Matthew chapter 23, beginning verse number 1, the Bible reads,
Then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples, saying,
The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do.
But do not after their works, for they say and do not.
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born, and lay them on men's shoulders.
But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
And the subject that I want to preach on this morning is the subject of hypocrisy.
Now, if any chapter in the Bible is the hypocrisy chapter, it would be this chapter.
Because over and over again, Jesus says in verse after verse,
You're hypocrites, you hypocrites, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites.
Almost every verse, once you get into the meat of this chapter, uses the word hypocrites.
So I want to go through some of the things in this chapter and warn you about the danger of being a hypocrite.
And also warn you about other people who are hypocrites.
Now first of all, let's get some definitions of hypocrisy from this chapter.
And there are several definitions that we can find right here in the chapter.
But first of all, in verse 3, the Bible says,
All things, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do.
But do not ye after their works, and then here's the key, for they say and do not.
So the number one definition of a hypocrite here is someone who says one thing and does another.
They say and do not.
For example, this would be somebody who tells you that you need to be reading your Bible every day and then they're not reading the Bible.
Or they tell you, hey we need to be out soul winning, we need to be getting people saved, we need to preach the gospel to every creature.
But they're not actually out doing that work themselves.
They tell you to do a lot of good deeds and good works, but they don't participate in it themselves.
But look at verse 5, following up with that the Bible says,
But all their works they do for to be seen of men.
So when they do actually do the work, it's only to be seen of men.
So they talk a real big talk, but they don't walk the walk.
And if they do walk the walk, it's only to put on a show to be seen of other people.
This is what a hypocrite is.
A hypocrite is someone who's basically an actor.
They're pretending to be something that they're not.
And their goal is to be glorified of men and to be exalted by those around them.
What's the motive for being a hypocrite?
The motive is to make people think that you're a wonderful person when you're not.
It's to make people think that you're a great Christian when you're not.
That's the goal.
The goal is to be glorified and exalted of men.
Look what the Bible says in verse 5,
But all their works they do for to be seen of men.
They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments.
And love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues.
And greetings in the markets and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
Now elsewhere when Jesus is making a very similar speech to this in the book of Luke,
he talks about how they love to go in long clothing.
That's the term he uses.
Here he talks about them enlarging the borders of their garments,
but in Luke it's worded as going in long clothing.
And you'll notice how many religious leaders and clerics of our day will go around in long clothing, don't they?
They basically will walk through the airport or wherever you see them in long flowing garments
and they have these gowns on that really look ridiculous if you think about it.
They're not really practical clothing.
But you see Catholic priests in that kind of a garment.
You see the Orthodox priests in that kind of a garment.
You see Jews wearing those kind of garments sometimes.
You'll see Muslim imams in these long flowing garments.
What's the purpose of wearing that kind of clothes?
There's only one purpose, to put on a show to the people around you.
Hey everybody, look at me.
I'm a holy man.
I'm a man of God.
And putting on a robe and tying it with a weird hood or something,
looking like, you know, you're from Star Wars or something.
Basically the point is, just so everybody sees you and says,
there's a guy who is just a really spiritual leader
and that's why they turn around the collar backwards and put on the funny hat.
It's all to be seen of men and Jesus warning against this.
You see, when Jesus was on this earth, he did not wear a funny hat.
He did not wear strange clothing.
He basically dressed like a normal person.
And in fact, when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane,
the only way he could be identified was that Judas would give him the kiss of betrayal
because of the fact that he looked like everybody else.
He looked like a normal person.
That's why they had to say, it's the one that I kiss.
Because otherwise they wouldn't have known him from anybody else.
He just dressed like a normal person.
But hypocrites, people who want to be seen as very holy and spiritual,
will wear these strange outfits, long flowing garments, collar turned around backwards, whatever.
And then it says they love these titles.
These are the type of titles that they love.
Rabbi.
And then here's another title they like.
Father.
Because look what the Bible says in verse number nine.
And call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father which is in heaven.
Neither be ye called masters, for one is your master, even Christ.
But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant,
and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be a base,
and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
So one of the ways to avoid hypocrisy is not to exalt yourself, but to humble yourself.
And don't go around wearing certain clothes to show people how spiritual you are.
And don't go around with fancy titles to impress people.
We're supposed to be humble and glorifying of Jesus Christ,
not calling ourselves names that exalt us too much.
Now, it's amazing to me how people will just disregard this clear teaching of scripture
on not calling people rabbi, master, or father.
Of course, the Catholic Church, what do they call the priest?
Father.
Something that Jesus specifically prohibits here.
And then what do the Jews call their leaders?
Rabbi.
Of course, they don't believe in Christ anyway.
But then you have this messianic Judaism that comes along,
where basically they claim to be a Christian,
but then they still call themself rabbi when Jesus specifically said no.
And it's amazing to me how people will try to argue with this stuff.
You know, you'll try to show this to somebody who's Catholic,
and here's what they'll come at you with.
Oh, well, you call your dad father.
That's because he is my father.
Okay?
See, it makes sense to call your dad father because he is your father, okay?
But the Catholic priest is not my father.
Neither is the pastor of my father, okay?
That doesn't make any sense.
Obviously, when he says here not to call any man father upon the earth for one is your father,
we're talking spiritually here.
Now, even so, let's say, for example, that the Catholics are right when they come at us and say,
well, you call your dad father.
Do two wrongs make a right?
I mean, even according to that ridiculous logic, then I would just stop calling my dad father.
But I'm not going to violate Christ's command here and call some priest father.
And I'm not going to call some messianic teacher rabbi.
