God's Call to Service

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 13, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 20.

God's Call to Service

The Militant Earth.

THIS old earth is the planet militant. For the six thousand years of its human history its story has been a record of warfare. The chronicles of these conflicts have been impressed upon the soft clay, and baked into permanent records; they have been engraved in black basalt; pen and brush have traced and portrayed them upon parchment and canvass; the valleys and rivers, the hills and mountains, are veteran witnesses of the mighty and titanic struggles the earth militant has known.

In its old age it would seem as if the war-worn earth would be seeking peace and rest. Men call for peace, and governments respond by greater preparation for war. Nations are becoming armed hosts; great armadas sail the oceans; and uniformed men throng the thorafares of travel and trade. Into the universities, schools, and even churches has swept the militant spirit, and in all these are organized uniformed clubs and squads, and companies, equipped and drilled after military fashion. The old world is fast becoming a vast armed camp, waiting for the tocsin or trumpet of war to call to sanguinary and universal conflict.

Man a Fighting Creature.

What does this all witness?—That man is a warring, fighting, militant creature. He can not for long be at peace. It is not his nature. Very few indeed are the times when it could be said with truth, "Peace reigns throughout the world." Even in such times, it is armed truce. Combatants have become weary, or the conquered and oppressed are not yet ready to resume the dread conflict, while the armed guards of the conqueror police the lands of "peace" to restrain the pent-up passions of war. Such are the conditions of the field from the warfare between mighty, military nations to the mobs which threaten our cities.

Moral Conflicts.

THE mightiest conflicts which this old earth knows are the great moral conflicts—struggles with eternal issues at stake. It matters little whether France or Germany rules Alsace and Lorraine. It matters little whether Italy or Spain controls a certain colony or island. The result is about the same to the people who may dwell in the dependency. If a fair degree of civil freedom is allowed, and humans get enough to eat, drink, and be merry without too much hard work, it is easily tolerable to the majority. Body and mind and heart develop about as under other conditions. But it makes mighty difference as to which side one stands on in the moral warfare. It matters infinitely whether the soul is under the rule, the bondage, of sin, or whether it is free from sin's dominion.

THIS is the great battle-field of earth, and in it every soul has an interest. We may not be interested as to whether Russia or Japan rules in the Orient, but we must all share in the results, on the one side or the other, of the great moral warfare. For, friend, we are either slaves or freemen. We are fighting this life-campaign to win or to lose. We may say, "I have no interest in the matters one way or the other;" but the enemy has, and if you are not a soldier for the right, if you have not an active, genuine interest in the moral warfare and its results, you are a slave of sin, wearing the shackles of bondage.

Great Principles—Eternal Issues.

THERE are great principles at stake in this moral warfare—equity and wrong, righteousness and sin. All the hosts of the world are ranged on the one side or the other. So you, and I, friend, are either on the side of wrong and sin, or of equity and righteousness. We bear the black and crimson banner of the one or the blue and white of the other.

THERE are two great leaders in this moral warfare—Jesus Christ the Son of God, and Satan, God's adversary. With the One are the everlasting principles of righteousness and truth and goodness, and naught of evil. In the ultimate these principles will issue in all the blessings of eternal peace and perennially upspringing joy and happiness, in pleasures which will never pall upon the appetite, in glad loyalty to God and fellowship with other souls, ever increasing with the growing capacity of the soul to appreciate and enjoy. Under the other leadership there may be temporal prosperity, seeming advantage, temporary success, ephemeral pleasure and joy, but with apples of Sodom for the fruitage, which promise joy and satisfaction to the eye, but are ashes within. There are promises of fame and wealth and life; but at the end the blackness of darkness forever. There are guises and deceptions innumerable to ensnare and hold the soul in sin; but the shallow deceits cover an abyss of misery, the end of which is death eternal.

Where We Now Are.

MANKIND by inheritance of a perverted nature stands on the side of sin, slaves to the power of selfishness and evil, with no might to rise above the low level. The old earth is a wandering planet, a vessel with lost bearings, in charge of a mutinous crew, warring among themselves, separated from God's great loyal fleet. She is an island cut off from the continent of Heaven by sin and rebellion, and her children have known sin and want, and sorrow and misery, and wo and death from the day of her severance to the present.

BUT God did not leave the separated ship to her fate, the rebellious island to destruction. He has exercised guiding control over the battered bark despite her mutinous crew. A nail-pierced hand has reached down thru cloud and tempest, grasped the helm, and guided her from the whirlpools of death. The love of an infinite God has spanned the gulf which separated the rebellious island from the mainland of eternal righteousness and life. A golden ladder of love has been let down from the throne of God to the low depths of the sin-laden, fog-enshrouded earth; and up and down upon its shining rounds, pass and repass messengers of blessed ministry to the sin-sick and sorrowing in earth's night of conflict and death. Tho man has sinned, God has not forgotten.

