This sermon delves into the dangers of hypocrisy, emphasizing the need for sincerity in our relationship with God and others. It highlights the importance of covering each other's faults with love, the deceptive nature of hypocrisy, and the critical spirit that can lead to division and destruction within the church. The sermon encourages self-reflection, prayer for guidance, and a focus on genuine devotion to God.

Let's pray. Now, Father, you probably have a lesson for us to learn here. And we're always learning things. And so help us to grab a hold of the atmosphere here. And just to maybe ask you to teach us something out of this. We're not perfect. We don't do perfect things. And so we'll ask you to rebuke the enemy away from this place, Father, that the Holy Spirit would come and teach us what we need to learn. In Jesus' name, Amen. Sometimes things get out of control of what you think is going to be. And I guess this was, I suggest to me we have testimony. I didn't know he was going to do it. And so I'll just take this opportunity to say that when you have testimonies, I'm just going to be honest with you. Doing this for a long time, you need to have somebody probably right by the mic. When I was working in a revival conference, there were about 12 of us to speak. And I spoke and I ended up being the moderator. And another man, the pastor who I met there, we agreed that we'd have a mic, that we would be there, and that nobody was touching the mic. And this happens sometimes. You have to get people to move on. And it could be a little rough. And it may not be done maybe right. And so what we would do is hold the mic. Many times if it's on a stand there, we wouldn't let them touch it. But when you give a testimony, let's just say this, it should be something that Christ has done in your heart. The tendency is to want to preach. And so we would have to keep it. What has God done in your heart? And basically, I didn't know he was going to do it, but I would have gave you some suggestions. Let's share what God has done into your heart this weekend. Now, let's be specific. You be specific and you be quick and you be clear about it. And just see what God has done in your heart. So this is probably my fault. I'll take the heat on this. And almost thought about coming up when Ezra's going to do that and say, I didn't even plan on doing it now. I wanted to maybe do it the last session and guide it, direct it. So you learn things. And we're always learning. We're making mistakes. And we've had people come to our meetings to take over. In fact, when we had a revival in 85, we had one group that come in. And they were singers. And the Spirit of God was there. And one man sang a song. And he actually couldn't sing. He'd be maybe worse than me. But he couldn't carry a tune in the bucket. But he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was beautiful. He couldn't sing, but he was filled with the Spirit again. And this professional type group come in there with their instruments. And they wanted to sing. It was just flat. They sort of bullied their way in there. And so you learn a lot of things. And as a matter of fact, I've got a few copies, a little booklet on revival I wrote. I gave Timothy a copy of one of the originals. I'd printed up, I think, 1,000. And then another printing 1,000. And another printing 1,000. And the man that I mentioned, the man that minored me, got a hold of it and printed up, I think, like 3,000 copies. And I've got a few copies I brought, which all it is just 10 pages of what God did a little bit in our church in 18 days. And the evangelist wanted me to write a book on it in the whole two years. Because after the first month, it went spontaneous for two years all over this, well, just around the state. But getting back to this, it's really difficult to follow the Holy Spirit. And the enemy would like to get in on things. And so you have some hard things, which might just be good for us to, you know, I've learned I need to write my plans in sand, especially, you know, Philip the evangelist, he may have plans for a vacation. And God said, I've got one for you. You got to go down here. And he meets the Ethiopian and leads him to the Lord. And then he finds himself somewhere. So to be flexible with the Lord is important to be careful with people, which maybe I'll just I'm going to jump in on two things, maybe. And just go. What about hypocrisy? That's one of the two main weapons of the enemy is hypocrisy and criticalness. So let's just jump in here where we're at. And let's talk about hypocrisy. Are you a hypocrite? Am I a hypocrite? It all depends on if I'm in the spirit or not. Walk in the spirit, you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. And so what's going on here? Let's go over to a passage of scripture. And let's just go into this a little bit, and then we'll take a break a little bit, and then we'll go over to the other one. I thought, well, maybe, boy, Lord, we have been going heavy on some things. Maybe we can lighten up a little bit this evening. And I've got some things to share on maybe some things, some testimonies and things. But let's talk about hypocrisy a little bit. In, what did I say, Luke 18 and verse 9, I think it is. This passage here, let's just ask God to direct us. Did I pray yet? I did, didn't I? Okay. Short memory. And he spake this parable, Luke 18, 9, unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up into the temple to pray, and the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For every one that exalted himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Now, we've had to deal with this type of issue before. My first encounter with it, and the Bible does talk about it, and I've talked to many about this and gone to them in the Scriptures, especially 1 Corinthians 14, and they have no idea what the Scripture says about speaking in tongues and this kind of stuff. And I listened to a guy over in Scotland, went to this church, this young preacher, and