And who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord.
Consecration
I. Service. This demands--
1. A settled purpose.
2. An active resolve.
II. A welling service.
1. A willing service is the only efficient service.
2. The willingness of our service is the only part that is absolutely required.
III. An immediate service.
1. Seasons for service are never absent.
2. Efficiency and pleasure ensue when service is performed in its own time.
IV. The highest service. The service of the Lord implies--
1. That the mind is perpetually under the influence of Divine truth.
2. That holy thoughts are actuated by the presence of the Spirit in them.
3. Entire consecration. (Thos. Davies,D. D.)
Self-dedication
It does the heart good to read over those closing chapters of this book and to note the spirit which animated the generation for which the first temple was built. As regards the cost and beauty of our churches there is this to be borne in mind, that whatever our present shortcomings may be, there is one great difference between ourselves and the ancient people of God--that whereas all their gifts were offered for a single building, we have to maintain all the churches in the kingdom, which in number must be fast approaching twenty thousand. But large as are the sums which have been spent, and are daily being spent on church building and church restoration, there is one offering which God values more than any other gift, and which each of us, from highest to lowest, may offer if we will--a perfect heart. (F. E. Paget.)
Consecration to God’s service
I. The nature of the service required. The service of God is a phrase which amounts to much the same thing as the worship of God.
1. Servitude sometimes arises from--
(1) Subjugation or conquest.
(2) Hereditary succession. Some men are born servants or slaves. The servitude which God requires is a servitude which makes the servant free.
2. The service which God requires involves--
(1) Divine illumination.
(2) Pure and ardent love.
(3) Continued and unceasing obedience.
II. What are the obligations under which we are all placed to render such service to the Almighty?
1. It is the duty of man to obey and serve Him.
2. Such service is very profitable and beneficial to man.
3. It is a refuge to its subject in the day of trouble.
4. It is an antidote to the fear of death.
III. That the service of God is indispensable.
1. Because it is the commandment of God.
2. The grand design of human life is the service of God.
3. The service of God is the only means of salvation.
IV. I come now to propose the inquiry, “Who then is willing? “ etc.
1. The service of God is a willing service.
2. I address myself
(1) To the aged.
(2) To those in the prime and activity of life.
(3) More especially to the young. Lock--
(a) At the magnitude of the work.
(b) The difficulty with which it may afterwards be accomplished.
(c) The shortness and uncertainty of life.
(d) The consequences that will follow from this early devotement of yourselves unto God. Objections:
1. Time enough yet.
2. I shall lose my friends if I embrace in my youth the religion of Jesus Christ. It was once said by an ancient philosopher, “Caesar is my friend--I have nothing to fear”; and a greater than Caesar is here. Jesus is “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”
3. To embrace religion in youth will expose to obloquy and shame. Was it not said by one of the ancients that where God is there can be no exile--no banishment from His presence?
4. God is merciful, and we may get religion when we please. You may reckon on mercy until you are taken out of the world without it; and there is no mercy beyond the gates of death. (W. Tease.)
Who is willing to serve God
I. The nature of the service which God demands.
1. It is spiritual. It is the homage and devotion of the heart. All the intellectual powers, the understanding, will, affections, conscience, memory are to be dedicated to the worship of God. Without this no service can be acceptable to God (Isa_1:11; Isa_1:13; Mat_15:8-9).
2. It is to be constant and unremitting (1Co_10:31).
3. It must be affectionate. It is impossible for us to offer any acceptable service to God which does not spring from this love in our heart (1Jn_5:3). How is this to be obtained? The answer is Very plain (Eph_4:22-24). Thus God will “create a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within you.”
4. It must be practical (Mat_5:16; 1Co_9:27; 2Co_10:5).
II. The service which God requires of us should be performed without delay.
1. It is enjoined upon us by the Scriptures (Heb_3:15; Jos_24:15; 2Co_6:2). You have no certainty that any further opportunities will be afforded in which you may serve God (Pro_27:1; Luk_13:25-27).
