Hypocrites and Backsliders-005

1. Hypocrites and Backsliders-005 Adam and Eve: Part 1 - Why are We Here?

2. Why Are We Here? • Why are there hypocrites and backsliders? • 2 weeks ago we read the personal testimony of many who started their Christian lives with enthusiasm and commitment, but who were, in a relatively short time, so disenchanted with their faith in that they chose to leave Christianity behind, even inviting others to do the same. • How can this be, when God’s Word says: “According as His Divine Power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness...” -- 2 Peter 1:3 12/02/07

3. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • "A hypocrite is a person who—but who isn't?" -- Don Marquis • "I detest that man, who hides one thing in the depths of his heart, and speaks forth another.”--Homer • "Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles," and "[The superior man] speaks according to his actions.” -- Confucius • Moleire: "Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue." 12/02/07 3

4. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • Jesus spent a great deal of time denouncing hypocrisy; He condemned it more than anything else. • Jesus states that hypocrites "have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23). • Peter advised, "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind" (1 Peter 2:1). 12/02/07 4

5. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • Christian Hypocrites! • “Those Christians, they say one thing and do another, why should we believe them? Why be a Christian when they are such hypocrites?” • It is true that many Christians are hypocrites and many are worse than the Unbeliever. • Famous preachers have swindled money, cheated on their wives, and manipulated the unsuspecting. 12/02/07 5

6. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • The Christian Defense: “Do not judge Christianity based on the actions of those who claim to be followers. Judge Christianity solely on the actions and life of Jesus Christ. He never let anyone down. He never abandoned anyone. He was not a hypocrite.” 12/02/07 6

7. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • But does this address the problem? • Are we destined, as one website says,”If you are Christian, you are a hypocrite.” • Is there no hope to overcome hypocrisy? • Look at the carnage such hypocrisy leaves: 12/02/07 7

8. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • Church of Christ minister for 10 years - “What a Waste!” • I came across some people from the Church of Christ (conservative) and was pretty impressed - but actually I was just pretty naive and idealistic.” • Within a year I was preaching for the Church of Christ. Did this for ten years. During this time, I was so miserable that I couldn't put on any weight and usually weighed 125 pounds. Also thought of committing suicide frequently ... pretty much on a weekly basis. 12/02/07 8

9. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • The people treated me in such a mean, contemptible fashion it was unbelievable. • Others, also, were treated poorly and made to feel not welcome. Some were doted over and treated like royalty. • I moved to new churches three times, and each seemed more hypocritical than the last. Christians were the most stingy, egotistical, racist people I knew. 12/02/07 9

10. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • Finally, ten years into this BS, the church I was with cut my poverty level salary by 67 percent because I wasn't converting one family a month (as per my quota), and because I was a Yankee and few other things. • Suddenly, I couldn't make my mortgage payments, I went bankrupt, lost everything I had, was evicted from my home and as a thirty-something, had to move back in with my parents when I had a wife and two kids to think about. • I wanted to die. 12/02/07 10

11. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • The moral of the story is: Christianity isn't what it claims to be. • There is nothing wrong with their highest claims (peace, love thy neighbor, ...), the problem is they consistently do the opposite "in the name of the Lord" and there is something about religion that brings out the most mean-spirited things in people. Christians always doubt their faith, but people who leave christianity never doubt that they made a good choice. I can attest to that as leaving the church was the best thing I've ever done. Won't you do the same?” 12/02/07 11

12. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • Why I'm An Ex-Baptist • “My parents were never really super-religious. My sister and I were in childrens chior and Sunday school. We went to Vacation Bible School in the summer and also to church camp. We stopped going to church for awhile up until i was 15. My parents were having marriage problems and my dad decided that we needed to start going back to church. I started going to the youth sunday school classes. 12/02/07 12

13. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • The people were all really nice to me and I needed friends. Eventually, I started going on Wednesday nights to the youth meetings. They were a lot of fun. one wednesday night, i decided to get saved. i was listening to a speaker one night and for some reason, it hit me. i had been living all those years without truly knowing God. i was going to hell. i looked around and saw all of my new friends and decided that i wanted to be like them. i wanted to know what it was like to experience god like that. 12/02/07 13

14. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • i wanted to be good. … i wanted to be a part of that group. i wanted to know that i wasnt going to die and go to hell. i tried so hard to be a better person, but it always seemed like i wasn't doing enough. i started attending church everytime the doors were open. • i read my bible everyday. i told other people about my god. i used to really get depressed that i wasnt doing enough. i spent as much time as i could talking to the youth ministers about what was going on. i really trusted these people. they would tell me things like i couldn’t call myself a real christian if i associated with non-christians. 12/02/07 14

15. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • i got baptized a couple of months after i 'got saved'. • i stayed involved with the church and even went on the spring break ski trip. when i returned from the trip, i found out that my mom had left my dad two days before i got back. i was devastated. i didnt know what else to do, so i turned to my church friends. i became so involved with my church and my friends from church, that i was never home. i could trust those people and i knew that they cared about me because i was their sister in christ. 12/02/07 15

16. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • after that, i started to see that the church wasnt all it had once been. i got tired of hearing my friends judge other people for thier actions. i loved everyone, i didn’t think i was better than other people just because i was a christian. i started to go out with my old friends again. my church friends did not like that at all. • when i lost my virginity, i told one of my friends from church. she swore that she wouldnt tell anyone, but i started [to] notice the looks i was receiving from my other church friends. 12/02/07 16

17. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • the first time i tried pot, somehow it got back to everyone at the church. i was an outcast after that. they wouldnt talk to me at all. it really hurt me that all of the people who had once been so close to me could turn their backs on me overnight. • ive never been to church since. when ive told my story to other people who claim claim to be christians i get one of two responses. • #1...i must have never truly been a christian. had i been a true christian, i would have never left the church. 12/02/07 17

18. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • #2...all of my friends and ministers from church were not really christians. if they were, they would have helped me rather than turn their backs on me. • as far as im concerned, i was doing everything i was supposed to do. most of my time was devoted to being a christian. how was i never truly saved? the one thing that i dont understand to this day is who the christians really are. if i wasnt one, and all the people at church weren't christians, where are the real ones? 12/02/07 18

19. The Testimony of Hypocrites and Backsliders • the people at my church were very judgemental, racist, homophobic, sexist, and they particularly enjoyed using the fear of hell and being left behind in the rapture as tools for winning souls. • most other churches that i have ever visited are the same way. why would i want to associate myself with a group like that? 12/02/07 19

20. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • The Church is Full of Hypocrites • By Rev. Bryan Wolfmueller • Lately I've been asking strangers if they are Christians, and if they are not, I've followed up with the question: “Why not?” Last week I sat down across from Zedekiah (not his real name) and, as we ate McDonald's together, I asked him some of these questions. 12/02/07 20

21. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • Zedekiah said that he was a Christian, but has no church and hadn't been to church in six years. • “Why not?” • He answered: “The church is full of hypocrites.” • This is not a strange implication of the Church and the Lord's people, and I'm sure most of you have heard it from family or friends. In the eyes of the unbelieving world, hypocrisy is the cardinal sin of the Church. • The world sees the church as hypocritical when what we do doesn't match what we say. In other words, we act as hypocrites when we talk like we are holy and righteous, but live in sin. 12/02/07 21

22. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • We talk about the love of Jesus, but we despise our neighbors, we talk about family values but cheat on our spouse or mistreat our children. • The Bible certainly speaks of hypocrisy. Jesus especially criticized the Pharisees as hypocrites. His six-fold accusations are found in Matthew 23 (see verses 13, 15, 23, 25-26, 27-28, 29-31). Especially important are Jesus' words in Matthew 23:27-28: 12/02/07 22

23. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” • In the Scriptures hypocrisy means play-acting, pretending, deceiving. “They preach, but do not practice.” [Matthew 23:3] 12/02/07 23

24. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • Christianity doesn’t tell us that Humans are good, but that all are sinners: • “10 None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” [Romans 3:10-12, quoting Psalm 14:1-4; 53:1-3] 12/02/07 24

25. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • But what does this knowledge of our wretchedness and its forgiveness do to end our Hypocrisy and sinfullness? • Unfortunately, nothing! • It is not Salvation that brings an end to sin, but only an end to the penalty of sin. • There must be more that God provides; surely He doesn’t want us to be “forgiven sinners”, but “saints”, those “set apart for His use”, which certainly does not include contamination of His name with our wretchedness. 12/02/07 25

26. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • Peter instructs the church: “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word, that by it you may grow up in deliverance.” [1 Peter 2:1-2] • So, if commanded to put these away, are we not to expect that the God who could raise Jesus from the dead, would not do the same for us and provide the means and the mechanics to do so? • Is it found in the second part of that verse? 12/02/07 26

27. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • Is it found in, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word, that by it you may grow up in deliverance [from these things]” ? • If God commands us, and He does, to “be holy, for I am holy”, would we not expect Him to provide that Holiness? • Is there a hint of how that may be accomplished? • Is it to be found in, “Order your life by means of the Spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh”? • Is it these “desires of the Flesh” that make us Hypocrites and Backsliders? 12/02/07 27

28. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • Yes, of course! The scriptures are clear; it is our “Flesh”, our “sinful nature” that drags us back from Holiness, and produces hypocrisy and backsliding. • The answer is not to “give up” because you are a Hypocrite, or Backslide because someone else is; it is to learn that you can be free from the “body of this death” and live without hypocrisy and backsliding. 12/02/07 28

29. Hypocrites and Backsliders: Human Nature and the Christian Life • You did not only receive the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to your account so that you would be acceptable to God for salvation, but you received Christ’s Righteousness imparted to you so you would not have to live your life by the potential you received from your Human genes but by the potential you received at re-gene-eration from God’s genes. • You are not just adopted, you are born of God, with the Genetic Potential of Jesus Christ available to you. • (“According as His Divine Power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness...” -- 2 Peter 1:3) 12/02/07 29