he would take off into some kind of stuff, gibberish or whatever, and then come back. There's no interpreter. That's one of the violations of it. Paul said he'd rather speak, what is it, five words that you can understand rather than 10,000, and so there's so much violation of this, but yet, in the process, we can offend the brother. We might need to reach out and encourage him, but there we go. And another time I had an encounter, I was with a doctor friend of mine who lives across the river, and we were doing a broadcast, and then we went to prayer. There was three of us in there, the doctor and myself, and the guy running the controls, and he had a mic, and we had a mic. No, yeah, I think he, there was four of us, three of us there in the interview, and then the guy doing the controls, and so we went to praying, and this other guy took off, and we were like, oh, this is going out all over the radio and everywhere. And when we got back to his house, the first thing he went to his wife, he said, what did that sound like? And she said, what? I didn't hear nothing. What we didn't know is the control guy had cut his mic. But we need to be careful because the enemy likes to take control however he can in our lives, and we've had some situations like this. We were in that place in Ohio, and we were using a charismatic building because it would hold 2,700 people, and some of the people there were there in the church when we came, and we hear these hollow, hallelujah, it just had nothing to it and whatever. But as they began to realize that this is, and some of these places like to set up their drums and their big speakers, and it's gotten them like that, they got offended because we were not going to have a rock concert there. And so there's a lot of offense been in this area, and so it's very difficult to know how to deal with some of these situations. And so let's just go in here and look at this area of hypocrisy. Are we hypocrites with each other? Are we hypocrites with others and things? These are hard things. I want to just share three things with you. We're already gone. It's about time for a break. And so maybe I'll just hit some highlights. Covering the subject of hypocrisy from this text that I just did, I asked myself, why should I cover the subject of hypocrisy? And I come up with these three things. One, for perception. Tonight we were having to exercise some discernment and some perception. A lot of things we've learned, a lot of people and the enemy likes to take control and get attention to self. If God is going to be in on a testimony, he's going to be glorified. If the enemy is going to, he's going to want to draw it to himself. And that can be difficult for us. So it's for perception. Because Paul, I went over and I marked a verse, he said in 2nd Timothy 3, 13, but evil men and seducers shall act worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. And so there's a lot of deception. I do. Okay. Oh. Okay. I need to get. All right. Thanks. I thought it was 10 to 6. All right. You could have got rid of me real quick. And so the seducers are coming in, the evil men, and they come in. But we also need to understand the subject for protection, just to protect ourself. After preaching for a long time here, gone through all kinds of experiences and everything and made mistakes. One of the areas that sometimes we really need each other, because what I might see, you may not see, what you see, I may not see. So we really need each other. And I try to work with my men, and they probably need to be a little bit stronger with me than they are, because I can make mistakes. But also for preservation. So perception and for protection and for preservation. And basically in preservation, I've got another word for that, and that's the proclamation of the truth. Because if we're not preserved to be pure and right and holy and whatever, we will have the truth distorted. We will not proclaim the truth and these type of things. Leaven is a very small thing. But if you leave it in the bread and give it some heat, you know, you could have your loaf of bread five foot tall, I guess. If you didn't get there, I'm sure some of the ladies would probably remember sometimes they come in and it's covering the table. I don't know if it gets that big. We had a little natural food store for nine years, and we made bread. My daughter would probably say, Dad, what's this wee? I kept telling her, you ought to make pizza. People come in here and buy your pizza. I said, who's going to do this, Dad? All right, let's go here. Hypocrisy. Five times this word is used for dissimilation. Isn't that interesting? And one time for condemnation. It pollutes, it defiles, it presents what is not true. And so that's the basic thing on hypocrisy. So our text is we got a guy praying here and he's all hyped up on himself. But here's one of the things that I think he was a Puritan. He said this, no hypocrite can bear the cross. Hypocrisy doesn't really like to be humbled and to go down. And the hypocrites are easily offended. Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. And so here's the thing about the Pharisees. Hypocrisy is something that could happen to any of us at any time, especially if we're walking somewhere and the Lord says, give a track to this guy. All of a sudden, we're a hypocrite. We don't want to look bad before him or, you know. I gave a track to somebody the other day, where it was. Anyway, I could tell when they got it. I can see the expression on their face. Oh, yeah, we were in a discount store down in Missouri coming in. It's like, oh, okay, they have been given so many tracks. I just said, pray, Lord, make him read it. Don't let him throw it away. But I could tell. I could tell. So, boy, you just don't want to give it to people you think they get them all the time. Waitresses and things. So what we want to do is see what we can learn from these three Ps. From our perception and from the area of protection and from the area of