The Hope of the Hypocrite is a Hole in the Wall

I do not have a happy message for you this morning or even a comforting one. I'm greatly disturbed at the condition of the church in America today. I've been around a long time and I've sat in churches for several decades and I can look back on where the church was in the 1950s and the vitality it had with the weekly prayer meeting and the power in the pulpit back then to where things are now and I can assure you friends that the gold has dimmed.

We did away with the weekly prayer meeting in America and replaced it with divorce recovery classes, yoga classes, and Zumba dancing. Our pulpits are no longer aids to the unconverted in pointing the lost to Christ for salvation but mainly teaching that informs and entertains. A few today are getting saved and we have a generation that knows not the Lord.

This should greatly alarm us. I believe in my heart that in the average church in America today there are more lost people there than those truly converted. I want to address those within the sound of my voice with a warning today.

My warning is from Paul. Paul's warning found in 2 Corinthians 13 5 which declares, Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith. Approve your own selves.

Know ye not your own selves? How that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates. But that is not my text for today. That is my warning for today.

I am deeply grieved over the spiritual condition of the church and I fear many sit upon a false foundation of self-righteousness and carnal security and a great many are church members who are merely hypocrites and their hope of heaven is only a hole in the wall. And that's the title of my message this morning. The hope of the hypocrite is a hole in the wall.

Our text today is found in the book of Ezekiel and you can turn in your Bibles there now. We will be in Ezekiel chapter 8 and verses 7 through 9. Let me read this powerful passage to you now. And he brought me to the door of the court.

And when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, a son of man, dig now in the wall. And when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.

And he said unto me, behold the wicked abominations that they do here. In the striking passage of scripture, God has shown the prophet Ezekiel how the concealment of sin will soon be the exposure of sin. That the elders of the house of Israel had secret sins.

The things they did in the dark were abominations to a holy God. And because they had provoked God with their sins, when they pray, their prayers are not answered. Verse 18 declares, therefore will I also deal in fury.

Mine eyes shall not spare, neither will I have pity. And though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them. Oh dear unconverted church member, you live in sin and conceal it as you may.

God sees your great abominations before him. There's a hole in the wall in your life, and it's full of iniquity. On the one hand, you believe yourself to be truly saved, yet you remain in your sins.

Your hope is a false hope, and you rest upon a false bottom of carnal security. The hope of a hypocrite is a hole in the wall. God is a God of holiness.

His very name is holy. In Isaiah 57, 15, we read, for thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place.

Listen friend, a true convert has experienced change. They are a new creation. God never intended to save you in your sins, but to save you from your sins.

If you foolishly believe you are a Christian, and yet remain in your sinful lifestyle, you do God violence to his very attributes of justice and holiness. God is a just judge who will and must punish sin, and God is a holy God who requires holiness from his followers, for without holiness, no one will see God. The word of God declares in Job, the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, and a hypocrite is a person who is one person on Sunday morning, and quite another during the week.

You may fool your church friends, but listen dear one, you cannot fool God. A hypocrite has no hope of heaven, for we see in the word of God it declares, where is the hope of the hypocrite when God taketh away his soul? Your hope is only a hole in the wall. Listen friend, if you can live in peace with sin, and if you can live in peace in sin, you are indeed a hypocrite who will die in their sins, and be cast into a place of misery and endless despair.

There are four heads I wish to explore this morning on this important subject of the church hypocrite. These are, number one, the hypocrite has a false hope of carnal security. Number two, the hypocrite has a false peace from Satan.

Number three, the hypocrite is self-deceived and self-righteous. Number four, the hypocrite who dies in his sins will be cast into hell. Let's deal with this first item mentioned, the hypocrite has a false hope of carnal security.

I believe the main problem with many today in our churches is this, here is a man, here is a woman who has decided to join the church and become a Christian. Perhaps they have responded to a gospel invitation and they walked an aisle and repeated the sinner's prayer and filled out their membership form and were admitted to the church. They now believe themselves to be saved.

Even the pastor has told them they are now a Christian. But the main problem is they have never been awakened to their lost condition. They've never been convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and they've never experienced the supernatural act of regeneration upon their heart which is new birth.

So they remain as they were before they joined the church and they remain unchanged. They remain in their sins yet believe themselves to be Christians with a hope of heaven. So the hypocrite has a false hope of carnal security but their hope is a hole in the wall for their life is a hotbed of iniquity.

