Isaiah 56:6: “Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from profaning it, and taketh hold of my covenant;

We now approach the second to the last condition to find joy in the house of prayer and that is to keep the Sabbath and not profane it. This week I am working with the editor for Whitaker House who will publish my new book Hebrew Word Study Revealing the Heart of God.  It will be released June 21 but is on Amazon for pre-order (hint, hint). I had a chance to review the first chapter in my book which is on the Sabbath and was going to just repeat what is in my book but say, and then you won’t purchase my book. So rather than issue a spoiler alert, I will just bypass this study on keeping the Sabbath and discuss what it means to profane the Sabbath.  You will have to purchase my book this spring to discover what it means to keep the Sabbath from the Hebrew.  You might be in for a surprise.

So we are not only to keep the Sabbath but we are not to profane it.  What does it mean to profane the Sabbath?  Could you and I be guilty of doing such a thing?  Profane is such a harsh word and surely we would never be guilty of such a thing or could we?

The word profane in Hebrew is chalal.  This is totally the opposite of halal (praise) yet the words are so similar that we could easily mistake the two.  The only difference is that the word chalal is spelled with a Cheth and the word halal is spelled with a Hei.  Even the Cheth and the Hei are identical except that the Chet looks like a three sided rectangle.  The Hei looks like a three sided rectangle only there is a little space in the upper left hand corner of the rectangle.  Other than that, if you don’t look closely or the light is dim you could easily overlook that little space in the right hand corner of the rectangle and call it a Cheth (profane) rather than a Hei (praise).  I believe God inspired the Hebrew language and devised it this way to show how easy it is to move from praising God to profaning God. We could do it without even realizing it.

The word chalal which is rendered as profane in some translation is also rendered as pollute in others.  Some render it as desecrate and another says defile.  Yet, that just doesn’t give us specifics as to what profaning, polluting, desecrating or defiling the Sabbath really means.  It only tells us what we have done, but not how we have did it. Yet, if we trace this word chalal back to its Semitic origins we discover exactly how we can profane the Sabbath. It comes from an old Canaanite word used by shepherds who blow on a flute to call the sheep to him.  Sheep respond to a certain sound on the flute.  However, if a caravan or travels go by the shepherd will begin to blow the flute avoiding the sound that would call the sheep to him. He would play the flute to call attention to himself.  Since he was no longer in tune with the sheep, the sheep would ignore the sound of the flute and the shepherd would receive the attention, usually from the travelers wondering what that gad awful noise was.

A friend of mine said how she grew upon taught that on the Sabbath she was to be in tune with God.  To her being out of tune with God was profaning the Sabbath. On the Sabbath we assemble ourselves with others who also love God.  We all tend to make a noise unto the Lord. If we make a noise of song, prayer, worship or praise to God we do it to draw attention to God.  But just as chalal and halal are so easily mistaken, many times under the guise of calling attention to God what we really are doing is calling attention to ourselves. That is what it means to profane the Sabbath, to use it as an opportunity to call attention to ourselves rather than to God.

Just as it is so easy to confuse the Cheth or the Hei so it is oh so easy to confuse that worship team as calling attention to themselves rather than to God or for that pastor to call attention to himself rather than God, for you who are called upon to open in prayer to pray beautiful, lovely words that call attention to yourself rather than God.  If you do so you are profaning the Sabbath.

When I was in the ministry somehow as the pastor or the teacher, it fell upon me to offer an invocation, benediction or a blessing before a meal.  I would say some beautiful prayers.  Oh the thees and thous would flow to warm the heart of Daniel Webster himself. I would rehearse my prayers and choose just the right words that would warm the hearts of the brethren.  One day as I was praying in public showing off my great oratory I noticed that my shoes needed a shine. I figured I would shine them when I got home but I would need to stop and pick up some shoe polish at Walgreens first.  I had the words of my prayer so well-rehearsed that I did not even need to think about what I was saying so I could easily concentrate on how I was going to get my shoes shined.  I mean who listens to these spot loyalty oaths anyways, if you were God would you?   I decided then and there if I ever left the ministry and I would never again pray in public even if called upon to do so because I realized I was profaning, chalal the name of God.  If I pray in public on Sunday I stand a good chance of profaning the Sabbath because I would be praying, not to God but to draw attention to myself.  I am not condemning public prayer, I am only saying that I personally have a problem about drawing attention to myself and I will withdraw from any activity where I may be attempting to cause people to notice all my fancied abilities rather than draw people to God. This is my own personal problem not yours.  But if it is yours you might want to consider that if you are not joyful during a prayer meeting, perhaps thou too profanest the Sabbath. If the only joy you receive is being recognized as a spiritual giant that will be the only joy you get and don’t count on getting the joy of the Lord. Whoever gets the attention will get the joy and if it is God, at least you get to share in His joy.