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Doing for Others

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 20, 1908

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 8.

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Doing for Others

By I. H. EVANS

I. H. EVANS
“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich.”
The goodness of God is seen in what he does for others. We are not caused to think of God’s goodness by learning of what he has done for himself, or for his Son, Jesus Christ, save as we conceive of Christ the friend of others.
The Lord might create a million worlds, and inscribe on the portal of each, “For God Only,” and it would excite neither our love nor our admiration. He could make a thousand cities like the New Jerusalem, and paint their glories in language more graphic than mortal pen could trace; and yet if those cities were not for other beings as well as for himself, it would not appeal to our gratitude nor elicit our thanksgiving. What man admires in God is not so much his greatness and wisdom as his goodness manifested in his dealings with others. We may hear his voice from Horeb’s heights and tremble with fear; we may see his power manifested in various ways, and we cry from the depths of our hearts, “Truly God is great!” But only when we learn that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” do we truly love him.
When Moses was honored with an exhibition of the glory of God, it was not manifest in creative power nor in destroying agencies, but in the message borne by the “still small voice:” “The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.”
It was not the angel with the flaming sword guarding the way of the tree of life that won the sinner’s heart from rebellion against his Maker; but when the sinner, in the very midst of his rebellion, hears the glad news that the Son of God is to die for sin, that he, the sinner, may escape the punishment which is justly his, then it is that the heart is touched and the life mended. It is what God has done for others that makes us love him.
When we read of heaven and of the joys of the world to come; when we hear the glad news, “In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore;” when we hear the seer of Patmos telling us of the beauties of the city of God, with its streets of gold, its walls of jasper, and its gates of pearl, assuring us it is for the redeemed of earth forever; when we hear that voice proclaiming, “The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away,”—when we think of all this and a thousand things more that God has promised to those who love him, how is it possible for man—sinner though he be—not to love such a God?
But notice, in all this God enters not as one caring for himself. Everything he does is for others. Heaven itself is not for God alone, nor for Christ, but for the saints as well. It would seem that even eternity and the universe of God are for the redeemed of earth.
Another translation of our text reads, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he beggared himself to enrich you.”
The ministry of Christ’s life was all for others. In it all there seems no self. Wherever we meet him,—in the trying hour of temptation in the wilderness; or perchance in the synagogue, assailed by scribes and Pharisees; or at Jacob’s well on his way to Galilee; or at the last supper with his beloved disciples; or in Gethsemane’s garden of trial, or even on the cruel cross of Calvary,—always, everywhere, it was for others that he lived and died.
He “beggared himself” to enrich others. He did not hold what was his by right, but gave up all, that some soul might be saved from sin. And in eternity he shares his throne with the redeemed of earth.
All that God has revealed of himself to us is love, beneficence, and compassion for others. He spent the treasures of heaven to win man back to obedience and faith, and this work begun by heaven is left to be carried on by the saints of God on earth. As the ambassadors of God on earth, we are to exemplify his unselfishness. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us.”
In the great gathering day, those placed at the right hand of the Master will not be there for what they have done for themselves, for we read, “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came to me.” And when the saints are astonished at such a statement, Jesus answers, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
If the character of God, because of his unselfish love and care and beneficence to others, seems precious to us poor mortals, how much more beautiful must such graces appear to God when they are seen in the lives of his saints.
Only an artist-soul can fully appreciate art. It takes a musical soul to appreciate music, and no one but God can fully appreciate godliness—unselfish efforts for others.
Through eternity our joy will not come from the remembrance of beautiful homes we may have had on this earth, nor the honors we received here, have most completely exemplified the unselfish love of Christ.
The princes in heaven will not necessarily be those who were honored among men, or even in the church of God on earth, but they will be those whose lives most completely exemplify the unselfish love of Christ.
It is true that heaven is not bought with earthly treasures. It is equally true that a man can not win heaven without giving all that he has. Our gifts to God’s cause are not to enrich ourselves, but to save others.
By the blessing of God it is through the liberality and self-denial of the followers of Christ that the gospel of the kingdom is extended in the earth. Some one must sow the seed. Some one must preach the gospel.
The promulgation of the third angel’s message is as much due to the liberality of God’s people at home who support the work, as to the messengers who have gone as pioneers to the frontier. Both are necessary in the forwarding of the work in the earth. Both will share the reward, when God gives to every man according to his work.
Takoma Park, D. C.