Now the Master always had tender words for sinners. When our Lord spoke to sinners,
His words were full of mercy. He said, The Son of Man is come
to seek and to save that which was lost. He said, I'm not come
to call the righteous, I'm come to call sinners to repentance. And when the religious Pharisees
brought to him the woman found in adultery, and they would have
stoned her, quoting Moses' law, our Lord said to her, neither
do I condemn thee, go and sin no more. But when our Lord spoke
to the Pharisees, when our Lord spoke to these religious leaders,
He reserved for them the strongest rebuke. Our Lord reserved for
them the harshest words. In Matthew 23, verse 33, He said
to them, Ye serpents, ye generation of snakes, how shall ye escape
the damnation of hell? As I read the scripture a few
moments ago, you heard our master calling them hypocrites. Many, many times he said, ye
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, hypocrites. And in Luke, the
twelfth chapter, verse one, he warns us to beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Now I'm sure of this. I'm sure
that every true believer, every child of God, every born-again
regenerated believer at times will stand in doubt of himself
and he'll question his interest in Christ. I don't think there's
a person here who can say the Lord is my savior and my shepherd
who has not at some time and maybe recently doubted your interest
in Christ Jesus and doubted your conversion. Spurgeon once said
this, he who never doubted his state, he made Perhaps he may,
too late. But I'm not talking tonight about
doubts and fears. I'm not talking about questioning
our interest in Christ. That is a good sign. I think
it's a very healthy sign for a man to question his faith. I think it's a healthy sign for
a person, as Brother Roach prayed a moment ago, to continually
seek the Lord in pursuit of God, in pursuit of mercy. I believe
after we've been at the cross for 25 or 30 years, we can still
say, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and his
righteousness. If one sheep of Christ could
fall away, my poor feeble soul would fall a thousand times a
day. But I'm talking tonight about hypocrisy. I'm talking
tonight about the leaven of the Pharisees. Are we modern day
Pharisees? We condemn the Pharisees. We
say all manner of harsh things about the Pharisees. Wouldn't
it be terrible if we turned out to be modern-day Pharisees ourselves? What if I turned out to be a
Pharisee? I believe I'd rather be charged
with any sin under heaven than the sin of self-righteousness.
I believe I'd rather stand before God charged with murder They
stand before God charged with self-righteousness and hypocrisy. For Christ saved murderers. Christ
saved adulterers. Christ saved drunkards. But Christ
doesn't save self-righteous people. They go to hell building on a
false foundation. They go to hell hiding in a false
refuge. They go to hell covering themselves
or trying to cover themselves with covering that is too short
and too narrow. Whatever the believer is, he
may be a doubter. He may walk in constant fear
of his state, but he's not a Pharisee. Whatever the believer is, he
may fear his interest in Christ, he may doubt his interest in
Christ, but he is not a hypocrite. Whatever he is, he is not a hypocrite. He is not a Pharisee. He fears
not. He fears not to look at these
marks. He fears not to examine himself. A man is in a terrible position
who will not examine his position. A man is in a in a precarious
position who will not allow the word of God to sit in judgment
on his position. A man's faith is in great danger
who will not subject that faith to God's word. The scripture
says, let a man examine himself whether he be in the faith. Know
ye not your own self? How that Christ dwelleth in you,
except you be a reprobate? Now as we examine ourselves tonight
in this eleven of Phariseeism, hypocrisy, which Christ said
is hypocrisy, I don't know a better rule that we can use than the
words of the Master. Turn to Matthew 23 and let's
look at this chapter. Now the Master gives us eight
marks of hypocrisy. In this one chapter, verse, chapter
23, the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking, and speaking
directly to these hypocrites. He was speaking directly. Now
these men weren't drunks. These men weren't profane swearers.
These men and women to whom our Master is speaking, and he's
speaking to men and women because he's speaking to us too. And
these people to whom our Lord is speaking are religious people. They are church leaders. They
are teachers of the Scriptures. They are moral people. And he
gives us eight marks of Phariseeism, eight marks of hypocrisy. And
as I'm reading these eight marks, I want to examine my own heart.
