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Amen. Matthew chapter 6. I want to focus on the first half of this passage, and the title of my sermon tonight is holier than thou, holier than thou. That's a phrase that comes from Isaiah chapter 65. We're going to look at that a little bit later on, but the title of the sermon is holier than thou. The Bible says in verse 1 of chapter 6, take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. We're going to look at scripture mainly tonight in Matthew chapter 6 and Matthew chapter number 23, because they both deal with the same subject of hypocrisy, and hypocrisy, as the Bible defines it, is saying one thing and doing another, and then the Bible also talks a lot about people who all of their righteousness is, they do for to be seen of men. So they make a great outward show, and they show themselves outwardly to be spiritual, and they really want to convince people how great they are, how godly they are, how separated they are, how spiritual they are, when in reality inside they're a complete hypocrite. Now beware of people who are constantly putting on an outward show, who are laying it on thick, being very uber spiritual or over spiritual outwardly, because often when they're putting up a strong facade like that, it's because they're hiding something on the inside that isn't right. And so we need to beware of people who are making long prayers publicly, and going in long clothing, and they love the greetings in the markets, right, to be called of men rabbi and master, and these titles that are inappropriate for human beings. But look what the Bible says in Matthew 6, let's get into this tonight. It says take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your father which is in heaven. Now first of all let me just define for you alms, if you study the Bible, alms is when you give to the poor. So this is when somebody's poor, or needy, or starving, or they need help, maybe it's a brother in Christ, or maybe it's just someone that you know who needs help, and you give them money, or buy them a bag of groceries, or help them out in some way, alms has to do with giving unto the poor. And the Bible says that when you do your alms, don't do it before men to be seen of them, and if you do, you have no reward of your father which is in heaven. It says in verse 2, therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee. All right everybody, I'm giving my alms now to this blind man, or this lame man. You know we see in the Bible, the lame man, the blind man, different people who are crippled, or handicapped in some way, or they have some kind of an ailment, and so they need help, and people are giving them charity, right? He says don't 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, but when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thy alms may be in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly. So we should strive that when we do alms, that no one knows about it except us. Don't even let your right hand know what your left hand doeth, why? Because of the fact that the Bible says that if you give to the poor, you're lending unto the Lord, and that which you've lent him, he will repay again. And so we want God to reward us, we want to be blessed by God, we don't want the reward of the praise of men or the glory of men, that's a pretty hollow reward. But God says that if you do it publicly, that is your reward. And we think of how many millionaires and billionaires who love to brag about all the giving that they do to the poor, but they have their reward. God doesn't respect that at all. God wants us to give to the poor quietly, secretly, anonymously, not to even let our right hand know what our left hand does or vice versa, depending on your dominant hand, amen? But the point is that alms here, by the way, this is not tithes and offerings, just so you know. In the Bible, in the early church, they came and laid the money at the apostles' feet. Some people criticized us for passing the offering plate, saying, hey, you're not supposed to let your right hand know, you're supposed to do that in secret. Or they'll sit there and say, you know, don't write a check, because then there's a record somewhere, there's a paper trail, you need to be totally honest. Alms aren't tithing, and alms aren't an offering to the church. Alms are specifically given to the poor. So a lot of people will misapply this scripture. Let's keep going. Verse 5, 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 has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Now, the Bible does tell us elsewhere, because we've got to compare scripture with scripture to get a balanced view here. In 1 Timothy 2, it says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So if in one place the Bible tells us, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting, and then here we look at this, and it says, 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. What we need to do to balance these two ideas is to understand that in Matthew 23 and elsewhere in scripture, Jesus condemns people making long prayer or long prayers. So I think what the Bible is saying here is that we shouldn't be ashamed or afraid to pray publicly and praise God publicly. There's a time and a place to pray and praise God publicly, but they should be kept short. And that the long praying, the real agonizing praying, the sweet hour of prayer is not done publicly, it's done in secret, right? So obviously we have public prayers in church, we pray to open the service or pray for this need or that need. We get together and we have dinner and we say a prayer, but when we say a long prayer at the dinner table, you know what that could be? A little bit of pontificating. And when we're at the table and we make this big long prayer, that could be just something that we're doing for show. Because when we actually want to do serious praying, it's done privately. It's done when you enter into the closet, you shut the door, you pray to your father, which is in secret, and he'll reward you openly. But you have seen people, I'm sure, who do all the things that God tells us not to do here, where they do make a big show of public prayer and they want to impress everybody. And we've heard all those dinner time prayers that went too long. You know what I'm talking about? You know, it's like, dear Lord, thank you so much for this food, Lord, and bless the hands that prepared it, Lord. And Lord, I just pray that you'd nourish our bodies with it so that we could go on and do great works for you, Lord. And we know that, Lord, all the way at the beginning of the Bible, the first sin had to do with food. And Lord, we pray that we would not sin in regard to our food, Lord. And even in the story of Cain and Abel, Lord, there was food involved. And so, you know, these people just go, ah, it's like they preach a sermon in prayer, right? Start at the beginning and just kind of move through the Bible, move forward. So, you know, don't be a hypocrite. What's the sermon about? Don't be this holier than thou hypocrite that's always trying to convince people how spiritual you are. You know, show me what you brag about, and I'll show you where you lack as a person. And people who are unspiritual, they often have a need to persuade how spiritual they are, so they lay it on real thick every time they get