p. 5 | SERVING FROM DUTY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 13, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 50.

SERVING FROM DUTY.

ONE of the things upon which men pride themselves is honesty. “I render to every man his own;” “I pay every cent I owe;” “I am in debt to no one,” are expressions often heard, and such ones would deem it an insult if they were charged with dishonesty. And yet how many are dishonest, dishonest toward the truest, justest One in all the universe, dishonest toward God.

Duty is that which we owe, is that which is due.

To refuse to do it is to be dishonest. To fail to heed the call of this “stern daughter of the voice of God,” is to fail to be just with Him unto whom we owe the largest obligation.

Why do we owe God?

1. God created us. We would not be, were it not for His goodness and power. He “made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is.” Acts 14:15. “He giveth to all life and breath and all things; and He made of one every nation of men;” “for in Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17 : 25, 26, 28. Then all that we are, and all that we have, came from Him, given and kept by His own creative power. By virtue, then, of God’s creation we owe Him all our service. Will we honestly pay the debt?

2. But He has done more than this. In the face of all His goodness we sold ourselves “for naught,” base bondslaves to sin. “For every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin, and the bondservant [of sin] abideth not in the house forever; the son abideth forever.” John 8 : 34, 35. When we were bondslaves of sin, utterly unable to free ourselves from the cruel master we had chosen, He bought us with a price so amazing that the shining angels of God have not ceased and can never cease to wonder; bought by such a price that we might be sons to abide in His house forever, instead of servants which must die; bought “not with corruptible things, with silver or gold,” but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1 : 18); bought with this price that we might not become bondservants of men or devils (1 Cor. 7 : 23); “bought with a price” that we might “glorify God” (1 Cor. 6 : 20); bought by the blood of Christ that the servants of sin might become “the servants of righteousness,” “servants to God.” (Rom. 6 : 16-22). Then we owe God all that we have because He has redeemed us. Our service belongs to Him.

Are we honest enough to pay the debt?

He gave His Son to redeem the world, to save men of all nations of the same flesh and blood as we, and all the agencies of heaven are enlisted in the work. For this purpose Christ came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. He has redeemed us to Himself that we might unite with Him in this work; and so has made each of us “debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” Rom. 1 : 16. All this is plain, isn’t it? Now are we honest? Will we do our duty? Will we meet our obligation? Will we pay the honest debt? “He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.”

O, the time to yield to do the duty is now.