Suddenly we were talking about the Sabbath, or polluting the Sabbath. We were talking about the same thing this afternoon, defiling the Sabbath from Isaiah 56 chapter 2, 6-11. Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who takes hold of it, who keeps the Sabbath without profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Now sometimes I think of the King James have polluting it. Do not let the father who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will most certainly separate me from his people. And do not let the eunuch say, look, I'm a dry tree. This is what the Lord says to the eunuch who keeps my sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold firmly to my covenant. To them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give an everlasting name which will not be cut off. Also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to minister to him and to love the name of the Lord, to be his service, everyone who keeps the Sabbath without profaning it and holds fast to my covenant, that's by conscientious obedience. All these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. For my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God who gathers to disperse the vision of the prayers, I will gather yet others to them, to those already gathered. So this is a bringing together of all people, Jesus being a light to the whole world, to any and all nationalities, to all people. He talks here of those that pollute, defile, profane his Sabbath. Pollution, we know and hear about air pollution, water pollution. And with pollution over a gradual period of time, some water streams or water sources seem to be undrinkable. I'm hearing about the salt water intrusion at the Gulf down in New Orleans. with the water level the way it is and the tide flow of this water from the Gulf of Mexico that they may have an intrusion of salt water into the drinking water. There are certain things that pollute, polluting, pollution of the air. We have a lot of air pollution or whatever. Pollution can happen over a gradual period of time. Also, defiling can happen over a period of time. These words are synonyms but used in different ways religiously and in a spiritual sense. Whereas the word profane means to take something that is sacred, something consecrated unto God and put it to common use, make it common. We have people today that's taken the Sabbath saying the Sabbath is done away with and saying that we're no longer the law and the ceremonial aspects of the law and saying that Sunday is. But if I try to put this about Sunday being the Sabbath and profaning the Sabbath, what happens is Well, I'll try to pick up, I don't know where we were there, but the whole thing got turned off. But what does Jesus mean by defile? Under the old covenant, touching the unclean and defiled person of Leviticus 5 and 3. But Christ showed under the new covenant that it wasn't so, it wasn't just physical, but it was spiritual, he says. evil thoughts, murders, adulterous, fornication, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemy are what defile a person. So we see what a man is thinking is what actually defiles him. That's why we have to consider the thoughts that we have when we use the bringing every thought into the captivity and obedience of Jesus Christ having that Sabbath day of rest and not the infusion of work and everything around us, God kind of allows us to be isolated on the Sabbath. You don't have to necessarily belong to a monastery or anything, but if you rest, if you cease from your works, not working and not but you minding the things of God, you can more or less It's a day of preparation, getting ready for the Kingdom of God. It's a day of thinking about the things of God. So on that day, you use those thoughts in praying, studying the Word of God, everything that's dedicated to God. Not necessarily that you can't, that you're not working or doing anything, because we've seen that when Jesus brought the understanding to the Sabbath, that He healed the paralytic. He did certain healings on the Sabbath day, and the Pharisees wanted to stone him for those things. But he was showing that, he says, my father worked, and I do work also. So in this spiritual Sabbath of Christ, we can continue to do good, because that's what we were created for, is good works. So it's a lot of times I help people, I do different things on the Sabbath, but it's things of a necessity, so my children are grown now, whatever, but I tell them, you know, don't ask me to do anything unless it's extremely necessary, you know, it's an act that God would approve me doing or whatever, but just so for your monetary gain or something that's not dire straits or something that the Spirit would lead me to help you or whatever, but if you just decide that it's an off day for you and this is a day that you can choose to do these things in or whatever. Well, no, because what you're asking me to do is join you in violating the Sabbath to accomplish your own works, your own pleasures or whatever. And I was saying that I have to be careful of myself Because on the Sabbath day, on the day today, in this time, football and things comes on on Saturdays or whatever. A lot of people would go, well, that's my rest day. I'm going to sit around and watch the football games and things. Well, that's taking your own pleasure. That would be partaking of your