30. Why Are We Here? • What power, what force, would cause people who were so excited about their new-found faith, whose lives have changed so dramatically, to refer to their old way of living? • To answer that question we must go back to the beginning, not just the beginning of their faith in Christ, though we will do that; not just back to the beginning of Christianity, and we will do that too, but back further, to the beginning of mankind, the beginning of the earth, and even before that. 12/02/07

31. Why Are We Here? • Let us begin with an obscure little sentence at the end of 1 Peter 1:12 -- • "Angels long to stoop and look into these things." • What things could it be that angels "long" to look into? • What could it be that humanity has to teach angels? 12/02/07

32. Why Are We Here? • Let us look at the context of the passage to see what it might be: • 10 There were Prophets who earnestly inquired about that salvation, and closely searched into it--even those who spoke beforehand of the grace which was to come to you. 11 They were eager to know the time which the Spirit of Christ within them kept indicating, or the characteristics of that time, when they solemnly made known beforehand the sufferings that were to come upon Christ and the glories which would follow. 12/02/07

33. Why Are We Here? 12 To them it was revealed that they were serving not themselves but you, when they foretold the very things which have now been openly declared to you by those who, having been taught by the Holy Spirit which had been sent from Heaven, brought you the Good News. Angels long to stoop and look into these things. 12/02/07

34. Why Are We Here? • So, the angels are aware of some story that even the prophets of the Old testament were kept in the dark about, that are now revealed in the church age believer • Two questions come to the mind; what is it that is revealed in the New testament believer, and, why is it of interest to Angels? • Is there anything in the Bible that might shed more light on what it is about us that the angels are interested in? 12/02/07

35. Why Are We Here? • Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons (the angels) of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan (the adversary and accuser) also came among them. 7 And the Lord said to Satan, From where did you come? Then Satan answered the Lord, From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it. 8 And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who [reverently] fears God and abstains from and shuns evil [because it is wrong]? 12/02/07

36. Why Are We Here? • Here we see an Angel, known as Satan, attending an Angelic Convocation, and is called out by God himself and is questioned about a believer! • Why does God direct the Angel’s attention to a Human Being? • While this believer is an Old testament Believer, yet has something to teach the angels; our text in 1st Peter indicates that we as Believers after crucifixion of Christ have greater information to offer! • Let us look back into history and even pre-history, find out what is going on. 12/02/07

37. Creation • Genesis 1:1 IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth. • 2 The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters. • (Is 45:18 For thus says the Lord Who created the heavens, God Himself, Who formed the earth and made it, Who established it and did not create it without form and an empty waste; He formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and there is no one else.) 12/02/07

38. Creation • So, here we have a seeming contradiction, the second verse of Genesis stating that the earth was formless and void at the creation, and Isaiah, quoting God Himself, that He did not create it formless and void. • 2 Pe 3:5 For they willfully overlook and forget this [fact], that the heavens [came into] existence long ago by the word of God, and the earth also which was formed out of water and by means of water, 6 Through which the world that then [existed] was deluged with water and perished. 12/02/07

39. Creation • When did this creation of the Earth take place? • It was after the creation of angels that this took place, as they all were present and rejoicing. • Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare to Me, if you have and know understanding. 5 Who determined the measures of the earth, if you know? Or who stretched the measuring line upon it? 6 Upon what were the foundations of it fastened, or who laid its cornerstone, 7 When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? • But what else do we know about the history of Angels? 12/02/07

40. The Fall of Lucifer • Eze 28:12 … Thus says the Lord God: You are the full measure and pattern of exactness, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, the carnelian, topaz, jasper, chrysolite, beryl, onyx, sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald; and your settings and your sockets and engravings were wrought in gold. 12/02/07

41. The Fall of Lucifer • On the day that you were created they were prepared. 14 You were the anointed cherub that covers with overshadowing [wings], and I set you so. You were upon the holy mountain of God; you walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire 15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity and guilt were found in you. 12/02/07

42. The Fall of Lucifer • 16 Through the abundance of your commerce you were filled with lawlessness and violence, and you sinned; therefore I cast you out as a profane thing from the mountain of God and the guardian cherub drove you out from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Your heart was proud and lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. 12/02/07

43. The Antagonistic Environment: Angelic Conflict • The Angelic Conflict • As an expression of His perfect essence, God chose to have created beings functioning in the universe on the basis of "free will." • He wanted them to express themselves toward Him in a positive attitude from choice and not as a programmed "robot.” • A volitional creature, however, must bow to the consequences God establishes for deviation from His standards. • God permitted volition in the angelic realm. 12/02/07

44. The Antagonistic Environment: Angelic Conflict • God is absolute righteousness. • In God's foreknowledge, He anticipated that the opposite of His perfect righteousness would manifest itself through a volitional creature. • Therefore, He created the Servant Class Creature (Angels) first, and allowed them to rebel, thus setting up an opportunity to create a second being, the Fellowship Class, to resolve the Volitional Conflict Issue through Grace and Regeneration. 12/02/07

45. The Antagonistic Environment: Angelic Conflict • The revolt of the angels: the beginning of the angelic conflict. • What God had anticipated came about and the highest ranked angel expressed negative volition toward God and sinned. Ezk. 28:15-16a, 17a, 18a 12/02/07