At this point in our morning
service of worship, I would be surprised if there are not many
expecting me to say words to this effect. Now let us turn
together, or I invite you to turn with me, to the book of
1 Peter. But I'm not going to say that
this morning. For the sake of any visitors among us, one of
the things that has been a backbone in the life of this church over
Three decades, almost completing a fourth decade, has been consecutive,
expository preaching, preaching right through books of scripture,
taking great themes and working through the scripture with them
in some kind of a systematic and comprehensive way. And we
have almost come to the end of doing that with 1 Peter. We have
just the spirit-inspired postscript, verses 12 to 14, yet to expound. But in the past couple of weeks,
several personal pastoral issues have brought me again and again
to a portion of God's Word, which in the last few days has been
like a mature eagle that has sunk its talons into my soul. And there are times when a preacher
will have that experience, a text of scripture, that he is using
in his own walk with God or in his efforts to be faithful to
his people in a one-to-one pastoral ministry, such a text will take
hold of his own heart and almost says audibly in his ear, I'll
not let you go until you preach me off you. And it's just such
a text that has gotten hold of me in recent days, and as I've
prayerfully reflected on what to do with that sense of Talon-like
grip of the text, I have heard no voices, I've had no visit
of an angel, I've had no visible appearance of Jesus saying, my
son, my child, my disciple, preach this text. But I do believe that
in answer to prayer and by his own ministry to the hearts of
his servants, God does guide us in these matters. And so this
morning, I want you to turn with me, not to 1 Peter, but to the
gospel of Luke, the gospel of Luke and chapter 12. Luke chapter
12. And I begin the reading in verse
1. through verse 5, Luke chapter 12. In the meantime, when the many
thousands of the multitude were gathered together, insomuch that
they trod one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples,
first of all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But there is nothing covered
up that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known. Wherefore, whatsoever you have
said in the darkness shall be heard in the light, and what
you have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers shall be proclaimed
upon the housetops. And I say unto you, my friends,
do not be afraid of them that kill the body, and after that
have no more that they can do, But I will warn you whom you
shall fear, fear him who after he has killed has power to cast
into hell. Yes, I say unto you, fear him. Now the central concern of this
passage is obviously our Lord's warning to his own disciples
against the sin of hypocrisy. But that warning did not come
out of nowhere. And I want you to take a few
moments with me to note the setting in which this warning came, primarily
to the disciples, but obviously within the hearing of others.
This is a period in our Lord's ministry when the multitudes
are still thronging the Lord Jesus. Look at chapter 11 in
verse 27. It came to pass as He said these
things, a certain woman out of the multitude lifted up her voice
and said unto Him, and again, verse 29, And when the multitudes
were gathering together unto them, He began to say, It was
a period in which people in great throngs are pressing in upon
the Lord Jesus, and He is publicly preaching to them and teaching
them of the ways of God, His Heavenly Father. And in the midst
of this period, we read in verse 37 of chapter 11, Now as He spoke,
that is, to the masses, a Pharisee asked Him to dine with Him. And
He went in and sat down to meet. So here is the Lord Jesus leaving
for a brief time at least the vast multitudes, accepting the
invitation to go to the house of this Pharisee for a meal.
And as he comes in, verse 38, when the Pharisees saw it, he
marveled that he, Jesus, had not first bathed himself before
dinner. The Lord Jesus did not undergo
the ritual cleansing that any proper Pharisee expected any
proper holy man to undergo if he were to eat his meal in a
way that he could regard himself ceremonially unclean. These were
not rituals imposed by God, but imposed by the Pharisee and all
the Pharisees and all of their myriad of rules which they had
established for ceremonial cleansing. And it's in that setting of Jesus
bypassing the expectation of the Pharisee, while a guest in
the Pharisee's home, that our Lord speaks in very, very cutting
and incisive ways, exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Verse 39, And the Lord said unto
him, Now you the Pharisees, speaking not just to this man, but as
a specimen Pharisee. You Pharisees cleanse the outside
of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion
and wickedness. You foolish ones! And then our
Lord proceeds to indict the Pharisees. Verse 42, Woe unto you, Pharisees! Verse 43, Woe unto you, Pharisees! And while the Lord is indicting
the Pharisees, as He's a guest in a Pharisee's house, certainly
not politically correct, socially acceptable behavior. You're the
guest, and the guest becomes the prophet, pulling off the
mask and tearing away the encrustments of human traditions and religious
sham. Verse 45 says, and one of the
lawyers, not a lawyer as we think of lawyers, but one of the great
experts in the law. a companion of the scribes and
of the Pharisees. One of the lawyers answering
said of him, Teacher, in saying what you're saying, you're pointing
your finger at us too. Now, whether he expected the
Lord to say, well, I'm sorry, I just got carried away in my
rhetoric. I didn't mean to offend you.
