A Desirable Service

A Desirable Service

Psalms 116:16 When a young man starts in life he is apt to enquire of an older person in this fashion—"I should like to get into such a business, but is it a good one; you have been in it for years, how do you find it?" He seeks the advice of a friend who will tell him all about it. Some will have to warn him that their trade is decaying, and that there is nothing to be done in it. Others will say that their business is very trying, and that if they could get out of it they would; while another will answer for his work, "Well, I have found it all right. I must speak well of the bridge which has carried me over. I have been able to earn a living, and I recommend you to try it." I give my own experience, and therefore I wish to say concerning the service of the Lord that I have never regretted that I entered it. Surely, at some time or other since I put on Christ's livery and became His servant, I should have found out the evil if there had been anything wrong in the religion of Jesus. At some time or other I should have discovered that there was a mistake, and that I was under a delusion. But it has never been so. I have regretted many things which I have done, but I have never regretted that I gave my heart to Christ and became a servant of the Lord. In times of deep depression—and I have had plenty of them—I have feared this and feared the other, but I have never had any suspicion of the goodness of my Master, the truth of His teaching, or the excellence of His service; neither have I wished to go back to the service of Satan and sin. Mark you, if we had been mindful of the country from whence we came out, we have had many an opportunity to return. All sorts of enticement have assailed me, and siren voices have often tried to lure me upon the rocks; but never, never since the day in which I enlisted in Christ's service have I said to myself, "I am sorry that I am a Christian; I am vexed that I serve the Lord." I think that I may, therefore, honestly, heartily, and experimentally recommend to you the service which I have found so good. I have been a bad enough servant, but never had a servant so lovable a Master or so blessed a service.

I would add this personal testimony: so blessed is the service of God, that I would like to die in it! When I have been unable to preach through physical pain, I have taken my pen to write, and found much joy in making books for Jesus; and when my hand has been unable to wield the pen, I have wanted to talk about my Master to somebody or other, and I have tried to do so. I remember that David Brainerd, when he was very ill, and could not preach to the Indians, was found sitting up in bed, teaching a little Indian boy his letters, that he might read the Bible; and so he said, "If I cannot serve God one way, I will another. I will never leave off this blessed service." This is my personal resolve, and verily, there is no merit in it, for my Lord's service is a delight. It is a great pleasure to have anything to do for our great Father and Friend, and most affectionately, for your own good, I commend the service of God to you. To serve God is the most reasonable thing in the world. It was He who made you: should not your Creator have your service? It is He who supports you in being: should not that being be spent to His glory? If you had a cow or a dog, how long would you keep either of them if it were of no service to you? Suppose it were a dog, and it never fawned upon you, but followed at everybody else's heel, and never took notice of you—never acknowledged you as its master at all: would you not soon tire of such a creature? Which of you would make an engine, or devise any piece of machinery, if you did not hope that it would be of some service to you? Now, God has made you, and a wonderful piece of mechanism is the body, and a wondrous thing is the soul; and will you never obey Him with the body or think of Him with the mind? This is Jehovah's own lament: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider." To have lived to be one-and-twenty without God is a terrible robbery; how have you managed it? To have lived to be thirty or forty, and never to have paid any reverence to Him who has kept the breath in your nostrils, without which you would have been a loathsome carcass in the grave long ago, is a base injustice; how dare you continue in it? To have lived so long, and, in addition to that, to have often insulted God; to have spoken against Him; to have profaned His day; to have neglected His Book; to have turned your back on the Son of His love—is not this enough? Will you not cease from such an evil course? Why, there are some men who cannot bear five minutes' provocation, nay, nor five seconds', either. It is "a word and a blow" with them; only the blow frequently comes first. But here is God provoked by the twenty years at a stretch—the thirty, the forty, the fifty years right on; and yet He bears patiently with us. Is it not time that we render to Him our reasonable service? If He has made us, if He has redeemed us, if He has preserved us in being, it is but His due that we should be His servants. And this is the most honourable service that ever can be. Did you say, "Lord, I am Thy servant"? I see, coming like a flash of light from Heaven, a bright spirit, and my imagination realizes his presence. There he stands, a living flame. It is a seraph fresh from the throne, and what does he say? "O Lord, I am Thy servant." Are you not glad to enter into such company as this? When cherubim and seraphim count it their glory to be the servants of God, what man among us will think it to be a mean office? A prince, an emperor, if he be a sinner against God, is but a scullion in the kitchen compared with the true nobleman who serves the Lord in poverty and toil. This is the highest style of service under heaven: no courtier's honour can rival it. Knights of the Garter or what else you like lose their glories in comparison with the man whom God will call servant in the day of the appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You are in grand company, young friend, if you are a servant of God. And let me note that this service is full of beneficence. If I had to engage in a trade, I should like to spend my time and strength in a pursuit which did no hurt to anybody, and did good to many. Somehow, I do not think that I should like to deal in deadly weapons—certainly not in the accursed drink. I would sooner starve than earn my bread by selling that or anything else that would debase my fellowmen, and degrade them below the level of brute beasts. It is a grand thing, I think, if a young man can follow a calling in which he may do well for himself, and be doing well to others at the same time. It is a fine thing to act as some have done who have not grown rich by grinding the faces of poor needlewomen, or by stinting the wage of the servant behind the counter, but have lifted others up with them, and as they have advanced, those in their employment have advanced also. That is a something worth living for in the lower sphere of things. But he that becomes a servant of God is doing good all along, for there is no part of the service of God which can do any harm to anybody. The service of the Lord is all goodness. It is good for yourself, and it is good for your fellow-men; for what does God ask in His service but that we should love Him with all our heart, and that we love our neighbour as ourselves? He who does this is truly serving God by the help of His Spirit, and he is also greatly blessing men. I say, it is a most beneficent work to engage in; and therefore it is that I commend it to you—for its reasonableness, its honourableness, and its beneficence.

