07. The Burnt-Offering And Full Surrender
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BURNT-OFFERING AND FULL SURRENDER
“If his offering be a burnt-sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord” (Lev 1:3-5).
WE have meditated together on the sin-offering: Christ bearing our sins on the cross, suffering in our stead the punishment due to our sins, and reconciling us with God.
In the sin-offering the man-ward aspect is most prominent.
The burnt-offering typifies the God-ward aspect of Christ’s life, a type of Christ in consecration. “Then said I, Lo, I come to do thy will.” Christ told us that the purpose of His coming on the earth was to do God’s will. He was the only man that ever lived on earth who never for a single moment swerved from putting God first in His life, to accomplish God’s will.
When the disciples urged the Lord to eat, He told them that His meat was to do the will of His Father who had sent Him and to finish His work (John 4:34). When His brothers urged Him to go up to Jerusalem to the feast, He told them His hour had not come yet.
He could abide Father’s time. He could say, “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30). At the close of His life, Christ could say, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4). “I have glorified thee on the earth.” It was a life wholly depending on His Father. “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do” (John 5:19).
Christ was the burnt-offering.
Not only when as our substitute He bore sins on the cross was He that, but also during His whole life in His whole-hearted surrender to the will of His Father, leaving us an example, that we should follow in His steps (1Pe 1:21).
Every fact in the life of our Saviour should become a factor in our lives.
- He was born that we might be born again;
- He died on the cross that our self-life might be crucified with Him;
- He rose the third day that we should rise in the newness of life with Him;
- He ascended into heaven that we might sit with Him in heavenly places.
- He became a burnt-offering that each of His followers should become a burnt-offering.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom 12:1).
Let us take our stand at the brazen altar, being conscious of the Master’s presence and His words sinking deep into our hearts:
“So much I did for thee,
What doest thou for me?”
1. Your burnt-offering must be of your own free voluntary will.
The Lord repeatedly emphasizes this. He will stand at the door of your heart knocking, but He will never cross the threshold unless you open to Him the door. He wants no compulsory service.
I once received a blank piece of paper with only the signature underneath. Some weeks before I had been speaking with the writer and urged her to a full surrender. She felt doubtful, fearing the Lord would ask something which was beyond her strength.
In an accompanying letter she wrote, “I want the Lord to fill in where He wants me to go and what He wants me to do.”
The Lord had made her willing. Do not be afraid to follow her example and to put yourself unreservedly in His hands. He is no hard task-master. He is your best friend; He loves you. He knows better than you what is good for you. When your child would come to you and with the warm affection of a child’s heart would tell you, “Mother, I do not want to grieve you again. I will gladly do whatever you tell me,” would you test her and put her to the most disagreeable task you can think of? I tell you, I should give her the best day she ever had in her life.
Are you still hesitating? You are thinking of something which has become a habit to you; not exactly a sin, but a weight, something that hinders your growth, your fruitfulness; hinders your giving a joyful testimony to others. The Holy Spirit may perhaps often have put His hand on it, perhaps He is doing so now.
F. B. Meyer once taught us a helpful prayer. He told us of something he had not surrendered, something in his life in which he did not let the Lord share, a room which he had kept locked. He said, “I felt unhappy about it. I then prayed, O Lord, make me willing to become willing!” He did.
2. Your burnt-offering must be without blemish.
Christ’s was. He was a lamb without blemish. But you say,
“My offering can never be like that.” Listen, Christ by making a perfect burnt-offering covers the imperfections in mine and yours.
We were reading this morning in our family worship Mat 23:19 : “Whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?” - Christ or your burnt-offering? Take courage. Christ said to His Father in the prayer of intercession (John 17:19):
“For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”
“Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb 2:11).
3. Your burnt-offering must be a WHOLE burnt-offering.
It is the only offering that had to be burnt altogether. Nothing of it was taken by the priest, it belonged all to God. The Holy Spirit puts two photographs side by side. Evidently He wants us to compare them. Acts 5 begins with, “but,” which shows that it is connected with the preceding verses.
