You can go ahead and turn to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 6. We're going to continue our series here, but today we're going to pause just a little bit and we're going to take a look again at the hypocrite. And kind of a text laying over this is Job 8.13. The hypocrite's hope shall perish. The hypocrite's hope shall perish. In Matthew 6, we are warned by Jesus, take heed. That's his warning to us. And he's warning us against doing religion in such a way that we're only doing it to be seen by others and not by our Father which sees in secret in heaven. He tells us there in verse 2 that when you give money to the poor, don't do it as the hypocrites. He says in verse 5, when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites. And he says, when you fast, that you're not to be as the hypocrites. And so we have these warnings before us, and I thought it would be helpful today for us to take a look at all of Matthew and Jesus dealing with hypocrites here and even to take a look at the history of hypocrites to help us understand why Christ hates this sin so much. So let us pray before we continue. Holy Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and mercy. Lord, I do pray for preaching grace that there would be an unction of power in your word that could be sensed and felt by those who love you. So that we might beware and take heed as you tell us to. Father, I pray for hearing grace for those that have had to hear the sound of this voice for so many years that you would just help them to be patient. Let them not be distracted. But I pray you would help them to see in your word that you are the one speaking in Christ's name. Amen. So why are Christ? Warnings against hypocrites so harsh. It's because hypocrites do the most damage in the church. They are the most contrary to life and peace. Which Christ wants for those he loves. Jesus will use this word hypocrite 15 times as I count it in the New Testament. It's the only place that word is used. He's the only one that uses that word. And every time that word is used when Christ uses it, there is a the in front of it. The hypocrite. So Christ is the only one who knows who the hypocrite is. Those who he hates. Those who are condemned. Those who will not believe. But he also warns us that we can be infected with that sin. And Christ does not want you to be infected with that sin. And so he warns us. Fifteen times, four times in the Sermon on the Mount, he uses that word as we've just seen, the hypocrite. He will use it another seven times in chapter 23, and we'll get there in a minute. And so as we come before this word today, we want directly to examine our own heart for this leprosy, this disease of hypocrisy, and how we are to live among those who are the hypocrites, or appear to be. and to do our best to live with them in love and patience and kindness, ever hoping to see fruit come forth out of their life. And so we want to understand as much as possible, because Christ warns us to, about what this sin is, why to avoid it, why to stay away from them. The hypocrite's hope perishes. We don't want to have a hypocrite's hope. We have a hope in Christ that endures forever. Amen? Proverbs 14.12 and 16.25 are identical. Both of them say there is a way that seems right unto a person, but the end thereof is death. That's speaking of the hypocrite who's going down the road, they go to church, they pray, they have all the outward form of religion, and yet the end of that way is death. And we're going to see what the difference is. Why? Ultimately, a person must be born again or they can't see the kingdom of God. Genuine believers obey Christ imperative. Take heed. Beware, Jesus loves his church. And one of the ways he preserves you and keeps you in this narrow way of life from the manifold many, many temptations. that your heart ever leaks out after is by warning you with words like these, take heed. And so we want to draw a distinction between the hypocrite and the sin of hypocrisy. Another way to put that is there are many people who profess Christianity and profess to believe in God and they profess to know him But they don't possess love for Christ. Professors, but not possessors. And yet Christ warns us because it's possible for a genuine believer to be walking randomly and carelessly and having this sin cling to them. And so he gives you words like this so that you will separate from it. So I have a purpose today to awaken anyone in the room. I know the Holy Spirit must do that. But if I could scream loud enough, I would. Wake up. If there was anybody here today that thinks they're saved and they're not, God, I pray that he would come upon you and wake you up because of the end that's appointed to those who never repent and know Christ. And I want to awaken genuine believers to a more genuine walk of faith. So how are we to do that? Psalms 119 says, How shall a young man, a young woman, cleanse their way? By taking heed to God's Word. So let's take heed to God's Word. My first point is just understanding. How are we to separate from this? How are we to understand this? Well, there are some things the genuine believer knows and has that help you in this taking heed and being aware. You have the witness within you that separates you from the things he hates and that keeps you from life and peace. 