No, the Lord says, woe unto you lawyers also. Yeah, you got it
right. What I've said about the Pharisees
applies to you, and furthermore, I've got some more things to
say, particularly to you. Now when we come to the end of
chapter 11, note what Luke records. And when he was come out from
Thess, here he's left the multitudes, he's gone into the house of a
Pharisee at his invitation for a meal. The Pharisee takes him
to task for not undergoing his and his companion's standard
of ritual cleanness. Jesus uses the occasion to indict
the Pharisees. This expert in the law overhears
it and says, Lord, you're indicting us, and Jesus said, right on,
I am, and I'll give you some more. Now, having done that,
he leaves the house, and when he comes out, notice what is
said in Luke 11, 53 and 4. The scribes and the Pharisees
began to press upon him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of
many things, laying wait for him to catch something out of
his mouth. The Lord Jesus leaves the house,
but this crowd that he's indicted follows with him, and the tenses
of the verbs and the verbs that are used are very vigorous. They
are continually hounding Jesus, even though he's left the house
and their particular turf, gone back amongst the multitudes who
are hanging upon his words at this point in his ministry. and
they are constantly hounding him, laying wait for him, seeking
to set a trap in order to catch something out of his mouth. They
desperately now want to find something in what he says that
they can twist in such a way as to hand him over either to
the religious or to the civil authorities their real prize
would be to get Him handed over to the civil authorities, because
then He could be executed in terms of their deep desire. Now, in this overall setting,
the Lord Jesus, not being caught in their traps, sees the thousands,
the myriads of the crowd, gathering together. This was not out in
a rural setting on the hillside. Remember, he's just come out
of a house. So picture a narrow Palestinian street somewhere. In one of those regions outside
of Jerusalem, we're not sure whether this is the Parian ministry
or part of the Galilean ministry. It's difficult to ascertain precisely
where it was. But here is a narrow, crowded
street, and the buzzword is, Jesus is out of the house. We're
going to hear him. And the crowds are milling and pressing in,
so much so, it says, that they are trampling one upon another.
This was a very unruly scene. And here the Pharisees are, following
close at hand. Well, Jesus, what about this?
You know, these nosy, impotent reporters. This is probably the
closest we can get to it. Someone in authority has made
it very plain. I'm not at liberty to say more
about that issue. And these people whose mamas
never taught them manners stick the mic under their nose and
they still keep asking, baiting. Have you seen it? You understand?
That's what the Pharisees are doing. They're hounding Him.
What about this Jesus? What about that? What about this?
Trying to catch Him in His words and hear the multitudes. Word
has gone out. Jesus is here. And they all want to get close
enough to hear Him. So they're trampling on one another. That's
the vigorous language of the passage. What is Jesus going
to do in this situation? The text says that He now turns
and addresses specifically and more pointedly His disciples. Now, who are the disciples in
this setting? Well, obviously it refers to
the twelve. It was at least the twelve, and remember, Judas was
one of the twelve. But there are times in the Gospels
where the term disciples is used not to designate just the twelve,
but those who are attaching themselves to Jesus in order to learn from
Him, who are manifesting at least outwardly a teachable spirit. And it could be that our Lord
is not only speaking to the twelve, but to others, included with
the twelve, who were nearest to Him, who had been clinging
more persistently and consistently to His teaching. He addresses
these disciples having come out of a situation in which the state
of the Pharisees was very much an issue in the mind and heart
of our Lord Jesus. His concern about this leaven
of hypocrisy that marked the Pharisees is not something that
he had in a notebook saying, before I go back to glory, I
must warn my disciples about 25 cardinal sins. And now, oh
yes, no, no. This grew out of the soul of
our Lord Jesus having had this fresh encounter with the wretched
religious patterns of the Pharisees. their hypocrisy, their sham. They are not only like whitewashed
sepulchers as he calls them in Matthew 23, but here he says
that they are like hidden graves. People deliberately cover over
the grave so that you walk over it and never know that beneath
you are dead men's bones and all uncleanness. And the soul
of our Lord when delivering these woes was not that of a talking
head, woe to you scribes, woe to you scribes. Our Lord felt
the realities. Our Lord was passionately disturbed
about this wretched pattern of hypocrisy in the lives of these
Pharisees. And though He acknowledges that
this is the sin that reigned in them, now we're coming to
our text. He faced the very real possibility
that something of that sin could be found in His own, not as reigning
sin, but as remaining sin. And in that setting, he delivers
this warning. Now then, we come to the text
itself, and we'll consider it under three heads. First of all,
the warning issued. Secondly, the warning enforced. And thirdly, the warning applied. First, then, the warning issued. In the meantime, when the many
thousands of the multitude were gathered together, insomuch that
they trod one upon another, he began to say to his disciples,
first of all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Now I know that the moment some
people hear the word warning, they have a knee-jerk reaction. They want a religion that is
