Looking to the Future Reward
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. – Hebrews 11:8
Note this. “‘Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance.” How great a company would obey God if they were paid for it on the spot! 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.” They are told that there is heaven to be had, and they answer that, if heaven were to be had here, as an immediate freehold, they might look after it, but they cannot afford to wait. 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?” When they have totalled up the cost, and have taken all things into consideration, they come to the conclusion that obedience to God is a luxury which they can dispense with, at least until near the end of life. 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.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2195.cfm
Pray for a Tender Conscience
And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. – 1 Samuel 15:22
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: yet “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” If the Lord has given you true faith in Himself, you will be anxious not so much to do a notable thing as to do exactly what God would have you to do. Mind your jots and tittles with the Lord’s precepts. Attention to little things is a fine feature in obedience: it lies much more as to its essence in the little things than in the great ones. 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 willfully neglect, nor presumptuously transgress! ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2195.cfm
A Believing Obedience
For you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20
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? -for obedience, if it be of the kind we are speaking of, is faith in action-faith walking with God, or, shall I say, walking before the Lord in the land of the living. 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.” The faith that makes us obey is alone the faith which marks the children of God. 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. ~ C.H Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2195.cfm
A Reigning Faith
For you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20
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.” His faith in God has become to him the crown of all his believings; the most assured of all his confidences. 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?” His great anxiety is to do the will of God, or acceptably to suffer that will; and if he can obey, he will make no terms with God, and stand upon no reservations. He will pray, “Refine me from the dross of rebellion, and let the furnace be as fierce as Thou wilt.” His choice is neither wealth, nor ease, nor honour; but that he may glorify God in his body, and his spirit, which are the Lord’s. 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.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2195.cfm
Our Own Obedience
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. – Hebrews 11:8
Whatever the Lord may have said to the Chaldeans, or to other families in Ur, Abraham was not so much concerned with that as with the special word of command which the Lord had sent to his own soul. 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, who are His chosen, redeemed from among men, called out from the rest of mankind, ought to feel that if no other ears hear the divine call, our ears must hear it; and if no other heart obeys, our soul rejoices to do so. We are bound with cords to the horns of the altar. The strongest ties of gratitude hold us to the service of Jesus: we must be obedient in life to Him who, for our sakes, was obedient unto death. Our service to our Lord is freedom: we will to yield to His will. 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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2195.cfm
Jehovah Never Errs
But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. – 1 Peter 1:25
I hope, beloved, you do not think of God’s sovereignty as tyranny, or imagine that He ever could or would do 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 one 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. He bids, we obey. 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. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2195.cfm
He Hath Said 