Deuteronomy 17:1

The blemished.

I. THE PRINCIPLE INVOLVED . God is to be served with our best. He rejects the blemished for his service.

1. He is entitled to our best.

2. He requires it of us.

3. Withholding it argues unworthy views of God and of what is due to him. It usually implies contempt of God and hypocrisy in his service ( Malachi 1:12 , Malachi 1:13 ).

II. APPLICATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE . God is to receive from us:

1. The best of our time—when the head is clearest, the energies most vigorous, the capacity for service greatest, and when there is least distraction. We offer the blemished when we engross these portions of our time for self, and give to God only our late hours, or hurried snatches of a day crowded with unspiritual and exhausting occupations.

2. The best of our age—youth, the prime of manhood and womanhood, with all the service these can render. We offer the blemished when we conceive the purpose of dedicating to God, in old age, powers already worn out in the service of the world.

3. The heartiest of our service . Service performed half-heartedly and grudgingly falls under the category of blemished sacrifices. Work done in this spirit will never be well done. Services of devotion will be huddled through, sermons will be ill prepared, the class in the Sunday school wilt be badly taught, visitation duties will be inefficiently and unpunctually performed. It is the presentation to God of the torn, lame, and halt.

4. The first of our givings . Givings should be hearty, liberal, of our first and best, and in a spirit of consecration. To give what "will never be missed" is a poor form of service. It is little to give to God what costs us nothing. Still more conspicuously do we offer the blemished when we devote to God but the parings of a lavish worldly expenditure, or give for his service far below our ability.—J.O.