Some among those in the churches―some, mind you, and not nearly all―will cry out against the hypocrites in the churches. They call them Pharisees, and rail at them with deep conviction over their hypocrisy―over claiming to be loyal to God and Jesus, but cheating in the practice of it, and in the way they interpret the scriptures to their own twisted advantage.
And these people will bemoan the very sad state of the church, and will go on about what terrible damage is done by these Pharisees, and about how they are giving” the church”, and even God and Jesus, a bad name in the eyes of this weary world.
But I smell a rat.
I say that because I see several passages in the scriptures that seem to paint a picture in which the hypocrites―the incorrigible and unrepentant who would not change their ways after having been well-informed of right and wrong and taken to task for it―were not to be tolerated in the Christian fellowships. Let me share two such passages, which will be sufficient to inform the ones willing to hear what the Spirit says:
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Jesus. Matthew 18:15-17. NIV.
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13 God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
Paul. 1 Corinthians 5:9-13. ESV.
Need I go on?
I certainly can. There are several other passages I could show you. But these two right here are enough to give lots of churchers an aneurysm, because it defies their (messed-up) doctrine about not “judging others”, which they get from Matthew 7 by stopping at the comma and holding their ears while they talk out loud to drown out the rest of what Jesus says in that chapter.
So here’s Jesus telling the Christians to shun the hypocrites among them. But when most of the modern churchers hear this, their answer is a defiant, “No! We won’t do it!”
And what does that make them if they are claiming to be followers of Jesus and his apostles, yet they won’t obey? Doesn’t this make them hypocrites, too?
Indeed, how can it not?
In what reality can you call Jesus “Lord”, and then disobey him habitually, and still come out OK at the end of the story?
46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
Luke 6:46-49. ESV.
And as if this weren’t warning enough, Jesus also preached this chilling message:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Notice that he doesn’t call them “Christians” or “believers” or “brothers and sisters” or “members”, or any such thing as they are commonly called today in the churches. Rather, he calls them “workers of lawlessness”. (And we could compile quite a list of these hard-hitting monikers if we cared to do that.) And notice also that they are not brought into the fold at the end, but sent away.
So if Jesus says to put the hypocrites out of the assembly, and we don’t do that, then we number ourselves among the hypocrites, and are practicing “lawlessness”―all under color of the very religion we are denying by our disobedience―all in the name of the very Lord we are defying, while pretending to be conscientious and diligent servants.
Woe to us.
I write about it all the time, that great confusion that is presented to a dull world when God’s character is higher than our own, and when he expects us to do the world necessary to get it into our heads anyway. God is rather dualistic in a way, where it would be much easier for us, we think, if he would be single-faceted in every way. Let me give you an example or two:
Maybe Understanding God’s Not So Easy After All?
God rewards humans with both a Heaven and a Lake of Fire. There are two options, and not just one, and some of us get the one, while the rest get the other. This is much more complicated than a one-size-fits-all reward would be. But that’s how it is, and we have to figure how it works. (Many churches lean at least a little bit toward Universalism, which tends to ease the difficult of this topic if everybody is to be saved―or almost everybody.)
Similarly, God is both kind and stern. Here it is in print so that you can wrestle with it on your own time:
22 Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.
Romans 11:22. NIV.
Paul is not doing what so many churchers do today―trying to sugar-coat everything, slathered with a “grace” that excuses the sinner from repentance. No, he’s laying it out in a rather provocative message―to Gentile believers in Rome, no less. (In other words, he didn’t save this hard message for just the Jewish believers, with their history under the Law of Moses. He, he expected all believers, Jew and Gentile alike, to understand this, and to conduct themselves accordingly. (You can read my article about this verse here.)
It seems to me that many millions of churches today pretend to be nicer than God and Jesus―kinder, gentler, more forgiving, more gracious, more patient. But how could this be? And if it’s true, then haven’t we got ourselves the wrong Savior? Shouldn’t we depose Jesus and appoint one of them instead? That is, one of those who will never judge the hypocrite in their midst, and who instead will shelter them and slather them with “grace”, and protect them, even as they continue to do harm to those around them―and even as people continue to cry out against the harm they’re doing, and the “black eye” that they’re giving to “the church” by way of their bad example?
