The Church Is Full of Hypocrites!

Suggest Keywords the outside but on the inside are full of dead mens bones & everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy & wickedness. ILL. The story is told about a little boy who found a rat in his back yard. He jumped on it. He stomped on it. And he killed it. He was so proud of himself, & he ran to show it to his mother. But he didnt realize that the preacher had come to call. So the excited boy ran into the house, carrying the rat by the tail, hollering to his mom, Mom, look what I found. I found this rat. I jumped on it, I stomped on it, &... Just then he noticed the preacher & he finished his sentence by saying, And then the Lord called him home. SUM. Its terrible to have to remember to change in keeping with the company that you keep. And thats hypocrisy. II. THE REFUSAL TO JUDGE A. Now theres another lesson we must learn & it has to do with judging. In His parable, when the servants came & asked, Do you want us to go out & pull them up? The answer was No, because while youre pulling up the weeds you may uproot the wheat with them. So let both grow together until harvest, & at that time Ill tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds & tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat to bring into my barn. In other words, Jesus is saying, Your job is not to judge the hypocrites. Ive never commissioned you to do that. So dont go into the church & start uprooting the hypocrites. 1. And that means, first of all, that were not to judge a persons salvation. Thats not our job. God never put us on the judgment throne to say this person is lost & this one is

saved. My responsibility is to do my best to present the truth thats in Gods Word, & to leave the rest in Gods hands. 2. Secondly, were not to judge another persons motives. We dont know the circumstances & why they do what they do. We dont know their background, their emotions, & whats going on inside of them. God knows, so leave that in Gods hands! B. There are things, however, that we should judge. 1. First of all, the Bible very clearly teaches that we are to recognize & judge false teachings. Jesus says in Matthew 7:15, Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do you see the parallels between these words & the parable weve been reading? Jesus says that false teachers may look like sheep, & sound like sheep, & act like sheep. So how will we recognize them? Jesus says, By their fruit you will recognize them. If theyre sowing seeds of discord & bitterness; if theyre causing people to become disobedient, then theyre false teachers. So we are to judge false teaching. 2. Secondly, were to judge sinful actions. If someone in the church is doing a sinful thing & its common knowledge among the brethren, then the church needs to act. Paul uses an example in 1 Corinthians 5 of a man who was sleeping with his fathers wife, & the church knew about it. So Paul condemned the church because it didnt take any action. Now what kind of action should it have taken? Paul said, You should have gone to him to seek a reconciliation that would cause him to repent of his sin & change