3. The longer you defer entering into the service of God the more difficulties and obstacles will be thrown in your way. How absurd the notion that futurity will present more favourable opportunities for serving God than any with which we have yet been blessed. Suppose a sick man were to say, “As long as this disorder remains upon me, and the more deeply my constitution is affected by it, the more certainly shall I receive a speedy cure.” Would you consider this person to be perfectly sane? Or should one of your debtors assure you that by your increasing his obligations to you some three or four fold he would be immediately able to cancel the whole, would you believe him? The longer you live in sin the more grievously do you provoke God. You “crucify to yourselves the Son of God afresh.” It is awfully possible for men to outlive the day of grace (Psa_95:11).
4. Our services will be more acceptable now than they can possibly be at any future period.
III. Let us now consider the import of the question, “Who then is willing? “ etc.
1. It carries with it the assumption that God is waiting to accept your service.
2. It implies also that every one possesses the ability to consecrate his service unto God.
3. We are taught by the text that there is a disinclination in the heart of man to submit himself to the will of God.
Conclusion:
1. This is the most honourable service in which you can engage
2. It is pleasant (Pro_3:17; Isa_32:17; Psa_16:3; Isa_2:5).
3. It is reasonable (Act_17:28).
4. It is the only service which secures a vast reward (1Co_2:9). (R. Treffry.)
Consecration
The New Version reads, “Who then offereth willingly to consecrate himself this day unto the Lord.” This preferable reading suggests the theme of self consecration to God.
I. What this consecration involves. A man may consecrate many things to God and yet not consecrate himself. God does not value s man’s money, time, talents, if he withholds himself. Consecration of self involves--
1. The heart. This is the seat of our affections, the love of our nature, end the fountain from which flows everything that constitutes the character. “Give me thine heart.”
2. The body. The body as well as thesoul is the temple of God (1Co_6:15; 1Co_6:19; Eph_5:30). Self-consecration covers our whole being--body, soul, and spirit. It will also embrace our time, talents, wealth.
II. The claim which God has to this self-consecration. His claim results--
1. From His love. God loves us. The love of a father constitutes a claim to the love of a dutiful son, how much more to the love of a prodigal son.
2. From the way in which God has consecrated or sanctified Himself for us. “He gave Himself for me.”
3. He asks our self-consecration to His service because it is the best thing we can do for ourselves.
III. This self-consecration is immediate duty.
1. It is a great mistake for any to withhold self-consecration because they are too young. It is easier to be pure, and truthful, and loving, and diligent in the service of God when young than it will be to practise those virtues when old, if you have neglected them when young. The habits formed by a life of sin and neglect of God are like iron chains that you cannot easily break. Many who once said they were too young are now saying they are too old.
2. The sooner you commence to serve God the more you will be able to accomplish.
3. The present may be your only opportunity. We have been speaking specially to the young; but this is also a word for the aged. It is a delightful thing to see the young decide for Christ, but it is a sad thing to see the parents left behind. I was deeply impressed with this one day. I was on a visit close to the east coast where so many wrecks had recently taken place; among them was a vessel at the mouth of the Tyne. It was Christmas day, and on the pier among the crowd of spectators stood the son of the captain, watching and waiting for his father; for he was expected to be at home on that festive day. Probably as they gazed at each other a violent sea struck the vessel, and it sunk with all hands--wrecked within sight of port and within sight of friends. Parents, are there none of your children who have decided for Christ, and are standing on the Rock and looking out and expecting you home? Shall they see you wrecked within sight of port? (AbsalomClarke.)
Service for God
Men make a great deal of to-morrow. God always and everywhere lays stress on to-day. Day by day God supplies, and day by day He asks us to serve. In reference to this service we want to try and answer three questions.
I. Who is it asks for it?
II. Why does he want it? God wishes to use men, because by this means He can bestow richer blessing upon them than He could in any other way.