all encouragement, nothing but encouragement, that tells them
nothing but the love of God and the goodness of God and the mercy
of God. And the moment they hear the
word warning, the veil of a negative attitude and disposition of heart
and mind rises. What do I say to that? I say
simply this. In celebrating the blessedness
of God's word, the psalmist in Psalm 19 focuses upon this very
fact. as one of the reasons for which
he blesses God for his word. Moreover, by them, the precepts
of God is thy servant warned. In the keeping of them there
is great reward. And the true child of God welcomes
any voice from God of warning that he might be kept from that
which would dishonor his Savior and be detrimental to his own
spiritual health. So I make no excuse in opening
up the passage in terms of what it is. It is a strident, clear
warning. The warning is issued. Now, look
at the text. Our Lord warns in terms of a
figure. Beware. Be awake. Be alert to a real and present
danger. And what is that danger? It's
what our Lord calls the leaven of the Pharisees. And what's
the significance of that figure? Well, you'll remember that Jesus
in one of his parables in Matthew 13 said, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto, and then he introduces the matter of leaven. And this
is what he says concerning leaven in some way reflecting the operations
of God's kingdom, Matthew 13, 33. The kingdom of heaven is
like unto leaven, which a woman took, hid in three measures of
meal, till it was all leavened. Hid, just a little, until all
was leavened. With leaven, a little bit goes
a long way. She hid it. A little bit works
secretly, but effectively. works secretly but extensively. 1 Corinthians 5, 6, a little
leaven leavens the whole lump. And the Apostle uses those very
words again in Galatians 5 and verse 9. A little leaven leavens
the whole lump. In the moment the Lord said,
Beware with a present imperative. Be on the alert. Be conscious
of the present danger of the leaven of the Pharisees. He's
speaking of something in conjunction with the Pharisees, which, if
just a little bit gets in your soul, it will affect the whole. A little bit will go a long way. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And what is the reality that
our Lord is addressing? He tells us, which is hypocrisy. Which is hypocrisy. Now what is hypocrisy? The word
our Lord uses in classic Greek of the day referred to what one
did when acting out a role on the stage. A man who said his
lines was called the hypocrite. He was the play actor. He wore
a mask to hide his true identity while he was consciously and
deliberately projecting the identity of another. And that's the word
that comes over into our Bibles and it is translated hypocrite,
a pretender, a play actor. And there is but one verbal use
of this root word in the New Testament and it, to my judgment,
is a perfect lexicon on what the word means. Turn to Luke
chapter 20 and verse 20. When Jesus said, Beware of that
which in the Pharisees, if it gets in you, will operate like
leaven, a little will go a long way, a little will operate extensively
and powerfully within you. What precisely is this hypocrisy
that is like leaven? Luke chapter 20 verse 19. And
the scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him in
that very hour, and they feared the people. for they perceived
that he spoke this parable against them. And they watched him, that
is the Pharisees are watching Jesus, now notice, and sent forth
spies who, here's the word, hypocrite in a verbal form, who hypocritized,
who feigned themselves to be righteous. that they might take
hold of his speech and so deliver him up to the rule and authority
of the governor. And they asked him, saying, A
teacher, we know that you say and teach rightly and accept
not the person of any, but of a truth, teach the way of God.
Tell us, is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar or
not? But he perceived their craftiness. You want to know what a hypocrite
is? Here's God's answer in his own words. What was in the heart
at this time of the Pharisees? Look at your Bibles. What was
in their hearts? What was in their hearts was the murder of
Jesus. The end of verse 20. They want
to take hold of His speech. To what end? To deliver Him up
to the rule and authority of the governor. The governor had
the power of capital punishment. They did not. They want Him dead. Murder is in their hearts. See
that from the passage. That's what they want. They want
Jesus killed. Finu. Bam. Ended. That's what's in their heart.
But now, something restrains them from killing Him themselves. And what is it that restrains
them? We are told that they fear the people. It's the fear of
men that holds them back from doing openly what they long to
do inwardly. So what they are inwardly is
not being transformed by grace, it's being restrained by other
influences in pursuit of their own self-interest. The scribes
and chief priests sought to lay hands on him, feared the people
for they perceived that he spoke this parable against them. So
what do they do? They watch him and send spies
whose intention is to do what? Whose intention is to trip him
up, to make the governor their hatchet man, and to have Jesus
disposed of. So what do these spies do? The text says that they hypocritize
themselves. They feign themselves to be righteous. In other words, They put on the
mask and said, we will approach Jesus with the mask of those
who want to do what is right and please God. That's what a
righteous man is. The passionate concern of every
righteous man in any situation is, what pleases God? So they know they're not righteous. They have no desire to please
God. They have one desire, kill Jesus. trip up Jesus, get him killed. That's their desire, but they
put on the mask of righteous people when they come to Jesus.
