In our December issue we ventured to call the attention of our readers to the weighty fact, that our God has, in His infinite mercy, provided for His people in this dark and evil world both authority and power—the authority of His word and the power of His Spirit—for the path which they are called to tread, and the work they are called to do. We have ample guidance in the word, and we have the power of God to count upon for all the difficulties. and demands of the scene through which we have to pass home to our eternal rest above. We have authority and power for all.
But we must remember, that if God has furnished us with authority, we must be obedient. And if He has provided the power, we must be dependent. Of what use is authority if we do not obey it? I may give my servant the plainest and fullest directions as to where he is to go, and what he is to do, and what he is to say; but if, instead of acting simply upon my directions, he begins to reason, and think, and draw con-elusions, to use his own judgment, and act according to his own will, of what use are my directions? None whatever, except it be to show how entirely he has departed from them. Clearly, the business of a servant is to obey, not to reason—to act according to his master's directions, not according to his own will or judgment. If he only does exactly what his master tells him, he is not responsible for the consequences.
The one grand business of a servant is to obey. This is the moral perfection of a servant. Alas! how rare! There has been but one absolutely obedient and perfectly dependent servant, in the entire history of this world—the man Christ Jesus. His meat and His drink were to obey. He found His joy in obedience. " Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, Ο my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.5' Psalm 40
Our blessed Lord Jesus found in the will of God His only motive for action. There was nothing in Him that needed to be restrained by the authority of God. His will was perfect, and His every movement was of necessity—the very necessity of His perfect nature—in the current of the divine will. "Thy law is within my heart;" "I delight to do thy will;" "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."
Now, what could Satan do with such a Man as this? Absolutely nothing. He tried to withdraw Him from the path of obedience and the place of dependence; but in vain. "If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread." Surely God would give His Son bread. No doubt; but the perfect Man refuses to make bread for Himself. He had no command, no authority, and therefore no motive for action. "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord." So throughout the entire temptation., Nothing could withdraw the blessed One from the path of simple obedience. " It is written," was His one unvarying answer. He would not, could not, act without a motive, and His only motive was found in the will of God. " I delight to do thy will, Ο my God; yea, thy law is within my heart."
Such was the obedience of Jesus Christ—an obedience perfect, from first to last. And not only was He perfectly obedient, but perfectly dependent. Though God over all, blessed forever, yet, having taken His place as a man in this world, He lived a life of perfect dependence on God. He could say, "I clothe the heavens with blatekness, and I make sackcloth their covering. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." (Isa. 1) And again, " Preserve me, Ο God, for in thee do I put my trust." And again, " I was cast upon thee from the womb." He was wholly and continually cast upon God, from the manger of Bethlehem to the cross of Calvary; and when He had finished all, He surrendered His spirit into the Father's hand, and His flesh rested in hope. His obedience and dependence were divinely perfect throughout.
But we must now ask the reader to turn with us, for a few moments, to two examples of the very opposite of all this—two cases in the which, through lack of obedience and dependence, the most disastrous results followed.
Let us, in the first place, turn to the thirteenth chapter of the First Book of Kings. Doubtless, the case is familiar to us: but let us look at it in connection with our present theme.
" And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah, by the word of the Lord, unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord." Thus far all was right. He spoke by the word of God, and the power of God accompanied the testimony, and the spirit of the king was humbled and subdued for the moment.
But more than this. The man of God was enabled to refuse the king's invitation to come home with him and refresh himself, and receive a reward. " And the man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place. For so it was charged vie by the word of the Lord, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou earnest."
All this was lovely—perfectly delightful to dwell upon. The feet of the man of God stand firm in the bright and blessed path of obedience, and all is victory. The offers of the king are flung aside without a moment's hesitation. Half the royal house cannot tempt him off the narrow, holy, happy path of obedience. He rejects every overture, and turns to pursue the straight path opened before him by the word of the Lord. There is no reasoning, no questioning, no hesitation. The word of the Lord settles everything. He has but to obey, regardless of consequences. And so far he does, and all is well.