own pleasure and not for God. You would be sitting there eating and interrogating by yourself or however you do it. But it violates Isaiah 58 and 13. It says when you give yourself to your own pleasure. So that's not a day to go bicycling, or golfing, or any of the other things. A lot of people that keep the Sabbath day, they say, well, I can take that day, and we'll go to church that morning, and then that afternoon, I'll play golf, or I'll sit back and watch TV, or these other things. No. And one thing, I'm not a legalist on that perspective, whereas the Pharisees would tell you what you can and couldn't do on the Sabbath. And I tell people, be led by the Spirit of the Lord. A lot of times when we leave here on charities or whatever, I say, well, what you got going this evening, Deacon? What you up to or whatever? Because if you look at the Bible, there's no list of do's and don'ts of what you can and can't do on a Saturday. I mean on the Sabbath day, but it says don't do work of your own pleasure. It says delight yourself in the Lord. So is it a delight to you to visit the sick and the shut-in? To do good works, good deeds, or deeds that are godly deeds? There's a pastor friend of mine that helped me coming up or whatever and into the ministry and things and I was going to go visit him this weekend or whatever. I was going to call his wife and say, is this a good day to come visit or whatever? See, that's part of the godly duties of the saints of God. What can I do to help you or what can I do this in a godly manner? We go about taking communion. We do different things on the Sabbath day. that's ministering to the needs of those like he ministered to the paralytic. Well, he could have came back and healed him that next day, since this was a chronic condition. He had been in that condition for many a year. As the man that he told, take up your bed and walk. Well, he had been laying out there for many years. He'd been trying to get into that stream. Somebody would come before him. But that was an act of mercy. And that's why Jesus said, we have to take away the manners of the law. We are merciful. So if I'm driving along and somebody stalled out, the car broke down or whatever on the side of the road, I can't say, well, look, I'm going to have to come back and help you tomorrow or whatever. It's not legal for me to help you off the side of the road. It's not legal for me to help you this day. You would have to wait till tomorrow because I would be working on a Saturday. I mean, on my Sabbath day. So I'm not a legalist to that point, and there's a lot of times I have done things and I do things, but I try to limit it to me studying the Word of God, praying, and of doing good works that sets a light to God that's not of my pleasure. It's not a day of me, you have to eat. In other words, he told them to do the heavy cooking and the heavy lifting on the day, the day for that Sabbath to make it a special day, a day of preference, a deference. You could say, so I'm going to get all this heavy cooking and all this stuff out of the way so tomorrow all we have to do is warm this up. The wife said, well, look, all my food stuff is ready. All I got to do is heat it up tomorrow or do this. The biggest portion is taken care of. So the cooking, but I'm not saying that you would not cook something on the Sabbath or do these things of going out to dinner where somebody else has to work waiting on you or whatever. So for them violating the Sabbath, waiting on you or whatever, now we're going to get into a legalistic battle here. I don't know if this person is saved or not. The blessing goes to those that observe the Sabbath, but this person is not observing the Sabbath. And there's nothing wrong with me going out eating a meal or a dinner on the Sabbath day. So this person, he has to be judged by God for why is he serving this meal or doing what he's doing on the Sabbath day. So that's why when I told you the other week in the book of Roman about Judging and we judging others or it's a lot of people. Oh, you shouldn't work on Sunday. You shouldn't do all these things Well, who are you to judge? If you just you've been one of the Pharisees judging Jesus for what he was doing that day So we have to be careful with judgment. He says who are we to judge others and we do the same thing. I Now, it's not we all do exactly the same thing, we're doing different things, so we're all not boxed in the same way or whatever. So, the pollution of that day is bringing in a going against the principle in which God had set forth. Ezekiel 20, chapter 16, verse says, Because they despised my judgments and walked not in my statues, but polluted my sabbaths, for their heart went after their idols. So that's what I was saying in this salvation is near, God's salvation is near, and that he's talking to people that know the word of God. This man that you're trying to judge for working on this Sabbath, he may be a new Christian. He may not know the Lord. He may be a future convert to Christianity. So if you've witnessed to him or you need to witness to him, that's a whole different fact. But for you trying to get in an argument and trying to tell him about the Sabbath and keeping the Sabbath, he shouldn't be on his job working that day. Well, you will muffle that argument. You will create confusion there. He's not there to hear the word of God. He's there to do his