331. A LETTER TO A HYPOCRITE

(The Information & Edification Series – Batch 12)

Dear Ms. (or Mr.) Hypocrite,

Despite all of your public prayers, preaching, work you claim to do for God, the number of years you have attended the Church and the respect of people that you have, you can’t tell me that you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, a Christian, yet you have no interest in humility, in forgiveness, in truth, in mercy, in honesty, in kindness, in repentance, in setting things right with God, in pleasing him by submitting to him, in treating people right, in making amends for your wrongs, in serving the Lord in spirit and in truth.

You are no Christian my friend. What you have is a form of godliness, where you are merely religious and content with that, while denying the power thereof. You are comfortable in your sin and see no need to change because although you regularly attend church and engage in activities that you call ‘ministry’, you are still in the coverts of the lost.

You pretend to be pious, to know God and his Son the Lord Jesus Christ, when in truth and in fact, you have never met the Saviour. You live a hypocritical life where you work iniquity but are reputed as having been redeemed. Unless you repent and allow the power of the gospel to change you from the inside out, you will be in the category of persons who, after naming their long list of activities which they claim to have done for Christ, he will say, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23).

You delude no one but yourself and unless you come to the foot of the cross and bow in repentance, hell will be your doom, just as those who refuse to step foot in the Church halls.

You regularly attend services but you do no differently, as you have, in hardness of heart, refused to the let the Saviour into your heart and life. After all these years, you refuse to be sorry for your wicked ways. You refuse to admit that you are a sinner in need of his saving grace. You refuse in your pride and self-sufficiency, to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and to relinquish control of your life. You sit in the pews and are accepted by the congregation as a fellow member but you have remained on the throne of your heart, not Jesus Christ.

Of the Scribes and Pharisees, who were highly respected, influential and religious people who frequented the temple but were nothing but hypocrites, Jesus had much to say. Matthew 23:1-7 and 13 -33 reads:

• “Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi… 

• But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, HYPOCRITES! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, HYPOCRITES! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, HYPOCRITES! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

• Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, HYPOCRITES! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, HYPOCRITES! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is WITHIN the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

• Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, HYPOCRITES! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, 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. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, HYPOCRITES! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. YE SERPENTS, YE GENERATION OF VIPERS, HOW CAN YE ESCAPE THE DAMNATION OF HELL?”

Before the devil, appearing in the form of a serpent, deceived Eve through lies, Genesis 3:1 states, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” In 2 Corinthians 11:3, Christians were also told, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

In the Bible therefore, serpents are associated with deception, lies and manipulation, hence the reason why Jesus used the term to describe the hypocritical people of his time. Due to the deception of hypocrites, where they fool others into believing something that is not true about them, the Lord Jesus used the words “serpents” and “vipers” to describe them.

In Matthew 7, Jesus again spoke about people that were hypocrites, them being quick to accuse others of wrongs, to find fault with them, to focus on their weaknesses or shortcomings and to make a big deal of it, while being guilty of greater wrongs yet refusing to address them and pretending that they are fine. He stated:

• “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou HYPOCRITE, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye…

• Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit…Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

• Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”(Matthew 7:1-5, 15-23).

I think that as sinful human beings, even those that have truly been redeemed, we have all been guilty of hypocritical behaviour from time to time. However, when hypocrisy is one’s lifestyle, this is a major problem. If you know that you are a hypocrite, big time, then know that it will not fare well for you unless you are honest with yourself and God. You must put away pride, ego and your love of condescension and go to Jesus Christ to confess your sin in repentance. You have been wicked while pretending to be righteous. You care not one thing for virtue, for principles and do not genuinely aspire to be a good person but yet you would have people think that you have these things and highly value them. Alas, you have not been what you claim to be, nor have you been doing what people think you’ve been doing. Your life in secret is completely different from the life that you portray publicly. You’ve been living a double life, pretending to be one thing but being another, claiming to believe one thing but proving through your actions, that you don’t. You’ve been content in deception because the devil still has control of your life and he is the father of lies.

It is not that you have two personalities. It is that one is the real you, whereas the other is what you have manufactured and curated so as to project a certain image of yourself to others.

(Written on 05th and 9th October, 2025)