Satan is slick. He is also a liar and deceiver. He promises something He can never give. Fulfillment and contentment. He can never deliver on these things because they only come through Jesus. No amount of sexcapades can ever give people what they are looking for. There might be passion and the short term gratification of such quests but it will never last. Sex was meant between a husband and a wife. No sexual encounter will satisfy. There will have to be more and more. I am thinking of a little line I heard years ago. "Sin will take you further than you ever wanted to go and cost you more than you ever wanted to pay."
How can people sit in worship and sings songs of the faith and talk vilely, crudely and profanely when they get outside. The fact that this kind of talk is flaunted out in the open from professing believers disturbs me deeply. Hypocrisy abounds while holiness seems nearly extinct.
There are scores of people living out that sad reality right now. One thought turned into an action. The action turned into sin. The sin turned into bondage. The bondage became hypocrisy. The hypocrisy took over as people think they actually live both lifestyles without being found out. O how Satan deceives.
That is the part that sickens me so deeply right now. People who live one foot in the church and one foot in the world and they think they are getting away with it. They convince themselves they are actually fooling everyone around them. IN ACTUALITY THEY ARE FOOLING NOBODY BUT THEMSELVES. People see right through them.
Hypocrites make a mockery of everything Jesus died for. Some of the hardest teachings Jesus ever gave was on the subject of hypocrisy. Matthew 23:1-13 (ESV)
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,
2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat,
3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long,
6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues
7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.
8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.
9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.
10 Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.
11 The greatest among you shall be your servant.
12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
Matthew 23:15-36 (ESV)
15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’
17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?
18 And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’
19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.
21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it.
22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,
30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’
31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.
32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.
33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,
35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Look at the names Jesus used. Hypocrites. Blind guides. Blind fools. Blind men. Serpents. Brood of vipers. Harsh words from a loving Savior and a RIGHTEOUS JUDGE. The word hypocrite means to act or to pretend under false pretenses. What is the point. If people want to live like a pagan throwing their souls after sin with reckless abandon then do so wholeheartedly knowing their will be a day of reckoning. Each will give an account before the judgement seat of Christ. How few consider this when embracing sin and shunning Jesus.
If you are going to live for Jesus get all in. To hell with this pretending to love and follow Jesus knowing full well it is an act. Worship is an act. Attending a small group is an act. It is all a show God abhors and sees right through. Does it not disturb that a day of reckoning is coming. People you and I know living in blatant hypocrisy will stand before holy God and have to give an account. If we are the hypocrites the same truth applies to us. What a dreadful day. A horrifying day. A great and terrible day.
Why do so few preachers preach on this? Why do so few Christians call out hypocritical brothers and sisters? Why don't lost people call out hypocrites for living a double life? Where is church discipline when people know the hypocrite as no desire to repent and they harm the witness of the rest of the church body? Are we content to duck our hands in the sand and pretend like we can't see and hear the hypocrites play acting and pretending.
My stomach churns just thinking about this at nauseam. How do you speak the truth in love but not wimp out on speaking the truth? Nobody loved more than Jesus and yet Matthew 23 is one of the hardest hitting chapters in the whole Bible.
I am not calling for a witch hunt. We had better see to the logs in our own eyes before we go looking for splinters in our brother's and sister's eyes. It is time to hold one another accountable. In light of eternity people need to repent immediately while they still have time. Put away sin. It is way past time for judgment to begin at the house of God.
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