Obedience to God
Zion's Advocate, Vol. 38, No.7, July 1899
The sum of all duty is love. The Saviour taught that all the law and the prophets hang on our loving God and our fellow beings. No others love God as those do who are born of him for it is said, "He that loveth is born of God." A special obligation to obey rests upon all men. Jesus said to his disciples, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." This appeals touchingly to the affections of every christian, and where true love glows in the heart a desire to obey is sure to abound. When the heart of persecuting Saul first throbbed with emotions of love to Christ, he exclaimed, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Years after this persecutor had become an obedient servant he wrote, "The love of Christ constraineth us." It is when his love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that we are constrained by it. This effect is not the product of teaching but the result of being born of God. Reader, do you love the Saviour? What a pressing question this is! Perhaps you say, "I wish I could know I do. No mortal would be happier than I if I only were sure I love him." Such a wish proves that you desire to love him, and your desire to love is proof that you do. Another sure test is a desire to serve him. A child who obeys the parent from pure affection enjoys the obedience because the desire to please springs from love which nothing but obedience will gratify. To those who love the Saviour and his people, but are standing aloof from their ranks, we would say, come out from the world. You have wished you felt worthy to be baptized for you have desired to take that step. You plead you are not worthy. Remember that"All the fitness he requireth
Is to feel your need of him."
O, how we have desired to impress this duty upon the minds of all that tremble at the word of the Lord, and to picture the enticing pathway of duty so that they would be compelled to come in to the feast spread for the living, hungry children! How can you stand out there where you have no company and no real enjoyment? Life is too short to spend the flying moments in idleness, besides you cannot afford to miss the inexpressible enjoyment of obedience.
The sensibilities of many have been dulled by false teaching; such as, "Time salvation is unconditional just as eternal salvation is. Stay out as long as you can, for when the Lord wants you to come in he will force you in so that you can't stay out. That will be the Lord's time, and he has predestinated you should refuse to obey until that time, and your commission of sin as well as your omission of duty has been predestinated." How withering to the prosperity of Zion is such teaching. Turn from such Satanic delusion. Obey from the heart the form of doctrine which has been delivered unto you, and thus prove by becoming the servants of God that you have been made free from sin. Take the Saviour's yoke upon you and learn of the meek and lowly One. What a sweet rest you will find in doing so! Are you not tired of the world and its wickedness? Are you not wearied with toiling and plodding along under the weight of your duty? Then go home to your friends and find rest in their sweet fellowship. Your excuses are too trivial to mention, and you can't produce one sound argument in defense of your present course. Think of the sympathy, compassion, and love of the bleeding, dying Saviour! The spotless Lamb of God died not for his friends but for his enemies! For you he died upon the cross, and you know your only hope is in what he has done for you. Is not this consideration sufficient to cause you to say resignedly,
"Drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
Tis all that I can do."
What a blessed service it is to be buried in the name of the holy trinity, and to be raised to walk in newness of life! By this act we formally separate ourselves from the world and renounce our former course and conduct. We say by this that we are only pilgrims and strangers here, and that our final home is beyond the grave. This act declares our faith in the burial and resurrection of Christ, and our hope of being finally raised in his blessed likeness. In this we put on the garment of his service and are admitted to the full fellowship of his obedient people. Easy is the yoke and light is the burden we thus take upon us. As we move in this service we can joyfully sing,
"Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow thee;
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition,
All I've sought, or hoped, or known,
Yet how rich is my condition,
God and heaven are all my own.
Trials and hardships are to be found along the pathway of life by all of us, let us live as we may, but the way of the transgressor especially is hard. Do we not all know this by sad experience? Our transgressions are sure to be visited with the road and our iniquities with many stripes, and while we know that he will not take his loving kindness from us, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail, yet we know he is grievously displeased with our neglect of duty and sinful acts. By our obedience we save ourselves from the rod and stripes which our disobedience would bring upon us. Besides in walking in the pathway of obedience we find sweet blessings because we go where they are to be found.
Come, then, ye poor, and halt, and maimed, come from the highways and the hedges, come in to the feast made at the marriage of the King's Son. The wine, the milk, the heavenly manna, the consoling refreshments of the gospel banquet are now spread for you. "Why do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not?" Without money and without price, come, come, to the King's feast, where you can eat that which is good, and where your soul can delight itself in fatness. As you wander in the solitary way do you not sometimes pleadingly say, "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside from the flocks of thy companions?" You are weary, faint, and hungry, and thus long for rest and refreshments, and wonder where these can be found. Listen, then, to the reply that inspiration gives: "If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the Shepherd's tent." The footsteps of the flock are to be seen by those who know the Shepherd's voice, for he graciously calls and leads them on. How great and honorable are your privileges! You complain that you have neither wisdom nor strength of your own, but that is no disadvantage, for infinite wisdom and almighty power belongs to him who is engaged to proportion your strength as your day, whether it be a day of service or of suffering. Then step along by the footsteps of his flock, and when the pilgrimage journey is over you may have it to say, "I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith." Along the way, also, you will learn that the Most High God visits his people every morning and waters them every evening. Accommodating himself to the situation, the wants, and the capacities of the weakest, meanest, and poorest of his children, his eye is continually over them all and his ear is ever open to their cries. Their needs will all be supplied from that store-house which is infinite, and therefore, inexhaustible. In the midst of their deepest sorrows they will not be left comfortless, and as hope springs up from their experience of patience in tribulations they are caused to joy in them from the knowledge God has given them concerning the benefits that accrue even from tribulation. "We know," says Paul, "that all things work together for good to them that love God." Surely the true spirit of obedience is possessed by those who really love God, and such a spirit is willing to receive the slightest intimations of the divine will. It is true we sometimes grow cold and our zeal abates as the cares of this poor, imperfect life bear heavily upon us and clog our way. At such times we would do well to repair to the Saviour's cross, and fix our attention on the exhibition of his love presented there, and pray God to revive us and restore the joys of his salvation.
J. R. D.
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