They are still mean-spirited, prone to anger, they lie, they covet, they gratify their lusts and they live unto themselves as they always have done because they are still in the same kingdom they've always been in which is the kingdom of darkness. But the difference now is they are church members but Satan is still their father. And this leads us to the second point which is the hypocrite has a false peace from Satan.

This is a remarkable thing. I've sat and listened to wicked individuals who are at complete peace with themselves and with God. They believe God is fine with them and they have a peace about it but Satan is the author of their peace because they've never been brought off their false bottom of their carnal security.

The unconverted person must be brought off his false foundations. They must be broken up. The only way is to be awakened to your lost condition to be shown they're guilty rebels who have broken the law of God and are enemies of God.

God's not okay with them and their sins. Rather God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turned that he will wet his sword he hath bent his bow and made it ready.

God is not your friend unless you are under the blood of his son. You are an enemy of God if you are a hypocrite and unconverted even if you're the chairman of the deacons. A true Christian has experienced change.

Can your loved say of you that you are a different person in the home since you've now been converted? Are you a changed individual? Do you seek God each day by spending time with him in prayer? Do you pursue holiness? Do you hate and loathe sin? Do you live for God's glory? Are you a doer of the word rather than just a hearer only? Do you witness for Christ to the lost around you? Do you desire to become more and more like Jesus with each new day? Or do you still hug your sins? Do you still sit on the throne of your life and rule there? Is Christ your Lord as well as your Savior? Listen friends, when one comes to Christ savingly a self is dethroned and another enthroned there, the Lord Jesus Christ. But the hypocrite believes himself, herself to be saved. But they are self-deceived and self-righteous.

They are quick to point out the sins in others and be completely ignorant to their own heart. They've never had a real revelation of the wickedness of their own heart. They compare themselves with others and say, I'm not as bad as so-and-so.

They are self-deceived and self-righteous. Their hope of heaven rests upon their good opinion of themselves and their long track record of church service. But the Bible declares in Proverbs, when a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish and the hope of unjust man perisheth.

The hypocrite has a false hope that's only a hole in the wall. His life is a cesspool of sin like the imagery behind the hole in the wall of Ezekiel's vision. All sorts of creeping things lurk behind there.

Sin has never been dealt with in the life of the hypocrite. Listen friends, Jesus never preached the sin in religion, only a self-crucifying one. Ephesians 1.4 says, God has chosen us to be holy, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

If God should save a sinner in their sins and leave them in their sins, it would be against God's holy nature and against his holy hatred of sin. A God has declared that only they who have confessed and forsaken their sins shall find mercy. Is that not what it states in his word from Proverbs? He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

The hypocrite is not under the blood of Christ, but rather tramples the blood of Christ. The hypocrite is an unsanctified person, an unregenerate person, and a self-righteous person. Jesus said, Except ye repent, ye shall perish.

If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me. He is called Jesus because he saves his people from their sins. The old-time preachers used to warn men to turn or burn, but that is not politically correct these days.

But unless a man turns from his wickedness and exercises repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, he will surely die in his sins, and his hope of heaven is but a hole in the wall. Listen, friend, you are either in an unconverted state or a converted state. You are truly converted if your sins have been washed in the blood and you were born from above.

Yes, you will stumble and fall into sin occasionally, but a saved person will not stay there. He will loathe sin and want to be cleansed from it immediately and beg God for grace to better resist sin in the future, ask the Holy Spirit to mortify it in the present, take that sin and nail it to the tree. I like what Dr. Stephen F. Ofer told me.

He often said that if in his walk with God a black cloud of temptation should come over his head and block the sunlight of his fellowship with his God, he would stop everything right there and then and say, Nail it, Lord, nail it. Dr. Ofer kept short accounts with God because he maintained a close walk with God. How about you? Can God say of you that you are his? Or are you one person with your church friends and quite another when you are alone and with your family? Is your hope of heaven merely a hole in the wall? Dear friend, do what the Apostle Paul exhorts us to in 2 Corinthians.

Examine yourselves. Whether ye be in the faith, prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves? How that Jesus Christ is in you? Except ye be reprobates.

Hypocrites are reprobates. Is Jesus Christ in you? Have ye ever been changed through the new birth? I pray that this message will move someone here off their false bottomless security and that the Holy Spirit will awaken you to your true condition apart from Christ. May the hope that you have a heaven be on a sure foundation and not merely one resting on a hole in the wall.

I will leave the hypocrite with this passage from the word of God found in the book of Isaiah, and I pray God grant you the grace to do it. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.