Judgment, including every secret thing

“For God will bring ever y deed into judgment, including every secret thing” (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

Most everyone enjoys a good spy thriller, which always involves a secret agent—someone who seems to work for one nation but in reality works for another. In 2010, in Vienna, Austria, Russia and the USA exchanged fourteen secret agents. Even the Bible relates how the Lord said to Moses, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan...” (Numbers 13). A secret agent is just that, someone who secretly works for someone else.

Most always, a secret agent is someone you least expect. One summer evening, a small, country church was holding its weekly, Sunday evening worship service. The country church had no air conditioning as we have today, so all the large windows were open to the breeze. One man, the scoundrel of the town, decided to play a trick on the congregation. He put on a devil’s costume, snuck up outside, and as the congregation was listening to the sermon, he leapt up on a windowsill and let out a loud, scary scream.

Everyone in the church fled out the door except for one, very elderly lady. She looked up at “the devil” and said, “Mr. Devil, I’ve been a member of this church for 85 years. I’ve held every position from nursery attendant to president of the ladies aide society. I’m here every Sunday and Wednesday and I say my prayers every day. But I just want you to know— I’ve been on your side all the time!”

Deepak Chopra, in his book The Third Jesus, shares a poignant story from a friend who had long ago lapsed from the Anglican Church. When he recently returned to London, his trip coincided with Easter. The friend said, “Maybe it was nostalgia, but I was pulled to attend services at St. Paul’s Cathedral. I picked what is known as a singing service because the music is inspiring, and the pomp has a moving kind of splendor, all crushed velvet robes and gold brocade for miles.”

Chopra asked, “Did the service fulfill your expectations?”

“No, but for a strange reason,” the friend said. “The cathedral was full of tourists, the sermon was amplifi ed over a loud microphone, and the presiding bishop droned on as if he couldn’t be more bored. Right beside me a man in shabby clothes knelt on the cold marble floor for the entire hour. He prayed with his hands clasped, and he knew every line of the responses and prayers. I remembered I used to be that way. It was one of the most profound things in my life to kneel in a great cathedral flooded with light.”

Chopra again asked, “What stopped you from doing what that man was doing?”

“That’s the thing” the friend answered. “I was so tempted to fall on my knees, but he was the only one doing it, and several tourists were quietly taking his picture with their cell phones. I lost my nerve.”

Are we just as secretly self-conscious in our hours of worship before God, or are we God-conscious? How do we immerse ourselves or participate— as someone enjoying a spectacle or as a solitary penitent before Christ?

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells of a man who went to the temple to pray. He would not even look up, but beat his breast saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Jesus says that this man went down to his house justified. “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing.”