Holiness: God’s Warning Against Hypocrisy

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI…

Good evening. Good evening.

I hope you’ve had ample rest and you’ve had a good meal, and that you’re ready this evening, once again, as we delve back into the annals of Holy Script and see what our God has to say to us.

Holiness is a vital attribute, component, and necessity of life. Because God is holy, believe it or not, He expects all of His creation to be holy. And yet, sin has marred the perfection of God, and we see within it this beauty of what genuine holiness looks like through redemption.

Sometimes I ponder that, were it truly possible, outside of redemptive history, for all the wondrous attributes of God, both communicable and incommunicable, to be truly exercised in its glory. And while that’s a question reserved only for Him who is sovereign, we must understand that while God is love, God is light, God is truth and merciful, He is long-suffering, everything that you see that the fruit bears in the life of the believer, God is. But God also is majestic and sovereign. He is omnipresent and omnipotent. But there is no attribute of God like that of His holiness.

And as I’ve studied Scripture and studied theology, I don’t even think that holiness is simply an attribute of God as much as it, it is the total culmination of God’s attributes in itself. Now, this is why every time we, we get a purview and peek into Heaven, we see the angels around the throne of God, simply saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” And when the church is birthed forth, she comes forth from the holy seed. She is a holy temple. She is known as a holy people. And one day, her worship will be holy in Heaven itself.

So we see, brethren, that God is actually very serious about holiness. How serious is He?

Well, this evening, with the time that we have, I wanted to continue where we left off. What we saw in Scripture was the first instance of persecution on the Church, and the principles that we were able to garner from Scripture and apply in any church age that can assist us also to stand upon the grace of God.

But let us also be careful, that with a thrice holy God, not everything is hunky-dory. We do not serve a God—have to get the New Zealand term. Is it candy floss? I got that. We call it ca- we, we call it, uh—cotton. Yeah, cotton candy, yeah. Uh, uh, it’s not about candy floss and lilies and clouds and rolling on the grass, singing Kumbaya around a campfire. No. He is holy. He is God. And our God deserves all the worship that His creatures are to give to Him.

In the church age, this comes about. Pastor Logan, when he read and took us through our public Scripture reading this evening, we saw a great warning that Jesus gives on the Sermon on the Mount towards the end. And I wanted to show you within, uh, the Scripture itself how this actually plays out.

If you will open your Scriptures with me to a little bit of a prelude of sorts, we’re not gonna start in verse 5, excuse me, chapter 5, verse one, for tonight’s sermon is simply titled Holiness: God’s Warning Against Hypocrisy, but we will be picking up in verse 34 of the previous chapter. We left off on verse 33 this morning, and we’re just gonna pick it right back up for the sake of context.

Look at what is happening in the church at this time.

“For there was not a needy person amongst them. For all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need. Now, Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles, which is translate, which translated means son of encouragement, and who owned a tract of land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”

What we’re seeing here is the way that the Gospel was progressing as they were staying true to their master.

It’s something very interesting in that section of the text, that even those within the leadership of, of false or, or apostate Judaism, namely a Levite, had now come into the faith. When had he come into the faith? No one knows. Maybe on the day of Pentecost. But what we do know is that this is what the Gospel does.

Adjust the relationship of him being a Levite and now him coming onto the church, and what he’s actually known by is his giftings, that this man was such an encouragement to the body. He was a man that would come alongside you and walk with you. He was actually the man who brought the Apostle Paul into the church, for there were many amongst the way, it tells us, that would not even meet with him. Yes, the church in its infancy did have moments of fear. So this is a man that we see was true to the call.

But before we go to the next verse, we must understand that Christ is not only protecting his church from the outside by allowing persecution and suffering so that we may turn inwards and then once again go outwards, but Christ is also protecting from the inside.

We must understand—and we can go all the way back into Genesis and see where the attack came from. Eve deceived, would then easily deceive her husband, who loved her and trusted her.

The word of God actually tells us that when chapter 5 starts, it starts with a conjunction. So something drastic now takes place, not only in the narrative, but in the written text itself. And what we see is this warmth, and comfort, and unity amongst the brethren. And all of a sudden, there is that but.

Not but a brother, not but a believer, but just a man. Just a man. And the infamous name of Ananias comes forth with his wife, Sapphira.

