10 Bible Verses about Nominal Religion

Alas for you, Teachers of the Law and Pharisees, hypocrites that you are! You are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed look fair outside, while inside they are filled with dead men's bones and all kinds of filth. It is the same with you. Outwardly, and to others, you have the look of religious men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and sin.

Hypocrites! It was well said by Isaiah when he prophesied about you-- 'This is a people that honor me with their lips, While their hearts are far removed from me; But vainly do they worship me, For they teach but the precepts of men.'"

His answer was: "It was well said by Isaiah when he prophesied about you hypocrites in the words--'This is a people that honor me with their lips, While their hearts are far removed from me; But vainly do they worship me, For they teach but the precepts of men.'

They profess to know God, but by their actions they disown him. They are degraded and self-willed; and, as far as anything good is concerned, they are utterly worthless.

Beware of false Teachers--men who come to you in the guise of sheep, but at heart they are ravenous wolves. By the fruit of their lives you will know them. Do people gather grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So, too, every sound tree bears good fruit, while a worthless tree bears bad fruit.read more.
A sound tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a worthless tree bear good fruit. Every tree that fails to bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Hence it is by the fruit of their lives that you will know such men. Not every one who says to me 'Master! Master!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven. On 'That Day' many will say to me 'Master, Master, was not it in your name that we taught, and in your name that we drove out demons, and in your name that we did many miracles?' And then I shall say to them plainly 'I never knew you. Go from my presence, you who live in sin.'

I beg you, as I did when I was on my way into Macedonia, to remain at Ephesus; that you may instruct certain people there not to teach new and strange doctrines, nor to devote their attention to legends and interminable genealogies, which tend to give rise to argument rather than to further that divine plan which is revealed in the Faith. The object of all instruction is to call forth that love which comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a sincere faith.read more.
And it is because they have not aimed at these things that the attention of certain people has been diverted to unprofitable subjects. They want to be Teachers of the Law, and yet do not understand either the words they use, or the subjects on which they speak so confidently.

The man who says 'I know Jesus,' but does not lay his commands to heart, is a liar, and the Truth has no place in him;

Go and learn what this means--'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice'; for I did not come to call the religious, but the outcast."

And had you learned the meaning of the words--'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned those who are not guilty.

Be sure of this, that in the last days difficult times will come. Men will be selfish, mercenary, boastful, haughty, and blasphemous; disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, impure, incapable of affection, merciless, slanderous, wanting in self-control, brutal, careless of the right,read more.
treacherous, reckless, and puffed up with pride; they will love pleasure more than they love God; and while they retain the outward form of religion, they will not allow it to influence them. Turn your back on such men as these.