CHOOSING OUR REWARD

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 27, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 30.

CHOOSING OUR REWARD.

If all men realized the extent of Heaven’s interest in them, there would not be so many careless sinners in the world, nor so many lukewarm Christians.

God has a purpose in view for every soul that has ever come into the world. That purpose is the formation of a character with which He can trust the priceless gift of immortality. To confer that gift upon a promiscuous host of such persons as have inhabited the world during any epoch of its history, would be to invite the everlasting continuance of every sin with which that age was polluted. That God will not do that is shown by His declaration to John on the Isle of Patmos: “Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to render to each man according as his work is.” Rev. 22:12. The verses following that quoted show how the division is made. Those who have washed their robes are given the right to enter the city of God and partake of the fruit of the tree of life; but the other class—the breakers of God’s law, whose robes are soiled and polluted with sin—they are left out. Inside that city is the blessed presence of the eternal Father, the Creator and Redeemer, and those who are accounted worthy to obtain that world are such as are in harmony with His will, who have made the choice of righteousness and the unfading joys of the eternal world. Such will find a continual unfoldment of pleasure in the purity of heaven’s associations.

The other class, having chosen those things and lived for those things that are out of harmony with the will and purpose and character of God, would find no pleasure in such associations. Their chief sorrow will be in the knowledge of the fact that they are cut off from the pursuit of those things which they love. The course of the libertine is ended, the worshiper of gold can glut his greed no more; the disciple of fashion must lay it all down forever; the devotee of “society” has reveled away his last night on earth. All, or nearly all, of these love life; but they love it for what they can get out of it—not for its opportunities for good, not for the Gospel privilege, not for the hope it holds out of an everlasting inheritance in a kingdom of righteousness. Thus by pandering to their own purposes they have literally unfitted themselves for the associations of heaven. The heaven which they would choose would be one in which they could pursue their selfish course unhindered by any of the restraints of law. God has no heaven for such. Envy, selfishness, hatred, jealousy, anger, evil-speaking, greed, profanity, falsehood, lust—these can not inhabit the immaculate palaces of eternity.

That sin and its results are entirely outside the purpose of God, is shown by the fact that God has made no provision for the continuance of the sinner. He has no permanent place in the universe. The sinner is to be “cut off from the earth.” Sin is to be “burned up root and branch.” There are to be “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” Before sin entered the universe, there was nothing but righteousness in it. God’s purpose is the perpetuation of righteousness; therefore His purpose that man shall attain a righteous character. When the wicked are finally “cut off,” then will only righteousness, true and tried, abide forever. There is no pleasure to Jehovah in the destruction of the wicked. He declares on this point: “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope for your latter end.” Jer. 29:11. Again: “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.” How insignificant appears the short life in this world devoted to the pleasures of self and sense when compared with the purpose which God has in view for every soul upon the earth. We can fritter away our little day here, and wither and lie down like a seared and crinkled autumn leaf, worthless and spent; or we can shape our lives, by His abundant help, in harmony with His purpose concerning us, and, with the accepted robe of Christ’s righteousness upon us, receive the crown of eternal life, the seal of an enduring righteous character. While mercy still lingers, let us make that better choice.