And they say, now, we know that you're a good teacher, and you
teach impartially. We really admire your ethical
and moral integrity as a teacher, and we desperately want to please
God. Can you help us know, will it please God if we pay taxes
to Caesar or not? See, what were they doing? They
were deliberately putting on the mask. They were saying their
lines. They were playing a role, a role
that they knew was not what they really were, but was assumed
to pursue their own ends and secondarily in order to accommodate
the climate of the people. They did not want to have the
people set against them. Now do you see what hypocrisy
is? Hypocrisy is when a man or woman, boy or girl, deliberately
and knowingly is living out two different people. You live out
the person you want others to think you are, while at the same
time consciously remaining the true person that you know you
are. Now you let that sink in. See, that's not the self-deceived
person. The Bible has a whole doctrine of warning against self-deception. Let no man deceive himself. Let
no man deceive you. If a man does this, he deceives
himself. The deceived person believes he's something that
he's not, but he believes it. The hypocrite knows he's two
different people. He's the person with the mask,
will appear as righteous We want to know the mind of God. Well,
all the while they knew who they really were. They were in cahoots
with those who want Jesus killed. Now, if you get nothing else
this morning, I pray God you get that distinction. Because
Jesus is warning His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees,
which is mask wearing. maintaining a dual life, the
life that you know is you, and the life that you want others
to think is you, for the promotion of your own personal ends and
ambitions. That's hypocrisy. That is hypocrisy. And it is that which Jesus identifies,
that which his soul abhors. As I did a word study of every
use of hypocrisy, you are struck when you take your Englishman's
Greek concordance. And there you go to the Sermon
on the Mountain when Jesus goes to instruct the sons and daughters
of the kingdom concerning those deeds and acts of religious devotion
and piety in Matthew 6. He speaks of prayer, of almsgiving,
prayer and fasting. Each instruction, each block
of instruction is preceded with a warning. When you give alms,
be not as the what? Hypocrites. When you pray, be
not as the hypocrites. When you fast, be not as the
hypocrites. In Matthew 23, seven times, woe
unto you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! Woe unto you scribes,
Pharisees, hypocrites! Three or four different occasions
in the Gospels, The warning goes out, beware of the leaven of
the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. A little of this undetected will
work its way through the fabric of your whole soul and strangle
spiritual life. And if it reigns in you as a
reigning sin, you're an utter stranger to God and to His It's
a serious warning from the lips of truth incarnate. He said to
his disciples, beware, be constantly on your alert with respect to
this leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. That's the
warning issued. Now secondly, the warning enforced. The warning enforced. How does
our Lord seek to impress the disciples with the seriousness
of this issue? Well, he enforces the warning,
first of all, with a sobering prophecy in verses 2 and 3. And then secondly, he enforces
it with an all-encompassing command in verses 4 and 5. First of all,
he enforces it with a sobering prophecy. Look at the words of
the text. But there is nothing covered
up that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known. Wherefore, whatsoever you've
said in the darkness shall be heard in the light, and what
you've spoken in the ear in the inner chambers shall be proclaimed
upon the housetops." Remember the bottom line. The issue of
hypocrisy is there before our Lord. Hypocrisy is deliberately
wearing the mask, living out two lives, the one you want people
to think you are and the one that you know you are. And this
sobering prophecy has two parts to it. There is the general or
all-encompassing statement, and then there is the specific application
of the statement. Look at the general statement,
verse 2. There is nothing covered up. In the form of the verb is
used, the perfect. There is nothing that you have
done. that you know is displeasing to God, and your conscience affirms
that it is, and you have deliberately covered it, and the cover remains
to the present moment. There is nothing that you have
done that you desire to be covered. You don't want men to know. You
foolishly think God may not know. But it is something that in the
theater of your conscience is coverable. You have covered it,
and your covering has been very effective. No one sees it and
knows it. Jesus said there is no thing
covered. No thing. No thing that is a
violation of God's law in thought, in word, in deed, in relationships. There is nothing covered, no
matter how effectively it may appear to be covered in the present
moment, but, look at the text, nothing covered but that it shall
be revealed. The covers will be torn off and
nothing hid that shall not be known. In other words, a moment
is coming when the hypocrite's mask will be torn from his face
and all the moral universe will know exactly who and what he
really is. You see that in the text? That's
what Jesus says. To enforce this warning, beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Why? because
hypocrisy is losing business. Nothing covered, but that it's
going to be revealed and hid that shall not be known. Paul
says, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according
to my gospel. Romans 2 and verse 16. You may
sit here this morning and say, but my wife doesn't know. My
husband doesn't know. Mom and Dad don't know. Nobody knows. I have news for
you. If that sin is covered by anything
other than the blood of Christ in the way of thorough repentance
and faith, and where necessary dealt with by righteous biblical
restitution and confession at the horizontal level, that sin
will be known not just to your husband or wife whom you would
be absolutely devastated if they knew this morning, but the whole
moral universe gathered together in the day of judgment will know
without exception. Nothing covered that shall not
be revealed. Nothing hid that shall not be
known. That's the general all-encompassing
statement, but now look at the specific application of the statement.
Wherefore, you see there's a logical connection. Wherefore, our Lord
moves from the general to the specific. Wherefore, whatsoever
you have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light.
And what you've spoken in the ear in the inner chamber shall
be proclaimed upon the housetops. So often our Lord does this.
