We don’t like hypocrites. We talk about them, use the name to label them, and try to stay as far away from them as we can. If you want to start a fight, call someone a hypocrite.

The Greek term from which we get hypocrite is “hupokrites,” which means “one who answers.” It then became to be associated with dialogue on a stage (remember, the Ancient Greeks were the ones who gave us theatre and the performance of plays). Slowly, being associated with dialogue on a stage, it came to mean the actor. Now, it has taken on the bad connotation we understand it has today — a pretender, one who puts on a face, one who wears a mask, who covers his true feelings, one who puts on an external show while covering his true feelings.

Young people, particularly, pick up on hypocrisy quicker than most of us do, and they don’t like someone who “play acts” around them. Many times they blame those of us who are older for being hypocritical, and many times, unfortunately, they are so right.

Jesus’ most scathing denunciations ever found were against the hypocritical religious leaders of His day. One can just read the first few verses of Matthew 23 to see how Jesus felt about hypocrisy, and this should be a lesson to us! We should never be hypocritical in our daily Christian lives, nor in our worship to the God who knows our hearts better than we ourselves.

In our behavior, in our speech, in our actions, and in our singing we need to make sure that we are not hypocritical.

For example, do we really mean what we sing when we sing “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and only give three minutes a day to it?

Can we sing “Blest be the Tie That Binds” and let the least little offense sever it?

Can we sing “I Love to Tell the Story” and never mention Christ, the gospel and his church to others?

Can we sing “Give Me the Bible” and never read it?

Can we sing “A Common Love” and hate the brother next to us?

Can we sing “Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God” and then allow any and everything to come in our way to our service to our Lord?

Can we sing “How Great Thou Art” and then go and live our lives thinking how great we are? How great man is; how great our technology is; how great our military might is?

Over the last few weeks we have looked at singing, and have hopefully said many things that will help us think. But brethren, above everything else, we need to remember that we teach and admonish one another in our psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Are we practicing what we sing, or are we being hypocritical? Think about it!