a chance to pray. They lay it on really thick when they get around their Christian friends, and everything out of their mouth is, well, hallelujah, praise the Lord, brother, and just super spiritual, laying it on thick. They're down on everybody for not being as spiritual as they are. We need to be careful that we don't get so concerned with putting on an outward show. Look, if we have a right walk with God, we know that, and God knows that. We don't need to go around trying to convince everybody of that all the time. We know that we go soul winning. We know that we read our Bibles. We know that we pray. We don't have to go around trying to prove that to everybody and convince everybody of that, and that is a path that will lead you to hypocrisy if you get in the habit of doing all your righteousnesses to be seen of men. You can actually do something godly without telling everyone about it. You can actually read the Bible, pray, go soul winning without making a huge announcement about it every time and making a big show of it. The Bible here is telling us that if we really want to be rewarded by the Lord for the works that we do, we should do works in secret. That's what really earns the rewards is the praying that you do in secret, the alms that you give in secret. Then he brings up fasting as well. He says in verse 16, Moreover, when you fast, be not as 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 thou in thou fastest anoint thy 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. So just imagine, you know, you're fasting, so you go around, you look discomfortable and you're in pain and you're dragging and you're not taking care of it. What's the matter? Are you okay? Well, you know, day three of a long fast. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I'm sure you've been there, you know, when you're three days into a fast, yeah, right? I mean, you know, I remember one time hearing a preacher get up and brag about how he had done a 40-day fast where he drank nothing but water for 40 days, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, if I went through a 40-day fast, which has got to be brutal on your body, it's got to be brutal on the spirit, I wouldn't want to lose my reward on that one, I'd shut up about it. I mean, that's the last thing I would ever do is tell anybody. Imagine going through all that and getting no reward, but there are people who like to brag about how they fast, they like to brag about how many hours they spend praying, they talk about how they get up at this time and they pray for this many hours. You know, why don't you just keep that to yourself so you can actually be rewarded by God and actually be pleasing to God. Because when you go around talking about how much you pray and how much you fast and how much you gave to the poor, you're a braggart, you're boasting, and you're probably a hypocrite. You're probably not as spiritual as you're making yourself out to be, because if you truly were a godly Christian, you wouldn't feel that need to persuade people of that all the time. But people tend to brag about things where they lack. Go through into Matthew 23, Matthew 23 goes into great detail on this same subject. What are we talking about tonight? We're talking about those who are holier than thou. We're talking about those who love to put on a show and lay it on thick and their language is always laced with a lot of hallelujahs, praise the lords and amens. They make a long prayer. They're quick to point out faults in other people. They want to make sure the outside is always perfect because everything they do is to be seen of men. Whereas in their heart and in their private life and in their personal time, there's actually a lot lacking, according to the Bible. That's why they're feeling the need to overcompensate by being overly spiritual. People that I've known over the years who exhibited this kind of behavior of being overly spiritual publicly, long prayers, putting on a show all the time, bragging about their spiritual life, usually ended up being phonies. Many times ended up not even being saved. The Bible talks a lot about this. Go to Matthew 23, verse 1, then spake Jesus to the multitudes 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. Do not ye after their works for they say and do not. This chapter uses the word hypocrite more than any other chapter. Just almost every verse as you get deep into this says hypocrite. There's your definition right there. They say and they do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments. Now a lot of people, they have a misunderstanding about the Pharisees. They think that the problem with the Pharisees is that they were too strict. We've all heard that our whole lives. Whenever anybody is a little strict, oh, you're a Pharisee. The problem with the Pharisees was not that they were too strict. Because Jesus at the beginning of this chapter says, you know, the stuff they're telling you to do is actually stuff you should be doing. But just don't do what they do. Do what they say because they talk a great talk. Just don't do what they do because they say and they do not. All their works they do for to be seen of men. So the problem with the Pharisees was not that they were too righteous, too separated, too holy and too strict. You know, it's actually the exact opposite. The problem with the Pharisees is that they were very lenient with themselves. They were extremely lenient when it came to what they did. They were strict on other people and not on themselves, meaning that they were a hypocrite. That was the problem with the Pharisees. They did everything to be seen of men. But in their personal life, they weren't actually following their own teachings. But they would bind these heavy burdens and grievous to be born on men, meaning they'd set this outward standard, acting like everybody needs to be doing all this praying, all this fasting, living this really clean and separated life, doing a ton of Bible reading, a ton of soul reading. And they would lay that heavy burden on people and really load them down with homework. But then they would go home and not do any of it. He said they wouldn't even touch it with one of their fingers. I mean, look what it says. Verse 4, 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. So it wasn't that they were too strict. It's that they're too strict on other people and too lenient on themselves, which made them a big hypocrite. He said they love verse number 6, they love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greeting in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. You know, I'm tired of hearing people say, well, Jesus was a rabbi. No, Jesus was not a rabbi. Jesus was the rabbi. He was the only rabbi. He wasn't one of many. He says right here, don't be called rabbi, because one is your master. Rabbi means master. One is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. Call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father, which is in heaven. So there goes the pope, which just means father in another language, El Papa, the patriarch, all these names for father. We as Christian leaders, preachers, prophets of God, we should not be called father, or master, or rabbi. These terms are off limits. These are terms that are reserved for deity, not for mortal man. He says, but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. So