preservation for the proclamation of the gospel. And so hypocrisy is something that could happen to any of us at any time, any moment. But here's the thing. It is predominant in the hypocrite. Or the Pharisee, as we might say, all the time. It is a dominant characteristic in many of these Pharisees. This guy is one of them. So hypocrisy is predominant in the false Pharisee. And they like to practice to stick to observance of external forms, ceremonies. They like to have formality. I don't have many formal bones in my body. Uh, and I'll just, it's not going to do us much good. I really like you guys. This is my formality. And so with regard to the spirit, they're not really tuned into it. Self-righteous, hypocritical. So let's see what you can learn. First of all, in perception with those that are professing Christ, here's what hypocrisy does. It blinds you to see what you really are. And if you don't see what you're really are, you really don't care what other people are. Because all you care about is to look good yourself. And so it blinds you that they were righteous. That they were righteous. It says in the scripture that they were righteous. Wow. And, uh, no Puritan said it is the most defiling of sins. It's the most defiling of sins. Of course, our enemy that he's a master hypocrite. Here's something else it does just to branch off this first one. I'm still on the first one. This is some subtitles on our perception of it. A, it blinds. B, it ensnares. You see, this guy didn't come to receive. He came to tell God how great he was. Wow. I'm sure God was really impressed. He's probably sick. He just, he's not there to listen to this stuff. The guy needs, needs God. And he was in his own trap. This is what it does. It ensnares. He had ensnared himself. And, uh, uh, Job 34, 30 said that the hypocrite, uh, reign not lest the people be ensnared. And so if he's ensnared, he ensnares others. You can even form your own little clique like they had. Not all the Pharisees there were real Pharisees in heart. Some of them came to Christ. A lot of them came to Christ. And C, hypocrisy hardens. So it's good if God nails us on something, uh, that we soften up real quick. It hardens. He believed his own deceit. He believed his own prayer. And so he's getting harder in it. Why tempt me, ye hypocrites? Matthew 22, 16 through 18. They're always trying to trap Jesus. And finally, so could they couldn't control them. They couldn't get them quite. They just decided they'd kill them. The ultimate end of hypocrisy is to kill God. Get God out of your life because you have made yourself on your own God. Whoa, this could get lower. Okay. One time I was preaching down in my home church and I was preaching. I don't even know what I was preaching. I was preaching on the cross. And while I'm preaching God, the Holy Spirit, God had, what do you say? The audacity or the nerve to convict me right while I'm preaching. You know, so as soon as I stopped, I headed for the front row. Get right. God. Oh, wow. This wasn't going the way I thought it would go. You know what? What it was. He nailed me on. I was in my own denomination down there, which is not too good a shape. And God nailed me and said, what if I want you to preach in this denomination? That's a mess. What if I want you to come back and share? I said, whoa. Okay, God, whatever you want. He said, you're going to limit me to where I'm going to use you. I'm glad he didn't call me a hypocrite at least. All right. You know, walking with God can be a little bit hot sometimes. So it hardens. Here's something else that does see hypocrisy exalts itself. Of course, we can see that one. But here's something else about it. If we have a hypocritical spirit, we are going to judge wrong. We don't have the ability to judge right. Listen to what this guy says about his neighbor. I think they in verse 11 that I am not as other men are extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as this publican tax collector. I fast twice in a week. I give tithes of all that I possess and the publican standing afar off would not so much as his eyes lifted, so much as lifted his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone that exalted themselves shall be abased and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. So hypocrisy is an exalting thing. One more thing on this. Hypocrisy is performance based. Now, we can make our kids into hypocrites because we they're raised in the home and they they know what how you're supposed to dress right and look right and be right and everything. But if we're not careful, they can go through all the rules and miss Christ. And it is a danger in the Christian homeschooling movement. And we're seeing the fruit of this come out in many places. So it's it's, you know, the put rules on them and everything. It's really delicate. We want to look godly. We want to dress right. We want to be modest. We want to have good standards and everything. But if we're not careful, we can produce some little hypocrites that when they grow up, they're going to peel out and walk off. They're not going to have a desire for Christ. Now, second reason was for protection. Protection from wolves in the church scene. It's I've heard so many stories and been into a lot of things. Acts 2028 is the text where Paul said when he left, he knew that wolves are going to enter into the church. Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he had purchased with his own blood. For I know this. He had already perceived that they were around. They're just waiting for him to get out of the way. He knew it. That after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. So, brethren, it is a fierce, fierce battle to maintain unity and be of one accord and one spirit. It is something that we have to really fight after the guard after. And we have to we have to for ourself always recognize that I could be wrong. I could be wrong. And if there are many that come to you to say this, we really need to pay attention. I've had that happen to me one time and I wouldn't listen. And guess what? They were right. And I crashed. That's the way it is. So for protection from those that think they are superior, they despise others. They they like to lord it over the Lord's heritage. First Peter five, three. Sometimes the thing about hypocrisy is they like to control. If you are under the spirit of Christ and you're in a leadership position, you you're only there because, you know, God wants you there. And if God wants you down, you'll gladly go down. But hypocrites don't like to go down. They always like to go up the highest seats. They want the highest seats. And so it's really a it's really a delicate area. And I'll just share a story with you. You say I could be here three hours. You had Keith Daniel here now. I know that. All right. You need soft chairs in our revival up there. We had we had amazing things happen. One one neighbor of Vicki folks, they have a ranch in over four miles next neighbor to the north. He got God got ahold of him, just really got ahold of him. We were friends. And and so he sold his ranch. I don't know how much money it was worth. You know, it could have been a million could have been two million or whatever. And he said, all I did was trade all my assets and got rid of all my debts and had enough money to go off to seminary for three years. And and so and by the way, he went there after the first year. God wiped out all the other. And he came to me. God didn't want me leaning on. He wanted me to trust him to live my faith. But he come back after that. And there was a little church about 70 miles away and need a pastor. And they were looking to me. I've been around in the area. And so I sent him over there to be their pastor. Wrong thing to do. Wrong thing to do. It took me the hard way to figure that out. He was a novice. He needed a little bit more experience, more than just the Bible school. This is crazy. Our seminaries and Bible schools and take a guy just went behind the ears just and then stick them in to fly a 747. Generally, the elders are the older men with the wisdom and experience. Anyway, I put them over there. And then I had another buddy that was in the first church in the revival. We worked together. We roofed together and painted people's barns and everything because we didn't take salaries. God had told me from the beginning, don't take salaries. Whoever takes a salary 1975 will control you. And I've felt on that a couple times just a little bit. But anyway, so we we had a ball. We just we're on roofs and we pray. We talk to people would be in their kitchen sharing Christ and everything. So he went over there and one of the man that had asked me to help him over there, call me and my other buddy in and said, listen, we're having trouble with our new pastor. Well, he was our friend and we wouldn't listen to him. Because he was our friend. I've got burnt a couple of times on this with my friends. Anyway, here's what God did. God has a sense of humor. So he was over there. And while he's over there, I don't know what year he went over there. But anyway, after that, he went over there. God told us to drop everything. We've had this revival in 88. God come back and wanted me to drop everything. I've been traveling around and I've got the fat head. I didn't know it. And God want me to drop everything and go down and get cool off. And so I did. Went down to southern Missouri and just walked the woods for 14 months. Did a little bit of work, but not much. Unless he just seeking God and God showed me that I got proud. And so in the meantime, God showed up because I revival went for two years. God showed up again over in the church. We put him in. And he's doing good. He's doing pretty good job over there. Pastor and God showed up a different evangelist. They went for 10 and a half weeks. 10 and a half weeks with God working in a town of 10,000, a thousand people. Prayed to receive Christ. How many got saved? Who knows? But the spirit of God was working and it was a railroad town, Burlington Railroad town. All these railroaders, many of them getting saved, getting right with God and taking their junk back to the railroad that they'd stole. Then they had a problem. These guys are bringing tens and twenties and thousands, thousands of dollars worth of material back. They are thieves and employees. So the headquarters, I think it was down in Denver, sent out a bulletin. Anybody bringing anything back in the next 30 days, just bring it back, drop it off and forget about it. So God was working and it was powerful. In the meantime, we're down in Missouri and he's on the phone every week. When are you going to get back up here and help us? God has showed up again. God has showed up again. I mean, guys from around the country come in and want to know what's going on and write up in some Christian magazines and stuff like that. I said, I'm so poor I can't get out of town hardly. My tires aren't good. And so finally we did get out of there and we went back up there, got there for the last meeting and it went for 10 and a half weeks. It was really something. We got there for the last day of it and then we hung around up in that area. It felt like God wanted to stay up there. And we met with the evangelists as pastors a little bit later and he looked at me and he said, you need to go over there where that revival was. I said, oh, okay. And so I went over there. My other buddy, a year later, he moved in there and so we had a five-fold eldership set up. I was made an elder of the church and the one I'd sat there, he was an evangelist. He had it set up in the church where he could go anywhere. God would call him for 25% of the time and he was being used from coast to coast. So here's what happened. Now, I know I'm taking a lot of time, but like you said, we got three and a half hours. You had to keep that in your memory. See if I can break his record. And so here's what happened. I go in there and so I started doing handyman work and