0:00 [Music] Praise God that we can all meet together like this and we can encourage one another and be encouraged. Um in the past few weeks 0:19 we've been meditating on godly wisdom. Whoever we are, whether we are married or single, young or old, we are all in need of wisdom, that godly wisdom. And I I want to just 0:39 remind you of the verses we meditated on. Um we read about um a wise woman who builds a house. That's Proverbs 14:1. And then we read uh meditated on another verse which says in proverbs 9:1 it says 0:58 wisdom has built her has huned seven pillars. So with these pillars a godly uh woman can make her house really strong. We want our homes with to stand uh strong in these 1:18 days when there's so much of uncertainty, people falling away, people changing their minds and nothing is permanent in this world. We see so much of shaking going on in this world. We need to have these strong pillars to 1:34 keep our home and our lives strong. Not only when we are if we are married but we're single or waiting to get married. Whatever our state is, we need to have a godly foundation, a godly home. And the foundation which we all 1:52 know is in Proverbs 9:10, the fear of the Lord is the foundation is the beginning of wisdom. We cannot do anything unless we have a respect for God, respect for God's word. Only then a house can be built. Otherwise we can get all kind of 2:11 ideas from the world. You do this, you can do this to be a wise woman. You can be frugal. You can this is the way to make money and all kind of ideas we can get from the world and this is the way to talk to improve our way of speaking. 2:26 All those are just ideas. But if we have the fear of God in our heart and respect for God and say Lord I want you to be the Lord of my life. I want you to give me wisdom how to live in this world. Without you, I cannot be I cannot live 2:42 in in this world. If we have that foundation, the fear of the Lord, then we can begin to build our house. So that I want to remind uh us about that verse also. And then we uh went to the New 3:00 Testament where in James chapter 3:E1 17 it says about wisdom, godly wisdom. I'm just uh remembering what we did in the past. Godly wisdom uh the wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, 3:18 gentle, is easy uh reasonable that means easy to be entreated and full of mercy and good works and in different uh we did a little bit meditated on all these different qualities and we we can never finish with that. We can never say oh I 3:37 learned I know everything about being pure. I know everything about being peaceable. We need that every day of our life. We need those pillars to be strong. And today I was thinking of another uh pillar which is there in that 3:54 here James 3:17 it says free from hypocrisy. Free from hypocrisy or sincerity. And when I was thinking of that I said Lord I don't want to take a Bible study on hypocrisy. I can find so many verses 4:12 Jesus speaking about hypocrisy and all these things. I don't want to speak about hypocrisy. But Lord, please shine your torch, the torch of your word into my heart, every part of my heart, every 4:29 nook and corner of my heart and see if there's any hypocrisy in me. I don't want to look at others, the hypocrisy in others, but I want you to show the hypocrisy in me. So for me, I'm speaking from my heart, not from my the knowledge 4:48 or from the word of God. But I ask the Lord every time I study God's word and prepare for any meeting, I say, Lord, search me. Let me not be a teacher speaking something and I myself be a cast away. So I said again this time 5:05 Lord this is a topic this is something which you spoke so strongly about hypocrisy in in fact Jesus said the whole of Matthew 23 Jesus said so much about hypocrisy and he said beware be careful take 5:22 heed like we tell our children just look at me look at me carefully listen to me carefully this thing here is very poisonous Don't go anywhere near it. Don't touch it. Like we tell our children or we tell others just like that the Lord tells us 5:42 beware of hypocrisy. Don't let even a little bit of hypocrisy be there in your life. That's my cry cry to the Lord. Lord, free me from hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is like an onion. We see layers and layers of it. We think that 6:01 um I'm done with it. Hypocrisy. Then we see something coming up in our speech. Some way we speak to impress somebody or to flatter someone or 6:16 to get some honor from somebody or to or popularity or appreciation from others or to be noticed by the way we dress or the way we speak or do anything and artificiality. 6:34 All those layers and layers of hypocrisy is there. But we thank God we're in a church. We're in churches where we can hear God's word. And that's so precious for us to be in a church where we can hear God's word. Even if we've heard it 6:51 times, if we hear it again and we judge ourselves and we allow the Lord to shine his word into our hearts and ask him to cleanse us and we judge ourselves, thank God we can throughout all the days of our life, we can work every area of this 7:11 of our spiritual life, especially in this area of hypocrisy. Um I I was just thinking when um in the Old Testament when you read in um uh the the laws which the Lord gave God gave to 7:29 the children of Israel when they were leaving Egypt and he on the day of the Passover night you know what we know what he said he told them don't have any leaven in your uh homes you You must get rid of every 7:47 bit of leaven, throw it out. Search, make a search and every part of your