THE hypocrite knows that he is only pretending to love Jesus. It is the knowledge that he only affects to be a lover of Christ that constitutes him a hypocrite. He puts a beautiful mask on an ugly face. With his own hand he puts it on, and he never takes it off so long as he remains a hypocrite. If he say, “I was a hypocrite, I had the thoughts of a hypocrite, did the deeds of a hypocrite, I have sinned!” Then God is faithful and just to forgive. He is no longer a hypocrite. He is a pardoned sinner; and going to God, saying, “I have sinned,” God receives him as a son―his sin is blotted out.
A man may think he has been a hypocrite. The best thing for him is to tell the Lord Jesus what his thoughts are. Jesus died on the Cross for hypocrites who have found themselves out, and are weary of being hypocrites, who say, “We are miserable sinners, and without Christ undone.” Jesus died for such hypocrites.
If a hypocrite do another any good, he blows a trumpet. He tries to hide his sins by publishing his deeds; and backbites his neighbor to preserve his own character. Hypocrites make long prayers, but they never desire the fellowship of those who really pray. They seek after ceremonies, but avoid the company of true worshippers, lest, coming to the light, they should be discovered and exposed. The hypocrite never contemplates the word of God, unless to deceive others by pretensions to the knowledge of Christ. The moment he contemplates the word, to know God and Christ, and himself, he ceases to be a hypocrite.
Let the vilest hypocrite, or the sinner who has sinned ever so much, look to Jesus and His cross — not to himself, but to Jesus crucified―and all is well. Then he may say,
“I the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me.”
Satan in malice would persuade a real child of God that he is a hypocrite, just as in his guile he would persuade a hypocrite to attempt to pass for a Christian. Satan has many masks for many faces. He would put the mask of the hypocrite on the weak in faith, and persuade such that they were hypocrites, and he would put the mask of religion on the hypocrite. Satan attains his end, when in any way God is dishonored. The Spirit of God, by the cross and resurrection of Christ―through the word of truth―convinces and comforts the believer, sheaving him that Christ his Portion was his Substitute, and is his High Priest, and that his desire to be like Christ springs from above. With respect to the hypocrite who never confesses his hypocrisy, God in due season will make him manifest to all. The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
Augustine said, Good works (as they are called) in sinners are nothing but splendid sins.
One of the devil’s temptations is so to occupy our minds with the past and future, as to weaken us for the present.
The flesh profiteth nothing either morally, intellectually, or religiously.