Fellowship with God.
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" etc. We raise from these words three general observations—
I. THAT A LOVING FELLOWSHIP WITH THE GREAT GOD IS THE ONE URGENT NEED OF HUMANITY. "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?" The language is that of a soul convinced of its sin, and roused to a sense of the importance of friendship with the Almighty. "Wherewith shall I come?" Come I must; I feel that distance from him is my great sin and misery.
1. Loving fellowship with the great God is essential to the happiness of moral intelligences. Reason suggests this. All souls are the offspring of God; and where can children find happiness but in the friendship, the intercourse, and the presence of their loving Father? Conscience indicates this. Deep in the moral souls of all men is the yearning for intercourse with the Infinite. The hearts of all "cry out for the living God." The Bible teaches this. What means such utterances as these: "Come now, and let us reason together;" "Return to the Lord;" "Come unto me," etc.? Not more impossible is it for a planet to shine when cut off from the sun, a river to flow when cut off from the fountain, a branch to grow when severed from the root, than for a soul to be happy apart from God. "In thy presence is fulness of joy;
2. Man, in his unregenerate state, is estranged and far away from God. He is represented as a lost sheep wandering in the wilderness away from the fold, as the prodigal son remote from his father's house and in a far country. How far is the human soul, in its unregenerate state, from God? How far is selfishness from benevolence, error flora truth, pollution from holiness, wrong from right? The moral space or gulf that lies between is immeasurable.
II. THAT SACRIFICES THE MOST COSTLY ARE UTTERLY INSUFFICIENT TO SECURE THIS FELLOWSHIP. "Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?" Such offerings were presented under the Law (Leviticus 1:1-17; etc.). "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" This also was enjoined in Leviticus. Oil was to be poured on the meat offering. "Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" The Jews offered many human sacrifices in the valley of Hinnom. They caused their children to pass through the fire in honour of Moloch. The idea is—Are there any sacrifices I can make, however costly and however painful, in order to commend me to the favour and friendship of Almighty God? The interrogatory implies a negative—No. Offer the cattle upon a thousand hills: can they be a satisfaction for sin? Can they commend you to Infinite Love? All are his. How men came at first to suppose that human sacrifices could be acceptable to God is one of the greatest enigmas in history. "Though a man give his body to be burned, without charity he is nothing." Two things are here presented.
1. The great cry of a sin-convicted soul is for God. No sooner is conviction of sin struck into the human soul, than it turns itself away at once from the world to God: "I want God; I have lost him; God I must have; oh that I knew where I might find him!"
2. Worldly possessions, in the estimation of a sin-convicted soul, are comparatively worthless. He is prepared to make any sacrifices. Holocausts, thousands of rams, ten thousands of rivers of oil; what are they? Nothing in comparison with the interests of the soul "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world," etc.? It feels this when convicted of sin.
III. THAT MORAL EXCELLENCE IS THE ONE METHOD BY WHICH THIS FELLOWSHIP CAN BE OBTAINED. "He hath showed thee, O man [Hebrew, 'Adam,' the whole race, Jew and Gentile alike], what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" This moral excellence consists of two parts, social and religious.
1. That which refers to man.
2. That which refers to God. "Walk humbly with thy God." Walking with God implies consciousness of the Divine presence, harmony with the Divine will, progress in Divine excellence. This is moral excellence—the moral excellence that God has revealed to all men, Jew and Gentile, the entire race, and which he requires from all; and this is the condition of fellowship with him. How is this moral excellence to be attained? it may be asked. Philosophically, I know but of one way—faith in him who is the Revelation, the Incarnation, the Example of all moral excellence Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION. Learn from this what religion is—how transcendent! It is the soul going away from sin and the world to God. Not merely to temples, theologies, ceremonies, but to God; and to him, not through intellectual systems or ceremonial observances, but through a true life, both in relation to man and God.—D.T.