“Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honored.”—Proverbs 27:18.
If a man in Palestine carefully watched his fig tree and kept it in proper condition, he was sure to be abundantly rewarded in due season, for it would yield him a large quantity of fruit of which he would enjoy the luscious taste. So according to Solomon, good servants obtained honor as the fruit of diligent service. In those early days when there were far better relations between servants and masters than unhappily there are nowadays, if a servant carefully waited upon his master he was sure to be honored for his faithfulness. The Bible is full of such cases. Eleazar, the servant and steward of Abraham, met with much honor at his master’s hands. Deborah was a faithful nurse, and what sorrow there was for her at Allon-bachuth, or the oak of weeping. Elisha poured water upon the hands of his master Elijah, and became himself a prophet endowed with a double portion of his master’s spirit. In the New Testament we read of the centurion who so honored his servant that in his sickness he sent to the Lord Jesus, earnestly entreating him to come and heal him. There were exceptions of course. There were faithful servants who met with ungenerous treatment; but what rule is there without an exception? The rule was that he who was faithful to his master received honor. I could wish it to be more general for there to be intimate friendly relationships between men and their servants; I would fain see a restoration of family loyalty between heads of households and their dependents. In these times, servants and persons in the employ of others are looked upon as hands to be worked, rather than as souls to be cared for. It may be that servants have degenerated, but it may also be the truth that masters have degenerated too. I believe that every Abraham will be likely to find an Eleazar, and every Rebekah a Deborah. Good masters make good servants. Good servants make good masters. Happy is the family where, without forgetting the proper distinctions of position, all are knit together in firm friendship. Alas! the bonds of society have been too much loosened. Oppression on the one hand and discontent on the other have rent the commonwealth. Yet there still survive among us instances of personal attachment where servants have served the same masters from their youth up, have continued with them in sickness and in misfortune, have remained faithful to the family when the master has been scarcely able to remunerate them for their services, and have continued faithful even unto death. I am sure when we have read such stories or seen such servants ourselves, we have felt that they deserved to be had in honor, and there is a general respect still which is manifested by mankind to the servant that waiteth upon his master. However, I am not going to speak about the duties of masters and servants this evening. At other times we have not hesitated to speak our mind upon that matter, and we shall not fail to do so as occasion requires.
But now we shall speak of a higher Master who was never unfaithful to a servant yet, and never will be; and we shall speak of a superior service which brings to those who are engaged in it the highest possible degree of honor. Blessed are they who are servants of the King of kings. Happy is he who takes even the lowest place and fulfils the meanest office for the Lord Jesus, if any service can be mean that is rendered to our all-glorious Immanuel.
We will begin by considering the relation of the Lord Jesus Christ to us, and ours to him; then we shall consider the conduct which is consistent with that relation; and then the reward which is promised to such conduct.
I. And, first, the relation which subsists between ourselves and our Lord. He is our Master—our Master.
I speak now of course only to you who are converted, to you who are true believers and are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is to you your Master, in the sense of contrast to all other governing powers. You are men, and naturally moved by that which moves other men, but still, the master motive power with every one of you who is a Christian is the supremacy of Christ. There are some among your fellow servants to whom you render respect, just as in a large firm there are foremen set over different parts of the work, to whom a measure of deference is fitly rendered. Still, as the overseer is not the chief authority, so your earthly superiors are not masters over you in the highest sense. The highest of your fellow workmen in your Lord’s service is far, far, far below the Master; ministers and fathers in Christ are not the ultimate authorities to whom you bow, and whatever esteem you may pay even to such glorious names as those of Peter, and James, and John, you still regard them but as your fellow servants. “One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.” In this sense we are not servants of men, yea, we know no man after the flesh. We are in subjection to the Father of Spirits, but neither to Pope in Rome, nor bishop at home; we are the Lord’s free men and cheerfully obey those whom he sets over us in his church: but we yield to none who claim lordship over us and would divert us from obeying the Lord Jesus only.
The Christian man has of course to attend to the concerns of this life, and while he is attending to them he must throw a measure of his heart into them or he cannot do them properly; still, the master of our heart is not our business but our Savior. A Christian man is thoughtful, and he studies, and reads, and investigates; still, for all that, philosophy does not rule him, nor the news of the day, nor the science of the times. Christ is our Master—master of our thoughts and meditations, the great leader and teacher of our understandings. We are his disciples and disciples of none else besides. We are affected by the love of family, the love of friendship, the love of country; but there is a love that is higher than all these, a master love, and this is love to Jesus our Well-beloved, the Bridegroom of our souls. That text is frequently misread— “No man can serve two masters.” The stress is not to be laid upon the word “two.” For the matter of that, a man might serve three or half-a-dozen, or twenty; but the stress is to be laid upon the word “masters”—“No man can serve two masters.” Only one thing can be the master-passion, only one power can completely master us so as to be supremely dominant and exercise imperial lordship over us. No man can have two imperial master-faculties, master-motives, and master-ambitions. One is our Master, and that one is Christ. Brethren, as I have said before we are compelled while we are in this body to yield to this impulse and to that, we are urged forward by this motive and by that, we pursue this end and that, and subordinately none of these things may be sinful, but the master-impulse must be the love of Christ, the master-aim must be Christ’s glory, and the master-power that doth possess us, as the Spirit took possession of the prophets of old and carried them right away, must be loyalty to Jesus Christ our Lord. He is our Master and we stand before him as servants who desire to obey his bidding.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
