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This is to say, the faith of the blind man was born when, moved by a need and awakened by unclean clay in his eyes, he heeded the command of the Lord Jesus to go wash himself in the pool of Siloam;. Or the water from the pool of Siloam? He was healed by his faith in the words: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. However, his faith had to be accompanied by the sacrifice of obedience. He walked down into the valley, with great difficulty, feeling around as he went downhill.
The Lord Jesus knew his physical condition. Yet, He sent him down into the valley to the pool. The sacrifice to obey the Voice of the Lord Jesus was the secret to awaken his faith. In one way or another faith has to be awakened for a miracle to happen. The Lord Jesus knew the only way to change the complacency of the blind man was to awaken his faith through sacrifice.
In the case of the hemorrhagic woman, she imposed a sacrifice of faith on herself. Of course, the Spirit of God inspired this initiative Mark 5.
Sacrificial faith is the exclusive work of the Holy Spirit. He convinces, He encourages sacrifice, He inspires and gives the courage to sacrifice. The task of the servants of God is to preach the Gospel, teach Scripture, and make people aware of the Promises of the Most High. The rest is the work of the Holy Spirit. Acts 3 speaks of a lame man sitting at the door of the Temple begging for alms. He did not manifest the least bit of faith to be healed. Peter and John had to use the gift of faith to heal him. Even after being healed, the blind man did not believe in Jesus as the Son of God.
This is, as his Lord and Savior. The same happens with most Christians. They have been benefited by the miracles of the Lord Jesus, but still do not know Him personally. This is why they are weak in the faith. Until they receive the seal of the Holy Spirit, they will not know the God of the Bible. There is no truth in the supposition. We preach the obedience of faith. Faith is the fountain, the foundation, and the fosterer of obedience. Men obey not Cod till they believe him.
We preach faith in order that men may be brought to obedience. To disbelieve is to disobey. One of the first signs of practical obedience is found in the obedience of the mind, the understanding, and the heart; and this is expressed in believing the teaching of Christ, trusting to his work, and resting in his salvation. Faith is the morning star of obedience.
If we would work the work of God, we must believe on Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. Brethren, we do not give a secondary place to obedience, as some suppose. We look upon the obedience of the heart to the will of God as salvation. The attainment of perfect obedience would mean perfect salvation. We regard sanctification, or obedience, as the great design for which the Saviour died.
He shed his blood that he might cleanse us from dead works, and purify unto himself a people zealous for good works. It is for this that we were chosen: It is for this that we have been called: The obedience that comes of faith is of a noble sort. The obedience of a slave ranks very little higher than the obedience of a well-trained horse or dog, for it is tuned to the crack of the whip.
Obedience which is not cheerfully rendered is not the obedience of the heart, and consequently is of little worth before God. If the man obeys because he has no opportunity of doing otherwise, and if, were he free, he would at once become a rebel-there is nothing in his obedience. The obedience of faith springs from a principle within, and not from compulsion without.
It is sustained by the mind's soberest reasoning and the heart's warmest passion. The man reasons with himself that he ought to obey his Redeemer, his Father, his God; and, at the same time, the love of Christ constrains him so to do, and thus what argument suggests affection performs. A sense of great obligation, an apprehension of the fitness of obedience, and spiritual renewal of heart, work an obedience which becomes essential to the sanctified soul.
Hence, it is not relaxed in the time of temptation, nor destroyed in the hour of losses and sufferings. Life has no trial which can turn the gracious soul from its passion for obedience; and death itself doth but enable it to render an obedience which shall be as blissful as it will be complete. Yes, this is a chief ingredient of heaven-that we shall see the face of our Lord, and serve him day and night in his temple. Meanwhile, the more fully we obey at this present, the nearer we shall be to his temple-gate. May the Holy Spirit work in us, so that, by faith-like Abraham-we may obey! I preach to you, at this time, obedience-absolute obedience to the Lord God; but I preach the obedience of a child, not the obedience of a slave; the obedience of love, not of terror; the obedience of faith, not of dread.