It's wrong.
We shouldn't use these terms.
Now, somebody said, oh, well, you know, because I had attacked Jonathan Cahn for calling himself rabbi.
And here's what they said.
Oh, well, he doesn't call himself rabbi.
He calls himself rabbi Jonathan Cahn and that's different.
They said that's three words.
Rabbi is one word.
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn is three words.
I mean, this is the kind of nonsense where people just don't care what the Bible says.
But they're just entrenched in what they believe.
They just can't let go of Judaism.
They can't let go of Catholicism.
They can't let – I mean, how could anybody look at this scripture and walk away thinking
that we should call ourselves as religious leaders rabbi or master or father?
But people will say this.
Well, what's the difference between calling yourself pastor and calling yourself rabbi?
Well, here's the difference.
God told us not to do the one.
And he sanctioned the other.
Any questions?
I mean, if God in heaven says, hey, I gave you pastors and teachers, then you have pastors
and teachers.
If he said, hey, this is the bishop, this is the elder, then you have a bishop and an
elder.
If he said, here's a deacon, then you have a deacon.
But if he says don't be rabbi, master, and father, then you don't go by those names.
It's that simple.
Pastor, teacher, bishop, elder, deacon, these are good terms.
Master, rabbi, father are blasphemous terms.
Any questions?
But here's what they'll lie and say, oh, rabbi means teacher.
Wrong.
Because what does the Bible say right here in the passage?
It says in verse number 8, but be not ye called rabbi, for one is your what?
Master.
So what does rabbi mean according to the Bible?
Master.
And when Jesus resurrects from the dead in John chapter 20 and is faced with Mary in
the garden of the tomb there, then basically she says to him, Rabboni, which being interpreted
is master.
Okay.
Rabboni means my master.
So again, we let the Bible define itself, not Christ rejecting Jews to tell us what
rabbi means.
The Bible says that rabbi means master.
Now it might seem repetitive here that he says not to be called rabbi, not to be called
father, and then he specifically says not to be called master.
Now the reason why is that rabbi is in a foreign language.
Okay.
See, Jesus here is speaking in the Greek language, okay, and the New Testament's written in Greek,
so if you read this in a Greek New Testament, there's a Greek word for master and he's saying,
don't use that word.
Then there's the word rabbi, which is the Hebrew word for master, and he's saying, don't
use that word either.
So in reality, he's telling us twice not to be called master.
He's telling us twice not to be called rabbi.
Basically he's saying, don't call it in this language and don't call it in that language.
So our equivalent today in English would be, you know, don't be called master in English
and don't be called rabbi and don't be called father.
These are not appropriate titles for a religious leader.
An appropriate title would be pastor, teacher, bishop, elder, deacon, those are appropriate
biblical titles.
Why would someone want to call themself these titles that are specifically prohibited by
God?
It's because they're a hypocrite.
See, a hypocrite is someone who's outwardly pretending to be spiritual, but on the inside
they're not.
Well, how could you be any more of a hypocrite than to call yourself a man of God and a Christian
teacher and then use titles that Christ specifically prohibited in a chapter about hypocrites?
That shows what's going on in your heart.
You like those fancy titles because you're a hypocrite.
You love to be exalted and lifted up and given these lofty titles that are too high for you
of master.
You see, if a slave called their master, master, that would make sense because he is their
master.
But you know what?
Is the pastor of the church your master?
No.
That's a little bit too far, isn't it?
When you're calling a religious leader master or when you're calling him father, it's not,
you know, I don't want to take the responsibility of being your father, all right?
That's a little too much.
But the Bible here is talking about people who lift themselves up.
Jump down to verse 25.
What is a hypocrite?
Number one, a hypocrite is someone who says one thing and does another.
Number two, a hypocrite who does all their works to be seen of men because they want
to be lifted up and exalted.
Look at verse 25.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup
and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside
of them may be clean also.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're like unto whited sepulchres, which
indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness.
Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy
and iniquity.
This is what hypocrisy is.
On the outside, you're clean.
On the outside, you look good, but that's where it ends.
On the inside, you're rotten.
That's what hypocrisy is.
Go to Matthew chapter number six, Matthew six.
What is it to be a hypocrite?
It is when you do your works to be seen of men.
Here's a chapter that also uses the word hypocrite a lot.
Matthew chapter number six, beginning in verse number one, take heed that ye do not your
alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is
in heaven.
Now remember, he said of the hypocrites in Matthew 23, he said, all their works they
do for to be seen of men.
Here he's telling us as Christians, we're not false prophets, we're not evil rotten
people, we're saved born-again Christians, but he's warning us and saying to us that
we should take heed that we don't do our alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise we
will have no reward of our Father which is in heaven.
So even we as Christians can fall into the trap of hypocrisy like the unsaved Pharisees.
That's why Jesus even told his own disciples, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and
of the Sadducees.
And he spoke of their doctrine.
And he also said in another passage, Luke 12, he said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees
which is hypocrisy.
Now what is leaven?
What would we in modern time refer to as leaven?
Yeast is normally what people would use to leaven bread.
And the thing about leaven is that leaven multiplies and spreads, okay?
So the phrase goes, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
And if you've ever made that Amish bread where you keep passing the dough along and it keeps
on going and going and going, this is, you know, testament to the fact that the leaven
just keeps on multiplying because it's living, it's bacteria, okay?
So well, okay, it's not exactly bacteria but anyway, the thing about it is that leaven
is something that spreads and multiplies exponentially.
