We hear it all the time: “I don’t go to church because there are too many hypocrites in the church.” Guess what, if you would have gone, they would have one more hypocrite once you walked through the doors.
But, in a sense, this is a true statement: there ARE too many hypocrites in the church. In fact, every church is full of hypocrites because we are ALL sinners and yet claim to follow God,
But using the “hypocrisy” argument is yet another lame excuse to stay away from church. It would be like saying: “I’m never going to the hospital, it’s full of sick people.”
Hospitals are there to promote wellness and healing. Hospitals hire people who have done years of schooling and have been trained in ways to help sicknesses and diseases and such. Yet the hospital stays full of sick people because a hospital exists to make sick people well. With no sick people, it wouldn’t be doing its job.
In the same way, the church exists to make spiritually sick people spiritually well, to help people achieve spiritual health. So, in that perspective, if a church does its job right, it’s always going to be attracting hypocrites!
Jesus Himself said in Luke 19:10: “For the Son of man came to seek and save the lost.” In Matthew 9:10-11 Jesus said He came to heal the sick.
There is a saying that goes: “The church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for the sick.” Sadly, many churches today are nothing more than social clubs, coffee shops, entertainment centers or gathering places for the self-righteous.
Charles Spurgeon said: “I am told that Christians do not love one another. I am very sorry if that be true, but I rather doubt it, for I suspect that those who do not love each other are not Christians.”
No one likes hypocrites, but I find it disturbing with those who profess to love God but who’s lives don’t match those claims. As I said above, many say the church is filled with hypocrites, and some claim there are genuine Christians among the false ones. Whatever the case, I believe those who make these statements usually do so because they themselves love the darkness and hate the light and use this as nothing but an excuse to continue in their own sins.
Ray Comfort said it best: “Hypocrite comes from the Greek word ‘actor,’ or ‘pretender.’ It’s the practice of professing beliefs, feelings or virtues that one does not hold.”
Hypocrites may show up at a church building, but in reality, there are NO hypocrites in THE CHURCH! In its ignorance, the world thinks that the church is the building, and those who
sit in its confines are Christians. However, the Church is the Body of Christ, which consists of only true believers: hypocrites are “pretenders” who sit among God’s people. They dwell as goats among the Lord’s sheep, bad fish among the good, tares among the wheat, until the day God separates them.
I find it interesting that the world claims to hate hypocrisy in the church, that they detest the “pretender.” Do they WANT the Christian to be genuine? Do they WANT us to be true and faithful in our witness and therefore speak of sin, righteousness, and judgment? Do they WANT us to live in holiness rather than in compromise? Does the world really WANT us to speak up against pornography, homosexuality, greed, adultery, abortion, fornication, and other sins they so love? In their eyes, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. So NEVER allow the talk of hypocrisy to minimize your witness to others.
Matt. 15:7-8 says: “You hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophecy of you, saying, this people draws near to me with their mouth, and honors me with their lips: but their heart is far from me."
In closing, we must never forget that the church is supposed to be a hospital for sinners, where the lost can find the Resurrected One and the backslidden can find Christ, the Compassionate One. We all need the Great Physician, Jesus Christ!
Last Update: Jun 23, 2017 1:45 pm CDT
