Your Sin Will Find You Out
If you read the Word of God you can stumble on some remarkable sayings, like this in Numbers 32:23, “But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.” What is this about? If we have sinned against the LORD our sin will find us out. You do not want that to happen. The NT says something alike in the Epistle unto the Galatians, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Before we continue let us consider some facts.
To have one’s sins forgiven of God does not negate these statements. You cannot go on deceive people, ask for forgiveness of God and receive it, and still believe that everyone that you have deceived will treat you in the same way. Your sin will find you out. It will have consequences. Like when David took another man’s wife, he became an adulterer, and later murdered her husband by proxy, all this to cover his own sins and transgressions. God forgave David but Nathan had to give this word from the LORD unto David.
Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die (2 Sam. 12:9–14).
He had despised the commandment of the LORD, and how had he despised the LORD: He had done evil in his sight by killing Uriah and taken his wife. And the consequence would be severe, his sin would find him out: The sword would never stray from his house since he had murdered Uriah by the hands of the Amorites; and because of his adultery with Bathsheba he would be punished in this way: What he did in secret someone would do openly, which his own son Absalom did later, not only laying with his father’s concubines but also rebel against him. Reaping what you sow is not what you think you will reap when you sow it. But the LORD is not finished. David’s sin had also given God’s enemies occasion to blaspheme him, so the son conceived in this adulterous crime would also die. The life of David was changed forever. He was forgiven completely by God; if God had punished him for his sins he would have been given the death penalty, in double. Because adultery and murder was punished by death. The LORD put away his sins but there was a great “nevertheless, howbeit, however,”
Very few take this seriously. To sin is nothing, you can always be forgiven and that is that. Nothing more to speak of. Oh, how many have realized to late that this is not true, the sin will always find you, what you sow you will always reap, because God is never mocked.
Too many have realized that sins they have committed have repercussions years later. When they reap what they have sowed they have no idea why, because church has not taught them; the level of despair this can cause in some men is unbelievable. Oh, you may be punished by the LORD as a true son or daughter, but you may also reap the very ripe fruits of your previous sins. But these are two different things, to be chastened by the Lord is one thing, to reap what you sow another. But this is a true law of God, that you reap what you sow, and that your sin will find you out.
I am not saying that they are always identified as such, I am saying: This is a law of God and you can be sure of that it will affect every man and woman on earth. No one is excepted.
The sin of the twelve spies in Numbers were that they had discouraged the children of Israel, and the punishment was the forty-year (38) wilderness wandering so that every one of these spies except Joshua and Caleb, and the people that had seen the glory of the LORD and all his wonders in delivering them out of Egypt were consumed. Only the children would be allowed to enter into the promised land. Sin has consequences. Your sin will found you out and God is never mocked, what you sow you will also reap. Please, understand this. And especially the real soul-destroying sins of man we must never commit.
You can be sure of that sins that mock God, and drag his holy name in the mud, make his enemy blaspheme him, and sins of fornication, and sins of murder, covetousness, idolatry, drunkenness, and reviling will cause both that the committer does not inherit the kingdom of God and that these soul-destroying sins will find the sinner out, and he will reap every little thing sown in the flesh which is corruption. Oh, let us flee these sins, let us flee unto the Lord that has promised that if we walk, not in the flesh, but in the spirit, we will not “fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).