Numbers 32:23 But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out. I. Inquire WHAT IT IS TO BE FOUND OUT BY SIN. The expression is singular as well as striking, and means to be overtaken by convictions; to be alarmed, and brought under a sense of condemnation and danger, on account of sin. A man may be said to be thus found out when he feels the awful consequences of sin in his conscience, when his peace is disturbed by the recollection of his iniquities, when he feels the fatal sting of them in his soul. When a man's sins find him out, convictions fasten as a worm upon his mind; and conscience, though before unheeded, or perhaps silenced and kept down by numberless worldly cares and pleasures, rises up, as it were, with renewed vigour and tormenting energy, and at length forces the sinner, with wretched Ahab, to exclaim, "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" The sinner is made alive to the evil of sin. The effects of sin, as they frequently overtake the sinner in this world, are generally serious and painful; but, considered in a more extended view, as reaching through eternity, and as having to do with our everlasting doom in the world of spirits, they must be unutterably awful. They are not only ruinous to a man's present peace, and injurious to the body, but pernicious, fearfully pernicious, to the soul. Oh, let us think of our sins while we are privileged to hear the sound of a Redeemer's name! Let us implore forgiveness while mercy exhibits to our view the atoning blood of the Cross! II. THE CERTAINTY OF THIS FINDING OUT. III. TO ILLUSTRATE THE TEXT, BY ADVERTING TO THE TIMES AND OCCASIONS WHEN MEN ARE USUALLY FOUND OUT BY SIN. 1. Sin is sometimes made suddenly to overtake and find out the sinner by an unexpected stroke of Providence. One circumstance often calls up another to remembrance, or discovers events with which it is connected, involving crimes and guilt which have been long buried in concealment, and long time escaped detection. How singular and striking the case of the brethren of Joseph! 2. Sin finds men out at the time of conversion. 3. That sin fails not to find out the sinner, if not sooner, at least in the day of adversity, sickness, and death. (J. Jacques, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out. |
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