Matthew 23:28, "... 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 3:4 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 1:16). 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 2:4). 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, broke