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TO REWARD HIS SERVANTS

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 13, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 19.

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TO REWARD HIS SERVANTS.

Jesus is coming again. He is coming visibly—“every eye shall see Him.” He is coming personally—“this same Jesus,” “the Lord Himself.” My Saviour, your Saviour, Friend, Helper, is coming again.
He comes to reward His servants. That reward will be a substantial one—“knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.” Heb. 10:34. He has given us the earnest of that inheritance or reward in sins forgiven, in the quickening by a new life, in power over the flesh, in hatred of sin and love of God, in the bestowal of His Spirit. These are substantial blessings.
We may even call the reward which He comes to give a material reward. The only objection is that through the teaching of a false theology men have come to look upon all that is material as gross, sinful, corruptible, perishable. But the diamond and the coal are equally material, but what a difference! Gold and clay are equally material, but there is a vast distance between them, measured in value. All that men can see or weigh or measure here is affected by sin. Its corrosive, disintegrating effects are everywhere. The hard stony plinths and pillars, arches and columns of ancient times are crumbling, and the great mass of earth’s material is much more changeable and subject to decay.
Far more substantial than any or all of earth’s most lasting glories is the reward which Christ will give. It will abide forever. Its future existence will be measured by His life. When He walked upon earth, He was a substantial being. He died as such. He arose from the dead and revealed Himself as such. He ascended to heaven, a substantial place, where He pleads in the presence of God for us. He is coming again to receive unto Himself His people; to take them to substantial mansions He has prepared for them. John 14:1–3.
The children of faith, “the pilgrims and strangers” of earth, in all the ages of the past, have sought for “a country of their own,” “a better country, that is, an heavenly”; they have found here “no continuing city,” but seek one to come, even the city “whose Builder and Maker is God”; and, therefore, He “is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city.” See Heb. 11:8–16.
No shadowy, vague, illusive existence awaits the child of God, in which bodiless souls or wandering spirits inhabit a shadowy land. The glorious new heaven and new earth, forever free from sin’s curse, which God will give to His children, will be as real, as substantial as this earth at its very best; for “the throne of God will be in it.” No wonder that an old man, as for the first time he contemplated what Christ had in store for His people, exclaimed: “I want to be somebody and go somewhere; and be somebody when I get somewhere; instead of being nobody and go nowhere, and be nobody when I get nowhere.”
O reader, the religion of Jesus Christ takes sinful man and makes somebody of him. It has a place for the somebody to live. The real King in His beauty will there reign over him. And he will find, as may every one of us, that in that land of His presence there is “fulness of joy” and “pleasure forevermore.”
And Jesus our Lord is coming with this reward for all His people. “For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then shall He reward every man according to his works.” Matt. 16:27. “Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Can not you respond, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus?”
“When Jesus comes to reward His servants, Whether it be noon or night, Faithful to Him will He find us watching, With our lamps all trimmed and bright?”

THE GOLDEN RULE.

The Golden Rule absolutely forbids enforcing upon others any religious dogma, rite, or institution. It reads:— “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” Matt. 7:12.
This does not mean,—as is generally practised,—“Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye not so to them.” It means what it says. It means that if we would not that the idolator should force his religion upon us, we should not force ours upon him. If we would not have the Roman Catholic compel us to adore the “host” and bow to the pope, we should not seek to compel him to do what we believe to be right. If we would not have the Jew compel us to observe the day which he holds to be the Sabbath if he were in the majority, according to the teaching of Christ we should not demand that he should observe the day that we hold sacred. To compel or coerce any one in the matter of religious observances, institutions, or practices, is contrary to the Golden Rule, and is therefore unchristian.