III. How may we render it?
1. By yielding your heart to Him.
2. By living an upright, consistent, unselfish life.
3. By earnest loving effort.
4. By helping and encouraging His people. (J. D. Kilburn.)
Christian consecration
I. Christian consecration is a personal thing: “Who?”
II. Christian consecration is a voluntary thing: “Who is willing?”
III. Christian consecration is an active thing: His service.”
IV. Christian consecration is a reasonable thing: “Unto the Lord.”
V. Christian consecration is a prompt thing: “This day.”
VI. Christian consecration is a sympathetic thing: it prompts the consecrated to commend the grace of God to others and press the question, “Who is willing?” etc. (Thos. Kelly,D. D.)
Consecration
A great disappointment in life is often a terrible experience. A picturesque writer compares the setting of a secret hope to the setting of the sun. The brightness of life seems gone. And such might well to some extent have been the experience of David. He had set his heart on erecting the temple on Mount Zion. We may judge, then, what a collapse fell on his intensest interest and expectation when the decree issued that the work was not to be done by him. Instead of sinking into sullen apathy, or the inertness of despair, he devoted himself with renewed and consecrated energy to gather the materials necessary for the work, and in the text he appeals to and seeks to stimulate the people. The consecration here required--
I. Must have in it the element of spontaneity. We must know what love to God really is, and we must feel the spell of its sweet strength. As to the form in which our love is to manifest itself, that is a question of inferior importance. We know that our love to our fellow creatures is not conformed to any common or uniform law; it is sometimes radiant in a smile, flippant on the tongue; its speech bewrayeth itself; it asserts itself irrepressibly in a thousand ways. In other cases it is reticent, it is reserved, it is like the image of moon or star in a mountain tam, it abideth alone; few ever see it; and yet in both cases it is deep and sincere, strong even as death. The great question is not as to how our love is to express itself, but as to whether it really exists at all, the supreme power of the soul, a living and present reality within us. One of our poets represents a wretched slave, in reply to the query of her master in respect to her affection for himself, as replying with a gladness-glamoured, “Yes,” with her lips, when her heart, burned to say, “No.” The sad, pathetic picture of the poet is the precise converse of what we are now insisting upon, namely, that the professed devotion of ourselves to God must be the gift of love, or can He do else than spurn the sacrifice altogether?
II. Must be a whole-hearted, undivided thing--body as well as soul. The later representatives of the Gnostics held that the body was so wholly bad as to be beyond redemption; that it did not matter what became of it; that it might be plunged into the blackest depths of vicious excess and that the spirit within would contract no defilement and suffer no detriment. Accordingly the primitive Christians were in imminent peril of being seduced into the immoralities which abounded around them. Hence the warnings which abound in apostolic Epistles against lasciviousness, revelling, banquetings, and such like. Why should we not feel respecting the body that it is as truly consecrated to God in the case of a Christian as the soul can be?
III. This consecration is no cheap or easy thing. We must not offer unto God that which costs us nothing.
1. There is the cost of self-discipline.
2. The diligent and laborious use of the means of grace. (Dean Forrest.)
Consecration
I do not know a question in the sacred volume more full of import, or more adapted to press upon the heart.
I. We shall explain what we regard as the consecration of service to God.
1. There must be correct views of the Divine character and claims, as they are revealed in the record of His word. You must receive Him as He there appears.
(1) The God of creation.
(2) The God of providence.
(3) The God of redemption.
2. A practical obedience to the will of God, whether expressly declared, or whether to be inferred from His revealed attributes.
3. The use of active exertion to promote the Divine glory in the world. Religion does not only direct our attention to duties which pertain exclusively to our own personal characters and interests; it also prompts a concern for the improvement and welfare of our fellow-men. It is not equivocal testimony that your own hearts are given to God in faith and true holiness when you desire to be instrumental in restoring the authority of His law over the minds and lives of others.
