Love to God Unselfish by R. A. Morton

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 3, 1874

Love to God Unselfish.

By R. A. Morton

THERE are but three ways in which man's affections may run. First, Love of self. Second, Love to fellow man. Third, Love to God. Each of these has its respective place in the heart. Love of self is the only one susceptible of abuse. The highest order of affection is love to God. When the heart is filled with this, love of self and our fellow man will, in every instance, be duly exercised.

When Christ was asked, "Which is the great commandment in the law?" he answered: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matt. 22:37.

So long as man's mind is in harmony with these two great principles upon which the law hangs, so long will he avoid the destructive vortex of the consequences of selfishness. The first four commandments of the law are but the amplification of the highest order of love, containing an everlasting memorial of God. The last six are an amplification of the principle of love to man.

All affections not allowed by this immutable law of the Most High are wholly selfish; hence selfishness is a violation of the law of God. It is included in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. For, says John, "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world," 1 John 2:16. All the poverty, pain and sickness, all the unbelief, crime and misery, are either the direct or indirect consequences of selfishness.

Every orphan's cry is a faint voice of the effects of selfishness. The rich man's money hoarded up, and watched and cared for day and night, is one of the most awful instances of selfishness. "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days." James 5:1-3.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matt. 6:19-21. "If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon (riches, margin), who will commit to your trust the true riches." Again, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness."

James says, "The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." James 4:4. Paul says, Rom. 8:7, "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God." Then to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God, not subject to his law.

The enemies of God are becoming alarmingly numerous. They are found everywhere. Every circle of society is altogether worldly. Even the voice of God's professed servants is heard in gay festivals of folly and feasting, mingling in joy with worldly guests, thus wedding the flock of Christ with the world going on to ruin.

"If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." He is, therefore, a living enemy of God, breaking the two great principles of his law.

R. A. Morton.

Watsonville, Cal.