Deuteronomy 26:1-11 -

Joy in the use of temporal mercies; or, sanctification of our possessions to God warrants a holy joy in the use of them.

The order of thought is this:

1. In due time Israel would be in possession of the land which the Lord promised to give them.

2. Of this comfortable possession the gathering of the fruits thereof would be the proof and sign.

3. In accordance with a well-understood law, the firstfruits were to be offered to God (see reference).

4. In thus offering the firstfruits, the offerers were to go up to the house of the Lord, and present them to the priest, who was to lay them before the altar as offerings to the Lord.

5. This being done, there was to be an oral avowal of Divine mercy in pitying "the perishing Aramaean" from whom they were descended, in watching over the growth of their nation, in delivering them from Egypt, in giving them the good land, and in permitting it to yield them its fruit.

6. This being done, they could then rejoice before the Lord their God in the sacrificial meal which followed, in the companionship of friends invited to share with them the joy of harvest, and in the after use of the bounties of God's providence. For they would be doubly blessed, as, over and above the temporal mercies themselves, they would share the benediction of him who gave them all things richly to enjoy. Good Bishop Wordsworth remarks that this passage exhorts to harvest thanksgivings in the Christian Church. Such services are undoubtedly fully in harmony with the spirit of the chapter. But it seems to us to contain principles of far wider scope, and of everyday application. They are four in number.

I. OUR GOD WOULD HAVE US RECOGNIZE HIM AS THE AUTHOR OF ALL OUR MERCIES . For such he is. Without him no land would yield its increase, nor would man have power or skill to cultivate the soil. Without him no sun would shine nor rain descend. It is easy to say that such and such a harvest came in the ordinary course of law. We at once press the questions, Who ordained these laws? Who causes forces to act according to them? For no law ever did or could make itself. " Law " is a purely mental conception. It is not an entity, save as mind ordains it, and it only operates as energy works by it. It is unsound in philosophy, as well as rotten in piety, if we fail to acknowledge God in all. Nor is it bare power that we have to recognize; but goodness, mercy, loving-kindness. And all these kindnesses of God he would have us acknowledge:

1. By a confession of our entire dependence upon him.

2. By grateful retrospect of the past; remembering and recalling through what scenes God has brought us year by year.

3. By grateful survey of the blessings which are around us now. Nor should we ever leave out of account that which is the substratum of this chapter (and indeed of all the chapters in this book), though not here specified in words, viz. that, as sinful beings, our natural claims on the Great Being as his dependent creatures have been forfeited by sin, and that the continuance to sinful beings of such heaps of mercy is due only to, and is indeed a part of, that redemptive grace which to Israel was disclosed in germ, but to us in its fullness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Such thanksgivings as we owe may well even now be offered in the house of the Lord; but they should daily be the promptings of grateful and devoted hearts. In private and in the family circle our song should be, "What shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits toward us?"

II. THE THANK OFFERING SHOULD NOT ONLY BE VERBAL BUT PRACTICAL . There was to be the offering of the firstfruits to the Lord (see Homily, Deuteronomy 14:22-29 ). When God gave all, what precept could be more appropriate? What can be more becoming than to let God have the first of everything? This is the principle which ran through these varied regulations as to firstfruits and tithe. Jacob spontaneously said, "Of all that thou givest me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee." Solomon urges, "Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase." We have no distinctive proportion laid down in the New Testament as to our offerings to God. Yet the conscientious Christian should require no further hints than such as are found in 2 Corinthians 8:7-9 ; 1 Corinthians 16:2 . Circumstances have changed. Details will vary. Yet the great and mighty cause of God, even that of righteousness, truth, and love, has to be maintained and spread in the world by the efforts and offerings of those "put in trust with the gospel." And it will not be possible to be faithful to the claims of God and the demands of the times without a conscientious, systematic, proportionate giving of our gains to the Lord. Christians should never suffer the absence of detail in New Testament precepts on the subject of giving to the Lord, to be taken advantage of to the weakening of his cause who trusts our spontaneity. Let us not abuse God's confidence. Let the love of Christ constrain us.

III. THE GIVING OF THE FIRSTFRUITS TO GOD IS A TOKEN OF THE SANCTIFICATION OF ALL WE HAVE TO RIGHT AND HOLY USES . There is no better guarantee of a wise and right use of our substance than the conscientious dedication of firstfruits to our God. He who is conscientious enough in this respect may be safely relied on to spend rightly the rest of his gains, because the same conscientiousness which marks his first spendings will mark all the others.

IV. WHEN OUR GAINS ARE THUS RECEIVED IN A RIGHT SPIRIT , AND SPENT IN A RIGHT WAY , WE MAY REJOICE THEREIN BEFORE THE LORD . God hath given us "all things richly to enjoy." And men who know nothing of the Christian consecration of all things to God do not know how to enjoy what they possess. If men rejoice in earthly good for its own sake, it will soon cease to yield delight. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof ." But when regarded, received, and spent in the way we have already pointed out, it may yield a pure delight.

For:

1. It will be enjoyed, as the gift of One who is our redeeming God, in covenant relation to us, and with whom we are at peace.

2. It will be enjoyed with a sense of rectitude which only those can have who have been severely right in the regulation of their gettings and givings.

3. It will be enjoyed, because gains so acquired and spent will be a means of grace to a man. Riches in such a case will expand the heart.

4. It will be enjoyed, because such a man will bear about with him the holy and blessed consciousness that he is fulfilling God's will and spreading God's cause in the right use of his gifts.

5. It will be enjoyed, because such a one knows that God's blessing is resting on him and on all he has, that, rich as may be his earthly good, though he enjoys it while it lasts, yet he can afford to hold it with a loose hand, for it is not his all, and that when he is called to part with it, he will find richer treasure still laid up for him in heaven, for when "flesh and heart fail, God will be the strength of his heart, and his portion forever."

Thus and thus alone is it possible to extract from earthly good the full delight it is calculated and intended to yield. If we make worldly possessions the food of our souls, they will turn to ashes in the mouth. They bring no blessing with them. They will disappoint, and if they take their flight, as they so often do, we shall be left miserably poor. But if through the grace and Spirit of our God we are led first to choose God as our all , and then to use our all for God, we shall enjoy the life that now is, and. enter on a fullness of joy in that which is to come.