wound the child of God than allow the hypocrite to escape.
17. But now for the cure of the hypocrite. What shall we do to cure ourselves of any hypocrisy that may exist among us? Let us remember that we cannot do anything in secret even if we try. The all seeing God, apprehended in the conscience, must be the death of hypocrisy. I cannot try to deceive when I know that God is looking at me. It is impossible for me to play double and false when I believe that I am in the presence of the Most High, and that he is reading my thoughts and the secret purposes of my heart. The only way in which the hypocrite can play the hypocrite at all is by forgetting the existence of God. Let us, therefore, remember it — wherever I am, upon my bed or in my secret room, God is there. There is not a secret word I speak in the ear of a friend except God hears it. Do I seek out the most private part of the city for the commission of sin — God is there. Do I choose the shadow of night to cover my iniquity? — He is there looking upon me. The thought of a present Deity, if it were fully realised, would preserve us from sin; always looking on me, ever regarding me. We think we are doing many things in secret, but there is nothing concealed from him with whom we have to do. And the day is coming, when all the sins that we have committed shall be read and published. Oh! what a blush shall crimson the cheek of the hypocrite when God shall read the secret diary of his iniquity! Oh my fellow professors, let us always look upon our actions in the light of the great reading of them in the day of judgment. Pause over everything you do, and say, “Can I bear to have this sounded with a trumpet in the ear of all men?” No, take a higher motive, and say, “Can I endure to do this and yet to repeat the words, ‘Oh God you see me.’ ” You may deceive men, and deceive yourselves, but you cannot deceive God, you shall not deceive God. You may die with the name of Christ upon your lips, and men may bury you in sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection, but God shall not be deceived either by your profession or by men’s opinion. He shall put you in the scales, and if you are found lacking, he shall cry, “Away with him.” He shall ring you, and if you have not the ring of the pure coin of grace, he shall nail you down for ever as a counterfeit. He shall strip the mask off you. Virtue is most adorned, when unadorned the most. To detect you, you shall be stripped naked, and every cloak shall be torn to tatters. How will you endure this? Will you dig into the depths to hide yourselves? Will you plunge into the sea to find a way of escape? Will you cry for the rocks to hide you, and the mountains to fall upon you? In vain shall you cry. The all seeing God shall read your soul, shall discover your secret, shall reveal your hidden things, and tell the world that, though you ate and drank in his streets, though you preached his name, yet he never knew you, you were still a worker of iniquity, and must be driven away for ever.
18. Come let us just for one second reflect, that we shall soon lie upon our deathbed. A few more months, and you and I shall face the cruel tyrant, death. It will be hard work to play the hypocrite then; when the pulse is faint and few, when the eye strings break, when the tongue is cleaving to the roof of your mouth, it will be in vain to try hypocrisy then. Oh may God make you sincere; for if you die with an empty profession, you die indeed. Of all deaths, I think the most awful is that of the hypocrite, and after death, for him to lift up his eyes and find himself to be lost — and for ever! Oh make sure work of it. May God give you true grace and true faith, and may we all meet in heaven. This is our earnest prayer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
{a} Thug: One of an association of professional robbers and murderers in India, who strangled their victims. OED.
Reform
No. 238-5:105. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, February 13, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and broke the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. {2 Chronicles 31:1}
1. It is a pleasant sight to behold the thousands assembled together for the worship of God; but it is lamentable to reflect, how often the reverence which is exhibited in the sanctuary is lost when the threshold is crossed. How frequently the most earnest address of the preacher is forgotten, and becomes as “the morning cloud, and as the early dew.” We very often go up to the house of God, and imagine that we have done our duty when we have gone through the round of the service: self-satisfied, each of us returns to his home. Oh that we would remember that the preaching of the gospel is only the sowing! afterward the reaping must come. Today we do, as it were, lay the first stone of an edifice; and henceforward that edifice must be built, stone by stone, through your daily practice, until at last the top stone is brought forth with shoutings of joy and gladness. Well said the Scotch woman, when her husband asked her, on her return from the house of God sooner than usual, “Wife, is the sermon all done?” “No, Donald,” she said; “it is all said; but it is not begun to be done.” There was wisdom in her pithy saying, a wisdom which we too frequently forget. Praying is the purpose of preaching. Reformation, conversion, regeneration — these are the purposes of the ministry, and a holy life should be the result of your devout worship. We have read in your hearing the story of the great Passover, which was held in the days of Hezekiah. One almost envies the men of that time; we might almost wish that we could be carried back some thousands of years, that we might have been there to see the solemn sacrifices, to behold the priests, as with joyous countenances they sang the praises of God, and to have mingled in that countless throng, which stood for one hour to listen to the Levite, for another hour gathered around the priest; again, at another time clapped their hands for joy at the sound of the golden trumpets, and then surpassed the trumpets by the magnificent sound of their vocal praise. But, beloved, when that scene had vanished, and the multitude had gone to their homes, Hezekiah might have sat down and wept if there had not been a fitting effect from such a great gathering. Isaiah the prophet, undoubtedly, was one of the most glad in all the crowd. Oh, how his noble heart beat for joy, and how eloquent was his seraphic tongue when he preached among the people, and cried, “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money; come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” But sad indeed would his heart have been, notwithstanding all the delightful excitement of the day, if he had not seen some glorious consequences result from the ministrations and from the great gatherings of the people. In our text we are informed, that the Passover did not end with the seven days twice told of its extraordinary celebration. The Passover, it is true, might end, but not its blessed effects.
2. Now there are three effects which ought always to follow our solemn assembly upon the Lord’s day, especially when we gather in such a number as the present, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving. We should go home and first break our false gods; next, cut down the very groves in which we have been accustomed to delight in, and after that break the altars which though dedicated to the God of Israel, are not according to Scripture , and therefore ought to be broken down, albeit, even though they are dedicated to the true God.
3. I. To begin then, the true result of all our gatherings should be, in the first place, to BREAK TO PIECES ALL OUR IMAGES. “You shall have no other gods before me.” Every place is before God. Everything is before his face and open to him. Therefore by this command we understand that we are in no way, and in no sense to have another god, but the Lord our God. What! do you ask, are we a nation of idolaters? Can this text pertain to us? Would not this be a proper rebuke to address the Hindus, or to speak to the benighted {moral darkness} inhabitants of the centre of Africa? Might we not exhort them to serve Jehovah and to dash the gods of their fathers in pieces? Assuredly we might. But do not imagine that idolatry is confined to nations of a swarthy hue. It is not in Africa alone that false gods are worshipped; idols are worshipped in this land also, and by many of you. Yes, all of us, until renewed by divine grace, worship gods which our own hands have made, and we do not fear, and love, and obey the living God with our entire and exclusive homage. Once however, let grace be received into the heart, let the soul be renewed by the Holy