job. But he says, these people despise my judgments. In other words, they take my judgments lightly. They are against this. It's people that look at his judgments and scoff at them, just like I was telling you about the Sabbath. Now, is it the Spirit of the Lord telling you and getting you to preach that these days have been done away with? Because he says, beware of being many masters or many teachers. You're going off some other preacher's teaching or whatever, and God hadn't convicted you of this, and it's the blind leading the blind. So you're fighting against the judgments of God, just like Paul. He was fighting against the saints. He was killing Christians. He was killing people for worshiping Jesus. So these was judgments until he had a clearer understanding of it. He says, and they walked not in my statues. Well, you know what God calls for. if you are you a Christian and that's the thing about denominationalism in religion they say religion is good all religions are good or whatever no not necessarily what does your religion teach you that's some of the worst things to be it's in some of these religions because you are under bad teaching and religion causes divisions it causes divisions and so by polluting his Sabbath you're bringing more darkness into your life and your heart is going after your idols and are you on the sufficient teaching of God now there's a length of time given for you to recuperate from this and God to show you this But it says, listen in the Amplified, because to know something and reject it is different. That's what the Book of Romans say. When they knew God, they worshipped Him, not of God, but rejected Him and worshipped the creation more than the creature. So when you knew God spoke of a holy day, a day of creation or whatever, instead of searching and seeking after Him, You went after the creation of idol worship, of man worship. You followed your spouse. You followed someone else or whatever, and not the plain teachings of God. That's where you have to give a town that says, with fear and trembling, work out your own salvation. You have to be led by the Spirit of the Lord. That's why I tell you that I don't tell people exactly. I preach the Word of God, and you have to be fully persuaded in your own mind. You have to pray to God, you have to seek God, you have to read and study His Word that you get that born-again experience and be born of the Word of God. That is, that seed of faith and that faith grows. Because when He gives you His righteousness, He justifies you and puts you in a right state then you can grow in the Lord and you're able to discern between good and evil because the Spirit of the Lord is working in you. So if you're a true follower of Christ, but he says, in the Amplified, he says, because these people rejected my ordinances, And as for my statutes, they did not walk in them. They even profaned my sabbaths, for their heart continually went after their worthless idols." In other words, your religion, or whatever you were following, caused you to be in a reprobate state, an apostate state. In other words, you apostatized. You left the uprightness in the gospel because Your repentance wasn't a true repentance. You wasn't fully converted. You followed the pleasures of your own heart. That's one thing about in churches that's not preaching a consistent Word of God, because sure you have love and good sermons, but sometimes the brimstone has to come. Sometime the heart preaching and teaching has to come because you have to die to self. But there are a lot of churches that are keeping self alive and you living for the pleasures of the flesh. These are seducing spirits that are against the ordinances of God. That's why in the latter end of this chapter he talks about the false prophets. Now, in this passage, God consistently uses a word translated in the King James as polluted, and in the New King James as profane. And I tell you, profane and polluted was a little bit different, but they're synonyms, but the way of progressing is a little bit different. Pollute means to defile. Polluted air, polluted water, or to some degree defile, stain, poison, or contaminate. I tell you, water can get so poisoned you can't drink from it. Or religion is the same. You remember I told you Jesus said some things are physical defilement by touching. But then some things are spiritual defilement, that which comes out of a man. So you can become bitter. You can have the works of the flesh. You can be obstinate. You can be rude. You can be hateful. You can have different types of spirits. That's what is defiling you. These are the things that causes the pollution of the flesh in a spiritual sense. It can imply desecrated, violated, or profane. Profane means to treat with irreverence and disrespect. So when the Bible tells you to love your brother, love those that despitefully use you and mistreat you or do all these things. If you're not following the teachings of God, there's a national Christianity that's in the nation today that's going about, that's teaching people to hate people. That treats people in hateful and disrespectful manner. And the word of God tells you to even love your enemy. So you have to, you can't love God and hate your brother. So there are so many divisive Christians or whatever because these spirits, it's not a spirit of God, that's when God fights against the church because