If They Won’t Leave
Let us suppose that the hypocrites had control of a congregation, and wouldn’t not leave. Let us suppose that they could not be thrown out
What, then, should the authentic disciple of Jesus Christ do?
In what reality can the right answer be to stay in that fellowship?
If one is not to associate with the hypocrite who claims to be following Jesus, how would that possibly not include being members of the same “church” with them, and breaking bread together?
Go and learn what this means: “Come out from them and be separate.”
You’re Not That Nice
I know many people who are outwardly glad to be nice and kind and gentle and compassionate, yet who defy the Living God when it comes to this command to shun the hypocrites. And what’s at stake here is a battle of terminology. It’s about who gets to determine what “nice” means.
It’s as if they’d rather listen to their fellow churchers’ definition of nice than to God’s. Does God’s categorization of one as a “lawbreaker” not count, so long as we can get enough churchers together to call them “nice” (or whatever other name we like, such as, “Christian,” say?) Does “wicked and lazy servant” turn into “nice” if we can get enough votes to that effect in the church?
When you are confronted about this, you want to appeal to things like “love” and “forgiveness”, as if the principles of God were at odds with one another. And so you play one scripture against another, so as to excuse yourselves from obeying his clear commands to put the hypocrite out of your number.
This is not nice behavior. Rather, it is complicit and evil behavior. It’s what I describe here, about how so many bad actors in the churches enjoy the protection of their gaslighting tag-team partners. People who do this are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are whitewashed tombs, as Jesus put it. But that was a designation he gave to the Pharisees―the very cabal that ran things in Israel in his day―the very ones whom he so famously railed against and silenced again and again.
And they didn’t know what to do with the real Jesus. They couldn’t handle it. And all they could think of was to kill him. But that proved to be the biggest blunder of all, and as it turned out, the blood of Jesus would end up on their own heads
And only a few of them ever learned their lessons. One, quite remarkably, was this Paul, who, in a great irony, would be the one to teach so many of these lessons that the churches refuse to hear today. This was the Paul who taught a grace that did three things that today’s “grace” doesn’t seem to accomplish in the churches:
- It prompted him to work harder.
- It taught people to say “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives.
- It prompted people to keep a sober estimate of themselves, and not be entitled brats who think they aren’t rightfully accountable to God’s correction.
The culture of the church in Paul’s day was quite different from what typifies “the church” for so many today. They were responsible and accountable, and both kind and stern. As a rule, they didn’t slack off when God said to put the godless hypocrites out of their fellowship. And if they did, they certainly weren’t considered believers and brothers and Christians and such.
But when it comes to today’s churches, who does not shirk this duty? And of those fellowships who even address the command (rather than ignoring it altogether), how many of them execute it faithfully on a consistent basis?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen one yet, even though I’ve been in a few congregations who think they are doing well with this. But it always seems to come down to favoritism among the leaders and their darlings, even if it’s not some generalized policy of forgiveness for all unrepented sin.
And let me save us some time here, for surely, someone will object as if I’m preaching that forgiveness is a bad thing. It is not. But if you will look in the scriptures, you will see that the penitent comes prepared to confess his sin and to ask forgiveness for it. And with that comes the implicit understanding that he ought to cut it out and not do it anymore. And if he fails 490 times at it and is humble enough to keep coming back and confessing and asking forgiveness, then let that be the condition, for the penitent will keep coming back and letting the fault be seen for whose it is. (And who among the penitent actually needs 490 tries to get it right? Have I ever met such a human?)
That’s what real repentance does―the kind actually taught in scripture, as opposed to the “worldly sorrow” that only gives lip service to guilt, and does not produce a changed life.
8 Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— 9 yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. 10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 11 See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. 12 So even though I wrote to you, it was neither on account of the one who did the wrong nor on account of the injured party, but rather that before God you could see for yourselves how devoted to us you are. 13 By all this we are encouraged.
2 Corinthians 7:8-13. NIV
The kind of person Paul is describing here is the real deal. He doesn’t have to be chased down so as to talk something out when he is in the wrong. No, he is eager to do it and to get it hashed out. He’ll say he’s sorry. And he’ll change his behavior. He will be so transparent about it as to “prove” himself to be innocent in the matter―making his behavior accountable so that everyone can see that he is no longer doing the wrong thing. He does not protect himself from observation and criticism, but surrenders himself to it, knowing that he owes a debt, and wanting to make things right.
