Hypocritical Righteousness

[Isa. 57:12] I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.
“I will expose publicly your (hypocritical) righteousness. I will show openly how vain your works, in having recourse to foreign alliances, shall prove.”
Never was a louder cry against the hypocrisy, nor a more cutting reproof of the wickedness, of a people professing a national established religion, having all the forms of godliness without a particle of its power. Politically speaking, was ever any thing more ill-advised?
A whole nation called to fast to implore G-d's blessing on wars carried on for the purposes of wrath and ambition. How can any nation pretend to fast or worship G-d at all, or dare to profess that they believe in the existence of such a Being, while they carry on the slave trade, and traffic in the souls, blood, and bodies, of men! O you most flagitious of knaves, and worst of hypocrites, cast off at once the mask of religion; and deepen not your endless perdition by professing the faith of our
L-rd Y’Shua HaMashiach, while ye continue in this traffic!
G-d sets forth the malice and disdain of the hypocrites, who grudge against Him, if their works are not accepted. He convinces the hypocrites by the second table and by their duty toward their neighbor, that they have neither faith nor religion. So long as you use contention and oppression, you’re fasting and prayers will not be heard.
When L-rd Y’Shua HaMashiach promised to send the Comforter He added, When He shall come He shall convince (John 16:7,8); for conviction must prepare for comfort, and must also separate between the precious and the vile, and mark out those to whom comfort does not belong.
When the prophet went about to show them their transgressions they pleaded that they could see no transgressions which they were guilty of; for they were diligent and constant in attending on G-d's worship--and what more would he have of them?
He owns the matter of fact to be true. As far as hypocrites do that which is good, they shall not be denied the praise of it; let them make their best of it. It is owned that they have a form of godliness.
1. They go to church, and observe their hours of prayer: They seek G-d daily; they are very constant in their devotions and never omit them nor suffer any thing to put them by.
2. They love to hear good preaching; They delight to know My ways, and the stony ground, that received the seed of the word with joy; it is to them as a lovely song, Ezekiel 33:32.
3. They seem to take great pleasure in the exercises of religion and to be in their element when they are at their devotions: They delight in approaching to G-d, not for His sake to whom they approach, but for the sake of some pleasing circumstance, the company, or the festival.
4. They are inquisitive concerning their duty and seem desirous only to know it, making no question but that then they should do it: They ask of Ne the ordinances of justice, the rules of piety in the worship of G-d, the rules of equity in their dealings with men, both which are ordinances of justice.
5. They appear to the eye of the world as if they made conscience of doing their duty: They are as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their G-d; others took them for such, and they themselves pretended to be such. Nothing lay open to view that was a contradiction to their profession, but they seemed to be such as they should be. Men may go a great way towards heaven and yet come short; nay, may go to hell with a good reputation.
The displeasure which these hypocrites conceived against G-d for not accepting the services which they themselves had a mighty opinion of, having gone about to put a cheat upon G-d by their external services, here they go about to pick a quarrel with G-d for not being pleased with their services, as if He had not done fairly or justly by them. How they boast of themselves, and magnify their own performances! They pretended to search for those sins which provoked God to threaten them with his judgments, the shows of religion, though they show ever so fair in the eye of the world, will not be accepted of G-d without the substance of it.
The heritage of believers that have developed a relationship with G-d, is what they shall not only be portioned with hereafter, but fed with now, fed with the hopes of it, and not flattered, fed with the earnests and foretastes of it; and those that are so fed have reason to say that they are well fed. In order that we may depend upon it, it is added, "The mouth of the L-rd has spoken it; you may take G-d's word for it, for He cannot lie nor deceive; what His mouth has spoken His hand will give, His hand will do, and not one iota or tittle of His good promise shall fall to the ground. Blessed, therefore, thrice blessed, is He that does this, and lays hold on it, that keeps the Sabbath from polluting it.
[Isa. 58:13] If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the L-RD, honorable; and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words:
To keep the Sabbath in an idle manner is the Sabbath of oxen and asses; to keep the Sabbath in joviality (pleasure, sports, etc) is the Sabbath of the golden calf; and to keep it in immorality, drunkenness, and licentiousness is the Sabbath of Satan, the devil's holiday.