p. 12 | Choosing Our Master by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 4, 1911

Choosing Our Master

By C. M. S.

With every soul rests the right of choice, a right which even Divinity would not invade. Choice runs through the whole gospel plan. God urges men with all the earnest pleadings of a loving Father, but only to choose: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” Again: “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die?”

God knows that to turn to him means everlasting life, and that to turn away from him means everlasting death; yet there is no compulsion, no force. God wants men to serve him because they prefer to do so—not because they fear to refuse. Christ never forced upon any one the worship of himself or the recognition of his Messiahship. We see him weeping over Jerusalem because the inhabitants of that city would not turn to him and accept his offer of life,—because the Messiah for whom the nation had looked through the centuries had come, and they would not have him for their King. He shed tears of grief over their choice of death instead of life; but to have attempted to force one of them to accept him would have been to deny the very policy of heaven in its plan for man's redemption. Hatred and force were the weapons of the enemy of souls. Heaven could not sanction them; Christ could not use them. “Come unto me,” is an invitation overflowing with the love of God; and upon every soul in this world rests an individual responsibility for the attitude taken in reference to it.

The Christian will seek to follow the example which his Lord set. He respected the right of choice; he invited, but did not compel; he warned, but did not persecute. He has set us an example, that we should walk “even as he walked.”

The immediate future will give us many occasions for remembering these examples of our Lord. Deep plans are being laid for securing the enactment and of legislation which will seek to bring men's religious convictions under the hard sway of unfeeling force. That means the invasion of the sacred right of choice. It means the attempt to force the acceptance of a master upon men without regard to their own wishes in the matter. That at once places each individual in a position where he must choose, as did Daniel of old, and take the consequences of his choosing.

It is as wrong to yield to the demands of religious legislation in opposition to the commands of God as it is to enact the legislation which makes the demands. Sin is sin, whether we sin willingly, or at the demand of another. God wants men who will be loyal to him, no matter what the pressure from a disloyal source. The rights which he has given us we can not surrender to his implacable enemy. We must choose our master, and we must abide by the consequences of our choice.

C. M. S.