1 John 5.10. He that believes, she that believes on the Son of God has the witness in themselves. The hypocrite only has their defiled conscience and their defiled judgment. They're deceived. You have this witness in yourself that is also told to us in Romans 8 16. Very same thing. The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the Children of God. This spirit is testifying to your spirit. You are my beloved. You are my child. I love you. I cherish you. I delight in you. And I hate hypocrisy. Don't be like that. Pay attention. Don't walk carelessly in your life. Let me ask you a question. Would it be possible for the Holy Spirit? This is the Holy Spirit that was present in creation that brought forth all of that glory out there. The Holy Spirit that created this little bird that planted these eggs right by my pickup that was squawking at me this morning when I pulled up next to her nest. Would it be possible for that Holy Spirit that made all of these wonderful things to be in you and you not know it? Absolutely not. No way. The Spirit of love is shed abroad in your heart so that you might know All of these things were written that you might know. That's a knowing in your heart and your mind. It's impossible for that spirit to dwell in a person and there be no change over time. A genuine believer has that understanding because it's given to you. It's given to you to know this reality and this spirit, this witness within you is always moving you towards growing in grace, growing in wisdom, growing in knowledge, growing in patience, growing in forgiveness. And dealing with your sin, hate, idolatry, covetousness. It's always helping you to put those things to death more and more. The hypocrite is always doubling down on fakery and pretending. If they get discovered in one little area, they will get better at it. They'll take some acting lessons. Genuine believers understand the Father's purpose in leaving hypocrites in the world and in the church right now. He tells us that. I think we can glean some of that from Matthew 13. Matthew 13, 37 through 43. Jesus is teaching a parable. And one of the reasons Jesus teaches in parables, he tells us, he said, so that genuine believers will know and understand and hypocrites will not. You see, there's two purposes for the preaching of the gospel that we're told again and again in scriptures. One is for the salvation of the beloved and for the damnation of the wicked. Because the more gospel they hear, the more sermons a hypocrite sits under, the more damnation is being heaped up on their heads. In this parable Jesus is teaching, this is right after the parable of the sower, Matthew 13 is so critical for understanding true Christianity. And many hypocrites have come even amongst our order in the past hundred years and have perverted this teaching. Matthew 13, Jesus teaches about a man comes, he's a farmer, he's got a field, he sows seed in that field. And then as the seed germinates and comes up, there is the seed that he planted, the wheat's coming up, but there's weeds throughout the field. But he had cleared that field ahead of time, and so his workers come and say, Master, what is this? Didn't you have good seed that you sowed in your field? And he said, yes, I did, but the enemy has done this. The enemy came in secret and sowed this bad seed in the field. And he explains this in verse 37 of Matthew 13. He that sowed the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. But the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of the world. When the Son of Man sends forth his angels to gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do sin. And he's gonna cast them into a furnace of fire, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father." And he says, who has ears to hear, let them hear. Do you hear that parable today? And you know that whenever things were sprouting up, and I understand over there in that part of the world, the kind of tares they were talking about when it sprouted up with the wheat, when they were young and growing up, you couldn't tell the difference. And so they say, should we root up these terrors? And he says, no, leave them lest you root up the good seed also. Sometimes a hypocrite can be so entrenched and nobody can tell. Or if they could tell and if you pulled them out and they were entrenched in a family or a group of people, it could be that you would offend the children of the king as well. And so he said, no, let them grow up. There's gonna come a day I'll do the separating. when I send my angels. And so he leaves them there for a reason. He leaves them in there and the true believer knows why. That they're left. It's for the trying of your faith. It's to strengthen your patience and love. I know of stories of people that have sat in churches for 20 and 30 years and then were born again. I know a testimony of a pastor went into a church with several hundred and began preaching, and he doesn't think there was a single born-again person in that church until he started preaching the gospel of truth. And God blessed him to great awakening there in that place. God leaves them there for a