OBEDIENCE -- LET US TURN TO THE OLD TESTAMENT

By Andrew Murray
 
Here let us specially notice how, with any new beginning in the history of God's kingdom, obedience always comes into special prominence.

        Take Noah, the new father of the human race, and you will find four times written (Gen. 6:22; 7:5, 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 savior of men.

        Think of Abraham, the father of the chosen race. 'By faith Abraham obeyed' (Heb. 11:7). 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. 22:12, 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 (26:3, 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 to be men of obedience; known by God and the world by this one mark will utterly given up to God's will.

        Let all who profess to walk in Abraham's footsteps walk thus.  Go on to Moses. At Sinai, God gave him the message to the people (Ex. 19:4), 'If you will obey My voice indeed, ye shall be a peculiar treasure to Me above all people.'  In the very nature of things it cannot be otherwise. God's holy will is His glory and perfection; it is only by an entrance into His will, by obedience, that it is possible to be His people.

        The whole is summed up in the words (11:27),   'I set before you a blessing if ye obey, a curse in ye will not obey.'
Yes, 'A BLESSING IF YE OBEY'! that is the key-note of the blessed life. Canaan, just like Paradise and Heaven, can be the place of blessing as it is the place of obedience. Would God we might take it in! Do beware only of praying only for a blessing. Let us care for the obedience, God will care for the blessing. Let my one thought as a Christian be, how I can obey and please my God perfectly.

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Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.