ADORATION.
This has been defined as the act of rendering Divine honor, including
in it reverence, esteem and love. It literally signifies to apply the
hand to the mouth, “to kiss the hand;” in Eastern countries this is one
of the great marks of respect and submission. The importance of coming
before God in this spirit is great, therefore it is so often impressed
upon us in the Word of God.
The Rev. Newman Hall, in his work on the Lord’s Prayer, says: “Man’s
worship, apart from revelation, has been uniformly characterized by
selfishness. We come to God either to thank Him for benefits already
received, or to implore still further benefits: food, raiment, health,
safety, comfort. Like Jacob at Bethel, we are disposed to make the
worship we render to God cor-relative with ‘food to eat, and raiment to
put on.’ This style of petition, in which self generally precedes and
predominates, if it does not altogether absorb, our supplications, is
not only seen in the votaries of false systems, but in the majority of
the prayers of professed Christians. Our prayers are like the Parthian
horsemen, who ride one way while they look another; we seem to go
toward God, but, indeed, reflect upon ourselves. And this may be the
reason why many times our prayers are sent forth, like the raven out
of Noah’s ark, and never return. But when we make the glory of God the
chief end of our devotion, they go forth like the dove, and return to
us again with an olive branch.”
Let me refer you to a passage in the prophecies of Daniel. He was one
of the men who knew how to pray; his prayer brought the blessing of
heaven upon himself and upon his people. He says: “I set my face unto
the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and
sackcloth, and ashes; and I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my
confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the
covenant and mercy to them that love Him, and to them that keep His
commandments!”
The thought I want to call special attention to is conveyed in the
words, “O Lord, the great and dreadful God!” Daniel took his right
place before God--in the dust; he put God in His right place. It was
when Abraham was on his face, prostrate before God, that God spoke to
him, Holiness belongs to God; sinfulness belongs to us.
Brooks, that grand old Puritan writer, says: “A person of real
holiness is much affected and taken up in the admiration of the
holiness of God. Unholy persons may be somewhat affected and taken with
the other excellences of God; it is only holy souls that are taken and
affected with His holiness. The more holy any are, the more deeply are
they affected by this. To the holy angels, the holiness of God is the
sparkling diamond in the ring of glory. But unholy persons are affected
and taken with anything rather than with this. Nothing strikes the
sinner into such a damp as a discourse on the holiness of God; it is
as the handwriting on the wall; nothing makes the head and heart of
a sinner to ache like a sermon upon the Holy One; nothing galls and
gripes, nothing stings and terrifies unsanctified ones, like a lively
setting forth of the holiness of God. But to holy souls there are no
discourses that do more suit and satisfy them, that do more delight and
content them, that do more please and profit them, than those that do
most fully and powerfully discover God to be glorious in holiness.” So,
in coming before God, we must adore and reverence His name.
The same thing is brought out in Isaiah:
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it
stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his
face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
And one cried unto another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of
hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.”
When we see the holiness of God, we shall adore and magnify Him. Moses
had to learn the same lesson. God told him to take his shoes from off
his feet, for the place whereon he stood was holy ground. When we hear
men trying to make out that they are holy, and speaking about their
holiness, they make light of the holiness of God. It is His holiness
that we need to think and speak about; when we do that, we shall be
prostrate in the dust. You remember, also, how it was with Peter. When
Christ made Himself known to him, he said, “Depart from me, for I am
a sinful man, O Lord!” A sight of God is enough to show us how holy He
is, and how unholy we are.
We find that Job too, had to be taught the same lesson. “Then Job
answered the Lord, and said: Behold I am vile; what shall I answer
Thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.”
As you hear Job discussing with his friends you would think he was
one of the holiest men who ever lived. He was eyes to the blind, and
feet to the lame; he fed the hungry, and clothed the naked. What a
wonderfully good man he was! It was all I, I, I. At last God said to
him, “Gird up your loins like a man, and I will put a few questions to
you.” The moment that God revealed Himself, Job changed his language.
He saw his own vileness, and God’s purity. He said, “I have heard of
Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
The same thing is seen in the cases of those who came to our Lord in
the days of His flesh; those who came aright, seeking and obtaining
the blessing, manifested a lively sense of His infinite superiority to
themselves. The centurion, of whom we read in the eighth of Matthew,
said: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof;”
Jairus “worshiped Him,” as he presented his request; the leper, in
the Gospel of Mark, came “kneeling down to Him;” the Syrophenician
woman “came and fell at His feet;” the man full of leprosy “seeing
Jesus, fell on his face.” So, too the beloved disciple, speaking
of the feeling they had concerning Him when they were abiding with
Him as their Lord, said: “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” However intimate
their companionship, and tender their love, they reverenced as much as
they communed, and adored as much as they loved.
We may say of every act of prayer as George Herbert says of public
worship:
“When once thy foot enters the church, be bare;
God is more than thou; for thou art there
Only by His permission. Then beware,
And make thyself all reverence and fear.
Kneeling ne’er spoiled silk stocking; quit thy state.
All equal are within the church’s gate.”
The wise man says: “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.”
If we are struggling to live a higher life, and to know something of
God’s holiness and purity, what we need is to be brought into contact
with Him, that He may reveal Himself. Then we shall take our place
before Him as those men of old were constrained to do. We shall hallow
His Name--as the Master taught His disciples, when He said, “Hallowed
be Thy Name.” When I think of the irreverence of the present time, it
seems to me that we have fallen on evil days.
Let us, as Christians, when we draw near to God in prayer, give Him His
right place. “Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably,
with reverence and Godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.”
The Trinity.
“Thou dear and great mysterious Three,
For ever be adored,
For all the endless grace we see
In our Redeemer stored.
“The Father’s ancient grace we sing,
That chose us in our Head;
Ordaining Christ, our God and King,
To suffer in our stead.
“The sacred Son, in equal strains,
With reverence we address,
For all His grace, and dying pains,
And splendid righteousness.
“With tuneful tongue the Holy Ghost
For His great work we praise,
Whose power inspires the blood-bought host
Their grateful voice to raise.
“Thus the Eternal Three in One
We join to praise, for grace
And endless glory through the Son,
As shining from His face.”