We have been using our present car for the past twelve years and we have not had a single puncture. Four months ago when we were returning home one night, the car started to drag and we knew there was a puncture. My husband parked the car by the roadside and phoned a driver. He arranged for a man to come and help. When he came we did not know where the jack was or the tool- box. We searched all over and couldn’t find. We phoned our helper and he told us where they were. The mechanic took off the flat tyre. That done, he took the spare tyre. And what do you think he found? It was equally flat!
Why were we in such a mess? Because we least bothered about over-hauling. When we were in trouble we were ill-equipped to tackle it. Let it not happen in our spiritual life. We need spiritual over-hauling every year. As we start the year, let us examine ourselves, cleanse ourselves and start the year with fresh breeze.
Hypocrisy is a sin all of us have allowed to soil us. Behaving naturally has become almost impossible in this world. We have learned to be crooked to counteract the crooked. Hypocrisy means acting. Most of us excel cine actors. We must erase this sin of acting from the many aspects of our life. A study of this sin will enable us to dig deep and uproot it. Let’s see who a hypocrite is.
1. One who wants to show off
“Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them.
If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do…. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites…...look somber as the hypocrites do…..” (Mt 6:1,2,5,16). “...for a show make lengthy prayers...” (Lk 20:47).
The hypocrites in Jesus’ time were trying to impress people with their acts of charity, long flowery prayers and open fasting. They craved the appreciation of people. Jesus called them frauds. A lawyer’s inner intention in questioning Jesus was to show himself righteous (Lk 10:29). “Everything they do is done for men to see” (Mt 23:5).
If we compare our private prayer to our public prayer, we will know how hypocritical we are. Alone in our bedroom, when we kneel down, we yawn, sleep, gather wool and keep our mobile by our side. But when asked to pray in a gathering we become very smart. We plan our words, use flowery language; we really pray and plead quoting Bible promises, pour our hearts out and even shed a few tears. When people say our prayer was touching (do we keep waiting to hear that?) we are elated. When someone blabbers don’t we say, “Please come to the point”? How much more our Father.
We must be ‘Christians’ before our Father who sees us in secret. Jesus said, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts” (Lk 16:15). “What will others think?” is our frequent expression. Sometimes we cannot help people seeing us giving or praying or fasting. It is the attitude that matters. Don’t do, “to be seen by men to be honored” (Mt 6:2).
2. One with a holier-than-thou attitude
“You hypocrite, just take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Mt 7:5).
The wrongs that we do are –
1. We pay no attention to the plank in our eye, an obvious sin in our life. We know it, others point it, yet we just thrust it aside.
2. We judge others for their small sins. We are gentle with ourselves and harsh on others. We don’t have to be perfect to counsel others but there should be no spiritual defect in us. 3. We judge without seeing clearly. The plank blocks our vision. With a big sin in us, our judging capacity is dulled. We cannot see clear enough to help others. 4. We act. We know we have the sin, yet behave holy, holy, giving the impression to others that we are a holy person of God. We are arrogant and do not humble ourselves to confess, repent or seek help. If we can do that, our sight will improve and we can help others (Mt 7: 3-5).
The teachers of the law and Pharisees said they would never murder prophets like their forefathers had done, but they killed Jesus and the apostles. We think if we had been in the Garden of Eden, we never would have eaten the fruit. But how obedient are we to the Bible today? We are just like Eve (Mt 23:29-36). To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Lk 18:19).
3. One who neglects inward purity
“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men” (Mt 15:7-9). “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (Mt 23:23-28).
For these hypocrites, tradition was Bible. They broke the commandment of God by not honoring their parents yet giving their support money as offering to God. Yet they criticized the disciples for not washing their hand. They worshipped God but their heart was somewhere else. They were like white washed tombs which looked beautiful outside but inside were rotting flesh and maggots. “Inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” said Jesus (Mt 23:28).
Our mind is full of trying to be good before others. Do we try to be good before God? David prayed, “Search me oh God, and know my heart”. Is that our constant prayer? We succeed most often in showing ourselves good. That’s what Jesus charged – clean outside, whitewashed tombs. What’s inside? Greed – wanting more and more – more money, more comforts, more clothes, more houses, more this, more that – when all our need is a six-foot grave. What else is inside? Self-indulgence – sex, food, clothes, jewels, whatever we fancy. Let us practise self-denial.