Messengers of Life.

God has done more than to minister life to the needy. Into the rebellious land have come recruiting officers sent of God to enlist men under the banner of eternal right.

Some have been imprisoned. Some have been tortured and slain. Still they come, bearing the message of life, calling men to leave the service of sin and selfishness and Satan, and enlist in the army of the living God. Then God sent His Son, who laid aside His glory and majesty so as not to affright and awe mankind into feigned subjection. He took upon Himself man's nature, "became sin for us;" fought for man the moral warfare in the flesh; conquered for man; resisted sin even unto death; died in our behalf; rose triumphant because the grave could not imprison Eternal Righteousness; and now He, the God-man, pleads in our behalf the merits of His infinitely perfect work, while He pours out of His Spirit of life upon a dying world, and sends His heralds into every land, every clime, every nation and tribe, to every town and hamlet and home and heart, with the glad tidings of salvation.

"Not as the World Giveth."

EVEN SO His message comes to you to-day, if you are not already His. He asks you, for your good always, to leave the service of sin and self, and serve Him. He does not promise you ease or pleasure for the flesh; He does not promise you worldly riches or fame or power. All these the world offers. The hearty hand of good fellowship holds out to you the sparkling draught of pleasure, and bids you quaff, but like the fabled cup of Circe, it turns men to swine. Society's fair hand beckons you to ease and pleasure, but it leaves you supine, manless, and helpless. Commerce and greed invite you to gather the gold of earth, but their bags have holes, and gold retained proves a weight which sinks the soul into everlasting perdition. Fame holds out the laurel wreath, but without the righteousness of God it becomes at last a crown of thorns, filled with barbs of envy and jealousy, calumny and hatred; and at the best its withered wreath is forgotten for the many fresher ones, and it gives no satisfaction to the heart which lies cold in the marble crypt. Earthly glory and power hold out to you the roll of honor, and intimate that your name may be written among the great who have gone before; but the highest honors which earth can bestow are no panacea against disease and suffering, nor will they fray away the black angel of death.

The Invitation to Life.

O HEED the call of the Captain of your salvation, Christ Jesus, Him who never lost a battle, who conquered even in death, who tunneled the grave for all who die in Him. Down the centuries come the ringing invitations to the sinful sons of earth: "My son, give Me thine heart; and let thine eyes delight in My ways." Prov. 23:26. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith Jehovah: tho your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; tho they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." Isa. 1:18-20. Gracious promises and faithful warning God gives. Surely we can not afford to reject the former or ignore the latter. Hear again: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." Matt. 11:28-30. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16. "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come; and he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come; he that will, let him take the water of life freely." Rev. 22:17.

COMPREHENSIVE, gracious, mighty, all-embracing, are the above promises, and, friend, they are all for you. However the world regards you, there is hope for you in God. There is rest of soul in Him. There is new life in God to flow into your life, which will give you new power to rise above sin. There is cleansing and regeneration from all its devilish past if you will come to Christ, if you will enlist with Him against all evil. And thus again we read: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." James 4:7. In other words, "Arrange yourselves under God, that you may array yourselves against the enemy." God calls you to join His army, to be His soldier forever. He has His creed, and code, and discipline, His manual of arms, His field tactics, all the instruction that is needed, in His own great and simple law and word of truth. He has for our living example Jesus His Son, who asks us to do nothing which He has not done, bear nothing which He has not borne, make no hard marches the paths of which are not marked by His own blood-stained footprints, take no humble position the ground of which has not been pressed by His knees in prayer for you. And He, Christ, the Conquering One, is your Captain to lead to the victorious end.

YET His service gives pleasure, and the cup which He presses to your lips, tho it sometimes causes pain, contains the water of life. Drinking from that fountain, you will desire none other. He offers society and fellowship; for truly Christ's soldiers have each fellowship with all; "yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ; and these things we write that your joy may be made full." 1 John 1:3, 4. He has riches, the riches of faith and love; "the exceeding riches of His grace," "His riches in glory," bestowed upon us thru Christ Jesus. Eph. 2:7; Phil. 4:19. The gold of character, refined by the fire of trial, will He give to those who are His. Rev. 3:18. Fame!—He will write your name on the book of life, among all the heroes of God. Honor and power!—You may reign with Him forever.

THEN, friend, enlist under the banner of Jesus Christ. These are trying times. World conflicts threaten everywhere. Nations will inevitably go down forever in the mighty battle of Armageddon which lies before. Millions of souls are going to destruction in the often fiercer moral struggles in the world to-day. Better is "he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." For the conqueror in Christ Jesus, under the banner of eternal righteousness and truth, whether he live till the Master come or die in the conflict, there waits the crown of life and glory and the everlasting kingdom of love and joy unspeakable. And, friend, it all may be thine.