I want to look into my heart. And I want to do it thoroughly
and completely. I want to lay my profession down
beside this examining rule of our Master. The first thing he
says about these hypocrites, these Pharisees, is in verse
3. Look at it. All therefore whatsoever they
bid you observe, that observe and do. But do not ye after their
works, for they, here it is, here's the first mark of hypocrisy
and Phariseeism, they say and do not. They say and do not. Woman to the man whose religion
is only talk. Woman to the woman whose religion
is only talk. Christ said, you call me Lord
with your lips. That's talk. That's profession.
Well, I believe the Bible. I believe Christ died on the
cross. I believe he was buried and rose again. I believe salvation
is the work of God. I believe in total depravity.
I believe in election. I believe in the atonement. I
believe in the resurrection. I believe in the second coming.
That's talk. That's talk. You call me Lord. Now, notice, he didn't say you
just call me Savior. He said you call me Lord with
your lips. But there's something missing,
and that's a heart work. Now, my friends, conviction of
sin is heart work. It's not head work. It's heart
work. Mr. Shelton used to say, if you miss
Holy Spirit conviction, you'll miss repentance. And if you miss
repentance, you'll miss faith. And if you miss faith, you'll
miss Christ. And if you miss Christ, you'll
miss heaven. And it all goes back to Holy
Spirit conviction of sin. And that's hard work. Listen
to the Scripture. Psalms 34, 18. The Lord is known
to them that are of a broken heart. That's where the work's
done. That's where God convinces a
man of his guilt. That's where God convinces a
man of his sin, in his heart. God is nigh unto them that are
of a broken heart, and he saveth those that are of a contrite
spirit. In Psalms 51, 17, the Scripture
says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and
a contrite heart. When I read about the broken
spirit and the broken heart, I immediately think of a wild
stallion roaming out there on the desert in the West, wild
and untamed and unconquered and unbroken, independent, having
his own way, running his own direction. And then a cowboy
throws a lasso around him and fights him. And it's horse against
man and man against horse. And he rides him and he throws
him and he rides him and he throws him and he rides him and he throws
him. And finally after a certain period of time, He breaks his
spirit. And he becomes a tame, obedient,
submissive servant. And that's what God has to do
to every sinner whom he brings to Christ. He has to break his
spirit. He has to break his heart. And
it's a heart work. In Acts chapter 2 verse 37, those
people at Pentecost, it says, they were what? Pricked in their
hearts. That's where it went on. Woe
unto the man whose conviction is only talk. Woe unto the man
whose religion is only talk. They say and they do not. Not
only is conviction of sin hard work, but faith is hard work.
The scripture says in Romans 10, If thou shalt confess with
thy mouth Jesus to be Lord. Well, all of you have done that.
But have you believed in your heart? For with a heart man believeth
unto righteousness. Barnard said one time, most folks
are 18 inches away from heaven. The difference between here and
here. They've got all the knowledge,
they've got all the doctrine, they've got all the belief right
here in their heads, but it never has penetrated their hearts. With the heart, man believe it.
Paul in Hebrews 3.12 warns us, take heed lest there be found
in you an evil what? heart of unbelief, an evil heart. Love is heart work. The love
of God is shed abroad where? In our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Peter said, See that ye love
one another with a A doctrinal love? See that you love one another
with a pure heart, fervently, compassionately, affectionately. See that you love one another
with a pure heart. That's where it's done. We can
stand and talk about loving the Lord. I love the Lord, my Jesus,
I love Thee. I know Thou art mine. For Thee
all the pleasures of sin I resign. That's talk. that talk. Heart love, that's something
else. That's a miracle. That's a supernatural work. That's
something that God has to do in our hearts. Knowledge of Christ
is heart work. Turn to 2 Corinthians 4. Let's
look at this. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4 through
6, I believe it is. It talks about God revealing
and shining the light of the knowledge of Christ where? In
our hearts. in our hearts. It says in 2 Corinthians
4 verse 6, "...for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus." Now brother,
I don't know whether you're a hypocrite or not. I don't know whether
you're a Pharisee or not. But I do know this is the first
mark of Phariseeism. And that's your religion, and
your love, and your faith, and your repentance. And these things
are talk. Talk. Christ said they say, but
they don't do. Now you say this is hard. No, Christ said they say, and
they don't do. Oh, they'll have excuses. They'll
have a lot of excuses to hide behind. They still say, say,
talk, talk, talk. But they don't do. They don't
produce. And failure to produce the fruits of the Spirit shows
an absence of the fruit of the Spirit. It'll leak out somewhere
down the line. That's right. Now, the second
mark. Turn to Matthew 23. Let's move
on quickly. In the second mark of Phariseeism,
our Lord says in verse 5, all their works they do to be seen
of men. They do their religious works
to be seen of men. Now this is a difficult area,
and this is an area that is always under fire from Satan, and always
under fire from our proud hearts. We want recognition. We want
credit for what we do. We want some praise, not in the
hereafter, right now. We want it right now. That's
human nature. And this is the area that Satan attacks. They
do their good works to be seen of men. The Pharisee, but here's
the difference. The Pharisee cares nothing for
secret prayer. You won't find him in secret
prayer. Or you'll find him standing on the street corner praying.
