Here I would say a word about the remarkable expansion of the designation of the victor, to which I have already referred: He that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end.' We do not know why that expansion was put in, in reference to Thyatira only, but if you will glance over the letter you will see that there is more than usual about works--works to be repented of, or works which make the material of a final retribution and judgment.
Whatever may be the explanation of the expanded designation here, the lesson that it reads to us is a very significant and a very important one. Bring the metaphor of a victor down to the plain, hard, prose fact of doing Christ's work right away to the end of life. Strip off the rhetoric of the fight, and it comes down to this--dogged, persistent obedience to Christ's commandments. He that keepeth My works' does not appeal to the imagination as He that overcometh' does. But it is the explanation of the victory, and one that we all need to lay to heart.
My works': that means the works that He enjoins. No doubt; but look at a verse before my text: I will give unto every one of you according to your works.' That is, the works that you do, and Christ's works are not only those which He enjoins, but those of which He Himself set the pattern. He will give according to works'; He will give authority; give the morning star. That is to say, the life which has been moulded according to Christ's pattern, and shaped in obedience to Christ's commandments is the life which is capable of being granted participation in His dominion, and invested with reflected lustre. If here we do His work we shall be able to do it more fully yonder. The works that I do shall he do also.' That is the law for life--ay, and it is the promise for heaven. And greater works than these shall he do, because I go to My Father.' When we have come to partial conformity with Him here we may hope--and only then have we the right to hope--for entire assimilation to Him hereafter. If here, from this dim spot which men call earth, and amid the confusion and dust and distances of this present life, we look to Him, and with unveiled faces behold Him, and here, in degree and part, are being changed from glory to glory, there He will turn His face upon us, and, beholding it, in righteousness, we shall be satisfied when we awake with His likeness.'
Brethren, it is for us to choose whether we shall share in Christ's dominion or be crushed by His iron sceptre. It is for us to choose whether, moulding our lives after His will and pattern, we shall hereafter be made like Him in completeness. It is for us to choose whether, seeing Him here, we shall, when the brightness of His coming draws near, be flooded with gladness, or whether we shall call upon the rocks and the hills to cover us from the face of Him that sitteth on the Throne. Time is the mother of Eternity. To-day moulds to-morrow, and when all the to-days anti to-morrows have become yesterdays, they will have determined our destiny, because they will have settled our characters. Let us keep Christ's commandments, and we shall be invested with dignity and illuminated with glory, and entrusted to work, far beyond anything that we can conceive here, though, in their farthest reach and most dazzling brightness, these are but the continuation and the perfecting and the feeble beginnings of earthly conflict and service.
