Sermonette: Infected?

Overcoming the Leavening of Hypocrisy
#1697s
Bill Onisick
Given 11-Mar-23; 18 minutes

description: The deadly Zombie-ant fungus (cordyceps—a parasitic fungus that infects ants altering their behavior before killing them) provides a vivid, graphic parallel to Satan's prideful and hypocritical spirit, a parasite-like substance, which, if not eradicated, leads to spiritual death to those infected. Christ alternately identified Satan's prideful hypocrisy as the leaven of the pharisees (Matthew 16:6-12, Mark 8:15, and Luke 12:1), a tendency to hypocritically overvalue self and undervalue others, having the acuity to find a speck in another's eye while myopically missing the gigantic beam in one's own eye (Luke 6:41-42). Jesus warned His disciples, then and now, to cease pretending to be better than they are, focusing on the faults of others while whitewashing and justifying one's own. During this pre-Passover period of rigorous self-examination, we need to, using the power of God's Holy Spirit, penetrate the depths of the heart, eradicating Satan's spirit of hypocrisy, finding planks of sin, and bringing forth genuine fruit of repentance (Matthew 3:8).

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