Ours but to Do
‘Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Thy commandments.” — Psa.um cxix. 6.
Tue first question to be asked concerning any task is not whether it can be done, but whether God has commanded it. We often begin to engross ourselves with what we call the ‘possibilities of the situation,” when we have not stood still to hear the clear trumpet peal of the Almighty sounding forth the advance. When we get our eyes glued down to the peradventures of the road, to the “ifs” and “‘ buts” and “perhapses”’ and ‘‘ maybes,” they are apt to dull the spiritual senses, and the bugle peal becomes gradually a faint echo and loses its note of imperative command. We begin to doubt whether we ever heard the sovereign mandate and less exacting voices win and captivate our ears. Now, in all matters of difficulty, the first and supreme question is, What has God commanded? It is not ours to discuss the matter on the basis of possibilities and probabilities. It is ours to act on the basis that the voice has spoken from the throne.
It is in the daring path of God’s commandment that the frowning difficulty becomes illumined. The way is lit up as we tread it. There is no such thing in life as a road blazing with light from end to end. The way of God’s commandment never appears like some noble street, with all its lamps burning, making a line of unbroken radiance through the night. The lamps are lit one by one as the traveller arrives at each part of the road. Light is given for the immediate piece of the journey. It is not far-off issues that are illumined, but the place of my feet. “I do not ask to see the distant scene, One step enough for me!”
And so God never gives vision to cowards, and for the all-sufficient reason that they could not receive it. Courage makes the soul receptive. It opens the windows toward the sunrise. It prepares the way of the Lord, and the King of Glory can come in. When a man dares to obey the summons of the Divine commandment, and takes the difficult road, his divine capacity begins to increase with the beginning of the journey. Moral courage is always an expansive ministry in the soul. It makes the soul porous toward the Divine. The soul becomes apprehensive of the divine light, and it rejoices in hidden radiance and secret fires. The way of God’s commandments reveals its lamps as brave men march along it, Forward into light!
What, then, has God commanded? That is the first and all-determining question. ‘*Thou shalt — what?”? Am I commanded to take that rough and ragged road which so soon loses itself in thick and impenetrable gloom? Very well, then, let me put on the whole armour of God and step out. ‘For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon them and His glory shall be seen upon thee.”