ar,
or being loosened by the person who had presented the offering.

The Psalmist therefore urges those to whom he is speaking to maintain
their consecration, and to see to it that their sacrifice is not taken
off the altar after being put on. These corner posts were not there for
ornament, but for use, and the cords were intended to hold the
sacrifice to the altar, so that it could not be snatched away.

Here is my Bible. If I turned away, and anybody were so minded, it
would be easy to make off with it while my back was turned. But if I
had some cord, and, by crossing it transversely from corner to corner,
tied the Book to the table, that would make it secure. It was thus that
the sacrifices were bound to the Jewish altar.

What I want to emphasize by this is, that those who come with gifts and
dedications should bind themselves in terms of unalterable covenant.
They should stand to their consecration when loss or pain or temptation
come, as come they will in one form or another. It is just here where
so many fail--they do not really maintain their sacrifice. That is to
say, having made a consecration they do not stand to it. The offering
has been made, but it has been taken back again; the vow has been
registered, but not paid; the promise has been made, but not fulfilled;
the consecration has been broken or reversed.

Take that wonderful scene in the life of Abraham. At the command of God
he erected an altar, cut the sacrifice in pieces, and laid it there.
Then Abraham waited for the coming of the fire. Before the fire came,
or anything happened, the vultures, those unclean birds, were circling
around his head, and around the altar, trying to defile the sacrifice
or snatch it away or devour it. The story says that when the birds came
down Abraham drove them away, and he stood to his covenant until the
fire came. The vultures of temptation will circle around you. They will
try to frighten you, and to remove the sacrifice wholly or partially,
or to defile it in some way. Your business then is to drive them away,
to bind and rebind the sacrifice to God's altar.

In the days of Queen Mary, a girl-martyr refused, when pressure was
brought upon her, to deny her Lord and renounce her faith. She was
condemned and taken to the seashore. There she was bound to a stake
near the low tide line, and, as the incoming waters gathered round her
feet, one of her persecutors rode out and offered to spare her life if
she would ren