But mark the sequel. "Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel"—reader, beware of old prophets!—And this old prophet followed the man of God, and said unto him, " Come home with me, and eat bread." This was the devil in a new shape. What the word of a king had failed to do, the word' of a prophet might accomplish. It was a wile of Satan, for which the man of God was evidently unprepared. The garb of a prophet deceived him, and threw him completely off his guard: we can at once perceive his altered tone. When replying to the king lie speaks with vividness, force, and bold decision—"If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee." And then he adds, with equal force, his reason for refusing: " For so was it charged me by the word of the Lord."
But, in his reply to the prophet, there is manifest decline in the way of energy, boldness, and decision. He says, "I may not return with thee nor go in with thee." And in assigning the reason, instead of the forcible word " charged, "'we have the feeble word, " It was said to me."
In short, the whole tone is lower. The word of God was losing its true place and power in his soul. No change had passed over that word. "Forever, Ο Lord, thy word is settled in heaven;" and had that word been hidden in the heart of the man of God, had it been dwelling richly in his soul, his answer to the prophet would have been as distinct and decided as his answer to the king. " By the words of thy lips, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." The spirit of obedience is the great moral safeguard against every scheme and every snare of the enemy. The enemy may shift his ground; he may change his tactics, he may vary his agency; but obedience to the plain and simple word of God preserves the soul from all his wicked schemes and crafty devices. The devil can do nothing with a man who is absolutely ruled by the word of God, and refuses to move the breadth of a hair without divine authority.
But note how the enemy urges his point with the man of God. " He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art: and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house."
Now, what should the man of God have said to this? If the word of his Lord had been abiding in him, he would at once have said, "If ten thousand prophets, and ten thousand angels, were to say, Bring him back, I should regard them all as liars and emissaries of the devil, sent forth to allure me from the holy, happy, path of obedience." This would have been a sublime reply. It would have the same heavenly ring about it as is exhibited in these glowing words of the apostle: "Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be anathema."
But, alas! alas! the man of God stepped off the path of obedience; and the very man whom Satan had used to draw him off, became the mouthpiece of Jehovah to announce in his ears the terrible consequence. He lied when Satan used him. He spoke truth when God used him. The erring man of God was slain by a lion, because he disobeyed the word of the Lord. Yes; he stepped off the narrow path of obedience into the wide field of his own will, and there he was slain.
Reader, let us beware of old prophets, and angels of light! Let us, in the true spirit of obedience, keep close, very close, to the word of our God. We shall find the path of obedience both safe and pleasant, holy and happy.
And now, for a moment, ere we close, let us glance at the ninth chapter of Joshua, which records for our admonition the manner in which even Joshua himself was ensnared through lack of simple dependence upon God. We do not quote the passage, or enter into any detail. The reader can turn to the chapter, and ponder its contents.
Why was Israel beguiled by the craft of the Gibeonites? Because they leaned to their own understanding, and judged by the sight of their eyes, instead of waiting upon God for guidance and counsel. He knew all about the Gibeonites. He was not deceived by their tattered rags and moldy bread; and neither would they, had they only looked to Him.
But here they failed. They did not wait on God. Ηθ would have guided them. He would have told them who these crafty strangers were. He would have made all clear for them, had they simply waited on Him in the sense of their own ignorance and feebleness. But no; they would think for themselves, and judge for themselves, and reason from what they saw, and draw their own conclusions. All these things they would do; and hence the tattered garments of the Gibeonites accomplished what the frowning bulwarks of Jericho had failed to do.
Now, we may be quite sure that Israel had no thought of making a league with any of the Canaanites. Nay, they were in terrible indignation when they discovered that they had done so. But they did it, and had to abide by it. It is easier to make a mistake than to rectify it, and so the Gibeonites remained as a striking memorial of the evil of not waiting on God for counsel and guidance.
May the Holy Spirit teach us, from all that has passed before us, the solemn importance of "obedience and dependence."