REFLECT upon the recent disclosure of evidences in the impeachment trial. Records that were once believed to be fully confidential – from the BIR’s tax records, the SEC’s business interests, the bank’s numerous accounts, AMLC reports, manager’s check issuance to hide wealth, and more – were exposed openly for all to know and understand the strong intent to steal and deceive. The case is for unexplained wealth, inaccuracies in SALN and failure to divest from business interests. But what comes as a bombshell is when the court decided to favor an unexpected expectation – the entire impeachment case must now depend only on this ground, while excluding the rest.
But let us not cite the legal merits, only the much greater truth above these legal realities.
No Secret That Cannot Be Uncovered
One absolute, indomitable promise in the Bible is that the divine standard cannot be mocked (Gal. 6:7). This truth carries a direct consequence to its violators. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”. That is a divine verdict from the Creator that cannot be violated by its creation. The timeline of consequence may not be immediate, but it can NEVER be denied.
No secret can be hidden for good for God never sleeps, is always at work, and orchestrates all of life. The divine mandate ensures that your wrongdoings will finally find you out. The holy scripture plainly said there is no exception to this.
There is a self-destructive boundary to one’s greed, one’s lies, one’s crime. There is a divine truth in the adage, “you cannot have your cake and eat it too”. Only two realities: either you eat your cake, or you keep it in full. You cannot have it both ways. Either you secretly stole and expect not to be accountable of anything. The latter does not add up to reality but only to a theft’s fantasy.
When a person acts to cover up his shenanigans, heaven and time will always have a way to catch up to reveal its intricate details of lies, the motivations of its intentions and the other crimes that hides this abuse. Criminals can enjoy their loot, but only for a while, and then comes the reckoning, the shaming of the guilty, and the sure permanent consequences of their deeds.
If some people think they can outwit God, may heaven have mercy on them.
The Supremacy of Divine Providence
The reality that “your sin will find you out” is a truth enshrined since the beginning of time, and cannot be denied by our postmodern era, culture and political cults and realities. The scripture notes that God is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), hence, what God calls as dark evil lies and deeds, man has no power to reverse and whitewash it clean.
There is a biblical story we all can relate. Jacob had twelve sons and the youngest Joseph is the envy of all. They hated him so much that they conspired to sell him as a slave in Egypt. Then they deceived their father showing Joseph’s bloodied garment and told their father Joseph was killed by wild animals (Gen 37:32). So Jacob deeply grieved.
In doing this to their father, the brothers committed an act of deceit against their own father Jacob, and interestingly, that act of deceit was similar to an act of deceit Jacob had also committed earlier against his own father Isaac. Jacob had worn hairy goat skins and Esau’s garments so that his father Isaac could not recognize him and, in the process, stole the recognition and blessing due to his brother Esau (27:23). Jacob stole what is not his, and in return what he values most was also finally stolen from him.
This sinful act by Jacob’s children brought this sin back on Jacob’s head as his sons did to him what he had done before to his own father. Sin always has a way to catch up with its wrongdoers.
The golden rule reverberates: Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you.
In His providence, God always brings about situations to reveal what and who we really are. There is a sure time of reckoning for everything. But a person’s comeback story may yet start after what he will do after God have revealed all of a person’s criminal wrongdoings.
If a man confesses and acknowledges his misdeeds, hope beckons. But if a heart continually hardens, so the consequence will swiftly come to demonstrate that God truly cannot be mocked./PN
