'Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me; the

new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with;

it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.  Your new moons and your

appointed feasts My soul hateth: they are a trouble unto Me; I am weary

to bear them' (Isa. 1:13,14).

And yet every item mentioned -- temple, oblation, offering and feast --

was Divinely appointed.  Why then this revulsion?  The answer is found in the

above mentioned chapters.  Israel had departed from the truth, and so in the

eyes of the Lord, their clinging to the externals of religion was but empty

mummery.  False gods did not demand purity and spirituality from their

worshippers, and so their worship and their service could be named together;

but with the true God, even a Divinely appointed ritual was all in vain apart

from uprightness of heart.

Even when the apostle acknowledges that to Israel pertained 'the

service of God', this is limited to things 'according to the flesh' (Rom.

9:3,4), and the epistle to the Hebrews, when speaking of 'ordinances of

divine service' under the Old Covenant, adds the words 'and a worldly

sanctuary' (Heb. 9:1).  These things signified that the way into the holiest

of all was not yet made manifest.  They were figures, shadows of good things

to come:

'That could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to

the conscience; which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers

washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of

reformation' (Heb. 9:9,10).

The mere observance of 'days, months, weeks and years', even though

offered to the true God, is not far removed from the 'weak and beggarly

elements' of pagan worship (Gal. 4:8-10).  And the epistle to the Colossians

associates 'the worshipping of angels' and 'will worship' with ordinances

that were cancelled at the Cross, such as 'meat, drink, holy days, new moons,

and sabbath days' (2:16-23).

Returning to the Galatians, it is impossible to understand the

apostle's teaching in this mighty epistle without a realization of the fact

that the believer now is free.  Jerusalem on earth with its children is in

bondage, but Jerusalem which is above is free.

Perhaps we are at last drawing near to the solution of our problem.

The word 'serve' (abad) gives us the word 'bondage' (Exod. 1:14), 'bondmen'

(Gen. 43:18), 'bondservice' (1 Kings 9:21), 'servitude' (2 Chron. 10:4) and

'servile' (Lev.  23:7).  The readers will remember that in the observing of

the feasts of the Lord, and the sabbaths, it is reiterated that 'ye shall do

no servile work therein' (Lev. 23:7,8,21,25,35,36).  'Servility' and

'worship' cannot be thought of together; servility is only fit service for

the darkened heathen.  So when the Lord demanded the release of His people

that they might serve Him, He speaks of them as His 'son'.  The service of a

son was hidden under a mass of observances, in connection with a covenant

with which the Lord Himself 'found fault' -- a covenant which was 'imposed'

until the time of reformation, and destined to pass away for ever.  'Is

Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave?' asks Jeremiah (Jer. 2:14).  Alas,

he was, and is, and will be, until the veil is taken away.  Worship

therefore, as practised by such a people cannot be the real thing.