OBEDIENCE

In the last chapter we saw that it was the duty of the Christian to read and study the Bible as the Word of God and the teacher of the soul. As we read the great Book, we learn at once that we are in a universe of law, under the government of an infinite Lawgiver, whose name is God. We learn that all his laws are sacred, and must be obeyed if we would be blessed and happy. We learn, further, that disobedience means misery and ruin and death. So I want to talk to you in this chapter about OBEDIENCE.

I. Let us notice what God himself says about OBEYING. "Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you" (Jer. 7:23). "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day; and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God" (Deut. 11:26-28). "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice" (I Sam. 15:22). "Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother" (Eph. 6:1-2). "Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according to the flesh" (Col. 3:22). "Put them in mind to obey magistrates" (Titus 3:1). "Obey them that have the rule over you" (Heb. 13:17). "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:22). Now, we learn from all these passages of Scripture that we must obey God; and, further, that we must obey our parents and our masters, and those who rule over us, and the laws of our country, unless those who govern us should tell us to do wrong. In that case we should obey God rather than men.

II. Notice the supreme importance of this duty. Eternal life, the salvation of every boy and girl depends upon it. As God says, it is life or death, a blessing or a curse, according as we obey or disobey. God's moral laws can not be trifled with any more than his natural laws. Fire will burn, and if a child plays with the fire, he will have to take the consequences. A child in the city where I lived three years ago, disobeyed his parents and the law of the city and the law of nature.

He had been told not to play with fire, but he built a bonfire and put kerosene oil on it to make it burn better. The result was, he burned his father's house to ashes, and burned his baby brother to death, and burned himself to death, and came near destroying many other homes in the city. Water will drown; cold will freeze; fire will burn; poison will kill; sin will destroy. We must obey God's laws, or perish.

I assume that you have all given your hearts to Christ before you get as far as this chapter in this book. I write to you now as Christians, and I wish to say plainly that it is impossible for you to live a Christian life at all without the spirit of obedience. You must first obey God, and then you must obey all rightful authority of men. Even Jesus did that. He was subject to his mother when a child Luke 2:51). And Jesus said of his Father in heaven, "I do always those things that please him" (John 8:29). To be Christians is to be Christ-like, and you can not be Christ-like while you are disobedient. Jesus said: "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. If a man love me, he will keep my words" (John 14:2 1-23). So we need not pretend that we are Christians or that we love Jesus, unless we OBEY him. A disobedient boy or girl is not a Christian. Therefore, if you are trying to lead a Christian life, you must bow your will to God, and cultivate the spirit of submission and obedience. When Saul, afterward called Paul, was converted, he said, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" (Acts 9:6.) That is always the spirit of one whose heart has been changed by the grace of God. He recognizes at once that God is his Father and Savior and his best friend, and he sincerely desires to OBEY him. He will say of God's commandments as David did: "More to be desired are they than gold, yea than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward" (Ps. 19:10, 11). Moreover, if we are thus obedient, we will seek to find out what God's will is, We shall find his commands written in the Bible, and we will read it lovingly to learn how God wishes us to live.

We shall find other laws of God written in our own bodies and in nature around us. We call them the "laws of nature" and the "laws of health." But God made our bodies and the laws of nature around us, and their laws are, therefore, the laws of God. We have no more right to abuse our bodies by injurious and wicked habits than we have to lie or steal. A person sincerely obedient will not pick and choose what commands to obey and what to reject. He will lay such a charge upon his whole man as Mary, the mother of Christ, did upon all the servants at the feast, -"Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." Eyes, ears, hands, hearts, lips, body, and soul, -- do you all seriously and affectionately observe whatever Jesus Christ says unto you, and do it?

III. I wish you to remember that you must not only obey God, but you must also obey God's representatives. Who are they?

1. They are YOUR PARENTS. That is why God commands you to obey them. So far as parents are right, their will is an expression of the will of God. So he says, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord" (Eph. 6:1). A child, therefore, can not keep his religion who has the SPIRIT OF DISOBEDIENCE TO HIS PARENTS, because in disobeying them, he also disobeys God. God attaches peculiar rewards and honors to the obedience of parents, and visits most severe penalties on those who disobey them. At a meeting of the National Prison Association, one of the wardens of Sing Sing Prison said that disobedience to parents was "one of the most prolific sources of crime -- the highway to the penitentiary." And why? It is because a child that is lawless and disobedient in the home is disobedient and lawless everywhere. I was once laboring in a large city in a revival. There was a beautiful girl in my audience, fourteen years old, who was a leader of the young people. She would not give her heart to Christ. I asked a lady why it was, and this was her reply: "That girl was an only child. Her parents did not make her mind. Her mother died recently. The girl has acquired the habit of disobedience, and she will not bow her will to anybody, not even to God." I have observed that this is usually the case with disobedient children. A curse seems to be upon them for their disobedience.

