Call to Worship November 24 2019
THE POOR MAN’S OLD TESTAMENT COMMENTARY by Robert Hawker
“DEUTERONOMY 12:1
Sweet thought arising out of this verse, that our religion founded in JESUS the chief corner stone, is of daily obligation and of never ceasing importance. If JESUS be the statute of my soul this day, so is he tomorrow, and so will he be forever. Hebrews 13:8.
DEUTERONOMY 12:2-3
He that is at peace with GOD in CHRIST, is at war with all the enemies of GOD and CHRIST. Reader! if your body be really a temple of the HOLY GHOST, all idol worship is your abhorrence. See 2 Corinthians 6:16, 17.
DEUTERONOMY 12:4
Nothing can be truly reared to GOD’S honor but what has GOD’S glory in view. Sweet was that precept given with this view. An altar to GOD must he of GOD. If man lifts anything of his own upon it he has polluted it. Exodus 20:24. John 4:24.
REFLECTIONS
HOLY and Eternal SPIRIT! be graciously pleased of your infinite mercy so to write your statutes and judgments upon my mind and in my heart, that I may live to JESUS in the enjoyment of them all the days of my pilgrimage upon the earth. You, dearest LORD, are both the lawgiver and the law-fulfiller of your own sacred will. Oh! may I behold you as the end of the law for righteousness to me, and to every one that believes; and while, through the influences of the blessed SPIRIT, I live a life of faith to GOD and upon GOD, may I feel an holy jealousy to throw down all the idols of the heart wherever I find them. Dearest LORD! make that place peculiarly sacred to my soul, which has JESUS for its object. Here would I dwell, forever dwell, under the shining of your divine countenance! Here would I bring my poor offerings, and here alone present my sacrifices, seeking the acceptance both of my person and offering in him and his precious righteousness, who is the altar, the offering, and the high priest of all His people. And as I am not yet come to that rest which is yourself, blessed JESUS, in glory, and only behold you now by faith; LORD, help me until the vail be removed, to walk more by faith and less by sight, that I may not do according to what the world is doing, whatsoever seems right in a man’s own eyes; but that forgetting things that are behind, and reaching forth to those which are before, I may press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of GOD in CHRIST JESUS. Return to your rest, to JESUS, O my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you!”