WHEN CHURCH BECOMES AN EMPTY RITUAL

—Charles Simeon

“In our church services, we go through all the external bodily motions, but as to the prostration of the soul, we are, for the most part, oblivious and unconcerned. We think that we have done our duty to God if we have gone through the appointed external rituals, though our heart has not accorded with the body in any part of the service. In truth, our services have been hypocritical throughout. Had a stranger come into one of our church services, and overheard our glowing praises, and our solemn confessions, petitions, and thanksgivings, he would have supposed that we were the most humble, spiritual, and devout people in the universe! But had he been privy to the real state of our hearts, then how little would he have seen: of earnest ardor in our praises, or of honest humiliation in our confessions, or of sincere fervor in our petitions, or of genuine gratitude in our thanksgivings!

He would see that the state of our hearts indicated that we felt nothing and meant nothing at the very time that we professed to mean so much and feel so much! For the most part, he would have seen that the whole of our service was only a solemn mockery; that instead of being genuine worshipers of our majestic and holy God, for the most part, we were but insincere hypocrites! Let me ask, in the name of God Himself: What reason you can have to think that God would accept such services as these? If, indeed, God were like ourselves, and could see only the outward appearance, then we might hope that, being deceived by us, He would be pleased with us. But when we bear in mind that the omniscient God knows our every secret thought, our every secret desire, our every secret motive, and that He perfectly searches our hearts and knows our thoughts, then we must be sure that our very services are an abomination in His sight! “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me! They worship Me in vain” (Mark 7:6-7).”