The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 168

HOMILETICS. Vere, 1-11.-Thefirst hypocrisy, Hitherto all had been bright and beautiful in the new-born Church of God, Brotherly love, disinterested kindness to one another, heroic courage in the face of danger, unhesitating devotion to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, and an unflinching profession of faith in his Name, had been the common characteristics of the multitude of them that believed. The Church was as the garden of the Lord in the midst of the world's wilderness. It was a bright spring-tide, soon, alas! to be checked by the cold blasts of selfishness and the love of this world, The time of millennial blessedness was not yet come. Satan was not yet bound. On the contrary, he was unusually busy, with persecutions from without and temptations from within, in his endeavours to hurt and corrupt the children of the kingdom. Indeed, we may notice, as a universal feature in the economy of the kingdom of darkness, that every great step in advance of the kingdom of light is followed by some corresponding move- ment intended to defeat it, The sowing of the good seed is the signal for the sowing of the tares. The salvation of God is confronted with some counterfeit of Sata.n. The faith of God's elect was opposed, even in me first century, by subtle heresies of man's or Satan's devising. The glorious spread of the gospel in all lands had a counterplot in the extraordinary growth of the imposture of Mohammed. The great Reformation in the sixteenth century was hinuered by the hypocrisies aud fanaticism which sprang up by its side. And so it was now. The great, enemy of man could not look on the blessed- ness of the company of Christians without trying to mar it. He mnst have some portion even within the enclosure of Christ's Church. Even there all must not be guile- less truth, all must not be unselfish love. He must have some to do him service even though they call':ld Christ their Lord. But how could he find an entrance into those holy precincts, r1ow climb up into that heavenly fold? In human character the highest rank consists of those who love righteousness for its own sake,and with various degrees of success actually attain to it. There are those among them who attain the sublimest heights of virtue and godliness, and there are those who a.t the best, and amidst many stumblings and falls, are only struggling upwards. But they all belong to that highest class who really desire to do the will of God and to be conformed to his image. But there are others who do not belong to this class at all They, perhaps, admire virtue in others. But especially do they covet the praise and high esteem which virtue conciliates to itself. In a religious society they perceive that certain actions N"e praised of men and bring certain pleasurable consequences to the doers of them. 'l'hese fruits of goodness they desire to possess. But then they will not make the sacrifices, suffer the losses, endure the privations, which are inseparable from such actions. The double heart immediately casts about to find some method of obtaining the good without making the sacrifice. To be thought righteous, good, religious, not really to be so, becomes the aim and object. Fraud, deceit, lies, false pretences, are called in to help, and the hypoorite stands, kneels, gives alms, talks religionsly, by the side of God's true saints, till his hypocrisy is brought to light, and he stands revealed as a dissembler before uod and man. But mtianwhile, in the sight of the world, truu Jodliness is discredited by each fresh exposure of the hypocrite. The defamers of God's people are encouraged to say that there is no such thing as the pure !ove of .God and disinterested obedience to his will; and they argue that the most conSistent livers are only the best dissemblers. There are, doubtless, many other useful lessons to be learnt from the study of this first hypocrisy in the Church of God, . It is good to dwe~l ~pon this account of it, upon its detection, and upo~ its awful pumshment, b~ca.use 1t 1s only a type of countless other cases which have since happened, and a.re daily hap- lM 'l'HE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. [ CH, T, 1-42.