he's talking to these people and saying, you're not even saved, this specific group of the Pharisees and the scribes. He says in verse number 14, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer. So here they are doing this wicked thing of devouring widows' houses, extorting money, stealing money, not pitying the poor, but they make these long prayers to show how spiritual they are, all while they disregard God's commandments, and he says because of that they shall receive the greater damnation. Long prayers are pretentious, and they should be avoided publicly. They should be done in private if they're going to be a long prayer. Save that for your alone time. It says in verse 15, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he's made you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourself. Now let me just stop and point out a few things about these verses. Okay, first of all, the long prayers. Here's the thing about prayer. I don't know how much you pray, and you don't know how much I pray, because the important praying is the stuff that's done in secret when nobody knows. So I don't know how much you pray, you don't know how much I pray, only God knows how much we pray. So prayer is one of those things that doesn't score us any points with anybody because nobody knows if we're doing it or not or how much we're doing it or not. It's something that's between us and the Lord. And so stop and think about that. How much time do you spend praying by yourself? That's the real prayer life. Now let me tell you how much time I spend praying. No, no, no. See, you're missing the point. Don't go up to somebody after the service and say, well, you know, yeah, I agree with Pastor Anderson because, you know, I pray for an hour a day and I don't think other people are doing it. You know, that's exactly what God's talking about not doing. But then he says that they come past sea and land to make one proselyte. This sounds like today's missions program because typically when you get the mission letter that's about how many proselytes they've got. That's about how many souls are saved in a typical month by a good missionary. You know, the really bad missionaries, it's like, hey, pray for these two people I witnessed to in the last quarter. You know, I was able to give them half the gospel. I'm hoping to finish up the next half next year. But you know, I mean, one proselyte, you know what I think this verse is really saying when he says, hey, you come past sea and land to make one proselyte. And he's saying you're not even saved so when you make him a proselyte, you're making him twofold more the child of hell than yourself because everything brings forth after its own kind. If you're not saved, you're not winning people to the Lord. And the thing about that, because everything brings forth after its own kind. And what I see this as is that they only want to do the soul winning that's dramatic. Because if you come past sea and land to win somebody to Christ, that's pretty dramatic. Let's say you get on an airplane, you go to Malawi. That's pretty dramatic. I mean, that's a big trip. It's far away. Let's say you get on the plane and you go to Toronto, Canada. You're crossing an international border, right? And you're part of this big soul winning marathon, this big exciting event. You're in all the pictures on Facebook. You're in all the video. I mean, that's great to be a part of stuff like that. But here's what I think he's saying. That's the only soul winning these people are doing. Think about that. It's great to be a part of the big dramatic trips. It's great to take the trip to South Africa, to take the trip to Botswana, to take the trip to Malawi. You're taking the trip to Toronto. You're taking the trip to Dearborn, Michigan. You're taking the trip to Washington, D.C. That's all great soul winning. But you know what? These people, that's the only soul winning they're doing is when it's a big show. They're not doing the week in, week out soul winning that nobody cares or knows about. You know, there's not some big dramatic thing. There's not a bunch of photos taken or, you know, a big deal made about just the week in, week out soul winning on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, whatever day you go. Or just, how about just witnessing to your neighbor? That's not a big hoopla. Witnessing to the guy at work. You know, these people, when they go soul winning, I mean, they're dramatic. They're crossing sea and land. They've got this amazing testimony about this great missions trip that we took and we got this one guy saved and whatever. But where are they at every week? Just for the week in, week out soul winning. You know, and look, I'm not, I want to be careful on this point because, you know, I don't want to discourage people from taking the dramatic trips. I don't want to discourage people from showing, because you know what? I'd rather that you show up just for that trip than to show up for nothing. But what I'd rather see though is somebody show up for that dramatic trip to Malawi or Botswana or wherever and get so fired up that they continue the soul winning week in, week out. You know, we had a lot of first time soul winners out in Toronto. More than half the people who came were first timer. So we had to double up some silent partners and everything just to make sure that, you know, we got everybody trained and got everybody taught. But you know, what I hope is that those people wouldn't just go home and say, man, that was cool. That was exciting. We went soul winning. We won somebody Lord in Toronto. I hope that that person goes home and becomes a lifelong soul winner and that they just quietly are faithful week after week in season out of season. Just winning people the Lord one after the other winning people Lord. Just keep trying. Just keep preaching the gospel. Keep knocking that door. Don't be that guy. And look, what's the modern missions movement. No soul winnings going on in the home area, but we got to go travel the other side of the world to do so way. Look, I'm all for traveling the other side of the world, but why don't you go so winning on the other side of the street first? Why don't you clean up your own backyard first? Why don't you start with Jerusalem here and do that soul winning and a lot of these missionaries, you can't even get them to go soul winning and if they won't be a soul winner here, they're dead sure not going to be so winner over there. And I remember I talked about this morning a little bit our time in the wilderness where we went to some NIV rock and roll type Baptist churches and I remember one time, this church obviously had no soul winning. The whole time we were there, I think one person got baptized, we were at this particular church for two or three years, there was like one baptism and there's no soul winning of any kind, but they took this big missions trip to Mexico and they hyped it up a lot for a long, big deal, they're going to Oaxaca, Mexico and they're going to do this missions trip and most of it had to do with of course building a house. That's always what it is, they're building some structure, but they actually took it a step further and they said, we're actually going to evangelize while we're down there and they're like, we're going to knock doors with the guy. It was