That but in the text brings in the first instance of hypocrisy, I believe, in the church age.

Brethren, God hates hypocrisy. He absolutely hates it.

And there are 2 forms of hypocrisy.

The first form is when Christians who are genuinely saved—one of the very people within this vital text, being Peter, played the hypocrite. We know this because we have that written for us in Paul’s first Epistle to the Galatians. And every Christian, contrary to their new nature in Christ, when they falter in the flesh, when they run after the passing pleasures of sin, are playing the hypocrite, because you and I are not of the world. So we shouldn’t go that way.

And no Christian, no matter how heinous a sin we fall into, can indefinitely stay in a state of sin. No Christian can fall out of salvation, as many believe today. No. For God, it says, one of God’s, uh, greatest examples and demonstrations of love towards His people is this: God disciplines those whom he loves. Hence why we can see Esau was never loved the way Jacob was loved.

And yet the text tells us there is a second, more sinister form of hypocrisy.

In his wonderful book and work, Growing Grace, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson brings this to light. The hypocrite, Greek for hypokrites, was originally an actor. Theatrical makeup in those days took the form of a mask which the actor wore. On it would be painted the character and the mood which the actor portrayed. It might be a smiling face which hid the sad heart of the actor behind it. It might be a face of virtue which hid behind it a life of vice. In acting, there can be great discrepancy between the part which is being played and the reality of life which lies behind it.

Oh, the same can be true of faith. We can profess much and possess little. Indeed, there is always the temptation in Christian fellowships to pretend to be something other than what we truly are.

In Jesus’ parables found in the book of Matthew’s Gospel, in the 13th chapter and 24th verse, these are the words of the master.

Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares amongst the wheat and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. For the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

The reality of the church age is simple. There are both wheat and tares in the church.

In reformed theology, we like to call this the visible and invisible church. Not that you sit in a corner and you’re invisible. Not that. You just need to be more social. He who wants a friend must himself be friendly. But what this means is that while we can only see the outside—there is a sovereign that sees all and knows all, and He knows who are His and those who do not belong to Him.

Paul, when writing to the Corinthian church, said to them in his own biography, I believe, which is the second letter to them, in chapter 11 in verse 2, he says,

“For I am jealous for you with a Godly jealousy. Oh, for I presented you to one husband, so that to Christ, I may present you a pure virgin. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different Gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.”

And then continuing down in verse 13 to 15, when speaking about those who are false teachers, false prophets, and false believers, he says,

“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”

He doesn’t come, brethren, with a fork, pitchfork, and a tail, and 2 little horns. Maybe on Halloween, but no other. He comes as one who is disguised as a sheep. She comes as one that claims to be a part of the flock.

But the word here says, and the kicker, verse 15,

“Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.”

So there is a guiding question that I have for you.

This morning, I built you up, ’cause I know sometimes when we’re persecuted, we’re like, God’s blessings is upon us, but this, this evening, I wanna break you down. Why? May we never think we’re standing lest we fall. As your pastor has said, may we live with the annals of God as our mirror. Show me, Lord, what you see. Show me.

And the question that I have here is simply, are we holy or are we hypocrites?

Not simply because another church plant has gone up, but because the only church that lasts is the church that Jesus Christ is building. That’s it. There’s no other church that makes it.

And God puts this at the front end so that we may be warned that holiness is glorious, but it is a blazing and blasting horn from Heaven. “I hate hypocrisy,” God says. “For I am holy.”

And when we’re looking at this question, there are 4 evidences in this text that we’re gonna walk through that will bring out what hypocrisy looks like. Not the first form of hypocrisy that we all fall into, but that wicked second form of hypocrisy. God will not have false believers in his kingdom.

Let us get into it.

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1. Hypocrisy is rooted in the heart and displayed through the hands of false believers.

That first warning of that truth we find in verses one and 2.

The text tells us,

“But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property and kept back some of the price for himself. With his wife’s full knowledge in bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles’ feet.”

You may say here, there seems absolutely nothing wrong with what is written, because usually when you sell something, um, if Afifa and I, you know, w- we’re invested in different things, if something is sold, uh, I’ll let her know, “Hey, uh, babe, this is for the family, our allowances, long-term savings, and of course, uh, this is for ministry.” There’s nothing wrong with that.

