Silver Dedication

Ezra 6:16 And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy,

Numbers 7:84 This was the dedication of the altar, in the day when it was annointed, by the princes of Israel: twelve chargers of silver, twelve silver bowls, twelve spoons of gold:

Twenty-five years ago on the first Sunday of November (November 1st, 1992), the congregation has their first “official” service in our current location. On that Sunday, the congregation held a special dedication service. Afterwards a luncheon was served to our people and too many invited guests in the community. Several of them who were instrumental in the building project were also acknowledged that Sunday.

A couple of years later one of our deacons, Brother Al Peebles, recommended that we start an annual dedication Sunday, especially before we begin with a new addition (West Wing 1999). That began our tradition of reminding ourselves about dedication, inviting and feeding our neighbors, and rededication and renewing our hearts to the Lord.

The concept of dedication evokes a few questions like “What does it mean to dedicate things, a building, or ourselves?” To answer that the Bible gives us the information. In Numbers 7:84-85 you have the altar and artifacts being dedicated with an offering under the law. This was repeated in 1 Chronicles 7:9
with Solomon and the Temple and again in Ezra 6:16-17. Ezra reminds us that they dedicated this house with joy. So God’s house and all the artifacts of the Temples were dedicated or consecrated for the use of serving, worshipping
and ministering unto the Lord. Nothing that was dedicated had a secular,
political or pagan use. The building etc. was for worship and the advancement of Jehovah for God’s people. The music and the instruments were sacred sanctified; those ministering were sanctified unto the Lord also. To do less was sacrilegious and potentially could earn the death sentence.

Today believers are not a nation under the Law. Praise God! Many of us would be “under the sentence of death.” That ,however, doesn’t mean God’s things, worship, instruments, or people are less required to be holy (See Deuteronomy 7:6 & 1 Peter 1:16). On the contrary, we are under greater constraints with
grace because we are under the Royal Law of Love (see James 2:8).

The old concept of dedication begins as an attitude of heart or else the dedication will not last. 2 Corinthians 8:5 reminds us the reason the Macedonian Christians were able to give consequently was because they “first gave their own lives to the Lord…” That is the key. It begins with believers dedicating their lives, their desires, their things, their income, and their time to the Lord.

X