So God is warning us about hypocrisy and he's saying that even if we're saved, we can be
leavened by the hypocrisy of people like the Pharisees, evil people, where we start to
act the same way and do the same things as these wicked unbelievers and as these false
religions do.
So he says unto us that we need to take heed.
What does take heed mean?
Be careful.
He says, look, be careful that you don't do your alms before men to be seen of them.
He's saying we need to examine our hearts and think about when we do good deeds, are
we doing it so that other people will see what we're doing or are we doing it because
it's the right thing to do and we just want to please God?
See, that's what it comes down to.
Is our goal to please God in secret or is our goal to please man openly?
That's what's going to stop us from being a hypocrite when we realize that the only
person whose opinion matters is really God's opinion.
That's who we need to worry about pleasing.
So it says here not to do our alms.
Now alms in the Bible, if you study that word, consistently means the same thing.
It's talking about giving to the poor.
This is not talking about tithing or giving offerings at church or anything like that.
This is talking about giving to the poor.
Alms would be when a poor person needs money and you give them money.
This could be a person begging by the side of the road and you give them money or this
could be someone that you know who you know is just down on their luck.
Maybe they need some groceries, they need a little bit of help financially.
That would be alms.
It's when you give to the poor.
And God says that when you do your alms, look at verse 2, therefore when thou doest
thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues
and in the streets that they may have glory of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
Now this seems kind of hard to imagine that anybody would do this, but I believe that
Jesus is being literal here.
I think that at that time there were people who would literally, when they would see a
beggar, they would sound a trumpet, you know, and say, you know, I just want to let everybody
know I'm going to help this guy out.
I want to give him some money or something.
I mean, that's just ridiculous, isn't it?
So God's saying don't sound a trumpet when you're doing something good.
Basically in our day, this would be going around and telling everybody about it.
Oh yeah, you know, I was able to help this person out and going around telling, you know,
Facebook update, you know, your alms, you know, hashtag alms deed or whatever, you know,
you're giving out your alms and you're helping people.
He's saying if we do that, he says we have no reward of our Father, which is inevitable.
Now wouldn't you hate to go through life doing a bunch of good deeds and then get no reward?
Can you imagine going to work all week and then it comes payday and it's like, sorry,
you don't get a paycheck.
No paycheck for you, but I worked all week, sorry, you don't get a paycheck.
But that's what God's saying.
If we do our good deeds before men to be seen of them, then we are losing our heavenly reward,
the Bible says.
And God is saying you have your reward right now.
And let me tell you something, the glory and praise of man and the accolades that we get
on this earth is really an empty reward.
I mean, wouldn't you much rather have the reward that God's going to give you in heaven
than to get just the empty praise of man and the accolades on this earth?
It's not worth it.
He says don't sound the trumpet before thee.
He says at the end of verse 2, they have their reward, but when thou doest thine alms, let
not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret, verse
4, and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
So we need to help people from the bottom of our heart because we want to help them
And because if you give to the poor, the Bible says you're lending to the Lord.
Not because we just want everybody to see how generous we are.
Look at verse number 5, it says, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites
are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets
that they may be seen of men, verily I say unto you, they have their reward, but thou
when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
What's he saying?
Obviously, the Bible does talk about praying publicly, and there are examples of praying
publicly.
The Bible says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without
wrath and doubting, but what he's saying is that the real prayer that God's going to reward
you for is the prayer that you do in secret when you enter into your closet and you pray
to the Father in heaven because you believe that he hears you and that he's going to do
what you ask, not because you're putting on a show.
Look, I'll tell you how to identify people who are hypocrites.
It's because they go around putting out this really over-spiritual facade, and you run
into people like this where you run into them and every word out of their mouth, hey, Brother
Anderson, praise the Lord, hallelujah, God bless you, my brother, greetings in the name
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
They basically just talk a big talk, and everything is just so overly spiritual, and when they
pray, they like to make these really long prayers, and the Bible talks about that in
Matthew 23.
We'll get to that.
It says that they, for pretense, they make long prayers.
Now I'm all for long prayers in your closet by yourself, okay, but public prayer is not
a time for big, long, flowery, fancy prayers because that is just to be seen of men.
That's just to be glorified of men at that point, and you'll notice that when they have
these phony events like these presidential prayer breakfast or these, you know, the White
House, and anything our government does is pretty much hypocrisy, but they'll have these
big events, and people will literally get up to pray, and they'll get out notes to pray.
When you're praying from notes, that's not prayer.
Why do you need notes to pray?
Because it's not coming from your heart?
Because you're just getting up and making a show to be seen of men, and you have your
reward right there, everybody thinking that you're so wonderful.
Look down if you would at verse 16.
He says, Moreover, when you fast, be not as what?
The hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that they may appear
unto men to fast.
Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward, but when thou fastest, anoint thine head and
wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy father which is in secret,
and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
You know, this is the person who's gonna put on the sackcloth, and they're gonna disfigure
their face and look like they're really suffering, and they're fasting and telling everybody
about how they're fasting.
You know, that's not the purpose of fasting.
The purpose of fasting is between you and the Lord, not to put on a show for others.
I've even heard people talk about the fact how they did a 40-day fast, and it's like,
look, first of all, I'm never gonna do a 40-day fast.
If I did a 40-day fast, I'd probably be dead.
Now some people's bodies could probably handle that.
I don't think mine could, but, you know, I've heard about people who've done 40-day fast,
like, you know, because there are people in the Bible who did a 40-day fast, but you know
what?
Even the Hindu Gandhi did more than a 40-day fast, okay?
That's not gonna get him into heaven.
He's in hell.
He's a Hindu.
