Ezekiel 20:18
But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols:
God spoke these words to the children of Israel in the wilderness after the exodus as His answer to their fathers' repeated rebellion and disobedience. Their fathers had not walked in His statutes, had despised His judgments, had polluted His Sabbaths, and had gone after idols. The children were therefore commanded not to walk in the statutes of their fathers, nor to observe their judgments, nor to defile themselves with their idols, thus breaking with inherited rebellious practices that included idolatry and Sabbath neglect and pollution. In place of those ways they were to serve the Lord by walking in His statutes, by keeping and doing His judgments, and by hallowing His Sabbaths, including the seventh-day Sabbath, as a sign between Him and them that He is the Lord their God who sanctifies them. Despite the weekly reminder given through the manna, the children remained lax in keeping the Sabbath, and that neglect was among the reasons declared for their being scattered among the heathen after settling in the promised land. The command stands as part of a warning that rebellion brings divine punishment.
It is numbered among prophecies describing the condition of the world before the second coming, a condition marked by iniquity, transgression of God's law, and breach of the everlasting covenant. The Sabbath is the sign of God's government stamped upon the soul who keeps it, the King's mark showing that he has been chosen and set apart to honor God, bound up with Sabbathkeeping and loyalty to God's commandments. By closely examining God's Word, including this passage, a person may know whether he bears this mark and whether he is dishonoring it. Bearing that sign requires refusing every dishonest transaction and practicing loyalty rather than dishonesty, because God will not be a party to dishonesty. Bearing it also requires doing the Sabbathkeeper's work specified in Isaiah 58. The verse gives plain direction for God's work to proclaim the truth about the Lord's Sabbath, to repair the breach made in His law, to enlighten those in ignorance, and never to confederate with men of the world in order to receive financial assistance.