I hate, I despise your feast days and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer Me burnt-offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. Amos 5:21-24
"Unbelieving Israel, not having the righteousness which is of faith, and so not appreciating the great sacrifice that the Heavenly Father has made,
---sought righteousness by virtue of the offering itself
---and because of the merit of presenting the offering.
Thus was perverted every form of service and everything which God had appointed to be the means of expression to a living faith and which could not have any real meaning except by the living presence and power of Christ Himself in the life.
What could possibly more fittingly describe a dead formalism than does this?
---The giving themselves great credit for what they themselves had done
---and counting themselves better than all other people upon the merit of what they had done--this were at once to land men fully in the complete self-righteousness of Pharisaism."
A.T.Jones