HYPOCRISY
"Beware ye
of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Luke 12:1
What
did He mean by that? The history of the Pharisees is a wonderful history. They
arose in the Maccabean period; and were to the Jewish people at that time what
the Puritans were to England in the period of their greatness. The Pharisees
constituted an order, created to prevent the nation coming into contact with,
other nations, and losing its purity and its identity and their influence was of
the highest, and of the best. The Pharisaic movement arose out of the passion
of men for the Divine ideal for the nation. In the days of Jesus, they had
become utterly degenerate. They had lost their spiritual and moral influence;
and in effect He said to His disciples, the leaven that has destroyed them is
hypocrisy. In that warning our Lord was interpreting the failure of one of the
most magnificent movements that had ever arisen in the history of God's
ancient people. The leaven of hypocrisy had destroyed it.
What
is hypocrisy? Hypocrisy quite literally means wearing a mask. A hypocrite is a
man who wears a mask so that his features are not seen. Hypocrisy is
dishonesty. These Pharisees were masquerading.
He
said, Beware of this, for "there is
nothing covered up, that shall not be revealed."
The
mask will come off sooner or later.
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