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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Luke 12:1. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, etc. 1 Peter 2:1.
The hypocrites say, "We have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves" (Isaiah 28:15). What a poor cover, what a poor refuge! For the Lord knows their hypocrisy (Mark 12:15). Read the eight woes (Mat. 23), which the Savior has pronounced upon the hypocrites and learn that there is no vice which God detests and condemns as much as this most infamous of all vices, which is committed sometimes in a gross and sometimes in a subtle manner. A man likes to seem pious even though he himself admits that he is not pious, and by a sinful life clearly demonstrates to others that he is not pious. Such a man likes to appear to the eyes of others as one who has religion very much at heart. This is the gross hypocrisy. A more artful and subtle hypocrisy is when one flatters himself with the imagination that he is pious and is regarded by others as such. Secretly he lives in sins which, in order to quiet his conscience, he does not regard as sins, but attributes to human weakness, or covers by a false confidence in God’s mercy and the merits of Christ; he passes lightly over them, and counts himself secure. Another kind of hypocrisy is that of those who are possessed by a false zeal; who, driven by passions, persecute others, thinking thereby to render unto God a service and to be zealous for Him, while natural impetuosity and blind rage constitute the real motive for their zealousness. The worst hypocrites are the "false apostles," these children of the devil, who, born by the father of hypocrisy, assume the form of an angel of light only in order to make as many as possible the children of hell (2 Corinthians 11:14). Beware of the subtle as well as of the gross hypocrisy! For ’’the Lord trieth the hearts and reins, and He delights in uprightness" (Psalms 7:10-11).
O Lord, who trieth hearts and reins,
Detesting him who only feigns:
Grant that Thy grace and truth may be
Before Thy throne my only plea.
