Isaiah 1:10-15. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me; saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of ram, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them; And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
It is very possible for people to be outwardly very religious, and yet really to be very wicked. The fact is, that the multiplication of rites and ceremonies, the observance of forms, and feasts, and fasts, and new moons, and all the rest of mere external ritual, - may rather indicate an increase of sin than an increase of anything else. Often, in proportion as men’s hearts get further and further away from God, they have more and more of outward ritual, more Roman rags on the priest’s back, more smoking intense, more gorgeous architecture; - more of all the externals of religion, the less they have of the internal and eternal. If a man is conscious that he needs something in the shape of godliness, and he knows that he has none of it in his heart, he often tries to get it outside; but this is what God says: -
Isaiah 1:10-15. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me; saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of ram, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them; And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
It is very possible for people to be outwardly very religious, and yet really to be very wicked. The fact is, that the multiplication of rites and ceremonies, the observance of forms, and feasts, and fasts, and new moons, and all the rest of mere external ritual, - may rather indicate an increase of sin than an increase of anything else. Often, in proportion as men’s hearts get further and further away from God, they have more and more of outward ritual, more Roman rags on the priest’s back, more smoking intense, more gorgeous architecture; - more of all the externals of religion, the less they have of the internal and eternal. If a man is conscious that he needs something in the shape of godliness, and he knows that he has none of it in his heart, he often tries to get it outside; but this is what God says: -