You'll find him praying in the public worship service. You'll
find him praying from the pulpit as a preacher or pastor. But
you won't find him alone with God pouring out his heart. He just doesn't care for secret
prayer. And the Pharisee cares not for secret work. He wants
all of his works to be seen of men. He's trying to convince
himself of his piety, and he's trying to convince others of
his piety, and he delights in the praise of men. It gives him
assurance. When somebody says, you did a
good deed, that was awful nice of you, I certainly do appreciate
your help, that helps a whole lot. Turn with me to Matthew
chapter 6. Now here our Lord is speaking
about this thing right here. And as I say, it's not an easy
area. It's a difficult area. And it's
an area under constant satanic attack. And it's a place where
Satan knows that human nature is the weakest. We like for somebody
to brag on us. We like to see our name in print.
We like for somebody to tell us we did a good thing. and he's
going to keep on attacking at that weak spot. But we've got
to resist. Christ said in Matthew 6, verse
3, when you do alms, do it in secret. Do it in such a way that
even your left hand does not know what your right hand does.
That your alms may be in secret, and the Father which seeth in
secret shall reward you openly. Verse 5, and when you pray, don't
be like a hypocrite. They love to pray standing in
the synagogue and in the corner of the streets that they may
be seen of men. When you pray, verse 6, go in the closet and
shut the door. And your Heavenly Father, who
it sees in secret, shall reward you openly. And down here in
verse 16, and when you fast, when you're under a particular
burden, when you're doing business with God, Wash your face. Don't be like a hypocrite going
around with a sad countenance trying to convince everybody
that you're going through a religious trial, that you're fasting, that
you're going through a time of intercessory prayer. Wash your
face. Clean up. That you may appear
unto men not to fast. Try to reveal the opposite. Keep
a happy countenance. These folks that, he says in
verse 17, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
that you appear not to men to fast, but unto the Father which
is in secret. He sees in secret, he'll reward
you openly. This is a mark of hypocrisy.
They do their work to be seen of men. And then the third thing,
and this is a real, this is a real, this is a real charge against
our generation. We have more officers in the
church in this day and time than we have members, nearly. Everybody's
got to have an office. Everybody's got to have a title.
But that's Phariseeism. The Pharisees loved the chief
seats. They loved titles and they loved
officers. Listen to Christ in Matthew 23,
verse 6. And they loved the uppermost
rooms. at the feast. They love the chief
seats in the temple or the synagogue, and they love to be greeted in
the marketplace and to be called Master, Doctor, and Reverend,
and Deacon. It sounds good. The disciples
were not free from this. Turn to Mark 10. We're not alone.
The disciples were not free from this. In Mark 10, verse 35, James
and John. You've read this before, but
let's look at it again. In Mark 10, verse 35, James and
John, the sons of Zebedee, came unto him and said, Master, we
would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire.
And Christ said, Well, what would you that I should do for you?
And they said to him, Grant unto us that we may see it, one on
your right hand and the other on your left hand, when you come
in your glory." True faith does not desire recognition. True faith does not desire preeminence,
because true faith knows it does not deserve recognition. I am
what I am by the grace of God. True faith knows that it does
not deserve the preeminence. True faith knows that Christ
did the work, and he deserves the glory. True faith knows that
Christ saved our soul, and he deserves all the preeminence.