II. We shall present the considerations which ought to urge to as engagement in the service of God.
1. We are placed under universal and imperative obligation to do so.
2. The influence His service has in preventing the degradation and promoting the dignity of our nature. The habits of men must always according to their moral nature tend to degrade or dignify. He who is truly devoted to God, whatever be his deficiencies and disadvantages in other respects, is placed on a far higher eminence than can ever be attained by the most arduous aspirations of the carnal mind. Must not that bestow transcendent dignity which writes the law of Jehovah on the heart, renders the body a living temple and an habitation of God, places the thoughts and employments of men in a sphere where they become associated with prophets and apostles and martyrs of the Redeemer and the Redeemer Himself, and where they are blended with the sublime realities of the invisible and eternal world? The service of God ennobles all that it comprehends; it is as the rose which gave its fragrance to the very clay; it is as the sunbeam which tints with a fresh hue of beauty and splendour the forms of earth, and causes them to reflect its own glory.
3. The true and solid pleasure His service communicates to the soul. Here is--
(1) Peace with God.
(2) Freedom from the dominion of sin.
(3) Redemption from the terror of the curse.
(4) The confidence of rectitude and pardon.
(5) The inspiration which springs from a participation in the triumphs of pure benevolence and love.
(6) The possession of privileges which, from the consolations of time, shall rise to the happiness of eternity.
4. The glorious recompence by which the engagements of His service are consummated.
III. We shall impress the question by which, to an engagement in the service of God, you are emphatically challenged. “Who is willing?” What excuses can you propose to justify a negative. You are too young. “Suffer little children to come unto Me.” You are too poor. The Saviour came to “preach the gospel to the poor.” You are too guilty. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” You are prevented by worldly attachments. “He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me,” etc. You are deterred by threatening of persecution. “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it,” etc. (JamesParsons.)
The true idea of the Christian life
I. This is God’s appeal for service.
II. Service is the true idea of the Christian life. For religion is not a mere viaticum to carry the soul to glory;but a power and support required during life, and not in death only.
III. Service implies obedience, self-denial, and activity. Such a work requires generosity and earnestness, resembling the zeal of the Jews in building their temple.
IV. The service of God requires a voluntary and distinct consecration.
V. The service of God is of the most pressing urgency. It should be “this day.” (L. H. Byrnes,B. A.)
The act of the will
In making our choice there is a determined act of our own will. To be willing is one thing; to will is another thing. We may be entirely willing, for instance, to go to some other country--say America--and such willingness may continue for years; but unless you will to go, you will never reach there. Our choice involves a definite act of the will; we may think about religion; we may talk about religion; we may be kindly affected towards religion; but we are called to do more. We are called to make a determined act of our will and to make our choice. You have seen a grand vessel about to be launched. Everything was ready for her departure from dry land. Every impediment had been removed but one, and that was the one which prevented her from entering the element on which she was to sail. One single block hound her to earth. It was in itself a mere trifle. A blow of the hammer wielded by a vigorous arm would set her free; but let that block remain untouched, and no onward movement would be made by the gallant ship. The hammer swings in the air; the blow is struck; she rushes into the great deep, where she floats with ease and grace as one born to it as her own possession. That stroke of the hammer corresponds to the act of the will--the deliberate resolution taken and made to consecrate oneself to Christ and to God. It must be taken, or the journey will never be traversed. (Cameron Lees,D. D.)
Complete consecration
“I give Thee all--I keep back nothing for myself.” Such was the motto engraved upon the ring and seals of the great Reformer Calvin. The words were deeply cut in what was solid, whether of metal or stone. They were ever carried about him, ever present with him. He meant them to be unchangeable by engraving them where he did. Offeredwillingly:--Rich men’s presents are gold and silver, or other costly things. Mine must be recommended by the affectionate pleasure with which I give them. (The Ven. Bede when dying.)
