Don’t be a hypocrite
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2011 · 24 July 2011
Matthew Chapter 6, we're still in the midst of the first sermon of Jesus called the Sermon on the Mount and oh what a tremendous amount we're learning, I find myself with so much truth that can be expanded that you just don't know where to cut it off.
The story is told of an eastern mystic, a pious holy man who used to sit in a prominent place on a busy corner of the street of his city. And every day he would sit there covered with dust and ashes. A passing tourist asked him for permission to take his photograph, to which the holy man replied, "Just a moment please, let me rearrange my ashes."
Well, there's a lot of rearranging of ashes going on in religion. Fixing how we look religiously so other people think better of us. We all want to make a good impression. We want to appear holy and we want to appear pious. And so we play a game and the game is hypocrisy and we're all doing it.
If you read the Bible, you know the Lord seeks real, genuine, authentic devotion of the heart. He is not interested in how you look on the outside and whether you look humble and holy and pious. The Pharisees of Jesus' time emphasized putting on a show. And that's the issue to which Jesus speaks in Matthew 6:1-18.
But it opens up a wider concept for us because we have to understand what God thinks of this in general. Generally speaking, hypocrisy is dealt with in Scripture from the beginning. God taught Israel through Amos 5: 21- 24 where it says, "21I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. 23Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. 24But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
It was not only true in the northern kingdom, it was also true in the southern kingdom: Isaiah 1: 11-18, "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. 12"When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? 13Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations — I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.”
“14Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. 18"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
Why does God say all that? Because their worship did not come from a heart that was sincere, but from a heart that was phony. And until your hearts are made as white and pure as snow, God will have nothing to do with you. Jesus never rebuked any sinner like He rebuked the hypocrites in Matthew 23. He reserved the most blistering language for those who had masked their evil hearts with a facade of piousness.
You know how really hypocritical they were? In Isaiah 65: 5, we can see what they say to others, "Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you." In other words, don't get near me, you might contaminate me. And God says further they are smoke in His nose. Did you ever get smoke in your nose? It is very irritating for non-smokers.
How angry is God because of hypocrisy? Job 15:34 says, "For the company of hypocrites will be barren." Job 8:13 says, "The hope of the hypocrite shall perish." Job 27:8 says, "For what is the hope of the hypocrite when God takes away his soul?" And Job 36:13 says, "But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath." Hypocrites will receive judgment.
Aesop had a fable about a wolf. And the wolf decided he wanted to have a nice fat sheep for his dinner and so the wolf figured out the best way to catch a sheep is to look like one and sneak in among the fold. And so at night when the sheep were taken to the fold, the wolf got on his sheep covering and he stole in among the sheep and he nestled in gently and quietly there at the edge of the sheep waiting until they were all asleep so he could pick the fattest one.
And while he was there so hidden and so secretive about his devices, the shepherd too became hungry and decided he'd make a meal of one of the sheep. And so he went and looked for the fattest one and the fattest of any sheep was the wolf. And so he selected that one and before checking as to what it was, he killed it.
And God will so take the life of the wolf in sheep's clothing. God judges hypocrisy. In Jesus' day the typical religion of the Jews at the time was full of hypocrisy. In Mark 7:6 He answered and said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
And so you know our Lord sees the statement of Isaiah relative to hypocrisy as a prophecy as well as a historical fact. And what is the prophecy? Isaiah said, "They worship me in vain teaching the commandments of men." In other words, they are hypocrites. They have substituted the divine commandments with human traditions.
So there were many hypocrites in the time of Jesus. There were also hypocrites in the church. The church is born in Acts 2 and we meet the first hypocrites in Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira. They lied about giving all the proceeds of a sale to the Lord. They were holding back some of it and in their hypocrisy, and God strikes them dead in front of the whole church.
Did that cure hypocrisy? No, Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:1 that "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons." Hypocrisy is never presented pleasantly in the Bible. It is seen as leaven in Luke 12 that affects that whole loaf. It has a spreading infectious capacity.
It is seen in Matthew 23 as a filthy grave with death, but covered over with a whitewash. It is seen in Luke 11:44 as an overgrown grave so covered with grass that you no longer know it's a grave and so you're defiled by stepping on it. It is seen as a broken container covered over with silver so no one knows the crack that's really there.
It is seen in Matthew 13 as the tares that grow amidst the wheat. It is seen in 2 Peter 2:17 as a well without water. The promise of water is there, but when the bucket is lowered, it's dry and empty. It is seen by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:5 as a cloak to cover sin. It is seen in Matthew 9 like a mourner who mourns at a death only because he's paid to mourn with fake tears.
It is interesting to know that one of the customs among the Jews at a mourning when somebody died was to tear their clothes as a sign of sorrow. The historians say that the Jews became so good at this hypocrisy of sorrow that when they would tear their garments, but they were always sure to tear them on a seam, so they could be easily sewn together for the next mourning.
