Father, I ask for your guidance in your word. LORD God Almighty God, glorify your name on earth as it is in heaven. Praise you for your works that you have done already, and for what you will do later on in our lives. I pray those who hear your word may proclaim a fast in your name for the idolatry the church has committed in your eyes. Praise you Jesus Christ for the mercy you have bestowed upon us, and I pray for your grace to shower this message with love, gentleness, meekness, and severity in light of the current crisis in our religion, LORD God Almighty God. I pray these things in Jesus Christ's name, Amen.

Why would the Father hate something that He instituted in the first place? Why would God, who created the system of sacrifices in order to cleanse us from our sin, hate something that He Himself ordained to His people? God is a righteous God, and there is no lie in Him. God is a just God, and does not do anything contrary to His character of righteousness, holiness, purity, and goodness. Why would God seemingly contradict Himself in His word? God is not a contradicting God; neither is He a God that changes; God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His word never contradicts Himself, because He is God, so something must have happened in order for God to see their sacrifices as abominable, wasted, and hated by Him.

God is not a God to be trifled with, neither is He a God that can be mocked. God, it appears, was frustrated and very upset with His nation of godly people because of something they were doing with their sacrifices. God was willing to do His part, but were the people willing to do their part? God desires a contrite heart and a penitent spirit before He can accept anything man offers Him. Were the godly people of Israel rebelling in this fashion? Were they proud, boasting, idolatrous, and wholly ungodly in His presence?

In verse 10, God likens the children of Israel to Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom was wicked and filled with sinners exceedingly, as told in Genesis 13:13. Sodom declared their sin openly before the people, as told in Isaiah 3:9. Ezekiel 16:48 explains the sins of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness in her and her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. The next verse tells us that Sodom was haughty and committed abomination before God. What was the abomination the people of Sodom committed? And, were the children of Israel committing this abomination? God still requires humility and repentance, and needs to see His people godly, holy, and righteous in His eyes. Were the people of Sodom willing to commit any and every abomination because they thought that they could get away with it? God is not mocked, and anyone that sins against God will have to pay the penalty. Sexual perversity is an evil thing, but it is the result of a deeper wickedness within a man's soul. God needed to deal with something deeper in Sodom, and needed to deal with something deeper with His nation, Israel, as well.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the LORD. Why do you sacrifice tons of sheep, goats, hens, cows, godly items, your time, your effort? God requires something deeper than just sacrifice. God requires your heart to be pure before Him! God needs something deeper than some vain outward show of religion; it needs to be deep and thorough. God can do it, but only if you let Him! God was full of the offerings, the fat of beasts, and the blood of the beasts. God was tired of their constant offerings of sacrifices. Why? Didn't God institute this in the first place?

Why would God ask, Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? God only wanted the priests to offer the sacrifices and not the people. The people still had to bring the animals used to cover their sins, but the priests served as the intercessor for the people and their sins. God had the priests do the work of the sacrifices so that the people could just focus on worshipping God. God wanted the people to worship Him in Spirit and in truth, and not be hampered with their sin. That is the office of the priest, to offer the sacrifice for their sin so the people could just focus on God's goodness and mercy rather than His judgment for their sin. The offerings appeased God if they were done honestly, in righteousness, in purity of heart, and in holiness. God wanted the people, not their sacrifices. However, the people were filled with unrighteousness and needed to offer sacrifices. Eventually, there came a time when the peoples' hearts were so hardened, that the only reason they came to the temple was to offer their sacrifices for their sin, and then leave. God wanted them, not their sacrifice, but because of their continuing sin, the people knew that they had to offer something in order to appease God of His wrath.

The children of Israel continued in their sins, because they were worried about making God upset, and so their whole religion focused on the sacrifices rather than the worship of God. God does not require sacrifice, but praise and worship and honor! Praise Jesus Christ right now in Spirit and in truth! Glory in His holy name for all eternity! This is what He required of the children of Israel, but in the pain of their sin, in the heaviness of their wickedness, they couldn't so much as lift a note or a word to Him! They were too busy bringing sacrifices for their sins! Eventually, they turned to other gods who could appease their consciences enough so they could sing and worship something, but not God Himself. They thought that God placed too many burdens upon the people, but God requires holiness and purity. If the children of Israel had a contrite heart and walked pure before God without pretense or ambition or pride or wrath or strife or unrighteousness or uncleanness or guilt, then they could have walked in His righteousness and obeyed His statutes without any difficulty. However, the law was made to show us our sin, and no man could follow the law completely without the Spirit of the law revealed in Jesus Christ dwelling within the soul.

