As he steps into my office I cannot help noticing the stylish cut of his suit, his monogrammed shirt and his expensive shoes. He is a man familiar with success, well respected by both his family and colleagues. But neither his designer clothes nor his pseudo-confidence can totally mask the misery eating at his soul.

 

He is a friend of mine and a good man, a respected leader in his church, a husband and a father. Yet this is only part of the story. He has another side, a dark side. Like so many others he is a man with a secret life. His foray into sin’s clandestine world started innocently enough with stopping off for coffee at a nearby convenience store. One morning he browsed through the pornographic magazine on the counter while drinking his coffee. He then purchased one, then another.

 

From magazines he progressed to X-rated videos and adult theaters, and finally he secured the services of a prostitute. Of course, this erosion didn’t happen overnight. It took place over several months and with each step he told himself he would go no further, but he seemed powerless to stop.

 

Soon he was living in a self-made hell. There were moments of lustful pleasure to be sure, but they were followed by hours of shame, days and weeks of regret. Yet even in his shame he was irresistibly drawn toward the very thing he hated.

 

“I can’t concentrate on anything without making plans for my next ‘fix,’” he confessed to me. A 15-minute trip to the neighborhood drugstore turns into a two-hour trip across town to the adult theater.

 

Guilt and fear torment him. What if someone sees him? What if his wife finds out or someone from church? Even if his double life is never exposed, he knows what he has become and that knowledge is nearly more than he can bear. “It is a terrible thing,” he says, “to know that you are not the godly man your family and friends think you are.”

 

He wants out, but something seems to drive him. Too late he has discovered the truth in the saying: “Lust is a consuming itch that is impossible to scratch. More is never enough!” Even his desperate prayers now seem powerless against the relentless sin.

 

This man is not an isolated case. Studies suggest that more than half of American mid-life males live with at least one secret somewhere in their past. Like my friend, these men are convinced of the catastrophic consequences should their secret be discovered.

 

The man who is trapped in secret sin bears a great burden. His heart hurts. He despises himself. Shame makes him sick of soul, and he has little or no energy. Fear eats at his belly. Depression can dog his days. He feels trapped and is tempted to run away, but there is no place to go, no place where he can escape himself.

 

King David describes the inner turmoil he experience the year he tried to keep his adulterous affair with Bathsheba a secret: “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your [God’s] hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.” (Ps. 32:3-4).

 

And again he confesses, “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear… I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart” (Ps. 38:4, 6-8).

 

There is only one way to end the torment, only one way to escape sin’s prison of pain: Renounce your sins and embrace God’s forgiveness.

 

God has forgiven your sin by faith in Christ, but experience teaches us that secret sin can seldom be overcome unless we also confess it to another person. Sin flourishes in the dark, it thrives in secret. But it withers and dies in the Light of Christ, and through confession to a fellow believer.

 

If a man continues living a double life, God will expose the sin. Even then His intent is mercy rather than judgment.

 

When Nathan the prophet finally confronted King David about his sinful affair with Bathsheba, it was both painfully humbling and wonderfully liberating. It was humbling because David’s sin became public knowledge. He could no longer pretend to be something he was not. Yet it was also liberating because he could now throw himself on the mercies of God.

 

Hear him as he worships the Lord and celebrates his deliverance: “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’—and you forgave the guilt of my sin” (Ps. 32:5)

 

David’s sorrow was turned into joy. “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit” (Ps. 32:1-2).

 

Remember, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy” (Prov. 23:13)

 

By Richard Exley, a popular author and speaker from Tulsa, Okla.