DELAYETH HIS COMING

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 8, 1901

DELAYETH HIS COMING.

Who? — My Lord. Who says this? — A servant of the Lord. What kind of a servant? — The evil servant: “But and if that evil servant shall say, . . . My Lord delayeth His coming.” How does he say this? — In his heart: “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming.” Then if he says it only in his heart, how do we know that he says it? — By his actions, which speak louder than words. If it was in words merely, it might be spoken so low you could not hear it, or it might be in terms you could not understand. But actions will be heard, and they cannot be misunderstood. If you live for self, the actions are telltales, and will witness against you. If you live for the world, your actions will brand the words ineffaceably on the object of your affections: “These be thy gods, O Israel.”

To entertain the feeling in our hearts, and express it in any manner, “My Lord delayeth His coming,” is a grievous sin. It is tantamount to saying that He will never come. If it is not this, there is no force in it; for if He is ever to come, and all that has been expected is to be fulfilled, there is no consistency in trying to take advantage of a little delay; but to say that He will never come is to contradict the whole tenor of the Scriptures and the whole course of history. It is to make God stultify himself by accusing Him of bringing to pass the greatest of all events, and giving the world no notice of its coming, and no warning in regard thereto, which He declares is contrary to His uniform course of action and inflexible purpose. “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets;” that is, He will do nothing without revealing His secret, something not otherwise known, unto His servants, the prophets (Amos 3:7); and He reveals it to them that they may make it known to the people, so that the people may not be taken unawares by the accomplishment of any of His purposes.

But when one begins to say in his heart, “My Lord delayeth His coming,” he begins to act as though he must plan for unlimited days to come. He begins to act as if he would need all his means for his own purposes, and withholds it from the work of the Lord. He begins to show a feeling that there is no need to be in haste about warning the world concerning the Lord’s coming; for He is not coming yet: perhaps expressed in the usual formula, “not in your day or mine.”

And what is the character of this evil servant? — It is a law of watchfulness to be always watchful. One who watches only in spasms, cannot be said to watch at all; since in some moment when he is not watching, the danger against which he pretends to watch may overtake him.

So it is said of this servant, that he begins “to smite his fellow servants,” — first of all, he loses all love from his heart toward his brethren,—“and to eat and drink with the drunken:” he throws off all restraint and gives himself recklessly to appetite, a sin against which the Saviour himself warns us in Luke 21:34, referring to the same time.

The servant who says, My Lord delayeth His coming, is not alone in that opinion, nor in the work he is doing. There are others associated with him. He is called “that evil servant;” and his associates are spoken of by Peter, and are called “scoffers, walking after their own lusts.” “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning.” 2 Peter 3:3, 4. “My Lord delayeth His coming.”

The Lord lays out His treatment of the two classes, the faithful and wise servant, who is found giving the household meat in due season, and the evil servant, who says in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming. Of the first He says, “Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He cometh shall find so doing.” But of the evil servant He says, “The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.” Matt. 24:50, 51. The Greek here is very emphatic. It reads, “shall cut him in two, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.” This is appropriate treatment. The man was acting two parts. In one capacity he claimed to be a good servant; in the other he showed that he belonged to the world, was perverting the truth, and abusing his brethren. The Lord says, Cut him in two, and distribute the parts to their respective places. One cannot serve God and Mammon; if he serves Mammon, enough must be taken off from the service of the Lord to balance up the account. To do this will require that he be cut in two, and the divisions located accordingly.