like, wow, this was radical to them to knock a door and give the gospel. They're like, we're going to go door to door down there. So we were pretty impressed with that, like, wow, these people, they're actually going to do soul winning and they were training, they spent months and months of training on how to knock a door and do the soul winning because they're trying to learn how to be effective with it and what to say and how to do it. They did months of training, they go down there and do a couple of days of soul winning down there, but the thought never even entered their mind to do soul winning in California, where we were. All that training for this one-off deal, this one-off trip, and it wasn't the whole church, it was just a few people that went down there, just a small group, but that's what we see today is this idea that, oh, you know, I want to get the gospel to the world, so let's give money to missionaries. Let's send a missionary, let's take a missions trip. No, do it yourself. It's right here. Well, I just have a burden for Chinese people. Stop having a burden just for Chinese people and get a burden for everybody. Red and yellow, black and white, a soul is a soul. And so, you know, we need to just get out there and win people to Christ, not when it's only dramatic, you know, and here's the thing, I don't want to discourage people from posting on social media because I think it's good to post on social media and try to fire each other up on soul winning and get people excited on soul winning, but, you know, you can actually go soul winning without posting it to social media too, you know what I mean? And I'm not saying don't post to social media because, you know, I think there are times when it is encouraging, when I see people post about soul winning on social media, sometimes it gets me fired up, it gets me excited, and I want to keep seeing posts that will fire me up and encourage me, but, you know what, you don't have to do that every single time. And by the way, you don't have to upload a picture of your every meal either. Now, I, you know, I upload a picture of special meals. I've been guilty of uploading a meal photo, but some people, it's every meal gets uploaded, you know, but anyway, that's not really a biblical issue, I was just, I'm just, I'm throwing out there as a joke, okay, I'm just kidding, go ahead and all the pictures of your cat and meals are important, keep them coming, but anyway, he said, you know, you cross sea and land to make one proselyte, why don't you make ten proselytes right here in Phoenix and then we'll talk about your missions trip, right? Then we'll talk about buying a plane ticket, spending a bunch of money, why don't we knock doors here in Arizona, there's plenty of souls in Arizona right here that are receptive to the gospel. Woe unto you, you blind guides, he says, you know, they're claiming to be a teacher of the law, they don't understand what they say or whereof they affirm, they don't even know the Bible, and he points out some of their foolish teachings. Let's jump down for sake of time to verse 23, he says, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith, these ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone. So they're very nitpicky about certain things that are easy for them to do, easy for them to follow, but they can't see the forest for the trees. You know, they're great about, they were great on tithing, but they're failing in the areas of mercy, faith, judgment, and he's saying those are the weightier matters, those are the most important things, and he's saying I'm not saying you shouldn't tithe, he said these ought you to have done, but don't leave the other undone. So the Pharisaical hypocrite people who put on the outward show, right, here's another thing that they do, they tend to major on the minors, right? They tend to major on the minors, right? They basically ignore big important things and they just get hung up on certain pet issues that they want to make sure, not for themselves, but that everybody else is in perfect conformity with their pet issue about their life or whatever, their pet sin or their pet issue, they want to make a big deal out of things that are small things, that are little things. He says that they strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, along with that same idea. 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're full of extortion and excess, while blind Pharisees cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. So when we talk about majoring on the minors, one of the things that they major on is the outside, the outward appearance, and then they minor on the inside. Now again, Christ is quick to tell us that both matter, just as he said hey, the tithing and the justice, mercy, and faith, those things both matter, but one's more important than the other. Right? Well, it's the same with this. Both the inside and the outside matter, but the inside matters a lot more. The hypocrite, the Pharisaical type though, he puts a great emphasis on the outside. He overemphasizes the outside. Why? Because everything he does is to be seen of men. So he loves the commandments that have to do with the outside, because then he can put on a perfect show and feel good about himself, and put down others who don't have the outside in order. Now we don't want to take the other extreme where we don't worry about the outside at all, because the Bible does say cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. So he does want our outside to be clean, but the inside's more important, but people that are Pharisaical, people that are hypocritical, people that are holier than thou, they tend to emphasize not just the appearance, the physical appearance, but also just anything that's done outwardly. Anything that's done publicly, that's what they're going to major on. And that which is in the heart, or that which is in private, or that which does not gain a lot of attention, they're not really going to put a lot of emphasis on that. Now keep your finger here in Matthew 23, and let's find the origin of this phrase holier than thou. I remember hearing that phrase all the time growing up. Who's heard that term before? Someone's holier than thou. Put up your hand. Well I heard that term a lot growing up, and I never realized that it was actually in the Bible until I read the book of Isaiah cover to cover when I was like 16, 17 years old, and I was like, oh, this is where that comes from. Now I see it right there, holier than thou. A lot of people might have never even seen this verse, even though they're familiar with that expression. This is in the Old Testament, and it's talking about the same type of people that Jesus is preaching against, and it says that these people, and it talks about a lot of bad things they're doing. They're sacrificing in gardens in verse number, well let's just look at verse 2. It says, I've spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good after their own thoughts, a people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face. I mean they're just total disregard for God's word. They provoke him to anger continually to his face. They sacrifice in gardens and burn incense upon altars of brick. Now what's wrong with offering an offering on an altar of brick or burning incense on altars of brick? Because God specifically told them