The School of Obedience

At the request of the Executive of the Students’ Christian Association of South Africa I have written out, in substance, the five addresses given at their Conference last month. To complete the discussion of the subject I have added three more. They are issued with the very fervent prayer, that it may please our gracious Father to use them for the instruction and strengthening of the young men and women, on whose obedience and devotion so much depends for the Church and the world. To all of them who read this I send my loving greeting. The God of all grace bless them abundantly!

It often happens after a Conference, or even after writing a book, that it is as if one only Ipucface.

then begins to see the meaning and importance of the truth with which one has been occupied. So I do indeed feel as if I had utterly failed in grasping or expounding the spiritual character, the altogether indispensable necessity, the divine and actual possibility, the inconceivable blessedness of a life of true and entire obedience to our Father in heaven. Let me, therefore, just in a few sentences gather up the main points which have come home to myself with special power, and ask every reader at starting to take note of them as some of the chief lessons to be learnt in Christ’s school of obedience.

The Father in heaven asks, and requires, and actually expects, that every child of His yield Him whole-hearted and entire obedience, day by day, and all the day.

To enable His child to do this, He has made a most abundant and altogether sufficient provision in the promise of the New Covenant, and in the gift of His Son and Spirit.

This provision can alone, but can most certainly, be enjoyed, and these promises fulfilled, in the soul that gives itself up to a life in the abiding communion with the Three -One God, so that His presence and power work in it all the day.

The very entrance into this life demands the vow of absolute obedience, or the surrender of the whole being, to be, think, speak, do, every moment, nothing but what is according to the will of God, and well-pleasing to Him.

If these things be indeed true, it is not enough to assent to them: we need the Holy Spirit to give us such a vision of their glory and divine power, and the demand they make on our immediate and unconditional submission, that there may be no rest till we accept all that God is willing to do for us.

Let us all pray that God may, by the light of His Spirit, so show His loving and almighty will concerning us, that it may be impossible for us to be disobedient to the heavenly vision.

ANDREW MURRAY.
Wellington, 9th August “i 898.

TN” undertaking the study of a Bible word, or -*- of a truth of the Christian life, it is a great help to take a survey of the place it takes in Scripture. As we see where, and how often, and in what connections it is found, its relative importance may be apprehended as well as its bearing on the whole of revelation. Let me try in this first address to prepare the way f6r the study of what obedience is, by showing you where to go in God’s Word to find the mind of God concerning it.

First, take Scripture as a Whole.

We begin with Paradise. In Gen. ii. 16, we read: ‘And the Lord God commanded the man saying.’ And later (iii. 11), ‘Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eatT Note how obedience to the command is the one virtue of Paradise, the one condition of man’s abiding there, the one thing his Creator asks of him. Nothing is said of faith, or humility, or love: obedience includes all. As supreme as is the claim and authority of God is the demand for obedience as the one thing that is to decide his destiny. In the life of man, to obey is the one thing needful.

Turn now from the beginning to the close of the Bible. In its last chapter you read (Rev. xxii. 14), ‘Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life.’ Or, if we accept the Revised Version, which gives another reading, we have the same thought in chapters xii. and xiv., where we read, of the seed of the woman (xii. 17), * which Jceep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus ‘; and of the patience of the saints (xiv. 12), ‘Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.’ From beginning to end, from Paradise lost to Paradise regained, the law is unchangeable — it is only obedience that gives access to the tree of life and the favour of God.

And if you ask how the change was efifected,

out of the disobedience at the beginning, that closed the way to the tree of life, to the obedience at the end, that again gained entrance to it, turn to that which stands midway between the beginning and the end — the cross of Christ. Read a passage like Rom. v. 1 9, * Through the obedience of the One shall the many be made righteous’; or Phil. ii. 8, ‘He became obedient unto death, therefore God hath highly exalted Him ‘; or Heb. v. 8, 9, ‘He learned obedience, and became the Author of salvation to them that obey Himy and you see how the whole redemption of Christ consists in restoring obedience to its place. The beauty of His salvation consists in this, that He brings us back to the life of obedience, through ichich alone the creature can give the Creator the glory due to Himy or receive the glory of which his Creator desires to make him partaker. Paradise, Calvary, Heaven, all proclaim with one voice: Child of God! the first and the last thing thy God asks of thee is simple, universal, unchanging obedience.

Let us turn to the Old Testament.

And here let us specially notice how, wiUi any new beginning in the history of God’s kingdom, obedience always come into special prominence. Take Noah, the new father of the human race, and you will find four times written (Gen. vi. 22; vii. 5, 9, 16), ‘According to all that God commanded Noah, so did he.’ It is the man who does what God commands to whom God can entrust His work, whom God can use to be a saviour of men.

Think of Abraham, the father of the chosen race. ‘By faith Abraham obeyed ’ (Heb. xi. 7). When he had been forty years in this school of faith-obedience, God came to perfect his faith, and to crown it with His fullest blessing. Nothing could fit him for this but a crowning act of obedience. When he had bound his son on the altar, God came and said (Gen. xxii. 12, 18), *By Myself have I sworn, in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thee; and in thy seed shall all nations be blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.’ And to Isaac He spake (xxvi. 3, 5), *I will perform the oath which I sware to Abraham, because that Abraham obeyed My voice.’’ Oh, when shall we learn how unspeakably pleasing obedience is in God’s sight, and how unspeakable is the reward He bestows upon it. The way to be a blessing to the world is td be infen of obedience; known by God ahd thfe

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