Walk in the Light (Job 24:13–17)

There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways, and do not stay in its paths. The murderer rises before it is light, that he may kill the poor and needy, and in the night he is like a thief. The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me’; and he veils his face. In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves up; they do not know the light. For deep darkness is morning to all of them; for they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness.
– Job 24:13–17

This is one of the clearest pictures in the Bible of how sin thrives in the dark, and specifically how sin tries to hide. Or better put, we try to hide sin.

Job 24:13–17 shows us how sin grows in darkness.

And as long as it remains hidden, at least we think it’s hidden. It’s in the dark, then it grows. It thrives. So based on these verses, I just want to ask you, do you have any sin that you are trying to hide? Any secret sin in your life that you have not confessed to God and to others who can help you turn from that sin?

We all need open, honest confession before God of sin in our lives. Who are we to think we’re hiding anything from God? He sees it all. He knows it all. It is foolishness, utter foolishness to think that our sin is hidden from God and we need others in our lives to keep us from hidden, secret, dark sin. We need brothers and sisters who we can be honest with in our lives about besetting sins that we struggle with, sins that we’re prone to go toward, that maybe nobody else knows about.

We need people in our lives who see our lives, and in this way, we need to live in the light before God and before others. This doesn’t mean we need to confess our every single sin to every single person around us. But we must be honest for our good. We must be honest with God and with others in our lives in such a way that we do not let sin in any way harbor in our hearts and become comfortable in the dark. It is a dangerous thing to become comfortable with secret sin, with sin in the dark. One of my favorite quotes from John Piper is when he says, “To be caught in secret, sin is a horrible thing. There’s only one thing worse: not to be caught”. So God, I just pray this over every single person listening right now, and I trust that you have ordained these verses and this moment to convict people’s hearts, individual people’s hearts of secret sin, which is no secret before you see it.

Job 24:13–17 encourages us to bring our sin before God and others.

But God, we are all prone to think we can hide things from you or think that if we keep this over here in the dark, that it will stay there and it won’t grow and it won’t have consequences. God, please open our eyes and help us even write now in light of your Word and your Spirit speaking to us to confess anything, everything that we have tried to hide that is lying there in the dark corners of our lives, our minds, our desires, our actions. God, we pray that you would bring it into the light before you. Jesus, we praise you for dying on the cross for our sins so that we don’t have to be afraid to bring it into the light. You see it, you know it, and you tell us you will forgive us for all our sins as we trust in you and your blood. That covers over all our sins.

So God, help us to live in the light. And God, we pray that you would help us today to confess sin, secret sin to someone else who can pray for us and encourage us, and help us turn from that sin. God, help us to be honest before you and others that we might walk in the light, the light of your love for us and the light that you’ve designed for us to live in. God, please deliver us from secret sin and all the lies and all the deception that go with it and all the consequences that come from it.

God, please use your Word right now to do this work in all of our hearts that need this work. Help us God, not to just move on to the next thing, but to respond to how your Word and your Spirit is speaking to us right now. We pray this in Jesus’ name, in the name of the one who died, so that all of our sins could be forgiven through faith in you, the light of the world, and the one who brings light to our lives. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.