you need to build an altar out of either dirt or whole stones. Don't lift up any tool upon it. Well, what are bricks? Bricks are made with tools. Bricks are perfect rectangles, whereas God just wanted them to make a pile of rocks. Now think about a big pile of dirt. Is that a pretty impressive altar? Is that pretty fancy? No. Just a pile of dirt. That's the altar God told them to build. And then he said, here's the other style of altar to build, a pile of rocks. This is at the end of Exodus chapter 20 right after the Ten Commandments. Why? Because it's humble. You know, it's just a humble, functional, hey, make a pile of rocks, make a pile of dirt. For whatever reason, that's what God told them to do. These people have a better idea. They have these fancy brick altars, you know, and so they're probably pretty proud of their brick altar, but it's actually in violation of God's word. The guy with the pile of dirt or the guy with the pile of rocks is the guy who's getting it right. He says, they remain among the graves and lodge in the monuments which eat swine's flesh and broth of abominable things in their vessels. So here they're just in blatant disregard of God's word. God told them not to eat pork. They're eating pork. God told them not to make altars out of bricks. Everything's brick. God told them, hey, don't worship me in the groves of trees. They go straight to the gardens and that's where they're going to do all their worship is in a grove, okay. They're doing everything wrong. They're hanging out amongst dead bodies when God told them. So these people are in total violation of the law because they're living in the Old Testament, carnal ordinances. They're violating them all. But then here's what they say. Even as they violate all these laws, here's what they say in verse 5. Stand by thyself, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou. Basically, they're saying to people, stay away from me. I'm holier than thou. I do not want to be defiled by you. You are unclean. I am holier than you. I don't want any of your unholiness to rub off on me. Stand by yourself, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou. So now do you see where the expression comes from? So it's a hypocrite because they're not really that holy if they're eating a bunch of pork and offering sacrifices in all the wrong ways. But they have this attitude of, hey, back off, buddy. Don't come near to me because I'm holier than thou. And what does God say that He thinks about these people? He says that they are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. You know how annoying that is, right? You get smoke in your face and you're inhaling a bunch of smoke. He's saying that's how I feel about these people. They just continually irritate me nonstop. He doesn't like people like this. That's why Jesus rebukes it so strongly in Matthew 6 and Matthew 23. So the holier than thou person is outwardly righteous. Inwardly they're doing it all wrong. And when you're not around, when nobody's around, they're into all kinds of wicked sin. But they're not approachable. What does that mean? It means that they can't talk to people who are worldly or they can't talk to people who are unsaved and maybe living a wicked life because they're too holier than thou to be approachable to those people because they're just on this different plane. But you know what? A truly godly servant, an actual righteous Christian, you know, they can actually go to work and they can talk to their co-workers like a normal person. They can go soul-winding to the worst ghetto and they can go to the whores and the whoremongers and the publicans and sinners and you know what they can do? They can talk to them in a way that's not condescending. They can talk to them and get right down on the level and you know what? The holier than thou person though is too good for those people. And they just exude this aura of I'm better than you. And look, we as Christians, we are to live to a high standard. We are to live godly. I'm not telling you because other people take it to the other extreme where they say, hey, I'm going to drink a beer with my buddies at work because I don't want to be holier than thou. No, no, no. You can be, you can actually not drink a beer without being holier than thou about it, without making a big deal about it, without always rubbing everybody's nose at, oh, everybody, I, you know, I can't go with you guys. I can't participate in what you're doing because it's too sinful. And they're like, hey, we didn't even invite you, you know, and you're telling us, right? So the, you know, seriously, I, I mean, images of people and actual situations are flooding into my mind right now because I've known a lot of holier than thou people. I've seen holier than thou people come and go in our church, other churches I've been to. Look, as I'm preaching this sermon, you're probably thinking of situations that you've seen and people that you've seen that have, that have done this the wrong way. And you know what, maybe you've even been guilty of this at times and you've even done some of these things. You know, I'm not saying you're to the level of these unsaved wicked Pharisees, but you know what, any of us could have done things or said things or acted in a way that was wrong or hypocritical or holier than thou or just trying to just show off when we should have been humble and we, you know, we, we took a few steps in that direction. Not saying that you went all the way off that cliff and maybe some of you have gone all the way off that cliff and need to get seriously right with God, you know, as a result of hearing this sermon and check your heart and ask yourself, are you more worried about yourself or are you just always worried about what other people are doing? You know, when I go out soul winning, you know, I don't care what people are into because I'm not there to condemn them. I'm there to save them. Jesus said, I didn't come to condemn the world. I came to save the world. You know, I'm there that to become all things to all men that by all means I might save some. That's why I'm not trying to go there and just show them how righteous I can be and talk down to them and act like they're an idiot and act like they don't know the Bible and act like they're so wicked and they're so sinful and they're so, you know, by the grace of God, we'd all be like that. If we would have grown up in the home that they grew up in and we didn't get the Lord Jesus Christ presented to us at a young age, you know, a lot of us could have ended up that way or gone down that road. It's just by the grace of God that we're not the ones that are drunk, you know, at 11 a.m. We're not the ones that are on drugs. We're not the ones that are chain smoking cigarettes. We're not the ones who are, you know, living with someone that we're not married to and all these sins. And look, I'm not condoning these sins. Obviously, there's a time and a place to condemn these sins, but, you know, when we go out soul winning, we need to be loving and be there to win people to Christ. And you know what? I run into people out soul winning that are just stoned out of their minds or drunk out of their minds in the middle of the daytime. And you know what? I just feel sad for that person. And you know what I do? I hand them a preaching CD or a DVD and I say, hey, listen to