God finally said to them, Bring no more vain oblations, which is worship for the sake of hearing yourself worship. God didn't want their incense anymore, nor their new moons, their sabbaths, their assemblies, their solemn meetings, their feasts, nor their slain sacrifices. God saw that their heart wasn't right. God wanted them to obey, but they couldn't obey because sin had not been dealt with in the children of Israel. God didn't hear their prayers, nor hearkened unto them because their sins were still there! Their sacrifices were made in unrighteousness. It was as if the children of Israel presented God with the sacrifice, thinking that God would automatically give them forgiveness from their sin, when God requires the opposite! God wants us to be repentant and ask for forgiveness, and then God tells us what needs to be done sacrificially for forgiveness and absolution from the penalty of sin. God needed to do something about their unrighteous sacrificing, and in the next few verses God mapped out what He would do.

God promised a Messiah to the children of Israel; one who would save them from their burdens and bondages. However, the people didn't realize that the burden released was from the law and the bondage released was from sin! God needed them to have a pure heart within, but only with their sins dealt with can this happen. Jesus Christ supplied this by becoming the perfect sacrifice for sins. He also offered His perfect life to dwell in the people so they could follow the law in Spirit and in truth. God wants worshippers, and Jesus provided the way to worship God without any burden, without any outward or external show, but in Spirit and in truth. Praise the LORD Jesus Christ for offering Himself up for us! He has washed us, made us clean, and provided us with the way to put away all evil from our doings! God has given us His perfect life so that we could be able to stop sinning and cease from committing evil.

God wants us to learn His word, seek after righteous judgment, which is the discernment of right and wrong, and to tell the orphans (whether in flesh or in spirit) what is right and wrong, and to take care of those that have no fathers in the flesh. We are to take care of those that aren't taken care of, and this is what God requires for our religion. God wants an honest and pure heart in doing these things; this is what God wants us to do, not offer sacrifices or do external works, but God wants us to praise Him and do those things which please Him. The apostle James tells us that pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted before the world. Praise Jesus Christ that He has provided us with His life, His Spirit, in order to do these things without pretense, pride or arrogance in our own abilities. Only through the grace and power of God can we knowingly do these things for His benefit and not our own!

The next few verses tells us that we need to reason together and become clean. God sent His Son into the world not to condemn it, but to save it. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to wash us clean, purify us, so we can go to God and worship Him without any guilt or hang-ups concerning our sin. However, during the time of Israel, they started to lack faith that their work was sufficient in covering them from their sin. It seems that they knew that the sacrifices would not actually wash their sins away, nor cure them from the curse of Adam and the bondage of sin, so they just turned temple worship into some outward show and excused themselves from actually worshipping God. God did have a remnant, He always does, but the majority just went through the motions concerning real worship. Their worship was an outward show trying to prove to everyone else that they were spiritual.

God promised to the willing and obedient the fruit of the land, but to those who rebel, destruction and pain, because God Himself spoke it. The children of Israel were outwardly religious, but couldn't face their own sin in truth. They had no way of turning away from their sin, so God provided all the world with His Son to give us His perfect life, granting us a pardon from sin and giving us His perfect life in return for our sinful souls. God has given us all things in Christ Jesus, and praise the LORD God Almighty that His grace is sufficient!

Now, we are in the twenty-first century, two-thousand years removed from the time that Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, risen from the dead, and ascended to His Father's right hand. What has changed? There seems to be a major problem in the church today. So many Christians today profess Jesus Christ as their Savior and LORD, yet so many Christians today in America are filled with wickedness and sin of every sort. They are proud, full of themselves, full of the bread of their wages, idle in the service of God, refusing to pray, refusing to do those things that please the Father, and committing abominations of all sorts, sexual and otherwise. Witchcraft, sorcery, and positive confession has raptured the church into a form of godliness that denies the power of godliness. Christians call holiness and righteousness a religious spirit, and God can never forgive this sin. These people continue in sin, calling upon the name of Jesus Christ for forgiveness. The precious blood of Jesus Christ becomes a continuing sacrifice, never finished, never done. The blood of Jesus Christ becomes some psychological mechanism for absolving guilt or pushing it upon something else in order to get rid of soul's internal anguish caused by sin's gross destruction. Christians have turned the cross of Jesus Christ into an idol. God hates this, and must judge His church accordingly. God requires repentance, not sacrifice. God didn't want to send His Son, but because of our wickedness, He had to provide us with the sinless Lamb of God to take away our sins once and for all.

