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I hate, I despise your feast days - I abominate those sacrificial festivals where there is no piety, and I despise them because they pretend to be what they are not. This may refer to the three annual festivals which were still observed in a certain way among the Israelites.

I hate, I despise your feasts - Israel clave to its heart‘s sin, the worship of the true God, under the idol-form of the calf; else, it would fain be conscientious and scrupulous. It had its “feasts” of solemn “joy” and the “restraint” of its “solemn assemblies”, which all were constrained to keep, abstaining from all servile work. They offered “whole burnt offerings,” the token of self-sacrifice, in which the sacrificer retained nothing to himself, but gave the whole freely to God. They offered also “peace offerings,” as tokens of the willing thankfulness of souls at peace with God. What they offered, was the best of its kind, “fatted beasts.” Hymns of praise, full-toned chorus, instrumental music! What was missing, Israel thought, to secure them the favor of God? Love and obedience. “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” And so those things, whereby they hoped to propitiate God, were the object of His displeasure. “I hate, I despise, I will not accept” with good pleasure; “I will not regard,” look toward, “I will not hear, will not smell.” The words, “I will not smell,” reminded them of that threat in the law” Leviticus 26:31, “I will make your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors.” In so many ways does God declare that He would not accept or endure, what they all the while were building upon, as grounds of their acceptance. And yet so secure were they, that the only sacrifice which they did not offer, was the sin or trespass offering. Worshiping “nature,” not a holy, Personal, God, they had no sense of unholiness, for which to plead the Atoning Sacrifice to come. Truly each Day of Judgment unveils much self-deceit. How much more the Last!

Woe unto those that desire the day of the Lord's judgments, that wish for times of war and confusion; as some who long for changes, hoping to rise upon the ruins of their country! but this should be so great a desolation, that nobody could gain by it. The day of the Lord will be a dark, dismal, gloomy day to all impenitent sinners. When God makes a day dark, all the world cannot make it light. Those who are not reformed by the judgments of God, will be pursued by them; if they escape one, another stands ready to seize them. A pretence of piety is double iniquity, and so it will be found. The people of Israel copied the crimes of their forefathers. The law of worshipping the Lord our God, is, Him only we must serve. Professors thrive so little, because they have little or no communion with God in their duties. They were led captive by Satan into idolatry, therefore God caused them to go into captivity among idolaters.