house. If there's any leaven, just throw it out. I was thinking, suppose there's some woman there who who thought um I may need this after this whole thing is 8:03 over. We going to travel. I might hide it somewhere in my in some secret place and I may need it. That's such a temptation for us women, you know, when the law when we are told not to do something and we think we are wiser and 8:17 think I must hide a little bit of this east somewhere that I may need admire and the others will say oh you've got that please share it with me or something like that and suppose some woman had done that there would have 8:29 been such a we don't know what the punishment the whole nation would have got but that's a warning to us when the Lord gives us a warning get rid of this yeast of hypocrisy we have to take it seriously and we say yes Lord I want to 8:46 obey you I don't want even a little bit of hypocrisy to be in my life please help me and I was thinking in the medical language it's like a disease this hypocrisy every disease um there's a diagnosis the diagnosis is that we have 9:05 a hypocrisy and what's the cure the cure is to take up the cross to judge ourselves to deny ourselves. That's the cure for everything. But we can't do that in our own strength. We need the power of the Holy Spirit. So only with 9:24 the Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit, we can do anything. We can get the treatment for this hypocrisy and we can be done with it. And throughout our life, we need that that scan of the Holy Spirit uh span a scan of the word of God to shine into our 9:43 hearts and say and the Lord is faithful. He shows us look there was hypocrisy in your life the way you chose to do this or you spoke in this way or you conducted yourself or you spoke to your children whatever it is the Lord be we 9:59 humble ourselves and say yes Lord I want to submit I want to accept what you have shown me in my life and um we can grow in our spiritual life. Jesus used um simple uh things to teach us divine and 10:18 especially divine things. Especially for us women, we are so thankful he used the things which we used in our kitchen to teach us divine things. Like you know another instance where he says about salt. Let your speech be seasoned with 10:35 salt. Salt is so important. When we when there's no salt in the food or when the salt is deficient, we say, "Oh, this doesn't taste good at all." When you add a little bit of salt, it makes a world of difference. It's so tasty. So, thank 10:53 God he he so Jesus used illustrations like this. Especially for us women, we deal with these kitchen things and then he he teaches us. East is another thing. And one thing about east is um thank God he used that as a so that 11:14 we sisters can learn from it. For east we know that just a small quantity is enough. Jesus said a little bit of east little bit of leaven will leaven the whole lump. Just like that a little bit 11:31 of hypocrisy in our life and it'll defile our whole nature. We have to take God's word seriously. Lord, I don't want to have even a little bit of hypocrisy in my life because not only me, my whole family can get affected. I was just 11:50 thinking like suppose um a little child comes and tells us something uh maybe about somebody else in the church or something and we don't judge ourselves. We allow it we listen to instead of correcting our child we allow 12:08 that thought to stay in our heart and then when we meet that person there's a sourness and bitterness and that hypocrisy are already started. We may talk to them nicely and say hey how are you and smile at them but the hypocrisy 12:23 is there and then our children can sense it. It defiles us. It defiles our children. Sometimes our husbands also get affected. We some word from us and they believe it and that hypocrisy it affects them also. That's why it is so 12:41 dangerous. It's so important for us that we get rid of hypocrisy totally from our lives. So I said just a little bit of hypocrisy is enough. And then another thing we know about east, you add a little bit and it expands. You know we mix it with 12:59 the dough and we keep it for some time and maybe half an hour later we see the dough has expanded. We all know that expanded three or four multiple times its size and then you need press it down. Press it down but again it comes 13:14 up. Again it comes up and that's how it is with hypocrisy. It inflates us. It makes us think like we are so important. What our view is most important. It gives us a false idea of ourselves that we are more 13:33 important. That's the danger of this hypocrisy. We we think that everybody else is wrong but but we are right. And it m it puffs us up, makes us proud. Just like the east, what a yeast does to the door. The the hypocrisy can affect 13:52 our spiritual life like that. And and if we leave the yeast, the leaven in the dough unattended, we know what will happen. It becomes bad. It becomes bitter and it's spoiled. It's of no use. Just like that 14:11 hypocrisy, we just don't do anything about it and let it remain in our lives and we don't cleanse it. It is becomes poison. You know, I have read somewhere that if we see uh keep bread out for some time and you see a little mold 14:31 coming on it, uh we have to throw out the whole bread. We shouldn't just cut out the part which is um moldy and think I used to think it's only a little bit of mold let's eat the rest of the bread. 