(1) Unreal
UNREALITY and hypocrisy are twin sisters; and the world is full of them; and on-thing was more hateful to Christ's spirit when here below, than the hollow shams with which He was surrounded, Hence His strong and unsparing denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees! "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulcher; which indeed appear beautiful outward; but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." "Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men; but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Alas! alas! a fair exterior was but the cover for inward corruption, for "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." The bitterest enemies of Christ were these hollow religionists, who for a pretense made long prayers; hence His solemn warning, "therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.”
Drawing nigh unto God with their lips, while their hearts were far from Him, was nothing but canting hypocrisy which the Lord justly denounced; and their broad phylacteries, carnal egotism, and human religiousness, were truly hateful in His eyes.
What an object lesson for our souls is the Pharisee who went up to the temple to pray I Outwardly pious, yet full of sinful egotism, conceit, and pride; condemning others, but justifying himself, this miserable religionist found fault with everybody except himself. The thin veneer of a sanctimonious pretentiousness covered a conscience defiled and seared by sin as well as a heart that had never yet learned its awful guilt and ruin in the presence of a holy God; whereas the poor publican, who had nothing else to plead but "God be merciful to me a sinner," went home "justified rather than the other.”
But still more striking was that scene inside the temple, when these religious hypocrites brought to Jesus the unfortunate woman taken in adultery. True indeed was it that, under the Mosaic law, such an one should be condemned to death; but the hypocrisy of those who brought her must needs be exposed, and the Master's searching words, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," quickly cleared the temple of the woman's accusers. Searched by light divine, silenced by the Saviour's words, and convicted by their own conscience, these corrupt Pharisees, from the eldest, even unto the last, fled from the presence of the great heart-searcher, while the woman remained in the light to listen to those wondrous words of love, “Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." Reader, art thou real, or unreal? The eyes of God are on thee now; those eyes which are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
Thou canst not, if thou wouldst, hide thy real state from Him with whom thou hast to do. It was because the light that shone from God's Holy One exposed these whited sepulchers, and laid bare the corruption of these mere professors, that they plotted His murder, and eventually brought about, through the civil power, His crucifixion and death.
The world of to-day, as then, teems with this hideous, this appalling sin, of which the human heart is the deadly source and spring. Every sin God will surely judge; but the sin that uses religion for its cloak will undoubtedly receive the greater damnation.
Therefore, beloved reader, be no longer unreal, nor assume before others, to be what thou really art not; but get thee rather alone with God now in the very secret of thy soul. Well may Jesus say of every hypocrite, "Woe, woe, woe;" and may His words find an entrance even now into thine own heart, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
(2) Unrepentant
“Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for, if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you." Spite of the rich display in those highly favored cities of all Christ's mighty works, spite of His wondrous miracles, His divine ministry, and the glorious gospel which had fallen so often from His gracious lips, yet were they unrepentant still. Not so, however, had it been at Nineveh centuries before, where instead of the bright shining of gospel light and love, the solemn judgment of God announced by Jonah had turned all hearts to repentance, from the greatest to the least; so that, from the king downwards, they all believed God. But lo! a greater than Jonah had visited Chorazin and Bethsaida; and grace and truth had poured in ceaseless streams from the lips of God's Holy One; only, however, to be utterly refused, rejected, and despised.
Such is man, even under the most favored circumstances; and so far as regards the Lord's gracious ministry in these cities was concerned the unrepentant state only left them exposed to a far deeper and more awful judgment, than if they had never listened to the voice of Him, "Who spake as never man spake." Hence, in their careless and indifferent ears, the Lord rings out the same solemn words as He spake to the pharasaical hypocrites, Woe, woe, woe," and declares that in the clay of judgment their doom will be a more awful one than that of Tyre and Sidon.
Reader, has the Saviour's word no voice for thee? Art thou, like thousands more in this bright gospel day, forever listening to the precious tidings of accomplished redemption through a dead and risen Christ, yet unrepentant still; and are the constant wooings of God's Holy Spirit nothing to thy careless, godless soul? If so, thy doom is certain, and the Day of Judgment will surely find thee not only without excuse, but with no possible way of escape. Continued refusal of God's love and mercy only hardens the heart; and if thou diest unrepentant, hopeless despair will be thine everlasting portion, "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”
(3) Undone
"Woe is me, for I am undone," were in no sense hypocritical words, as they fell from the lips of one of old who, in a vision, "saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." Nay, rather were they the intensely real, and heartfelt expression of Isaiah's true state before God, as he gazed upwards on that wondrous scene of infinite holiness, where the very seraphim in heavenly glory covered their faces, as they cried one to another, "Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory." No pharisaic self-complacency can ever find a place in the presence of Him who occupies that throne; and the prophet, self-judged, self-condemned, and deeply convicted of his sin, and of what he really was in God's sight, can but truthfully exclaim, "Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." Yes, indeed, Isaiah must needs learn (as should every other sinner), that God is holy, but that he is unholy; that God is clean, but he is unclean; and this he surely proved for himself, as the heart-searching eyes of the Lord of hosts, probed him to his inmost soul. If the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, no wonder was it that the prophet found out, like Uzziah (the guilty king who had just died), that he too was a leper in God's sight, and that in the fullest sense of the word.
Unlike Uzziah, however, he did not remain a leper until death, for God's abounding grace ever works when sinners confess their guilt, and are truly repentant; yea, that very grace brings salvation to all those who truly, and thoroughly, judge themselves. Hence the swiftness and fullness of the blessing that came, with almost lightning speed, from that altar which had already met all the righteous claims of the throne. "Then flew one of the seraphim unto me," saith Isaiah, "having a live coal in his hand which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Thus conviction led to confession, and complete cleansing followed confession, as swiftly and surely as divine grace could bring it. The live coal brought from off God's altar was the precious seal and token of that mercy which endureth forever, and the prophet had now personally proved it. Slight wonder is it, therefore, that when the question was raised in those heavenly courts, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" that the prophet should promptly answer, "Here am I; send me.”
These are the true messengers whom God wants to-day, even such as have learned their need, and in whose hearts divine grace has wrought a full deliverance. If, however, dear reader, thou art either unreal, or unrepentant, remember that woe, yea, eternal woe, must be thy certain portion amidst the weeping and the wailing of the damned; but if, on the other hand, thou hast in thy soul passed through a like experience to that of Isaiah, then shall it be thine eternal joy to prove, as he did, the glorious meaning and reality of those peace-giving words, "Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.”
S. T.