The Only Hope For Religious Hypocrites

The Only Hope for Religious Hypocrites

Amos prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel in days of outward prosperity but spiritual famine. He was sent right to the center of corruption, namely, the cult city of Bethel, where their first king, Jeroboam, had built high places of idol worship and set up his own priesthood and new holy days (1 Kings 12:25-33).

The Israelites were very religious—they sacrificed daily, tithed every three days, and gave thank offerings. But it was all a sham. They were using the name of God for their own religious purposes, while their hearts were far from him, made obvious by their oppression of the poor and needy.

Amos spoke for God into the emptiness of their religious hypocrisy:

I hate all your show and pretense—

the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.

I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.

I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.

Away with your noisy hymns of praise!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,

an endless river of righteous living. (Amos 5:21-24)

Many years after Amos, Jesus confronted this kind of hypocrisy in the Pharisees, who were also full of religious show and pretense, saying:

They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. Everything they do is for show. . . . You are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. . . . Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:4-5, 23, 28)

Jesus is the only hope for religious hypocrites. Only he can give us the courage to face the truth about ourselves and the grace we need to trust him under the weight of that truth. Only he can work an internal transformation so that we can walk in humility and integrity.

Jesus, you see right through my façade of spirituality into the apathy of my heart. Yet you don’t reject me for this hypocrisy; you welcome me into authentic relationship.