Every place on the statue itself to
which anything could be attached, anything on the altar around it, was
weighted down with gold chains, with jewels, with precious gifts of
every kind. These had been brought as thank-offerings, expressions of
worship, or pledges connected with a petition, because I have brought
thee this gift, have mercy, do this for me which I need.
So these old ideas are vital still, and live on in the modern world.
And yet modern and magnificent are those utterances of the old Hebrew
prophet, who had so completely outgrown the common customs even of his
time, when he represents God as saying that he is weary of all these
external offerings. He says: I do not want the cattle brought to my
temples. Those that wander on a thousand hills are already mine. If I
were hungry, I would not ask thee. He does not want the rivers of oil
poured out. What does he want? The old prophet says, What doth the Lord
require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with God? And some of the later writers caught a glimpse of the same
spiritual truth when they said, Not burnt- offerings, not calves of a
year old; when they cry out, Shall I bring the fruit of my body for the
sin of my soul? No, it is a broken and contrite heart, a heart sorry
for its sin, a heart consecrating itself to righteousness and truth,
this inner, spiritual worship.
The prophets, you see, were climbing up to that magnificent ideal so
finely set up by Jesus as reported in the Gospel from which I read our
lesson this morning.
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