Spiritual Warfare Pastor Mike Miller

I never envisioned a world like this, and I do not know anyone who did. We knew that "evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse" but we never imagined that it would be like this. We expected more of the same kind of sin we were seeing 40 years ago, and we expected it to be more and more widespread and common, but we did not expect the insanity and the madness that we are seeing now. We should have seen it coming, though. If we had been more knowledgeable of human history and the Word of God, we could have known this was coming. Moral degeneration and depravity always follow the same path and end up in the same place, and it is plain to see from all the examples that happened in times past that we are nearing the end. The hour is late, sin has become exceeding sinful, and a holy God will soon judge this wickedness, as He has always done before.

God views man and his history forward and backward by generations, not by the present only. We have a strong tendency to only look at the present; at our own generation, and our own experience. This makes our view, and therefore, our comprehension of everything that matters very small and narrow. Judging and discerning truth by our little life and our few short years of experience on this earth is certain to cause us to err from the truth. This generation of know-it-alls in the world and in the churches needs to hear this.

There are certainly times when people who leave a church have been done wrong. Offenses are a part of life in any kind of social setting, including church. There are an abundance of Scriptures that instruct us and command us concerning the issue of being offended, and how we are to deal with it Biblically and righteously before God. But it is also clear to me after over 40 years of preaching and being a part of churches, that most people who leave a church offended do it because of a manufactured offense, not a real one. Their number one charge against the church when they leave is that the church is a bunch of hypocrites. But there is a common pattern with all who leave a church with this attitude. They slowly switch sides and take the side of evil, and call it good, then proceed to call evil what they used to think of as good. They are the real hypocrites, not the people who remain faithful and continue in ways of God without redefining everything.

Hypocrisy is defined as simulation, or pretending to be what you are not, and also dissimulation, which is hiding what you really are by having multiple versions of yourself that you present to others. Both of these aspects of hypocrisy are based in dishonesty and lies. Hypocrisy is the leaven that has leavened the whole of humanity. It has become almost all that life is about for almost the whole of mankind. Almost everyone has very few thoughts and feelings toward other people that are not, in one way or another, centered around trying to figure them out. Hypocrisy is the greatest manifestation of sin. Every aspect of man's life on this earth is dominated by this matter of trying to see beyond the facade that others are putting on and trying to figure out who and what they really are. Loving sincerely is the only cure for hypocrisy. If you truly love people you will not deceive, lie, or hide from them. If you love others sincerely you will not be able to be dishonest with them.

Hypocrisy is the omission of truth, and/or the addition of lies. This must be done with words, which are the utterance of thought. So hypocrisy begins with the manipulation of thoughts through the use of words. Do not allow your mind to be deceived by distortions of truth through the shell games people play with words. Satan is a master wordsmith and this is his game. Remember that truth is fixed and eternal; it never changes. The Word of God is truth, and therefore our only protection from being deceived and becoming a hypocrite ourselves.

Hypocrisy is basically having multiple personalities. Dissimulation is part of the definition of hypocrisy. It is like "simulation" but with the "di" it means pretending to be two (or more) different people at the same time. The inner conflict and confusion affects the emotions and makes them hard to control. Thus, we have moods, which in fact are multiple spirits that we allow ourselves to be subject to, manifested by anger, melancholy, frustration, or foolishness. Moods are very similar to the way alcohol affects people. Hypocrisy is common among all people, with the exception of those who have been truly born of the Sprit of God. The only kind of person that is of any use to the kingdom of God, or to the good of others on this earth, is a person who is free from hypocrisy.