil. You will treat others better. You will have a better attitude. You will be honest. You will be kind. You will have a good reputation. People will like you. All that is good. Is it true? Look at the Christians around you here. You’ll see that it’s true.

But if you hide from Jesus and turn to a life of sin, living on your own without God, that will find you out too, in your character. You will develop an attitude of hiding not just from God, but from challenges, from hard things, and from reality. You may become dishonest. You may learn to lie. I know a man who does that. Since you have a sin nature, that isn’t hard to do. You may avoid hard work and hard study, because you have a habit of not facing up to things. It may even show up in your face. Instead of a clean and honest face, you may have a tricky and unhappy face. You will lose your values, your integrity, and your personal honor. People won’t trust you. Most of them won’t like you. You will have a bad reputation. Yes, your sin will find you out in your character.

And it gets worse and worse. You will get worse and worse. Your life will get worse and worse. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). And the Bible says, “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). That will be you. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

If you have children, your sin will find you out there, too. We’ve all seen so many people who grew up without a father, or a mother. This is terrible for the children. They get messed up and confused on their own. Yet men and women walk away from their marriages all the same. We all know about fathers who drank, or used drugs, or had sex with other women, or even beat their wives. We all know about women who walked away because they had an argument, or they met someone else, or they were bored, or they just felt like it. Horrible! This will hurt the children terribly. They may become bad sinners on their own. Sin is a horrible curse.

If you don’t have children, sin will find you out in your loneliness. When you’re 20 or 25 that isn’t so bad. You can always meet people. By the way, I said “meet.” Social media is never as good as knowing someone in person. Right? But as you get older, you become more and more alone. Friends move on. You move on. You get lonely. If you are divorced, or not married in the first place, you really get lonely. You may not be close to anybody. I knew a man who said to me, “Cagan, I don’t like to get close to people.” He was about 70 years old. That was why he didn’t come to Jesus. He didn’t want to get close. He died without Christ.

Your sin will find you out in your conscience. Your conscience will bother you, unless you burn it to the point where it’s dead. But until then, you will always know in your heart that you ducked away. You hid. You made excuses. But you never faced reality, which means you never faced Jesus. Even if you have money, you will always know that you are a failure as a person. It doesn’t have to be that way. Right after I trusted Jesus, I remember thinking, “I’ve been running away all my life. But I’m not running anymore.” Trusting Jesus was the first “right” thing I did in my whole life. Before that, everything for 23 years was running and hiding.

You can’t hide forever and pretend you’re OK. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

Sin will find you out in your old age. You may not be old now. But I can tell you for sure, you will get there. You can live and die, never knowing what life was all about. You may wonder what it was “for,” and die without finding the answer. You may die frustrated and disappointed. You never found the answer. One song said, “Is that all there is?” The answer was Jesus, and the answer is still Jesus.

You can live lonely, and you can die lonely. When you get old like me, it is wonderful to have friends and family around. Amen! And I hope to die with family and friends around me. But so many people live alone. They have no close friends. They may not have relatives. If they do, those people may live far away. Or they may not care very much, and they leave you alone. Lots of people get depressed in their retirement years. Nothing to do. Nobody to be close to. And they die alone, alone, alone. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

Your sin will find you out after you die. Right away. It’s immediate. To the thief on the cross who trusted Jesus, the Saviour said, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Right away. That day. And Christ also said, “The rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments” (Luke 16:22-23). After he died, the rich man who had no time for God or man was burning in Hell.

And so it will be with you. One minute after you die, one second, you will be burning in the fire of Hell. There is no way out. It is too late to repent. It is too late to change your mind. It is too late to be sorry. It is too late to make a deal. You will be in “the furnace of fire” (Matthew 13:42). I didn’t make up those words. Jesus said that. You will be in the furnace of fire, with no way out. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

And your sin will find you out at the final judgment. You will be dragged out of Hell and brought before the final judgment. The Bible says, “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20:11-12).

The dead will be there, small and great. You will be there. And the Bible says,

“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). The Book of Life is the book of names of everyone who trusted Jesus. Your name is not there, since you have not trusted Jesus. Even if you went to church. Your name is not in the Book of Life. So, you will be thrown into the Lake of Fire. This is called the “second death.” The first death is the death of your body. And this is the second death. How long will it last? Forever and ever. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

But there is one other point. God can forget about your sins, and they will not find you out. The Bible says, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12). Again, God says, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17). And again, God says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

How can God forget about your sins and not judge you for them? If they are paid for! The only person who does that is Jesus. That’s why He died on the Cross, to pay for your sin. He took your sin into His own body. That’s why He shed His Blood, to cover your sin and wash your sin away. If you trust Jesus, your sins are paid for. They are GONE. GONE. GONE. They will never find you, and God will never judge you for them. As Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Why hold back? Why wait? Isn’t it true what I said? It’s just what God said. Why keep hiding and ducking and postponing and making excuses? Isn’t it time for you to trust Jesus? I pray you will trust Him today. Amen.