Matthew 21 18 and 19
This passage is a shocker! To anyone who reads the Bible, Jesus, son of God comes across as a meek, non-aggressive, unselfish person who would not be harsh to anyone, especially if they showed harshness to them. After all he said blessed are the meek. That same person who, when beaten, humiliated and crucified did not react and in fact prayed for the forgiveness of His torturers and murderers. Now how is it that such a person curses a tree, simply because He was hungry and the tree had not produced fruit, though it had a foliage of leaves and seemed perfectly healthy? And curses it to the death?
Well for one thing we see a human side where He was hungry, got misled by the trees health into thinking He would be able to eat some fruit, and got angry or maybe frustrated when He could not. On the spiritual side we see an inverted miracle.
We see precisely, the stakes not only of failing to produce fruit, but of giving a fruitful impression and failing to back it up, popularly called "hypocritical".
Thus, it is with us: as followers if we do not produce the expected fruit, but only a show of it, we will bear the outcome of such a hypocrisy just as the scribes did.
Jesus condemns hypocrites (as He did the tree). Read Matthew chapter 33 to understand the damning result of being a hypocrite. All in all, it's a very serious offence:
Hypocrisy deceives the hypocrite, damages unbelievers, and dishonors God. The Biblical yardstick is to judge others, not the hypocrite himself. While we are all guilty of this at times, one must recognize it's seriousness as a fault and consciously overcome it as a weakness to be overcome.
“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Luke 12:1
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