As I was reading from the devotional book, To Be Like Jesus, I read the following passages:
The unhappiness and degradation that follow in the train of licentiousness cannot be estimated. The world is defiled under its inhabitants. They have nearly filled up the measure of their iniquity; but that which will bring the heaviest retribution is the practice of iniquity under the cloak of godliness. The Redeemer of the world never spurned true repentance, however great the guilt; but He hurls burning denunciations against Pharisees and hypocrites. There is more hope for the open sinner than for this class. . . . {BLJ 363.3; emphasis added}
Oh, that men and women would consider what is to be gained by transgressing God’s law! Under any and every circumstance, transgression is a dishonor to God and a curse to humanity. We must regard it thus, however fair its guise, and by whomsoever committed.—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, pp. 144-146. {BLJ 363.6; empasis added}
The love of God will never lead to the belittling of sin; it will never cover or excuse an unconfessed wrong. Achan learned too late that God’s law, like its Author, is unchanging. It has to do with all our acts and thoughts and feelings. It follows us and reaches every secret spring of action. By indulgence in sin, men and women are led to lightly regard the law of God. Many conceal their transgressions from other people, and flatter themselves that God will not be strict to mark iniquity. {BLJ 364.2; emphasis added}
But His law is the great standard of right, and with it every act of life must be compared in that day when God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil. Purity of heart will lead to purity of life. All excuses for sin are vain. Who can plead for sinners when God testifies against them?—Signs of the Times, Apr. 21, 1881. {BLJ 364.3}
There are many professed Christians whose confessions of sin are similar to that of Achan. They will, in a general way, acknowledge their unworthiness, but they refuse to confess the sins whose guilt rests upon their conscience, and which have brought the frown of God upon His people. . . . {BLJ 364.4}
Genuine repentance springs from a sense of the offensive character of sin. These general confessions are not the fruit of true humiliation of soul before God. They leave sinners with a self-complacent spirit to go on as before, until the conscience becomes hardened, and warnings that once aroused them produce hardly a feeling of danger, and after a time their sinful course appears right. All too late their sins will find them out, in that day when they shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. There is a vast difference between admitting facts after they are proved, and confessing sins known only to ourselves and God.—Signs of the Times, May 5, 1881.
I found these passages to be profound and convicting. Too many years I ignorantly lived as a hypocrite thinking because I acknowledged God, attended church weekly, and gave tithe and offerings I was a Christian. But like the church people Paul addressed in 2 Timothy 3, I simply had a form of religion. Have you examined your own life? Has God revealed to you behaviours that are sin and can have no place in His kingdom and, yet, you continue to practice them? God, through the Holy Spirit, is trying to develop and reproduce the character of Jesus in His people. Why? Because while on this earth, people who radiate a true Christlike character draw people to Him. In the long term, these people are preparing for a life in the presence of Jesus, where there will not be and cannot be even a measure of sin.
I don't want to be a hypocrite, bringing reproach upon God, Jesus, and the Kingdom, and driving people away while unwittingly traveling the broad road to eternal destruction. Let us all purpose, in our hearts, to examine our lives, ask God to reveal what still needs to change, so we are not, even in ignorance, cloaking sin in false godliness.