Once we clean our insides, we don’t need special efforts to be clean outside.
4. One who does not practise what he preaches
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in man’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are” (Mt 23:13-15). About the teachers of the law and Pharisees, Jesus said, “They do not practise what they preach” (Mt 23:1).
What was Jesus trying to tell those frauds? Their lives were roadblocks to God’s kingdom. If we are not practising what we preach, we are hypocrites. We are a hindrance to others to come into God’s kingdom. We make our
converts a replica of ourselves and make them follow our evil ways.
5. One who neglects the basics
“Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dil and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Mt 23:23, 24).
We tithe to the paise of our income from the office and the field. But we have neglected the absolute basics – justice, compassion and loyalty. We should tithe, good. But that’s not all. We must be just. Our tithe does not cover our sins of omission. We give too much importance to insignificant things but neglect major spiritual exercises. Both are important. If we neglect the basics, we are blind guides.
Jesus vehemently came against the synagogue ruler, calling him hypocrite because they untied their cattle to take them to water yet could not tolerate the healing of a back-bent woman on a Sabbath (Lk 13: 15,16).
6. One who acts
“He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 24:51).
Who is this hypocrite? The Supervisor. The master obviously trusts this man and puts him in charge of the food distribution for workers. The master goes off and his return is not known. It is a very simple job and he had to be faithful in what he was assigned. If the master finds him so, he will be promoted to manager level.
But if that servant is wicked – mind you – the one the master thinks is a faithful man – he faces punishment. He has been all along wicked inside. In the presence of the master he was acting faithful. In the master’s absence his true colour comes out.
He violates all principles of leadership. He abuses his sub- ordinates and instead of serving, eats and drinks with similar such indulgent people. He will be caught unawares and sent to hell as a hypocrite. The place assigned for hypocrites is clear here. In other words hypocrisy is cheating. Are you cheating your Parents? Spouse? Boss? Or anyone else? and acting sweetly before them?
Another example is Peter. “The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray” (Gal 2:13). Before some came Peter and others were eating with the Gentiles. When they came they separated themselves from the Gentiles. When we stand for the truth we should stand like Paul and Martin Luther. We should not be backboneless. God had revealed to Peter the equality of Gentiles and he could have stood by it. How often we also double-act!
The Pharisees plotted a way to trap Jesus into saying something damaging. So they flattered Him first and then asked, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus knowing their evil intent said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap Me?” (Mt 22:18). We must learn to be straightforward. Often we hide our poison under our honey tongue.
7. On who is careless about the Second Coming
“Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky. How is it that you don’t know to interpret this present time?” (Lk 12:56).
He is a hypocrite who talks about the imminent return of Christ but lives as if He is not coming. How are we different from other people? Just like others we are also eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage. Then how should we be? Jesus gives the answer. “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap….. Be always on the watch and pray that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (Lk 21:34- 36). So we do the same things but we should never cross over to excess in anything that will make us scatterbrains and dullheads to be keenly aware of the Second Coming any moment.
8. One whose teaching is false
“Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Lk 12:1)
One thing is clear, God detests yeast. In the Old Testament, we read in many places that people were instructed to eat or bring offering without yeast. One reason is the pernicious nature of the yeast to multiply very fast and get into the surrounding affecting the others too. Jesus warned His disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees which was their teaching (Mt 16:12; Mk 8:15).
The solution is to be grounded in solid teaching of the Bible, sitting under the tutelage of balanced Bible teachers (or Study Bibles).
Deception comes under this heading. “The Spirit clearly says that in latter times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (I Tim 4:1-2).
When you have the word of God in your hand and yet teach contrary to it, you are deceived and you deceive! “Rid yourselves of all hypocrisy” (I Pet 2:1).
Dr. Lilian Stanley
13 Church Colony
Vellore 632006, India
+91 9843511943
lilianstanley@gmail.com
Blessing Youth Mission
13 Church Colony
Vellore 632006, India
+91-416-2242943, +91-416-2248943
hq@bymonline.org
www.bymonline.org
Click here for more options
To buy books written by Dr. Lilian Stanley, kindly reach to us in the follwing address
Blessing Literature Centre
21/11 West Coovam River Road,
Chintadripet,
Chennai 600 002, India.