He's not a Bible-believing Christian.
And the bottom line is, I've heard Christians talk about the fact that they had done a 40-day
fast where they just drank nothing but just water for 40 days and 40 nights.
Look, I'm telling you this, I'm never doing a 40-day fast, but if I did, I wouldn't tell
anybody about it, because why, can you imagine going through that and then losing your reward?
I mean, what a good night, because it would be such an ordeal to go through such a thing,
and then to just go around telling everybody about it, and then you just lost your reward?
I mean, that's just, that's sad.
It's really sad.
I mean, for me, you know, for me, and here's the thing.
The Bible talks about when you fast, and I believe, and people have asked me, you know,
what I believe about fasting, and I don't want to talk too much about it because it's
outside of the scope of the sermon, but, you know, fasting is biblical, to basically go
without food and to just drink water.
It is biblical.
Here's the thing.
The most common fast in the Bible is fasting for one day.
You know, fasting till sundown, or a lot of times, you'll see a three-day fast.
So fasting doesn't have to be this extreme thing of just fasting for 40 days and 40 nights,
fasting for a week.
It doesn't even have to be this extreme thing where you're fasting every week or something,
okay?
But when you fast, it should be something that's between you and the Lord.
It should be something that's not openly put on display that you brag about.
And honestly, fasting could even be just skipping a meal, okay?
Skipping a meal, skipping a day's food, skipping a few days.
And honestly, you know, fasting is not bad for you.
Some people will try to say, oh, fasting's really unhealthy and dangerous.
That's really not true.
Actually, your body doesn't even begin to go into a starvation-type mode for a couple
of days.
You know, the first few days without food, your body was just fine, you know, and there's
no harmful effect to that whatsoever.
And even going beyond that, your body has mechanisms to cope with it and deal with it
and so forth.
So fasting is a good thing to do.
It's a whole other sermon in and of itself.
It is biblical, but it should be something that is done privately, and we should anoint
our head, wash our face, look sharp, and look like everything's fine, but inside, we're
going through the affliction of fasting.
But that's another sermon.
Now, flip just one page over to chapter 7 of Matthew, and I want to show you another
definition of hypocrisy.
So far we've seen that hypocrisy is when you say and do not.
Number two, hypocrisy is when you do your works to be seen of men.
Everything you care about is what people think of you and putting out this outward facade.
And I'm going to tell you something.
I am very suspicious of people who are, I call, hyper-spiritual when they get around
you.
Okay?
And look, I'm all for being godly and being spiritual.
I'm talking about people who are putting on a show of just how godly and spiritual they
are, because this is often the sign of a hypocrite, where they really lay it on thick
with the praise of the lords and hallelujahs.
But if you would, look at Matthew chapter 7, let's get a third definition.
Verse 1 says, judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall
be judged, and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider is not the
beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and be
able to beam as in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see
clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
This is where a person judges other people for being guilty of something when they are
even more guilty than that person.
Okay?
And this is actually very common.
Why?
Because when people feel bad about themselves, they like to take other people down a notch
to make themselves feel a little bit better.
And that's why this is so common, this Matthew 7 scenario, where people have a great big
beam in their eye, and they're trying to remove the mote from someone else's eye.
Often people will pick apart other people and criticize other people to make themselves
feel better about their own failures and their own shortcomings.
Let me give you some examples of this.
There are people who will criticize every church in their area.
There's no good church, right?
They don't even go to church.
So here's the beam in their eye, not going to church when God commands us to go to church.
It's not optional.
And then they're trying to pick apart every little tiny thing that's wrong with the churches
in their area.
Okay, here's another example.
People will often criticize a church like ours.
When we go out and get a bunch of people saved, we'll go out and knock doors and bring people
to Christ.
Here's what they'll say, oh, you didn't follow up with those people.
You didn't disciple them.
So they have basically this big beam in their eye of not obeying Christ's command to go
out into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, not obeying Christ's command
to go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, not obeying Christ's
command of teaching all nations, baptizing them, and so forth.
And here's what they'll say, oh, well, you didn't follow up with those people.
They're not even reaching anybody.
They don't have anybody to follow up with because they're not even doing the soul-winning.
And I've even seen it to the point where they literally acted like it would be better not
to get people saved at all than to get people saved and not follow up.
What kind of a perverse thinking is that?
And they've criticized our small town soul-winning program where we'll go into a small town and
knock every door.
We'll just show up in a small town, knock every door.
Try to give everybody the gospel and then go home.
Oh, but what are these people going to do?
You know, they're like sheep having no shepherd.
Well, you know, at least they're going to go to heaven.
I mean, something's better than nothing.
Hello?
The first step is getting people saved.
And you know what?
I'll be honest.
Our church isn't big on follow up.
There, I said it.
You know, we go out and win a lot of people, Lord, and we don't spend a lot of time following
up with them.
I'm not against follow up.
I'm all for follow up.
And if you in this church want to go and follow up on the people that you win to the Lord,
I think that's great.
I'm all for it.
And if another church is real big on follow up, great for them.
I'm not going to judge them.
I think that's great.
That's wonderful.
But you know what?
I want somebody to show me in the Bible where I'm supposed to go back and keep following
up with someone who refuses to come to church.
Can somebody show me that in the Bible?
Because I got all kinds of scripture on going out and preaching the gospel to every creature,
going to every house, daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach
and preach Jesus Christ.
But if I sit there and give someone an invitation to church and I say, look, you know, you're
saved now.
You need to get in church.
Here's your follow up, buddy.
Follow up service number one, Sunday mornings at ten thirty.