And Christ tells us that. Look back in Mark 10 again, and
let me show you something else. Here is what Christ said in reply
to this request. In Mark 10, verse 44, he said, of you that will be the cheapest,
let him be the servant. If you want to be the chief,
then you be the servant. For even the Son of Man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life
a ransom for many. Let this man be in you which
was in Christ our Lord, who thought it not robbery to be equal with
God, and yet made himself of no reputation. and became obedient
unto death, even the cursed, cruel death of the cross." The
Syrophoenician woman came to our Lord and he called her a
dog. Why he said, it's not meat to give the children's bread
to dogs, she said, that's true, Lord. But she said, I'll tell
you this, the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table.
And I'm not asking you for the children's bread, I'm asking
you for the dogs' crumbs. And our master stepped back and
he said, I haven't run into faith like that not even in Israel.
Be it unto you as you desire. Paul the apostle said, I'm less
than the least of all the saints. He said, I'm not worthy to be
an apostle. I am the chief of sinners. I don't want to be a Pharisee. I don't want to be a hypocrite.
One of the marks of Phariseeism and hypocrisy is to love titles
and offices and recognition and preeminence and praise. I wish ministers had never started
this reverend stuff. The scripture says holy and reverend
is his name. There aren't any reverends except
one. He is the only high, holy, and
wonderful potentate. And we don't deserve any titles. Somebody rebuked me one time
for allowing people to call me Henry. That's my name. We call
the apostle Paul, Paul. We don't give any titles to him.
And the sad thing is they even call the Master Jesus. They don't
call him Lord. They get up and introduce a preacher,
and they say, this is Dr. So-and-so from such-and-such
a place, and he stands up and calls my Lord Jesus. He let them
call him Dr., and he's calling my Lord by his first name. There's
something wrong with that. They've got more respect than
that for President Ford. They don't call him Gerald, they
call him President Ford. And I think the Master ought
to be called the Lord Jesus. But I think his servants ought
to be called Charlie and Henry. I do. We're not anything and
we're nobody. Who is Paul? Who is Apollos? Who is Cephas? Nothing but servants,
vessels of God, to do with what he pleases. But that's Phariseeism.
We love titles. We love the chief seats. I'll
tell you another mark of Phariseeism, verse 13. And this is a terrible
mark of Phariseeism. Listen to it. Here's hypocrisy.
It says in verse 13, "...warned you scribes and Pharisees, you
hypocrites, you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men." How does
a Pharisee do that? Christ goes on and says, "...you
won't go in yourselves, and you don't want anybody else to go
in." Do you know how they do it? They refuse to preach the
gospel of free grace to sinners. They won't hear it when we talk
about God being sovereign and man being depraved and in the
dust. When we talk about salvation
being in the hands of the Lord, God saves whom he will. When
we talk about salvation being what God does for you and not
what you do for God, the old modern day Pharisee says, I don't
believe that, and I don't want my children to hear it, and I
don't want my loved ones to hear it, and I'm going to do everything
in my power to keep them from listening to that kind of preaching.
What are they doing? They're shutting up heaven to
those people, because the door to heaven is the Lordship of
Christ. And if you won't bow to Christ's
Lordship now, you'll never call him Lord in glory. If we shall confess with our
mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe in our heart God raised him from
the dead, we shall be saved. The gateway to heaven is the
Lordship of Christ. But the Pharisee, his ambition
for numbers and fame and followers leads him to compromise substitution
and compromise satisfaction and compromise sovereignty. And he
won't hear it, and he won't have it, and he doesn't want anybody
else to hear it or have it. He doesn't care where they go
to church just so they don't listen to this message. He's
building his hope for eternity on his own righteousness, and
he wants everybody else to build on the same foundation. He's
depending on his works and his merit to present him to God and
make him acceptable, and misery loves company. He wants everybody
else to depend upon that same thing. He substitutes for traditions
of the church for Christ. The new birth has been replaced
by decisions now. Regeneration has been replaced
by rituals, and the preaching of the gospel is now secondary.
What you want to do to get a good crowd and have a good service
is get you about a half a dozen quartets. and start your service
at seven o'clock and let your quartet sing and your trio sing
and your instrumentalists play and then when you've got about
five minutes left in the service rush up there and read a verse
of scripture and say we don't have time to preach, the Lord's
been here in great power. That's foolishness. God hadn't
been there at all. God had chosen by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Preaching is the engine,
it's not the caboose. Preaching is not the tail, it's
the dog, the whole dog. God blesses preaching, and Christ
is known by preaching, and the gospel revealed by preaching.
