 These addresses on obedience are issued with the very fervent prayer that it may please our gracious Father to use them for the instruction and strengthening of the young men and women on whose obedience and devotion so much depends for the church and the world. To all of them who read this I send my loving greeting. The God of all grace bless them abundantly. It often happens after a conference or even after writing a book that it is as if one only then begins to see the meaning and importance of the truth with which one has been occupied. So I do indeed feel as if I had utterly failed in grasping or expounding the spiritual character, the altogether indispensable necessity, the divine and actual possibility, the inconceivable blessedness of a life of true and entire obedience to our Father in heaven. Let me therefore just in a few sentences gather up the main points which have come home to myself with special power and ask every reader at starting to take note of them as some of the chief lessons to be learnt in Christ's school of obedience. The Father in heaven asks and requires and actually expects that every child of his yield him wholehearted and entire obedience day by day and all the day. To enable his child to do this he has made a most abundant and altogether sufficient provision in the promise of the new covenant and in the gift of his son and spirit. This provision can alone but can most certainly be enjoyed and these promises fulfilled in the soul that gives itself up to a life in the abiding communion with the three one God so that his presence and power work in it all the day. The very entrance into this life demands the vow of absolute obedience or the surrender of the whole being to be, think, speak, do every moment nothing but what is according to the will of God and well pleasing to him. If these things be indeed true it is not enough to assent to them. We need the Holy Spirit to give us such a vision of their glory and divine power and the demand they make on our immediate and unconditional submission that there may be no rest till we accept all that God is willing to do for us. Let us all pray that God may, by the light of his spirit, so show his loving and almighty will concerning us that it may be impossible for us to be disobedient to the heavenly vision. Andrew Murray Wellington, 9th of August, 1898. End of Preface. Chapter One of the School of Obedience. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joy Chan. The School of Obedience by Andrew Murray. Chapter One, Obedience, Its Place in Holy Scripture. In undertaking the study of a Bible word or the truth of the Christian life, it is a great help to take a survey of the place it takes in scripture. As we see where and how often and in what connections it is found, its relative importance may be apprehended as well as its bearing on the whole of revelation. Let me try in this first chapter to prepare the way for the study of what obedience is by showing you where to go in God's word to find the mind of God concerning it. One, take scripture as a whole. We begin with Paradise. In Genesis 2.16 we read, and the Lord God commanded the man, saying, And later, 311, hath thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat. Note how obedience to the command is the one virtue of Paradise, the one condition of man's abiding there, the one thing his creator asks of him. Nothing is said of faith or humility or love. Obedience includes all. As supreme as is the claim and authority of God is the demand for obedience as the one thing that is to decide his destiny. In the life of man to obey is the one thing needful. Turn now from the beginning to the close of the Bible. In its last chapter you read, Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life. Or if we accept the revised version, which gives another reading, we have the same thought in chapters 12 and 14, where we read of the seed of the woman, 1217, which keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus. And of the patience of the saints, 1412, here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. From beginning to end, from Paradise lost to Paradise regained, the law is unchangeable. It is only obedience that gives access to the tree of life and the favor of God. And if you ask how the change was affected out of the disobedience at the beginning, that closed the way to the tree of life, to the obedience at the end that again gained entrance to it, turn to that which stands midway, between the beginning and the end, the cross of Christ. Read a passage like Romans 5-19, through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. Or Philippians 2-8, he became obedient unto death, therefore God hath highly exalted him. Or Hebrews 5-8 and 9, he learned obedience and became the author of salvation to them that obey him. And you see how the whole redemption of Christ consists in restoring obedience to its place. The beauty of his salvation consists in this, that he brings us back to the life of obedience through which alone the creature can give the Creator the glory due to him, or receive the glory of which his Creator desires to make him partaker. Paradise, Calvary, Heaven, all proclaim with one voice, child of God, the first and the last thing that God asks of the simple, universal, unchanging obedience. Two, let us turn to the Old Testament. Here let us specially notice how, with any new beginning in the history of God's kingdom, obedience always comes into special prominence. One, take Noah, the new father of the human race, and you will find four times written. Genesis 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 saviour of men. Two, think of Abraham, the father of the chosen race, by faith Abraham obeyed. Hebrews 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, Genesis 22-12, 18. By myself have I sawn, 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 spoke, 26-35. I will perform the oath which I swear to Abraham, because that Abraham obeyed my voice. O 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, a will utterly given up to God's will, that all who profess to walk at Abraham's footsteps walk thus. 3. Go on to Moses. At Sinai God gave him the message to the people. Exodus 19-4. If you will obey my voice indeed, you 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. 4. Take the building of the sanctuary in which God was to dwell. In the last three chapters of Exodus, you have the expression 19 times. According to all the Lord commanded Moses, so did he. And then the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Just so again in the Viticus 8 and 9, you have, with reference to the consecration of the priests and the tabernacle, the same expression twelve times. And then the glory of the Lord appeared before all the people and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the birth offering. Words cannot make it plainer that it is amid what the obedience of his people has wrought that God delights to dwell, that it is the obedient he crowns with his favour and presence. 5. After the forty years wandering in the wilderness and its terrible revelation of the fruit of disobedience, there was again a new beginning when the people were about to enter Canaan. Read Deuteronomy with all Moses' spoken sight of the land and you will find there is no book of the Bible which uses the word obey so frequently or speaks so much of the blessing obedience will assuredly bring. The whole is summed up in the words 1127. I set before you a blessing if you obey. A curse if you will not obey. Yes, a blessing if you 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. Six, the next new beginning we have is in the appointment of kings in Israel. In the story of Saul we have the most solemn warning as to the need of exact and entire obedience in a man whom God is to trust as ruler of his people. Samuel had commanded Saul, 1 Samuel 10.8 to wait seven days for him to come and sacrifice and to show him what to do. When Samuel delayed 13.8 to 14 Saul took it upon himself to sacrifice. When Samuel came he said, Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee. Thy kingdom shall not continue because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee. God will not honor the man who is not obedient. Saul has a second opportunity given him of showing what is in his heart. He is sent to execute God's judgment against Amalek. He obeys. He gathers an army of 200,000 men, undertakes the journey into the wilderness and destroys Amalek. But while God had commanded him utterly to destroy all and not to spare, he spared the best of the cattle and agag. When God speaks to Samuel it repented me that I have set up Saul to be king for he hath not performed my commandment. When Samuel comes Saul twice over says I have performed the commandment of the Lord I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. And so he had as many would think but his obedience had not been entire. God claims exact, full obedience. God had said utterly destroy all, spare not. This he had not done. He had spared the best sheep for a sacrifice unto the Lord and Samuel said to obey is better than any sacrifice. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord the Lord hath rejected thee. Sad type of so much obedience which in part performs God's commandment and yet is not the obedience God asks. God says of all sin and all disobedience utterly destroy all, spare not. May God reveal to us whether we are indeed going all lengths with him seeking utterly to destroy all and spare nothing that is not in perfect harmony with his will. It is only a wholehearted obedience down to the minutest details that can satisfy God. Let nothing less satisfy you less while we say I have obeyed. God says thou hast rejected the word of the Lord. Seven. Just one word more from the Old Testament. Next to Deuteronomy Jeremiah is the book most full of the word obey. Though alas mostly in connection with the complaint that the people had not obeyed. God sums up all his dealings with the fathers in the one word. I spake not with them concerning sacrifices but this thing I commanded them obey my voice and I will be your God. Would God that we could learn that all that God speaks of sacrifices even of the sacrifice of his beloved son is subordinate to the one thing to have his creature restored to full obedience into all the inconceivable meaning of the word I will be your God. There is no gateway but this. Obey my voice. Three. We come to the New Testament. One. Here we think at once of our blessed Lord and the prominence he gives to obedience as the one thing for which he was coming to the world. He who entered it with his lo I come to do thy will oh God. Ever confessed to men I seek not my own will but the will of him that sent me. Of all he did and of all he suffered even to the death he said this commandment have I received of my father. If we turn to his teaching we find everywhere that the obedience he rendered is what he claimed from everyone who would be his disciple. During his whole ministry from beginning to end obedience is the very essence of salvation. In the Sermon on the Mount he began with it. No one could enter the kingdom but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven. And in the farewell discourse how wonderfully he reveals the spiritual character of true obedience as it is born of love and inspired by it and as it also opens the way into the love of God. Do take into your heart the wonderful words John 14 15 16 21 23 if ye love