this tomorrow morning when you're sober. You know, that's what I want them to do. I want them to get saved. You're going to win more people to the Lord at work by having a good testimony. I'm not saying to ruin your testimony. I'm not saying to, you know, have a little sin in your life. Don't be such a Pharisee. No, what I'm saying is, you know, live a clean life. Follow high standards of morality, but don't rub everybody else's nose in it all the time and have to tell everybody all the time how much better you are than them. You know, that's what we're talking about. Now, let's talk about the issue of clothing, okay? When it comes to clothing, it matters what we wear. You know, it matters. If it didn't matter, God wouldn't say anything about it. He does talk about it. But let me ask you this. If we read our Bibles cover to cover, what percentage of the Bible is talking about our clothing? It's a pretty small percentage if we were to be honest about it, right? It's not something that the Bible is going on and on and on about. Now look, don't go out of here and say, hey, it doesn't matter what we wear, and throw on the bikini tomorrow and just, you know, go out in your short shorts. That's not what I'm saying. It does matter what we wear. And I preach whole sermons about it because even if something's minor in the Bible, it deserves a sermon. You know, there's 156 sermons a year. We need a sermon on clothing. We need a sermon on hair. We need a sermon on these outward things. You need a sermon on tithing every once in a while. But the point is, though, when you're constantly harping on things that the Bible says very little about, you're not emphasizing what God emphasizes, okay? So there are people who put an overemphasis on the outward appearance. Now does the outward appearance matter? Yes. But when you're just getting up over and over again and just continually talking about things that are not mentioned a lot in the Bible, and when you're constantly harping on the outward appearance, you know what? You are majoring on the minors at that point. Now what people will accuse you of doing, you preach one sermon, you're majoring on the minors. It's like, no, because I'm preaching hundreds of sermons and that's one sermon every two or three years or something. Or maybe in a 60-minute sermon I might spend 60 seconds talking about the outward appearance. But we don't want to overemphasize that. And you know what? There's a tendency for people to get that right in their life. They get that right. They get their clothing right. They get their hair right. And then you know what they do? They become the clothing police and the haircut police in the local church. And this is being pharisaical. You know where you've got your outward appearance dialed in and now you're going to approach people and confront people about their appearance that are new in Christ, new to the church, new in the Lord. And you know what? You're helping those people. You're there just to lift yourself up or just for whatever your other agenda is. Now look, there have been times when I have mentioned something to someone about their appearance or my wife mentioned something to someone about their appearance. You know what? After they've been coming to the church, after they've been growing in the Lord, after there have been sermons that talked about it and they get to a point where they should know better and then we kindly come to that person. We take them aside privately, not to embarrass them or humiliate them and we gently might explain to that person, look, you know, this is what the Bible says. I'm just trying to help you. You know what I mean? Not just first time visitor, second time visitor, been saved for two weeks or whatever and we're just going to them and just condemning them. And look, women are the worst about this. There I said it. Women are in constant and I'm not down on women tonight but I'm just going to speak the truth. I'm just going to speak my mind, all right? Women tend to be in constant competition with one another for better or for worse, okay? It's just kind of how it is and I'm not saying all women are like that but there's a tendency there. And you know, men have sins that we tend toward, right, that we struggle with more than women. There are areas where we're worse but an area where women struggle is that sometimes they tend to be in constant competition with one another and women tend to be insecure about their appearance in the day that we live. Today most men, I mean look around, does it look like the men in this room are putting a lot of time into their appearance? Just kidding. That was a joke. But anyway, the point is, you know, men aren't as into their appearance or at least they shouldn't be. It's a little bit effeminate when you're really into your appearance but women do care about their appearance. That's just part of being a woman. I'm not down on that. It's just women care more about their appearance. So because women care a lot about their appearance, they tend to be a little bit insecure about their appearance. Like no matter what weight they are, they think it's the wrong weight. You know, I saw this meme on Facebook, it was just like a skeleton going like this and it said, girls be like, I finally reached my goal weight and it's just like a skeleton. You know, because women are, even if they look good, they don't even realize it because they just, they're always a little bit nervous or insecure. And then here's the thing, there are some women that actually do have something wrong with their appearance. You know, something that makes them feel even more insecure because maybe there is something wrong. Maybe they're very overweight or maybe they're very underweight or maybe they have some kind of a deep, whatever the issue. And of course, you know, it's the inside that matters and beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we shouldn't have this Hollywood image where everybody has to look perfect and whatever anyway. That's a carnal attitude in the first place. Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. And we're all fearfully and wonderfully made and God made us the way we're all and we're all beautiful in His sight if we love Him. Right? But women tend to be insecure about their appearance and they tend to be into their appearance and they tend to be in competition with one another. And I'm not saying all women, but these are tendencies. And so therefore, what will happen sometimes is that a woman comes in and she's not dressed as she should be. Maybe her skirt's too short, the top's too low, whatever. She's dressed a little bit. And they get super threatened by that. And often confronting that person about their appearance has nothing to do with helping that person grow as a Christian as much as just that they just want to get it off their chest because they're angry because that person comes in and they're showing too much. And look, I'm not condoning people who are showing their bodies. It's wrong. I've preached against it. No one can accuse me of not doing that. But are you getting what I'm saying? That women could sometimes just have an ax to grind. And look, we've talked to women about this because when we've caught women doing this where they're just confronting visitors and confronting for, you know, because their skirt's a few inches too short