10 Bible Verses about Nominal Religion

Alas for you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you are like white-washed tombs! They look well on the outside, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead, and all that is unclean. So you outwardly appear to men to be upright, but within you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied finely about you when he said, " 'This people honor me with their lips, Yet their hearts are far away from me. But their worship of me is all in vain, For the lessons they teach are but human precepts.' "

But he said to them, "It was about you hypocrites that Isaiah prophesied so finely, in the words, " 'This people honor me with their lips, Yet their hearts are far away from me. But their worship of me is all in vain, For the lessons they teach are but human precepts.'

They profess to know God, but they disown him by what they do; they are detestable, disobedient men, worthless for any good purpose.

"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you disguised as sheep but are ravenous wolves underneath. You can tell them by their fruit. Do people pick grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles? Just so any sound tree bears good fruit, but a poor tree bears bad fruit.read more.
No sound tree can bear bad fruit, and no poor tree can bear good fruit. Any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and burned. So you can tell them by their fruit. It is not everyone who says to me 'Lord! Lord!' who will get into the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that Day, 'Lord! Lord! Was it not in your name that we prophesied, and by your name that we drove out demons, and by your name that we did many mighty acts?' Then I will say to them plainly, 'I never knew you! Go away from me, you who do wrong!'

As I asked you to do when I was on my way to Macedonia, stay on in Ephesus in order to warn certain people there not to teach strange views nor to devote themselves to fictions and interminable pedigrees; such things lead to controversy instead of the divine system which operates through faith. The aim of your instruction must be love that springs from a pure heart and from a good conscience and from a sincere faith.read more.
Some people have failed in these things and been diverted into fruitless talk. They would like to be teachers of law although they do not understand the words they use or the matters they insist upon.

Whoever says, "I know him," but does not obey his commands, is a liar, and there is no truth in his heart;

You must go and learn what the saying means, 'It is mercy, not sacrifice, that I care for.' I did not come to invite the pious but the irreligious."

But if you knew what the saying means, 'It is mercy, not sacrifice, that I care for,' you would not have condemned men who are not guilty.

Understand this, that in the last days there are going to be hard times. People will be selfish, avaricious, boastful, arrogant, abusive, undutiful, ungrateful, irreverent, unfeeling, irreconcilable, slanderous, with no self-control, brutal, with no love for what is good,read more.
treacherous, reckless, conceited, caring more for pleasure than for God, keeping up the forms of religion, but resisting its influence. Avoid such people.