roofing or whatever I could get. Because we didn't take salaries. We just took what God would give us. If people in church gave us money, fine. We just worked. We did whatever. And so I started doing that and my buddy, he moved in there. The first pastor, we moved in there. And so the three of us, we'd been together for quite a while. And then there was another man come in and he joined us. He was a mercy. He was very sensitive. And then there was another man elder that was just all of a follower for the pastor. And so we had this thing going and God had been working and God was working. And we were in this little old church packed out. And they'd had the meetings in another church, a big church. And so we're going along and I got to preach one time. In two and a half years, I preached one time. And the pastor would go off. I did not use names in this. These tapes are going to go out all over the place. And so pretty soon I began to notice something. And I told my buddy that we'd been together. I said, you know, people are beginning to leave the church. And I said, it's the men beginning to leave the church. I said, there's some kind of problem. And he was an intercessor. And so he went to God. I mean, he went to God and he came back a little bit later and he said, it's the pastor's wife. We've got a problem. And so we'd always go to the cabin and pound things out. And if we saw something in each other, we would go pound it out. And that's just the way we were. And sometimes it wasn't fun, you know, but we would just bang it out. And so we went to the cabin and down on the lake, a man had a cabin. We went there and we confronted him with this problem that we had. It was a spirit of envy that she had. And he said, boys, it's time for you to move on. Time for you to go get your own ministry. So basically he told us, get out of here. It had become his kingdom. And the pride had come in. And the other evangelists come in and tried to talk to him. Nobody could tell him, he wouldn't listen. And we were trying to tell him. And so basically he told us to get out of there. And so I said, that's it. When I heard, when my buddy said it's a pastor's wife, I said, that's it. If anybody came in and preached and they wasn't very good, they got to preach all the time. But if you were good, you didn't get back in anymore. The wife was jealous for her husband. He wasn't that great of a preacher. He just had the anointing of God on him. He was an evangelist and powerful when anointing of God. But I said, that's it. There's a spirit of envy. Envy will tear up a church almost faster and deadlier than anything. Who can stand before envy? We're out. Now, God was fixing to give us, at that time, I mean, we're back, what, 30 years now or whatever. Um, early nineties, 25 or so years. God was fixing to give us a quarter million dollar building for $40,000. Almost like a deal like this. Back in, you know, it'd be probably a half million or more at least now. Um, uh, lumberyard type building that would hold 2000 people. That deal just went, everything dropped. All of a sudden it was killed. We were thrown out and a little bit. And then he crashed the church and God parked him back out to work with his mom for 10 years as a hired man. Then God got ahold of him finally. And he was hard. He's my friend. And he came back years later at Keith Daniel meeting and he had been turned into an apostle of love. But God had to bang him up. He said that banged me up and whatever. But here's the thing. God put me back in there to work under him and he didn't treat me good. He didn't treat, we were friends and everything. The first guy to leave our bunch was the mercy, the elder that was really tender. When he left, I noticed the pastor was backstabbing him. For living. So he's trying to control us. We had become his bunch, whatever. So to say he's building up his kingdom. And so here's the thing. Hypocrisy slips in in such a way you don't even know it. You're getting proud and you have to listen to each other. And I believe God was going to really do something in that town. But it was all killed just like that. And he had to go 10 years and now. And when God got ahold of him, he became an apostle of love. And guess who God sent him to, to minister to? After he got ahold of him and turned his heart soft and filled him with love. Because it used to be when people would hear a knock at the door, they would, oh no, it's the pastor. Hide quick. Because he would come in and he had glasses about three inches thick. It wasn't that big. But he would look at you with big eyes and he would nail you about something in your life. It's sort of a fear and tremor type thing. But God sent him to work with the Muslims. The Muslims. 9-1-1 happened and he went to New York and stayed there for months. He said, I'm having a blast up here evangelizing. He said, people's hearts are open. They'll talk about God. Of course, they're hard now. And then he ended up working with Muslims. Worked with Muslims. Came back to the state of Nebraska there and worked with Muslims. And last I heard, he's up in North Dakota working with the Frackin area going up there. A lot of little souls moving in. But here's the thing. God put me in there and he treated me not too good. He would call me up and give me a command to do. We bought a house across the street and I could do carpenter work and stuff. And he would say, I want you to do this. And so I would go, I would delay, irritate him. And he came back, I told you to do this. And I would irritate him and not do it. And because I knew he's getting too controlling on us. Matter of fact, one time in the basement, he told my wife and I, he said, you are to obey me. Even if you think I'm wrong, you are to obey me. I'm looking for the door. And the women were afraid to leave the church with their husbands. Have you ever been in a place like that? I know, I know I have a friend when we lived, we lived in the middle of Mennonites down there in Missouri for nine years where our natural food store was. And one man, and they would talk to me, the older men would talk to me and tell me about the things going on on the inside. And some things were not good. And one of them, he left and his family stayed, his wife and all his daughters stayed because they are afraid to leave the kingdom. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? They're afraid. Wherever the spirit of God is working, there's going to be a spirit of love and freedom. When Jesus Christ is working, captives are going to be set free. And if somebody wants to walk out the door, they say, oh, I hate to see you go, but God bless you, we'll be here. And you don't slam the door after them. Because they may come back all beat up from somewhere. And so the spirit of love is the opposite of the spirit of hypocrisy. Jesus wasn't interested in controlling. He said, follow me, turn and walk off. The Pharisee, the guy, you know, the blind guy that was healed. And I mean, his parents were afraid of, and they threw him out of the synagogue because it was their synagogue. And Jesus even referred to their synagogue, oh yeah, their synagogue. This church is not yours. It's not Tim's. It's not none of the elders or whatever. It's God's. You want to get in trouble, move out of the area of authority. And then the enemy is immediately in there. And so God showed me, he let me get beat up. He said, you put him in there because he was your friend, but you violated scripture. He needed to have some proving. So that's a long bunny trail. So protection from those that think they are superior. This is why we need to understand hypocrisy. They despised others. And then for perception and then for protection. Hypocrites are dangerous. You know that? Let me tell you something. When we were in there, and I'm in the process of almost getting kicked out, the first elder that left was talking with the pastor one day. And I haven't seen him for several years. I'd like to get together and talk over some more things with him. We don't see each other very often. The first pastor's up in South Dakota. He's been there longer than I've been down in Missouri. We've been down in this area 25 years or so, whatever. So we're going back a few years. But here's what happened. One day, the first elder that left is talking to the pastor. I didn't know that. I was off on my elk hunting trip down in the northern part of Colorado. And my wife and the family was back there in town. And I hope I got details right. But here, as far as I know, is what happened. While the elder is by the pastor talking with the former elder, back stabbing me. I'm coming down out of the mountains. And there's three of us there. I'm out on the edge. And all of a sudden, I look. And I said, hey, I don't think I like the direction we're going. And we're moving over towards the edge. I reach over and grab that steering wheel and lock it. And the guy driving says, let go. A man is passing me from behind. And there's one coming up ahead. And we all three passed each other at the same time on this mountain highway. At the exact instant, the pastor is meeting with the former elder. As far as I could tell, it was the exact same second. At that exact same second, something else happened. As far as if I got the details all right on it, my family's going to town. My oldest daughter's driving the car and going up over and over past the railroad town there, the tracks coming up. And a semi moved over in her lane. And she had to drive off the embankment. All of those three things happened at the exact same second. You tell me that it's not dangerous to give ground to the enemy. It is. He's going to kill you if he can and destroy you. I think the storms out there, the enemy's trying to drown Jesus and all these things. It can just be dangerous. One time I was out in my driveway several years ago. And all of a sudden, this depressing oppression just come down on me. I mean, it's just like taking me down to depress me. And just it was really bad, about the worst I've ever felt in my life. And then I'm, oh, my, this is from the enemy. And then I began to praise the Lord and resist the enemy. And it broke away. And there was a group down in another state. I said, these guys must be praying against me. Because I knew they were there. And it's dangerous to do this. And when we get over in the next session, I'm going to cover this other area of criticalness. So it's for protection. We need to protect ourselves. We need to be open to being corrected ourselves, being put, you know, and stuff. They're dangerous to themselves. They're dangerous to the lost. Listen to what, I think he was a Puritan. He said, the wound religion receives, he'd probably be a Puritan because they use that term for Christianity in those days. The wound religion receives from hypocrites is far more dangerous and incurable than that inflicted on it by the open and scandalous sinner. For a religion or Christianity is never brought into question by the enormous vices of an infamous person, all see and all abhor his sin. But when a man shall have his mouth full of piety and his hand full of wickedness, when he shall speak scripture and live devilism, profess strictly and walk loosely, that this lays a grievous stumbling block in the way of others and tempts them to think that all Christianity is but mockery and that the professors of it are but hypocrites. We can't stand it in the church. Ananias and Sapphira. It used to be in the old days you died. Yeah. What if God did that again? And sometimes he does to where people should be afraid to take communion. We take, we're a little old Baptist church, not just a homeschooling little group. And we kept that on our name. We debated that back over 20 years ago. And the other elder and I decided that we would keep it on our name to honor our fathers. And it's also left me open for ministering down in the South where I was raised for a while. Most of them don't want me back anymore. They wanted the kids, our kids