me you will keep my commandments and the father will send forth the spirit he hath my commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he shall be loved of my father and I will love him and will manifest myself unto him if a man loves me he will keep my words and my father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. No words could express more simply or more powerfully the inconceivably glorious place Christ gives to obedience with its twofold possibility. One is only possible to a loving heart. Two is making possible all that God has to give of his Holy Spirit, of his wonderful love, of his indwelling in Christ Jesus. I know of no passage in scripture that gives a higher revelation of the spiritual life or the power of loving obedience as it's one condition. Let us pray God very earnestly that by his Holy Spirit its light may transfigure our daily obedience with its heavenly glory. See how all this is confirmed in the next chapter how well we know the parable of the vine how often and how earnestly we have asked how to be able to abide continually in Christ we have thought of more study of the word more faith, more prayer more communion with God and we have overlooked the simple truth that Jesus teaches so clearly if ye keep my commandments and abide in my love with its divine sanction even as I kept my father's commandments and abide in his love for him as for us the only way under heaven to abide in divine love is to keep the commandments do let me ask have you known it, have you heard it preached have you believed it and proved it true in your experience obedience on earth is the key to replacing God's love in heaven unless there be some correspondence wholehearted love in heaven and our wholehearted loving obedience on earth Christ cannot manifest himself to us God cannot abide in us we cannot abide in his love two if we go on from our Lord Jesus to his apostles we find in the Acts two words of Peter's which show how our Lord's teaching had entered into him in the one God hath given his Holy Spirit to them that obey him for he knew what had been the preparation for Pentecost the surrender to Christ in the other we must obey God rather than man we have the manward side obedience is to be unto death nothing on earth dare or can hinder it in the man who has given himself to God three in Paul's epistles to the Romans we have in the opening and closing verses the expression the obedience of faith among all nations 1, 5, 16, 26 as that for which he was made an apostle he speaks of what God had wrought to make the Gentiles obedient he teaches that as the obedience of Christ makes us righteous we become the servants of obedience and to righteousness as disobedience in Adam and in us was the one thing that wrought death so obedience in Christ and in us is the one thing that the Gospel makes known as the way of restoration of God and his favour 4 we all know how James warns us not to be heroes of the word only but doers and expounds how Abraham was justified and his faith perfected by his works 5 in Peter's first epistle we have only to look at the first chapter to see the place obedience has in his system in verse 2 he speaks to the elect in sanctification of the spirit unto obedience and blood sprinkling of Jesus Christ and so points us to obedience as the eternal purpose of the Father as the great object of the work of the spirit and a chief part of the salvation of Christ in verse 13 he writes obedience is the very starting point of true holiness in verse 22 we read 6 of John we know how strong his statements are he that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar obedience is the one certificate of Christian character let us love indeed and truth hereby we shall assure our hearts before him and whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight obedience is the secret of good conscience and of the confidence that God heareth us this is the love of God that we keep his commandments the obedience that keeps his commandments this is the garment in which the hidden invisible love reveals itself and whereby it is known such is the place obedience has in holy scripture in the mind of God in the hearts of his servants we may well ask does it take that place in my heart and life have we indeed given obedience that supreme place of authority over us that God means it to have as the inspiration of every action and of every approach to him if we yield ourselves to the searching of God's spirit we may find that we never gave it its true proportion in our scheme of life and that this lack is the cause of all our failure in prayer and in work we may see that the deeper blessings of God's grace and the full enjoyment of God's love and nearness have been beyond our reach simply because obedience was never made what God would have it be the starting point and the goal of our Christian life let this our first study waken in us an earnest desire to know God's will fully concerning this truth let us unite in praying that the Holy Spirit may show us how defective the Christian's life is where obedience does not rule all how that life can be exchanged for one of full surrender to absolute obedience and how sure it is that God and Christ will enable us to live it out end of chapter 1 chapter 2 of the school of obedience this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Joy Chan the school of obedience by Andrew Murray chapter 2 the obedience of Christ through the obedience of the one shall all the many be made righteous know ye not that ye are servants of obedience unto righteousness Romans 519 616 through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous these words tell us what we owe to Christ as in Adam we were made sinners in Christ we are made righteous the words tell us too to what in Christ it is we owe our righteousness as Adam's disobedience made us sinners the obedience of Christ makes us righteous to the obedience of Christ we owe everything among the treasures of our inheritance in Christ this is one of the richest how many have never studied it so as to love it and delight in it and get the full blessing of it may God by His Holy Spirit reveal its glory and make us partakers of its power you are familiar with the blessed truth of justification by faith in the section of the epistle to the Romans preceding our passage 321 to 511 Paul had taught what its ever blessed foundation was the atonement of the blood of Christ what its way and condition faith in the free grace of a God who justifies the ungodly and what its blessed fruits the bestowment of the righteousness of Christ with an immediate access into the favor of God and the hope of glory in our passage he now proceeds to unfold the deeper truth of the union with Christ by faith in which justification has its root and which makes it possible and right for God to accept us for His sake Paul goes back to Adam and our union with him with all the consequences that flowed from that union to prove how reasonable how perfectly natural in the higher sense of the word it is that those who receive Christ by faith and are so united with him become partakers of his righteousness and his life it is in this argument that he especially emphasizes the contrast between the disobedience of Adam with the condemnation and death it wrought and the obedience of Christ with the righteousness and life it brings as we study the place the obedience of Christ takes in his work for our salvation and see in it the very root of our redemption we shall know what place to give it in our heart and life through the one man's disobedience many were made sinners how was this there was a two fold connection between Adam and his descendants the judicial and the vital judicial and vital connection through the judicial the whole race though yet unborn came at once under the sentence of death death rained from Adam to Moses even over them such as little children who had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression this judicial relation was rooted in the vital connection the sentence could not have come upon them if they had not been in Adam and the vital again became the manifestation of the judicial each child of Adam enters life under the power of sin and death through the disobedience of the one the many were constituted sinners both by position subject to the curse of sin and by nature subject to its power Adam is the figure of him who was to come and who was called the second Adam the second father of the race Adam's disobedience in its effects is the exact similitude of what the obedience of Christ becomes to us when a sinner believes in Christ he is united to him and is at once by a judicial sentence pronounced and accepted as righteous in God's sight the judicial relationship is rooted in the vital he has Christ's righteousness only by having Christ himself and being in him before he knows what it is to be in Christ he can know himself acquitted and accepted but he is then led on to know the vital connection and to understand that as real and complete as was his participation in Adam's disobedience with the death as well the sinful nature that followed on it is his participation in Christ's obedience with both the righteousness and the obedient life and nature that come from it let us see and understand this through Adam's disobedience we are made sinners the one thing God asked of Adam in paradise was obedience the one thing by which a creature can glorify God or enjoy his favor and blessing is obedience the one cause of the power of sin has gotten the world and the ruin it has wrought is disobedience the whole curse of sin on us is owing to disobedience imputed to us the whole power of sin working in us is nothing but this that as we receive Adam's nature we inherit his disobedience we are born the children of disobedience it is evident that the one work a Christ was needed for was to remove this disobedience it's curse it's disobedience it's evil nature and workings disobedience was the root of all sin and misery the first object of his salvation was to cut away the evil root and restore man to his original destiny and life in obedience to his God how did Christ do this first of all by coming as the second Adam to undo what the first had done sin had made us believe that it was a humiliation always to be going to know and do God's will Christ came to show us the nobility, the blessedness the heavenliness of obedience when God gave us the robe of creaturehood to wear we knew not that it's beauty it's unspotted purity was obedience to God Christ came and put on that robe that he might show us how to wear it and how with it we could enter into the presence and glory of God Christ came to overcome so bear away our disobedience and to replace it by his own obedience on us and in us as universal, as mighty as all pervading as was the disobedience of Adam, yea far more so was to be the power of the obedience of Christ the object of Christ's life of obedience was three fold one as an example to show us what true obedience was two as our surety by his obedience to fulfill all righteousness for us three as our head to prepare a new and obedient nature to impart to us so he died too to show us that his obedience means a readiness to obey to the utter most to die for God that it means the vicarious endurance and atonement of the guilt of our disobedience that it means a death to sin as an entrance to the life of God for him the disobedience of Adam in all its possible bearings was to be put away and replaced by