God wants your body as a living sacrifice, not a dead one. There are too many dead ones. A time was when God was satisfied with a dead sacrifice. Under old Jewish law a dead sheep would do. He wants my body now when I'm alive and not when I am dead and the undertaker is waiting to carry it out to the cemetery. The day of that dispensation is past, and now he wants you, a living sacrifice, a real sacrifice. A traveling man who wants to make his wife a present, and sits up all night in the train instead of taking a berth for three dollars and uses the three dollars to buy a present for his wife, makes a real sacrifice for her. There never was a victory without sacrifice. Socrates advanced the doctrine of immortality and died with a cup of poisoned hemlock. Jesus Christ paid with a crown of thorns. Abraham Lincoln paid with a bullet in his body. If you mean to give yourself as a sacrifice to God, get out and work for him. Ask men to come to him.
"No More of You Old Deacons Coming Down the Aisles Stroking Your Whiskers"
"A holy sacrifice." Some men shy at that word "holy" like a horse at an automobile. Holy vessels were set apart for use in the worship of God. To be holy is to be set apart for God's use—that's all. To be holy isn't to be long-faced and never smile.
"Acceptable unto the Lord." If that were true then this old desert would blossom like Eden. If that were taken as our watchword, what a stampede of short yardsticks, shrunken measures, light weights, adulterated foods, etc., there would be!
What a stopping of the hitting up of booze! There would be no more living in sin and keeping somebody on the side, no more of you old deacons coming down the aisles stroking your whiskers and renting your buildings for houses of ill fame, and newspapers would stop carrying ads for whisky and beer.
Copyright, 1908, by C. U. Williams.
Copyright, 1908, by C. U. Williams.