He moves from a general principle to a specific application. Having
said no thing, that includes anything, thought, word, deed,
action, relationship, nothing covered that shall not be revealed. Nothing hid that shall not be
made known. Therefore, I want to get very specific. And he
homes in on two aspects of the use of our tongue. Whatsoever
you have said, In the darkness shall be heard in the light.
Now what is our Lord talking about? Well, one of two things,
or maybe both. The things you've said in the
darkness, that is, no one else is around you to see you, to
see what your relationships are. You may be talking to yourself,
but most likely what our Lord is doing is saying this. Whatsoever
you've said in the darkness, that is, You've said it to people
with whom you would not be associated in public because that would
pull the mask off and show who your real friends are. So you wait till it's dark and
you seek out a companion who is one with you in your devious
desires, in your unclean lifestyle, in your deception, whatever it
is, You think the darkness has hidden people from seeing who
I really am because I'm with my kind in the darkness. The
day of judgment will be flooded with the light of the countenance
of the Son of God so that John says in Revelation 20, from whose
face the heaven and earth fled away from the brightness of His
presence. Whatever you have said in the
darkness shall be heard in the light. Now note, what you have
spoken in the ear in the inner chambers. Get the picture? You
want to share a secret? You get someone into an out-of-the-way
closet and you shut the door and you whisper right in their
ear. You want to make sure nobody knows. Oh, you want this person
to know because they are one with you in who you really are.
A liar. A deceiver. An adulterer. an adulteress, a pornographer,
a schemer, whatever it is, you know your own kind, who really
have an affinity with you in your sin. And so you get them
in the closet and shut the door and whisper in their ear. And
the Lord uses a graphic picture here. He said, what has been
whispered in the ear shall be proclaimed. And he uses the verb
keruso, proclaimed as a herald. When you wanted a whole town
or village to hear the message of the king delivered by the
keruts, the herald, the official emissary of the king, he didn't
have a loudspeaker system. He didn't have megaphones. So
you'd go to a house somewhere in the center of the town and
you'd go up on the roof like the Ford did when they were letting
down that paralytic. and you would stand on the roof
and fill your lungs with air and tighten your diaphragm and
you would herald out the message of the King, the message of the
King. The whole village would know
it from little children to grown adults to old men and women sitting
on rocking chairs in the front step of the local nursing home.
Jesus said that's exactly what's going to happen to the hypocrite
whose true self is revealed in his secret messages on his computer. Mom and Dad won't know. In your
secret telephone calls, in the little secret whisperings
down in the corner where the lockers are in Trinity Christian
School, when you've got your secrets with your buddy and your
girlfriend that you know are playing the game like you are,
presenting the nice little picture of the sweet little when you
know you're devious and deceptive and lying. Jesus said, all the words whispered
in the ear in the closet will be thundered from the rooftops. The mask will be torn off. The
whole moral universe will know exactly who and what you are. I am meek and lowly of heart,
Jesus said. The meek and lowly Jesus brings
that awesomely frightening reality before us in his word. What has
been spoken in the ear and in the inner chambers proclaimed
upon the housetop. Why are you proclaiming things
secretly in the ear? Why are you communicating words
in the darkness? It's because you don't want everybody
to know what you really are. You've got your nice little circle
who know what you are, and you're glad for them to know who and
what you are. But you don't want the rest of
the world to know. That's a hypocrite. That's hypocrisy. That's hypocrisy. Jesus warns. He warns in this
sobering prophecy. And remember, Judas was part
of that crowd. And he was so clever with the
mask, the very night he's about to go out and tell the chief
priest it's time to do our thing, when Jesus whispers, what you
do, do quickly. Remember what the writer says
in the Gospels? They thought Jesus was sending
him out to get some last minute bittles for the remainder of
the Passover. He had worn his mask so well
and rehearsed his lines so perfectly, they had no suspicion, none whatsoever. Judas heard these words. He obviously didn't heed them.
And his mask got torn off before the day of judgment. As his conscience
screamed, I've betrayed innocent blood, throws down his money,
and the priests and the leaders say, what's that to us? And he
goes out and hangs himself. So by the time we come to Acts
chapter 1, Peter sees fulfilled in Judas the prophecy that one,
the familiar friend who would betray Messiah, another should
take his place. God tore the mask off in time. too late for Judas. God does
occasionally tear the mask off in time. Remember Achan? He thought he'd committed the
perfect cover-up. He took of the accursed thing and hid it
in his tent! And I can just see Achan that
night. No thunderbolts come out of heaven. Everything looks fine. I've very effectively hidden
it. The next battle, Israel's defeated Joshua and the elders
go down on their face and cry to God. And God says, get up
off your face. Time to stop praying. And it's time to start searching
out the sin in your midst. And by using responsible inquiry
and the casting of lots, God zeroes in upon Achan. And Achan
and his wife and his children and all his belongings are stone,
covered with a heap of stones and burned with fire, nothing
covered. that shall be revealed. Gehazi
thinks, ha, I've done an excellent cover-up job. The prophet didn't
see me. He runs after Naaman and he lies
and tells him he wants to take some of the gifts for the poor
preacher boys. And Naaman in his guilelessness
is gladly and heaps him up with his gifts. But what was covered was revealed. And he's a leper to the day of
his death. God may uncover some of you here
in mercy or in judgment, but sooner or later, everything covered
shall be revealed and everything hid shall be made known. What has been spoken in the dark
shall be heard in the light. What has been spoken in the ear
in the inner chamber shall be heralded from the housetop. You see, the reason some of you
don't come clean now is you say, how can I? The embarrassment. My parents' hearts will be broken
if I tell them who I really am. My teachers would be grieved.
