He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Mark 7:6
We’ll take a little break from our hour of prayer to share a realization that I had.
Hypocrites are a big problem in the church. God declares a warning in Isaiah 29:13 that he reiterated in the New Testament about hypocrites.
The scary thing is that our prayers can be hypocritical – talking to God with our lips, but our hearts are far from Him.
The most interesting hypocrite in the Bible was a man anointed in the name of the Lord (1 Samuel 10:1). He prophesied (1 Samuel 10:11). The Spirit of God had come upon him (1 Samuel 11:6)
But soon he disobeyed God (1 Samuel 13:13), tried to kill his son (1 Samuel 14:44), lied to the prophet of the Lord (1 Samuel 15:13), and begged Samuel to help him save face (1 Samuel 15:30). In 1 Samuel 15:30 we see an interesting phrase that describes Saul.
He refers to YHWH as “the LORD thy God” – not his God.
Make sure that your life is not a monument to hypocrisy like Saul. An anointed leader of Israel who gave no sign of knowing the LORD.