When was the last time you planned to sin, knowing that you could go to your bed at the end of night, say a prayer, and feel forgiven from your sin? God hates this. When was the last time that you committed a sin, and thought within yourself, well, God sees the Jesus in me and not the sin? God hates this. God wants repentant hearts, not selfish souls just crying out to Him for fear of His judgment. This is the sin of Cain, the sin of Judas, and the sin of the church today. I know I have cried out at times for forgiveness just for my own selfishness, but God is looking deeper. He is looking for those who cry out for forgiveness once and for all. God is looking for those who know that their sin causes God to blush, causes Him to cringe, causes Him to writhe in pain with wrath and anguish at our continuing disobedience to His word. Praise the LORD that He has provided us with the mercy and grace right now for all of us to repent of our wickedness and come to Jesus Christ in truth. God needs us to stop trying to prevent the Spirit of God to work in our lives, establishing holiness in our souls, establishing character within us, and just let Him be God!

Let's say you have a normal drinking glass. You say, This glass is now my god. My God doesn't want me to eat beef or drive a car. If I do these things, my god requires me to take a pen and drop it into the glass, and my god will appeased of its wrath for me breaking its laws. Let's say you eat a steak one day. You come back, knowing you have transgressed its commandments, and in order to appease your own conscience, because an idol is nothing in this world, you drop the pen in the glass, releasing you from guilt and shame for your wickedness against your god. Let's say you have five pens; that means you can either drive three cars and eat two steaks, or eat three steaks and drive two cars, or on and on. You can plan out your sin in advance knowing that you have a way to appease your own conscience. This is idolatry. This is what every religion in the world commits. They appease their own conscience by creating their own gods with their own selfish rules and their own sacrificial system to appease their own consciences. Some of these idols are possessed by demons in order to give the idol some great power, but Christians should know that they are nothing but demons.

Now, how has the church turned the cross into an idol? Some Christians think they can get away with murder, sex before marriage, divorce, hatred, anger, glorying in themselves, and all sorts of other sins, just because the blood of Jesus Christ can wash them clean. This is absolutely wrong! You cannot get away with sin! God will judge you! If you fall accidentally into sin through ignorance, or you fall into temptation, there is a way out, and it requires a repentant, honest, contrite heart before God. You cannot get away with sin! Don't think that you can sin for a while, then repent and go to God, and be spiritual for a while! Don't fool yourself with pretension in this area! God requires a one-time turning from our sin!

If we fall into sin, we still can go to the cross and receive forgiveness. Grace has not changed. However, if we come to the cross thinking that we will sin again through our own unrighteousness, or we can get away with sinning just as long as Jesus' blood is still good enough for forgiveness of sins, it's time to start praying for His righteousness! Jesus told us that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness would be filled! So many people have been inoculated with the Gospel Vaccine so they divert evangelical Christians from preaching at them by saying, "Oh yeah, I've said a prayer and accepted Jesus in my heart," without repenting from their sins! So many people have little victory in their life because they do not understand their danger nor do they understand how they can attain the victory from sin! So many have just given up and repented of their initial repentance and have given up all hope. Do not be like that! Ask God to fill you with the Holy Ghost and stop sinning! Stop treading on the grace of God!

If you sin willingly and ask for the blood of Jesus to wash your sins, knowing that you will go out the next day and commit the same sin, you have just turned the cross of Jesus Christ into an idol. If you pray at the end of the day and ask for forgiveness just to appease your guilty conscience without any inclination to turn from your wickedness, you have just turned the cross of Jesus Christ into an idol. If you plan out your sin and plan out your penitence, like planning on going out to party with booze, drugs, and women and afterwards fast for a few weeks, you have just turned the cross of Jesus Christ into an idol. Stop going to Jesus Christ to get rid of your guilt, and go to Jesus Christ to get rid of your sin.

God will refuse your worship, your prayers, your service, your works and everything about you if you turn the cross of Christ into an idol. Christians act like it's as if we deserve the forgiveness of our sins. Instead of coming to God and asking for forgiveness, and God showing us the cross, we show God the cross and demand forgiveness regardless of repentance on our part! Let's stop coming to God on our terms, and come to Him on His!

Glory to God in the Highest! Praise Him above all names! Pray, read the King James Bible! Praise Him in songs, spiritual songs, and hymns! All glory to Jesus Christ! Peace and grace and mercy upon all those that hear His word! Glorify His name high above the earth! Magnify His name to all the nations! God is great, and greatly to be praised! Do not fear, little children, for Jesus Christ has overcome the world and can give you the victory over sin and wickedness if you would just come to Him right now and confess your sins, especially idolatry! Glory to God in the highest, may God's grace, mercy, and peace, real peace, be upon all those that come to Him in contriteness, honesty, and penitence! Amen, praise the LORD, hallelujah, Jesus Christ is King of Kings and LORD of Lords, willing to save you from death and from the fiery pits of hell! Praise the LORD Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God!!!!!