Hypocrisy is looking as if you are righteous on the outside when you're unrighteous on the inside. That is precisely the word of our Lord here in Matthew 6. Look at it again. "Beware," is the best translation to force us to see the seriousness of this. That your belief is real and the point is to be aware if it is not.
Why? Because there are consequences of hypocrisy. The Sermon on the Mount is designed to present to the Jewish people of that time and to every succeeding generation whoever reads the Bible, the true standard of righteousness.
Jesus is still talking about the same thing, the standards of righteousness here in Matthew 6. But there's a difference. In Matthew 5: 21-48, He was talking about the righteousness, taught by the scribes and Pharisees. Now in Chapter 6, He wants us to see what kind of righteousness is practiced by the scribes and Pharisees.
One is their theology and the other is their living. In Matthew 5, Jesus was saying this is what you teach, but this is what God teaches. Now in Matthew 6 He says, this is how you worship. This is how you live. This is your practice. But God's standard is higher than that.
And so here Jesus is saying when you're doing something whether in verse 2, giving alms, or in verse 5, praying, or in verse 16, fasting, when you practice what you believe, it is hypocritical because you heart is not in it. Your theology is inadequate and so is your practice of religion. As believers we have to have both.
There are always those people who think Christianity's only a matter of what you do. Just go to church, and give a little in the offering and do your religious ritual and do your daily Bible reading and you're all right. But God says that's not what is most important. We also have to have the right moral standard and attitude in our heart.
There are people today who just think the opposite; all you need is the moral standard. But Jesus is saying yes, there is a place for giving and praying and fasting within the community of those who believe and that is to be exercised properly. But more importantly is what you believe and how you act it out. And the two have to be together.
Jesus is setting a standard here that nobody else has ever set in any religion in the history of the world. It exceeds every human system that has ever existed at the invention of man. Go back to Matthew 5: 20 where Jesus says, "I say to you that except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven."
Now Jesus goes on then to teach a moral standard that is much higher than that of the scribes and the Pharisees who were the teachers in Israel. He says in Matthew 6: 2, "When you do your alms, don't do it with the trumpet like the hypocrites." And in verse 5, "And when you pray you shall not be as the hypocrites." And in verse 16, "When you fast, don't be like the hypocrites."
Hypocrites here are synonymous with the Pharisees and the scribes. And Jesus is saying when you live out your spiritual life, it's got to be superior to theirs. So all that was done in Israel was hypocritical. And from Matthew 6:19 on, He talks about mundane things, like what you eat and what you drink or what you wear also related to hypocrisy.
Jesus talks about money and how you treat it and how you think of it and how you regard it and so forth. So He goes all the way down the line. He goes from their theological moral values to your religious practices, to your every day living. And in the whole sequence He says your theology is inadequate, your religion is inadequate and your approach to life every day is inadequate. Your standards are too low.
And that's why He says there in Matthew 6: 19, "You can't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. You must not be anxious," verse 25, "for your life." Why? Because that was so characteristic of those Pharisees and scribes. They were focusing on laying up treasures on earth. They were anxious for their life here. So He says it's got to be a system beyond that of the scribes and the Pharisees.
Now why am I emphasizing this? Because look, both our theology, our religion and our worship, and our daily living must be superior to the finest system men could ever devise at their very best efforts. It's inadequate. Further, there are some people who say just be a pagan. Just get a philosophy and go with it.
Listen, the Lord says the same about human philosophy, that it is inadequate. Look in Matthew 5: 47-48, where Jesus says this, "And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In other words, you're not only to have a commitment that is better than the scribes and the Pharisees, but it should also be better than the unbelievers, right?
He says the same thing in the next section in Matthew 6: 7. Here He's talking about our religious life. "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathens do." And then later in the same chapter He does the same thing. When He gets to the issue of worrying about food, drink and clothing in verse 32. "For the Gentiles seek after all these things."
In other words Christ is saying, I'm bringing you a standard that is superior in its content, in its worship and in its daily living to any religious or nonreligious system the world has ever seen. And only that standard is the right standard.
Now when somebody comes along and says, how come you Christians say you're the only ones that have the truth? You tell them. That's what Jesus said. Jesus, without question is the most narrow-minded human who ever lived. He said, "Everything I say to you is true and anything else is false." Only He backs up everything He says, Amen?
In Matthew Jesus is offering you a kingdom, but you're not going to get in it on the terms that you are now living. The only way in is to realize that you can't make it on your own. Jesus says you need somebody to wash away your sin, purify you, give you a new nature fit for my kingdom and I'm that somebody.
The heart of the issue is the issue of the heart. What's your motive? Two people can give. Two people can pray. Two people can fast. Two people can do religious deeds. You and I would never know the difference between one or the other and yet to God one is a source of joy, a sweet smelling savor and the other is smoke in his nose. And the difference is inside that person’s heart. Let us pray.