Follow up number two, Sunday nights at six thirty.
Follow up number three, Wednesday nights at seven.
You know, I'm sorry, I just don't like going back and begging people to go to church.
Now I've said it before, I'll get on my knees and beg someone to get saved, but I won't
beg anybody to come to church.
And honestly, to sit there and criticize somebody for going soul winning and then not doing
the follow up is just ridiculous.
It's just nonsense.
But you hear it all the time.
And someone even likened it unto giving birth to a baby and throwing it in a garbage can
or something.
No, no, that's ridiculous, okay.
Following up is great, but honestly, the reason I quit following up on people is because most
of the time I found that follow up was a waste of my time, so I quit doing it.
Now if someone else is having success with it, more power to them.
But I found that when I would go back to follow up, a lot of times the people wouldn't be
home and then I drove all the way out there, nobody's home, and I end up wasting a bunch
of time.
Or I get there and it's like, why are you here?
We already talked.
I know where your church is.
If I want to come, I'll come, you know.
We'll call us, we'll call you type of a thing.
So you know, I just, I got away from it because I just, and I can't see a clear command.
And here's what's funny.
They'll criticize you for what you do.
You go out and win people to Christ, baptize them, and then they'll criticize that like,
well, you didn't baptize them right because you're supposed to, you know, baptize them
at church and you have to baptize them into the local church so you can't baptize people.
Well, what about Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch?
You know what I mean?
He basically, here's, here's Philip's follow up, okay?
Philip is basically told by the Holy Spirit to go out into the desert.
He's preaching, he's talking to people in the city, and the Lord reveals unto him that
he's supposed to walk out into the desert.
This is in Acts chapter eight.
So Philip starts heading into the desert and doesn't really know why.
But then there's a chariot crossing the desert, and he sees this chariot, so he goes running
toward the chariot, and in the chariot he finds the Ethiopian eunuch, and he was a very
important man, he's an important servant of Candace, the queen of Ethiopia, and he's sitting
and reading the Bible.
So obviously this is God's will, because God tells him to walk to a certain place, doesn't
really make sense humanly speaking, but when he gets there, a guy's reading the Bible,
and he's reading in the prophet Isaiah about Jesus, in Isaiah 53.
And he says to the Ethiopian eunuch, understandest thou what thou readest?
And the eunuch says, how can I, except some man should guide me?
So Philip hops into the chariot with him, goes over all the scriptures with him, teaches
him the gospel of Jesus Christ, he ends up believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, he says,
see here's water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?
He says, if thou believeth, with all thine heart thou missed.
And he answered, said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
He stops the chariot, he gets out, he baptizes him in the water by the side of the oasis,
in the desert, a little bit of water, here's some water, dunk him, and then, just when
it was time for follow up, literally a miracle takes place, and he's literally just warped
out of there.
Basically he's just gone, Philip's just gone, the spirit of the Lord just whisks him off,
and the Ethiopian eunuch is looking and he's gone, and so the Ethiopian just keeps on heading
for Ethiopia, where he was going, and he's rejoicing and praising God, he's saved, and
now he's got the Bible, and he's got the Holy Spirit inside him, and a Bible in his hand,
you know what, he's got what he needs right there.
So to sit there and say, oh, he's a baby in a dumpster, what was the Ethiopian eunuch
a baby in a dumpster?
He seems like he had what he needed there, okay?
Now that example right there is showing us, for a reason, what God is showing us, that
you know what, sometimes there's a time to travel to a weird place, get somebody saved,
hopefully baptize them, and you know what, it's not always going to be practical for
you to continue training that person, because of geography.
Our church, we knock doors and go soul winning in places that are kind of far from our church
sometimes.
I mean, sometimes we travel to these distant towns throughout Arizona, and you know what,
it's probably not practical for those people to continue coming to church, but our philosophy
is that if there are people in a town that are never going to hear the gospel unless
we go and bring it to them, because there's no soul winning church in that town, that
it's our job to evangelize that town like a missionary, take a little missions trip
and go win some people to the Lord, and you know, that's our job, we just want everybody
to hear the gospel, and even if they never come to church, it's still a soul saved, it's
still a soul that's going to be in heaven for eternity, ideally they would get baptized
and serve God and everything, but even if they don't, that's better than nothing, it's
a start, it's step one, they got saved, it's an Ethiopian eunuch situation, but it just
blows my mind how people who don't go soul winning will then criticize, well how are
you going to follow up with those people?