Joses of Cyprus had a piece of ground, a field. He wanted to have something in the Holy City that belonged to him. He was no longer an alien. But the need of the church was great, so he sold his beloved field and laid the money at the apostle’s feet.
Ananias and Sapphira had an estate. They kept back part of the price; they brought a certain part. They lied to the Holy Spirit; they lost their testimony.
I do not know whether they were converted. I trust they were. If so they came to Christ with a lie on their lips. I suppose the church in Jerusalem had a treasurer who entered the gifts in his ledger. No doubt he considered Ananias was the larger giver. It might have been entered in three or four ciphers. Our Lord reckons differently.
He sat against the treasury. He always does. He said the widow who gave her two mites had cast in more than the others. Our Lord looks not at what we give, but what we keep back. The widow gave all she had.
Our Lord looks not at your checkbook, but at your bank-book.
Why do so many missionary societies have a want of funds? Why is there so little spiritual life in many churches? There is a lack of surrender. Barnabas brought a burnt-offering; Ananias did not. The lamb had to die. It is only through the gate of death that we enter into the full life. Die unto self, live unto Christ.
“Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24).
Do you want to bear much fruit? You must die to self. The cross covers your sins, but it does more; it also wants to cover your old self-life.
S. D. Gordon, a dear friend of mine, said in one of his books: “If self is on the throne, Christ is on the cross. When the self-life is on the cross, Christ is on the throne.”
Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine;
Living with Jesus, a new life divine;
Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine,
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
Christ gave Himself for you. Should you not give yourself to Him? Everything for everything! He gave all for you. Will you give all to Him? Remember: surrender, consecration does not convey ownership. You are His already; you are bought with a price. Will you keep back part of the price? Are you willing to become a burnt-offering? Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way,
Thou art the potter;
I am the clay.
I was a young clergyman. In a little village lived a clergyman’s widow. She had two sons at college. Both were converted. There was much spiritual life in the college, and missionary interest.
John, the eldest, felt called to the mission field, to the west coast of Africa. It was at that time called the white man’s grave. When he came home, he asked the old vicar to ask his mother if she would let him go. The old clergyman hardly liked to do it; he thought there were others who might go instead.
He went to the home. The old lady in her neat widow’s cap came into the little drawing-room. He told her John’s wish.
“John is a good boy,” he said, “he will not go if you do not give your consent.”
What was her answer? “Sir, before John was born, my dear husband and I gave him to the Lord and prayed the Lord might I use him.”
John went. He was only there nine months. He had not mastered the language yet, but his life was a living testimony. Then came a cable to Salisbury Square, the office of the Church Missionary Society, that God had called His young servant home.
Next Christmas, Willy told the old vicar that he had heard the call from the mission field. He wanted to be his brother’s substitute. This time the old vicar shook his head most energetically. Yet he went and told the mother and again said, “Willy is a fine boy, he will never go if you want to keep him.”
The mother was a moment silent, and then with tears in her eyes and smiling through the tears, she repeated: Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all! That mother was a burnt-offering. Are you? She kept nothing back. She laid her all upon the altar, and the altar sanctified the gift.
That mother was a whole burnt-offering. Like another widow, she cast into the treasury all she had (Mark 12:14). Our Lord still sits over against the treasury and beholds what we give and what we hold back. Is our best too good for Him, who gave all for us?
Laid on Thine altar, O my Lord divine, Accept this gift today for Jesus’ sake.
I have no jewels to adorn Thy shrine Nor any world-famed sacrifice to make;
But here I bring within my trembling hand This will of mine - a thing that seemeth small,
And Thou alone, O Lord, canst understand How, when I yield Thee this, I yield Thee all.
Take it, O Father, ere my courage fail, And merge it so in Thine, that e’en
If in some desperate hour, my cries prevail And Thou give back my gift, it may have been
So changed, so purified, so fair have grown, So one with Thee, so filled with peace divine,
I may not know or feel it as my own But, giving back my will, may find it Thine.
- Selected
~ end of chapter 7 ~