I shall urge you, as God shall help me, in order that you may come at this obedience, that you should seek after stronger faith-"For by faith Abraham obeyed. Obedience, such as God can accept, never cometh out of a heart which thinks God a liar; but is wrought in us by the Spirit of the Lord, through our believing in the truth, and love, and grace of our God in Christ Jesus.
If any of you are now disobedient, or have been so, the road to a better state of things is trust in God. You cannot hope to render obedience by the more forcing of conduct into a certain groove, or by a personal, unaided effort of the resolution. There is a free-grace road to obedience, and that is receiving, by faith, the Lord Jesus, who is the gift of God, and is made of God unto us sanctification. We accept the Lord Jesus by faith, and he teaches us obedience, and creates it in us. The more of faith in him you have, the more of obedience to him will you manifest. I was about to say that that obedience naturally flows out of faith, and I should not have spoken amiss, for as a man believeth so is he, and in proportion to the strength and purity of his faith in God, as he is revealed in Christ Jesus, will be the holy obedience of his life.
That our meditation may be profitable, we will first think a little of the kind of faith which produces obedience ; and then, secondly, we will treat of the kind of obedience which faith produces ; and then we will advance another step, and consider the kind of life which comes out of this faith and obedience. I will be as brief as I can upon each point. Let us look up to the Holy Ghost for his gracious illumination.
It is, manifestly, faith in God as having the right to command our obedience. Beloved in the Lord, you know that he is Sovereign, and that his will is law. You feel that God, your Maker, your Preserver, your Redeemer, and your Father, should have your unswerving service.
We unite, also, in confessing that we are not our own, we are bought with a price. The Lord our God has a right to us which we would not wish to question. He has a greater claim upon our ardent service than he has upon the services of angels; for, while they were created as we have been, yet they have never been redeemed by precious blood. Our glorious Incarnate God has an unquestioned right to every breath we breathe, to every thought we think, to every moment of our lives, and to every capacity of our being. We believe in Jehovah as rightful Lawgiver, and as most fitly our Ruler.
This loyalty of our mind is based on faith, and is a chief prompter to obedience. Cultivate always this feeling. The Lord is our Father, but he is, "our Father which art in heaven. There is a holy familiarity with God which cannot be too much enjoyed; but there is a flippant familiarity with God which cannot be too much abhorred. The Lord is King; his will is not to be questioned; his every word is law.
Let us never question his sovereign right to decree what he pleases, and to fulfil the decree; to command what he pleases, and to punish every shortcoming. Because we have faith in God as Lord of all, we gladly pay him our homage, and desire in all things to say: Next, we must have faith in the rightness of all that God says or does. I hope, beloved, you do not think of God's sovereignty as tyranny, or imagine that he ever could or would will anything but that which is right.
Neither will we admit into our minds a suspicion of the incorrectness of the Word of God in any matter whatever, as though the Lord himself could err. We will not have it that God, in his Holy Book, makes mistakes about matters of history, or of science, any more than he does upon the great truths of salvation.
If the Lord be God, he must be infallible; and if he can be described as in error in the little respects of human history and science, he cannot be trusted in the greater matters. My brethren, Jehovah never errs in deed, or in word; and when you find his law written either in the ten commandments, or anywhere else, you believe that there is not a precept too many, or too few.
Whatever may be the precepts of the law, or of the gospel, they are pure and holy altogether.
The words of the Lord are like fine gold, pure, precious, and weighty-not ono of them may be neglected. We hear people talk about "minor points," and so on; but we must not consider any word of our God as a minor thing, if by that expression is implied that it is of small importance. We must accept every single word of precept, or prohibition, or instruction, as being what it ought to be, and neither to be diminished nor increased.
We should not reason about the command of God as though it might be set aside or amended. May we enter into that true spirit of obedience which is the unshaken belief that the Lord is right! Nothing short of this is the obedience of the inner man-the obedience which the Lord desires. Furthermore, we must have faith in the Lord's call upon us to obey. Abraham wont out from his father's house because he felt that, whatever God said to others, he had spoken to him, and said, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house.
