Living without Mask

I grew up to believe the falsehood that masquerades were spirits of the forefathers who have to be veiled since they should not be seen with naked eyes. I heard them spoke with guttural voices which I was able to imitate after by the time I was 8. They harassed women and ladies in particular. They always held cane with which they could beat anyone they liked. They begged for money and did all manner of things that the men in mask would not do if unveiled. Some students would even go to the extent of beating teachers they had grudges with when under the mask as it was forbidden that anyone should remove the mask or beat the masquerade.

In a generation where the leaven of the Pharisees is regarded the daily bread, each of us have to do a lot of daily self-examination to avoid unpleasant surprises when the trumpet shall sound. It is my prayer that the enemy of your soul that pretends to be an angel of light would not prevent you from reading this article to the end in Jesus’ name.

Isa 33:15-16, we read of the one that would reign with God:

He who walks righteously and speaks what is right, who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against plots of murder and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil. . NIV

This is more or less a replica of Psa 15 which says:

1 LORD, WHO shall dwell [temporarily] in Your tabernacle? Who shall dwell [permanently] on Your holy hill? 2 He who walks and lives uprightly and blamelessly, who works rightness and justice and speaks and thinks the truth in his heart, 3 He who does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his friend, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor; 4 In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he who honors those who fear the Lord (who revere and worship Him); who swears to his own hurt and does not change; 5 [He who] does not put out his money for interest [to one of his own people] and who will not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved. AMP

To qualify to be where God wants all His children to be (temporarily and permanently), there are conditions to be fulfilled! From the verses above, there is a tiny but great gap between walking and speaking righteously and it is clear that the strip in-between is called hypocrisy. This same gap exists between speaking righteously and thinking righteously.
Walking and speaking are outward part which the cunning man can copy. Thinking is internal and cannot be seen. Pretext can exists when a man has a different thought from what he is saying out. He is like the proverbial man that spit out white saliva when blood is in the inside.

While it is easy to conclude that masquerades are sinners outside the church, this could be commencement of delusion. The reality is that every man / woman has the tendency to pretend when confronted with a challenge or an embarrassing situation. Pastors, you’d better be watchful. That “faithful” sister / brother may be wolf in sheep clothing. Church members, shine your eyes! Your pastor’s cassock may be a mask!

Let your heart not travel fast to think about the nearest hypocrite to you. It is not my aim to point to you the people to be careful of. The aim of this gospel is to provoke you to examine your heart. If you can only be bold enough to remove your mask before the One that knows you through and through, then you are ready for purity that precedes power! If this is not important, Jesus would not make it the first thing we are warned about in Luke 12:1.

In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. (KJV, emphasis mine)

“He began to be saying to His disciples first, Be constantly on your guard against the yeast which is of such a nature as to be in character the acting of a player on the stage assuming a role of that which he is not, the yeast of the Pharisees. (Wuest Expanded NT, emphasis mine).

When there is a gap between what we are thinking and what we are saying, there is the bread of hypocrisy, very opaque, blocking the eyes from seeing God! When what we say is not equal to what we do, simply put, we are phonies! If I sound insulting, please pardon me and read Rom 2:1-4.

Now if you feel inclined to set yourself up as a judge of those who sin, let me assure you, whoever you are, that you are in no position to do so. For at whatever point you condemn others you automatically condemn yourself, since you, the judge, commit the same sins. God’s judgment, we know, is utterly impartial in its action against such evil-doers. What makes you think that you who so readily judge the sins of others, can consider yourself beyond the judgment of God? Are you, perhaps, misinterpreting God’s generosity and patient mercy towards you as weakness on his part? Don’t you realise that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? J.B. Phillips Translation.

When we preach what we do and do what we preach, our message is backed up with power. Riotous people are followed by mobs that believe they would do whatever they say they would do even at the risk of the lives. However, if the general leading the battle is seen to be seeking a way of escape and planning to leave his men at the battle font, no soldier would respect him further.
Ministers that say “do what I say and not what I do” are more sincere (though sincerely wrong) than those that say one thing and do another. The former accepts that there are some areas where their followers should not copy them. They announce to the world that they are living a double standard life while the latter is a super pretender. He has progressed further in iniquity than the former. He wants to appear holier or godlier than he is.

Is it not a shame to watch men pretending to have the anointing they do not have? How are we going to describe a senior pastor that collects gratification in order to promote or post junior pastors to desired level or place?
Hypocrisy could be lying without speaking. It cannot stand without falsehood and since Jesus is the truth, we cannot reconcile Him with anything that is not true. That may explains why only those with pure hearts can ascend to His holy hills.
The heart of the hypocrite condemns him hence he is hardly at peace even within him.