14:48 No doctors say that the whole bread gets affected. Little bit of that toxin or whatever that poison or that mold gets permeates into the whole bread. We have to throw out the whole bread. It's like that with hypocrisy. That's 15:06 why the Lord told God told in the Old Testament, if you see mold in anything, if you have a you must throw out even if it's in a pot or anything, throw out the whole thing. Don't think that you can um save it. That's how serious hypocrisy 15:26 is. These um lessons from the Old Testament are a lesson for us that hypocrisy uh is d is dangerous. And God told the children of Israel um in the Old Testament because he couldn't tell um 15:43 the spiritual value of it. In the Old Testament, it was just like a um u beginning. But after Jesus came, he told us the full value of it. The danger of this east, it's a picture of um these 16:03 dangerous things which can come in our life. Hypocrisy. Jesus said the hypoc the east of the leaven of the Pharisees is hypocrisy. He said also about another leaven, the leaven of the Sadducees, that is false doctrine. The Sadducees 16:18 believe that there's no life after death. Once you die, that's the end of your life. So these small things are are important for us. Jesus brought out the picture uh the meaning of these uh things which were said in the Old 16:35 Testament. I was thinking of some um uh yeah I want to share some verses which are connected with this u hypocrisy. If you can look at um Hebrews I mean Romans 12:9 Romans 12:9 there's this 16:54 verse let love be without hypocrisy. Let love be genuine. Sometimes we can speak flattering things to others and say good things to others. Oh I like this. I like your dress. I like this. I like but be 17:13 it's good to speak like that but make sure that it's genuine is genuine without any malice hypocrisies. Then in 2 Corinthians 66 Paul says Paul says that he has genuine love 17:30 for the uh for the Christians. You can look up that verse. And in 1 Peter 2:1, this verse is very important. 1 Peter 2:1, it says, "Lay aside all hypocrisy and long for the pure 17:49 spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up unto salvation. Lay aside all hypocrisy and long for the pure spiritual milk." You know a little bit of yeast can fall into that spiritual milk that word of god little bit of 18:08 hypocrisy and then the whole thing is spoiled and instead of growing up become sick we become sick that's why he said we have the lord says lay aside all hypocrisy and um yeah this verse we said um kingdom of 18:27 god Matthew 13:33 It says the kingdom of God is like leaven that a woman took and the whole lump is leavened. That's what I was referring to. A little bit of leaven and the whole lump is leavened in 1 Corinthians 18:47 5. 1 Corinthians 5 6 to8. These these verses are very precious. 1 Corinthians 5 6 to8. A little leaven leavenvens the whole lump of dough. Clean out the old leaven so 19:03 that you may be a new lump. For Christ is our pass is our passover. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast not with old leavenven of malice wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and 19:22 truth. when the Passover was celebrate celebrated it was with unleavened bread and Jesus celebrated the Passover and on the Lord uh when he on the uh Lord's supper when the last date when he took 19:39 the bread he said this is this bread signifies my body which is broken for you I am the Passover lamb which was um um killed you eat my bread instead of this uh meat which is the lamp which you 19:58 have been eating all these years. This signifies my body which is broken for you. And uh this wine signifies my blood which is going to be shed for you. And that was the fulfillment of the Passover 20:14 feast. The disciples sitting there couldn't understand but later on they understood. Can you imagine Judah sitting there? He's taking part in the Passover. He's eating the bread and the drinking the wine. And the next thing he 20:31 does is he goes out and betrays. What's the use? Betrays the son of God. What was the use of that keeping that Passover? It was like a poison for him. That's why the Lord wants to teach us keep it with sincerity. 20:49 observe um live your Christian life with sincerity and truth. Don't let any bit of hypocrisy come because if we allow that hypocrisy to come, it'll be like what happened to 21:04 Judas. Um in the olden days in the uh first century and all and the Roman uh times of the Roman rule these sculptors used to have the statues made out of marble and I heard that if there was any 21:24 defect in the statue they put wax in those areas. Suppose they chip and then the nose gets accidentally deformed. They cover it up with wax and make it look uh real. But uh people who bought these statues, they got on to this and they 21:43 you know what they used to do? They used to put the statues out in the sun and the wax would melt and then this thing would show up all the defects in that statue. That's how hypocrisy is. And that's how the I believe I heard that 21:59 that's how the word hypocrisy came. Um to find this is fake. We try to show that we are spiritual but this it's not real. We try to put wax and cover it up with a false humility or hypocrisy but 22:16 the sun or the testing put testing comes and our real self comes out. Um you may have heard of a man called CS Lewis. Uh he wrote he was a Christian author. He wrote many Christian books 22:34 and um it's he's a one of the older authors and it is like um he writes in a parable many things and I read a book uh one of his books some years back called the great divorce. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's an old 22:52 book. If you can get a maybe you can look it online and read. It's little difficult. It's like a parable. It's a parable of people who are just about to die and reach heaven or hell or wherever they are supposed to go. It's a parable 23:11 about that. And many people who have already reached heaven, they're given a a chance to come and welcome these loved ones be uh welcome them into the kingdom of he I mean into heaven or whatever. It's not a true 23:29 story but it has a spiritual meaning. So this woman who suffered a lot in her married life from a very difficult husband, she died but she was given a chance to come and meet her husband who was waiting at the gate of 23:48 um eternity and she was all glowing and beautiful and she came to meet him and he was like a person a huge figure and with his chest all um bulging and all 24:05 muscular and strong. They standing there waiting and the conversation between them and he was trying to boast and say about himself and he said you you were always like this but you never listen to me and all he was telling his wife but 24:21 she she was not looking at him. She was not looking at this big person standing there. She was looking down at a little man standing there. That was the true person. The true person was this tiny dwarf standing there. But he 24:39 always pretended to be a great person and boastful and all. And she told him, "When will you become your true self?" And she was looking at this tune puny little man and talking to him because the real husband was this tiny man but 24:55 he gave the impression of a bo big powerful all pretense and she said all that we need to do is be ourselves come and come before God as our true self but this man he didn't want to change at all. And as she was talking this person 25:15 became smaller and smaller and smaller and just vanished and only this cutout was there. The true self, the true person had disappeared. That's like a picture. Sometimes we give the impression wrong impression to people 25:32 and we live in that uh delusion make giving people the wrong impression. But the Lord wants us to see our true self and see and get rid of all this hypocrisy which is so prevalent in 25:49 and can affect us. That's why it's so I want to stress this um important fact this uh how we can how we can come to the lord and get rid of this hypocrisy and artificiality. Praise and thank God that 26:12 we can um come before him and get rid of hypocrisy. It's um not a thing to be it's a thing that we should weep about and say Lord show me areas in my life in especially and it's very prevalent in in uh religious people you know if you read 26:31 in math u in uh Mark Matthew 23 Jesus the whole chapter Jesus speaks about hypocrisy in Pharisees we may think I used to think oh this hypocrisy it's for Pharisees it's not for us. So Pharisees he because Jesus said woe to you 26:50 Pharisees. Wo to you you do this you do this and I used to ignore that this Phariseism can be in us in me. Some of the things which Jesus said about the Pharisees we read in uh ma Matthew 23 it says you preach but you don't 27:08 practice. You lay heavy burdens on people but you don't even lift a little finger to help them. You do deeds to be seen by others. You wear special clothes and you think that your spirituality is in the 27:26 special clothes because we you want to stand out as a different person as a religious person. The you love the places of honor and the best seat and you think ah I deserve to sit here in the front row. I 27:42 deserve to be noticed. I deserve this. You love to be greeted by people in by in public be called by special by a special name rabbi or sir. But Jesus said don't call anyone rabbi or father 28:02 just be a brother. And then Jesus and the Lord said to the Pharisees, you shout out the kingdom of heaven on people's faces and you don't enter but you don't let others also enter. And thus you make children you 28:22 make a person twice a child of hell. And then Jesus said to the Pharisees, you devour widows houses. You know some people who um um the u the husband is dead and 28:40 there's a lot of debt and the Pharisees are quick to say oh you haven't paid your uh tithe you haven't paid this you haven't paid that and you come they come and take everything that the widow had uh and you make people t the small things 28:59 but you ignore the big things. Um you outwardly you look righteous but inside there's hypocrisy. You receive glory from others. You live to receive glory and praise from 29:17 others. You clean the outside of the cup but not the inside. Inside is all self indulgence and greed. You strain at gnats and swallow at camels. That means we are so particular about these small small things but big things 29:35 we ignore. You want popularity and acceptance, honor from others. You pers you out outwardly appear righteous but inside is full of 29:53 hypocrisy. You persecute the true prophets, but after they are dead, you build a monument and you say, "Oh, if we were living in those days, we wouldn't have done that." There's this little book 30:10 which my husband has written, um, 50 Marks of a Pharisee. If you get a chance to get that book and read it, it it's easy to read 30:27 but some of these things which I shared are in that book. The Pharisees are suspicious and assume the worst about other people. They're very careless in their speech. They neglect their family 30:47 responsibilities in the name of religion. Like you know the words of Jesus you whatever I you can tell your father and mother whatever I should have given to you I have given it to the church like that there are so many they