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1 And the LORD
spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto all
the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be
holy: for I the LORD your God am holy. 3 Ye shall fear
every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths: I am the
LORD your God. 4 Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to
yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God. 5 And if ye
offer a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD, ye shall offer it at your
own will. (Lev 19:1-5)
The
hymn for today addresses the practice most wanting in the modern church and the
issue upon which many other displeasing (to our Lord) modern practices have
devolved. God is Holy in His Person and so is His Word Holy in every jot and
tittle. When man takes a light view of Holy Scripture, he is taking a light
view of its Author as well. It is unfortunate that this hymn was excluded from
the 1940 Hymnal.
The
lyrics of Take Time to be Holy were composed by William D.
Longstaff of north east England in 1882 after hearing a sermon preached by a
missionary to China on the subject taken from the First Epistle of Saint Peter,
16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. 17 And if ye call
on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's
work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: (1 Peter 1:16-17) The music is written by the renowned George C. Stebbins in 1890.
Take Time to be Holy
Take time to be
holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in Him always,
and feed on His Word.
Make friends of
God’s children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in
nothing His blessing to seek.
Take time to be
holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in
secret, with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus,
like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy
conduct His likeness shall see.
Take time to be
holy, let Him be thy Guide;
And run not before
Him, whatever betide.
In joy or in sorrow,
still follow the Lord,
And, looking to
Jesus, still trust in His Word.
Take time to be
holy, be calm in thy soul,
Each thought and
each motive beneath His control.
Thus led by His
Spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be
fitted for service above.
Take time to be
holy, speak oft with thy Lord; Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word. Make
friends of God’s children, help those who are weak, Forgetting in nothing His
blessing to seek. Holy affairs should be treated with a high degree of reverence.
That is the purpose of the Prayer Book in guiding our worship and preventing
the errors of manmade worship from infiltrating that worship. But even a solemn
and punctilious worship can be irreverent if the heart is not aligned with the
holiness of the occasion. If those Christians of 1882 needed to take time from
their daily schedules to consider things Holy, how much more is such a practice
needed in our busy day? In many homes of that period, there was a family altar
and prayer room which did not want for use every day. Those spoke oft of thy
Lord. Even in the days of my childhood, men and women of the rural South carried
on daily communications with God’s Word woven throughout. We should seek God’s
blessing on every endeavor that we undertake. We should care for those who are
wanting the material necessities within the church, and then beyond.
Take
time to be holy, the world rushes on; Spend much time in secret, with Jesus
alone. By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be; Thy friends in thy conduct
His likeness shall see. There is no more sincere and meaningful prayer than that which is
offered up in the privacy of one’s prayer closet. There does not even need the
facility of words for the Holy Spirit knows our wants and desires before we express
them. Prayer and meditation are closely joined in private prayer. Some may say,
I simply do not have time to pray. Really! You are badly mistaken! You do not
have time NOT to pray. All time belongs to God since He is the Author of the
time scale. Like Peter walking on the sea, we must keep our eyes fixed on the
Savior, else, like Peter, we will sink into the turbid waters when we take
counsel of our fears and avoid His face. The more we gaze into that wonderful
Glass (which is God’s Word) the more we come to know our own total depravity
and recognize the perfection and holiness of His Person. We become more alike
the object of our admiration.
Take
time to be holy, let Him be thy Guide; And run not before Him, whatever betide.
In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord, And, looking to Jesus, still trust
in His Word. The Lord Jesus Christ is our Good shepherd who laid
down His life for His Sheep. He knows the Way, and IS the Way, that leads to
green pastures and still waters. The errant lamb that runs ahead will lose its
way and be lost. We trust in the Lord under every circumstance, even when we
may feel doubtful. Unquestioning obedience to His Word is always the best
policy. To the committed Christian, there can even be joy in sorrow. Remember
the first five words in each stanza of this hymn – Take time to be Holy.
Holiness requires a conscious effort to be obedient to God in every avenue of
life. Many have perished on the high slopes of the mountain for failure to look
up instead of staring at the very dirt of the next step, or to the threatening
crevasses below. Our whole lives should be dedicated to looking up to Heaven
instead of down to the penurious provisions of the world. Take Time! Important
endeavors require time to plan and execute. So, do the matters of one’s soul.
When we enter church, do we make light of the occasion, or do we prepare our
hearts in prayer for the worship hour? Remember the words of Christ: 2 The kingdom of heaven
is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, 3 And sent forth his
servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. 4 Again, he sent forth
other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my
dinner: my oxen and my fatlings arekilled, and all things are ready:
come unto the marriage. 5 But they made light of it, and went their ways,
one to his farm, another to his merchandise. (Matt
22:2-5)
Do not make light of the calling and worship of the Lord.
Take
time to be holy, be calm in thy soul, Each thought and each motive beneath His
control. Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love, Thou soon shalt be fitted
for service above. Pray tell, how can our hearts be prepared
for worship when our tongues are wagging on mundane subjects and gossiping just
before the moment of worship! When we enter the church, we must remember that
we tread upon Holy ground. If we fail to remove our shoes, then at least let us
remove the concerns of the world. Our hearts need to be calmed and our
spiritual ears tuned to hear the gurgling flow of the waters of the Holy Ghost.
When our thoughts, motives, and desires are congruent with His, then do we
kneel in reverence before the very throne of God. When our wills are made to
conform perfectly to His Will, every utterance of prayer will be answered
according to His good pleasure. The Good Shepherd will lead us to the Fountain
of Living Waters that is over-flowing with love. Our hearts can little contain
the profusion of those waters. They overflow and our love is spread abroad
without a single drop lacking replenishment. (see Jeremiah 17:13) It is by looking constantly in the Glass of God’s Word that we
become more like Him, and are fitted for that service to which we go when God
awakens us from our borrowed tombs. 22 But be ye
doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be
a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his
natural face in a glass: 24 For he
beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of
man he was. 25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of
liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. (James 1:22-25)
When
we are conformed to the will of God, then we are free indeed since the things
that we desire to see and do are precisely those things that the Father wills,
and it shall be granted to us.
I
admonish each of us in the coming week to take time to be holy. If we do so, we
will all recognize a delightful improvement in our dispositions, characters,
and joys.
