Spurgeon: January AM
* 01/08/AM
"The iniquity of the holy things."
--Exodus 28:38
What a veil is lifted up by these words, and what a
disclosure is made! It will be humbling and profitable for us to
pause awhile and see this sad sight. The iniquities of our
public worship, its hypocrisy, formality, lukewarmness,
irreverence, wandering of heart and forgetfulness of God, what a
full measure have we there! Our work for the Lord, its
emulation, selfishness, carelessness, slackness, unbelief, what
a mass of defilement is there! Our private devotions, their
laxity, coldness, neglect, sleepiness, and vanity, what a
mountain of dead earth is there! If we looked more carefully we
should find this iniquity to be far greater than appears at
first sight. Dr. Payson, writing to his brother, says, "My
parish, as well as my heart, very much resembles the garden of
the sluggard; and what is worse, I find that very many of my
desires for the melioration of both, proceed either from pride
or vanity or indolence. I look at the weeds which overspread my
garden, and breathe out an earnest wish that they were
eradicated. But why? What prompts the wish? It may be that I may
walk out and say to myself, 'In what fine order is my garden
kept!' This is pride . Or, it may be that my neighbours may
look over the wall and say, 'How finely your garden flourishes!'
This is vanity . Or I may wish for the destruction of the
weeds, because I am weary of pulling them up. This is
indolence." So that even our desires after holiness may be
polluted by ill motives. Under the greenest sods worms hide
themselves; we need not look long to discover them. How cheering
is the thought, that when the High Priest bore the iniquity of
the holy things he wore upon his brow the words, "HOLINESS TO
THE LORD:" and even so while Jesus bears our sin, He presents
before His Father's face not our unholiness, but his own
holiness. O for grace to view our great High Priest by the eye
of faith!