RIGHTS OR DUTIES | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 49.

RIGHTS OR DUTIES.

THE politician talks about rights and it is right for him to do so. Civil society is based upon the definition and vindication of human rights. The government that secures to every man his rights is a good government. But in the kingdom of Christ we are to put our duties before our rights. We are to be willing, often, to surrender them, in order that we may do good and glorify God. An eloquent preacher has well said:—

“Man has no right to take his full rights in the world; he is not wholly noble unless he sees the higher law, which declares that all is not his to take which is his legitimately to own.”

How often do we hear even Christians say: “Haven’t I a right to do this? Is there any harm in it?” And they act as if an affirmative answer to those questions settled the whole problem of duty. But our blessed Lord gave up his rights in order to suffer and to die for our redemption. He is our example. The highest duty of each of his followers is to deny himself for the good of others—to eat no meat even, if thereby a brother is offended. See 1 Cor. 8:8-13.

The apostle Paul had a legal right to stay in Tarsus and be a good, average Christian there. Nobody could have blamed him for doing so, and he might have been useful while he was comfortable. But, obeying the instinctive impulse of the new life in Christ Jesus, he became a homeless wanderer, enduring shipwrecks, stoning, scourgings, imprisonment, and martyrdom at last. We do not call him a fanatic. We admire and honor him as illustrating the highest ideal of a true life. And our modern missionaries, who surrender all the comforts of home and go to toil and die in the dark places of the earth, are under no special obligations to do this. They have as good a right to stay here and enjoy civilized society as the rest of us have. Many of them have talents and culture that would secure a high degree of worldly success. But they have learned of Jesus that there is something nobler than to claim our rights, and to exercise the power we possess for our own gratification and advancement. They are not content to float along with the great multitude of respectable, self-indulgent people, who only want to be religious enough to quiet their consciences. They long to be Christ-like—to live in this world as Jesus lived, to take him as their pattern—their model of true manliness as well as their Saviour. Such men do not ask, What are my rights? what can I claim or acquire for myself? They do not even ask, How can I be happy? Their one question is, How can I be useful? How can I do good and glorify God? And the happiness which they seek not comes to them. Amid all their toils and privations, they have a peace and joy in the Lord that is better a thousand-fold than the best that this world can give.

Alas! how few even in the church have the Master’s spirit of self-surrender. How emphatically we insist upon our rights. How little we appreciate the nobility of sacrifice, the blessedness of being servants for Jesus’ sake. When this divine spirit shall be given to us in its fullness, when we shall all live as if we were not our own, the world will be won. It can resist our arguments and our appeals, but it will not be able to stand out against the manifestation of Christian love when we are willing to be all things to all men if by any means we might save some.—Occident.