I love this consideration from Brooks. The bold texts below are great quotes that made me re-read. Here Brooks shows us how private prayer helps us grow out of hypocrisy. Sure in one aspect or another all of us are still growing out of hypocrisy. Pride and selfishness are instigators of this sin from within and they are relentless. Our goal is to grow out of all forms of hypocrisy and be real before everyone, all of the time, even to ourselves. As followers of Christ we labor in the working out of the sanctification that the Holy Spirit has worked in. Brooks shows us how the devotion of private prayer helps us grow out of hypocrisy.
Consider that the ordinary exercising of yourselves in secret prayer, is that which will distinguish you from hypocrites, who do all they do to be seen of men (They say of the nightingale, that when she is solitary in the woods, she is careless of her notes, but composes herself more quaintly and elegantly, if she conceives there be any auditors, or if she be near houses. Just so it is with hypocrites in religious duties.):
Matthew 6:5 (NKJV) — “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concernments.
Thus you see that these hypocrites look more at men than at God in all their duties. When they give alms, the trumpet must sound; when they pray, it must be in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets; and when they fasted, they disfigured their faces that they might appear unto men to fast. Hypocrites live upon the praises and applauses of men. Naturalists report of the Chelydonian stone, that it will retain its virtue no longer than it is enclosed in gold. So hypocrites will keep up their duties no longer than they are fed, and encouraged, and enclosed with the golden praises and applauses of men. Hypocrites are like blazing stars, which, so long as they are fed with vapours, shine as if they were fixed stars; but let the vapours dry up, and presently they vanish and disappear.
Closet duty speaks out most sincerity. He prays with a witness that prays without a witness.The more sincere the soul is, the more in closet duty the soul will be, Job 31:33. Where do you read in all the Scripture, that Pharaoh, or Saul, or Judas, or Demas, or Simon Magus, or the scribes and pharisees, did ever use to pour out their souls before the Lord in secret? Secret prayer is not the hypocrite’s ordinary walk, his ordinary work or trade. There is great cause to fear that his heart was never right with God, whose whole devotion is spent among men, or among many; or else our Saviour, in drawing the hypocrite’s picture, would never have made this to be the very cast of his countenance, as he doth in Mat. 6:5.
It is very observable, that Christ commands his disciples, that they should not be as the hypocrites. It is one thing to be hypocrites, and it is another thing to be as the hypocrites. Christ would not have his people to look like hypocrites, nor to be like hypocrites. It is only sincerity that will enable a man to make a trade of private prayer. In praying with many, there are many things that may bribe and provoke a carnal heart, as pride, vain-glory, love of applause, or to get a name. A hypocrite, in all his duties, trades more for a good name than for a good life, for a good report than for a good conscience; like fiddlers, that are more careful in tuning their instruments, than in composing their lives. But in private prayer there is no such trade to be driven.
The exercise of private prayer–private devotions made of prayer and Scripture meditation, is an exercise and training in humility and sincerity. These two virtues are fed and strengthened, and thus built up within as we pursue closet time with the One who made our hearts, sees our hearts, and welcomes our hearts. It is because of Jesus Christ that we are free to be free, that is, to be real among and before both God and man.
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Brooks, T. (1866). The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. (A. B. Grosart, Ed.) (Vol. 2, p. 172). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert.
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