What do frog legs have in common with living sacrifices? Well, it has to do with something that happened to my mom and dad.
First, let me remind you of the verse that mentions living sacrifices.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
(Rom 12:1 NAS)
In the preceding chapters, Paul discusses his concern for his fellow Israelites. I believe he is also revisiting a question he asked at the start of chapter three: What advantage has the Jew? So, in that context, Paul evokes image of the Old Testament sacrificial system.
Now, we often think of those sacrifices in terms of atonement for sin. But Leviticus 7 speaks of thanksgiving sacrifices. The Law of Moses also speaks of celebratory sacrifices made at some of the Feasts.
Paul equates the presenting of your body as a living sacrifice to one of those celebratory sacrifices.
But living sacrifices differ from Old Testament sacrifices in one major way: the animal sacrificed would be dead before it reached the altar.
This shows us a principle that has been forgotten in Christianity. A sacrifice is not truly a sacrifice until you give up all claim to it.
Too many people today see church attendance, tithing, ushering, singing in the choir, etc., as sacrifices made to “serve the Lord.” But they hang on to those things as reasons why God should bless, heal, or prosper them, or to answer their prayers. They haven't totally let go.
In the Old Testament sacrificial system, someone would bring an animal to the gate of the courtyard that surrounded the Temple building and the Bronze Altar. At the gate, the priest would kill the animal and drain its blood into a vessel. Then the priest would take the animal to the Bronze Altar to burn it there.
(By the way, when I read the description of the Bronze Altar in the New American Standard, it sounded like a large, portable barbecue pit.)
The person who brought the animal might stay at the gate to observe the sacrifice, but eventually they leave without it.
So, presenting your body as a living sacrifice means that you give up all claim to your body.
Now in my early days in Christianity, this verse would come up in discussion of living sacrifices.
The LORD is God, and He has given us light; Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
(Ps. 118:27 NAS)
Note in particular the last statement: BIND the festival sacrifice to the HORNS of the ALTAR.
Why would the an altar have horns?
Well, here is where Mom, Dad, and frog legs come into the picture.
Dad grew up in the southern end of Tulsa County, near the banks of Duck Creek, in a community called Liberty Mounds. It was a very rural area, so Dad was a country boy, and he grew up eating foods that country people would eat — like frog legs.
Dad later served in the Navy during World War Two, and stayed in afterwards. Soon after leaving the Navy, he met and married Mom in Wichita, Kansas.
Mom was born in western Kansas, and Kansas is about all she had seen of the world when she met Dad. He had to teach her how to cook the country food he loved.
The first time she tried cooking frog legs, she dropped a pair into a hot cast-iron frying pan, and they jumped out of the skillet! They scared her so bad, she refused to cook frog legs from then on.
Why did the frog legs jump? Because of how nerves and muscles work.
I learned about this during CBR training in the National Guard. CBR stands for Chemical, Biological, and Radiological warfare. My unit had a member who was a certified specialist in that field.
The film he showed us about nerve gases described how nerves and muscles work, and how nerve agents disrupt those processes.
Nerves control muscle movements by releasing chemicals in response to a stimulus or a signal from the brain. Those chemicals will make a muscle contract, (tense up), or relax, depending on which chemical the nerve releases. Nerve gases interrupt those processes, causing the nerves to constantly release those chemicals, alternating between contracting and relaxing the muscles in a runaway manner. The results are very unpleasant, and often deadly.
Even after death, nerves can release those chemicals for a time, and the muscles will still be able to react.
The hot grease in the frying pan caused the frog legs to jump by stimulating the nerves in the frog legs.
The same thing could happen when a freshly killed animal sacrifice is placed on a burning fire. So, God's design for the Bronze Altar called for a horn at each corner at the top, so the priests can tie down the carcass.
Why keep the sacrifice on the altar this way? To complete the sacrifice process. If the animal fell to the ground, it would become unholy and unacceptable. The animal would have to be discarded and another animal brought in for sacrifice.
Now, you should be able to see why binding the sacrifice to the altar is important, especially for a living sacrifice.
Today, we don't burn sacrifices on an altar made of metal.
(Well, I remember one preacher said he knew his wife worshiped him, because when they were first married, she offer him three burnt sacrifices everyday.)
How can we bind ourselves to the altar?
Let's start with this passage.
Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. Now if we put the bits into the horses' mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.
(James 3:1-12 NAS)
I am sure you have heard and read teachings on passage focusing on controlling the tongue. I know I have.
I am not sure if anyone notices or remembers a key point made in verses 2 and 3, and illustrated in verse 4: he who controls his tongue is able to control his body.
Hmmm... present your body a living sacrifice...bind the sacrifice to the altar...binding is a form of control....controlling the tongue enables one to control their body.
Could controlling your tongue be the key to controlling your body as a living sacrifice?
In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory." And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven." Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
(Isaiah 6:1-8 NAS)
I haven't heard anyone speak from this passage in a long time, and I wonder why, in light of this passage:
Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ, John answered and said to them all, "As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. "His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
(Luke 3:15-17 NAS)
Notice the progression here: Jesus baptizes people in the Holy Spirit AND fire. Why the fire? To clear His threshing floor by burning up the chaff.
What's chaff? In our current urbanized, and digitized society, many may not know or some might need a reminder. Chaff is the outermost husk or shell on cereal grain, like wheat or barley. It is generally inedible and useless. Chaff represents the spiritually useless things in the life of a believer.
Another interesting point is to consider John's reference to the “threshing floor.” Matthew's account mentions that many of the people John the Baptist spoke those words to were from Jerusalem.
The city of Jerusalem was formed from two separate towns that were close together: Jebus and Salem. Jebus was the last Canaanite city to fall to the Israelites. David led that conquest soon after ascending to the throne of Israel. The section of Jerusalem that once was Jebus is also called the City of David.
(Now, you have probably heard or read that Bethlehem is the City of David. Well David had two cities named as his city. One was the city of his birth, and the other was the city of his conquest.)
Jebus means “threshing floor.” Jerusalem is often a symbol of the Body of Christ. The purpose of the baptism of fire is the the purging of the Body of Christ.
CONCLUSION: To present your body as a living sacrifice means you give up all claim to your body. Doing so is reasonable and spiritual worship. Your body will react to this sacrificial process the same way dead flesh is still able to react to a stimulus, just like the frog legs in the illustration. To prevent this, the sacrifice must be bound to the altar by controlling the tongue and the tongue controlling the body. Praying in tongues applies the cleansing fire to your tongue. Prayer, confession, and gracious speech are how you control the tongue.
