Here's a fair warning: If your sense of irony has been disconnected, you will not appreciate what follows below:

Have you ever heard someone make the comment: "I don't go to church because there are too many hypocrites there"? I imagine we all have, usually right after we have asked them if they would come to the worship with us. Perhaps we've even used this excuse ourselves, for it is a dandy and nearly always cuts off any further suggestions that a visit to church might be good for a certain someone.

So, let's look at the argument, "I would go to church, except for the hypocrites". Perhaps we have been too hard on such souls for, in reality, these people must be absolute paragons of virtue. After all, if they are willing to risk their eternal soul in order to stand on principle, they should be worthy of praise not scorn. We know they are risking their souls because we are commanded to not forsake the assembly and that those who do are subjecting themselves to a severe punishment (Hebrews 10:25-29).

Here are some questions you may have wondered about concerning these spiritual giants who would not soil their feet by going into an assembly of hypocrites. Where do they shop for groceries? Where do they get gas for their automobiles? Where do they work? Where do their children go to school? The list is endless, but you get the point: Those who possess the lofty standard of "no association with hypocrites" would certainly not violate that standard by associating with hypocrites for such insignificant things as food, transportation, employment or education.

So we must assume that these heroic men and women who are putting their eternities at risk must live alone. They raise their own food, make their own clothes from items only foraged off of the land, and they travel only on foot in places that have no roads (after all, those roads may have been built by hypocrites). Of course they can never marry, for what if the person turned out to be a hypocrite? Or worse, what if their children grew up to be hypocrites? I think you will agree that these chances could not be taken.

Yes, once viewed in the correct light, I believe that we can all agree that these incredible people who would not go to worship, who would refrain from singing songs of praise with fellow Christians, who would avoid offering prayers with others to their holy Father, and who would under no circumstances ever partake of the communion (by the very definition of the word) must be worthy of praise.

Or maybe, just maybe, they are hypocrites themselves...

The fact is that we all struggle with hypocrisy in our lives, so we should take extra care whenever we are too quick to judge others. Of course hypocrisy is a sin, and of course we must repent of it whenever we become aware in it in our own lives. But, if we should ever become so bold as to refuse to obey God's directives concerning worship with the church for an excuse so lame, we should be ashamed. Jesus put it a whole lot better, and with a lot fewer words:  

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?. Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

Matthew 7:1-5, NKJV

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