Joel 1:9 The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD's ministers, mourn. The old covenant was one especially characterized by human ministrations and external observances and solemnities. Apart from priests and sacrifices its purposes could not have been accomplished, and its witness to the world would have been unintelligible and vain. No wonder that to the Hebrew mind no prospect was more terrible than the cessation of public worship, of public offerings, of sacerdotal services. In the spiritual economy under which we live, the case is somewhat different. Yet no enlightened mind can contemplate without concern, without dismay, a state of society in which religious offices should be suppressed and religious ministrations silenced. I. THE SUSPENSION OF THE OFFICES OF RELIGION WOULD INVOLVE THE SUSPENSION OF THE PUBLIC COMMUNICATION OF GOD'S WILL TO MAN. II. IT WOULD INVOLVE THE DISCONTINUANCE OF HUMAN FELLOWSHIP IN THE LOFTIEST RELATIONS AND THE MOST BENEFICIAL EXERCISES. III. IT WOULD INVOLVE THE CESSATION OF A UNITED AND PUBLIC PRESENTATION OF THE SACRIFICES DUE FROM MAN TO GOD. - T. Parallel Verses KJV: The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn. |
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