{"id":7257,"date":"2014-10-08T06:17:14","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T11:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=7257"},"modified":"2014-10-08T06:17:44","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T11:17:44","slug":"hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/hypocrisy\/","title":{"rendered":"What hypocrisy looks like and why the Lord hates it with a passion"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (Matthew 23:13,14,15,23,25,27,29).\u00a0 “Woe to you, blind guides!” (Matthew 23:16,24,26).\u00a0 “You serpents, you brood of vipers!” (Matthew 23:33).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Lord has this thing about hypocrites.<\/p>\n

He doesn’t care for them much.<\/p>\n

You and I have learned something God hasn’t managed to do: to accommodate ourselves to those who say one thing and do another.<\/p>\n

Take the beer company of St Louis, for instance. We read this and it sounds normal to us. It took a secular writer to point out the hypocrisy in their moralizing.<\/p>\n

“We are not yet satisfied with the league’s handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code.<\/em>” –Anheuser Busch, responding to recent scandals in the National Football League (TIME magazine, September 29, 2014)<\/p>\n

Humor writer Ian Frazier nails the famous beer company for its duplicitous moralizing in the same issue of TIME magazine.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks the NFL has been under attack for its mishandling of the serious misbehavior of players who, among other things, knocked out a wife in the elevator and was caught on tape doing it, and beat a four-year-old child leaving whelps and open wounds on his skin.<\/p>\n

The famous beer company, known for its massive advertising throughout every sporting event available, takes the NFL to task for its pitiful reaction.\u00a0 Such behavior is against Anheuser-Busch’s moral code and culture.<\/p>\n

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Ian Frazier scoffs at that. He remembers Spuds MacKenzie, the Budweiser dog in years past, who presumably drank beer and danced with these pretty “babes.”\u00a0 He gives a drunkenly “I love you, man,” and asks if we remember those commercials. Some guy is drinking everyone else’s beers while assuring his friends “I love you, man.”\u00a0 Frazier writes, “A desperate alcoholic destroying all his personal relationships?\u00a0 He was morality, plus a beer ad.”\u00a0 He says, “And I’ll tell you, after I saw that ad I felt so moral that I never again committed insurance fraud except once.\u00a0 That was the uplifting effect Anheuser-Busch had in one man’s life–my own.”<\/p>\n

Such hypocrisy. The company which fuels misbehavior through the consumption of its product now condemns the waywardness of those who do such over-the-top things.<\/p>\n

We are not saying the perpetrators of this particular violence against the wife and the child were hopped up on beer.\u00a0 But plenty of abusers are, without question.<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy has always been with us and ever shall be.<\/p>\n

In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees spoke of this great moral code–the one bearing Moses’ name–while abusing the helpless, betraying widows, and duping the gullible.\u00a0 Our Lord had little patience with them (or better put, His patience had run out) and He scalded them. “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23).<\/p>\n

Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus calling hypocrites down and holding them accountable. He did not mince words or soften their impact.\u00a0 This (Matthew 23) is the toughest sermon in Scripture and is directed to religious people.<\/p>\n

Early in my ministry, teams from my church would hold religious services in jails and our state penitentiary.\u00a0 My initial inclination was to preach strongly to the inmates about their misbehavior. I blistered them for their robbing and stealing, for drunkenness and wickedness.<\/p>\n

Then I noticed something in Scripture.<\/p>\n

Throughout the gospels, the Lord Jesus was tender with the outcasts and outright sinners (see Luke 15:1-2. “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”\u00a0 And guess who was unhappy about that? The scribes and Pharisees.) but was at His strongest and fiercest when dealing with religious hypocrites.<\/p>\n

That scares me a little. I’m a religious leader.\u00a0 I’m in a position where people look at me and–to my horror–make judgements about Jesus.<\/p>\n

If I misrepresent Him by my manner, my rudeness, my teaching, my attitude, etc., then people get the wrong idea about Him and He is not pleased with me.<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy is intentional, and not accidental.<\/strong>\u00a0 To be sure, some people get things wrong and unintentionally say one thing and end up doing something else.\u00a0 But the hypocrisy that roused the Lord’s dander was the well-thought-out kind that intends to betray and misuses the position of trust.<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy aims to deceive. <\/strong>In order to convince people to trust us, we say the right things without any intention to follow through on them.\u00a0 Politicians in our country have developed this into an art.\u00a0 The scribes (experts on the law) and Pharisees (conservatives calling for strict adherence to the law) were publicly impressive and privately “devour(ing) widows’ houses” (Matthew 23:14).<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy looks like truth and honor. <\/strong> The lies and dishonor lie beneath the surface.\u00a0 Jesus slammed the scribes and Pharisees as being like “whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27).\u00a0 A hypocrite is like beautiful cups and saucers brought out to impress guests; inside the cup, however, is garbage and sewage.\u00a0 An unforgettable image!<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy counts on peoples’ gullibility and laziness.\u00a0 <\/strong>They hope no one will ask the tough questions, such as “Didn’t\u00a0 you say the opposite thing last week?”\u00a0 “How do you account for this thing you did yesterday?”<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy is all about appearance.\u00a0 <\/strong>Unless someone notices the hypocrite being spiritual or sees his generous gift to the campaign or is impressed by his pious talk and religious fervor, it’s all in vain. So, he will go out of his way to make certain that others see all the good he has done.<\/p>\n

God’s faithful people–the disciples of Jesus Christ–must be always on the alert to the temptation to say one thing and do another.\u00a0 We must not condone it in ourselves and certainly not in our spiritual leaders.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The hypocrite is the greatest rationalizer of all time.\u00a0 <\/strong>He has an explanation for the gulf between his claims and his actions, his preaching and his failure to practice.\u00a0 What’s more, he probably believes some of his own lies.\u00a0 And that makes him more dangerous than ever because it empowers his attempts at sincerity.<\/p>\n

“Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbors, for we are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Let us constantly pray the prayer of Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any wicked way in me; And lead me in the everlasting way.” <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (Matthew 23:13,14,15,23,25,27,29).\u00a0 “Woe to you, blind guides!” (Matthew 23:16,24,26).\u00a0 “You serpents, you brood of vipers!” (Matthew 23:33). The Lord has this thing about hypocrites. He doesn’t care for them much. You and I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,20,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-fruit-of-the-spirit","category-spiritual-maturity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7257"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7354,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257\/revisions\/7354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}