– Advertisement –

A Dividing Line Between Hypocritical and True Believers

by | Aug 7, 2019 | Blog | 0 comments

✪ Read this article ad-free and leave comments here on Substack

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
     and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence,
     and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Psalm 51:10-12

In an earlier post, I defined a hypocritical believer as a professing, but false, Christian who has hidden from himself the reality of his spiritual lostness. I believe that the text before us reinforces that contrast.

In it, we see David after II Samuel 11. In that story, he had been looking out over the city of Jerusalem from his palace. He saw Bathsheba bathing on her roof. Stirred by lust, he had arranged for the murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite, so that he could gain her for himself. After the Prophet Nathan rebuked David (II Samuel 12), David was overcome by sorrow over what he had done. Psalm 51 is the prayer he wrote, confessing his sin, and seeking a restoration of his damaged relationship with Jehovah, his God.

Consider also Psalm 38, another psalm by David. In verse 3, he describes the physical trauma caused by sin. In verse 6, “all the day I go about mourning.” And verse 8, “I groan because of the tumult of my heart.”

In both of these psalms, we see a man traumatized, sorrowful and cast down, because he is aware of his sin. That doesn’t happen in a hypocrite. The hypocritical believer is self-satisfied with his spirituality and would be quite insulted if anyone were to suggest that he isn’t as holy as he imagines himself to be. He wears blinders, so he won’t see the reality within him (though, of course, those blinders don’t prevent him from seeing faults in others).

Join Us and Get These Perks:

✅ No Ads in Articles
✅ Access to Comments and Discussions
✅ Community Chats
✅ Full Article and Podcast Archive
✅ The Joy of Supporting Our Work 😉



Further, even if a hypocrite were to recognize that maybe he isn’t so spiritual after all, another aspect of his condition is that he won’t consider his shortfall something to be concerned about, something that needs to be dealt with. And he certainly isn’t going to respond positively if someone were to confront him about his complacency! Since he has no real relationship with God in Christ, he isn’t conscious of lacking that relationship.

Prophets like Nathan make a true believer change. But they merely reinforce the blindness of the hypocrite. With just one exception: if the sovereign Lord sees fit to grant the hypocrite repentance (Acts 5:31 and II Timothy 2:25).

Three Ways to Support DISNTR


The Dissenter is primarily supported by its readers. The best way to support us is to subscribe to our members-only Substack site where you will receive all of our content ad-free, plus you will get member-only exclusive content.

Support us with a monthly donation on Patreon

Support us with membership to our ad-free Substack

Make one-time or monthly donation on Donorbox


👕 Or make a purchase from our online store. 👕
Make a Dogecoin Donation

- Advertisement -

Latest

This is What Happens When a Charlatan is Your Spiritual Advisor

This is What Happens When a Charlatan is Your Spiritual Advisor

Over Easter—of all times—spiritual charlatan, Paula White, stood in front of cameras and compared Donald Trump to Christ. Not subtly. Not loosely. Directly. She took the betrayal, the suffering, the cost, the language that belongs to the cross alone—and laid it at the...

That Moment When Paula “Jezebel” White Compared Trump to Christ

That Moment When Paula “Jezebel” White Compared Trump to Christ

I thought I had heard it all. I really did. Paula White has spent years building a reputation as one of the most brazen purveyors of prosperity nonsense in modern evangelicalism—name it, claim it, decree it, declare it, speak it into existence. The whole tired script....

How the Church Failed at Dismantling the Transgender Movement

How the Church Failed at Dismantling the Transgender Movement

For years now, the modern transgender movement hasn’t operated like a loose collection of ideas. It’s functioned like a system—predictable, coordinated, and disturbingly efficient. Not chaos. Not confusion. A process. A conveyor belt—the transgender conveyor belt—as...

- Advertisement -

Subscribe

Store

Follow Us

- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

You Might Also Like…

This is What Happens When a Charlatan is Your Spiritual Advisor

This is What Happens When a Charlatan is Your Spiritual Advisor

Over Easter—of all times—spiritual charlatan, Paula White, stood in front of cameras and compared Donald Trump to Christ. Not subtly. Not loosely. Directly. She took the betrayal, the suffering, the cost, the language that belongs to the cross alone—and laid it at the...

How the Church Failed at Dismantling the Transgender Movement

How the Church Failed at Dismantling the Transgender Movement

For years now, the modern transgender movement hasn’t operated like a loose collection of ideas. It’s functioned like a system—predictable, coordinated, and disturbingly efficient. Not chaos. Not confusion. A process. A conveyor belt—the transgender conveyor belt—as...

In a World Unraveling, God Still Reigns.

In a World Unraveling, God Still Reigns.

I wake up, grab my coffee, thumb the screen—and it’s the same grim parade, again. A man guns down a pregnant woman at a red light—her husband beside her—an unborn child erased in the same breath, and the system shrugs it off under the banner of insanity. Not...

The Modern American Soft “Jesus” is an Idol

The Modern American Soft “Jesus” is an Idol

The modern American imagination is an idol factory, and it has manufactured a version of Jesus that never existed. In this version, Jesus is soft-spoken, endlessly agreeable, and almost allergic to confrontation. He floats through the Gospels like a spiritual...

- Advertisement -

Want to go ad-free with exclusive content? Subscribe today.
Already a subscriber? Click Here

This will close in 0 seconds

Three Ways to Support DISNTR



The Dissenter is primarily supported by its readers. The best way to support us is to subscribe to our members-only Substack site where you will receive all of our content ad-free, plus you will get member-only exclusive content.

 

Support us with a monthly donation on Patreon

Support us with membership to our ad-free Substack

Make one-time or monthly donation on Donorbox


👕 Or make a purchase from our online store. 👕

This will close in 0 seconds