the obedience of Christ judicially by that obedience we are made righteous just as we were made sinners by Adam's disobedience we are at once and completely justified and delivered from the power of sin and death we stand before God as righteous men vitally for the judicial and the vital are as inseparable as in the case of Adam we are made one plant with Christ in his death and resurrection so that we are as truly dead to sin and alive to God as he is and the life we receive in him is no other than a life of obedience that every one of us who would know what obedience is consider well it is the obedience of Christ that is the secret of the righteousness and salvation I find in him the obedience is the very essence obedience is salvation his obedience first of all to be accepted and trusted to and rejoiced in as covering and swallowing up and making an end of my disobedience is the one unchanging never to be forsaken ground of my acceptance and then his obedience just as Adam's disobedience was the power that ruled my life the power of death in me becomes the life power of the new nature in me then I understand why Paul in this passage so closely links the righteousness and the life if by the trespass of one death reign through the one much more shall they who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through one even here on earth the gift came unto all men unto justification of life the more carefully we trace the parallel between the first and second Adam and see how in the form of the death and disobedience reigned in his seed equally with himself and how both were equally transmitted through union with him the more will the conviction be forced upon us that the obedience of Christ is equally to be ours not only by imputation but by personal possession it is so inseparable from him that to receive him and his life is to receive his obedience when we receive the righteousness which God offers us so freely it at once points us to the obedience out of which it was born with which it is inseparably one in which alone it can live and flourish see how this connection comes out in the next chapter after having spoken of our life union to Christ Paul for the first time in the epistle 612 gives an injunction let not sin reign present yourselves unto God and then immediately proceeds to teach how this means nothing but obedience no ye not that ye are servants of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness your relation to obedience is a practical one you have been delivered from disobedience Adams and your own and now have become servants of obedience and that unto righteousness Christ's obedience was unto righteousness the righteousness which is God's gift to you your subjection to obedience is the one way in which your relation to God and to righteousness can be maintained Christ's obedience unto righteousness is the only beginning of life for you your obedience unto righteousness it's only continuance there is but one law for the head and the members as surely as it was with Adam and his seed disobedience and death it is with Christ and his seed obedience and life the one bond of union the one mark of likeness between Adam and his seed was disobedience the one bond of union between Christ and his seed the one mark of resemblance is obedience it was obedience made Christ the object of the Father's love John 10.17.18 and our Redeemer it is obedience alone can lead us in the way to dwell in that love John 14.21.23 and enjoy that redemption through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous everything depends upon our knowledge of and participation in the obedience as the gateway and path to the full enjoyment of the righteousness at conversion the righteousness is given to faith once for all completely and forever with but little or no knowledge of the obedience but as the righteousness is indeed believed in and submitted to and it's full dominion over us as servants of righteousness sought after it will open its blessed nature as born out of obedience and therefore ever leading us back to its divine origin the true our hold of the righteousness of Christ in the power of the Spirit the more intense will be our desire to share in the obedience out of which it sprang in this light let us study the obedience of Christ that like him we may live as servants of obedience unto righteousness one in Christ this obedience was a life principle obedience with him did not mean a single act of obedience now and then nor even a series of acts but the spirit of his whole life I came not to do my own will though I come to do thy will oh God he had come into the world for one purpose he only lived to carry out God's will the one supreme all controlling power of his life was obedience he is willing to make it so in us this was what he promised when he said whoever shall do the will of my father which is in heaven the same as my brother and sister and mother the link in a family is a common life shared by all and a family likeness the bond between Christ and us is that he and we together do the will of God two in Christ this obedience was a joy I delight to do thy will oh God the need is to do the will of him that sent me our food is refreshment and invigoration the healthy man eats his bread with gladness but food is more than enjoyment it is the one necessary of life and so during the will of God was the food that Christ hungered after and without which he could not live the one thing that satisfied his hunger the one thing that refreshed and strengthened him and made him glad it was something of this David meant when he spoke God's word being sweeter than honey and the honeycone as this is understood and accepted obedience will become more natural to us and necessary to us and more refreshing than our daily food three in Christ this obedience led to a waiting on God's will God did not reveal all his will to Christ at once but day by day according to the circumstances of the hour in his life of obedience growth and progress the most difficult lesson came the last each act of obedience fitted him for the new discovery of the Father's further command he spoke I delight to do thy will oh God it is as obedience becomes the passion of our life that the ears will be opened by God's spirit to wait for his teaching and we be content with nothing less than a divine guidance into the divine will for us four in Christ this obedience was unto death when he spoke I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me he was ready to go all lengths in denying his own will and doing the Father's he meant it in nothing my will at all costs God's will this is the obedience to which he invites and for which he empowers us this whole hearted surrender to obedience in everything is the only true obedience is the only power that will avail to carry us through would God that Christians could understand that nothing less than this is what brings the soul gladness and strength as long as there is a doubt about universal obedience and with that a lurking sense of the possibility of failure we lose the confidence that secures the victory but when once we set God before us as really asking full obedience and engaging to work it and see that we dare offer him nothing less we give up ourselves to the working of the divine power which by the Holy Ghost can master our whole life five in Christ this obedience sprang from the deepest humility have this in mind you which was also in Christ Jesus who emptied himself took the form of a servant who humbled himself becoming obedient to death it is the man who is willing for entire self emptying is willing to be and live as the servant a servant of obedience is willing to be humbled very low before God and man to whom the obedience of Jesus will unfold it's heavenly beauty and it's constraining power there may be a strong will that secretly trusts in self that strives for the obedience and fails it is as we sink low before God in humility meekness, patience and entire resignation to his will and are willing to bow in an absolute helplessness and dependence on him as we turn away wholly from self that it will be revealed to us how it is the one only duty and blessing of a creature to obey this glorious God six in Christ this obedience was of faith in entire dependence upon God's strength I can do nothing of myself the father that dwelleth in me do with the works the sons unreserved surrendered to the father's will was met by the father's unceasing and undeserved bestowment of his power working in him even so it will be with us if we learn that our giving our will to God is ever the measure of his giving his power in us we shall see that a surrender to full obedience is nothing but a full faith that God will work all in us God's promises of the new covenant all rest on this the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and thou shall obey the Lord thy God I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments let us like the son believe that God works all in us and we shall have the courage to yield ourselves to an unreserved obedience and obedience unto death that yielding ourselves up to God will become the entrance into the blessed experience of conformity to the son of God in his doing the father's will because he counted on the father's power let us give our all to God he will work his all in us no ye not that ye made righteous by the obedience of one are like him and in him servants of obedience unto righteousness it is in the obedience of the one the obedience of the many has its root its life its security let us turn and gaze upon and study and believe in Christ as the obedient one as never before let this be the Christ we receive and love and seek to be made conformable to as his righteousness is our one hope that his obedience be our one desire that our faith in him prove its sincerity and its confidence in God's supernatural power working in us by accepting Christ the obedient one as in very deed our life as the Christ who dwells in us End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The School of Obedience This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Joy Chan The School of Obedience by Andrew Murray Chapter 3 The Secret of True Obedience He learned obedience Hebrews 5.8 The Secret of True Obedience Let me say at once what I believe it to be is the clear and close personal relationship to God all our attempts after full obedience will be failures until we get access to his abiding fellowship it is God's holy presence consciously abiding with us that keeps us from disobeying him defective obedience is always the result of a defective life to rouse and spur on that defective life by arguments and motives has its use but their chief blessing must be that they make us feel the need of a different life a life so entirely under the power of God that obedience will be its natural outcome the defective life the life of broken and irregular fellowship with God must be healed and make way for a full and healthy life then full obedience will become possible the secret of a true obedience is the return to close and continual fellowship with God he learned obedience Hebrews 5.8 and why was this needful and what is the blessing he brings us listen he learned obedience by the things which he suffered and became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him suffering is unnatural to us and therefore cause for the surrender of our will Christ needed suffering that in it he might learn to obey and give up his will to