play violins and stuff like that. But it's just dangerous. It's just dangerous. It's dangerous to the church, dangerous to the hypocrites themselves, dangerous to those around there. Beware of false prophets. Matthew 7, 15. I'm teaching at back home. I'm teaching, preaching through whatever, how it turns out. The Beatitudes. Beware of false prophets. We're in chapter six, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are revenue wolves. They're extortioners. They take, they seize, they control. They take advantage of people. They like to take the sheep's like the sheep, like Jesus said, a hireling. You get the better wage or whatever, the salary, whatever they do that stuff, you'll move on. He's supposed to stay there with the flock. Well, for proclamation, the last thing for preservation, let me say some things on this and I might have some lessons back here. I do. I do. For proclamation of the truth, for preservation of the truth. If you, if you're preserved, you can proclaim. If you're not, you're not going to preach. You're not going to proclaim a pure gospel. In other words, the gospel you proclaim should be the gospel that you live. Hypocrites need the gospel, but shut it off from others. And because they don't preach the gospel and they don't live the gospel. And, and it just goes on. They don't care for the lost. There's, there's one man, he's got a book on soul winning. That's the most powerful book on soul winning that I've ever read. He says the whole purpose for the church is to win souls, to reach out to the loss. And he's got all these statements that he makes. And, uh, and he's, his name is Spurgeon. I don't agree with everything he believed, but he was a soul winner and he believed the church was supposed to be winning souls. And if you wasn't winning souls, you wasn't saved. If you didn't have that desire to win them, you were lost. I mean, it's hard preaching, but it is true. He had two workers come up to him one time and they had something funny to tell him. They said they'd been working together in a factory somewhere for years. And they finally just discovered that they were both Christians. And they were laughing. They said, this is really funny, isn't it? Brother Spurgeon. He said, that's not funny at all. You're both lost and going to hell. You need to turn your life over to Christ. You're lost men. It wasn't funny all of a sudden. And so a hypocrite, you know, we may fail at it and we may kick ourselves all the time. How we don't do it enough, whatever the least we should know that we should do it. And we should want to do it. Listen to this. When nations are to perish in their sins, it is the church, the leprosy begins. The priest whose office is with zeal sincere to watch the fountain and preserve it clear. Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink while others poison what the flock must drink. His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure and tainted by the very means of cure. Catch from each other a contagious spot. The foul forerunner of a general rot. Then truth is hushed that heresy may preach. And all is trash that reason cannot reach. We've got so much trash in churches today. It's pretty bad. And you know that. So they have no objective in their daily life to see souls saved. And they'll say it's not my calling to reach out to the lost. God's going to save whoever he's predestined anyway. There's some dangerous things. Paul was a soul winner. He was a soul winner. And you read Romans there. He's willing to lay his life down for his brethren to be saved. Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem if they didn't have a choice to make about the gospel? They had a choice to make it. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should repent. That's a choice, a decision that we have to make. And so they say it's not my calling to win souls. First Corinthians 5, 17 through 18 said it had given to us the ministry of reconciliation. That is a duty that God has given to us. And Jesus said we would always have tears. Well, if you want to create some problems, you just try to keep yourself just Christians. You can't do it. You can't do it. They're going to come in. And even in the tongues there in the chapter, he said, if an unbeliever comes into your bunch, he's going to say you're mad and whatever. So they would come in. But they shouldn't be comfortable to stay in. They should come under conviction and realize this is not the place for them. And so if they can stay in there a long time and never get under conviction, where there's a problem. Now I have eight closing observations. And you said I could go to eight o'clock. Eight closing observations. I have long closings sometimes. All right. You folks are really great. From William Grinnell, he said, one, the opposite of sincerity is hypocrisy. The opposite of sincerity is hypocrisy. And that's found in formality, lukewarmness, irreverence, wandering of heart, forgetfulness of God. Number two, it's the nature of love to cover infirmities, iniquities, rejoiceth not in iniquity. Second Corinthians, First Corinthians 3, 6. It's the nature of love when your brother, he which is spiritual, restores such a one in the spirit of meekness and gentleness. Maybe you heard this story. A man fell in the church. He fell. And the men are all sitting around. The elders, the pastor, and the deacons, they're all there. And the pastor went around. He said, I want each of you to share what you think. And each one, they went around. Oh boy, he shouldn't have done that. That was a bad thing to do. I'm glad I haven't done that. And just went all the way around. He got to the last one. And he said, Pastor, if it wasn't but for the grace of God, I would be right where he is, weeping. He said, you're the one going with me. Let's go see the brother. We have to have a heart for each other. Not a hypocrite heart, hard heart, ensnared heart. And so the nature of love is to cover. Rejoice and not iniquity. The hypocrite cannot forgive