But what this modern-day pharisaical generation has done has pushed
preaching clear out of the window. Sunday school has done that,
too. I'm not opposed to Sunday school, but I want to give you
an example. I went to a church to hold a
meeting one time, and they had the whole program. It started
at 9.30 Sunday morning. They had the people came to Sunday
school, and they divided up into their classes, and they went
to all these different rooms, and they had teachers that didn't
know a thing about God's Word. They had about 50 or 60 teachers,
and there's no church on earth with that many Bible scholars
and that many qualified teachers of the Scripture. This church
is one of the strongest churches in this nation. We don't have
that many Bible scholars and that many people capable of teaching
the Word of God. And they divided up into their
little groups, and they went to their groups, and they sat
around and argued about the Bible. And they said, well, this is
what I think, and this is what I think, and this is what I think.
And one class of men had a woman teacher. I slipped my head in
the door, and I saw a lady standing up there teaching that bunch
of grown men. I thought, I'm not going in there, I know. And it
came around to 10.30, and they dismissed the Sunday school,
and they all stood around and talked a while. About quarter
to 11, they started the morning service. And they sang a while,
and they made announcements, and they put the board up there
and told how many they had Sunday, and how many they had a week
ago, and how many they had a year ago, and how many they were hoping
to have next Sunday, and how many records they were going
to break. And it went on until about eleven-thirty. They'd been
there two hours. And I was the preacher. I'd come
miles to preach to them. I'm the one God calls to preach
to them that Sunday morning. And I turned to the pastor, and
I said, Pastor, we've been here two hours. And these people are
tired and worn out, and they hadn't heard God's preacher yet.
And I said, that's what's happening to the church. And when I get
up to preach, they're not going to hear me, because they already
got mad in their Sunday school class, and they already fell
out with somebody in there, and they've already been misinformed
in there, and these people are worn out, and these women all
know they've got to fix dinner, and everybody's hungry, and the
babies are wet and crying, and this is a mess. It's a mess,
that's what it is. And they haven't heard, it's
the devil's way of getting rid of preaching. And then it lets
the pastor off the hook, too. He doesn't have to study too
hard anyway. He doesn't have to talk for about 15, 20 minutes.
Nobody's going to pay attention to him anyway. That's right. That's Phariseeism. They shut
up the kingdom of heaven to men. They're not going to enter, and
they don't want anybody else to enter. So what have they done? They've done away with preaching.
You watch the average television show. Somebody said, well, on
your television program you have 30 minutes and you preach 30
minutes. I said, it's too expensive to pay $8 a minute to sing. That's
what I'm on there for, to preach. But you listen to the other preachers.
They'll sing for 15 or 20 minutes. And I'll tell you two reasons.
Number one, they don't have anything to say. That's the first reason.
And the second reason is they're entertaining sinners on their
road to hell. God called us to preach. Preach
the word. I don't want to be offensive,
but I'm simply saying that our generation has sold out the master
and has sold out the gospel. And we're in the entertainment
business now instead of the preaching business. And that shuts the
doors to the kingdom of God. Because salvation comes through
a knowledge of the gospel, and the gospel comes to men through
preaching. Now the fifth mark of the Pharisee,
listen to this, see if you don't see our generation here. It says
in verse 15, Warned are you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you
compass sea and land, to make one possilite. He says, you go to any extreme
to get a member. You're going out here to see
how many folks you can get baptized. You're running buses, and advertisements,
and entertainment, and programs, and promotions, and ball teams,
and everything under the sun. You compass sea and land to make
one proselyte to your way of thinking, and to your denomination,
and to your church. You'll go to any length to make
one proselyte. And after you've made him, after
you've won him, he's two-fold more the child of hell than you
are. Now, brethren, we must preach the gospel to every creature.
God called us to go into all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature, by television, by radio, by missionary work,
by personal witnessing. Mouth to mouth, house to house,
door to door, country to country, preach the gospel of Christ.