the Father at any cost he needed to learn obedience that as our great high priest he might be made perfect he learned obedience he became obedient unto death that he might become the author of our salvation he became the author of our salvation through obedience that he might save those who obey him as obedience was with him absolutely necessary to procure it is with us absolutely necessary to inherit salvation the very essence of salvation is obedience to God Christ as the obedient one saves us as his obedient ones whether in his suffering on earth or in his glory in heaven whether in himself or in us obedience is what the heart of Christ is set upon on earth Christ was a learner in the school of obedience in heaven he teaches it to his disciples here on earth in a world where disobedience reigns unto death the restoration of obedience is in Christ's hands as in his own life so in us he has undertaken to maintain it he teaches and works it in us let us try and think what and how he teaches it may be we shall see how little we have given ourselves to be pupils in this school where alone obedience is to be learned when we think of an ordinary school the principal things we ask often are one the teacher two the class books three the pupils let us see what each of these is in Christ's school of obedience one the teacher he learned obedience and now that he teaches it he does so first and most by unfolding the secret of his own obedience to the father I have said that the power of true obedience is to be found in the clear personal relationship to God it was so with our Lord Jesus of all his teaching he said I have not spoken of myself but the father which sent me gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak and I know that his commandment is life everlasting whatever I speak therefore even as the father said unto me so I speak this does not mean that Christ received God's commandment in eternity as part of the father's commission to him on entering the world no day by day each moment as he taught and worked he lived as man in continual communication with the father and received the father's instructions just as he needed them does he not say the son can do nothing of himself but what he seeeth the father do for the father showeth the son all things that himself doeth and he will show him greater things as I hear I judge I am not alone but I am the father that sent me the words that I speak I speak not of myself but the father that dwelleth in me it is everywhere dependence upon a present fellowship and operation of God a hearing and a seeing of what God speaks and does and does our Lord ever spoke of his relation with the father as the type and the promise of our relation to him and to the father through him with us as with him the life of continual obedience is impossible without continual fellowship and continual teaching it is only when God comes into our lives in a degree and a power which many never consider possible when his presence as the eternal and ever present one is believed and received even as the son believed and received it that there can be any hope of a life in which every thought is brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ the imperative need of the continual receiving our orders and instructions from God himself is what is implied in the words obey my voice and I will be your God the expression obeying the commandments is very seldom used in scripture it is almost always obeying me or obeying or harkening to my voice with the commander of an army the teacher of a school the father of a family it is not the code of laws however clear and good with its rewards or threats that secures true obedience it is the personal living influence awakening love and enthusiasm it is the joy of ever hearing the father's voice that will give the joy and the strength of true obedience it is the voice gives power to obey the word the word without the living voice that will prevail how clearly this is illustrated by the contrast of what we see in Israel the people had heard the voice of God on Sinai and were afraid they asked Moses that God might no more speak to them let Moses receive the word of God and bring it to them they only thought of the commands they knew not that the only power to obey is in the presence of God and his voice speaking to us and so with only Moses to speak and the tables of stone their whole history is one of disobedience because they were afraid of direct contact with God it is even so still many many Christians find it so much easier to take their teaching from godly men than to wait upon God to receive it from himself their faith stands in the wisdom of men and not in the power of God do let us learn the great lesson our Lord who learned obedience by every moment waiting to see and hear the Father has to teach us it is only when like him, with him in and through him we ever walk with God and hear his voice that we can possibly attempt to offer God the obedience he asks and promises to work out of the depths of his own life and experience Christ can give and teach us this pray earnestly that God may show you the folly of attempting to obey without the same strength Christ needed may make you willing to give up everything for the Christ-like joy of the Father's presence all the day two, the textbook Christ's direct communication with the Father did not render him independent of holy scripture in the divine school of obedience there is but one textbook whether for the elder brother or the younger children in his learning obedience he used the same textbook as we have not only when he had to teach or to convince others did he appeal to the word he needed it and he used it for his own spiritual life and guidance from the commencement of his public life to its close he lived by the word of God it is written was the sword of the spirit with which he conquered Satan the spirit of the Lord God is upon me this word of scripture was the consciousness with which he opened his preaching of the gospel that the scripture might be fulfilled was the light in which he accepted all suffering and even gave himself to death after the resurrection he expounded to the disciples in all the scriptures the things concerning himself in scripture he had found God's plan and path for him marked out he gave himself to fulfill it it was in and with the use of God's word that he received the Father's continual direct teaching in God's school of obedience the bible is the only text book that shows us the disposition in which we are to come to the bible with the simple desire in it to find what is written concerning us as to God's will and to do it scripture was not written to increase our knowledge but to guide our conduct that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works if any man will do he shall know learn from Christ to consider all there is in scripture of the revelation of God and his love and his council as simply auxiliary to God's great end that the man of God may be fitted to do his will as it is done in heaven that man may be restored to that perfect obedience on which God's heart is set and which alone is blessedness in God's school of obedience God's word is the only text book to apply that word in his own life and conduct to know when each different portion was to be taken up and carried out Christ needed and received divine teaching it is he who speaks in Isaiah the Lord God wakeneth morning by morning he wakeneth my ear to hear as the learned the Lord God had opened my ear even so does he who thus learned obedience teach it us by giving us the Holy Spirit in our heart as the divine interpreter of the word this is the great work of the indwelling Holy Spirit to draw the word re-read and think upon into our heart and make it quick and powerful there so that God's living word may work effectually in our will our love our whole being it is because this is not understood that the word has no power to work obedience let me try and speak very plainly about this we rejoice in increased attention given to Bible study and in testimonies as to the interest awakened and benefit received but let us not deceive ourselves we may delight in studying the Bible we may admire and be charmed with the views we get of God's truth the thought suggested may make a deep impression and waken the most pleasing religious emotions and yet the practical influence in making us holy or humble loving patient ready either for service or suffering be very small the reason for this is that we do not receive the word as it is in very deed as the word of the living God who must himself speak to us and into us if it is to exert its divine power the letter of the word however we study and delight in it has no saving or sanctifying power human wisdom and human will however strenuous their effort cannot give cannot command that power the Holy Spirit is the mighty power of God it is only as the Holy Spirit teaches you only as the Gospel is preached to you by man or by book with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven that it will really give you with every command the strength to obey and work in you the very thing commanded with man knowing and willing knowing and doing even willing and performing are for lack of power often separate and even at variance never in the Holy Spirit he is at once the light and the might of God all he is and does and gives has in it equally the truth and the power of God when he shows you God's command he always shows it you as a possible and a certain thing a divine life and gift prepared for you which he who shows is able to impart beloved Bible students do learn to believe that it is only when Christ through the Holy Spirit teaches you to understand and take the word into your heart that he can really teach you to obey as he did do believe every time you open your Bible that just as sure as you listen to the divine Spirit-breathed word so surely will our Father in answer to the prayer of faith and docile waiting give the Holy Spirit's living operation in your heart let all your Bible study be a thing of faith do not only try and believe the truths or promises you read this may be in your own power before that believe in the Holy Spirit in his being in you in God's working in you through him take the word into your heart in the quiet faith that he will enable you to love it and yield to it and keep it now blessed Lord Jesus will make the book to you what it was to him when he spoke of the things which are written concerning me all scripture will become the simple revelation of what God is going to do for you and in you and through you three the pupil we have seen how our Lord teaches us obedience by unfolding the secret of his learning it in unceasing dependence on the father we have seen how he teaches us to use the sacred book as he used it as a divine revelation of what God has ordained for us with the Holy Spirit to expound and enforce if we now consider the place the believer takes in the school of obedience as a pupil we shall better understand what Christ the Son requires to do his work in us effectually in a faithful student there are several things that go to make up his feelings towards a trusted teacher he submits himself entirely to his leading he reposes perfect trust in him he gives him just as much time and attention as he asks when we see and consent that Jesus Christ has a right to all this we may hope to experience how wonderfully he can teach us an obedience like his own one the true pupil say of some great