TEXT: Luke 11:37-54

SUBJECT: Luke #47: Dining with the Hypocrites

Among the professed people of God, there is no temptation more common—and dangerous—than hypocrisy. Two things make it attractive: (1) it makes the godly life much easier to live, and (2) it makes it easier to judge others. Anything that fosters both laziness and pride at the same time is sure to be popular!

What is hypocrisy? The word itself means to act or to play a role. In the First Century, the Pharisees and lawyers were guilty of it, but the hypocrisy is not unique to them. It’s alive and well in the Church, in the pulpit, and in the heart of people who ought to know better.

Are you a hypocrite? You know they’re out there in droves, but are you one of them? Nobody admits to being one, but if there are so many of them somebody must be one. Maybe it’s you. If you’re not a hypocrite, praise God, for it is He who made you sincere and not you yourself. But if you are a hypocrite, confess it to God and repent of it. There is unlimited mercy with the Lord for anyone who wants it badly enough to repent of his sins and ask Him for it. So why don’t you? You’re not fooling Him—that’s for sure—and you’re probably not fooling anyone else either. Hypocrisy is really hard to see in yourself, but others can see it a mile away. So what have you got to lose? Why not become sincere? And why not now?

This brings us to today’s story.

It takes place at a dinner party. It is hosted by an unnamed Pharisee who invites the Lord to dine with him and a select group of friends. He’s hoping for a good time, of course, but he doesn't have one because the Lord commits a grave blunder: He doesn’t wash His hands before eating.

The Pharisee is appalled by the Lord’s misconduct. He’s not upset for reasons of hygiene or good manners; no, for him it’s a religious matter. He believes it is a sin to eat with unwashed hands. The Lord has committed the sin and He doesn’t seem the least bit sorry for what He has done—or not done.

Why does the Pharisee feel this way? The duty of washing your hands before eating is not taught in the Bible. The Law of Moses commanded many washings, of course, but it doesn’t say you have to wash up for dinner.

He got his idea of holiness from outside the Bible. Many years before, the Rabbis inferred the duty from God’s Word—and over time—their inference became equal to the Word. The Pharisee is not a stickler for God’s Word, but for the customs built up around it.

Quoting Isaiah, the Lord blamed them for

That’s all that hand washing is: a rule the rabbis thought up.

Is washing your hands before dinner a sin? Of course not. Is it wrong to follow harmless customs? No, not at all; in fact, it’s usually a good idea. The Lord Himself did it most of the time and His Apostle Paul commanded it in some cases. The Lord is not against customs or traditions or other man-made ways of doing things.

But if He’s not, why does He cause a big row by not washing His hands? If it’s not wrong, why not go along to get along?

Here’s why: the Lord sees hand washing as a prime example of what’s wrong with the Pharisees’ religion: It’s all on the outside.

We have a word for people like this: we call them hypocrites.

They care more about clean hands than clean hearts. They care more about shiny cups than the suffering poor. They care more about tithing spices than loving God or treating others fairly. They care more about looking good in the synagogue than approving themselves to God.

Don’t get me wrong: the Lord is not against outward obedience. He Himself was perfect on the outside. What He’s against is making it your all. That’s what the Pharisees were doing: reducing the Law of God to a list of public duties.

In public, they prayed, fasted, and gave alms to the poor. But when nobody was looking, they cheated old ladies out of their last shekel.

The Lord has never been more scathing in His criticism. He has taken the hide off the Pharisees and their so-called devotion to holiness and God’s Word.

He tops it off with a joke. It’s a funny one, to be sure, but I don’t believe any of the Pharisees laughed at it. It goes like this:

Do you get it? If you don’t, let me explain it. The Pharisees are very worried about uncleanness, so worried that they add to God’s Word in order to avoid any possibility of it. Yet the same men who insist on washing hands and cups to ensure cleanness are themselves unclean! Eating with unwashed hands didn’t defile a man, under the Old Covenant, but touching a dead body sure did! And that’s what the Pharisees are spiritually: dead bodies defiling everything they come in contact with!

They thought of themselves as being a purifying influence on the nation. In fact, they polluted the people more than all the publicans and harlots in Israel.

What did they pollute them with? With hypocrisy. They stressed outward obedience at the cost of inner holiness, they put their own customs above the Word of God, and they lowered the major issues of the Law by raising the minor issues over them.

The Pharisees were not good men though somewhat misguided. They were low-down, dirty scoundrels. Because they were hypocrites.

You don’t call yourself a hypocrite—no one does. And the issues that concerned the Pharisees mean nothing to you. But setting aside the particulars (like washing hands and cups), I still have to ask: Are you a hypocrite?