You do this with your weekly pay. Uh, you don’t just take up your whole paycheck. Uh, I mean, unless you’re a multimillionaire. Right? Uh, you don’t just take your whole paycheck and say, “I’m just gonna give it to the Lord every, every week.” You can do that, but that wouldn’t be the wisest.

And that’s not what’s happening here.

You must understand the but.

You have a group of people that are totally committed to one another. They are—remember, when we go back to this morning, they were of one mind, and what? One soul and one heart. And there was a display of common hospitalities, of a common bond and a common love.

But the but comes in.

Because see, no matter how hard an unsaved man tries, they cannot bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, for Jude tells us they are devoid of the Spirit. And so they have to put up some sort of a facade, and what we see here is they’re looking at good old Barnabas across the, across the way there on the other side of the congregation.

“Oh, a son of encouragement. Yes! What does Ananias mean? Let me look it up in the Bible. Right?”

“I want a new name, too. And not only I, I want my wife to have a new name.”

And not only that, for but, from what we learned of, of Barnabas, he goes into leadership and actually becomes an apostle, small a, of the church.

See, there’s something about angels that have fallen, and those representatives who are humans that are, that are now following those fallen angels. They’re disguising themselves, and they want to climb up amongst the rank so that they can destroy the Church of God.

Don’t only think that trials and sufferings that are coming from outward against men who are leading in the church is the only way you attack the leadership of a church or the household of faith as a whole. The other way you do this is you attack it from inwardly and you let snakes rise.

If you don’t believe it, read Acts 20 and then go read the letters to Timothy. 2 Corinthians.

And here, what we’re seeing is they’re, they’re making a play, because that’s all the world does. They maneuver, they manipulate, they politic, and they make a play.

And what is the play? Sell that piece of property, make sure you keep back 51%, and then just give the rest.

But you know what the problem of this was? We’re giving it all. That’s the problem. Right, then.

They weren’t giving it all, but they just wanted to do it that way so that they could keep up with the Joneses in church.

In the Samoan churches back home, here you come in, there’s an old wooden box. I don’t know if it’s made from the old rugged cross or not, but it is an old wooden box and you throw whatever you got in there because you love Christ, and not once have I heard, “Hey, we’re gonna transition to our giving service.” And I appreciate that in churches.

I’m not saying if you do it, you’re any better than if you don’t do it, because when you preach the word, the people of God will generously do what needs to be done.

But in churches back home, they will stand up behind a pulpit like this, and they will pull out the ledger and they’ll say, “Such-and-such family, $4,000 this week. Praise God.” And they’ll say, “Where’s that person that’s absent a lot of times? They only gave $4.”

See, they, they want you to buy yourself into leadership and places of prominence.

But what did the Apostle James teach us? That if a man walks in with gold and fashion, that you do not tell him, “Come sit this take—take this seat of prominence,” while telling your brother to take the seat at my feet. There is to be no partiality.

And one of the things within the wicked is they love partiality. They want to be honored.

Do we not remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees and the scribes and the leaders?

“Oh, you love the best places and banquets, to be recognized in the marketplaces as rabbi and teacher. But, oh, woe to you. Woe to you, for you rob widows.”

That’s what they did. Or you’re a widow, your only hope is our system of belief. Just sign everything over to us and we will take care of you.

So you see, friends, what we see today in our day and age finds its root right here. Right here.

They saw the truth, they witnessed the truth, but they were not of the Church. For the Church is the pillar and buttress of truth. No, they were people of deception. And right off the back, you can see that deception come forth.

Augustine, when speaking about hypocrisy, made a pertinent comment vital for us some 1,600 years later in our time.

“It is not being seen of man that is wrong, but doing these things for the purpose of being seen of men. The problem with the hypocrite is his motivation, he does not want to be holy, he only wants to seem to be holy. He is more concerned with his reputation for righteousness than about actually becoming righteous. The approbation of men matters more to him than the approval of God.”

Paul reminded us in his work, his first epistle,

“If I were to please men, I would no longer be a servant of God.”

So friends, right off the back we see that hypocrisy is something which is a root cause.

There’s something else here.

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2. Hypocrisy is both filled and fueled by Satan in all false believers.

But in Acts 5:3, what we see here is that hypocrisy is both filled and fueled by Satan in all false believers.

The text itself tells us that Peter said—so now he is responding to Ananias.

“Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land?”

Now, it’s interesting because there is some debate over this section of Scripture. There are those group of brothers, uh, good sound brothers, our brothers, brothers I love, who say, “No, Rodney, you, you guys are wrong. This isn’t about hypocrisy in the church where it’s false believers, this is just hypocrisy amongst believers and God will just church discipline them to death.” Which God could do, of course. But if that’s the way God starts out, ooh-wee.

No, see, there’s something in this text that lets me know, not only is he not addressed as a brother, but brethren, Satan does not come and fill where the Holy Spirit resides.

The text itself actually, if you were to go into the Book of Acts and look at that form within, rather it be the Greek structure or even, even the English, you can see time and time again, it is the Holy Spirit that is filling the believers.

Let me read this for you real quickly.

Back in chapter 2, verse 4, it says,

“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and begin to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Then chapter 4, verse 8, where we read this morning,

“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers and elders of the people’ And then he started to make his defense.”

Down in verse 31, right when they come out of prayer, what do we see?

“And they, when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak the word of God with boldness.”

We’ll even see in chapter 9, verse 17, Ananias, not this one, but the one who was sent to, to, to Saul, who became Paul, says,

“So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’”

And then again in chapter 13, both in verses 9 and 10 and down in verse 52, every single time we see this form and phrase in the letter of Luke, which is—all Scripture is God-breathed—we see Satan does not fill the believer.

But you know what Satan does?

When Jesus was speaking to the leaders of Israel in John chapter 8, this is what he says to them. In verse 43,

“Why do you not understand what I am saying? Is it because you cannot?”

Be careful how we read that. It does not say, “You will not.” He’s said that before. But here it says, “You cannot. You don’t have the capacity, the capability of hearing my words.”

Why? Verse 44.

“You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Because I speak the truth, you do not believe me.”

There you have it. Always look for—otherwise, you’ll be hacking at the fruit all day.

And what Peter says here is, “What has filled you is now what is fueling you.”

For the believer, we are told that God changes our hearts, that God Himself writes His law word upon the hearts of stone by turning them to hearts of flesh. And then we are reminded that we are abiding in truth if we are Christ’s disciples.

Paul actually puts it this way,

“To let the Word of Christ richly dwell in you.”

And when the Word of Christ richly dwells in you, what is—what does it affect?

Therefore, brethren, do not be drunk with wine which leadeth to dissipation, but be ye filled with the Holy Ghost.

That means for us to live church life, for us to be covenant husbands, covenant wives, covenant children, for us to go into our workplace and hold covenant relationships, and if we are to follow that Scripture to its logical end, when Paul comes up in Ephesians chapter 6 and he says, “Therefore,” as he is closing, “for us to stand,” what are we standing?

Think about it.

But what were they? Not the truth. Not Jesus. What was filling them was Satan with lies, and what was coming out of them was not truth. It was truth disguised. Which is but a lie.

So we’ve looked at 2 of the 4 warnings here. When hypocrisy is rooted in the heart and displayed through the hands of false believers, and also how hypocrisy is fueled and filled by Satan in every single false believer.

There’s 2 more here that I’d like to go through. And now it starts to get serious. Not that it wasn’t serious.

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3. Hypocrisy seeks to hide sin from God within all false believers.

In verse 4, we see that hypocrisy seeks to hide sin from God within all false believers.

This morning—or let me just read this verse. Verse 4.

“While it remained unsold, did you not—did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to—”

Brethren, this morning, when we went through Psalms 51, every time I read it, sing it, meditate upon it, think it, pray it, I just wonder, “Oh, why me, Lord?” And I come to realize, yeah, I am not deserving. That’s why me. That’s why. Because I’m not deserving.

Why do we hide our sin?

We think we can hide our sin from man, and we can. We can hide sins from our spouses, from our children, from our parents, from our pastors, from our congregants.

But Peter’s questions here actually aren’t meant to lessen the blow, but to magnify the deceit.

No, this deceit, Ananias, was conceived and premeditated in thy heart.

