The Privilege of Serving

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 7, 1911

The Privilege of Serving

(Concluded)

AGAIN this service, based thus upon the right of ownership in creation and redemption, is a reasonable service. The Scripture speaks of it in these familiar words:—

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.”

Thus it must follow that God has a right to complain when that service is not rendered to him.

“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”

No wonder both heaven and earth are called upon to hear the charge. Here are words that apply very closely to our times:—

Right reason acquiesces in, and approves of, the dedication and sacrifice of everything we have and are to the honor of our God. It is infinitely right and fit to engage ourselves unto the Lord; it is proportionate to his excellences and to our state and wants. The way of obedience approves itself to the mind of man, and is sanctioned by the approbation of his inmost soul. We, then, treat God as he is; we act agreeably to his nature and our relation to him. Till we do this, we act most irrationally; we “walk in a lie.” Sinners, “who conform themselves to this world,” and refuse to dedicate their bodies and souls to God, choose a most unreasonable part; so unreasonable, that at the last day they will be condemned out of their own mouths.—Bishop D. Wilson.

This service of God is for our own good. We are not to serve for our own good; but when we serve God for his glory, it does minister to our own good, and brings to us the highest good. Strange that we do not see it, yet we do not. Other pictures come before our minds. Other inducements are pressed upon us, and these things lose their keenness, their worth and value; and we see them not in their true clearness and in their true relationship. It may be that our eyes are directed only downward, and not lifted heavenward; but it is a distinct promise that this service will bring us honor here. We have it in these words:—

“If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will the Father honor.”

Now in contrast with this, a very direct contrast, hear these words of warning and of counsel:—

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

This attraction of the world sometimes reveals itself in a way which seems to us piteous. Just hear this incident, which is put in print by a man of wealth, a man of the world, who relates this as an experience which he adduces to show to what extent the love of the world may take hold upon the heart:—

Of all the futile things in the world none is more futile than wealth itself. Eliminate the necessity for struggle, and you remove from money all its true value. It becomes either dross, to be thrown away for other things better worth while; or it becomes an idol, a god, the very sum and substance of the world’s desire. I remember an incident in which I took a part, not very long ago, that showed me this latter result in all its horror.

I was at a very brilliant social function in the London social world. I met at that reception a woman whose name I had heard as a household word in society for many years. She was esteemed a brilliant woman; she was reckoned a leader in the most splendid society of the world. She was wealthy beyond all human need. She occupied a powerful place in the political world, where everything human had its part. She was a companion of princes, the equal of peers. We were talking alone, immediately after our introduction, when she said:—

“O Mr. Martin, you are a Wall Street man. You could help me to get some of your American gold!”

I was astounded, and I showed it in my answer: “Why, my dear lady, surely you have gold enough! If I am not mistaken, you rank among the wealthiest women of the nation. Why should you want gold? Moreover, you have social standing and are famous throughout England. Of what possible use could more gold be to you?”

I can still see the haggard face, the quivering lips, the blazing eyes of this great society woman as she answered me: “O Mr. Martin, you do not know me—I am almost ashamed to confess the truth. I dream night and day of gold. I want to have a room at the top of my house filled with it—filled with gold sovereigns. I would like to go into that room night after night, when every one else is asleep, and bury myself in yellow sovereigns up to my neck, and play with them, toss them about, to hear the jingling music of the thing I love the best!”

Think of it! Picture a woman, wife of a man, mother of splendid children, born with the beautiful instincts innate in her sex, sinking to such a depth as that! Think of the awful, shallow emptiness of a life and training that bore such fruit as this!

This is love of the world and of the things of the world. “The world passeth away with the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

This service is rendered by love. The most eloquent words are but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, except there be love. The Scriptures set it forth plainly and simply. Here are some of the words:—

“For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

So again in that chapter to which appeal is so often made:—

“Owe no man anything, save to love one another: for he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word; namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: love therefore is the fulfilment of the law.”

This gives the whole meaning to that wonderful thirteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians. Love is not an abstraction, nor a passion, nor a sentiment; it looks deeper than mere feeling. Love is the very life. Love works, and love gives. Love works no ill. A very short sentence; but a very remarkable sentence. Love works no ill; therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.

This might lead us to suggest a word concerning this question of law and love, and the law of God in its relation to our service. We are called to freedom; but we are not to use this freedom wrongfully. We are called to service, and this service is set forth clearly in the Scriptures in that law for service. Note these words:—

As central in the moral world, which is itself central in the material, the moral law holds the central place in the universal system. It is the law of laws. Characterized by the unbiased and unswerving uprightness, straightness, or equity of its dictates, it is known as the law of righteousness. Righteousness is simply rightness. In its ultimate analysis this law of rightness is love, the purest, highest, and most comprehensive of all principles. Its exclusions and inclusions embrace the entire realm of morality. Love worketh no ill. Love worketh all good. No more comprehensive principle can therefore exist. As applicable to all moral beings whatsoever, no higher nor greater moral law than the law of love can be conceived. Universal justice and benevolence are included in its range, and eternal harmony in its results. Upon its fulfilment depends the union or unity of the moral universe.