Is your religion pretty much all on the outside? Or has it touched the heart? Are you the same person when people are not looking as you are when they are looking? Are your thoughts wholesome? Are your desires right? Would you really prefer Christ to have the glory over you getting some for yourself? No one is sinless; no motive is perfect. But you don’t have to be sinless to be sincere. The best way to know if you’re sincere or not is to ask yourself: Do I want to be sincere? If you do, you are.

The Pharisees have taken the brunt of the Lord’s rebuke, but they’re not the only ones at the party. The lawyers are there too. These are not attorneys, of course, but teachers of the Law or theologians.

These are men and soon realize that everything the Lord has said about the Pharisees applies to them as well. One of them is foolhardy enough to say so,

He’s right. That is exactly what the Lord is doing. The lawyers are also hypocrites—and having more knowledge and influence than the others—are even more guilty than the Pharisees.

Their hypocrisy is seen in three ways:

First, they do not practice what they preach. They lay heavy burdens on other men, but they themselves make no effort to carry the load. The key words are no effort. No preacher—except for the Lord Jesus—lives up to his sermon. But sincere men try to. We fail and are ashamed of ourselves, but we make an effort to do what we tell others to do.

But not the lawyers! They thought good teaching was enough. It wasn’t then and it still isn’t. Give a man the gifts of Spurgeon and—if he’s a bad man—he does more harm than good. And he falls under the judgment of Christ. The lawyers were hypocrites because they chose teaching obedience over living obedience.

In the second place, they’re hypocrites because they build monuments to the prophets. Now, what’s what with that? Tombs and statues recalling the godly men of the past are good things; they remind us of what the Lord has done and inspire us to live for Him.

It’s not the tomb-building the Lord objected to, but rather, their praising of the prophets while rejecting what they said. If they wanted to honor David or Isaiah, there’s no better way of doing it than by obeying their teaching. In building their monuments, they professed their love for God’s Word. But they didn’t love the Word; if they did, they would obey it.

Thirdly, they are hypocrites because they continue persecuting the messengers of God. The Lord is still sending them prophets and Apostles—not to mention His own Son—and they are abusing them all and, before long, they’ll murder the One all the prophets pointed to.

Fourthly, they are hypocrites because in pretending to lead others to God, they are, in fact, hindering people from coming to Him and locking up knowledge in the safe of their bad interpretations.

The lawyers are bigger hypocrites than the Pharisees.

And they won’t mock God much longer. He is paying close attention to them, comparing their actions to their words. He doesn’t like what He sees in them. He judges them as bad as the worst criminals in history. And, more than that, He judges them as bad as all the sinners in history put together!

They combine in themselves all the wickedness in the world—from Cain who murdered his own brother to the unnamed assassin who killed "Zechariah between the altar and the temple".

The conservative, religious Jews of the First Century are the worst generation in the history of the world. They are worse than the Babylonians who cracked infant skulls and the Egyptians who threw babies into the river and the Ahabs and others who led Israel into idolatry. One generation, supremely wicked, bringing down the fullness of God’s wrath upon themselves.

(As an aside, it was required of them as the wrath of God fell on Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The story is too long to tell here, but you can look it up in Josephus who saw it with his own two eyes and left us a detailed history of it).

Are you a hypocrite? Do you tell others to do things you’re not willing to do? We pastors are prime targets for hypocrisy. It’s so much easier to preach on patience than to practice it or to tell others to witness than to do it myself. I can only pray,

Although pastors are most open to hypocrisy, we are not alone. Husbands and wives and parents are too. I think of the husband who waves the Bible at his wife, telling her to submit, obey, and respect him. He forgets the same Bible tells him to love, lead, and respect her. Wives are no better: they say they wish their husbands would lead the family, but when they try to, she throws a fit! We parents are often much harder on our kids than we are on ourselves. We tell them to be kind and to put others first, while at the same time, we’re mean and selfish.

Hypocrisy is no respecter of persons. Everyone is open to it and no one is completely free from it.

The question, then, is what are you doing about your hypocrisy? Are you denying it or confessing it to the Lord? Denying it won’t make it go away, but confessing it will. Why don’t you confess it? Why don’t you become clean on the inside?

The challenge is a daunting one: to live sincerely before the Lord and others and ourselves too. But what a wonderful thing it would be! May God bring it to pass for Christ’s sake.

Good men take criticism well. But the Pharisees and lawyers are not good men. They attack the Lord with their words, but making no headway there, they begin plotting His death. If they can’t shut Him up with their arguments, they’ll shut Him up with a cross.

That’s how stubborn they are in their hypocrisy. They’d rather crucify the Son of God than to confess their own faults.

I can only hope you and I are better than they were. By the grace of Jesus Christ we can be. And by that grace we will be!