you are allowing yourself to be polluted. The pollution is the poison of asps, the poisons of serpents that are in the tongues of the false prophets. They're polluting you. They're poisoning you with leaven. He says, beware the leaven of the Pharisees. This is sin. This is teaching. This is doctrines of devils. Remember he said doctrines of devils? This is demonic. This is central. This earthly teaching that teaches pride, arrogance, it displaces the true teachings of the Word of God. You defiled the flesh. That's why Paul says the man that was experiencing physical sexual immorality could throw him out or disfellowship him, turn him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, hopefully that his spirit can be saved. See, because there are sins unto death. So your children, relatives, spouse, someone, the division that's in your home, the Word of God comes in and it causes these divisions. The enemies are in your own household. But if they hold on to those demonic spirits and things and don't bring them under then they're operating on the curse of something that fully destroys them and they may become reprobate. They can start treating as common as I was telling you, it's hard that I didn't miss that 30 minutes of teaching to come back and try to integrate this with it the way I had it. So what motivated these people to despise and pollute the Sabbath was bad teaching. Their preachers and teachers had told them that Sabbath was done away with. Now you despise people that observe the Sabbath. You despise people that are holding on to the commandments of God because they're as the people in 1 John that says His commandments are not grievous unto us. these units that he's talking about he says those that observe his sabbaths I'll bless them those that keep the sabbaths these foreigners and strangers they'll receive a blessing from me but now you're rejecting these people because these people may see something discriminatory spiritually in following this that the word of God has made them more conscientious or more discerning, and their conscience, you're trying to defile their conscience with your legalism. Am I going too fast for you there? In other words, with the arguments of not eating meat up. meat offered to idols and the pollution of eating meat from idols. Paul said he wouldn't eat meat if it was to make his brother a fiend. In other words, he wouldn't defile the conscience of somebody else by him enjoying his liberty in Jesus Christ. He don't know that an idol is nothing or whatever, but this weak brother doesn't know that. So to give that brother spiritual room to grow or whatever, he says, I just won't eat meat. He wouldn't eat meat. Now, that could have been coming from the experience of Paul also, because the weaker John Mark, when years earlier, when they had went off to do a work and they say Mark left them and quit, he went back, and there was a big fallout between Barnabas and Paul. That's when Paul and Silas went in one direction and Mark and Barnabas went in another direction because Paul wouldn't take John Mark because he said John Mark had left him. But we see later on, I think it's in the book of Timothy, that Paul tells him to bring Mark with him because Mark would be very profitable to him. But see, Mark would have grown in his spirituality even though him and Paul had had a falling out or a dissembling earlier. His spiritual growth had came about to a place where him and Paul could work together better. You see, sometimes you grow in the Lord. You remember I told you years ago, me and my boss, man, we had a falling out about the Sabbath or whatever, and I've been looking for him. I don't know if he had, he probably is dead now or whatever, but telling that I was a Sabbath, that I followed the Sabbath day now or whatever, was pretty contentious. So there's room for evolution or whatever. So, we have to be careful, as God tells us, and He's integrating the church, Jews and Gentiles, and whatever race or whatever, it's becoming one flock. He's bringing all these people together. But what must prevail is the Word of God, and that's why you have to get yourself studied and seeking and searching for God, because There are a lot of erroneous teachings you may discard. You've grown in maturity. You're able to take the strong meat of the Word. And that's why we have to keep the unity of the faith and the unity until we come into one in Christ Jesus, to that mature and complete person. God says to Ezekiel that the Israelites broke the Sabbath because their hearts went after their idols. Spiritually, an idol can be anything to which we give our time, our attention, to the detriment of our relationship with God. And that's what I told you. Well, I didn't got to the point years ago where I used to spend hours and weekends studying football and gambling on the cops. I was and I was watching double-headers in different games. But now I never watch a football game. See, because I've grown to the point and I said that was removing my relationship with God And I can't dedicate a Saturday from watching three or four college games or whatever, because that's God's time. You can watch NFL or college, even Sundays or Monday, whatever your Saturday is. But my Saturday is Saturday, the seventh day of the week. So that which goes on then, I have to divorce those things out of my life so it won't damage my relationship