trying. Even Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, 19, he said, there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be manifest among you. What is he saying? Genuine believers will not listen to lies and heresy. They will have the Holy Spirit witnessing them. The red flag will go up when they hear something that's not right. Or if they're around somebody, over time, they'll be something they'll sense. Whatever's coming out of their mouth won't be right. Over time, their behavior, their character, their habitual practice. And so that's the reason why he doesn't root them up. It's so that he's even overruling that for your good. for your discernment, for your patience, to teach you how to love your enemies. So genuine believers understand the time is short. They have the witness of the Spirit within them. They know that they will be successful in combating this sin because they've got the Holy Spirit. They're praying and loving hypocrites, people they see bringing forth these fruits, even for years. They're loving them, praying for them, knowing that God can save them. Even in the last six hours of their life, He could save them, like He did the thief on the cross. So this witness of the Spirit creates this life in us and maintains that life, which is seen by spiritual mindedness, which is our second point. Minding the Spirit. How are we to take heed and not be as the hypocrite are? Well, this indwelling spirit leads you to be minding the spirit. Romans 8, 6. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. The hypocrite is carnally minded. They don't have the witness of the Spirit. Carnally minded means a mind that's dead spiritually. It's a mind that is only fleshly. He speaks of this here in Romans 8. He said, that which is after the flesh is flesh. The person who's not born of the Spirit is after the world. They're after the flesh. They're after the things of this life. But those that are spiritually minded have life and peace now. Isn't that great? To have that in the midst of a world that appears to have gone mad? We got life and peace. We got the witness of the Spirit. The Spirit of peace. The Prince of peace. The God of all peace. What you mind is what you worship. What you mind is what you love. And what you mind reveals either being a hypocrite or the hypocrite versus sins of hypocrisy in your life. The spiritual mindedness is born into us, John 3, 6. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. The Holy Spirit is the cause of our spiritual mind. To be spiritually minded is to be carefully minded. Careful in how you're using the gift to think. Careful in what you put in your mind through the ear gate. And through the eye gate. To be carnally minded is under the penalty of death. And a person that is carnally minded, a hypocrite that's pretending to know Christ, over time they bring death, death to their relationships. Death into the world. We live in a culture of death that's filled with carnally minded people. Death to the unborn. Death to fertility. Death to truth. But truth is alive at the right hand of God, and they don't know that truth. This word minded here includes the thoughts, purposes, and inclinations that you have. And so just think about this past week. What have you been moving towards? What have you been thinking about your inclinations? You always move towards what you like. Christ has already been telling us that a hypocrite comes to worship. And he does it to be seen by other people. And you see what they're doing there is they're actually trying to get the worship of other people to praise them for their outward worship. The praise that belongs to God, they're trying to get it for themselves. And in Christ said there, as we looked at in the last couple of messages, that's all the reward they're ever going to get. But the true believer goes into the closet and they're in prayer and they get this reward of knowing Father. They know He's listening. They can feel the power in their life and He's working through the week because they're in there with Him in secret and they're getting that reward. In Colossians 3.2, set your affection on things above. That word affection is the same word for minded in Romans 8. Set your affection, set your mind on things above. And so this word includes your mind and your heart. Set your affections on things above. It's the actual exercise of what's going on. It's the power of mind you're given God made you as an image bearer. He's given you this ability to think, reason, and love. Spiritual mindedness is one who's moving in that direction. What are you most pleased and satisfied with? It's the engaging of the mind in such a way that your heart is drawn out. Now, genuine believers in worship, when you read those songs, some of those songs we just went through, in heaven my choicest treasure lies. Does not your heart burn within you when you read and sing these songs that were written by spiritually minded people? Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. Do you feel that passion? That's spiritual mindedness. Say your affection on things above, not on the earth. Another way to see this spiritual mindedness is in the woman at the well. So we know on John 4, 13 to 14, Jesus has this wonderful encounter with this woman at the well at noonday. And he tells her there in that exchange, and he said, whosoever drinks the water out of this well is gonna get thirsty again. But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give them shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give shall be in him, in her, a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The hypocrite can have spiritual thoughts and spiritual notions that may be brought about by hearing a sermon or reading a book or having a conversation with somebody. But spiritual mindedness, genuine spiritual mindedness is spontaneous and is always bubbling up within you because of this witness of the spirit. You have eternal life. You have union with Christ. You have this passion and desire. You have a growing understanding and affection for Christ. You love Christ more today than you did 10 years ago. It remains habitually in your affections. Words like delight, gusto, relish. These are the words of the spiritual minded person. who has affection for Christ. James is an entire letter written warning you about hypocrisy. He doesn't use the word hypocrisy, that's what he's doing though, he's dealing with hypocrites. Those who are, they heard the word, came to services, but they weren't doers of the word. They come to church, they look in the mirror of the Word of God, they see what the Bible says about them, and they can mentally give an assent to that and say, yeah, I'm a sinner, but so is everybody else. All people are sinners. To err is human. That's what the hypocrite says. It's never. It's my sin. My sin put him on the cross. He died for my sin. Praise God, hallelujah. The hypocrite comes and can look and have these spiritual notions. They come in here to worship, be stirred up, even have some joy as we read about in the parable of the sword. Some have joy for a little while. But the hypocrite goes out the doors and forgets the message. They get out the door, they can't wait to get to ESPN or whatever. It is that they actually love much, much more than being here. They can't wait to get out on their walk or their bicycle ride. Their heart's not in it. They don't have that fervency and that relish and passion of having transcended this world and understand there is a delight that we were made for to delight in. And so, James gives us that, and the genuine believer sees that and says, I don't want to be like that. Lord, help me not to let any of your words fall to the ground. Genuine believers have the witness of the Spirit in themselves. They're spiritually minded. It's habitual. It's life and peace. They hear these warnings, they ever have the spirit, they've got this light within them. Daily, this spirit within you is having you live carefully minded as you're in this state of blessedness, of peace and joy. And you're always evaluating your thoughts. I mean, I'm telling you, when the sons of God come together to worship, Satan's here, and he's slinging arrows. And you've got to understand that, know it, and by the Spirit, your thought comes in about that brother or that sister, you say, uh-uh, no. I'm here to worship Christ today. No distractions. Not leading the song as fast or slow as you think. No, I'm going to sing it with gusto and relish. And so we have example. The example of Judas before us. Judas, you will, this is the third point, we'll pay attention to these kinds of examples, and they will terrify us, because we do not want to be like that. John 6, 70, Jesus answered them, have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is the devil. Seven chapters later, supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him. You know, Judas had spiritual gifts. Matthew 10. Verse one, and when he had called unto him his twelve disciples. He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out. And to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases. including, in verse 4, Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. He preached. He cast out demons. He healed people. Hypocrites walk around heaven's door, but they never enter in. There will always be a generation of Judaists in the world that mingle with the people of God. They will always pretend heavenly speeches and pretend to heaven, but their heart is deceived. These are the world's saints, but not God's. Judas was a devil, and none is so bad as a preaching devil, a praying devil, and a pretending devil. The devil deceives the soul and gives him leave to pretend to be a saint even though he knows him to be his slave. Hypocrites are exposed when they are pinched. Even Judas was pinched because he felt the stress of the coming conflict that was about to happen. And so he fled to betrayal because he loved money more than he loved Christ. There are those that receive the word of God and the thorns and the cares of this world and deceitfulness of riches choke the word. I mean, you know how dangerous it is for you, American? All the money and excess that we have, food, we're in great danger. But we have a great Savior. Hypocrites trade in religion upon the opinion of others. Hypocrites will not kill sin because they will not remove the fuel that feeds the lust. That's called mortification. It's called putting sin to death. God is in the