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Scripture Readings: Romans 6; II Corinthians 4: Ezekiel 43:21 to 27;
Leviticus 1st chapter.
Texts: "Then said Jesus unto his disciples if any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? "Matt. 16:24-26.
"And who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord." I Chronicles 29:5.
Salvation, in all ages and in all lands, is absolutely and only of God, manifested in Christ by the Holy Spirit. "There is no other name given under heaven known among men whereby we may be saved." Christ was given from eternity “A Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." And the gift of the Holy Spirit in His creative, life giving power, was in the gift of the Son and has been working from the beginning. It was God in Christ, by the Holy Spirit who saved Enoch, making him one with God until he walked with God and was not for God took him. It was the same Spirit who sought to save the perverse Antediluvians, but they utterly refused to yield to God, and God said of them, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years."
Those who have lost sight of the Everlasting Christ, the same, yesterday, today and forever, the riches of the glory of whose mystery is "Christ in you, the hope of glory", have sought to center all the saving work of Christ into His short earthly life making all these things merely types of his death, have given a false idea of salvation. Salvation is ever a personal, inner transformation of character which can only be wrought out in the individual personally, where he is by the omnipresent Christ of which the incarnate Christ was a manifestation and a revelation. "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice."
So when the sinner came bringing his sin offering it was not the sinner trying to save himself but was God in Christ by the Holy Spirit, drawing the sinner to Himself, bringing him to repentance that He might forgive Him, that He might purge and purify him until every thought and desire might, in Christ, come up a fragrant incense before God, so when the sinner has been forgiven, and is in the process of cleansing, his next step in the sacred way back to God is to consecrate himself, as our text above indicates. "Who is willing to consecrate himself this day unto the Lord".
This burnt offering was the consecration offering. The sinner could not bring his burnt offering until he had first brought his sin offering and his trespass offering. He could not have part in the public worship or burnt offering of the congregation until he had come as a sinner with his sin offering. But when he had thus come as a sinner and been forgiven he could then, "of his own voluntary will, bring his burnt offering to the door of the Sanctuary and lay his hands upon its head and it was accepted for him, to make an atonement for him." And having come willingly and personally, consecrating himself to God, he could henceforth have a part in the public worship of the congregation, which was a morning and evening burnt offering.
To show this consecration of the whole life to God, the whole sacrifice was burned on the altar as a sweet odour unto God. Over and over we are told "it must be a whole burnt offering." It must be brought by the voluntary free will of the offerer. If it was a small animal it was placed whole upon the altar. If it was a bullock it might be cut in pieces so as to get it on the altar but it must all be placed on the altar, "It must be a whole burnt offering.
As a contrast the sin offering and trespass offering, only the fat that signified the Spirit, was burned for a sweet odour unto God. The flesh was taken without the gate and destroyed as unholy and unclean. But now the whole burnt signified the whole forgiven, cleansed and consecrated man is to be consumed on the altar of service as a fragrant offering unto God. And this is not ourselves, but "Christ in us" for of this very service Paul tells us "Ye are the fragrance of Christ ascending unto God."
The fire that ignites the burnt offering must be the sacred fire kept constantly burning on the altar of incense. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire and were destroyed for their sin, devoured before the Lord. Instead of using the fire from the altar they put strange fire in their censers. What is the sacred fire that can so consecrate the life and consume it in sacrificial service as to cause it to come up as a sweet odour unto God? We read of the coal from this altar of sacred fire touching the lips of Isaiah and purifying them. Only the fire of the Divine Love can so purify and consecrate the soul to service. When God, who is Love, poured out his Spirit of infinite Love in consecrating the early Church to service, they were baptized with fire and cloven tongues as of fire sat on each of them. And Paul tells us that without this greatest of all things to consecrate our lives to service, whatever else we may have, we are as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.
So the Divine Love of God as revealed in Christ implanted in the soul is the only motive that can consecrate our lives to service and cause them to come up as the fragrance of Christ ascending unto God. Woe to him who brings any other motive to the sacrifice as the love of human approbation, a desire for the praise of men, a using of the service of God as a means of financial advancement, commercializing religion. All these are the profane, the strange fire that will surely cause failure and death.
Sometimes this fire was kindled by a flash from on high as for Elijah on Mount Carmel, but usually by a coal from off the sacred altar when God had long ago kindled it by a flash from above. Paul's experience, was a flash of this sacred fire from above on the Damascus road. Just picture Paul breathing out threatenings one moment and the next a flash from heaven and this man was completely transformed and immediately consecrated to the service of God. Some receive this flame from the sacred fire from some consecrated heart as from Judson and Cary, but it is all from Christ, but remember beloved the life must be given. No man can fool God. The difference between the saved and the unsaved is right here; the former is giving his life continually, even though imperfectly, in sacrifice and service, the latter is saving his life for himself.
There is no more important lesson in all the word; over and over again Jesus said, "whosoever saveth his life shall lose it". "Whosoever loseth his life for my sake shall find it again." It is right here that Satan by bringing in a false theology from paganism has sought to nullify this all important truth. He has caused it to be taught that Christ gave His life for us instead so we would not have to give ours. But Jesus said "Except ye take up your cross and deny yourself daily and come after me ye cannot be my disciple. It is the same principle stated again "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life shall keep it unto life eternal." Except a corn of wheat be cast into the ground and die it abideth alone." "If ye have been planted in the likeness of his death ye shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission". That is, without the giving of the life there is no remission. It is stated as universal law. "Whosoever eateth the blood shall die", it meant whosoever appropriateth his life unto himself shall die, and we can not get away from this law. Read Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 7:26, and Leviticus 17.
If we do our work purely for our selves we are keeping our life unto ourself but every true work is done as a service to humanity, and can be glorified. Carlyle says "were it but true hand labor there is in it something of divineness." God sees and judges all things from the motives of the heart. Jesus taught this in Matthew 6. If in our hearts we do useful humble work as a service it is elevated into a sacrificial service and comes up as the fragrance of Christ ascending unto God. This consecration was not once for all but continuous. The burnt offering was a daily, morning and evening consecration. No wonder the inspired poets sang of it. Read Psalm 48. Paul says "I count all things but loss that I may win Christ and know the fellowship of His sufferings that I may know the power of His resurrection."
George E. Fifield
Nothing is clearer than that the Bible teaches that a separation of true Christianity from the false, so-called Christianity will take place prior to Christ’s return to this earth. Some people believe this separation will take place over the day that will be observed as the Sabbath; and, so they go about devoting almost their entire effort to getting people to observe the right day, and necessarily paying little attention to getting people to experience the spiritual meaning of the Sabbath, since they have not had that experience themselves. In other words, they put the sign before the experience signified, just as the later Jews did with the sign of circumcision, and just the opposite from the way in which, it is clearly stated, God gave circumcision to Abraham. This inevitably puts the Sabbath into the Old Covenant, just as the Jews put circumcision there, and teaches the people to seek their righteousness through obedience, instead of seeking to be made righteous by the divine indwelling, so they can truly and spiritually obey.
There is the worship of God through the motive of love; and the worship of the devil, through motives of fear."
— George E. Fifield in the Sermon Love Versus Fear