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Who Can Serve God?

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 23, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 51.

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Who Can Serve God?

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

E. J. WAGGONER
The question is not, Who will serve God? but, Who can serve God? That is a very important question. A failure to understand who can serve God is the reason why many people continue in useless attempts to serve him.
Joshua had recounted to all Israel the goodness of God to them and to their fathers, and concluded with these words: “Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Then all the people answered, and said: “God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods; for the Lord our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed: and the Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve him, the Lord; for he is our God.”
That was a good resolution. How shocked they must have been, therefore, when Joshua turned on them with the assertion: “Ye cannot serve the Lord: for he is an holy God.”
Only such as are holy can serve a holy God. That is plain enough if we but stop to think for a moment. To serve him is to do his will; his will is holy; therefore whoever does his will must be holy. An unholy person certainly does not serve the Lord, and cannot as long as he remains unholy; for his unholiness is most displeasing to God.
Are there, then, only a select few who can serve God? — Yes; for all God’s people are “the elect,” or the selected ones, — Christ said to his disciples, “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain,” — and the number of them is very small compared with the number of wicked. But this does not mean that only a few have the privilege of serving God if they will. “Whosoever will” may take of the water of life freely; and the assurance is, “To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are.” Whoever fully yields himself, soul, body, and spirit, to God, is accepted by him as his servant, and is made holy, so that he can serve him.
Christ has chosen us, that we should bear much fruit to the glory of God. But he says that the tree must be made good, before it can bring forth good fruit. Matt. 12:33. “A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil.” Luke 6:43, 45. So when we are cleansed by the Lord, we become “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”
The law of God is the transcript of his character. Wherefore “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Rom. 7:12. To keep the law of God is to serve him; but not everybody can keep the law. The latter part of the seventh chapter of Romans pictures the unsuccessful efforts of any unregenerate man to keep the law of God. Then comes the comforting assurance: “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
So it is not a difficult matter to serve the Lord, after all. Then what about the statement that a great many people try to serve God, and fail? The answer is found in the form of the question: they simply try to serve God, which is something that God has never asked anybody to do: he asks us actually to serve him. We must do his will, not try to do it; and to the end that we may really serve him, he puts his laws into our mind, and writes them in our heart. Heb. 8:10. This is done for all who accept him as their God, and who fully yield to him. “His commandment is life everlasting;” therefore when his law is in our heart, it follows that it is our life:it controls our actions, instead of our attempting to put it into action. When we yield to righteousness as completely as we have to sin, we shall find that there is a greater power in righteousness than there is in sin; for “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
But in order that we may experience the perfect working of this power, we must not be partial in the law, choosing one portion and rejecting another. We must receive it all, and be willing for it all to have its effect in our lives. Thus, with God working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure, we shall come to know the blessedness of the assurance, “His servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face.”