musician or painter yields his master a wholehearted and unhesitating submission in practicing his scales or mixing the colors in the slow and patient study of the elements of his art he knows that it is wisdom simply and fully to obey it is this wholehearted surrender to his guidance this implicit submission to his authority Christ asks we come to him asking him to teach us the lost art of obeying God as he did he asks us if we are ready to pay the price it is entirely and utterly to deny self it is to give up our will and our life to the death it is to be ready to do whatever he say it the only way of learning to do a thing is to do it the only way of learning obedience from Christ is to give up your will to him and to make the doing of his will the one desire and delight of your heart unless you take the valve absolute obedience as you enter this class of Christ school it will be impossible for you to make any progress two the true scholar of a great master finds it easy to render him this implicit obedience simply because he trusts him he gladly sacrifices his own wisdom and will to be guided by a higher we need this confidence in our Lord Jesus he came from heaven to learn obedience that he might be able to teach it well his obedience is the treasury out of which not only the debt of our past his obedience is paid but out of which the grace for our present obedience is supplied in his divine love and perfect human sympathy in his divine power over our hearts and lives he invites he deserves he wins our trust it is by the power of a personal admiration and attachment to himself it is by the power of his divine love in every deed shared into our heart by the Holy Spirit and wakening within us a responsive love that he wakens our confidence and communicates to us the true secret of success in his school as absolutely as we have trusted him as a savior to atone for our disobedience so let us trust him as a teacher to lead us out of it Christ is our prophet or teacher a heart that enthusiastically believes in his power and success as a teacher will in the joy of that faith find it possible and easy to obey it is the presence of Christ with us all the day that will be the secret of true obedience a scholar gives his master just as much of his attendance and attention as he asks the master fixes how much time must be devoted to personal intercourse and instruction obedience to God is such a heavenly art our nature is so utterly strange to it the path in which the Son himself learned it was so slow and long that we must not wonder if it does not come at once nor must we wonder if it needs more time at the master feet in meditation and prayer and waiting independence and self sacrifice then the most I'm ready to give but let us give it in Christ Jesus heavenly obedience has become human again obedience has become our birthright and our life breath let us cling to him let us believe and claim his abiding presence with Christ Jesus who learned obedience as our saviour with Christ Jesus who teaches obedience as our master we can live lives of obedience his obedience we cannot study the lesson too earnestly his obedience is our salvation in him the living Christ we find it and partake of it moment by moment let us beseech God to show us how Christ and his obedience are actually to be our life every moment that will then make us pupils who give him all our heart and all our time and he will teach us to keep his commandments and abide in his love even as he kept his father's commandments and abides in his love end of chapter 3 chapter 4 of the school of obedience this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Joy Chan the school of obedience by Andrew Murray chapter 4 the morning watch in the life of obedience if the first fruit is holy so is the lump and if the root is holy so are the branches Romans 11 16 how wonderful and blessed is the divine appointment of the first day of the week as a holy day of rest not as something that we might have at least one day of rest and spiritual refreshment amid the weariness of life but that that one holy day at the opening of the week might sanctify the whole might help and fit us to carry God's holy presence into all the week and its work with the first fruit holy the whole lump is holy with the root holy all the branches are holy too how gracious too the provision suggested by so many types and examples of the Old Testament by which a morning hour at the opening of the day can enable us to secure a blessing for all its work and the presence of power for victory over every temptation how unspeakably gracious that in the morning hour the bond that unites us with God can be so firmly tied that during hours when we have to move amid the rush of men or duties and can scarce think of God the soul can be kept safe and pure that the soul can so give itself away in the time of secret worship into his keeping that temptation shall only help us closer with him what calls for praise and joy that the morning watch can so each day renew and strengthen the surrender to Jesus and the faith in him that the life of obedience can not only be maintained in fresh figure but can indeed go on from strength to strength I would faint point out how intimate and vital the connection between obedience and the morning watches the desire for a life of entire obedience give new meaning and value to the morning watch even as this again can alone give the strength and courage needed for the former one the motive principle think first of the motive principle that will make us love and faithfully keep the morning watch if we take it upon us simply as a duty and a necessary part of our religious life it will very soon become a burden all of the chief thought by our own happiness and safety that will not supply the power to make it truly attractive there is only one thing will suffice the desire for fellowship with God it is for that we were created in God's likeness it is that in which we hope to spend eternity it is that alone can fit us for a true and blessed life either here or hereafter to have more of God to know him better to receive from him the communication of his love and strength to have our life filled with his it is for this he invites us to enter the inner chamber and shut the door it is in the closet in the morning watch that our spiritual life is both tested and strengthened there is the battlefield where it is to be sided every day where the God is to have all where our life is to be absolute obedience if we truly conquer there getting rid of ourselves into the hands of our almighty Lord the victory during the day is sure it is there in the inner chamber proof is to be given whether we really delight in God and make it our aim to love him with our whole heart let this then be our first lesson the presence of God is the chief thing in our diversions to meet God, to give ourselves and to his holy will to know that we are pleasing to him to have him give us our orders and lay his hand upon us and bless us and say to us go in this thy strength it is when the soul learns that this is what is to be found in the morning watch day by day that we shall learn to long for it and delight in it 2. Reading the Bible let us next speak of the reading of God's word as part of what occupies us there with regard to this I have more than one thing I wish to say 1. One is that unless we beware the word which is meant to point us away to God may actually intervene and hide him from us the mind may be occupied and interested and delighted at what it finds and yet because this is more head knowledge than anything else it may bring little good to us if it does not lead us to wait on God to glorify him to receive his grace and power for sweetening and sanctifying our lives it becomes a hindrance instead of a help 2. Another lesson that cannot be repeated too often or pressed too urgently is that it is only by the teaching of the Holy Ghost that we can get at the real meaning of what God means by his word and that the word will really reach into our inner life and work in us the Father in Heaven who gave us his word from Heaven with its divine mysteries and message has given us his Holy Spirit in us to explain and internally appropriate that word the Father wants us each time to ask what he teaches us by his Spirit he wants us to bow in a meek teachable frame of mind and believe that the Spirit will in the hidden depth of our heart make his word live and work he wants us to remember that the Spirit is given us that we should be led by him should walk after him should have our whole life under his rule and that therefore he cannot teach us in the morning unless we honestly give up ourselves to his leading but if we do this and patiently wait on him not to get new thoughts but to get the power of the word in our heart we can count upon his teaching let your closet be the classroom let your morning watch be the study our in which your relation of entire dependence on and submission to the Holy Spirit's teaching is proved to God 3 a third remark I want to make in confirmation of what was said above is this ever study in God's Word in the Spirit of an unreserved surrender to obey you know how often Christ and his apostles in their epistles speak of hearing and not doing if you accustom yourself to studied Bible without an earnest and very definite purpose to obey you are getting hardened in disobedience never read God's Will concerning you without honestly giving up yourself to do it at once and asking grace to do so God has given us his Word to tell us what he wants us to do and what grace he has provided to enable us to do it how sad to think it a pious thing just to read that Word without any earnest effort to obey it may God keep us from this terrible sin let us make it a sacred habit to say to God Lord whatever I know to be Thy will I will at once obey ever read with a heart yielded up in willing obedience 4 one more remark I have here spoken of such commands as we already know and as are easily understood but remember there are a great many commands to which your attention may never have been directed or others of which the application is so wide and unceasing that you have not taken it in read God's Word with a deep desire to know all his Will if there are things which appear difficult commands which look too high for which you need a divine guidance to tell you how to carry them out and there are many such let them drive you to seek a divine teaching it is not the text that is easiest and most encouraging that brings most blessing but the text whether easy or difficult which throws you most upon God God would have you filled with the knowledge of his Will wisdom and spiritual understanding it is in the closet this wonderful work is to be done do remember it is only when you know that God is telling you to do a thing that you feel sure he gives the strength to do it it is only as we are willing to know all God's Will that he will from time to time reveal more of it to us and that we will be able to do it all what a power the morning watch may be in the life of one who makes a determined resolve to meet God there to renew the surrender to absolute obedience humbly and patiently to wait on the Holy Spirit to be taught all God's Will and to receive the assurance that every promise given him in the Word will infallibly be made true he that thus prays for himself will become a true intercessor for others 3. Prayer it is in the light of these thoughts not now to say a few words on what