And now let us observe. While this law is the law of service for us, yet there is a law for service that comes through the whole creative world,—the law of subordination in our serving another.

The law of subordination leads up, step by step, to the supremacy of the moral law. . . .

Inorganic nature subserves the organized world.
In the vegetable kingdom, inferior forms of life subserve superior forms.
The vegetable kingdom subserves the animal.
Lower animal races subserve the interests of higher.
The material world subserves the mental.
The physical subserves the moral.
In the realm of mind all is subordinated to moral law.
Moral law, though supreme in the world by right, is not supreme in fact.
Revelation exhibits the restoration and establishment of the supremacy of moral law.
Revelation further traces the progressive subjection of “all things” to Christ, by whom the moral law is established, and through Christ to God; “for he must reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet.”

The very purpose of gospel service is to see in our hearts and minds, and in the hearts and minds of others, the supremacy of the law of love, which is the law of service.

May I add a word as to the relation which exists, and under the present circumstances necessarily exists, between suffering and service?

“Though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” “For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”

If we refuse to be corns of wheat falling into the ground and dying; if we will neither sacrifice prospects nor risk character and property and health, nor, when we are called, relinquish home and break family ties, for Christ’s sake and his gospel, then we shall abide alone.—Thomas Gajetan Ragland, India.

If we are simply to pray to the extent of a simple and pleasant and enjoyable exercise, and know nothing of watching in prayer, and of weariness in prayer, we shall not draw down the blessing that we may. We shall not sustain our missionaries who are overwhelmed with the appalling darkness of heathenism.

. . . We must serve God even to the point of suffering, and each must ask himself, In what degree, in what point, am I extending, by personal suffering, by personal self-denial, to the point of pain, the kingdom of Christ? . . . It is ever true that what costs little is worth little.—Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, China.

What do I know about pain, and sorrow, and trouble? I know only what everybody knows—I know what has grown out of the heart-soil scarred by the plow and torn by the harrow. I look at the receding storm, and I see the splendor of the rainbow. I go into the depths of a murky swamp, and say, “A nest of pestilential fevers.” Lo, at my feet the delicate beauty of an orchid. I catch the perfume of the sandalwood on the edge of the ax. I hear the axes ringing in the forest of Lebanon, and I say, “Death and destruction.” Lo, the fragrance of the carved beams in the temple. For it is the cedar that we call dead—the trees felled and wrought into shapes of grace and use of worship, not the living cedar in the forest—that gives forth its incense of praise. I search the world over, all its continents, islands, and seas, for the sweetest, tenderest, holiest spot it holds, and I kneel beneath the gnarled olives of dark Gethsemane. My soul is made stronger, my thoughts purer, my life nobler, by its agony of renunciation. I look upon the cross of shame—a Roman instrument of torture and humiliation. Lo, it shines above every crown in the world, it glows with a radiance more enduring than the sun, throughout the length and breadth of civilization—an emblem of authority, by which princes reign. It gleams in the splendor of heaven above the dome of the universe. It glorifies everything that it shines upon. The contemptuous phrase of a Roman governor, a brutal sneer at the Prisoner whom he feared, a taunt to exasperate the Jews, whom he despised,—“Jesus of Nazareth, King,”—endures forever. Angels echo it in anthems of exaltation, and “a great multitude, which no man could number,” and every created thing which is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, with one mighty voice shall catch up the scoff of Pilate, and with it ascribe blessing, and honor, and glory, and dominion, forever and ever, unto the Lamb which was slain,—not unto him who put the cup aside at Gethsemane, not unto him who came down from the cross and saved himself, but unto him who suffered, who endured the cross, unto him who was slain.—Robert J. Burdette.

So it is with suffering; so it is in the very nature of the case. “Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

What shall we say, just in a word, as to what is the reward of service?—Chiefly, it is this: The capacity and the opportunity for more service. Highest among the rewards offered for earnest, faithful, devoted service in this life is the capacity and opportunity for greater service hereafter. He endured the cross and despised the shame. Why?—Because of the joy set before him. What is the inducement held out to us? “Well done, good and faithful servant: . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” And not the least element of this joy will be the opportunity of service.

I may say, in passing, that it is a splendid commentary upon this whole theme to remember that to-day we have no class here, specifically leaving this Seminary, graduating this season. Why?—Because they have been called to service during the year, they have responded, and they are now in the field.

To me this is the most practical comment possible upon such a theme as this.

Nor does this service end with the present. Our capacity to serve increases, and our joy of service increases, with the extended opportunity. Let us read of it in these words:—

“After these things I saw, and behold a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands; and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb. . . . And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, These that are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and whence came they? And I say unto him, My lord, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they serve him day and night in his temple.”

Service here prepares us for higher and better service hereafter. This is both the incentive and the reward.

The Privilege of Serving1

The Privilege of Serving