The Hope of the Hypocrite by
Charles Simeon The Hope of the Hypocrite Shall Perish What he
trusts in is fragile, what he relies on is a spider's web.
He leans on his web, but it gives way, he clings to it, but it
does not hold. Job chapter 8 verse 13 to 15. Many professing Christians appear
fine to others, but are themselves under the dominion of some besetting
sin. They are secretly indulging pride,
envy, malice, covetousness, lewdness, or some other bosom lust. They
do not live near to God in their secret chamber, or aspire after
conformity to His will as revealed in His Word. They are more anxious
to appear pious, than to be so, and to be applauded by men, than
to be approved by God. It rarely happens that a hypocrite
continues long to deceive those who are intimately acquainted
with his private habits. He cannot maintain a consistency
of character for lack of an inward principle of saving grace. Hypocrites
eventually make shipwreck either of their faith or of a good conscience. Lot's wife was a monument of
a hypocrite in the Old Testament, and Demas was a monument of a
hypocrite in the New. Just so, similar monuments of
a hypocrite are yet found in every church today. Let us follow
the hypocrite into the eternal world. What is his condition
there? Alas, alas! However high he was
in his own estimation or in that of others, he is now fallen indeed,
and all his towering hopes are now swept away with the broom
of destruction. even while he is here carrying
on his deception, though it is unsuspected by himself or others,
and though his hypocrisy is not in act, but in heart only, he
is treasuring up wrath for himself, for, the day when God shall judge
the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. Possibly he may carry
his hope with him into the eternal world, and almost presume to
argue with his omniscient judge. But he will say to them, I never
knew you. Depart from me, you who practice
iniquity. And then their state shall be
so superlatively wretched, that those who sink the deepest into
perdition are said to take their portion with the hypocrites.
but the wicked will lose hope. They have no escape. Their hope
becomes despair. Job chapter 11 verse 20. Where is the hope of the hypocrite
when God takes away his soul? Job chapter 27 verse 8.