+91-44-28450411, 8806270699
blc@bymonline.org
We have been using our present car for the past twelve years and we have not had a single puncture. Four months ago when we were returning home one night, the car started to drag and we knew there was a puncture. My husband parked the car by the roadside and phoned a driver. He arranged for a man to come and help. When he came we did not know where the jack was or the tool- box. We searched all over and couldn’t find. We phoned our helper and he told us where they were. The mechanic took off the flat tyre. That done, he took the spare tyre. And what do you think he found? It was equally flat!
Why were we in such a mess? Because we least bothered about over-hauling. When we were in trouble we were ill-equipped to tackle it. Let it not happen in our spiritual life. We need spiritual over-hauling every year. As we start the year, let us examine ourselves, cleanse ourselves and start the year with fresh breeze.
Hypocrisy is a sin all of us have allowed to soil us. Behaving naturally has become almost impossible in this world. We have learned to be crooked to counteract the crooked. Hypocrisy means acting. Most of us excel cine actors. We must erase this sin of acting from the many aspects of our life. A study of this sin will enable us to dig deep and uproot it. Let’s see who a hypocrite is.
1. One who wants to show off
“Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them.
If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do…. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites…...look somber as the hypocrites do…..” (Mt 6:1,2,5,16). “...for a show make lengthy prayers...” (Lk 20:47).
The hypocrites in Jesus’ time were trying to impress people with their acts of charity, long flowery prayers and open fasting. They craved the appreciation of people. Jesus called them frauds. A lawyer’s inner intention in questioning Jesus was to show himself righteous (Lk 10:29). “Everything they do is done for men to see” (Mt 23:5).
If we compare our private prayer to our public prayer, we will know how hypocritical we are. Alone in our bedroom, when we kneel down, we yawn, sleep, gather wool and keep our mobile by our side. But when asked to pray in a gathering we become very smart. We plan our words, use flowery language; we really pray and plead quoting Bible promises, pour our hearts out and even shed a few tears. When people say our prayer was touching (do we keep waiting to hear that?) we are elated. When someone blabbers don’t we say, “Please come to the point”? How much more our Father.
We must be ‘Christians’ before our Father who sees us in secret. Jesus said, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts” (Lk 16:15). “What will others think?” is our frequent expression. Sometimes we cannot help people seeing us giving or praying or fasting. It is the attitude that matters. Don’t do, “to be seen by men to be honored” (Mt 6:2).
2. One with a holier-than-thou attitude
“You hypocrite, just take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Mt 7:5).
The wrongs that we do are –
1. We pay no attention to the plank in our eye, an obvious sin in our life. We know it, others point it, yet we just thrust it aside.
2. We judge others for their small sins. We are gentle with ourselves and harsh on others. We don’t have to be perfect to counsel others but there should be no spiritual defect in us. 3. We judge without seeing clearly. The plank blocks our vision. With a big sin in us, our judging capacity is dulled. We cannot see clear enough to help others. 4. We act. We know we have the sin, yet behave holy, holy, giving the impression to others that we are a holy person of God. We are arrogant and do not humble ourselves to confess, repent or seek help. If we can do that, our sight will improve and we can help others (Mt 7: 3-5).
The teachers of the law and Pharisees said they would never murder prophets like their forefathers had done, but they killed Jesus and the apostles. We think if we had been in the Garden of Eden, we never would have eaten the fruit. But how obedient are we to the Bible today? We are just like Eve (Mt 23:29-36). To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Lk 18:19).
3. One who neglects inward purity
“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men” (Mt 15:7-9). “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (Mt 23:23-28).
For these hypocrites, tradition was Bible. They broke the commandment of God by not honoring their parents yet giving their support money as offering to God. Yet they criticized the disciples for not washing their hand. They worshipped God but their heart was somewhere else. They were like white washed tombs which looked beautiful outside but inside were rotting flesh and maggots. “Inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” said Jesus (Mt 23:28).
Our mind is full of trying to be good before others. Do we try to be good before God? David prayed, “Search me oh God, and know my heart”. Is that our constant prayer? We succeed most often in showing ourselves good. That’s what Jesus charged – clean outside, whitewashed tombs. What’s inside? Greed – wanting more and more – more money, more comforts, more clothes, more houses, more this, more that – when all our need is a six-foot grave. What else is inside? Self-indulgence – sex, food, clothes, jewels, whatever we fancy. Let us practise self-denial.