have lot of 31:03 knowledge but they don't obey so if you get a chance go through this book and we can use that to judge ourselves not to say oh she's a hypocrite I saw a cartoon once of a of a little boy and his whole 31:21 family going to church and they sat, you know, those churches with those pews and this lady all dressed up with her hat and all that and husband and the little boy they come and sit in the front row in this in the church. And then he's 31:38 asking his mom, "Mom, where are all the hypocrites?" Because he must have heard parents talk to each other and say, "This church is full of hypocrites." So the little boy thought the hypocrites are like some animals or some creatures 31:54 that are there in the churches. And so he came he came to church and he's looking around and saying mom where are all the hypocrites and all the other people are making faces and looking at this family like what have you taught 32:09 your children about hypocrisy? That's just like that's just a joke like but can be so true. We can think that other people are hypocrites but we don't see the hypocrisy in ourselves. That's why when I was preparing for this meeting I said Lord 32:27 there's so many things about hypocrisy. Your word is full of hypoc warnings about hypocrisy and you spoke so strongly. Beware take heed. If you have ears to hear, hear. We all have ears, but like we we don't take it seriously. 32:45 You don't take heed to it. The word, God's word is full of warnings about that. But I say, Lord, please search my heart. Every nook and corner of my heart. Especially as we grow in the Christian life and we grow older and we 33:02 think everything is okay with us and we can get uh to a point when we don't see our own true condition but we see the faults of others hypocrisy in others. Oh why is she dressing like that? Why is she teaching her children like this? Why 33:19 she uh doing this? Why she doing that? And we can see hypocrisy in others but don't see the hypocrisy in us. So when I was preparing I said Lord let your can shine deep into my heart. I'm the needy person here. I can 33:37 teach others but I can miss help me to get rid of hypocrisy completely from my life and be pleasing in your life in your sight. I want to judge myself every day. I need the power of the Holy Spirit 33:54 every day. I need your light to shine into my heart. Every day I need to judge myself, cleanse myself. Not a day should go without your searching into my heart. I was thinking of the song. We all know the song 34:12 um search me oh God. Um, we sing that in church sometimes, but I thought I'll read that few verses of that song. Search me, oh God, my actions try and let my life 34:30 appear as seen by thine all searching eye to mine my ways may clear. Search all my sense and know my heart who only can make known and let the deep the hidden part to to me be fully shown. 34:49 Throw light into the darkened cells where passion reigns within. Quicken my conscience till it feels the loathsomeness of sin. Search all my thoughts, the secret springs, the motives that control. The chambers where 35:08 polluted things hold empire over the soul. Search till thy fiery glance has cast its holy light through all. And I by grace am brought at last before thy face to fall. Thus prostrate I shall 35:26 learn of thee. What now I feebly prove that God alone in Christ can be unutterable love. Yes, our love sometimes there's hypocrisy, there's malice, 35:44 undesirable things in our love, but only the the Lord can give us that divine love without h malice, without any hypocrisy. May the Lord help us get rid of all that desire for popularity, all the desire for appreciation, to be 36:02 noticed, to impress others, to be artificial, and come under his scan and be cleansed, ask forgiveness, judge ourselves and live more and more a life that is pleasing to him to get rid of 36:20 hypocrisy from our life. May the Lord help us. Shall we close in prayer? Our heavenly father, we thank you for this precious time you've given us. Yes, Lord, your word is so serious. 36:40 We don't want to take it lightly. We don't want to take the warnings which are in your word in a light way. Lord, we want to see us as you see us, Lord. at least a little bit. We know we can't bear to see ourselves just as you see 36:59 us. And we are such hopeless sinners. But we thank you there is hope when we come to you. We can be cleansed by your precious blood, Lord Jesus, because you died for us. You are our Passover lamb. You died so that we you can take every 37:17 stain of sin from our heart. And we want to live lives that are pleasing to you, better than what we were all these past years. And each day our life will get better and better, Lord, by your strength, by the power of your holy 37:33 spirit. So that all the glory and honor and power will come to you Lord. Is nothing of our strength, nothing of our willpower or anything, but all the strength comes from you. Please change us Lord little by little. Thank you for 37:51 the church. Thank you for your word. Thank you that we can hear your word and we want to submit to it Lord. We don't want to rebel. We want to take every word Lord from from you as we want to have respect for your word 38:09 and apply it to our lives. Lord please change us Lord so that we can be better sisters in the church, better mothers, better wives. Even if we are single, we can be better people Lord and be a blessing to 38:27 people around us. Thank you Lord for all the wonderful purpose you have for us. We give you praise and thanks in Jesus precious name. Amen. [Music]
