Tag: hypocrite

Posted in theology

More about Steve Lawson. But this isn’t about that. It’s about something else

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

When the sad news broke about formerly well respected Reformed preacher Steve Lawson, head pastor of a Dallas church, leader in several ministries, and Dean of the Doctor of Ministry program at The Master’s Seminary, had an “inappropriate relationship” with a woman, I wrote about it, but only the factual news and shared a few scriptures.

As I waited to see what would happen, there were several things on my mind and heart I hadn’t shared. Some were sparked by the vagueness of the original announcement from Lawson’s church (Trinity Bible Church). Some sparked by the surprisingly angry tone of some insiders tweeting, and some thoughts came to me as I pondered it over the days following. I wondered also about the swiftness Lawsons’ ministry doors closed and deleted.

One thing I spotted was this line in the church announcement-

The elders have met with Steve and will continue to come alongside him and pray for him with the ultimate goal of his personal repentance

That looks to me like he had not repented yet. Not if it is a ‘goal’. And is there any other kind of repentance than ‘personal’?

Well, yesterday, Phil Johnson @Phil_Johnson_ tweeted more details. His series of tweets are now deleted. He said he deleted in deference to Lawson’s church, who is charged biblically with handling the situation. But Johnson’s information went a long way to resolving some questions for me and for many others.

1/3 Almost. Steve himself informed the elders, but only after the girl’s father had confronted Steve and threatened exposure. This was not a noble confession of sin.

2/3 “Inappropriate” is too ambiguous—as if someone merely caught them holding hands. This was a 5-year relationship with strong romantic overtones. Both parties insist no literal fornication was involved, but their tie to one another was adulterous in spirit, if not in fact.

3/3 He is 73. She is in her late 20s. She is not a member of his church. In fact, she lives in a different state nowhere close to any of the ministries Steve served. I don’t believe any good end would be served by exposing her identity to the public.

I don’t want to be crude, but I flat out do not believe the statement about no intimacy of any kind.

Anyway, it’s even more sordid than we thought. I’m sure it will get worse. Sin always does. Remember, both the woman and the man involved were outed unwillingly. Unrepentant people caught in sin always share the least amount of facts so as to either justify their sin or downplay it. In fact, Lawson preached one last message as the situation was building to blow open publicly, and mentioned (out of context) that a man should not be judged by his one “hiccup.”

Five years is a long time to be hiccuping.

I was upset and angry. It’s a massive betrayal of his wife, family, church, ministries, and the Bride. Not to mention against Jesus.

If you are reading this and are in Christ Jesus, think about that anger for a moment. Why, when faced with new information, did so many people trip from ‘sad, it could have been me, let’s forgive’, to ‘I’m furious and upset and will never, ever listen to him again’ ? More on that below.

As I watched social media since the news broke, there was shock, and from the pagans, mocking of Calvinism, accusations of coverup, parsing about adultery. Many people urged compassion, they focused on forgiveness, there were debates about restoration, and so on. One man wrote,

“Steve Lawson’s sin is that he deceived others while practicing a sin. That doesn’t make me better than him, it just makes me disappointed in him.” from Twitter.

No. It’s worse than just “disappointment.”

Phil’s was actually helpful information. Why? Because the length of time the sin went on, covered and glorying in it, trips the benchmark from a pastor who sadly chose to briefly sin, to the hypocrite, living a lying double life and potentially a false convert. It deepens the lawlessness exponentially.

The one thing I didn’t see was talk of what I consider the main thing.

HYPOCRISY

GOD HATES HYPOCRISY. I’d dare to say that He hates hypocrisy worst of all sins.

The anger we felt when learning the further details exposed Lawson as a hypocrite. Hypocrites make the Spirit in us angry. We become angry, righteously, I hope, but if righteously, then it’s right to be mad.

