Transforming the Heart: Overcoming Hypocrisy in Faith

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Hypocrisy is one of the most subtle and terrible sins that can ever afflict us, and we therefore cannot be warned of it too frequently. You remember how frequently our Lord himself warned his own disciples, "Beware," he said, "of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." [00:04:40]

The hypocrite is always on good terms with himself. He's always self-satisfied. He's always pleased with himself, never conscious of any deficiencies. There's never any humility about the hypocrite. You notice how Paul brings it out in his terms: "Behold, thou art called a Jew, and rest in the law." [00:10:14]

The hypocrite is a man who is full of confidence, self-confidence, bounces into a pulpit or onto a platform. Everything's perfect. He doesn't know anything about the fear of the Lord. He has no queries as to his own capacity or as to his own honesty nor anything else. [00:12:00]

The hypocrite never teaches himself. He never applies the truth to himself. He can apply it to others, never to himself at all. It's always outside him. He needs nothing. He's complete, so he never preaches and teaches himself. [00:14:56]

The world judges God and Christianity by what they see in us who are church members. And my dear friends, the blindness at this point is something I cannot understand at all. People seem to think that the masses are outside the Christian church because our evangelistic methods are not what they ought to be. [00:22:32]

The Gentiles obviously were judging God by what they saw in the Jews. They had no personal knowledge of God. They had no direct knowledge of God. But here was a nation that claimed it was God's own people. They are the representatives of God, so the Gentiles judged God by what they saw in the Jews. [00:22:57]

To be a Jew is not primarily a matter of belonging to some external nation. What makes a man a Jew, says Paul, really is not that he belongs to a particular nation. It isn't a matter of national attachment, some external position. What then? Ah, he says, it's an inward state. [00:39:58]

Circumcision is a sign that you belong to him, but it's not the only one. It's an outward sign of something inward, which is still more important. So you see, circumcision verily profiteth if thou keep the law, but if you don't keep the law, you might as well be uncircumcised. [00:36:02]

Nothing avails before God except holiness. Do you remember how the author of the epistle to the Hebrews puts it in chapter 12:14: "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." There it is: follow peace with all men and holiness. [00:42:51]

We must examine ourselves. The Jew never did. They never would. They put up this citadel around them. They said, "We are the Jews. You mustn't talk to us. Go and preach to Gentiles. Don't preach to us." [00:52:41]

The only way to discover it and to avoid it and to escape from it is to examine ourselves, to pay heed to these exhortations. Examine your own selves. Prove your own selves. See whether you're in the faith. That's what Paul says to people like us. [00:54:12]

May God give us honesty and truth in our inward parts, that we may allow the scriptures to search us. And therefore, as we decide at the end of this old year and the beginning of a new one to read more diligently of the word of God, let us make the same resolve to allow it to search us. [00:55:00]

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