HEART-CONSECRATION by Rev. J. P. Wilson

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 15, 1880

HEART-CONSECRATION.

By Rev. J. P. Wilson

THE Israelites were prone to backsliding. It seems strange that they should so soon and so often depart from God when he was so good to them, and provided so well for them. In their backslidden state they offered polluted bread upon his altar, and the blind and sick and lame, for sacrifice to him. They said, "The table of the Lord is polluted; will a man rob God?" They further said, "Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them." For these things they were cursed with a curse, even the whole nation. As a remedy for these things, God's messenger proposed a reconsecration of all that belonged to God, to his service, "Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, said the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Men are not naturally better now than they were in the time of Malachi. They did not do so badly because they knew no better; they had line upon line, precept upon precept. They indulged the wayward tendencies of their fallen nature, hoping, perhaps, and presuming that God would not visit them for their offenses.

The sacrifice God demands now of every one to whom the gospel comes, is the heart. The sacrifice God asks is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart he will not despise. "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might." This is the first and great commandment. Try the church to-day by this high standard, and see what a demand for reconsecration. The church should be holy. Alas how many in the church are, in spirit, altogether worldly. The riches, honors, pleasures, and laudations of the world have a greater charm for them than the church, the Bible, Christ and Heaven. Is it not a fearful thought that so many in the church are on their way to perdition? Try them by what rule you will, and they are found wanting. Now, my wayward, disconsolate brethren, would you enter the valley of blessing again? Would you make your calling and election sure, and know you are saved? Reconsecrate yourself to God. Begin with the heart. Cast pride and worldliness out by repentance and turning to God. Then bring all the tithes into the store-house, and you will be blessed. Your money, your time, your talents, should all be given up to God, to be used only to his glory. Remember that whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deeds—Rev. J. P. Wilson, in Telescope.