“Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.” In Leviticus, the book of the law, I read these words.
Is reverence a necessary element in our characters, or is it but a pleasing sentiment? It cannot be the latter, or we should not be enjoined so emphatically to exercise it. Men whose lives are not given to piety are apt to call it weakness, and attribute it to mere superstition; and thus many close their eyes to that which should be closely examined, being willfully blind, choosing delusion in preference to truth. But true reverence is an evidence of power rather than of weakness; of true knowledge of the existence of the unknown (if not comprehended in every detail) rather than a fancied delusion or mere superstition. What opinion could you have of a man who had no respect for principles too deep, too profound, for him to understand? Would not this very attitude declare his weakness? Phillips Brooks has said, and well said too, that “irreverence everywhere is blindness, and not sight. It is the stare which is bold because it believes in its heart that there is nothing which its insolent intelligence may not fathom, and so which finds only what it looks for, and makes the world as shallow as it ignorantly dreams the world to be.” How sad that just such characters exist, and sometimes within the church of Christ!
What would you think of a little child, who, standing on the sandy beach, with the waves laving his dimpled feet, and the straying winds playing hide and seek in his golden hair, would shake his tiny fist at the approaching breakers, and mock in skeptical and careless indifference at the coming hurricane? Now there are those who, being as ignorant as the child, though boasting of mature years, will dare to stand in the very presence of “him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters,” and yet fail to recognize his almighty power, acting as carelessly and as blindly as though they were not endowed with reason, and could not be expected to respond to the claims of the God who made them.
Reverence modestly veils its face from that which it does not know, and obediently waits.
We never can do any work, and do it “heartily, as to the Lord,” without feeling the existence of deeper and more distant springs, which we as yet are unable to comprehend. Do the seven octaves of the piano complete the musical scale of the universe? And are you persuaded that the compass of your ear must measure it all, regardless of the probability that there are many octaves of rich bass and silvery treble that none but celestial beings have ever heard? Man is perpetually reminded of the depths and heights beyond him, and of necessity feels the unknown continually coming into close contact with the known. We are finite beings, constantly aware of our ignorance and insufficiency, and yet glorying in the grandeur and beauty of all that is around us and within the range of our comprehension. What could be more fitting than that we revere the Author of all things, and not only in his sanctuary, but everywhere and all the time? If it seems difficult to do this, go to work for him, contemplate his character; and through beholding him and co-operating with him, you will grow into this blessed state of reverence. The highest reverence comes not by idle contemplation, but by earnest obedience and sincere co-operation with God in his work.
Now let us see where we are particularly admonished to be reverent. “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” For many centuries God dwelt among his people by the symbol of his presence, and he says that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Since the days of the first sanctuary in the wilderness, God has met his people in his house, which is called the “house of prayer for all people.” The psalmist says, “Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth.” “Send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles,” “to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” There we find his presence, and as Joshua was commanded to loose his shoe to show his reverence for holy ground, so we are commanded to conduct ourselves with sacred composure when we come into his presence. “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.”
Permit me to present to your minds two pictures. Please consider the first one just long enough to make you as sorrowful as it made me, and may the second, in marked contrast, for all time be your inspiration. In one of our large cities, I once visited two churches. One beautiful Sabbath morning I made the first visit, which was to a church whose people professed to revere the commandments. I naturally expected much from such a church. Their doctrine being so sound, I expected some outward expression of this inward perfection, some outward sign of this inward grace. As10I entered, whispering and even chatting aloud greeted my ear. Men and women in groups were talking, and children were running to and fro. Fathers and mothers, with conscience reproving them, were casting uneasy glances around the room and toward the door, because their children were off somewhere in the yard or the vestibule. Every time the door opened to admit a worshiper, some one made himself offensive by an unwarranted stare. In other words, ill-mannered noise and confusion reigned supreme just a few moments before the service began. As I think of it now, I fancy that the angels from the glorious courts of heaven turned away in sorrow.
The second visit was made on Sunday morning, in company with the lovely young woman who had gone with me on the first visit to my church, and now, out of courtesy, I accompanied her. As we entered the large edifice, a holy calm seemed to rest upon the assembled people. The aisles and vestibules were clear, and almost perfect silence reigned. Families, parents with their children, occupied nearly every pew. If one child was missing from his accustomed place beside his father, nearly every one noticed it, and wondered if he were sick. I was at once filled with the spirit of prayer on entering such a quiet, orderly place of worship. By and by the stillness of that holy hush was broken by the singing of that beautiful old hymn of Watt’s, which opens with these words:—
“With reverence let the saints appear,
And bow before the Lord;
His high commands with reverence bear,
And tremble at his word.
“Blest are the souls that find a place
Within the temple of thy grace.
There they behold thy gentle ways,
And seek thy face and learn thy praise.”
And then the minister, filled with godly fear, invoked the Lord’s blessing. After this followed a discourse that seemed to transport us to the very gates of paradise. At the conclusion of the service, to the soft and melting strains of the organ, after having quietly greeted our friends and neighbors, we departed to our respective homes. As we walked home together, my companion said to me, “I can commune with my Maker in the stillness of that heavenly place. I am sorry that it is so, but I do not feel at home in your church.” O how I felt the truth of her words, and how they stung, when I so longed to see her unite with us! I could not blame her, O, no! for her orderly, reverent nature demanded just such a place in which to worship; but I was obliged to submit to the thoughtlessness of others, while long years of custom had established for her the favorable and much-to-be-coveted conditions.
What were her conclusions? I will leave you to guess; but of my resolutions I will speak more at length. I determined from that hour to resist this evil tendency by both precept and example, to seek to obey the plain commands of God with respect to our conduct in his sanctuary, and to encourage others to unite with me in bringing about a radical change of demeanor among our communicants. Why do we not more generally follow our Guidebook? Both the Bible and the Testimonies are filled with plain instruction. The facts are these: the enemy of all righteousness is the god of Babel, or confusion. He seeks constantly to divert our minds from the true purpose of our meeting. He desires nothing more than to cheat us out of the blessing for which we came.
In the olden time every devoted thing was called “most holy” when dedicated to God. Was your church building thus dedicated? Do you realize that you are in the actual presence of the King of kings when you enter his courts? Think of the respect that earthly sovereigns demand, and then compare them with God. Do your eyes of faith see him who is invisible? If so, order and quietness will control everything, and we shall endure as seeing him who is invisible. “For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord? . . . God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.”
Even an outward manifestation of reverence has this virtue: it leads to a genuine regard for things sacred. We cannot afford to disregard even the least of God’s requirements. And now let us all, old and young, say with the sweet singer of Israel, “But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.”