1 John 3:20 says: For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.

Unless we frequently x-ray our hearts with the word of God, we would not know how fast and far we might go in self-deceit which precedes a deceptive life. For example, if we are in doubt and we act as if we are operating in faith, that is deception!
We may think we are encouraging others to give but making a vow that you have no ability to fulfil is falsehood! We need to be careful of all these pledging by faith. Why announce you would donate NGN1m when you don’t even have 10% of that and you are banking on a contract that you are yet to get? Is it so that men would clap for you? When you are esteemed because of a pretentious lifestyle, you’ve got to realise that this is very temporary!
Inability to align our thoughts with our speech and action is a singular reason why the church is coming under fire in our days and of course, it has a negative effect on soul winning. When a congregation finds it difficult to trust their pastor with their money, how would they trust him with their souls? Once there is a doubt or a little dent on his integrity, offering will come down, tithe would diminish. What would you expect them to do when they realise that mission donations are never sent to missionaries but spent by the general overseer?

I have wondered why many don’t fall and die for lying just like Ananias and Saphiras in Acts 5 in our days? I guess it is because many of the time, they are the ones occupying the position Peter occupied! They know God so much that they would repent ahead of the sin they intend to commit. They overstretched the grace of God and until the elastic cuts, we may not know.
Is it not hypocrisy that would make a man of God to declare fasting for everyone and he would not fast? If the preacher asks that we pray for at least 30 minutes in a day and he does not pray up to that, who is he? If you can’t call him a sinner, I won’t call him a saint! What title befits a believer that says “I love you” to his / her spouse but still nurses romantic feelings towards others? What has the cross done in such lives?

What makes men eat the bread of hypocrisy like the Pharisees? It has to do with three things:

• Unbridled appetite for food.
• Uncontrolled appetite for sex and
• The ego factor

How was Eve deceived? It was the food factor. What of Adam that God divine instruction? Food! What made Esau to lose his birth-right? Food. What caused a major misunderstanding in the early church which led to the selection of 7 deacons? Food. Php 3:19 clearly states it that some people’s God is their belly. Even during Holy Communion, some would want to rush.

1Co 6:13 says: Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them…

What of Sex? What brought the sons of God low in Gen 6:4? How did Reuben lose his position as first born? He slept with his father’s wife. Was a similar occurrence not found in the Corinthians church? What led to the fall of Samson the great warrior of Israel? What reduces a man to a mere piece of bread but drinking from a cistern that is not his own? What brought confusion into the life and home of the man after God’s heart, king David? His unholy affairs with Bathsheba which led to all manner of iniquity up to murder! The wisest king, Solomon, lost his prestige on this premise. We need not mention men of God in our generation that has brought lower than imaginable by hypocrisy of thinking they are strong enough to counsel ladies in obscure places.

Ego is the chief of all acts of hypocrisy. The desire to be seen as a hero would make a zero pretend. Ego reduces a hero to zero. A man of ego is too big to be corrected. He is above discipline. He is too anointed to be spoken to, too high to be advised, too close to God to be ministered to. Ego would make it difficult for a man of God to accept that he’s becoming glutton. He would not accept he is lustful even when aroused while laying hands on ladies. Ego would prevent him from seeking help and “all is well” would be his slogan rather than face the truth.

Beloved, you have to God and allow His words rule as king over your life. It is in the hearts that the word rules that God has dominion. Is there any benefit of removing and burning the mask of hypocrisy? Great one indeed!
Isa 33:16, 17
These are the ones who will dwell on high. The rocks of the mountains will be their fortress. Food will be supplied to them, and they will have water in abundance. 17 Your eyes will see the king in all his splendor, and you will see a land that stretches into the distance. NLT

For all of us named after God to be free from this sin, we should perhaps have a mirror wherein we paste the inscription “AM I AN HYPOCRITE”? If we check ourselves in the mirror every morning, perhaps we would live a better Christian life that glorifies God. If Joab had done that, he would not have killed Abner and incur a curse on his generation. 2Sa 3:26; 1Ki 2:5-6,32-34;
I won’t judge a masquerade an hero unless he can do whatever he does in the mask when he is without the veil! Living without pretending is the highest definition of wisdom. James 3:17 says:
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. KJV

I conclude with Luke 12:2 as rendered by Wuest Expanded New Testatment
Moreover, there is not even one thing which has been completely covered up with the result that it is in a state of concealment which shall not be uncovered, and hidden which shall not be made known, because as many things as in the darkness you spoke, in the light shall be heard. And that which to the ear you spoke in the secret and well-guarded places, shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.