But look how many churchers in our day―and women, especially, it seems, along with the men who most want to please them―will rush to the defense of the one at fault, shielding him from the shame of guilt and from the heat of correction and consequence alike. They do this in the name of “love” and “grace” and “compassion”, but it withholds the very discipline that God and Jesus themselves prescribed for those in his assembly. And they think they are doing good, and refuse to see it as lawlessness.
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son
Hebrews 12:6. NIV
Shield the guilty from discipline, and you’re shielding them from God.
These are the ones who seem most likely to be posting the memes bewailing the sad state of hypocrisy in the churches today―even as they protect that very hypocrisy by running interference. It is strikingly similar to the political strategy of Vladimir Lenin, who said:
“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
Vladimir Lenin
They are at once complaining about the hypocrisy while giving it quarter, and as such, taking part in it themselves. They lead the opposition to it, while also protecting it from the correction and shunning Jesus himself prescribed in such cases.
And even so, these people will have built for themselves the reputation of being consummately loving and compassionate, even as they deprive the guilty of the life-giving rebukes they could be getting if they were in a fellowship that loved people enough to serve them in that way:
Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise.
Proverbs 15:21. NIV.
The hypocrites will never be at home among the wise, nor will they let others go there, either! And to be clear, I believe this being “at home” is a reference to eternal life in Paradise, and not just to feeling chummy with smart people at the Rotary Club.
Consider the words of Jesus:
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
Matthew 23:13-15. NIV.
Do you see the great duplicity here? These twisted people were highly evangelistic, yet actually ended up keeping people out of God’s kingdom! And this is quite like a great many churchers today.
They had an appearance of godliness, but not the substance of it. And like themselves, they taught others to be concerned only with appearances, and not with the actual state of their own souls. They made wrong judgments about people constantly, and never learned how to judge things the way that God does. Jesus said to them once:
24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”
Jesus. John 7:24. NIV
Jesus thought they were capable of judging correctly. Otherwise, we can reason that he would not have rebuked them for failing to do it. So these were not mentally helpless people; they were mentally unwilling people. They were unwilling to judge these things correctly.
And that’s what goes on when Jesus says somebody needs to be corrected, rebuked, or even shunned, and then the “nice” people step in and say it isn’t so.
And yes, I know there are lots of bad people in this world, whom even Jesus himself would call “harsh” and “unjust”, but just because you were mistreated by somebody like that when you were young, doesn’t mean that every correction, rebuke, or shunning you see today is necessarily ungodly. Yet even so, a great many churchers today will have a very strong cognitive/emotional bias that says it is.
And this bias, they have learned to think of as godly. And other people learn it as such. And it snowballs into a dysfunctional “church” that can hardly manage to get anything done, and that does not regularly train its members in actual righteousness, but only in the appearance of it, perhaps.
No wonder so many churches are so worthless; you won’t let them obey Jesus in these matters. And no wonder you won’t let them obey Jesus in these matters, for if you did, they’d learn to turn the tables on you, and to demand that you repent, or that you be kicked out if you don’t.
So you have built your churches as you please, as idols―as substitutes for a real God and a real Jesus who won’t tolerate the sins you find tolerable. It is a substitute religion. A counterfeit. A fake. And you think that by being the first to talk about “grace” and such, you can keep the upper hand―that you can maintain control and keep the charade running. But you are in fact storing up wrath for yourselves as you ruin the lives of many people, some of whom, you may actually care for somewhat.
And in time, God will see to it personally that you yourself are corrected in undeniable fashion, when your turn for learning and repenting in this world is over. And then the matter will be out of your hands, and the world will be rid of your lawless tyranny, when you pass the torch on to those you have trained in the same.
37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate.
Jesus. Matthew 23:37-38. NIV.
Jesus is not eager to destroy, but eager to see people repent―to turn from being unwilling to being willing―to give it another try to make things right. It’s time you stopped pretending that repentance and correction are not the right answers, but that indiscriminate forgiveness and limitless patience are. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.