prayer is to be in the morning watch 1. First of all see that you secure the presence of God do not be content with anything less than seeing the face of God having the assurance that he is looking on you in love and listening and working in you if our daily life is to be full of God how much more the morning hour where the life of the day alone can have God's Seal stamped upon it in our religion we want nothing so much as more of God his love, his will, his holiness his spirit living in us his power working in us for men under heaven there is no way of getting this but by close personal communion and there is no time so good for securing and practicing it as the morning watch the superficiality and feebleness of our religion and religious work all come from having so little real contact with God if it be true that God alone is the fountain of all love and good and happiness and that to have as much as possible of his presence and his fellowship of his will and his service is our truest and highest happiness surely then to meet himself alone in the morning watch ought to be our first care to have had God appear to them and speak to them was with all the Old Testament saints the secret of their obedience and their strength do give God time the secret so to reveal himself that your soul may call the name of the place pineal for I have seen him face to face two my next thought is let the renewal of your surrender to absolute obedience for that day be a chief part of your morning sacrifice that any confession of sin be very definite a plucking out and cutting off of everything that has been grieving to God that any prayer for grace will be as definite and asking and accepting in faith of the very grace and strength you are specially in need of let your outlook on the day you are entering on be a very determined resolve that obedience to God shall be its controlling principle do understand that there is no sure way rather that there is no other possible way of getting into God's love and blessing in prayer then by getting into his will in prayer you are most absolutely to the blessed will of God this will avail more than much asking beseech God to show you this great mercy that he allows you that he will enable you to enter into his will and abide there that will make the knowing and doing his will in your life a blessed certainty let your prayer indeed be a morning sacrifice a placing yourself as a whole burnt offering on the altar of the Lord the measure of surrender to full obedience will be the measure of confidence toward God 3 then remember that true prayer and fellowship with God cannot be all from one side we need to be still to wait and hear what response God gives this is the office of the Holy Spirit to be the voice of God to us in the hidden depths of the heart he can give a secret but most certain assurance that we are heard that we are well pleasing that the Father engages to do for us what we need to hear the voice to receive this assurance is the quiet stillness that waits on God the quiet faith that trusts in God the quiet heart that bows in nothingness and humility before God and allows him to be all in all it is when God is waited on to take his part in our prayer that the confidence will come to us that we receive what we ask that our surrender of ourselves in the sacrifice of obedience is accepted and that therefore we can count upon the Holy Spirit to guide us into all the will of God as he means us to know and do it what glory would come to us in the morning watch and through it into our daily life if it were thus made an hour spent with the triune God for the Father through the Son and the Spirit to take conscious possession of us for the day how little need there then would be to urge and plead with God's children to watch the morning watch 4 and now comes the last and the best of all let your prayer be intersessional on behalf of others in the obedience of our Lord Jesus as in all his fellowship with the Father the essential element was it was all for others this Spirit flows through every member of the body the more we know it and yield to it the more will our life be what God would make it the highest form of prayer is intercession the chief object for which God chose Abraham and Israel and us was to make us a blessing to the world we are a royal priesthood a priestly people as long as prayer is only a means of personal improvement and happiness we cannot know its full power let intercession be a real longing for the souls of those around us a real bearing of the burden of their sin and need a real pleading for the extension of God's kingdom real labour and prayer for definite purposes to be realised let such intercession be what the morning watch is consecrated to and see what new interest and attraction it will have intercession oh to realise what it means to take the name and the righteousness and the worthiness of Christ to put them on and in them to appear before God in Christ's stead now that he is no longer in the world to beseech God by name for the individual men and needs where his grace can do its work in the faith of our own acceptance and of the anointing with the spirit to fit us for the work to know that our prayer can avail to save a soul from death can bring down and dispense the blessing of heaven upon earth to think that in the hour of the morning watch this work can be renewed and carried on day by day each inner chamber maintaining its own separate communication with heaven and helping together in bringing down its share of the blessing it is an intercession more than in the zeal that works in its own strength with little prayer that the highest type of piety the true Christ likeness is cultivated it is an intercession that a believer rises to his true nobility in the power of imparting life and blessing it is to intercession we must look for any large increase of the power of God in the church and its work for men one word in conclusion turn back and think now again about the intimate and vital connection between obedience and the morning watch without obedience there cannot be the spiritual power to enter into the knowledge of God's word and will without obedience there cannot be the confidence the boldness the liberty that knows that it is heard obedience is fellowship with God in his will without it there is not the capacity for seeing and claiming and holding the blessings he has for us and so on the other side without very definite living communion with God in the morning watch the life of obedience cannot possibly be maintained it is there that the vow of obedience can every morning be renewed in power and confirmed from above it is there that the presence and fellowship can be secured which make obedience possible it is there that in the obedience of the one and in the union with himself the strength is received for all that God can ask it is there that the spiritual understanding of God's will is received which leads to walk worthy of the Lord to all well pleasing God has called his children to live a wonderful, heavenly altogether supernatural life let the morning watch each day BTU as the open gate of heaven through which its light and power streams in on your waiting heart and from which you go out to walk with God all the day end of chapter 4 chapter 5 of the school of obedience this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information on to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Joy Chan the school of obedience by Andrew Murray chapter 5 the entrance to the life of full obedience obedient unto death Philippians 2-8 after all that has been said on the life of obedience I purpose speaking in this address of the entrance on that life you might think it a mistake to take this text in which you have obedience in its very highest perfection as our subject in speaking of the entrance on the course but it is no mistake the secret of success in a race is to have the goal clearly defined and aimed at from the very outset he became obedient unto death there is no other Christ for any of us no other obedience that pleases God no other example for us to copy no other teacher from whom to learn to obey Christians suffer inconceivably because they do not at once and heartily accept this as the only obedience there to aim at the youngest Christian will find it a strength in the school of Christ to make nothing less from the commencement his prayer and his vow obedient unto death it is at once the beauty and the glory of Christ a share in it is the highest blessing he has to give the desire for and the surrender to it is possible to the youngest believer if you want to be reminded of what it means think of the story in ancient history a proud king with a great army following him demands the submission of the king of a small but brave nation when the ambassadors have delivered their message he calls one of his soldiers to stab himself at once he does it a second is called he too obeys at once a third is summoned he too is obedient to death go and tell your master that I have three thousand such men let him come the king did count upon men who held their life not dear to them when the king's word called for it it is such obedience God wants it is such obedience Christ gave it is such obedience he teaches be it such obedience and nothing less we seek to learn from the very outset of the Christian life let this be our aim that we may avoid the fatal mistake of calling Christ master and yet not doing what he says let all who by these addresses have in any degree been convicted of the sin of disobedience listen as we study from God's word the way to escape from that and gain access to the life Christ can give the entrance to the life of full obedience the confession and cleansing of the disobedience it is easy to see that this must be the first step in Jeremiah the prophet who more than any other speaks of the disobedience of God's people God says return thou backsliding Israel sayeth the Lord for I am merciful only acknowledge thine iniquity that you have not obeyed my voice sayeth the Lord God turn thy backsliding children the Lord as little as there can be pardon at conversion without confession can there be after conversion deliverance from the overcoming power of sin and the disobedience it brings without a new and deeper conviction and confession the thought of our disobedience must not be a vague generality the special things in which we actually disobey must be definitely found out and in confession given up and placed in the hands of Christ and by him cleansed away then only can there be the hope of entering into the way of true obedience let us search our life by the light of the teaching of our Lord 1. Christ appealed to the law he was not come to destroy the law but to secure its fulfillment to the young ruler he said thou knowest the commandments let the law be our first test let us take a single sin such as that of lying I wrote from a young lady once saying that she wished to obey fully and that she felt urged to confess an untruth she had told me it was not a matter of importance and yet she rightly judged that the confession would help her to cast it from her how much there is in ordinary society how much in school life too that will not stand the test of strict truthfulness and so there are other commandments up to the very last with its condemnation of all coveting and lusting after what is not ours in which too frequently the Christian gives way to disobedience all this must come to a complete end we must