I might get kicked out of Trinity Christian School. What would
my elders think? What would my husband, my friend?
It doesn't matter. The whole moral universe will
know in that day if you don't uncover it by thorough repentance
and fleeing to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Whatever
the present embarrassment, it is nothing to the irreversible
embarrassment of judgment and hell. But then he gives an all-encompassing
command to buttress his warning. Look at what he does. Some commentators
see in verses four and five a couplet along with the next verses in
which the Lord Jesus merges from the warning against hypocrisy
into an encouragement of disciples to make an unashamed, bold confession
of Christ, no matter what the cost may be. And therefore, he
starts at the lowest level. Don't fear those who, if you
openly confess him, will be able to make you a martyr. Only God
can send people to hell. Men can't. Don't be afraid of
them. Verse 6, Are not five sparrows?
More positive perspective on being an open, bold confession.
Your Heavenly Father cares for you. Verse 8, Everyone who shall
confess Me, I will confess before My Father. But whether verses
4 and 5 should be attached more intimately with the following
context, one thing is clear. Any average reader of his Bible
sits down to read what the Holy Ghost gave through the pen of
Luke, makes some connection between the warning enforced by Jesus
with this sobering prophecy and now his words of an all-encompassing
command. And what are those words? First
of all, he says, I say unto you, my friends, the only other place
where he says this, is in the upper room discourse. Henceforth
I call you no more servants, for servant knows not what his
Lord does. I call you friends. I say unto
you, my friends, he's speaking to his own. Don't be afraid of
them that kill the body, and after this have no more that
they can do. I'll therefore warn you whom you shall fear. Fear
him who after he has killed has power to cast into hell. Yes,
I say unto you, fear him. What's he saying? You want a
cure for hypocrisy? Here it is. Live in the fear
of God. That's it. Live in the fear of
God. What's it mean to live in the
fear of God? To fear God. It means that I live with the
consciousness that the eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding
the evil and the good. All things are naked and open
before the eyes of Him with whom I have to do. I live my life
before the face of God. I have set the Lord always before
me, for He is at my right hand that I should not be moved. Wherefore,
we make it our aim that whether sober or beside ourselves, we
may be well pleasing unto Him. To live in the fear of God is
to consciously live before the face of God. that in any situation,
alone, with others, in the light, in the darkness, all is a light
to my God. Psalm 139. You've searched me
and known me. You know my down-sitting, my
uprising. You understand my thought from afar. Not a word in my tongue,
but, O Lord, You know it all together. I have no secrets.
You know them all together. You have beset me behind and
before and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me. I cannot attain unto it. Where
shall I go from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you
are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I jump
on the first rays of the sun as it breaks out across the Mediterranean
Sea, and I dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall
thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." Beautiful. And you see, the psalmist is
glad that he's encompassed in God. because he's living in the
fear of God. But when you're living in hypocrisy,
you hate the fact that you're encompassed by God. And you become
a practical atheist at the point you whisper your secret into
your buddy's or your girlfriend's ear, thinking no one knows. I can cover it. That is practical
atheism. You've either said God does not
exist or somehow you've pushed the delete button in God's perception
of what you said. God has no delete buttons, friends. None whatsoever. God's computer
has nothing that can be erased from its hard drive. God helps some of you to come
to grips with that. before the Lord proves in the
day of judgment that every word of this passage is true, to your
everlasting shame. Fear God. That's the issue. The Lord Jesus said, would you
be delivered from hypocrisy, from the living of two lives,
projecting two persona, then stand before God in the nakedness
of your guilt and plead for the cleansing of the blood of His
Son and the renewing work of His Spirit, that you might live
for the very purpose for which God made you as an image-bearer,
live in communion with Him, live before His face with joy and
liberty as His Son or His daughter. And when you think and when you
say and you do that which you know displeases the God before
whom you live, The only covering you seek is the covering of the
blood of His own dear Son. And you plead His promise if
we confess our sins. He is faithful and righteous
to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And where necessary, like Paul, you say, I exercise myself to
have always a conscience void of offense to God and to man,
living before the face of God in the presence of image bearers
of God where you know there is something that needs to be rectified. If you are to live transparently,
you are willing to confess it no matter how humbling it is.