Mr. Moody tells of a little nephew whom he watched one day, while he and his mother were passing through one of those crucial moments which decide a child's character as obedient or disobedient. The little fellow had taken a Bible from the table and thrown it on the floor. His mother said, "Go and pick up uncle's Bible." He said, he didn't want to. The mother said, "I didn't ask you whether you wanted to, or not. Go, and pick it up." "I won't," said the child. "Why, Charlie," said the mother; "I never heard you speak so before. If you don't go and pick up uncle's Bible I shall punish you." The struggle went on for a long time, until at last she broke the boy's will, and the minute that was done, he promptly picked up the Bible. "I felt very much interested," was Mr. Moody's comment, "for I knew that if she did not break his will, he would break her heart."

A man once visited a great philosopher, and met his little daughter before he saw her father. He thought such a father would teach his child something very great and important, and he asked her, "What is your father teaching you?" The little maid looked at him with her clear, blue eyes, and just said, "OBEDIENCE." That is what the great and wise man taught his little girl, and it was the most important of all lessons for a child to learn. It is a lesson necessary for its happiness, its safety, and its eternal salvation.

A young man, chained to another convict, was about to leave his native country and heartbroken mother, probably forever. Flow came he to be a criminal? When a child he was allowed to have his own way. When the mother ought to have kindly and firmly enforced obedience, she yielded to his whims. When sent to school, he was disobedient, and would not learn. The mother took the part of the headstrong boy against the master. With bad companions, he was soon found in petty stealing. Going on from bad to worse, he at last committed highway robbery, and was sentenced for fourteen years of punishment. He was ruined because he had not been taught obedience.

Gladstone says of George Washington: "If, among all the pedestals supplied by history for public characters of extraordinary nobility and purity, I saw one higher than all the rest, and if I were required at a moment's notice to name the fittest occupant for it, I think my choice at any time during the last forty-five years would have lighted, and would now light, upon Washington." How came Washington to have such a noble character? When he was quite young, he was about to go to sea as a sailor, and his trunk was on board the ship. He went to bid his mother farewell, and found her in tears. He turned to a servant, and said: "Go, and fetch my trunk back. I will not go away to break my mother's heart." His mother, struck with his decision, said to him, "George, God has promised to bless the children that honor their parents, and I believe he will bless you." Many years afterward, when he was returning to his home after the war of the Revolution, covered with honor and glory, and people were congratulating his mother on having such a son, she quietly said, "I am not surprised that he has served faithfully and deserves well of his country, for he was always an OBEDIENT SON."

2. You will notice that God tells us to be obedient to masters, and to magistrates, and to those who are over us. That means, when you go to school, to obey your teachers; for they are appointed over you for the time being. And when you serve an employer, do your work as you are asked to do it. And wherever you are, obey the laws of your country, unless they are contrary to the laws of God.

O, this matter of obedience touches us hourly, everywhere, and as long as we live, -obedience to men who are over us; obedience to human laws; obedience to the Bible-instructed and Spirit-enlightened conscience within us, and to God above us. Loving obedience is the life-breath of religion. Luther said, "I would rather obey than work miracles." You can not be a Christian without the spirit of obedience to all just laws -- human and divine.

IV. Sometimes, though very rarely, it may happen that one is commanded to do something that is clearly and certainly wrong. In such a case, as the apostle Peter said, "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). Once, at Stockholm, that wonderful Christian singer, Jenny Lind, was requested to sing on the Sabbath at the king's palace on the occasion of a great festival. She refused; and the king called personally upon her, and, as her sovereign, commanded her attendance. Her reply was, "There is a higher King, sire, to whom I owe my first allegiance." And she peremptorily refused to be present. She did right thus to honor God before her king.

The writer has visited a town and a city, recently, where the parents of both places sent out their children daily to steal coal from the cars on the railroads. It was cruel and wicked in those parents. They were simply teaching their children to be thieves; and the children would have been right in disobeying their parents when they commanded them to steal coal. Always obey God.

V. Remember that obedience, to be perfect and acceptable to God, must have three qualities. It must be prompt, entire, and cheerful. A lazy, indolent compliance with a command, that takes its own time to obey, is not true obedience. A great general, after a Certain battle, asked his officers who of his soldiers had done the best. Some spake of one brave deed, and others of another. "No,'" he said; "you are all mistaken. The best man in the field today was a soldier who was just lifting up his arm to strike .an enemy, but, when he heard the trumpet sound a retreat, checked himself, and dropped his arm without striking the blow. That perfect and ready obedience to the will of the general is the noblest thing that has been done today."

Further, obedience must be ENTIRE. King Saul lost his crown and kingdom by an imperfect obedience. He only half obeyed what God commanded him to do, and God rejected him (I Sam. 15:23-26).

Lastly, God wants obedience to be cheerful, joyful, willing, -- that is, obedience from the heart. Such obedience wins the eternal approval of God. BLESSED ARE THE CHILDREN WHO LEARN TO OBEY.

 QUESTIONS

1. Does God command us to obey him?
2. Is this an important duty?
3. Who else, besides God, bear rule over children?
4. What did the great philosopher teach his little girl?
5. Was Washington an obedient boy?
6. Must we sometimes choose between obeying God and men?
7. Do dishonest children usually prosper?
8. What three qualities must obedience have, to be perfect?

Sing: "Trust and Obey."