confess it and in God's strength put it away forever if there is to be any thought about entering a life of full obedience 2. Christ revealed the new law of love to be merciful as the father in heaven to forgive just as he does to love enemies and do good to them that hate us and to live lives of self-sacrifice and beneficence this was the religion Jesus taught on earth let us look upon an unforgiving spirit when we are provoked or ill-used upon unloving thoughts and sharp or unkind words upon the neglect of the call to show mercy and do good and bless all as so much disobedience which must be felt and mourned over and plugged out like a right eye for full obedience can be ours 3. Christ spoke much of self-denial self is the root of all lack of love and obedience our Lord called his disciple to deny himself and to take up his cross to forsake all to hate and lose his own life to humble himself and become the servant of all he did so because self, self-will, self-pleasing self-seeking is the source of all sin when we indulge the flesh in such a simple thing as eating and drinking when we gratify self by seeking or accepting or rejoicing in what indulges our pride when self-will is allowed to assert itself and we make provision for the fulfilment of its desire we are guilty of disobedience to his command this gradually clouds the soul and makes the full enjoyment of his light and peace and impossibility 4. Christ claimed for God the love of the heart for himself he equally claimed the sacrifice of all to come and follow him but Christian who has not definitely at heart made this his aim who has not determined to seek for grace so to live is guilty of disobedience there may be much in his religion that appears good and earnest but he cannot possibly have the joyful consciousness of knowing that he is doing the will of his Lord and keeping his commandments when the call is heard to come I will begin anew a true life of obedience there are many who feel the desire to do so and try quietly to slip into it they think that by more prayer and Bible study they will grow into it it will gradually come they are greatly mistaken the word God uses in Jeremiah might teach them their mistake turn you back sliding children turn to me a soul that is in full earnest and has taken the vow of full disobedience may grow out of a feeble obedience into a fuller one but there is no growing out of disobedience into obedience a turning back a turning away a decision a crisis is needed and that only comes by the very definite insight into what has been wrong and its confession with shame and penitence then alone will the soul seek for that divine and mighty cleansing from all its filthiness which prepares for the consciousness of the gift of the new heart and God's spirit in it causing us to walk in his statutes if you would hope to lead a different life to become a man or woman of a Christ like obedience unto death do begin by beseeching God for the Holy Spirit of conviction to show you all your disobedience and to lead you in humble confession to the cleansing God has provided rest not till you have received it 2. faith that obedience is possible this is the second step to take that step we must try and understand clearly what obedience is 1. to this end we must attend carefully to the difference between voluntary and involuntary sin it is with the former alone that obedience deals we know that the new heart which God gives his child is placed in the midst of the flesh with its sinfulness out of this there often arises even in one who is walking in true obedience evil suggestions of pride unlovingness impurity over which he has no direct control they are in their nature utterly sinful and vile but they are not imputed to a man as acts of transgression they are not acts of disobedience which he can break off and cast out as he can the disobedience of which we have spoken the deliverance from them comes in another way not through the will of the regenerate man by which obedience always comes but through the cleansing power of the blood and the indwelling Christ as the sinful nature rises all he can do is to abort and trust in the blood that at once cleanses him and keeps him clean it is of great consequence to note the distinction it keeps the Christian from thinking obedience impossible it encourages him to seek and offer his obedience in the sphere where it can avail and it is just a proportion as in its own sphere the power of the will for obedience is maintained that the power of the spirit can be trusted and obtained to do the cleansing work in what is beyond the reach of the will two when this difficulty has been removed there is often a second one arises to make us doubt whether obedience be indeed possible men connected with the idea of absolute perfection they put together all the commands of the bible they think of all the graces these commands point to in their highest possible measure and they think of a man with all those graces every moment in their full perfection as an obedient man how different is the demand of the father in heaven he takes account of the different powers and attainments of each child of his he asks of him only the obedience of each day or rather each hour at a time he seeks whether I have indeed chosen and given myself up to the whole hearted performance of every known command he sees whether I am really longing and learning to know and do all his will and when his child does this in simple faith and love the obedience is acceptable the spirit gives us the sweet assurance that we are well pleasing to him and enables us to have confidence before God because we know that we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight this obedience is indeed an attainable degree of grace the faith that it is is indispensable to the obedient walk you ask for the ground of that faith in God's word you find it in God's new covenant promise I will write my law in their heart I will put my fear in their heart and they shall not depart from me the great defect of the old covenant was that it demanded but did not provide the power for obedience this the new covenant did the heart means the love the life the law put into written into the heart means that it has taken possession of the inmost life and love of the renewed man the new heart delights in the law of God it is willing and able to obey it you doubt this your experience does not confirm it no wonder a promise of God is a thing of faith you do not believe it so cannot experience it you know what invisible writing fluid is you write with it on paper and nothing can be seen by a man who is not in the secret tell him of it and by faith he knows it holds it up to the sun or put some chemical on it and out comes the secret writing so God's law is written in your heart if you believe this firmly and come and say to God that his law is there in your inmost part and hold up that heart to the light and heat of the Holy Spirit you'll find it true the law written in the heart will mean to you the fervent love of God's commands with the power to obey them note in a volume being published about the same time the two covenants and the second blessing I have tried to show how plain how certain how all sufficient the provision is that has been made in the new covenant the covenant of grace for securing our obedience end note a story is told of one of Napoleon's soldiers the doctor was seeking to extract a bullet that had lodged in the region of the heart when the soldier cried cut deeper you'll find Napoleon graven there Christian do believe that the law lives in your inmost being speak in faith the words of David and of Christ I delight to do thy will oh God yea thy law is written on my heart the faith of this will assure you that obedience is possible such faith will help you into the life of true obedience three the step out of disobedience to obedience is by surrender to Christ turn to me ye backsliding children and I will heal your backsliding God said to Israel they were his people but had turned from him the return must be immediate and entire to turn our back upon the divided life of this obedience and in the faith of God's grace to say I will obey maybe the work of a moment the power for it to take the vow to maintain it comes from the living Christ we have said before the power of obedience lies in the mighty influence of a living personal presence as long as we took our knowledge of God's will from a book of men we could not but fail if we take Jesus in his as at once our Lord and our strength we can obey the voice that commands is the voice that inspires the eye that guides is the eye that encourages Christ becomes all in all to us the master who commands the example who teaches the helper who strengthens turn from your life of disobedience to Christ give up yourself to him in surrender and faith in surrender let him have all give up your life to be as full of him of his presence his will his service as he can make it give up yourself to him not to be saved from disobedience that now you may be happy and live your own life without sinning and trouble no but that he may have you holy for himself as a vessel as a channel which he can fill with himself with his life and love for men and me in his blessed service in faith too in a new faith when a soul sees this new thing in Christ the power for continual obedience it needs a new faith take in the special blessing of his great redemption the faith that only understood he became obedient unto death of his atonement as a motive to love and obedience now learns to take the word as scripture speaks it have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus who humbled himself becoming obedient even unto death he believes that Christ has put his own mind and spirit into us and in the faith of that prepares to live and act it out God sent Christ into the world to restore obedience to its place in our heart and life to restore man to his place in the obedience to God Christ came and becoming obedient unto death proved what the only true obedience is he wrought it out and perfected it in himself as a life that he won through death and communicates to us the Christ who loves us who leads and teaches and strengthens us who lives in us is the Christ who was obedient unto death obedient unto death is the very essence of the life he imparts shall we not accept it and trust him to manifest it in us would you enter into the blessed life of obedience see here the open gate Christ says I am the door see here the new and living way Christ says I am the way we begin to see it all our disobedience was owing to our not knowing Christ the right we see it obedience is only possible in a life of unceasing fellowship with himself the inspiration of his voice the light of his eyes the grasp of his hand make it possible make it certain come and let us bow down and yield ourselves to this Christ obedient unto death us partakers with himself of all he is and has End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of The School of Obedience This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Joy Chan The School of Obedience by Andrew Murray Chapter 6 The Obedience of Faith By faith Abraham obeyed Hebrews 11-8 By faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive as an inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing whether he went he believed that there was a land of Canaan of which God had spoken he believed in it as a land of promise secured to him as an inheritance he believed that