Hypocrisy is the gap between external appearance and internal character. It is someone who says one thing in the name of the Lord and does another privately. Kevin DeYoung describes it this way–

“the gap between public persona and private character. Hypocrisy is the failure to practice what you preach. Appearing outwardly righteous to others, while actually being full of uncleanness and self-indulgence—that’s the definition of hypocrisy.“

Of course someone preaching holiness and righteousness but all the while cheating on his wife is a hypocrite. The damage is untold when a hypocrite is unmasked. It’s an abomination because he had used the Lord to cover his sin, he had co-opted Jesus into his sin at the pulpit. He had uttered out of two sides of his mouth, blessing and cursing at the same time. It’s putrid, and it makes God extremely angry.

The hypocrite is the Christian who uses the veneer of public virtue to cover the rot of private vice. ~Kevin DeYoung

The Bible speaks much about hypocrisy. It is always with anger, condemnation, and even curses and woes.

You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you, by saying: THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. (Matthew 15:7-8a)

James says a hypocrite’s religion is worthless!

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. (James 1:26)

A hypocrite may even be denied entry to heaven!

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 6:1)

A married man who for years indulged his lusts privately but preached holiness, warned of sin and hell, is a man practicing righteousness before other people, NOT pursuing it for himself. Only judgment is in store!

Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? (Romans 2:3)

At heart, hypocrisy is theatrical religion, religion as a means of personal enrichment or enhanced reputation. It is an abomination to the God who sees and knows the heart. ~Tim Challies 

Steve Lawson is a hypocrite. Of course, if he humbly repents, not lip-service repentance, but true heart-baring public self-denial and apology to Jesus and to his people, Jesus will forgive. But personally in my opinion, someone with such a thorough knowledge of the scriptures while indulging in adultery for five years, has a seared conscience about it.

As for the rest of us, sitting here thinking about our own decisions, what it all means, next moves…a layman named Boyd Kendrick replied to Phil Johnson’s post on Facebook, saying,

God is still on His throne, and His ongoing global redemptive works will not be undone. Yet, even so, the seismic aftershocks of this catastrophic moral failure will be felt for generations and may yet affect the lives of many. Such is the long shadow of shame cast by a public ministry with such long tenure and such global reach when it falls.

Hypocrisy is devastating. Absolute corruption. It is where unaddressed sin leads. Be warned!

Further Resources

What does the Bible say about hypocrisy? GotQuestions

What is Hypocrisy? Kevin DeYoung

Bible verses about hypocrisy GotQuestions

God Hates Hypocrisy Tim Challies

Posted in theology

Two hypocrites in the Bible you would not expect

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Source. Creative Commons

Hypocrites…who needs ’em?!

The word hypocrite means “from Greek hypokritēs actor, hypocrite, from hypokrinesthai, 13th century.
1: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.” Source Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary.

Did you know that Moses was a hypocrite? The most humble man on earth? (Numbers 12:3). The one God called His friend? (Exodus 33:11).

Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his fellow Hebrews and looked at their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his fellow Hebrews. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw that there was no one around, he struck and killed the Egyptian, and hid his body in the sand. Now he went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, “Why are you striking your companion?” But he said, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the matter has become known!” (Exodus 2:11-14).

I think it’s safe to say that according to the definition of hypocrite, Moses briefly was “a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.” He murdered a man and hid it, therefore Moses had no leg to stand on when he rebuked the other men of beating a third guy. ‘You rebuke us of striking a man when you just killed one?!’ They were right. Moses did not have the moral ground here.

How about Lot? Called righteous (2 Peter 2:7), Lot begged the homosexual men at his door not to act wickedly-

But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him, 7and said, “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. 8Now look, I have two daughters who have not had relations with any man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do not do anything to these men, because they have come under the shelter of my roof.” 9But they said, “Get out of the way!” They also said, “This one came in as a foreigner, and already he is acting like a judge; now we will treat you worse than them!” So they pressed hard against Lot and moved forward to break the door. (Genesis 19:6-9).

Lot might have been (nominally) righteous, agonized in his spirit for the perversity around him, but he also loved living the comfortable, carnal life in Sodom. These homosexual men tolerated Lot until he rebuked them personally, and they flung Lot’s own hypocrisy right back at him. ‘You live the carnal life here in Sodom, enjoying its pleasures and then try to rebuke us?!’ In addition, out of one side of his mouth Lot called them wicked for wanting to fornicate outside of marriage with men, but then offered them his daughters for fornication outside of marriage. BOTH acts are “wicked.” Lot did not have any moral ground to stand on.

