Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
– Proverbs 28:13
That is such an important proverb. Let me make sure you heard it. I’m just going to read it one more time:
Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper.
In other words, whoever hides his sin and doesn’t confess it to God and to others will not prosper. You will not experience success, or prosperity in your life if you hide, or conceal your sin before God and others. And then here’s the contrast, “but he who confesses and forsakes them,” who confesses sin to God and to others and turns from that sin, “will obtain mercy,” will experience the goodness and grace. Of God. So do you want to prosper? Do you want to experience the goodness of God in your life? Then don’t hide sin in your life.
Proverbs 28:13 calls us to be quick to confess our sins.
Be quick to confess sin to God, first and foremost, to immediately go to God. And it’s utter foolishness, isn’t it? To try to hide sin from God. He’s omniscient. He knows everything. He sees everything. So be quick to confess sin before him, knowing he sees it and knows it, and he loves you. He has made a way for you to be forgiven of it. You don’t have to be afraid to confess sin before God.
Go to him with sin, and then heed the words of James in the Bible, “Confess your sins to one another that you may be healed.” We need each other not for forgiveness before God, but we need each other in our fight against sin in our lives. We need others who pray for us, who encourage us in our struggles with sin and help us forsake them, help us turn from that sin.
So I would just ask the question, are you hiding sin in your life right now? Is there any sin that you have not, are not confessing to God, and confessing to somebody else, sharing with somebody else? And I want to encourage you, based on this proverb today, to hear God’s saying to you, “Stop concealing it.” Bring it into the open before him. And don’t just move on with your day. Bring your sin into the open before God and before somebody else. Share with somebody you can trust.
Proverbs 28:13 is calling toward deeper grace.
And in the process of confessing and forsaking that sin, obtain mercy and experience true prosperity in your life. All of this is made possible by the gospel of Jesus, the good news of the God who loves you enough that he gave His son to die on the cross for that sin. Oh God, please help us not to conceal transgressions.
God, we know that sin thrives in secret. So God, we pray, help us not to be foolish and to try to conceal or hide our sins from you. And God, help us to be honest with others about sin struggles in our lives so that they might help us forsake them. God, we pray that you’d help us to confess sin quickly, humbly, honestly, and consistently before you, and to forsake sin, to turn from it as we confess it to you and confess it to others to turn from it.
And God, we trust that, as we do, we will obtain mercy. We will experience your forgiveness, your goodness, your grace. We will experience prosperity in you. Oh God, we praise you for this Word to help us to obey it, to put it into practice. And God, help us to share this news that you will freely forgive any one of their sin who turns from their sin and trusts in Jesus.
Prayer for the Tseku People
God, help us to share this gospel with somebody today. We pray this gospel would flow from our lips today. And God, we pray that this gospel, this good news, would spread around the world. We pray specifically today for the Tseku people of China and Nepal who live high in the Himalayan mountains. This people group of 20,000 has no knowledge of the forgiveness that’s found in you. God, we pray that the gospel of forgiveness, of freedom from sin would spread to the Tseku people of China and Nepal and Bhutan, that they might experience mercy in you according to Proverbs 28:13. In Jesus’ name, we pray all these things, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