Oh, that we were most of all earnest to render personal obedience! It is very easy to offer unto God a sort of "other people's obedience"-to fancy that we are serving God, when we are finding fault with our neighbours, and lamenting that they are not so godly as they ought to be. Truly, we cannot help seeing their shortcomings; but we should do well to be less observant of them than we are. Let us turn our magnifying glasses upon ourselves. It is not so much our business to be weeding other people's gardens as to keep our own vineyard.
To the Lord each one should cry, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
We are bound with cords to the horns of the altar. The strongest ties of gratitude hold us to the service of Jesus: Our service to our Lord is freedom: To delight him is our delight. It is a blessed thing when the inmost nature yearns to obey God, when obedience grows into a habit, and becomes the very element in which the spirit breathes. Surely it should be so with every one of the blood-washed children of the Most High, and their lives will prove that it is so. Others are bound to obey, but we should attend most to our own personal obligation, and set our own houses in order.
Our obedience should begin at home, and it will find its hands full enough there. Obedience arises out of a faith which is to us the paramount principle of action. The kind of faith which produces obedience is lord of the understanding, a royal faith. The true believer believes in God beyond all his belief in anything else, and everything else. He can say, "Let God be true, but every man a liar. As gold is to the inferior metals, such is our trust in God to all our other trusts. To the genuine believer the eternal is as much above the temporal as the heavens are above the earth.
The infinite rolls, like Noah's flood, over the tops of the hills of the present and the finite. To the believer, let a truth be tinctured with the glory of God, and he values it; but if God and eternity be not there, he will leave these trifles to those who choose them. You must have a paramount faith in God, or else the will of God will not be a paramount rule to you.
Only a reigning faith will make us subject to its power, so as to be in all things obedient to the Lord. The chief thought in life with the true believer is, "How can I obey God? He will pray, "Refine me from the dross of rebellion, and let the furnace be as fierce as thou wilt. Obedience has become as much his rule as self-will is the rule of others. His cry unto the Lord is, "By thy command I stay or go. Thy will is my will; thy pleasure is my pleasure; thy law is my love.
God grant us a supreme, over-mastering faith, for this is the kind of faith which we must have if we are to lead obedient lives! We must have faith in God's right to rule, faith in the rightness of his commands, faith in our personal obligation to obey, and faith that the command must be the paramount authority of our being. With this faith of God's elect, we shall realise the object of our election-namely, that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love.
Dear friend, have you this kind of faith? I will withdraw the question as directed to you, and I will ask it of myself: Have I that faith which leads me to obey my God? If we have a faith which is greedy in hearing, severe in judging, and rapid in self-congratulation, but not inclined to obedience, we have the faith of hypocrites. If our faith enables us to set up as patterns of sound doctrine, and qualifies us to crack the heads of all who differ from us, and yet lacks the fruit of obedience, it will leave us among the "dogs" who are "'without.
It is better to have the faith that obeys than the faith which moves mountains. I would sooner have the faith which obeys than the faith which heaps the altar of God with sacrifices, and perfumes his courts with incense. I would rather obey God than rule an empire; for, after all, the loftiest sovereignty a soul can inherit is to have dominion over self by rendering believing obedience to the Most High.
Thus much upon faith. This I shall illustrate from the whole of the verse. Genuine faith in God creates a prompt obedience. Delayed obedience is disobedience.
I wish some Christians, who put off duty, would remember this. Continued delay of duty is a continuous sin. If I do not obey the divine command, I sin; and every moment that I continue in that condition, I repeat the sin. This is a serious matter. If a certain act is my duty at this hour, an I leave it undone, I have sinned; but it will be equally incumbent upon me during the next hour; and if I still refuse, I disobey again and so on till I do obey.
Neglect of a standing command must grow very grievous if it be persisted in for years. In proportion as the conscience becomes callous upon the subject, the guilt becomes the more provoking to the Lord. To refuse to do right is a great evil; but to continue in that refusal till conscience grows numb upon the matter is far worse. I remember a person coming to be baptised, who said that he had been a believer in the Lord Jesus for forty years; and that he had always seen the ordinance to be Scriptural.
I felt grieved that he had so long been disobedient to a known duty, and I proposed to him that he should be baptised at once. It was in a village, and he said that there were no conveniences. I offered to go with him to the brook, and baptise him, but he said, "No; he that believeth shall not make haste.