Often, other people see our sins and foibles much earlier and clearly than we see ourselves. 1700s Scottish poet Robert Burns famously wrote “To a Louse“. He was in church one Sunday and the upper class lady in front of him, decked out in her Sunday best, and wearing a hat, did not know that a louse was crawling around in her hair and on her bonnet. She was attracting stares and thinking they were approving stares she tossed her head with pride. She didn’t see that she had vermin on her which she could not see, but others could. He ends his poem thus (translated),

O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!

Yes, to see ourselves as others see us, would free us from many a blunder. But God DID gives us a mirror, the Bible. If we look in it, we see ourselves both as we are (sinning vermin) and as He sees us (righteous stumbling sheep). We do need constant reminding of our fleshly estate so that we persist in slaying our fleshly sin. The lesson here today is two-fold and simple-

1.Don’t be a hypocrite, live as you say and speak. We should not put on one face for the outside world and another private one. God sees both faces. And many times, others see the gap between what we say and what we do and rightly assess us as hypocrites. Our job is to kill sin so that gap shrinks over time.

2.Read the Bible to constantly remind us of our gracious God who lifts us up and transforms us from vermin to brethren.

Posted in Uncategorized

On Divorce and Remarriage

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

In tweeting about transgenderism, an angry person – obviously not a believer – challenged me with this-

you’re the reason baptists churchs are removing “baptist” from their names. How many divorced adulterers u take money from

He has a partial point. We make much of the homosexual and the transsexual, rightly holding up the doctrines of the Bible that speak to sexual sin, but often overlook the same doctrines that speak of divorce and unrighteous re-marriage. In those cases the remarried Christian is seen by God as an adulterer. Isn’t unbiblical divorce and adultery sin, too? Of course it is.

We all know the famous “God hates divorce” from Malachi 2:1. His command regarding divorce is reiterated in 1 Corinthians 7:10–11:

But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife is not to leave her husband. (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband is not to divorce his wife.

He still hates divorce. But God did give some wiggle room for an allowable divorce. Not a desirable divorce, but an allowable one: if the spouse is unfaithful (Matthew 5:32), and if the spouse abandons the other spouse. (1 Corinthians 7:15).

Speaking of persistent sin, if there is someone getting a divorce on unbiblical grounds, for example, this is how MacArthur handles divorce as written in Grace Community Church’s Distinctives this way. His church’s distinctive is based on the Bible verses about divorce:

“Believers who pursue divorce on unbiblical grounds are subject to church discipline because they openly reject the Word of God. The one who obtains an unbiblical divorce and remarries is guilty of adultery since God did not permit the original divorce (Matt. 5:32; Mark 10:11-12). That person is subject to the steps of church discipline as outlined in Matthew 18:15-17. If a professing Christian violates the marriage covenant and refuses to repent during the process of church discipline, Scripture instructs that he or she should be put out of the church and treated as an unbeliever (v. 17). When the discipline results in such a reclassification of the disobedient spouse as an “outcast” or unbeliever, the faithful partner would be free to divorce according to the provision for divorce as in the case of an unbeliever departing, as stated in 1 Corinthians 7:15. Before such a divorce, however, reasonable time should be allowed for the possibility of the unfaithful spouse returning because of the discipline.”

But how often does a local church practice discipline like that? Discipline grows a church, doesn’t shrink it. (Acts 5:11-14). I think many churches have become somewhat like the world in that regard. They pull out the stops to prevent homosexuality from entering but have allowed other sins like divorce to become commonplace.

Mark Jones at Reformation 21 “Why is Heaven Forever?“

God’s people are united to their husband, Christ, by faith. This indissoluble union begins when we place our faith in the one who is “chief among ten thousand.” A significant implication emerges from this truth: Heaven is eternal because we are married to Christ, and God hates divorce. God would first have to sin by dissolving our union with Christ before Heaven could end. When God sins in this manner then Heaven will end.

Further Resources

Grace to You – The Truth about Divorce

Ligonier – The Last Step of Church Discipline