p. 6 (486) | A PROMISE OF WORK

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 3, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 31.

A PROMISE OF WORK.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God.” Rev. 3:12. It was Christ who made this promise through His servant John. But what does it mean to be a pillar?—A pillar in a literal temple, or other building, is a substantial column placed in a position to support a weight, or burden. So the Lord’s promise to the overcomer is that he shall be made a burden-bearer in His house.

Of itself a pillar is of no use, excepting, perhaps, for ornament; but in the Lord’s cause there is no recognized ornamentation but that of character, of worth. Isa. 52:7; 1 Peter 3:1-4. The pillar is of practical utility when it stands erect in support of a substantial structure. Again, a pillar that would hardly stand alone of itself, that would not bear a sudden jar, a gust of wind, or the push of a child, will not stand firmly and securely when placed in proper position under a massive burden.

In the promise herein quoted the word “pillar” is used in a figurative sense, and our “Standard Dictionary” gives the following as one definition of the word: “Figuratively, one who, or that which, strongly supports a work or a cause; as a pillar of the church.” So one reward of the overcomer is to have a position of substantial burden-bearing. God is able to keep His children from falling (Jude 24), and He does it in the same way that a pillar is kept from falling, by holding it in place with a burden, by making them laborers together with Him. Christ was an overcomer all through His earthly life, and He was a pillar, a burden-bearer, a worker with His Father. He said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”

The real overcomer never will shirk the burden that comes to him; therefore he can be depended upon as a pillar. One who is too weak to stand under the burdens and trials that pertain to the church of God will not do for a pillar. To risk faulty material in the responsible position of a pillar in a great structure is not wise. The builder of the commonest kind of structure would not rest it upon unsound pillars. Architects are especially careful in this respect. And God is a wise architect; He chooses for pillars in His temple only such material as has been tested and tried, and has withstood the test; He chooses the overcomers for such important places.

The one who overcomes the temptations that come to him daily, whose character is daily becoming whitened by contact with the Word of God, who is being strengthened by godly exercise of mind and body, is one who can be entrusted with pillars. He will always have plenty of work; for he can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens him (Phil. 4:13). God will keep him in place by the burdens that will be allowed to rest upon him. “He shall go no more out,” being “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.”