Well you don't have any problem following up because you're not doing any soul winning,
you just want to attack the people who are doing something good for God, or people will
say this, oh you guys aren't evangelizing homos, and then they're not evangelizing anybody,
and here's what I've often said to people, you know what, I've accidentally given the
gospel to more homos than you've given the gospel on purpose to homos, because of the
fact that not everybody wears a sign saying I'm a homo, okay, so, oh you guys are so hateful
toward homosexuals, you're not going to reach them, what about the other 97% of the population
that we're reaching, and the people who will criticize us for that are usually not doing
any soul winning whatsoever, they're not even knocking a single door, they're not going
out there in the heat and rolling up their sleeves and knocking doors and preaching the
gospel with the bible in their hand and a tear in the eye, but they have such a bleeding
heart and say that we don't love people, the preaching's too harsh, you don't love
people, well let me say this, if you're not preaching the gospel, you're the one who doesn't
love people, but isn't that hypocritical, isn't it hypocritical to say hey all these
churches are wrong, you're wrong because you don't even go to church, oh well you know,
yeah you're doing a wicked thing by winning people to Christ and then not, you know, having
a bible study in their house every week like a Jehovah's Witness, it's like you don't even
win anybody the Lord and you judge me, look I'll be judged by someone who's at least a
soul winner, but don't judge me when you don't even go, and I remember when I first started
soul winning everybody who did zero soul winning would tell you how to do soul winning, seriously,
I mean literally, I remember when I first started soul winning, I'd go out soul winning
and I remember being taken aside by people that I knew saying well what do you tell the
people when you go soul winning, and I said oh well here's what I'd tell them, oh wait,
that's all wrong, and I remember I said this many times to somebody, I said you know what,
I said I have an idea, why don't you show me how to do it, let's go right now, let's
walk out the store right now and you show me how to win someone to Christ, oh whoa,
because they'll say oh you can't talk about hell and you're scaring people and blah blah
blah, you know, it's too confrontational and this and that, it's like well show me how
to do it, but the hypocrisy of someone who doesn't go soul winning telling you how to
be a soul winner, you know, for example, I remember when I uploaded a video many years
ago of the soul winning demonstration, you know, where we just recorded a little demonstration
where we show how to win somebody to the Lord, and then we said hey let's do some other ones,
so we uploaded like a Jehovah's Witness demonstrate, how to win a Jehovah's Witness to the Lord,
and then we uploaded a demonstration how to win a Pentecostal unto the Lord, and we showed
different variations on it, and somebody said to me, why don't you make one on how
to win Mormons to the Lord, and you know what I wrote back to that person, as soon as I
win a devout Mormon to the Lord, then I'll make that demonstration, you know, so the
bottom line, and look, I would love to see a demonstration on how to win a Mormon to
the Lord, but I want to see it from somebody who's succeeded at it, you know, and thank
God since I said that I have won a couple of devout Mormons to the Lord, but they were
all Mormons who'd become a Mormon like in their 30s, so they were a little bit later
in life, but it's hard to win, I mean the ones that are born and raised Mormons, they're
tough to reach, right, but can you see how ridiculous it would be to make a video where
I demonstrate hey here's how you do this, and I can't do it, and I failed at it, isn't
that ridiculous, that'd be like how not to win Mormons to the Lord, right, it's stupid,
but this is what a hypocrite would do, right, they'd upload a video saying hey here's how
you do it, and then they don't get it done, I mean wouldn't that be hypocrisy to do that,
to say oh let me show you how to do it, let me teach you a thing or two, and they're failing,
it's like every divorced person will tell you how to fix your marriage, don't make the
mistakes I made, you know, and then they tell you, or people who, well I don't want to go
off on that, but anyway, you know, people will give you all this advice and judge you
when they have this big beam in their eye, now look, there is a time to judge, but we
need to make sure that we have the beam out of our own eye first, then we can see clearly
to remove the moat out of our brother's eye, otherwise we're a hypocrite, so beware of
the hypocrisy that basically gets on other people for something when you have issues
yourself, sort of like the preacher who weighs 300 pounds, and then he's going to preach
against smoking because it's so bad for your health, you know, and you're thinking to yourself,
you know, that's not good for your health either, it's getting a little quiet in here,
I'm just saying, it's true though, I mean, it's not good for your health, is it, so look,
there's nothing wrong with preaching against smoking, but here's the thing, if we're going
to preach against smoking, then we need to make sure that we're not destroying the temple
in a different way, right?
Or people, you know, another example of this, and if you would go to Romans chapter 2, another
example of this could be people who are really against drugs, but then they drink, I mean,
what's the difference?
They drink alcohol, but they're really against drugs, but really, that's hypocrisy, that
would be hypocrisy, which brings me to my third definition, or I'm sorry, my fourth
definition of being a hypocrite, number one was when you say and do not, number two is
when you do your works to be seen of men, number three is when you judge others when
you're actually more guilty than them, and number four is basically the hypocrite who
has rules that don't make sense, inconsistent rules where your sin is wrong, but my sin
is okay, okay, sort of like, you know, yeah, it's okay to be a glutton, it's okay to be
slothful, but it's not okay to smoke cigarettes, or, well, those drugs are wrong, but my drug,
alcohol, is fine.
That's hypocrisy, right?
I mean, if you're going to say that drinking's fine, then smoking pot's fine.
What's the difference?
And, in fact, in some ways, alcohol can even be more harmful than drugs, because of the
fact that, and I'm not downplaying how bad drugs are, I'm totally against all drugs,
but people die from drinking alcohol all the time and at a much greater rate, if you think
about it, because, first of all, if you just keep drinking and keep drinking and keep drinking,
you'll die.
It'll poison your bloodstream, and you can die from just binge drinking, just drinking
too much in one sitting can kill you right then and there, you can literally drop dead.
And your blood alcohol concentration gets to 0.2%, okay?
You know, because you're drunk driving when you're at, what, 0.08 or something?
But when it gets up into the 20s, instead of 0.08, it gets up into the 20s or 30s, depending
on how well somebody can hold their liquor or whatever, you get to a certain point, and
you could actually just fall over dead from just having so much alcohol in your system.
Not only that, think about all the people who are killed through drunk driving.
Think about all the people who commit suicide under the influence of alcohol.
So it's deadly, it's sinful, it's wicked, and the Bible talks more about being drunk
than it talks about drugs, but yet people are real quick to condemn drugs and then they
give alcohol a free pass.
That would be hypocrisy.
Look at Romans 2 verse 1.
Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest
another thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things.
But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit
such things, and thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things and
doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
Look at verse number 21.
It says, thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?
Thou that preach'st a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
Thou that say'st a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?
Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
Thou that makest thy boast of the law through breaking the law, dishonourest thou God?
Go to Matthew chapter 15.
Matthew chapter 15.
See hypocrisy often takes the form of man-made rules that don't make sense.
Man's rules, man's wisdom, that don't make sense, where my sin is okay, but your sin
is wrong, even though there really isn't any difference between the two, okay?
Look if you would at Matthew chapter 15.
The Bible says in verse 7, ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This
people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me, but in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men.
What made them hypocrites?
The fact that they taught for doctrines the commandments of men.
Now look down at Matthew 23, flip over to Matthew 23, and look at verse 16.
In the hypocrite chapter, Jesus goes over some of their rules that didn't make any sense.
He says, Woe unto you.
In verse 16, ye blind guides would say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing,
but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor.
He fools and blind, for whether is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifieth the
gold.
Well, to them, the gold was better, because of the fact that, you know, they, the love
of money is the root of all evil, and they were obsessed with money, you know.
The Jews today are not like that at all, though.
But it says in verse number 18, and whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing, but
whosoever swearth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.
He fools and blind, for whether is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifieth the
gift.
Therefore, shall swear by the altar, swearth by it, and by all things that are thereon,
and whoso shall swear by the temple, swearth by it, and him that dwelleth therein, and
he that shall swear by heaven, swearth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth
thereon.
So he's pointing out the hypocrisy of their rules that don't make any sense.
You know, here's another example I was thinking about, how hypocritical our nation is today,
because of the fact that abortion's illegal, right?
But then, they'll turn around and let's say a pregnant woman wants to have, you know,
a natural birth when they think she should have a C-section, or she wants to have a home
birth when they think she should have a hospital birth, or let's say she wants to bypass some
of the testing, some of the prenatal tests that they want to do.
Here's what they'll say, you're endangering that child.
Court ordered the C-section.
Court ordered syphilis testing.
You know, here's the thing, a lot of people don't really feel the need to have a syphilis
test when they're married and monogamous, and they know they don't have syphilis, and
they know that their husband doesn't have syphilis, and they know that they've been
exclusive with each other, so they're not really worried about syphilis.
But then it's like, you know, they're getting in trouble with CPS for turning down the syphilis
test, and they're endangering, it's going to be court ordered, because they're endangering
that child.
But wait a minute, if you just said, well I want to kill the child, that's okay.
Think about it.
They'll say, oh, you can't have a home birth in this condition.
You're endangering that child.
But could I kill it?
Sure.
I mean, think about how dumb that is.
Like, they're so worried about the safety of the child, right?
No, actually they're worried about making money down at the hospital.
Syphilis test, cha-ching, genetic screening, cha-ching, C-section, cha-ching, cha-ching,
cha-ching.
Just making money, that's what they really care.
So here's a hypocrite, the essence of a hypocrite.
Somebody who pretends to be worried about the safety of other people, when really they're
thinking about money.
Isn't that hypocrisy?
They pretend like, oh man, we got to worry about the welfare of these children.
Let's go abduct them and sell them.
You know, let's abort it and sell the body parts, you know.
Let's take the kids away from the parents and sell them to an adoption agency and all
this stuff.
That's hypocrisy, right?
When we have these rules that don't make sense, it's not consistent.
Or somebody gets killed and they're pregnant, it's a double homicide.
Okay, but an abortion's not a single homicide?
How does that work?
It doesn't work, because it's man's rules, man's wisdom, and it's total hypocrisy.
So the essence of the sermon this morning is this, you know, we don't want to be hypocrites
because Jesus was really angry at hypocrites, wasn't he?
I mean, he's yelling at them.
He's calling them fools.
He's calling them blind.
He's calling them serpents, vipers.
I mean, this is probably the meanest that Jesus ever got, is in Matthew 23.
I mean, every verse he's calling names.
He's ripping into these people, calling them whited sepulchers and phonies and vipers and
hypocrites and just, you're blind.
Why was he so mad?
Because he hated the hypocrisy, okay?
He doesn't like hypocrisy, and he warns us, take heed unto yourself.
Don't be a hypocrite.
And how do we avoid being a hypocrite?
First of all, we get it in our head that it's about pleasing God, not the people around
us.
Not putting on a show, not how spiritual can we look and act and talk, but actually be
real on the inside.
Actually love people, actually care about the Gospel, actually care about doing what's
right.
Have a walk with God privately between you and him.
And not just worry about what people think.
And when you do good deeds, don't broadcast it.
Keep it to yourself.
What else?
Don't judge people.
When you live in a glass house, you shouldn't be throwing stones.
You know, there's a time to judge, but not when you're guilty of the same thing.
You're not an appropriate judge.
You know, you need to worry about getting your own rear-end in church.
You need to worry about getting yourself out there soul winning before you start picking
apart the soul winning of someone else.
Okay.
You know, and you need to make sure that the rules that you have for yourself and for your
family are consistent, that they make sense.
Because if you're a hypocrite, where basically, you know, the stuff that you want to do is
okay, but the stuff your kids want to do is wrong and it's the same stuff, you know, you
got to look at that and say, wait a minute, I need to evaluate here, are my rules based
on God's word or is it man's wisdom?
Okay.
I don't want to be a hypocrite because it alienates people.
You know, people leave churches.
Why?
Oh, a bunch of hypocrites down there.
Kids rebel against their parents.
Oh, my parents are hypocrites.
You know, and sometimes people are going to accuse you of that even when it's not true.
But let's just make sure that it's not true if anybody accuses us of it and that we aren't
actually hypocrites.