Here's a man who in a moment of weakness has bought a pornographic
magazine, filled his mind with images other than that of his
wife. He not only sinned against God,
he sinned against his wife. He goes home after he's indulged
this base appetite. He's a Christian. Spirit of God
is grieved. He looks at his wife and he's
ashamed. Time comes to embrace her and he feels dirty, but then
he acts like none of that's there. He's a hypocrite. He's wearing
a mask. What he's saying by his attempts to smile and embrace
her like nothing happened is, dear, I've made no major dent
in my marital fidelity to you. That's being a hypocrite he has.
He's got to make that right with his wife. The son who gives the
impression that he's resisting the pressures to indulge in the
unclean that bombards the eyeballs, that is available from a few
clicks with a mouse, And yet he's indulged in a moment
of weakness. He looks at his dad and he feels
dirty and filthy. And he knows the only way to
deal with that is not only confess it to God, but confess it to
dad and to mom. And he won't do it. And he smiles
like everything. That's being a hypocrite. That's being a hypocrite. Some of you sit here in this
place. Your hearts have long since left this place. You'd
like a ministry much more suited to whatever. Yet you smile at
your elders, you greet them as though your heart is where it
was five years ago. That's being a hypocrite. That's
wearing a face. That's wearing a mask. And what
you really are, you have your own little circle. You let them
know. That's the real you. And you veil the real you from
others. Need I get more specific in the
applications? What a wretched sin is hypocrisy.
That's why Jesus said, beware of it. Be constantly on the alert
against it. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,
which is hypocrisy. And our Lord tells us why we
ought to take the command seriously with this frightening, sobering
prophecy, with this all-encompassing command. And now in closing,
I want to apply the warning. Can a true child of God be guilty
of the sin of hypocrisy? Of course he can. If he couldn't, why did Jesus
say to his disciples, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees?
Follow me closely now. Hypocrisy cannot be the reigning
sin in a true child of God, but it can be a torturous, subtle
expression of remaining sin. Hypocrisy was the reigning sin
of the Pharisees. And that's why in Matthew 23,
51, Jesus said, He will appoint his portion with the hypocrites,
where they shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. If hypocrisy
is the reigning sin in your life, you have no biblical grounds
to say you're a Christian. But I want to speak to God's
people, in whom it is not a reigning sin. The passion of your life
is to live! before the face of God and your
fellow men with biblical uprightness and integrity. And you know that
Jesus died in the language of Titus 2 to redeem you from all
iniquity and to purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works. God commands us in Romans 12
in verse 9 to love one another with And the little alpha privative
is put in front of the word hypocritical with a non-hypocritical love. Brethren, when we shake hands
and when we embrace and plant a kiss on the cheek, let it never
be a Judas kiss. If you have ought against your
brother, go tell him. It doesn't say go and mask it.
Let love be without hypocrisy. 1 Peter 1.22, having been born
again unto a living hope in chapter 1, yes. But then Peter goes on
to say that you have been begotten by God through the Word unto
unfaith. There's the same word, non-hypocritical
love to the brethren. Is your love to your brothers
and sisters non-hypocritical? Is the face you wear, your face
or a mask, Only you can answer it, I can't answer it. Is your expressed appreciation
for your wife, your husband, non-hypocritical? You children
to your parents. You see, confessed and forsaken
secret sin of the mind and the eyes and the heart does not come
into this passage. I don't want any tender soul
to go out unnecessarily wounded. You say, but what about those
vile thoughts that I've had, those thoughts of envy? Must
I put... No, no. If you go to God with
the thoughts as earnestly as though they were deeds, my friend,
those are not covered. But by the blood of Christ, the
Lord's talking about sin that's not dealt with biblically, not
dealt with in the way of gospel dynamics and covered that way. Do I need to confess to you the
sins with which I struggle in the very process of preparing
sermons? No. There are things known only to
me and to God, but they're not being covered. My Christian brother, sister,
can you say sitting here this morning, by the grace of God,
I love my brothers with a non-hypocritical love? I'm walking in the light
as he is in the light. Proverbs 23, 17, Be thou in the
fear of God all the day long. Do I live before the face of
God? And to you who are not Christians,
do you hear the words of Jesus? Hypocrisy of a reigning sin is
an evidence that you're not in the state of grace. You may think
you've effectively fooled mom and dad and 90% of the people
around you, but you haven't fooled God. Young people, you have your
own little circle that they know and you know what the terms of
your relationship are. And one thing is clear, it's
not godly. You know, they know, God knows.