or whatever, not that we condone that, but it's not appropriate for them to just go up to that person and be rude about it even. And when we talk to these women, this is what they say because I've talked to people about this. My wife, I've been a pastor for a long time now. And this is what these women say, yeah, but, you know, if that woman walks in here, you know, oh, my husband's going to look at her and then he's going to lust after her and all these men are going to lust after her. But here's the thing about that is that no, they're not. If a woman walks in here in a short skirt, every man is not just going to be lusting after her and just we're all just going to be glued to her and we can't, you know. It's not that, look, guess what? Did you know that we go to work every day and we go out in public every day and there are women that are dressed wrong every day and every day we have to actually decide not to look at those things, okay? Now look, again, I don't want you to take this the wrong way and think that I'm saying, hey, it's okay to come to church dressed wrong. It's not okay. And you know what? If you're a mature Christian and if you're mature enough to understand what I'm saying right now and if you know what the Bible says, hey, you ought to dress right when you come to church and there's something seriously wrong with your heart when you show up to church where you're supposed to be worshiping the Lord and you're dressed scantily clad trying to get attention on your body. There's something wrong with that. But you know what? The new believer though, they might not even know that. They might have never even been taught that. It's not that they're just coming in saying, hey, I want it to be about me. You know, I want to dress how I want to dress and nuts to, you know, what God says. The new believer, they might not even know these things. They might have never even been taught these things or the person who's due to church or think about this, they might just not have the right clothes. See there are women out there who they don't even own a modest dress. All they own is pants. All they own is shorts. All they own is that which is short and low cut. They might have just not even had time yet or money yet or the ability yet to even get the right clothes. So instead of just jumping on that person and just judging that person and just getting in their face, you know, be patient with people because look, if our whole church were scantily clad, if there were just 30 women here tonight in a mini skirt and everybody's poured into a pair of pants and low cut and everything, then there's something wrong with our church at that point, right? There's something wrong with our church at that point. But you know what? If there's three or four people like that, you know what that means? That means we're reaching people. That's a good sign. And you know what that means? If there's three, four, five people like that, it means that it's not going to be a catastrophe. It's not going to just destroy our church if a couple of people are dressed wrong. It's not going to kill us. There's plenty of places else for us to look. Now some churches everywhere you look is nudity everywhere you look. That's a problem. But just chill out. If somebody comes in and a man comes in with real long hair, a woman comes in and she's in a short skirt or she's in pants or she's in a low cut or whatever, just chill out and just relax because you know what? That person, it needs to get their heart trained in the word of the Lord. They're here because they love God. They want to hear the preaching. They want to learn the Bible. Give them some time. Give people time to grow. Be patient with people. Look, I'm all for being a jealous spouse. I'm for it in the sense that we shouldn't want to share our spouse with someone else. Jealousy means that we want what's ours to be only ours and not to share it with someone else. You know what? My wife is only my wife. I don't want to share her with other people. I don't want other people to see her body. I want her body to be modestly covered. I only want to see the parts of her body that are not for public display. I don't want to share her appearance and I don't want to share her affections and I don't want to share her intimacies with anyone else. That's a righteous attitude for me to have and for my wife to have. I don't want my wife going out to lunch with some other man during the week or something, just friends, just to talk. That's weird and inappropriate. My wife doesn't want me going out and just having lunch and having dinner with other women and stuff like that. That kind of jealousy is okay, but you know what? There are some people who take jealousy to an extreme and to a level of insecurity where they just think that their husband is just looking at every woman. There's jealousy that's a healthy jealousy and then there's just paranoia. We've dealt with women like this who are just paranoid. They won't even let their husband go anywhere without them because they just don't know what he's going to do or who he's going to see. That's just not going to work. Your husband is not your pet that you keep on a leash. He's supposed to be the head of the home. He's the boss and you're keeping him on this leash and you're allowing him where to go. That's ridiculous. Obviously, yeah, you don't want him going out and palling around with other women, of course, but to just not even let him go to soul winning events or go on a trip or not to even want to. Look, we've dealt with this with people and I've told people, I've said, you know what? If that's how your wife acts, you're not going to be able to be a pastor because being a pastor, you're going to have to talk to people all the time. You're going to have to talk to men and women all the time. Look, obviously, there should be safeguards in place. Sometimes a woman will come to me and say, hey, I need to talk to you in private. I'll just take a few steps off to the side and say, all right, well, this is as private as I get. No in your office. No. Not going to do it. If a woman needs to talk to me in that office, I'll bring other people in there with me. I'll bring one of my children in. I'll bring another man, another lady. I don't want to give an appearance of evil. I don't want to put myself in a compromising position, but still as a man or as a pastor, guess what? I have to interact with other women. I go places without my wife babysitting me. There are people who go crazy and go overboard, and they overemphasize the outward appearance because of their own psycho tendencies to just be super-duper controlling of a wife, super-duper insecure, super-duper jealous, and then that's how it manifests. I don't want to harp on that too much. Let's go back to Matthew 23, but I wanted to put that out there and say that. We need to be careful that we're not overemphasizing things that are minor in the Bible. Now my sermon tonight is something that the Bible emphasizes because we got a half a chapter in Matthew 6 on it. We've got a whole chapter on it in Matthew 23. We got a lot of other scriptures in the New Testament about hypocrisy. This is an important teaching. We need to make sure that we do not just outwardly try to show people how spiritual we are all the time and put down other people to try to take them down a notch and