It is the most remunerative work under heaven. "Not always to-day," someone may say. Yet I venture to say, "Always to-day." To serve God is remunerative now. How so? Certainly not in hard cash, as misers rightly call their gold; but in better material A quiet conscience is better than gold; and to know that you are doing good is something more sweet in life than to know that you are getting rich or famous. Have not some of us lived long enough to know that the greater part of the things of this world are so much froth upon the top of the cup, far better blown away than preserved? The chief joy of life is to be right with yourself, your neighbour, your God. And he that gets right with God—what more does he want? He is paid for anything that he may suffer in the cause of God by his own peace of mind. There was a martyr once in Switzerland standing barefooted on the fagots, and about to be burnt quick to the death—no pleasant prospect for him. He accosted the magistrate who was superintending his execution, and asked him to come near him. He said, "Will you please to lay your hand upon my heart. I am about to die by fire. Lay your hand on my heart. If it beats any faster than it ordinarily beats, do not believe my religion." The magistrate, with palpitating heart himself, and all in a tremble, laid his hand upon the martyr's bosom, and found that he was just as calm as if he was going to his bed rather than to the flames. That is a grand thing! To wear in your buttonhole that little flower called heart's-ease, and to have the jewel of contentment in your bosom—this is heaven begun below: godliness is great gain to him that hath it.

I think that all that we can get in this world is paltry, because we must leave it, or it must leave us, in a very short time. Young men—but in how very short a time, if you all live, will your hair be powdered with the grey of age! How short life is! How swift is time! The older we get the faster years fly. That only is worth my having which I can have for ever. That only is worth my grasping which death cannot tear out of my hand. The supreme reward of being a servant of God is hereafter; and if, young man, you should serve God and you should meet with losses here for Christ's sake, you may count these "light afflictions which are but for a moment," and think them quite unworthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed; for there is a resurrection of the dead; there is a judgment to come; there is a life eternal; there is a Heaven of unutterable splendour; there is a place in that Heaven for every one of us who become true servants of the living God.

I think that I hear somebody saying, "Well, I do not want to be a servant." You cannot help it, my friend; you cannot help it. You must be a servant of somebody. "Then I will serve myself," says one Pardon me, brave sir, if I whisper in your ear that if you serve yourself you will serve a fool. The man who is the servant of himself—listen to this sentence—the man who is the servant of himself is the slave of a slave; and I cannot imagine a more degrading position for a man to be in than to be the slave of a slave. You will assuredly serve somebody. You will wear fetters, too, if you serve the master that most men choose. Oh, but look at this city—this city full of free men; do the most of them know real liberty? Look at this city full of "free-thinkers." Is there any man that thinks in chains like the man who calls himself a free-thinker? Is there any man so credulous as the man who will not believe in the Bible? He swallows a ton of difficulties, and yet complains that we have swallowed an ounce of them. He has much more need of faith of a certain sort than we have, for scepticism has far harder problems than faith. And look at the free-liver, what a bondage is his life! "Who hath woe? who hath redness of eyes" but the slave of strong drink? Who has rottenness in the bones but the slave of his passions? Is there any wretch that ever tugged in the Spanish galley, or any bondsman beneath the sun, that is half such a slave as he who will be led to-night of his lusts like a bullock to the slaughter, going to his own damnation, and even to the ruin of his body, while he makes himself the victim of his own passions? If I must be a slave, I will be a slave to Turk or savage, but never to myself, for that were the nethermost abyss of degradation. You must be a servant to somebody; there is no getting through the world without it, and if you are the servant to yourself, your bondage will be terrible. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve," for serve ye must. Every man must get him to his task, whether he be peer or pauper, millionaire or beggar. Kings and queens are usually the most wearied servants of all. The higher men climb, the more they have to serve their fellowmen. You must serve. Oh, that you would enter the service of your God!

There is room in it. Other places are crowded. Hundreds of young men go from shop to shop, and beg for the opportunity to earn a livelihood; I lament that in many instances they beg in vain. Some of you wear the boots from off your feet in trying to get something to do: how anxiously do I desire that you may find the employment you seek! But there is room in the service of God, and He is willing to receive you. And let me tell you that, if you enter His service, it will help you in everything that you have to do in this life. They say that a Christian man is a fool. Ah! proud opposers, though we say not the same to you, we might, perhaps, with truth think so. I have seen many believers in Jesus whom it would have been very dangerous to deal with as with fools, for very soon he that dealt with them in that fashion would have found that he made a great mistake. They are not always fools who are called so; they are such sometimes who use those names. I like a Christian man to be all the better in every respect for being a Christian. He should be a better servant and a better master. He should be a better tradesman and a better artisan. Surely, there is no poet whose minstrelsy excels that of the poet of the sanctuary: Milton still sits alone. There is no painter that should paint so well as he who tries to make immortal the memorable scenes in which great deeds were done. That which you can now do well you might do better by becoming a servant of God.