God would bring him there would show it him and give it him in that faith he dared go out not knowing whether he went in the blessed ignorance of faith he trusted God and obeyed and received the inheritance the land of promise that has been set before us is the blessed life of obedience we have heard God's call to go out and dwell there about that there can be no mistake we have heard the promise of Christ and to give us possession of the land that too is clear and sure we have surrendered ourselves to our Lord and asked of our Father to make all this true in us our desire now is that all our life and work in it may be lifted up to the level of a holy and joyful obedience and that through us God may make obedience the key note of the Christian life we aim promoting in others our aim is high we can only reach it by a new inflow of the power that comes from above it is only by a faith that gets a new vision and hold of the powers of the heavenly world secured to us in Christ that we can obey and obtain the promise as we think of all this of cultivating in ourselves and others the conviction that we only live to please him to serve his purposes some are ready to say this is not a land of promise we are called to enter a life of burden and difficulty and certain failure do not say so my brother God calls you indeed to a land of promise come and prove what he can work in you come and experience what the nobility is of a Christ like obedience unto death come and see what blessing God will give to him who with Christ gives himself the uttermost unto the ever blessed and most holy will of God only believe in the glory of this good land of wholehearted obedience in God in who calls you to it in Christ who will bring you in in the Holy Spirit who dwells and works there he that believeth entereth in I wish then to speak of the obedience of faith and of faith as the sufficient power for all obedience I give you these five simple words as expressive of the disposition of a believing heart entering on that life in the good land I see it I desire it I expect it I accept it I trust Christ for it faith sees it we have been trying to show you the map of the land and to indicate the most important places in that land the points at which God meets and blesses the soul what we need now is in faith quietly and definitely to settle the question is there really such a land of promise in which continuous obedience is certainly, is divinely possible as long as there is any doubt on this point it is out of the question to go up and possess the land just think of Abraham's faith it rested in God in his omnipotence and his faithfulness we have put before you the promises of God hear another of them I will give you a new heart spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my judgments and ye shall keep them here is God's covenant engagement he adds I the Lord have spoken and I will do it he undertakes to cause and enable you to obey in Christ and the Holy Spirit he has made the most wonderful provision for fulfilling his engagement just do what Abraham did fix your heart upon God he was strong in faith giving glory to God being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able to perform God's omnipotence was Abraham's day let it be yours look out on all the promises God's word gives of a clean heart a heart established blameless in holiness of a life in righteousness and holiness of a walk in all the commandments of the Lord unblameable and well pleasing to him of God's working in us to will to do of his working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight in the simple faith God says this his power can do it let the assurance that a life of full obedience is possible possess you faith can see the invisible and the impossible gaze on the vision until your heart says it must be true it is true there is a life promised I have never yet known 2 when I read the gospel story and see how ready the sick and the blind and the needy word to believe Christ's word I often ask myself what it was that made them so much more ready to believe than we are the answer I get in the word is this that one great difference lies in the honesty and intensity of the desire they did indeed desire deliverance with their whole heart there was no need of pleading with them to make them willing to take his blessing 3 faith expects it the difference between desire and expectation is great there is often a strong desire after salvation in a soul who has little hope of really obtaining it it is a great step in advance when desire passes into expectation and the soul begins to save a spiritual blessing I am sure it is for me and though I do not see how I confidently expect to obtain it the life of obedience is no longer an unattainable ideal held out by God to make us strive at least to get a little near it but has become a reality meant for the life in flesh and blood here on earth expect it as most certainly meant for you expect God to make it true there is much indeed to hinder this expectation your past failure your unfavorable temperament or circumstances your feeble faith your difficulty as to what such a devotion, obedient and to death may demand your conscious lack of power for it all this makes you say it may be for others it is not for me I fear I beseech you speak not thus you are leaving God out of account expect to get it look up to his power and his love and do begin to say it is for me take courage from the lives of God's saints who have gone before you Santa Teresa writes that after her conversion she spent more than 18 years of her life in that miserable attempt to reconcile God and her life of sin but at last she was able to write I have made a vow never to offend God in the very least matter I have vowed that I would rather die a thousand deaths than do anything of that kind knowing I was doing it this was obedience unto death I am resolved never to leave anything whatever undone that I consider still to be more perfect and more for the honour of my Lord note she says further we are so long and so slow in giving up our hearts to thee and then thou wilt not permit our possession of thee without our pain well for so precious a possession there is nothing in all the world wherewith to buy the shedding abroad for our hearts but our hearts love God never withholds himself from them who pay this price and persevere in seeking him he will little by little and now and then strengthen and restore that soul until it is at last victorious end note Gerard Ter Stegen had from his youth sought and served the Lord after a time the sense of God's grace was withdrawn from him for five long years he was as one far away on the great sea when neither sun nor stars appear but my hope was in Jesus all at once a light broke on him that never went out and he wrote with blood drawn from his veins that letter to the Lord Jesus in which he said from this evening to all eternity thy will not mine be done command and rule and reign in me I yield up myself without reserve and I promise with thy help and power rather to give up the last drop of my blood than knowingly or willingly be untrue or disobedient to thee that was his obedience unto death set your heart upon it and expect it the same God lives still set your hope on him he will do it chapter 4 faith accepts it to accept is more than to expect many wait and hope and never possess because they do not accept to all who have not accepted and feel as if they were not ready to accept we say expect if the expectation be from the heart and be set indeed upon God himself it will lead the soul to accept to all who say they do expect we urgently say accept faith has the wondrous God-given power of saying I accept I take I have it is for the lack of this definite faith that claims and appropriates the spiritual blessing we desire that so many prayers appear to be fruitless for such an act of faith all are not ready where there is no true conviction of the sin of disobedience and alas no true sorrow for it where there is no strong longing or purpose really in everything to obey God where there is no deep interest that God wants to perfect us to do his will by himself working in us that which is pleasing in his sight there is not the spiritual capacity to accept the blessing the Christian is content to be obeyed he wants only to suck the milk of consolation he is not able to bear the strong meat of which Jesus ate during the will of his father and yet we come to all with the entreaty accept it the grace for this wondrous new life of obedience accept it now without this your act of consecration will come to little without this your purpose to try and be more obedient must fail has not God shown you that there is an entirely new position for you to take a possible position of simple childlike obedience day by day to every command his voice speaks to you through the spirit a possible position of simple childlike dependence on an experience of his all sufficient grace day by day for every command he gives I pray you even now take that position make that surrender take that grace accept and enter on the true life of faith and the unceasing obedience of faith as unlimited and as sure as God's promise and power are may your faith be as unlimited as your faith is will your simple childlike obedience be I'll ask God for his aid and accept all he has offered you 5. Faith trust Christ for all all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus and in him amen unto the glory of God by us it is possible that as we have spoken of the life of obedience there have been questions and difficulties rising to which you cannot at once give answer you may feel as if you cannot take it once or reconcile it with the old habits of thought and speech and action you fear you will not be able at once to bring all into subjection to the supreme all controlling principle do everything as the will of God do all as obedience to him to all these questions there is one answer one deliverance from all these fears Jesus Christ the living saviour knows all and asks you to trust yourself to him for the wisdom and the power to walk ever in the obedience of faith we have seen more than once how his whole redemption as he affected it is nothing but obedience as he communicates it it is still the same he gives us the spirit of obedience as the spirit of our life this spirit comes to us each moment through him he himself keeps charge of our obedience there is none under heaven but what he has and gives and works himself to us as surety for its maintenance and asks us to trust him for it it is in Jesus himself all our fears are removed all our needs supplied all our desires met as he the righteous one is your righteousness he the obedient one is your obedience will you not trust him for it what faith sees and desires and expects and accepts surely it dare trust Christ to give and to work will you not today take the opportunity of giving glory to God and his son by trusting Jesus now to lead you into the promised land look up to your glorified Lord in heaven and in his strength renew with new meaning your vow of allegiance your vow never to do anything knowingly or willingly that would offend him trust him for the faith to make the vow for the heart to keep it for the strength to carry it out trust him the loving one by his living presence to secure both your faith and obedience trust him and venture to join in an act of consecration in the assurance that he undertakes to be its yay and amen to the glory of God by us