“No minister (pastor) is worthy of his calling.  Every preacher is vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy. In fact, the more faithful a preacher is to the Word of God in his preaching,  the more liable he is to the charge of hypocrisy. Why? Because the more faithful a man is to the Word of God, the higher the message is that he will preach. The higher the message, the further he will be from obeying it himself.

I cringe inside when I speak in churches about the holiness of God. I can anticipate the response of the people. They leave the sanctuary convinced that they have just been in the presence of a holy man. Because they hear me preach about holiness, they assume I must be as holy as the message I preach. That’s when I want to cry, “Woe is me.”

It’s dangerous to assume that because a person is drawn to holiness in his study that he is thereby a holy man. There is irony here. I am sure that the reason I have deep hunger to learn of the holiness of God is precisely because I am not holy. I am a profane man – a man who spends more time out of the temple than in it. But I have had just enough  of a taste of the majesty of God to want more. I know what it means to be a forgiven man and what it means to be sent on a mission. My soul cries for more. My soul needs more.”

Taken from “The Holiness of God”   by R.C. Sproul