When the burnt offering began, then the song of the Lord began also.
Sacrifice and song
This chapter contains a brief, graphic account of the great reformation which Hezekiah wrought in the beginning of his reign. The text is part of that account.
I. How often these two things--sacrifice and song--self-denial and joy--are associated. We see the union every, where.
1. In the home. When is the husband or wife so supremely happy as when by some deed of self-sacrifice he or she has made the other glad? When does the father’s heart sing for joy? Not when he has bent the stubborn will of the child, but when, by the sacrifice of some luxury he has made the little soul glad on its birthday.
2. In the best works of fiction, i.e., those which are most true to human nature who does not remember the half-sovereign which Tom Pinch, the poor half-starved clerk, concealed in a piece of paper and put into the hand of Martin Chuzzlewit at their parting? And who has not envied the feeling of happiness with which he returned to his bare home and grinding lot?
3. In the lives of God’s servants. The memorials of Robert and Mary Moffat, show what sacrifices they had to make in carrying on their work in Africa. They leave no doubt that they found a joy in them that the selfish and luxurious are seeking in vain.
4. In our own lives we have all experienced it.
II. They are indissolubly associated--joined together in the nature of things. Man cannot have the one without the other. Let there be no sacrifice and there will be no song, no self-denial and there will ere long be no joy. That is a law written broadly over human nature, attested by the widest experience, and recognised by Pro_11:24-25. It explains some of what seem to be the hardest sayings and most difficult demandsof our Lord, as, e.g., Mat_16:24-25; Joh_12:24; and His question put to the two ambitious disciples (Mar_10:37-38). The lesson is clear. We all want happiness--that our joy may be full. But we cannot have it by aiming at it directly. Begin to sacrifice, to give to God what you really value; say, “I will not offer unto the Lord my God that which doth cost me nothing.” Give your money, interest, time, effort. Copy the example of Him who went about doing good, and “pleased not Himself.” Try to make lives brighter, homes happier, business more pure. Take up the cross. Then this bit of old-world history shall record your experience: “When the burnt offering began, then the song of the Lordbegan also”--a song which grew louder and mightier as the sacrifice went on, and never ended until the sacrifice itself came to an end. (J. Ogle.)
