The Way to the Altar

’ Build thou the walls of Jerusalem! Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.” — Psalm li. 18, 19.

It is when the Jerusalem of the heart is built up that the heart offers its best sacrifice. We are all in a delusion about this matter. We tend to think that the hour of sacrifice is the hour of depression — that we give most when we are most wretched. The psalmists of Israel — the most devotional set of men that ever lived — are of a different opinion. Listen to the writer of the forty-third Psalm: “O send forth Thy light! then shall I go unto the altar.” The world would have said, “Send me Thy cloud; let it bring me to Thine altar of sacrifice!” But Israel’s singer knows better. He feels that the heart is most ready to outpour itself when it is basking in the sun, that it is most generous where its atmosphere is most genial. And indeed our deepest experience will cry, “Amen!” When do you bring your most precious gifts to the altar? It is when there is sunshine in your soul. I do not say it is when 171 there is sunshine before your eyes; the Cross of Calvary would prevent me from saying that. But if you want to offer a perfect sacrifice, you must have sunshine in your soul, Jesus had; He spoke of His peace, of His joy. The writer to the Hebrews says that He endured the cross and despised the shame “for the joy that was set before Him.” The despairing heart is never the sacrificial heart. When the windows of your own spirit are darkened, you cannot look out. You hear not the cry of distress in the street; you see not the squalor in the lane. You do not seek out cases of need. You give your subscription when you are asked for it, but you give it mechanically — because to refuse costs effort. The coin in the hand of care is thrown down carelessly. Depression cannot work either for self or others. It wants to He still, to be undisturbed. It evades a duty; it postpones a visit; it defers a letter; it delays an engagement; it declines an invitation; it resists whatever would force it to open the window. My sacrifice is born of my hope. It is when sitting by my own fire that I feel my brother’s cold. If you would bring Jerusalem to the altar, you must first rebuild her walls.

Lord, it is for sacrifice I want joy. If I ask Thee for prosperity, it is not that I may fare

sumptuously every day; it is that others may fare sumptuously. If I ask Thee for light, it is not that I may bask in the sun; it is that others may bask there. I would feel my yoke easy and my burden light in order that I may help to their rest the labouring and heavy-laden. Send me not to a brother’s sick-bed when my own heart is sick! Is it not written of the ministering spirits: “These are they that come out of great tribulation “? Bring me out into the day ere in Thy temple I serve by ni^ht! Set my feet in a large room ere I enter within the strait gate of the sorrowful! Show me the unconsumed bush ere I tread the desert of the lonely! Give me the grapes of Eshcol ere I visit the wards of the infirmary! Deck me with flowers of hope ere I sit by the couch in the hospital! Sing me the songs of Zion ere I meet with the sigh of the sufferer! I would see my risen Christ before I go into Galilee. I would break the bread before I climb my brother’s cross. I would be led by the green pastures and laid by the quiet waters before I am asked to journey in the shadow of another’s valley. I shall approach Thine altar of sacrifice when Thou hast rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.

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