You go on living that way. With hypocrisy as a reigning
sin in your life, you have no biblical grounds to claim you're
a Christian. And one of the most wonderful joys that awaits you,
and if I could only entice you with the joy, is to come out
of the dark and to live a life thoroughly exposed before the
eye of God. It's the most liberating thing
in all the world. You never need fear if somebody's
going to find a tape recorder in the closet where you spoke
your words in the ear. in secret. You never need fear
that someone's got an infrared camera is going to take a picture
of you speaking to someone in the dark that in the light you
would never have spoken to. It's the most liberating thing
in all the world to live before the face of God. You have nothing
to fear. Nothing to fear. You fear Him. You fear nothing else. I want
to close this morning by reading the words of Charles Spurgeon
We would say, in our day, he was just a 25-year-old kid when
he preached these words. Think of it, 25 years old, the
maturity of an aged giant. And after preaching on the sin
of hypocrisy, approaching it from a totally different way
from the exposition that I've sought to give this morning,
this is what Spurgeon said when he came to the end of his sermon,
but now for the cure of the hypocrite. What shall we do to cure ourselves
of any hypocrisy that may exist among us? Let us recollect that
we cannot do anything in secret, even if we try. The all-seeing
God apprehended in the conscience must be the death of hypocrisy.
I cannot try to deceive when I know that God is looking at
me. It is impossible for me to play double and false when I
believe that I'm in the presence of the Most High and that He's
reading my thoughts and the secret purposes of my heart. The only
way in which the hypocrite can play it wherever I am, upon my
bed or in my secret chamber, God is there. There's not a secret
word I speak in the ear of a friend, but God hears it. Do I seek out
the most private part of the city for the commission of sin?
God is there. Do I choose the shadow of night
to cover my iniquity? He is there, looking upon me.
The thought of a present deity, if it were fully realized, would
preserve us from sin, always looking on me, ever regarding
me. We think we're doing many things
in secret, but there is nothing concealed from Him with whom
we have to do. And the day is coming when all
the sins we have committed shall be read and published. Oh, what
a blush shall cringe in the cheek of the hypocrite when God shall
read the secret diary of his soul. What a blush will be on
the cheek of some of you when God reads the diary of your soul.
O my fellow professing Christians, let us always look upon our actions
in the light of the great out-reading of them in the day of judgment.
Pause over everything you do and say, Can I bear to have this
sounded with a trumpet in the ear of all men? No, take a higher
motive and say, Can I endure to do this? And repeat the words,
Thou God, seest me. You may deceive men and deceive
ourselves, but God you cannot, God you shall not. You may die
with the name of Christ upon your lips, and men may be deceived
about you, and they will say that he's gone to his reward. But Christ will say away with
him. He shall ring you, and if you
have not the ring of pure gold of grace, he shall nail you down
as a counterfeit. ringing a coin to see if it's
the real thing. He shall strip the mask off you.
Virtue is most adorned when unadorned the most. To detect you, you
shall be stripped naked and every cloak shall be torn to shatters. How will you endure this? Will
you dig into the depths to hide yourself? Will you plunge into
the sea to find a way of escape? Will you cry for the rocks and
the mountains to hide you? The all-seeing God shall read
your soul, shall discover your secrets, shall reveal your hidden
things, and tell the world that though you did eat and drink
in his streets, though you preached in his name, yet he never knew
you. You were still a worker of iniquity
and must be driven away forever." And then he closes with this
sober entreaty, "'Come, let us for one second reflect. that
we shall all soon lie upon our deathbeds. A few more months,
and you and I shall face the cruel tyrant death. It will be
hard work to play the hypocrite then, when the pulse is faint
and few, when the eye strings break, and when the tongue is
cleaving to the roof of your mouth. It will be in vain to
try hypocrisy then. Oh, may God make you sincere.
For if you die with an empty profession, you die indeed. Of all deaths, methinks the most
awful is that of the hypocrite. After death, for him to lift
up his eyes and find himself lost and forever. Oh, make sure work of the salvation
of your soul. Dear people, this sermon has
not sprung from ill will in my heart. It has sprung from agonizing
hours of intimate pastoral dealings with the sin of hypocrisy in
this church. And I have reason to believe
that my dealings of the past couple of weeks and the dealings
of other of your elders has not yet totally purged the leaven
from our midst. God help us. Let's pray. Our Father, we feel very keenly our earthiness
when we draw near to such statements of our Lord that bring us to
that awesome hour when all of the assembled nations shall be
gathered before that throne of burning purity and absolute justice
based upon perfect knowledge and equity. Oh, our God, we pray,
have dealings with our hearts. Have dealings with those who
know, sitting here this morning, that they are wearing the mask.
Oh, God, may they not resist the overtures of your exposing
grace and mercy. that may they run to the fountain
open for sin and uncleanness, where the vilest of hypocrites
can be cleansed and washed and made new. We pray for us, your
people. Help us to know our own hearts.
Help us to detect the mask wearing. Lord, deliver us. Oh, deliver
us, we pray, from every single form of hypocrisy. Have mercy
upon me. Have mercy upon those of us who
lead. Oh God, whatever else we are,
make us real, we pray. And have mercy upon your people
in this place. We pray that this day there would
be some blessed mask tearing, some mask removing, honest dealings
with you and one another. We call upon you to do it for
our good, and for your glory, in Jesus' name, amen.