"There are too many hypocrites about. I prefer a man who professes nothing and goes nowhere on a Sunday. When I was a billiard-marker I used to see a man on Saturday night playing till two in the morning, drinking and swearing and betting, and then he was a deacon in church the next morning'.
The fact was, he went to church because it was good for his business.”
Yes, my friend, there are plenty who talk like that, but such talk is illogical and foolish. Let us put it to the test. You find a man tearing up bank notes, saying that he has seen too many forgeries ever to wish to see a bank note again, and that he infinitely prefers a blank sheet of paper which makes no promises and breaks none. If you could find such a man, you would say his mental condition was more than doubtful, and that he should be carefully looked after in an insane asylum, and you would be right. And yet his argument is exactly on all fours with yours.
The fact is, most men who use this argument—or, to give it a correct description, pure sophistry—do so as an excuse; and the worst of it all is that in doing so they are going the right way to insure their own eternal destruction.
The truth is this: the more numerous the forgeries, the more valuable it proves that which is forged to be. The counterfeit is sure proof of the real. The more numerous the hypocrites, the more it proves the reality of the real article. The paste diamond proves the existence of the real diamond and the hypocrite proves the existence of the real Christian.
One thing is certain: the Bible does not make hypocrites. It tells us that "the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate,” and that the "hypocrite's hope shall perish.”
It warns us against them. They are an ancient breed. They existed plentifully in the days of our Lord on earth, and with strong denunciation He rebuked them. In one recorded speech of Christ He uses the word "hypocrite" seven times, and ends up with language that could scarcely be stronger, and a warning that could not be more serious: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
What about you, my reader? Will you play the man, or will you allow the hypocrite to turn you away from that which is real, and from that wherein your true and eternal blessing lies?
I was talking to an intelligent man one day, and he expressed his opinion that he would have to be very Christ-like in behavior before he could call himself a Christian. I replied that a man had to become a soldier first, before he became soldierly. Once a man enlists he is as much a soldier as he ever will be. He may not have received his uniform and equipment, nor learned his first drill; but he never can be more a soldier than he is. He may become a soldierly soldier or a famous soldier, but he is a soldier all the time. Not all the drills nor any ability to be soldierly before enlisting would make him a soldier.
So it is with the gospel. We must begin as poor, lost, sinful men and women accepting Christ as our Savior. Salvation is a matter of grace. "The gift of God is eternal life." No man ever received salvation on the ground of merit. It is "not of works, lest any man should boast.”
The hypocrite puts on the uniform, but does not enlist. He masquerades. He is a sham. The true believer enlists and puts on the uniform in other words he truly believes on the Lord Jesus Christ as his own personal Savior.
One thing is certain: if you are in earnest the following verses from God's holy Word will bring your soul into the knowledge of the gospel. Note two things. It is simple, wholehearted faith in a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, that saves. The receiving the testimony of these scriptures will bring you the knowledge of salvation.
Here are the scriptures. Let them speak for themselves. Let there be no addition of ours to them. They stand in all their sublimity and trustworthiness.
"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart