Sermon: Polluted Sabbath?

Removing the Pollutions From God's Holy Sabbath
#1643B
Bill Onisick
Given 19-Mar-22; 35 minutes

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I was probably about six years old when I went out onto the Delaware River in an aluminum canoe with my father. It was not too far from where Washington had crossed to win the Revolutionary War. It was an exciting adventure for a little boy. We rocked back and forth, seemingly going to tip over at any moment in time as water splashed over the bow. The river was massive and it was my first time wearing a life jacket, which felt a little more like a straitjacket. And I am sure my dad would have preferred the latter.

But what I remember most is unlike every other fishing trip I had been on before. This one was different. The many streams, rivers, ponds, even frozen lakes—this one was very different. It stands out in my mind for one main reason. My dad said, "We can't keep the fish." The river was just too polluted. At some 330 miles long, the Delaware was a primary shipping route flowing from upstate New York all the way down through Pennsylvania through Delaware Bay, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Now, the combined population growth, the industrial growth throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, really took its toll on that river and it gradually became full of pollution and raw sewage. It became so foul the smell was sickening, and ships would literally turn brown just passing through.

So today we are going to examine the concept of pollution and how it gradually, subtly, defiles everything. We are going to use the analogy of that polluted Delaware River as we enter our metaphorical canoes and hopefully become a bit more self-aware of the gradual spiritual pollution that can defile us. As we go through this journey, we will look at many warnings throughout the Scriptures related to polluting that which is holy, and we will end hopefully with some actions we can all take to detect and remove these pollutants from our lives.

Please turn with me to Leviticus 11. Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials to the earth's air, water, or land. The harmful materials called pollutants can be naturally occurring like smoke and ash from a volcano or they can be from human activity like wastewater from a house or a factory. Spiritual pollution then is the introduction of harmful information, thoughts, or activities into our lives. Our spiritual pollutants can also be naturally occurring, the distractions from the world that we live in or they can be self-generated through our thoughts, our actions, or our reactions to each other.

Now, before something is polluted, we call it pure, clean, unadulterated. But there is another word for it.

Leviticus 11:44 "For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy."

To be holy is to be set apart, undefiled, clean, and pure. God commands here that we are to be holy as He describes Himself as being holy.

The Hebrew word here for holy is Strong's 6918 and it is qadosh. It is used 116 times in the King James and it is translated as holy, holy one, or saints. But it comes from a primitive root word, which we will also look at here today. It is Strong's 6942 (this is the underlying root word for holy) and it is qadash, meaning to be cleaned, consecrated, purified, sanctified, made holy. So to be holy, qadosh, like God, we have to be cleaned, qadash. Dash is a verb. We can kind of think of it that way, to remember. Qadash makes us holy like God, qadosh. God commands us here then, qadash yourselves and become qadosh. Holy like Me.

Let us go back to the first occurrence of this underlying root word, qadash, to make holy. We find that in Genesis 2. Now we know God is creating us in His holy, pure, undefiled image, but we also know that no human is even close to God's level of holiness. Hannah's prayer, found in I Samuel 2 reads, "No one is holy like the Lord, for there is none besides You."

Genesis 2:2-3 And on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

God could qadashed the Sabbath, brethren. Qadashed, He made it holy. That is, He sanctified it and made it like Himself. He made it holy.

Back in Leviticus, and this time we are going to go to chapter 23 to pick up one more. We are going to turn past Leviticus 19, but I will just call it out because we see a repetition there in verse 2, where it reads, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." And then He adds at the end of verse 3, "and keep My Sabbaths."

Leviticus 23:3 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.

We are commanded here to keep God's Sabbath by doing no physical work and by making it a qadosh, that is, a holy convocation. It is a commanded day of assembly where God, the holy God, wants to be with His future holy people that He is making holy. So to keep this command, we have to gather together with God and His people. It is pretty straightforward.

Let us go back now to Exodus 3 and we are going to view the first occurrence of the word translated holy. Our process of becoming Godlike, we know, is a cleansing, a sanctification process to remove pollutants and to become pure and clean like God. In Exodus 3, we are picking up after Moses catches a glimpse of the burning bush. As he approaches the Lord calls out and commands,

Exodus 3:5 Then He said, "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground."

Now, the ground around the bush was not noticeably different to the human eye. Moses could not see the difference. God had to point it out. God had made it holy—qadosh—just like him. How did He make it holy? Because He was right there. His presence was there, He was touching it, and He made the ground holy, just like He makes this day holy—with His presence.

Exodus 31:12-13 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: 'Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it as a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you."

Let us just pause there for a second. My Sabbaths you shall keep forever. Why? They are a constant reminder that God is the one who sanctifies us. The Hebrew word here, you probably guessed it, qadosh. He makes us holy. Today is a day of remembrance, to always remember God is the one who makes us holy. He cleanses us. He prepares us. He purifies us so that eventually we can become only like Him—qadosh.

We must keep God's Sabbath because it is one day in the week to focus solely on our sole reason for living: to become like our holy God. This is a day dedicated to qadash activity, activity that makes us pure and Godlike, holy like Him. This has been set apart by God for the recreation and cleansing process. It is different than the other six days. He ordained it to be different, to be holy, because He knew the world that we live in is full of too many distractions. (Our pastor warned us about this not too long ago.) So He called this day out to be special so that we do not think about those other things. This day is the day that is to be dedicated to thinking about Him and what He is doing for us in the sanctification process.

Exodus 31:14-17 You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Work shall be done six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.

The Sabbath is holy because He made it holy with His holy presence. Just like He made the ground holy by the burning bush. Everyone who profanes it, defiles it, pollutes it, will be put to death, He says. How do we pollute God's Sabbath? By doing any of our work on it. By doing anything not aligned to God's qadash activity.

Many people claim that God's Sabbath is no longer required because it is a law found in the Old Testament, that there is nothing in the New Testament about keeping the law. We know that is certainly not so. Let us turn over to Luke 4 where we pick up a couple of interesting statements from Jesus Christ Himself. As you are turning there, we are turning through many, many years of history, so in our turning forward we should reflect on the many generations of Israelites and the events that we are skipping over. The stiff-necked Israelites are punished in exile from the land for their idolatry and Sabbath breaking.

Ezekiel 22:8 "You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbath."

Ezekiel 22:26 "They have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made know the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths."

Jeremiah 17:21-23 "Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but hallow the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers, but they did not obey."

So we passed over this, but the important point we have to remember is when the Israelites finally returned from captivity, from exile (they were put in exile because of idolatry and Sabbath breaking), they had the best intentions. They said, "We never want to do this again." But what happened? They over-pivoted. They created these massive physical laws on how to physically keep the Sabbath and they lost the plot, right? They lost the whole purpose of the Sabbath in creating all of these physical laws on what you could or could not do on the Sabbath. In fact, just walking through the grass was forbidden because the blades of grass might be bent and broken, which was considered a type of threshing. Just think about that. How silly.

All of Jesus' encounters with the Pharisees, then, recorded in the New Testament, were about the Sabbath, but not about whether to keep the Sabbath. There was never a question of what day the Sabbath was or whether they should keep it or not. All of the encounters were about how to keep the Sabbath. Everything recorded in the New Testament is about how to keep the Sabbath. And the best thing we can do is follow Christ's example, which we are going to hopefully learn a little more about here.

Luke 4:16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.

It was Jesus' habit to be where on the Sabbath? To be in an assembly, in the synagogue as part of a holy convocation on the Sabbath. The Sabbath is such a significant part of the plan of salvation. Christ's ministry starts on the Sabbath. He reads from Isaiah 61 to clarify why He was there. His mission, He says, is to spiritually heal and cleanse, that is, make qadash, His chosen people. He is the way we become like God. As Isaiah 35:8 reads, He is the highway of holiness. When we focus our energy on Him, He sanctifies us. He removes our pollutants and He makes us acceptable to God the Father. Jesus proclaims a few verses later,

Luke 4:19 "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

The Bible indicates a Wednesday crucifixion and a late Sabbath, a Saturday resurrection. The Sabbath is so important here, brethren, that Jesus Christ's ministry started on the Sabbath and it ended on the Sabbath.

Now, I want to know if you can guess how many recorded events are found in the Bible of where Christ healed someone on the Sabbath. You may already know this, but based on my count, we have seven healings on the seventh day. Pretty interesting. We will not look at them today, we do not have time, but there is the man with the unclean spirit, there is Peter's mother-in-law, there is a man's withered hand, there is the lame man, the blind man, the crippled woman, and a man with dropsy. One point we should remember in all of these healings is it does not appear that any of these people were in an immediate threat in terms of life or death. And as a result, the Pharisees become outraged with what Jesus Christ was doing because they considered it to be a blatant breaking of the Sabbath. Now Jesus could have waited very easily till after the Sabbath to do this healing. Again, it was not a life or death situation.

Picking up in verses 23-24 of Mark 2 we see Jesus and the disciples are once again condemned by the Pharisees, this time for walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath and plucking a few heads of grain. Remember, according to their Sabbath laws, just walking on the grass was considered work and here they were out there threshing. But just like the Sabbath healings, this too was a planned teaching moment. It was very minimal work for them to walk through the fields, pick a couple heads of grain, rub them in their fingers to get rid of the shaft, and pop them in their mouths. Very little work, right? They have spent the day doing a lot of good work spreading the gospel.

Jesus' response, then, in Mark 2:25-26. He calls out a need for mercy and good works on the seventh day Sabbath. He points back to David's men eating the showbread and then draws attention to the priests extensive Sabbath labors in the Temple. Remember, the works on the Sabbath by the priests were actually doubled from a normal day. Matthew's account actually adds to Jesus' response, by the way. "Have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?"

Mark 2:27-28 And He said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."

So, the Sabbath was made by God on account of man after man's creation. It is a day that represents God's mercy and great work of sanctification, His qadash activity. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, and so He demonstrates to us how we are to keep the Sabbath. The Jews sought to kill Him for the seven healings on the seventh day, and Jesus responds.

John 5:17 "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working."

Interesting. The Sabbath is not a day of no work. It is not a day to just sleep in, stay by ourselves, put our feet up and relax. No, this is a day of great work. It is a day of doing God's spiritual work, His work of mercy, healing, cleansing. It is a day for demonstrating God's lovingkindness. It is a day for doing good.

Following Christ's example, then, we must gather together on the Sabbath and use this time for extending mercy, healing, cleansing, doing good for each other. As priests in training our Sabbath work must have the right motivation and purpose. The work that we do on the Sabbath must never be self-focused. That work is strictly forbidden with the penalty of death. There are very clear, multiple scriptures on this. We can recall the man found gathering sticks on the Sabbath recorded in Numbers 15. What happened? He was stoned. He was stoned for picking up sticks. Why? Because it was a very presumptuous sin. He knew better and he decided to pollute God's Sabbath anyway, and do what he wanted.

How often I wonder, brethren, do we profane and pollute God's Sabbath by allowing our thoughts and our actions to focus on the many distractions in this world.

Isaiah 58:13-14 "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord."

We have a warning here. When we stop spending a Sabbath on our will and pleasure, when we stop using His holy day to talk about what we want to talk about, the Sabbath becomes a delight. We become united with Him and His purpose on this day, which is all about qadash activity, not about this world, not about the many distractions. Our conversations on the Sabbath should not be the same as the other six days of the week. Whether it is football, a movie, a book, a meal, a home improvement project, a news event, Facebook, politics, even a potential conspiracy theory you might find very intriguing. The question is how will this conversation and study build up our faith and aid God's sanctification and cleansing process? How will it help us become more holy? It really raises the bar on our conversations, and I will tell you, this study has really impacted me.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:34, "Out of the abundance of our heart, the mouth speaks." If our heart is distracted by something in this world, by a pollutant in this world that we have allowed to come into our lives, that is what we want to talk and think about on the Sabbath. There is nothing wrong with a casual conversation here and we should not be running around, "Oh, you broke the Sabbath, you said something about a news event." That is not what this is about. The spirit here though is we should not allow our time and our energy to go towards anything that is not in alignment with qadash activity, sanctification activity, building up our faith and fellowship together with Jesus Christ.

When we allow our minds to wander and think about what we want we pollute God's Sabbath. We could be sitting right here, we are in church, it looks great, right? Meanwhile we are thinking about a home improvement project, something at work, we are polluting the Sabbath. We are polluting God's holy time. He is right here with us, this is His time. We have got to repent and work harder to control our mind, and believe me, I speak to myself first and foremost on this one.

We have got to control those fiery tongues, as James calls it, because we can quickly pollute the Sabbath with just a few careless words that tear down each other or tear down someone else. Maybe even one of the speakers. You know, if we are having a hard time getting something good out of a message, it is not the messenger's fault. There is always something that we can pull out of a message and we can apply to our lives. So we got to stop blaming the speaker and start looking inwards and say, "Yeah, we've got some opportunity here. If I'm distracted, it's not because they're boring. It's because I've let too many pollutants into my life and into my mind."

Most of you have heard how after learning about God's Sabbath, I allowed my teammates to convince me "one more volleyball tournament" on the Sabbath "would be okay." A big tournament. It was a horrible day. Nothing went right on or off the court. I injured my knee so severely I have never played at that level again nor ever will. It still flares up to this day. Somehow the team makes it to the finals in this big tournament and I was forced to leave them shorthanded because I had plans to have dinner with my wife and her parents for the first time that evening. And so I left just in time to get home and get a shower. Well, my car broke down so I had to acknowledge my horrible mistake. And I would love to tell you, man, that is the last time I polluted God's holy Sabbath. But this study has shown me, no, not by a far stretch. I have got a long way to go, a long way to go.

Now, there are major differences across the greater church of God on how to keep the Sabbath. We cannot judge each other. Some travel, watch tv, movies, read novels, get gas, go shopping, go swimming, attend the opera, cook a big breakfast, prepare a large meal. Or even, maybe, barbecue. We do not judge each other and we do not try to force our "thou shalt nots" on the Sabbath list on anybody else. This is a decision for each and every one of us to make. It is an important decision on how we keep the Sabbath holy. We cannot over-pivot like the Pharisees and become too legalistic, like requiring a Sabbath mode to avoid turning the knob on our stove just to heat up a meal that has already been prepared. That is silly. But that is where they are. They just do not have the truth.

But it is very clear that this day is holy. God has made it holy with His holy presence and we should do everything possible to prepare on the Preparation Day so that we can eliminate normal physical work and distraction from His holy Sabbath. Is it really that much of a sacrifice for us to prepare a meal in advance so we can simply heat it up or take it out of the fridge and even eat it cold one day a week to give us more time to spend with God?

As we review Exodus 12:16 and Exodus 16:23 there is a pretty important message there I think sometimes we forget. God actually differentiated two Sabbaths, the day of Atonement and the weekly Sabbath. They actually are more stringent then the other Sabbath days. Go and read it for yourselves. God specifically calls out the ability to prepare that which everyone must eat on the other holy days. But on the weekly Sabbath, on the day of Atonement, He says, do no work. "Bake what you will bake, boil what you will boil" before the Sabbath. There are also many warnings against profaning and polluting God's holy Sabbath.

In Amos 8 we find a warning against those who look forward to the Sabbath being over. "It's almost over, man. We can go do something fun." It is a warning that it is not right. We are not delighting in God's Sabbath if we are looking for it to be over. In Malachi 1, the modern-day priests, that is us, are warned about polluted offerings. Again, it is very easy for us to have half-hearted sacrifices through distraction and neglect, to keep His Sabbath halfheartedly, to come to church but to be distracted, be thinking about something else. That is a halfhearted sacrifice. That is polluting His holy time, His holy day. If we are not careful, brethren, the gradual pollution of this world will defile us.

As we reflect, and we should all reflect, do we see pollution in our holy Sabbath days? I cannot even begin to count how often my thoughts or spoken words have polluted this holy time. We must work harder. We must work harder to ask for God's help and His Holy Spirit to remove those pollutants from our minds.

So after nearly two centuries of gradual pollution that Delaware River became foul, literally dead, full of a thick sludge at the bottom. Waste, horrible smell. But decades later, after focused cleanup to remove and stop the pollution from its source, American Rivers Environmental Group, named the Delaware recently the U. S. river of the year for a dramatic revitalization. The quality of the river has improved so well that wildlife is returning in abundance and some 15 million people now get their drinking water from the Delaware River.

Brethren, as we approach the Passover, this time of examination, let us work harder to identify the source of our pollutants. Let us work harder to ask for God's help and His Holy Spirit to remove our polluted thoughts, actions, and words from this holy time. As Paul warns in I Corinthians 3, God destroys anyone who defiles the holy temple of God, and as he reminds us in Ephesians 2, we are growing into what? The holy temple of the Lord. Reading Peter's admonition here,

I Peter 1:15-16 But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."

Peter is quoting from where we began today in Leviticus 11, where God commands qadash, sanctify yourselves to become qadosh, holy like Me. Peter continues his admonition to be holy throughout chapter 2. He reminds us that we are a holy nation, we are a holy priesthood, and we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We have been called out of darkness, he says, out of that former polluted state. We have been cleansed by Jesus Christ, by God's marvelous light of truth, through and by Jesus Christ's ultimate sacrifice.

And we could tie this to I John. From the very beginning, God sanctified, qadash, set apart the holy Sabbath—this day—so that we would have one day a week without distraction. This day is a day to focus on our sole reason for living, on Jesus Christ and His redemptive work for us. This day is so important Jesus Christ started His ministry on it and He ended his ministry on it. He, the highway of holiness, and His Holy Spirit must be our primary focus on this day because He uses this day to sanctify us. To qadash us, to remove the pollutants from our evil hearts as He makes us pure and acceptable to God the Father.

Let us end in Isaiah 56. As priests in training, brethren, we must use this day, this special day, just like Jesus did—as a time for extending mercy, healing, cleansing, and doing good. We must not forsake the assembling of ourselves and we must keep the Sabbath as a commanded holy convocation to gather together to worship God and use this special time together with God to remove the pollutants from our lives.

Isaiah 56:1-2 Thus says the Lord: "Keep justice, and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who lays hold of it; who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and keeps his hand from doing any evil."

Isaiah 56:6-7 "Also the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and holds fast to My covenant—even them 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 shall be called a house of prayer for all nations."

Brethren, salvation is indeed near, and we must never, I mean never, forget how special this holy day is, for blessed are those who keep from polluting God's holy Sabbath. And we certainly look forward to the vision in Revelation 22 of that pure river, the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God. He is creating us in His holy image.

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