Can You Keep A Secret?

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Can you keep a secret?

In God’s world there are lots of mysteries, but few secrets. A mystery is defined as: something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain. A secret is something not known or seen or not meant to be known or seen by others. There is a lot that we can’t explain about God. There are some things that He doesn’t mean us to know. With our usual insatiable need to control everything, even information, we try hard to explain the unexplainable and to dig up and reveal the secrets of the Almighty.

We often hear phrases like: “I have no secrets” or “My life is an open book.” But everyone has something he doesn’t want anyone to know about. There is at least one incident in my life that I will go to my grave without revealing (don’t ask because I won’t tell!). We often keep secrets in order to prevent others from being hurt. Sometimes we keep secrets so that we won’t be hurt. Unhappily there are secrets we keep that cover up evil in our lives that we don’t want anyone to know about.

And it is about this latter problem that John comments in John 3:19-21. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds are evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

Jesus knew that He and His message would be rejected. Allowing Him access to our lives means giving Him permission to turn the searchlight of truth and righteousness on our tendency to hoard to ourselves the blackness of sin, those secret things that are no secret to Him. Those living in Jesus’ day didn’t like to be exposed anymore than we do.

The shame of being exposed for what we are bothers us. Jesus said that we had to come to Him as children—with openness and honesty (Matthew 18:3) if we ever expected to inherit the kingdom. Pride keeps us huddled in the darkness, as far away from the light as we can get.

Sometimes we simply love the sin too much to let it go. Once again we huddle in the darkness clutching our bag of stink, woefully unaware that its decay and disease will ultimately kill us.

People around us might not notice the dark corners of our lives. But God sees and knows everything. Jesus warns His followers that they would encounter difficult times of persecution—the result of the darkness in other people's lives. They would even be tortured and killed. They would be brought up before judges. He told them not to worry about what they would need to say because the Spirit would instruct them. He encouraged them by telling them that the truth would come out no matter how many lies lay on top of it. “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftops” (Matthew 10:26, 27).

Man tries to hide what he does because he knows, or at least senses, that he is not doing what is right. God tells His servants to be bold to speak what He tells them because truth will not shrink before the light.

Truth keeps no secrets. Like a rooster at dawn, it crows.