Psalm 50:5 Gather my saints together to me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. The history of sacrifice is as old as the history of sin; the idea of sacrifice much older. It is part of the inmost counsels of God. It finds its corresponding utterance, with differing degrees of clearness and truth, through all that is holiest, noblest, and most personal of all God's creation. Time, study, thought, enter into every work of art that earns any real fame . and perhaps it is not too much to say that no painter's creation, no sculptor's reproduction of all but life, no burning words of eloquence, no minstrel's strain, no poet's dream, no work of art, ever really touches the heart, kindles deep feeling, directs motives, or influences conduct, if it does not bear on or below its surface the evidence of labour, of travail, of self-devotion, of self-dedication, self-absorption in the object of beauty or of power. And only in proportion as those who look, or admire, or criticize, or are captivated, know the real principles of what they gaze upon, or estimate the suffering they cost, does the popular opinion approximate the true. And hence it is that God's judgment, and God's opinion of people and acts, differ so often and so terribly from ours. He knows on what grounds His professing servants claim to have a covenant with Him: in what manner they act up to their claim. But God is gathering together those with whom He has made a covenant by sacrifice. And why? For judgment. "God is judge Himself." He has a heavy charge against them. They are His. They have made a covenant with Him. But herein is their sin. The first awful charge against them is opened thus: "I am God, even thy God." The only sacrifice they had made had cost them nothing. And this day again God speaks. Again "out of Zion bath God appeared in perfect beauty"; but it is not the beauty of the world; it is "in the beauty of holiness" expressed in sacrifice. He gathers His saints together unto Him; "lifted up" from the earth upon the Cross, He "draws all men unto Him." Standing before the Cross, gathered before God, can we compare our lives with that life of sacrifice? Can we say that we have really rendered to Him that which He knows it is a sacrifice to us to give? (G. C. Harris, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.WEB: "Gather my saints together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." |
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