with God. Just like I told you, there's a time for me to watch television at the end of the day or whatever, and I did all of these things and studied the Word of God and did what I had to do during the day. I'd come together with my wife at nighttime and I may watch an hour or two of television with her. I may sit down and watch a movie with her or something. because you have to keep a relationship with your wife. That's why it tells about a man that's married and not married. Well, just like that relationship with your wife, you have to spend time to make a relationship with God. And God set aside an appointment, a time of meeting with him, and that's the Sabbath day. That's the day that you develop that personal relationship with him. You understand me? We must understand that idolatry forces a person to do its will rather than God's will. So that's why I tell you, I tell my children, don't try to put yourself in between me and God and say, well, Dad, I really need you to help me do this or whatever. Now I've got to make a decision between you and God. You need to fight Whatever it is that's gonna bring yourself to me. That's gonna bring you to me so that I won't have to make that decision Because the decision is already in God's face. I May tell you no, so don't depend on me for that on in God's time because that is holy time and just like Jesus would Martha came and they they would tell him about Lazarus dead dying and Well, he was on a mission for God. So he did what he had to do. Then he came to Lazarus, and Martha Mary was mad, saying, well, if you'd have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. You see, by the time Jesus was dedicated, he was doing the work of his father. When Peter and them came to God and said, well, they wanted you over, he said, well, no, I have to be about my father's business. That's why I said, we have to be led by the Spirit. So Jesus was led by the Spirit to work and do what God had set Him to do, but there was a bigger payoff for Him doing what God had for Him to do. Then go see about the emotional needs of Mary and Martha, and they say, well, it's too late. He's dead. But He says, I am the resurrection. So God makes up for time, and that's why He tells the eunuch and the foreigners, I'll make up for that time if you be with me, if you spend the time with me. If you do like Mary, you've chosen the best time, the better thing. Martha was busy working and coming with much work, whereas Mary had chosen the good thing, and that was to listen at what Jesus was saying. So the Sabbath, that meeting time with God, there's some important times of things that he could show us on the Sabbath or revelations that we could walk in that reveal to draw near unto him. So don't let things come in with a polluting effect. And remember I told you pollution or defilement can come gradually. It siphons in. It doesn't come all of a sudden. A lot of times it doesn't. Let me put it that way. We must understand that idolatry forces a person to do its will rather than God's will. And that's what makes it an idol because the first commandment says, you shall have no other gods before you. So he has the preeminence in your life and in life. So if this is his day, I can't put something ahead of him on that day. You understand what I'm saying? If something displaces God, that is God. That's your God. If the heart goes after an idol, the rest of the body will follow the heart. If the heart goes after idol, the rest of the body follows the heart. That's why we have to be careful of who we listen at, what we listen at. what we see, what our hearts desire. That's why with working and money, pretty soon if that's what you're following, it'll draw you away from church. You say, well, I could send more money to church if I can work on Saturdays. If I can work on the Sabbath day, I can make more money. Well, your heart's going after what you love the most because the sacrifice It's no, let me choose God, that's the better, that's his time. He has that designated. See, God's tested you as he tested Israel in the wilderness by giving them manna. He told them to pick up a double amount Saturdays, I mean on Friday, on the sixth day because on the seventh day it wasn't going to be there. So he's testing you whether you'll follow his instructions, whether you'll be obedient to him. That's why it says to the eunuch and the foreigner who is obedient unto me. In other words, these are voluntary actions. These are sacrificial actions of his word in his way and following dedicated to God's word. Because like I say, the opinions and the twisting of God's word It can get you off the trail. Popularity, what other churches that people are doing can get you off the trail. You don't want anything to get you off the path. We can reach a conclusion directly from God's own word. Idolatry is a foundation of Sabbath breaking. Idolatry is right at the foundation of Sabbath breaking. Now what's Christ's attitude toward the Sabbath? Ezekiel 20, the 21st verse. It says, Notwithstanding the children of Israel rebel against me, they walk not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall live in them. They polluted my sabbaths, then I said I would pour out my fury upon them to accomplish my anger against them because they was violating what I told them to do. And that's why they went into captivity, because of sabbath breaking. And he