THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH
BY CARRIE F. JUDD
To obey is better
than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams. – I Sam. xv:22.
God’s blessing
always follows obedience to His Word. When He pronounced His wonderful blessing
upon Abraham and his posterity, saying, “In blessing I will bless thee and in
multiplying I will multiply thy seed… and in thy seed shall all the nations of
the earth be blessed” (Gen. xxii:17, 18), He finished the benediction with the
words, “because thou hast obeyed My voice.”
Again we hear the
word of the lord unto Israel, “Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice
indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me
above all people; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation.”-(Ex. xix:5, 6.) In Exodus 23d chapter we hear the gracious
promise of God that he will send His angel before His people to keep them in
the way and to bring them into the place which He has prepared, and then
follows a warning, and exhortation to obedience, “Beware of Him and obey his voice, provoke Him not; but if
thou shalt indeed obey His ovice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an
enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries… And ye shall
serve the Lord you God, and He shall bless thy bread and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of
thee..” In Deut. 28th chap. We rad of the blessing and the curse
set before the children of Israel, “A blessing, if ye obey…” “And a curse, if
ye will not obey…”; and in these words are summed up God’s dealings with
His people as recorded throughout the entire Biblical History.
It is necessary for us, who, as children of Abraham, are
called to inherit the promises, to realize that we are thereby called to a walk
of obedience, but we must remember that it is “the obedience of faith” which is “the obedience unto righteousness.”
It is the recognition by the Spirit that he life which we now live, we live by
the faith of the Son of God, Who loved us and gave Himself for us; it is the
Spirit’s witness within us that “Christ is the end of the law, for
righteousness to every one that believeth,” it is the living Spirit in our
hearts, “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself
against the knowledge of God and brining into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” Yes, by
faith in Jesus we are called to His obedience. Nothing less than His perfect
obedience can fulfill the end of God’s holy law, and as we accept by faith the
blessed truth that “we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ, once and for all,” so His live in us, and our obedience through that
indwelling life, will be more and more manifested. Then shall we be able to accept,
to the glory of God, the physical blessings, as well as the spiritual, promised
to those who are obedient children. Then shall we “go from strength to
strength, every one of us in Zion,” until it be said of God’s children now, as
of Israel of old, “There was not one feeble person among their tribes.” – (Psalm
cv:37.)
“An this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.”