hypocrite's mouth, but not in his heart. Judas had him in his mouth. Seekers are many, finders are few. Genuine believers, whenever they come to communion table and we read that text, 1 Corinthians 11, and it says, The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. That pierces my soul every time I hear that. Right there in the most holy assembly that we could imagine. In the institution of the Lord's Supper, there was a betrayer. To the credit of the eleven disciples, when Jesus said, one of you will betray me, everyone, it says, said, is it I? That's a genuine believer. Not pointing the finger, examining their own heart. So genuine believers have this witness of the Spirit. They mind the Spirit. They have this habitual, flowing, everlasting, bubbling life, joy within them. And as they mind the Spirit, they will also understand history. And what's going on in the totality of time and the end of hypocrites and Jesus in Matthew 23. We have a section of scripture here that we need to take a look at just a minute. Matthew 23, Jesus is pronouncing eight woes or eight curses against the religious leaders of his day who were the hypocrites. This will be Jesus' last address directly to the nation of Israel that he will destroy in about 40 years from the time that he says this. Eight times he will say, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, pretenders, dissemblers. They sit in Moses' seat, he says right there in verse 2 of Matthew 23. All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. So he's telling genuine believers if there's a hypocrite in the pulpit, and he's teaching the truth, you listen to the truth, you obey the truth. But you don't do after their works, for they say and do not. And that's the very definition right there of hypocrite, they say and do not. There's no power in their life. One of the worst things about this sin and the reason Christ hates it, that we can see that he hates it, is because he says there is a greater damnation for hypocrites In hell, there's going to be greater degrees of damnation. In hell. We read that Chorazin and Bethsaida that rejected the gospel will have greater damnation than Sodomites that were destroyed in Sodom and Gomorrah. And here he says a greater damnation on these hypocrites. In verse 13, Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering in to go in. Therefore you shall receive the greater damnation at the end of verse 14. So why do they receive a greater damnation? Because by their form of godliness, their semblance, their appearance, their hypocrisy, their pretending that has no power, they have no changed life. They're still walking after the world and the flesh and lust. By their example, they are deceiving many into believing that must be what a Christian is. That must be what a true believer looks like. And by their example, many go no farther." And he says, you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men and you don't even go in yourself. Paul calls it in 2 Timothy 3.5, having a form of godliness and outward pretending but deny the power thereof from such turn away. American Christianity has changed the gospel of Jesus Christ into cheap grace and an easy believism, and every order has done it, including this one. But we got the word and we got the spirit, and we know that, we understand that, so that we can maintain the walk of faith in the narrow way. And Luke 18, speaking of hypocrites again. There is a warning given here by Christ saying, take heed how you hear, pay attention, how do you hear this word of God? Can you remember all the sermons you've heard in your life? No, it's impossible. But we should be doing everything we can to hang on to every word. That's why we should take it into the week and come back to it and meditate on what was said. There's been a verse stuck in my head on a Wednesday night service, I wouldn't even hear it, but I'll listen to it, about sifting that's going on. It's always going on. The sifting that's going on. And it's blessed me to keep thinking about that. I've heard some of the worst sermons I've ever heard, but you know as they say, a broken clock is right twice a day. I can still remember verses that came out of really bad sermons that just the Spirit took and I thought, there's one, I'm going to grab that, you know, and I'm going to hang on to that. And I've never forgotten it. Take heed how you hear. And with what measure you met. How do you measure the Word of God? What is your ruler that you measure the Word of God? You know, I was speaking this week with somebody and I talked about the fact that you know Christ had warned us in this message about getting angry and how that gets in the way of our worship. And you know why we get angry and frustrated with other people? Because they violated my Ten Commandments. What is your Ten Commandments? What do you get angry about and frustrated with? Take heed how you hear and with what measure you met. To him shall be given genuine believers to those who have and have laid hold of that word. To you more shall be given. And whosoever has not the hypocrite, the faker, the pretender, whoever has not from him shall be taken, even that which he. Seems. To have. Christ speaking to the nation of Israel this last