And I think that every single person is probably a hypocrite at some point in their life, you
know, about one thing or another.
I don't think anybody's totally immune from this where you've just, you've never been
a hypocrite ever.
I think everybody's said something to glorify themselves publicly just so that people would
look at them and think that they were great when really they weren't.
You know, people have probably done that or people have probably condemned someone else
who was guilty of something they were.
Think about David.
David commits adultery with Bathsheba and then he's getting enraged about some guy's
lamb, about some guy's animal getting taken away and he's yelling and enraged and angry
when he was guilty of something way worse.
He has this big beam in his eye, adultery.
He's trying to take the moat out of some guy's, you know, animal cruelty or whatever.
Not even animal cruelty, stealing the guy's animal that he loves so much.
But look at one last thing in Matthew 23 if you're still there.
It says in Matthew chapter 23, he talks about them killing the prophets.
It says in verse 29, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build
the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous and say if we
had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood
of the prophets.
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that you're the children of them which killed
the prophets.
Fill ye up then the measures of your fathers, you serpents, you generation of vipers.
How can you escape the damnation of hell?
Now it's interesting here because he rebukes them and says that they are garnishing the
sepulchres of the prophets but their fathers killed the prophets.
And that they're saying, well, if we would have been back then, we would not have killed
the prophets.
But here's the thing.
There's no new thing under the sun.
I think the biggest mistake that people make is that they think that things were way different
a long time ago than they are now.
Or they think in Bible days life was totally different or, you know, 100 years ago life
was totally different.
Yeah, sure, there was different technology and different culture.
But honestly, human nature is the same and people are people and the same type of situations
have always been around.
And you know what?
People today, they tend to do the same thing where they exalt preachers from the past and
then stone, you know, the present preacher, so to speak, and won't listen to him, the
prophet.
It's funny because they say, well, if we'd been in the days of our fathers, we wouldn't
kill the prophets.
And then who do they kill?
Jesus.
The greatest prophet ever.
Who do they kill?
You know, James, okay, one of the disciples who was a great prophet, great man of God.
Who do they kill?
Stephen, one of the prophets that's coming and speaking to them by the Spirit of the
Lord.
So it's hypocrisy.
This weird double standard for preachers of the past versus the preachers of now.
There are people today who exalt preachers of the past and, oh, the preachers of the
past.
But then when a real preacher comes to them today, they can't handle it.
They want some soft preacher today, but then they'll lift up some leather lung from the
past.
Some fire-breathing preacher from the past.
Why?
Because they're a hypocrite.
They don't really want the real preaching.
They just say that they want it.
Because then when it's presented to them, they reject it, okay?
It's the same thing where people will basically say, oh, man, if I had a church like Faithful
Word, you know, I'd go there every week.
But they don't go to church in their area.
And then sometimes you'll even find them a church in their area and say, well, here's
a good church.
And then you just never hear from them again.
I mean, I'll have people who will say, like, oh, man, it's so hard to find a church in
Sacramento, California.
And they'll be like, oh, well, you know, you're in luck because actually Brother Roger Jimenez
is there.
And actually that church is every bit as good as Faithful Word.
That's a great church, Verity Baptist Church.
And it's just like, hello, anybody out there?
And then, you know, oh, man, there's nothing out here in Fort Worth, Texas.
You know, it's like, oh, well, you know, here's a church for you.
And then it's just like you never hear from them again.
And then there was this one guy who lived in a certain city.
This isn't anybody that we sent out, but it was a guy that I was real close with, a great
preacher.
And this guy had been telling me, oh, man, we need something like this in Des Moines.
We need something like this in Des Moines, Iowa.
We need a soul winning church like this in Des Moines.
And then I contacted that guy and said, hey, great news.
You know, this guy, this great soul winning guy is starting a church in Des Moines, Iowa.
You know, I heard from that guy all the time.
Never heard from that guy again.
And he never went to that church again.
See, what's a hypocrite?
Somebody who talks a big talk, but they don't walk the walk.
Oh, man, yeah, if I had this kind of church in my area, man, I'd be your most dedicated
church member.
Doesn't even show up at their local church.
Oh, well, yeah, that's because my church is X, Y, and Z.
You hypocrite.
You don't even go to church.
Hypocrisy, my friend.
There are a lot of people who fall into this even amongst Christians.
And we need to be humble, not go around singing our own praises, not go around with a funny
hat, weird clothes, and talking about how spiritual we are and dropping way too many
praise the Lord's and hallelujahs and just go around doing good deeds and talking about
praying and fasting and giving these big flowery invocations that aren't really meant to comfort
the people around us, they're not really meant to help people grow spiritually, they're not
really meant to bring honor and glory to the Lord, but they're just meant to put on a show
for ourselves.
And then we go out and condemn everybody for this and that and the other when we have all
kinds of sin that's pretty much the same thing.
So we need to beware of this in our lives and be genuine, humble, sincere people where
basically what you see is what you get.
That's the opposite of a hypocrite.
The opposite of a hypocrite is a guy where just what you see is what you get.
A woman where you look at her and she's real.
It's the same thing at church, at home, that's who they are.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
We thank you so much, Lord, for the scripture here in Matthew 23.
Were you worried about hypocrites, Lord?
First of all, the biggest warning is that we need to make sure that we're not hypocrites,
Lord.
Help us not to be hypocrites.
Help us to be humble and not to put on a show.
And secondly, Lord, help us to beware of hypocrites.
When people are acting this way, Lord, help us to get away from these people and not be
deceived by them because we don't want them to leaven us because then we'll start being
hypocrites if we hang around with hypocrites.
And in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.