Related to this is the issue of the loud condemnation of others, the implied self-justification in that. I have been in churches all of my life and for most Christians I know condemnation is reserved primarily for our own failings, rather than for those who are not Christians. When people loudly judge others, Christian teaching is that they are opening themselves up to harsher judgment themselves, which is the position that many of the people mentioned above fell into. It should, however, be also observed some people who speak most vehemently against certain sins are quite often haranguing themselves as much as they are others (the trained eye and ear can often tell the difference; such self-condemnation will lack the stridency and implicit self-righteousness that other forms of judgmental speech manifest). They are publicly airing their despising of their own vices in order to condemn their private sins. Miserable as such a position is, it is not morally bankrupt in the way that hypocrisy proper is.

The lie of hypocrisy is a subtle one, a lie about the relationship between our personal life and values and our publicly espoused values. The self-condemning moral failure is not a hypocrite, as he maintains the connection between these public values and his personal life and values. The true hypocrite is the one who disconnects the two and uses the former as a mask for the latter.

Hypocrisy isn’t all bad and the refusal to publicly uphold any values that we might personally fail to live up to is far worse than failing to live up to the standards that we preach (appealing though it is to a culture in which we pride ourselves on ‘authenticity’ and ‘being ourselves’). It has been remarked that hypocrisy is the honour that vice pays to virtue. Virtue doesn’t cease to be virtue because vice has paid it this tribute.

It is only proven time and again that any living person is not exempted from committing a sin – not even the religious persons. In fact, they are the principal target of the devil since their fall could make a great impact on us the believers of God, to loss our faith in religion, and maybe our faith in God.

God speaks in everyone of us, through our conscience. We all know what is rightfull and what is not – and what it takes to be a Christian.

For sure, before everyone had rendered a judgement to our sins, we have been the first ones to do so while we are committing sins.

But of course, no one can tell what
really is God’s judgement about ours sins…All we can hope for is that they will be forgiven once we will repent and not to repeat them again – which is in fact, a lifetime struggle for everyone. We will only know about it once we come face to face with our creator during the FINAL JUDGEMENT.

By looking back at the fall of others, we have to learn the lessons and read God’s message to us – don’t forget, He was warning us against FALSE PROPHETS too.

We can always serve God without giving our money to these false prophets! We have to be vigilant everytime we join any religious group, especially when it involves money already.

Despite all of these, let’s continue to have faith in God, Hope that He will always guide us, Love our neighbors as what Jesus said, but also, USE OUR BRAIN, especially when it comes to joining any RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION because not only our money is at stake but our SOUL and SALVATION as well.

Michael Keaton played a fake evangelist on an episode of Frazer. When I saw Joel Osteen (on tv) I knew exactly who Keaton had based the character on.(haha)