We must pray for God to convict men of sin. We must pray for
men to be saved. And when we get a burden on our
hearts for sinners, we will pray for them. We will cry an intercessory
prayer to God to save them. But salvation is the work of
the Lord. It's not my work. It's God's
work. And when I preach the gospel
to sinners, that's all I can do. I'm not going to coerce them
and buttonhole them and drag them down an aisle and try to
get a profession of faith out of them. The Holy Spirit has
to awaken the sinner. The Holy Spirit has to convict
the sinner. The Holy Spirit has to reveal
Christ to the sinner. The Holy Spirit has to give repentance
toward God and faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit has to break
down the walls of rebellion. The Holy Spirit has to strip
the sinner of his self-righteous rage. The Holy Spirit has to
sweep his false foundations out from under him. The Holy Spirit
has to break his weapons of warfare and have him stack his arms and
fall on his face before Jesus Christ. I can't do that, and
you can't either. Our churches are filled with
unsaved religionists, because we've drug them down the aisle
from the primary department to the junior department to special
revivals and special crusades and special campaigns and special
soul-winning tactics, and we're butchering the souls of sinners,
and we're giving them false hope for eternity, and they're going
to hell depending on that little easy believism that we told them
was enough. It's not enough. You must be
born again. What do Pharisees do? What do
hypocrites do? They try to win the loss to Jesus. And that's the Holy Spirit's
work. That's not my work. I've never won a soul to Jesus,
and nobody else has but the Holy Ghost. We want our little buttons. We want a hundred souls to Jesus. You Pharisee, you hypocrite,
you might have been close around when the Holy Spirit saved somebody,
but you didn't save them. If you did, they're two-fold
more the child of hell than you are." That's what he says. You encompass sea and land to
make one proselyte, and that's all he is. He's a proselyte.
He's a false professor. Check up on some of those folks
you've won to Jesus and see if they're still around. Most of
them aren't. I'll tell you another mark of
hypocrisy. Look here at Matthew 23, verse 24. It says here, you
strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Warned to you scribes
and Pharisees, you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. What's
he talking about? Back here in verse 23, he says,
they pay tithes of mint and anise and cumin In other words, the
old-time Pharisees were very careful about their religious
duties, especially their outward duties. They paid their tithes
exactly on everything. They washed their hands carefully
before they ate. They just walked so many steps
on the Sabbath day. Theology, Orthodoxy, Ceremonialism,
all of these things were of supreme importance. Exactness, truth,
truth, truth, that's all they talked about. But they gave no
importance to the spirit of the truth. They gave no importance
to mercy. They gave no thought to faith.
They gave no consideration to kindness. They gave no thought
to love. They gave no importance to humility. Christ said, these things you
ought to have done. That is, study theology. It's important. There's a place
for doctrine. There's a place for orthodoxy. There's a place
for worshiping God in a manner which God has prescribed. Our
God is an exact God. His truth is pure. His righteousness
is pure. But, he that loveth not knoweth
not God. Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
Be ye merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful. Listen
to this, bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law
of Christ. I got a letter from a dear friend
in North Carolina that he and his wife were on a trip last
week. They were going to visit his daughter. Late at night they
had a blowout on a rear tire pulled off side of the road and
he got out and took all the suitcases out, got the spare tire out and
put it on the wheel and it was flat. And he thought, man, I'm
in a mess. Here it is in the middle of the
night, spares flat and other tires blown out and tried to
flag some cars down, nobody stopped. Finally a truck stopped, a little
pickup truck. And the fellow got out and he
said, what's the problem? Well, he explained the situation. He
said, well, I got a wrecker down the road. I live right down the
road here and said, I want to get my wrecker. He said, I got
an air hose on it and I'll come up and take care of your problem.
So Mr. Keene said he and his wife got
back in the car and they're waiting. That's why he came with his wrecker
and there's a little light flashing, you know, and he got out and
filled the tire up. He said, now follow me down to
my, down to my garage. And he said, I'll fix your tire
and send you on your way. So they went down to go. His
wife said, this is going to cost a fortune. They went on down
to the garage, you know, and they pulled in. That fellow worked.
