Proverbs 28:13,  He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

God is in the sin cleansing business!

God is not in the sin covering business.

He is the only one that knows how to cleanse from sin.

It has not been given to man to cleanse his own sin.

It is outside the realm of possibility for man to cleanse his own sin.

He is incapable of cleansing his own sin and he will never know how to cleanse his own sin!

Research into man's psyche will not reveal it to him.

It cannot be done through surgery or psychological or chemical means.

All men have come short in this area and only God knows how to cleanse from sin.

When God cleanses man's sin he does it in free unbounded grace and with complete success.

When man attempts to cover his sin he does it in shame and in hypocrisy and the result is poverty of soul.

Since man cannot cleanse his sin he can only deal with sin in two ways. This proverb describes the results of those two ways.

He can attempt to cover it up and hide it from himself and others or he can bring it out in the open and admit that he sins and that he needs help.

One way results in poverty and is totally unprofitable and the other way results in mercy and great profit.

One result is due to man's natural desire to cloak his sin, to disguise his sin, and the other way is due to God's ability to cleanse sin.

It is not hard to guess which one results in success!

The beginning of this proverb says that,  He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.

Why does man cover his sins?

What is the goal of a man that covers his sins?

What does covering sins accomplish?

To cover something is to hide something. To cover something is to change its appearance. To give an altered image of itself.

An actor is good at this. An actor covers himself in a role that is not his true self.

This is the description of a man that covers his sin. This is a description of a hypocrite.

In the strictest sense an actor is a hypocrite.

Hypocrisy means simulation, a feigning to be what one is not; a concealment of one's own character or motives.

A hypocrite is one who pretends to be someone he is not, especially pretending to be a better person than he really is.

Hypocrite means one who has the form of godliness without the power.

A hypocrite is one who has covered himself with a man-made cloak of righteousness, a cloak that God says is made of nothing but filthy rags.

Since the fall in the Garden of Eden, man has been a hypocrite by nature.

His fallen nature dooms him to this status.

We are even trained to be a hypocrite in our society.

We rear our children to be hypocrites, to be increased in self esteem which is another word for hypocrite.

We are trained to appear to be something that we are not.

If you are not anything just convince yourself to be something that you are not and feel good about what you've convinced yourself you are.

Just self delude yourself!

We are trained to put on an image that is different and perhaps more pleasing than we really are.

We are trained to cover the real us. We want to appear younger, richer, smarter, more handsome, prettier, friendlier, even godly in many circles.

We are trained to cover ourselves with many layers of covering so that if one layer is removed there is another layer which continues to present a distorted and untrue picture of the real person.

Our sin is covered with many masks!

Jesus Christ shined through the sin covering of the Scribes and Pharisees when he said in: Mat 23:27,28, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Hypocrisy was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira.

Paul accused Peter of hypocrisy for refusing to eat with Gentile Christians in Antioch.

Paul warned Timothy about hypocritical false teachers.

Peter included hypocrisy as one of the attitudes Christians should avoid.

New Testament writers stress that sincerity, without hypocrisy, should characterize the Christian.

Christian love, and wisdom should be sincere.

How is this accomplished? What power is available to be sincere.

How can the coverings of sin be removed? God does not leave us without answers to this question.

God does not expect something from us without giving us light to accomplish it.

The remainder of this proverb gives us the light:

but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them (sins) shall have mercy.

Confessing and forsaking equals repentance.

The light that God gives us is repentance!

Simply repent of your sins.

God desires to conform us to his Son who is without sin.

We must confess our sins and forsake our sins and God will do his part.

Repentance is a must if hypocrisy is to be defeated in your life.

Repent and God guarantees that mercy will follow.

Psalm 103:11,12, shows us how God strips us of the covering that we have clothed ourselves in:

Repentance at the New Birth strips the layers of sin covering that we have woven during our lives before Christ.

Repentance, as we sin during our Christian walk, prevents coverings for sin to return.

So! Can we be free from the coverings of sin? We can by repentance!

Why? Because God in his mercy removes our transgressions from us.

As we repent the sins are gone in the mercy of God.

They are not covered, they are not considered because God has forgotten them.

Without repentance, without confession and forsaking of sin, hypocrisy is inevitable in your life and mine.

Keep short accounts of sin and get things right quickly so that sincerity, without hypocrisy, will be your testimony.

Otherwise the load of sin will doom you to be a hypocrite!

"PROVERB PRACTICALS" Article in "The Projector" for Proverbs 28:13, Repentance calls, mercy comes