Arguments often produce heat but little light. Instead of wishing to help and to guide, the desire to gain a victory over the one you are differing with becomes the supreme purpose of the discussion. Consequently, what your opponent says is misrepresented and twisted in order to gain the upper hand. This is even the case in religious controversies as well. How wicked are our hearts!
Believing Job to be a false professor of true religion, his friends are pressing advice upon him that is very suitable to such.
There is nothing that promotes hypocrisy like religion. True religion, is by nature, a work of God whereby a person is changed from a creature of sin into a practicer of holiness. It is a change involving the yielding of our being to God and a turning of the back upon the instincts and appetites of our fallen nature. It involves a denying of those desires for the rest of our lives. The words of Christ serve to illustrate the radical change and the spirit of self-denial that lies at the heart of true religion. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it, Matthew 10:37-39.
It is because of the character of true religion, we are tempted to seek the best of both worlds and keep our sins and pretend that we follow Christ. Here is a warning to those who may engaged upon such a course of action. Bildad takes us to the outdoors for a lesson and points to the rush and says, “There is your hypocrite”. The rush has characteristics which are suggestive of hypocrisy.
I. IT IS ROOTED IN UNCLEANNESS
Mire = swamp. Hypocrisy is a plant that will not grow in that soil spoken of in the parable of the Sower, Luke 8:15. It grows only in the unclean soil of forgetting God, verse 13. It must have water also. The Hebrew word for rush comes from another word that is translated swallow. Both these facts are suggestive.
1. Hypocrisy is rooted in decaying matter. The false hopes and views of former generations. The true Christian's hope is rooted in Christ, the Resurrection and the Life.
2. Hypocrisy must have a constant supply of water. It must be attended constantly. It cannot stand drought. In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength, Isaiah 30:15.
II. HYPOCRISY HAS THE APPEARANCE OF THE RUSH
1. The speed with which it grows. True conversation is sudden but true growth is often slow but steady. There are many lessons to learn and seasons of difficulty to be experienced. Trials, troubles, heart searching and doubts, temptations and convictions. Not with the hypocrite. It is the case of the house on the sand, Matt 7:26.
2. The hollowness of its structure. It has the appearance of substance but is empty-hearted. It is filled with pith, a sponge-like matter. It will break with the least strain. Fire consumes it is an instance. Is this your nature?
3. It is extremely pliable. See how it bends in the wind. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, Ephesians 4:14.
III. THE END OF HYPOCRISY
1. It is swift. While yet green it withers, verse 12. The hypocrite is ever bordering upon withering. At any moment all profession of religion may be cast aside. What comfort is there in this?
2. It withers even as it stands. Grass must be cut before it withers but not so the rush or flag. You cannot sustain your pretence. It is dying on you even now. Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense: and while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the LORD, from beside the incense altar, II Chronicles 26:19. The signs of spiritual death and withering are rising up even now.
3. It shall utterly vanish. That is what the word perish means. The hope and profession of the hypocrite will utterly vanish away. There will be nothing there to show it ever existed, Matt 7:21. No sign whatever of all their religion.