"This is pride; this is vanity"
"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, carelessnes, slackeness, unbelief, what a mass of defilement is
there! Our private devotions, their laxity, coldness, neglect, sleepiness, and
vanity, whay 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 chering
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,
bet his own holiness.
O for grace to
view our great High Priest by the eye of faith!
C. H. Spurgeon