or forget. And they tend to be bitter and hateful. Then took they up stones to cast at him. Who's the hypocrite? This woman taken in adultery. You know, okay, whoever is without sin, you throw the first stone. Nailed him. Probably sat down and wrote down. Isn't that interesting? All that we wonder. That's something else. Why do you ask, Lord, what were you writing in the dirt? He might be saying I was writing down the women that they've been hanging out. And the oldest one looked, whoop, better be going. Okay, the hypocrite. Number three, hides his sin as Akin concealed the wedge of gold. He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her. Well, obviously, Lord, he pushed him out. But if we confess our sin, he faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Probably something we do every day. Oh, Lord. Woe to the man who doesn't. Number four, the hypocrite dishonors God under the name of honoring him. Romans 2, 3, 23, 24. John 8, 49. Number five, hypocrisy is the loudest lie of all because it is told to God himself. They're all had some pretty big bullets in this gun. Here's this guy praying like this, and he's telling God. He's telling God how wonderful he is. God, I thank thee that I am not as other men or extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. That's why he just missed the one on. I'm not a hypocrite. He didn't say that one, did he? But he was okay. Hypocrisy is the loudest lie of all because it is told to God himself. Why has Satan fill thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? I was not lied into men, but into God and nice in the fire just to lie right there to the church. They're lying to God. They lied and they died. First Corinthians 11. The reason we do communion every week and we have some issues we have to deal with because we have homeless people come in there and they get offended. We try to talk. We have a lot of visitors come in there, but we do it so that we can keep close accounts. We can keep close accounts and we have to watch. It doesn't become just a tradition with us, but it's so that we can keep close accounts on ourself and shouldn't at least shouldn't one week more than one week go and so that we can keep a close fellowship. David was not a hypocrite, but his sins of murder and adultery was a pattern, a moment, a pattern of the moment and he was caught and he confessed and he was chastened and he was scarred for life for that moment of hypocrisy and the chain that went through his family just destroyed his family for years after that. One moment of sin. Seven, the hypocrite intrudes upon the holy worship of God and there's some things about this. One, when the hypocrite intrudes into the holy worship of God, he mocks God. This hypocrite here, this guy is mocking God for a pretense. Jesus said they make long prayers, so we shouldn't pray too long in public. Be not deceived. God is not mocked, Galatians 6, 7, Matthew 6, 5. They have their reward and B, A, they mock God and B, he worships for self-centered reasons. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, vain deceit and these type of things that the Lord talks about. And number eight, number eight, hypocrites are great criticizers of the true graces of others to make themselves look better, Grinnell said. They're great criticizers, that's what he's doing. He's comparing himself to this old tax collector and he thinks he looks pretty good and the tax collector was broken and humble about his sins. And so false prophets, we, you know, we could be busy for Jesus, but not busy with Jesus and be practicing hypocrisy. We could have our devotions, but not be devoted to the Lord. Just list some things, I have a checklist for myself. We could have a profession of Christ, but no possession of Christ, and then you need to be saved if that one fits you. The hypocrite will not pray these three things. He will not pray, search me. He doesn't want to be searched, search me, oh God, except he's going to pray and look at all of the good things, but he doesn't want to focus on it. And he will not pray, guard me, because he's made himself his own protection. And he does not pray, guide me, because he doesn't want God's guidance, he's self-sufficient. So what's your perception, your proclamation, and all these things? No hypocrite can bear the cross. We come down near the end, no hypocrite can bear the cross. The old Puritan said this, when grapes come to the press, they come to the proof. And you squeeze the grape, what's there is going to come out. And so the next session to go into the area of criticalness, this is a little heavy, the other is a little heavy, but this is what we had our assignment to do, warfare. I've got some things, a few things I'll share with you that I had made a list of, made this long list of things. But let me just read you a couple statements. Criticalness, when we go into that, inclined to find fault or to judge with severity, often too readily, too easily do it, occupied with or skilled in criticism, involving skillful judgment as to the faults of others, and each type of thing. When we get into it, the effect of criticism, and here's the thing about it, it's a dividing up of the powers of the one criticized, Oswald Chambers said. And so the enemy used it to bring division and bring destruction and things like this. All right, let's pray. Lord, this has been pretty heavy. We had a pretty hard start. We just pray for your mercy upon us and in the hard thing that happened tonight. And we just pray for your grace and healing and for whatever we could do. Lord, there's a lot of people come into these meetings that are not around here, not a part of the church necessarily. And so we have sometimes deal with different situations. We pray now for your blessing on our break time and ask you to encourage us. And maybe we need to pray for one another. Maybe we need to ask for prayer for something. Maybe we need to get along with you for a few minutes and ask you to search us in Jesus name. Amen.