1885 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

Sometimes the blessing comes in an unlooked for way, even as inthe present case your cards were refreshing messengers to us. Andagain, the blessing of consecrated service, is sure to be greater uponourselves than upon others. He that watereth others, shall himselfbe abundantly refreshed. To the extent that you have been a laborerfor the Master and have sacrificed anything for the spread of histruth, we feel sure you have received present pay of this sort, aswell as persecutions (2 Tim. 3:12) besides the laid up hopes andpromises "reserved in heaven for you."This, your experience and mine, was the experience of othersbefore us in the service; and to us, as to them, God sometimesgrants a glimpse of the fruit of labor when we feel faint anddiscouraged. Thus it was with the Lord; after considerable laborand teaching "many went back" and followed him as disciples nomore, and Jesus said unto the twelve, "Will you also go away?"Then came the refreshing evidence that the truth had taken fast holdof some, when Peter answered "Lord to whom shall we go? Thouhast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thouart that Christ, the Son of the living God." (John 6:66-69.) Not onlywas Jesus' heart cheered by Peter's zeal, but Peter also was blessed,"Blessed art thou Simon." Matt. 16:16,17.Elijah felt lonely, and that his efforts to refute the false teachers ofBaal were yielding no fruit, and prayed that he might die; but Godwho knew all about it, encouraged him with the assurance thatseven thousand of Israel were still faithful to the truth, whodoubtless had been helped and strengthened by Elijah's labors.Paul, the great Apostle, whose writings have been, and yet areGod's storehouse of wisdom and instruction, from which thefaithful throughout the age have been supplied with "meat in dueseason," appears to have written almost all of his epistles with aview to correct some doctrinal errors into which he saw the variouscompanies of God's children liable to fall, or to help them out oferrors into which they had already fallen. Little did he supposeprobably that his zeal and efforts to assist the saints and guard themwith truth, were to be so widespread in their influence as God'sguideposts to the Pilgrims of eighteen centuries.So with us dear friends; we must not gauge our sacrifices andefforts by the little we are permitted to see of the results, but mustpress on. In fact while interest in the work enters largely into oursacrifice, we must beware and remember that our sacrifice wasmade to God, and not in any particular interest of our own, in thework; and while we take an absorbing interest in the work, as thedevelopment of his plans, we should remember that ourconsecration was to the Lord; that in accepting it, the Lord made nopromise to show us any fruit of labor, and hence whatever we enjoyin this way is God's favor more than promised. In order that wemay ever feel our own insufficiency, and that all the needed powerand wisdom for the work is in him who is at the helm "working allthings after the counsel of his own will, we are not permitted to see