"I Will Give Thee a Crown"

1902

At St. Mark Methodist Episcopal church, south, the pastor, Dr. Alonzo Monk, preached at the afternoon hour from the text, "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of eternal life," Revelations 2:10.

He said in substance:

"One has a narrow view of human nature who would shut up human life in the fleeting moments of but three score years and ten. Man is not born to die, and by dying to end the soul's full existence. We cannot die, man is essentially immortal. Our Savior was gentler with us, gentler than the gentlest mother. He took care to tell us, 'Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where the treasure is there will the heart be also.' His plain meaning was we are to go to heaven to get our treasure. Death is but the removal of the tenant from this tenement of clay. The change that has occurred that we call death is not properly so called. This animal life we hold so dear is naught, the ox and the ass have it. This life is but one period of our existence, brief it may be, but in it we have opportunity to be placed in harmony with God, and to be saved from a death that never dies. The life to be is to be beautified by the presence of the King. Men need not necessarily die to be in heaven; some saints live today almost in the outskirts of heaven. Heaven will have surprises for us. We shall see many whom we do not expect and we shall miss some faces we confidently expected to find among the blood washed throng. Some may barely squeeze through the gates beneath the wings of some kindly angel; others may sweep through with an abundant entrance. Heaven is too much etherealized; it is but the home of redeemed humanity. We may not be altogether happy there; there may be regrets lingering in our souls that we did not win more stars for our crown.

"Jesus Christ did not live, suffer and die simply to keep us out of hell. Were this all it would be about equal to say that should your child be lost in a wilderness you would seek him merely to keep some wild beast from destroying him, but you seek to restore the child to his place in your heart and your life that you have so fondly hoped he would take. God seeks to restore man to his own proper position and real sphere where he should dwell. Man's place in heaven is but a step beyond this life and the gradations there will compare with the real differences existing here between men. St. Paul fought for Christ; he finished his course and went to take a crown of glory laid up for him. The crown jewels of heaven outshine all the royal possessions of earth's greatest monarchs. The faithful of earth will alone wear crowns in glory. A crown in heaven gives the wearer a throne in the heavens, and it will carry with it a scepter of authority over those unknown and unnamed worlds peopled by pure spirits, subjects of our God. The inhabitants of those worlds are not heirs to the throne nor are they redeemed by the blood and the kinship of Jesus Christ, our elder brother, Savior and King."

Dr. Monk's flight into the field of speculation as to the future state of man's redeemed spirit were bold and well sustained, however unwarranted by the literal reading of the Bible by a layman.

—The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA, Jan. 6, 1902, p. 9.