What an Indictment

Whitewash?

Matthew 23:27 KJV “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.”

What a damning indictment Jesus sometimes delivers to people. Yet, somehow, we all know a hypocrite or a ‘whitewashed sepulchre’ don’t we. Maybe, just maybe, you are one yourself. Maybe the Lord regards me as one. I do hope not because it’s a serious charge to answer – as answer we all will come the day of judgement. Personally, I don’t want to stand before God to answer that charge. I daresay my charge sheet is already weighty enough without that being added.

I can already hear many of you saying, “Oh yes – that’s So-and-so”, or “Yup – that’s this person or that person”. Yet despite Jesus calling them ‘Hypocrites’, and ‘Whitewashed sepulchres’, and on another occasion, a ‘brood of vipers’, do you not think that He loved them – even them – as well. If so, then why is it that we cannot extend the same love and mercy even to our own hypocrites, whitewashed sepulchres, and broods of vipers? As Jesus said to those who would stone the adulterous woman to death, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

If your own personal Pharisee, or tormentor, does not respond to a loving and friendly approach, then don’t condemn them. Rather forgive them and tell them you forgive them – whatever their reaction – and if they continue in their ways, then move on without them. If they are in a position of authority over you, then it may be time to consider moving to another, perhaps more loving church.

I am not saying to ‘whitewash’ over everything. If there is sin then expose it to the person first then escalate it or pray that God reveals it in His own way. If there is law breaking then you MUST expose it, otherwise, in the eyes of the law, you are just as guilty and you are punishable too. The church has for too long tried to sweep certain matters under the carpet and that practice has to stop otherwise the church is as guilty as the person concerned. However, all this detracts from what I am leading up to and that is that if Jesus would forgive the hypocrites, the pharisaic people, and those who bully and abuse, then so must we. If we cannot do anything about them then it is time to move on.

Jesus taught us to hate the sin but to love the sinner and this is something the church in general really needs to embrace instead of taking a hard-line, legalistic attitude to extremes of condemnation, shunning, and banishment. Rather than shaking a Bible in their face and announcing to the whole congregation that this person is ‘going to hell’, as happened to someone I know, rather the church needs to see how they can forgive the person and help them turn things around in their life.

It’s exactly what Jesus was always doing – and so should we. Minister in mercy not in judgement even though judgement may be deserved.