Once we clean our insides, we don’t need special efforts to be clean outside.
4. One who does not practise what he preaches
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in man’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are” (Mt 23:13-15). About the teachers of the law and Pharisees, Jesus said, “They do not practise what they preach” (Mt 23:1).
What was Jesus trying to tell those frauds? Their lives were roadblocks to God’s kingdom. If we are not practising what we preach, we are hypocrites. We are a hindrance to others to come into God’s kingdom. We make our
converts a replica of ourselves and make them follow our evil ways.
5. One who neglects the basics
“Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dil and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Mt 23:23, 24).
We tithe to the paise of our income from the office and the field. But we have neglected the absolute basics – justice, compassion and loyalty. We should tithe, good. But that’s not all. We must be just. Our tithe does not cover our sins of omission. We give too much importance to insignificant things but neglect major spiritual exercises. Both are important. If we neglect the basics, we are blind guides.
Jesus vehemently came against the synagogue ruler, calling him hypocrite because they untied their cattle to take them to water yet could not tolerate the healing of a back-bent woman on a Sabbath (Lk 13: 15,16).
6. One who acts
“He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 24:51).
Who is this hypocrite? The Supervisor. The master obviously trusts this man and puts him in charge of the food distribution for workers. The master goes off and his return is not known. It is a very simple job and he had to be faithful in what he was assigned. If the master finds him so, he will be promoted to manager level.
But if that servant is wicked – mind you – the one the master thinks is a faithful man – he faces punishment. He has been all along wicked inside. In the presence of the master he was acting faithful. In the master’s absence his true colour comes out.
He violates all principles of leadership. He abuses his sub- ordinates and instead of serving, eats and drinks with similar such indulgent people. He will be caught unawares and sent to hell as a hypocrite. The place assigned for hypocrites is clear here. In other words hypocrisy is cheating. Are you cheating your Parents? Spouse? Boss? Or anyone else? and acting sweetly before them?
Another example is Peter. “The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray” (Gal 2:13). Before some came Peter and others were eating with the Gentiles. When they came they separated themselves from the Gentiles. When we stand for the truth we should stand like Paul and Martin Luther. We should not be backboneless. God had revealed to Peter the equality of Gentiles and he could have stood by it. How often we also double-act!
The Pharisees plotted a way to trap Jesus into saying something damaging. So they flattered Him first and then asked, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus knowing their evil intent said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap Me?” (Mt 22:18). We must learn to be straightforward. Often we hide our poison under our honey tongue.
7. On who is careless about the Second Coming
“Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky. How is it that you don’t know to interpret this present time?” (Lk 12:56).
He is a hypocrite who talks about the imminent return of Christ but lives as if He is not coming. How are we different from other people? Just like others we are also eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage. Then how should we be? Jesus gives the answer. “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap….. Be always on the watch and pray that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (Lk 21:34- 36). So we do the same things but we should never cross over to excess in anything that will make us scatterbrains and dullheads to be keenly aware of the Second Coming any moment.
8. One whose teaching is false
“Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Lk 12:1)
One thing is clear, God detests yeast. In the Old Testament, we read in many places that people were instructed to eat or bring offering without yeast. One reason is the pernicious nature of the yeast to multiply very fast and get into the surrounding affecting the others too. Jesus warned His disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees which was their teaching (Mt 16:12; Mk 8:15).
The solution is to be grounded in solid teaching of the Bible, sitting under the tutelage of balanced Bible teachers (or Study Bibles).
Deception comes under this heading. “The Spirit clearly says that in latter times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (I Tim 4:1-2).
When you have the word of God in your hand and yet teach contrary to it, you are deceived and you deceive! “Rid yourselves of all hypocrisy” (I Pet 2:1).
Dr. Lilian Stanley
13 Church Colony
Vellore 632006, India
+91 9843511943
lilianstanley@gmail.com
Blessing Youth Mission
13 Church Colony
Vellore 632006, India
+91-416-2242943, +91-416-2248943
hq@bymonline.org
www.bymonline.org
Click here for more options
To buy books written by Dr. Lilian Stanley, kindly reach to us in the follwing address
Blessing Literature Centre
21/11 West Coovam River Road,
Chintadripet,
Chennai 600 002, India.
+91-44-28450411, Mob:8806270699
blc@bymonline.org