He fixed the tire and put it back on the wheel and took the
spout and put it back in the back, you know, and closed the
trunk. He said, Y'all have a good trip. Mr. King said, How much
do I owe you? He said, Friend, you don't owe
me anything. He said, I don't understand that. He said, Well,
I'll tell you. He said, I'm a Christian. I know the Lord. And he said,
I ride these highways at night to see if I can help somebody
out. He said, I just love to serve the Lord. You know, I bet he gave his tithe,
too, on Sunday. That's what the Lord's saying.
You do these things that are prescribed in the Word, but don't
leave the other thing undone. Don't omit the weightier matters
of the law. What are the weightier matters?
Love, mercy, peace, kindness, humility. The old Pharisee can
do all these other things. He can do anything that's prescribed
to be done in ceremony and legally, but he can't produce a broken
heart. Quickly, the seventh thing. It
says in verse 27, it says, "...Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
you are like whited tombstones." You appear beautiful, but inside
you are full of uncleanness and dead men's bones. Unto men you
appear outwardly righteous, but within you are full of hypocrisy."
The old Pharisees' definition of sin is the same definition
that we have today of sin. It consists in outward deeds.
It is limited to outward deeds. It has little to do with the
heart. That's the reason when our Lord said, and I won't turn
to it, my time's gone, but our Lord said, it's not that which
goeth into the mouth that defileth a man, it's that which comes
out of the heart. And the disciples slipped up
and they said, Lord, the Pharisees were offended by that. You offended
them. Their whole conception of sin
is touch not, taste not. Do not. They know nothing of
this. Sin in the heart, sin in the
attitude, sin in the motive, sin in the affections, sin in
the will. And they were offended. And when
you go out and preach that sin is more than action, it's attitude,
the Pharisee is going to get offended because he can produce
all that action that you want, but he can't produce that God-like
attitude. The eighth mark of the hypocrite
is this. In verse 29, our Lord said, "...warned
you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you build the tombs of the prophets,
and you garnish or decorate the sepulchres of the righteous."
What's he saying? Briefly, this is what he's saying.
You praise dead preachers and kill living preachers. That's
what he's saying. This is a pattern which goes
all the way back through history. This is the pattern of the Pharisee.
He loves dead preachers and hates living preachers. I'm not talking
about preachers. I'm not talking about these commercial characters.
I'm talking about prophets. I'm talking about God-sent men.
Men who dare to stand up on their hind legs and tell the truth
from God's Word. Who preach Christ and Him crucified.
And this world, they bragged on Abraham and hated Moses. That's
right. Abraham was dead. Moses was alive. And then when Moses died, they
started bragging on Moses and hated the Lord Jesus. They said,
well, we got Moses. We don't like him. We like Moses.
They didn't like Moses when he was here, but he's dead now.
And boy, preaching can really get great when he's dead. And
then they bragged on Christ and hated the apostles. And then
they bragged on the apostles and hated Luther and Calvin. and Spurgeon. And now, they love
Luther now. He's dead. Calvin was a great
man. Owens and Whitfield and Spurgeon,
they were great men. That's what a fellow I heard
on the television the other day. He said, What we need today is
some more Luthers and Calvins and Spurgeons and Knox. He didn't
believe a word any of them preached. But they hate the man who preaches
what these men preach. My friends, the only way that
a person can continue to play the hypocrite is to forget the
presence of God. That's the only way. Because
the scripture says, God seeth not as man seeth. Man looketh
on the outward countenance. God looketh on the heart. And
that's where I've got to do business. I can deceive people. I can even
deceive myself. But I can't deceive God. I fear
hypocrisy, don't you? I can die with the name of Christ
on my lips, and I can die with men praising me for my good works
and my good deeds. And men may bury me in the hope
of eternal life, and then I'll hear Christ say, I never That
would be a tragedy, because God is not deceived by man's opinion,
and he's not deceived by man's profession. God looks on the
heart. That's the reason Christ said,
beware, oh, run from it, fear it, fight it, cry out against
it, the leaven of Phariseeism. It's hypocrisy. Our Father, bless the Word tonight. May this Word, like a hammer,
break our hard hearts. May this Word, like a sword,
pierce deeply into our very souls. Let us be laid bare before the
searchlight of Thy Word. Let our hearts be open unto Thee
and to one another. Grant, O Lord, that we shall
not be pharisees and hypocrites, that our relationship in repentance
and confession and faith and godliness shall be between us
and our Master, where the chief of sinners have mercy and not
justice. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.