And see, the Bible tells us this,

“I, the Lord search the heart. I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”

Everybody wants to quote verse 9, that the heart is more deceitful than all else. But, brethren, hypocrisy has a way of blinding us. I’ve seen this firsthand. And no matter how much Bible you throw at it, it does not work, because it’s trying to hide sin from the all-penetrating, all-piercing, thrice holy God. And it does not work.

As Matthew Henry wrote in his commentary,

“If man’s religion prevails not to conquer and cure the wickedness of their hearts, it shall not always serve for a cloak. The day is coming when hypocrites will be stripped of their fig leaves.”

We cannot stand before a thrice holy God and think we can get away with it.

This is a conversation Feva and I have often, not only regarding our failures and sins that the Lord is dealing with in our lives and the process of sanctification, but as my dear wife knows I say to her,

“What do we then do when we have to stand before God and give an answer for why we did not take his solution in Christ? What do we say when the only hope we were given, we rejected?”

That’s what is at stake.

Hence, why we are reminded,

“Dear brethren, do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man soweth, that he must also— For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap with corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.”

Why do I say this at this juncture? Because we haven’t dealt well with hypocrites. First with our own hypocrisy, then with our hypocrisy with—and yet God is showing us, brethren of RBC and everyone else that’s gathered, we must deal with this.

Yeah, it will cost you a lot. When you deal with it the way God has dealt with it, come and talk to us afterwards. It will cost you a—but you know what it will never cost you is your salvation. You know what it will never cost you? God’s displeasure, because you are doing it according to what God is saying.

This does not mean at the after this church you create a fruit inspector committee. No. Just a self-magnifying glass committee of one, so that we can examine ourselves.

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4. Hypocrisy ends in the fall and destruction of every false believer.

And what is the outcome of such hypocrites? Well, that’s found in the 4th warning here in verse 5 and 6.

“And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last, and great fear came over all who heard of it. The young men got up and covered him, and after carrying him out, they buried him.”

Did you realize what’s going on here? This does not happen in some dark corner or in a counseling room. This happens at a church service just like this. That’s when this happens.

I want you to look at that which hypocrisy produces in the unbeliever.

But there’s something wonderful in this, because it says within the others, it actually produces fear.

Oh, how I yearn for us to come back to the place where unbelievers will think twice before they walk into our church doors, thinking, “If I walk in there, I might fall and die, unless I die in Christ.”

Can you think about what was happening when they would walk past such a small congregation—I mean, they weren’t small by any means, 5,000, but can you imagine the word? They take holiness so serious that if you ain’t holy, mm-mm, mm-mm-mm.

But brothers and sisters, this is the end of every hypocrite. This is the sure reality that God is showing us at the beginning of church age, what will happen at the end.

Now, you might be saying, “Rodney, you’ve gone 45 minutes into your sermon and we’ve got from verses 7 through 11 left.” Don’t worry. That’s where your homework is.

We tell the brothers in our church if we want our sisters to be the women that God has called them, then what we must do is we must practice the Bible wholeheartedly. That means since they cannot have leadership positions to talk in authority and service from the pulpit or over the congregation, the Bible actually says to them, “When you get home, you go to your covenant head.” If you don’t have a covenant head, call, call another brother in the church, tell ’em to explain it to you.

I want you to take the 4 warnings here, and I want you to apply it to verse 7 through 11, and you will find the same repetition again. That’s why I brought those out.

These are the words of our Master that were read to us this afternoon.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven, will enter. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?’”

Just an IE there. These are not just the running Pentecostals it’s talking about. This is talking about false believers, false believers then, false believers through every church age, and false believers that will stand before the Master.

And then look at verse 23, where the kicker comes out.

“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never’”

The never there, according to the purview of God, is never. Even before the foundation of the world I did not know you.

And then look at the reality.

“Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.”

That’s the truth of every man, woman, and child here who has not been saved by God’s grace.

So I end with a twofold question.

Do you know Christ today as your Savior? Not a form of Christ, not because you’re simply in a Christian household, but do you know?

As covenant children, do you know the God of your fathers?

As, as people who have come across on this great journey with RBC, do you know Christ as your Savior?

But more importantly, are you known by Christ today? Are you known?

For if this was us, what would we be saying?

I pray and hope, according—uh, including my wife and the church back home, that not only the church that meets in Reformation Bible Church, but the Church of Jesus Christ in New Zealand, may not only know Christ, oh, but be known by her Master.

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