David says, "I made hast and delayed not to keep thy commandments. What would you say to your boy, if you bade him go upon an errand, and he answered you, "I will go to-morrow. Your tone would be sharp, and you would bid him go at once. If he, then, promised to run in an hour's time, would you call that obedience?
It would be impudence. Obedience is for the present tense: Obedience respects the time of the command as much as any other part of it.
To hesitate is to be disloyal. To halt and consider whether you will obey or not, is rebellion in the germ. If thou believest in the living God unto eternal life, thou wilt be quick to do thy Lord's bidding, even as a maid hearkens to her mistress. Thou wilt not be as the horse, which needs whip and spur; thy love will do more for thee than compulsion could do for slaves.
Thou wilt have wings to thy heels to hasten thee along the way of obedience. Next, obedience should be exact. Even Abraham's obedience failed somewhat in this at first; for he started at once from Ur of the Chaldees, but he only went as far as Haran, and there he stayed till his father died; and then the precept came to him again, and he set off for the land which the Lord had promised to show him.
If any of you have only half obeyed, I pray that you may take heed of this, and do all that the Lord commands, carefully endeavouring to keep back no part of the revenue of obedience.
Yet the error of the great patriarch was soon corrected, for we read that "Abraham, when he was called to go out That which the Lord commands we should do-just that , and not another thing of our own devising. How very curiously people try to give God something else instead of what he asks for! The Lord says, "My son, give me thine heart," and they give him ceremonies. He asks of them obedience, and they give him will-worship. He asks faith, and love, and justice; and they offer ten thousand rivers of oil, and the fat of fed beasts.
They will give all except the one thing which he will be pleased with: Mind your jots and tittles with the Lord's precepts. Attention to little things is a fine feature in obedience: Few dare rush into great crimes, and yet they will indulge in secret rebellion, for their heart is not right with God.
Hence so many mar what they call obedience by forgetting that they serve a heart-searching, rein-trying God, who observes thoughts and motives. He would have us obey him with the heart, and that will lead us, not merely to regard a few pleasing commands, but to have respect unto all his will.
Oh, for a tender conscience, which will not wilfully neglect, nor presumptuously transgress! And next, mark well that Abraham rendered practical obedience. When the Lord commanded Abraham to quit his father's house, he did not say that he would think it over; he did not discuss it pro and con, in an essay; he did not ask his father, Terah, and his neighbour to consider it; but, as he was called to go out, he went out. The religion of mere brain and jaw does not amount to much.
We want the religion of hands and feet. I remember a place in Yorkshire, years ago, where a good man said to me, "We have a real good minister. He does well who glorifies God by where he goes, and by what he does; he will excel fifty others who only preach religion with their tongues. You, dear hearers, are not good hearers so long as you are only hearers; but when the heart is affected by the ear, and the hand follows the heart, then your faith is proved. That kind of obedience which comes of faith in God is real obedience, since it shows itself by its works.
Next, faith produces a far-seeing obedience. They have "respect unto the recompense of the reward;" but they must have it in the palm of their hand. With them-"A bird in hand is better far, than two which in the bushes are. To inherit a country after this life is over is too like a fairy tale for their practical minds.
Many there are who enquire, "Will religion pay? Is there anything to be made out of it? Shall I have to shut up my shop on Sundays? Must I alter my mode of dealing, and curtail my profits? Those who practice the obedience of faith look for the reward hereafter, and set the greatest store by it. To their faith alone the profit is exceeding great. To take up the cross will be to carry a burden, but it will also be to find rest.
They know the words, "No cross, no crown;" and they recognise the truth that, if there is no obedience here, there will be no reward hereafter. This needs a faith that has eyes which can see afar off, across the black torrent of death, and within the veil which parts us from the unseen. A man will not obey God unless he has learned to endure "as seeing him who is invisible. Yet, remember that the obedience which comes of true faith is often bound to be altogether unreckoning and implicit ; for it is written, "He went out, not knowing whither he went. Into the unknown land he made his way; through fertile regions, or across a wilderness; among friends or through the midst of foes, he pursued his journey.
He did not know where his way would take him, but he knew that the Lord had bidden him go.