bring us up a notch. For example, praying for your food. I'm for it. I'm for blessing the food and giving thanks as long as it's not some super long over spiritual prayer. You know what? What about people who act like someone is a wicked pagan savage because they don't pray before eating? Aren't you going to pray before you eat that? You know what that is? That's being holier than thou. That's being a hypocrite. That's being a Pharisee at that point. It's like yes, I have a chance to jump on you. I caught you doing something wrong. You took the first bite and you didn't even pray first. And I'm like oh yeah, well I was praying in my heart. I'm in a constant state of prayer. I pray without ceasing. I just came out of the prayer closet five minutes ago before I even got to this table. But I wasn't supposed to tell you that because I just lost my reward. But the point is, that's an example. We can think of lots of examples of just being holier than thou and jumping on people and criticizing people for things that aren't even necessarily even wrong or just they're not a big deal. If somebody's drinking and we catch them down at Mill Avenue and they're staggering down the street at Mill Avenue, yeah, we need to confront that person. Somebody's committing fornication, they need to be confronted. If somebody's an extortioner, if somebody is committing these grievous major sins that would get them excommunicated from the church, yeah, if they're teaching heresy, that needs to be confronted. But you know what, if you catch somebody wearing the wrong thing. If you catch somebody watching something or listening to something, you need to just realize that it's not your place to parent other people. And obviously we need to keep our own standards right and clean and godly, but we don't need to police everybody else's standards. What we need to do is just try to be an encouragement, try to teach people, expound things to them gently, but not to be on patrol like a policeman just looking for crimes, looking for things to point out. And I hope everybody's getting the message tonight. I hope everybody understands what I'm saying tonight. And I will also say that not only will I say don't be that way, don't act that way. Worry more about yourself, be approachable, condescend to men of low estate. You should be able to walk into the ghettos and amongst the worst trash kind of people and be able to get along with them and talk to them and get along with them and love them and not participate in their sin, but not to be thought of as just totally unapproachable by them. And you know what, there's nothing wrong with you going to work and being nice to the people that you work with instead of just hating them in your heart and thinking, oh, they're so wicked. They're so bad. There's just so much sin. You know, why don't you just try to look past that and just say, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Try to reach out to them, help them, and so on and so forth. Don't be this Pharisaical, judgmental, hypocritical, and you know, be strict on yourself. Preach strict from the pulpit, emphasizing what God emphasizes. But in your dealings with people, you know, that's not how you act. You don't talk down to people. And look, you know, I'm the pastor of the church, but when I'm outside the pulpit, I'm not acting like I am behind the pulpit. When I'm behind the pulpit, I'm preaching hard. When I come away from the pulpit, when I finish the sermon, I don't walk up to people and just be like, you know, because up here I'm like, hey, you need to get out of soul winning. If you're not a soul winner, you're not following Jesus, you know. I don't just walk up to people afterwards and be like, okay, so when are you going to start going soul winning, Charles? I mean, you were here for my sermon, right? You heard me say it because I don't think you're following Jesus, Charles, because Jesus said, if you follow me, I'll make you a fisher of men, and you're not a fisher of men. You're not following Jesus. You think that's how I interact with people? That's what I'm saying behind the pulpit when I'm preaching hard, but then I'm going to walk up to Charles afterward, and I, you know, this is what I might say, and Charles is already soul winning, folks, but I'm just saying, you know, this is what I might say to him as I might say something like, hey, Charles, you know, I don't know if you've ever been soul winning before, but I'd love to take you out sometime. Maybe we can go grab a burger afterward or something, you know, and have you ever thought about going just as a silent partner because, you know, I'd love to take you out and show you the ropes. That's great, and you know what, that's one of the best ways to get people out of soul winning, you know, because sometimes the preaching isn't enough to do it. You know, I've gotten a lot of people to go out soul winning for the first time by just walking up to them and just being friendly and saying, hey, are you off on Saturday? Have you thought about going on this trip, you know, to the White Mountains, you know, or hey, you know, I'm having a soul winning group that meets at my house, you know, I'd love to have you come over. You know, we're going to have some snacks and stuff. We're going to have a little fellowship. We're going to play a board game afterward or whatever, you know what I mean? Hey, you want to go soul winning? You know, that's nice. That works, right? You know, wow, who's got time for a board game when the world's going to hell? That's the holier than thou, right? The world's going to hell. You're baking cookies and milk and playing a board game. How dare you? You know, the people who just, they don't want to let you have any fun. Now, look, if you don't want to have any fun in life, that's fine. But when you just want to go around telling everybody how, hey, I'm not going to waste my time on that carnal stuff because I'm too busy winning souls and, you know, I win a soul before lunch every day, you know, otherwise I don't even eat lunch and I fast twice in the week and I give tithes of all that I possess. You see what I'm saying? Look, a lot of people, they hear hard preaching and they think that that's how you're supposed to deal with people one-on-one. You know, the reason I get up here and scream and yell behind the pulpit is because there's two or three hundred people here so nobody really knows exactly who I'm talking to. So they can kind of just, if the shoe fits, they can wear it, but, you know, if there were only one person here tonight, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't basically preach as hard of a sermon because, you know, then they know it's about them. So, we need to make sure that we are just comfortable with our own spirituality and we know we have a walk with God, but we don't need to tell that to everybody else all the time and we don't need to put down other people all the time to make ourselves look more spiritual and constantly get the leg up on them and the spiritual one up on them, that we're doing more soul winning, we're reading more Bible, we're doing more prayer, you know, no. Just be humble and serve God and a lot of things that we do shouldn't even be, we don't even need to talk about it. We just humbly do things in private, pray, read our Bibles, whatever. Let's pray, let's have a word of prayer.