Reader, beware. Matthew chapter 23, verse 28. On the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness but denying its power. 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 4.

There is a solemn and searching truth that must be proclaimed with boldness and trembling. External religiousness, unattended by heart piety, has filled hell with inhabitants. Multitudes have gone to the grave cloaked in the garments of religion, yet are now perishing in eternal fire, because their religion was but a form, void of the power of godliness. They claimed to know God, but in works they denied him. Titus chapter 1, verse 16.

Their profession was showy, but their hearts were dead. The danger is not with open atheism, but with a dead orthodoxy that lacks inward piety. Reader, beware. Hell is filled with religious people.

The Spirit of God declares that the one who says, I know God, but does not do what he commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 1 John 2, verse 4 Such people may have been baptized and admired by men, yet they were never regenerated by the Spirit, and hence they never submitted to the lordship of Christ. They never came as helpless beggars to the cross, never mourned over their sin, never rejoiced in Christ alone as their righteousness. They knew about God, but they did not know Him. Their empty religion was the cause of their damnation.

Hell will be filled with religionists who tithed and fasted and attended church, but whose hearts loved sin. True piety begins in the heart. It is wrought by the Holy Spirit. rooted in saving union with Christ and evidenced by obedience. It is humble, broken, sincere. It does not parade itself, but it cannot be hidden.

The truly godly man does not merely confess Christ. He loves and walks with Christ. His religion is not a garment worn only on Sundays. It is the outflow of a new heart, a life crucified with Christ and raised to newness of life.

Let every professing Christian examine himself. Has grace truly regenerated and changed you? Have you been convicted of sin, stripped of self-righteousness, and cast wholly upon Christ? External religion may deceive men, but God tries the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4.13

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16.7