The Pharisees
I might not know too much about the Pharisees but I do know that they were religious people. They looked at themselves as those who were vested with the responsibility of leading others in the way of God and showing them what God wants and likes. They thought of themselves as the custodian of the laws and precepts of God.
To the Pharisees, they were the most qualified to talk about God and to handle the issues of God. They disdain others when it come to doing the things of God. The Pharisees were the religious sects.
Religiosity
Religiosity makes people become outward worshippers of God and superficial in their approach towards God. God desires true worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.
John 4:23 (KJV) But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
The Pharisees being religious people believed that they will get God’s approval by their religious practices. That wasn't the case. God needs a relationship with His people other than just religious practices.
Hypocrisy
God hates hypocrisy. A hypocrite is someone with an untrue identity. It is someone who shows off what he is not in a real sense. Jesus Christ warned us about being hypocrites.
Let us evaluate Jesus' assessment of the Pharisees in Matthew 23. It is important because I don't want to be an hypocrites so it is right if I consider why Jesus compared the Pharisees to hypocrites.
Matthew 23:13-17, 19-33 (KJV) But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,