God then lets the people have it regarding their own hypocrisy. They were playing church just as much as we see today. Getting dressed, saying the right things, looking as pious as the Pharisees but all for show. All for their own consumption and entertainment. Look at what the Lord is saying! I hate your feasts and take no delight in your solemn assemblies! Do not bother to hold Friday night prayer services if you beat the sheep the other six days of the week. The Assemblies of God is in the middle of their annual three week fast. For what? Do you think God cares that you deny yourself food when you spend the other 49 weeks of the year denying Him? When you support heretical works and teachings. When you are in bed with the likes of Bill Johnson, Roma Downey and Donald Trump? Do not bother with the ritual! Do not bother with the grain and burnt offerings! I will not even look upon your peace offerings and fattened animals! Take away from me your noisy songs! Do not pretend to worship me in song if you are not with your lives!
Instead beloved, we are to do the right thing and live the right way. Doing the right thing is encapsulated with the notion of justice rolling down like waters. Living the right way is represented with the notion of righteousness as an ever-flowing stream. This brings to mind the charges Jesus makes to the Pharisees who would make a lengthy show of prayer and yet devour the homes of widows. The church is just as guilty today. Everything is about the show and about the brand. In a narcissistic culture, the church leads to way in projecting and protecting its image at all costs. It knows the right thing to say and the right time to say it. The church, like Israel before it, knows how to look the part. Praying for the end of the world however, does not make us look pious. It makes us look selfish. It does not make us look holy -- it makes us look foolish.