told them to let the land lie fallow every seven years. They violated its seven year sabbaths. Not just the weekly sabbaths, not just the fee sabbaths, But his yearly Sabbath, his Sabbath, they violated everything. It infiltrated, titrated into their lives to consume their whole life. That's what idols do. Let me read that to you in an amplified version. He says, yet the children rebelled against me. They did not walk in my statutes, nor were they careful to observe my ordinances. Notice he says, be careful to observe my ordinances. Because it's built as a pyramid and when we go to break it up That's gonna be a foundational fall Don't let anybody takes anything away from the foundations of Christ He says which of a man keeps he will live in them, but they profane my Sabbaths he keep coming back or redressing the issue that they profane my Sabbaths and Sabbath day breaking that one day just like that one tree that they ate of was at the base of their whole fall The profanation of the Sabbath making it common making it like every other day Changing what God had given Ezekiel 2021 appears in the midst of God's charge that he was sending Israel into captivity because of idolatry and Sabbath break idolatry and Sabbath-breaking. If you would look at both of the things that bookmark chapter 20 and 21 is idolatry and Sabbath-breaking. That's why they went into captivity. Now, Ezekiel was a prophet of the captivity, so it was after they had went into captivity that Ezekiel was telling them why this happened. It's like with us, what What's told to them was for our admonition. So now we could come back and do an autopsy of what happened to them. We could come back and dissect why they fail, why they feel short of God. And the reason was Sabbath breaking, polluting the Sabbath, letting idolatry filtrate in. Now, there are three possibilities regarding Israel's Sabbath breaking. One is they rejected God's Sabbath for another day entirely. You remember Jeroboam changed the Sabbath. I mean, he changed their worship. Jeroboam introduced golden calf worship. We don't know during the Catholic Church when they changed the Sabbath during the times of Constantine. these things, or was it a whole other day that they had changed here? Oh, he says, they polluted what they did have of God's true Sabbath by careless, self-centered observance. In other words, they observed the Sabbath But it was like I was saying, they observed it for a few hours. Let's go to church for an hour. Then, man, I'm going to get out and play some golf. I'm going to get out and watch some football. I'm going to get out and do all these things. They was careless. Careless. And that's what Hebrew was written. The book of Hebrews was written to Christians that was drifting away. And that wasn't circumspect. That wasn't watching what was entering in. A Trojan horse was coming in. you have to watch carefully because Satan's he's he's like a roaring lion seeking to devour you at any mistake you make at any point in time here in the end we have to be vigilant we have to watch the spirit's willing but the flesh is weak a lot of time our flesh give way to other issues most likely it was a combination of both Some completely rejected it, saying the Sabbath is done away with. We in Babylon, we have to live as the Babylonians is, as the old saying goes, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Others treated it carelessly, and they just dismissed the Sabbath. The Pharisees understood this. That's why they were so starched against Sabbath day breaking when they came back to captivity. That's why they fought against Jesus. They religiously tried to keep the Sabbath. But you remember I told you, the rest of God, when we come to grace and truth under Jesus Christ, we enter into His rest. So all of these things aren't binding on us. But these things, through grace and truth, we help establish the law. Because keeping the Sabbath is not a burden unto me. The days that I keep it and that I can do it, I feel good. I feel refreshed. I feel stronger. I feel enlightened. The joy of the Lord is my strength. That's where I get strength in seeing that I'm doing something that I know he's present in. I'm consciously aware, but if I do wrong, if I do something, it's not that I'm condemned to feel guilty, it's just that I fall short, that I'm going to try to do better. Whichever it was, it resulted in captivity. Keeping the Sabbath day properly is a serious issue to God. So to enjoy the liberty and come from under the bondage of the world, when he says, come out of the world, come out of her, my people, that we won't be in bondage to the world or the things of the world, and thus we're not in captive to this world and this world's ways and traditions. whereas trying to keep Sunday and these other days the way the world does it, that's bondage within itself. But if we keep it as Jesus Christ gave to us, we could enjoy the liberty in Christ Jesus because grace and truth and his... Okay, so, Ezekiel 20 and 20 says, Hollow my sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between me and you. that they may know that I am the Lord thy God. Now, I'm not going to go much further and hold you much longer. I messed up with this taping or whatever, but we're going to end a little bit early on the tape because of this half-hour discrepancy in taping. But we'll go over this again in the 58th chapter.