time, pronouncing these curses upon them, will say at the end of the chapter, your house is left unto you desolate, deserted, wasted. And that would be fulfilled in 70 AD. Genuine believers understand the longsuffering of God with the nation of Israel. A genuine believer says, thank God you're so patient, longsuffering. Through history we understand also that there is a wrath that's being filled up against those who reject the word. Christ says in verse 32, fill you up then the measure of your fathers. That is an imperative there. Christ is commanding them. This is terrifying. Christ is speaking to these hypocrites here who for thousands of years have been killing the prophets. He says that here at the end of this chapter. He says, all the blood of all these prophets that I've been sending you, warning you, telling you to repent and believe and obey that you have rejected, you are filling up the cup of wrath. He commands them, fill it up. And they obeyed that command. That's a command God gave. And they obeyed it. They filled it up because Jesus said, I'm going to send you more prophets and more preachers and you're going to kill them too. The apostles, the martyrs, it goes on to this day. And you'll never read that on MSNBC. But the worst thing they did is they killed the prophet. They crucified him. And they stood out there and said, give us the murderer and let the blood of the guilt of Jesus be on our head and our children's head. Brothers and sisters, that is going on to this day. There was a measure of wrath in their constant rejection for thousands of years that's still being poured out upon the Jews to this day. Even hearing this week about the Crusades, which were not Christian. It's an amalgamation of paganism and Christianity. They went, you know, to conquer Jerusalem from the Turks. But you know they went all over Europe because they didn't want the Jews to have any right to Jerusalem. And they slaughtered Jews all over Europe, the Crusaders. It's been pouring out on their head ever since then. And there's going to come a final pouring out in the last day that we read about in Revelation. 14, eight, there followed another angel saying Babylon has fallen, that great city, because she made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. That cup is being filled up right now by America. God judges nations. The nations that will not serve the Lord shall be destroyed. This nation is, we're standing on top of other nations that have been destroyed. But there's a kingdom coming that shall never be destroyed. And those that know Christ, that are genuine believers, are part of that kingdom now. You're tasting the fruits of that spirit of life and peace now. And you need to understand all these things, because it is serious business to live life. And what you do with your heart, which we see in Matthew 15, 17 and 9. This is going to be my last thing that we'll talk about. Because this is the heart of the matter. In Matthew 15, 17 through 9, you hypocrites welded Isaiah prophecy of you saying, this people draws near unto me with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Where is your heart right now? Right now? Hypocrites come to worship and their heart's not here. Where's your heart? Christ wants people whose hearts are His altar and His love, the flame. Genuine worshipers. The Lord right now in this room, for those who love Him and trust Him and know Him, He's reordering your thinking through the Word. He's reordering your heart and you are growing in grace over time. And it will be seen in your life. Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also. Out of the treasure of your heart will flow out of your mouth and it will be seen what your treasure is. Christ hates hypocrisy. He only knows who the hypocrite is, but he is giving you everything you need to separate from this. Oh, how this clings to us. Christ's desire for you is to have a life filled with peace. He is maturing you. He does whatever it takes to separate you from this sin that is so evil. The lover of your soul is moving you to a place of ultimate satisfaction and worship. I heard a pastor say it this way. I'm gonna borrow this from him. There's this final stage of worship that will be in heaven, where we'll have bodies that can take the pleasure that's going to be poured out on us. Because right now, if we were in the present, it'd annihilate us. New resurrected bodies with the ability to be able to feel and know and love like we ought to. But even then, we're headed towards a place of worship in here. And in your life, He wants you to move towards a place where when you come to worship, maybe you even come in here ahead of time, you open a hymnal, and you start looking at the lyrics, or you open your Bible, you're preparing. Saturday night, you're getting ready. You're anticipating. You understand what he says in Isaiah 58 that if you will keep my Sabbath day holy and separate that day from all your normal pleasures, your normal thoughts, and your normal life, you'll separate that day. I will bless you, I will reward you. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He's moving you to that place. There's a place where we can come in maturity that when we come here, our hearts are overflowing. We sing to the top of our lungs. We do the best we can to fight off the distractions and we feel the joy overflow, the wonder, the hope, the admiration. As in Psalm 63, 5, my soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food. And my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips. That's a feast. That's where we want to be all the time. That's where I want to be all the time. I want to be feasting. There's a prior stage to that where we taste. We do taste when we come into worship, but we don't feel the fullness like we want to. Rather, we have longing and desire. We have the longing and the desire to want to be there, but we're not quite there yet. Well, I would tell you that the Lord sees your longing and desire, and He takes delight in it, even if you can't get to the place of full joy and satisfaction and rejoicing and weeping and being moved. That's where we preached our souls, Psalms 42, 5, maybe you're downcast. Oh, aren't thou cast down on my soul? You sure yet see God and come to the place of worship? There's a lowest stage of worship, and this is where all genuine worship actually starts. And sometimes we return here for a dark season. It's a barrenness of soul that scarcely feels any longing. And yet, in that place, we're granted the grace of repentance, and we say, Father, I should be so full of joy. I should be so full of desire here, and I don't have it. Forgive me. Help me to move back to that place. What am I doing? Am I being careless in my wall? Am I careless in my prayer closet? What am I doing? Have I been talking about somebody the way I shouldn't? Do I need to go make some amends? God, help me. A true hypocrite cannot even understand anything that I've just said unless they be born again. The true hypocrite heart is so filled with this world that to tell them to let go of that world and to love something not of this world would be like committing suicide to them. They can't even comprehend it. Here's an illustration for you. It's borrowed. So my 40th wedding anniversary is going to be January the 5th, coming up this year. And on that day, I buy 40 roses. And I come up to the house, and on that day, instead of walking in like I normally do, I ring the doorbell. And Laurie comes to the door. I've got my 40 roses. And she says, Brady, you shouldn't have. And I said, not so, my darling. It's my duty. What just happened? I just dishonored her. If my roses did not come from a spontaneous affection bubbling up in my heart, then I despise her, and I show no love for her. Rewind. I got my 40 roses. I come up there. I ring the doorbell. She answers the door and says, Brady, you shouldn't have. And I said, my dear bride, it is my pleasure to come and to bring you these roses to celebrate 40 years of marriage. So what just happened? I honor her because my roses and my planning and my spending are fruits of my love for her. So it is with worship. Christ hates the kind of worship that comes in here and there is no affection, duty worship, no feeling. You honor me with your lips, but your heart is far from me. Well, in conclusion, genuine spiritual-minded people are daily walking in the Spirit and the witness of the Spirit that helps us to live humbly and meekly in the light of this reality that we're having to continually pull out the cancer of hypocrisy and get rid of it and fight it. We have this Holy Spirit in us that helps us to go to bed at night and thank Lord to dive in today in any way. We're always walking in view of this reality saying, I want to live before you, Father, in obedience. And I want to live before you in such a way that honors you with my love. The genuine believer is praying in Psalm 139, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. I hope and pray today that maybe the Holy Spirit might awaken somebody today that's never been awakened. I pray that maybe God brought you to this place today for that very purpose. There are no accidents. There are only purposes in God's world. I hope and pray that, and I pray, let me tell you what I'm praying for everybody here. that for a thousand generations all of your children and everybody that will come from you would know this Christ and love Him and cherish Him because He's worthy. And I pray that because I know He can do it. I know He can do it. And there would be none here found on the left hand of darkness on that day. So incline your ear and come unto me, Christ says, here in your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Yahweh. And he will have mercy upon him. and he will abundantly pardon. You know, right after Christ finished the Sermon on the Mount, again, no accident, right after he finished the Sermon on the Mount, a leper comes to him. And he says, Lord, if you will, now the leper knows he's a leper. Leprosy is visible, it can be seen, it can be smelt, rotting flesh. Leprosy separates. Leprosy is a loathsome disease in the Bible to teach us that's what our soul looks like apart from Christ. And this leper comes to Jesus and says, Lord, if you will, you can make me whole. And Jesus said, I will. Jesus Christ is perfectly willing. The Spirit is present to heal. And He is willing to save everyone that comes to Him in repentance and faith. May God bless His Word.