We cannot fulfill God's purpose in our life.
I'm going to call it the obedience of
salvation, the obedience of full surrender, and the
obedience of daily submission to God.
The obedience of salvation, the obedience of full
surrender, and the obedience of daily submission to
God.
Now, first of all, the obedience of salvation.
You're going to say to me, well, salvation
is free.
What are you talking about obedience for?
It is free.
The gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
For you are saved, for by grace are
you saved, through faith, and that not of
yourself, it is the gift of God, not
of works, lest any man should boast.
But there are three calls in salvation, where
God calls us to obey Him.
And the first call that comes to us
in salvation is the call to repentance.
But the times of this ignorance, God went
at, but now commanded all men everywhere to
repent.
Repent ye, and be ye converted, that your
sins may be blotted out.
God calls each one of us to repentance.
I want us all to turn to Amos
4 and to start reading from verse 6
because here God actually calls the nation of
Israel to repentance and they disobeyed God's call
to repentance.
Amos 4 from verse 6 and also God
says, I have given you cleanness of teeth
in all your cities and want of bread
in all your places.
Yet ye have not returned unto me, says
the Lord.
And also I have withholding the rain from
you when there were yet three months to
the harvest and I caused it to rain
upon one city and caused it not to
rain upon another city.
One piece was rained upon and the piece
whereupon it rained not, withered.
So two or three cities wondered unto one
city to drink water but they were not
satisfied.
Yet ye have not returned unto me, says
the Lord.
I have sent among you the pestilence after
the manor of Egypt.
Your young men have I slain with a
sword and I have taken away your horses
and I have made the stink of your
camps to come up to your nostrils.
Yet ye have not returned unto me, says
the Lord.
I have overthrown some of you as God
overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and you were as
a firebrand plucked out of the burning.
Yet ye have not returned unto me, says
the Lord.
Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O
Israel, and because I will do this unto
thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel,
for lo, he that formeth the mountains and
createth the wind and declareth unto man what
is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness
and createth upon the high places of the
earth the Lord, the God of hosts, is
his name.
It is as if Amos couldn't believe that
God had so clearly called Israel to repentance.
He sent one calamity after the other over
their path and yet they didn't return.
And he cries out, Prepare to meet your
God.
And then he says, Do you know who
God is?
Do you know who the God is that
you're going to have to meet one day,
Israel?
He formed the mountains.
He created the wind.
He declares unto man what is his thought.
This is the God that you've got to
meet.
And thinking about what Amos wrote and thinking
about us, years ago I wrote these words,
Prepare, the earnest prophet cried, more time that
day will be denied.
O man, take care.
O man, beware.
You'll surely meet God over there.
God calls to you upon life's way.
He's still his voice from day to day.
You do not think.
You do not care that you will meet
God over there.
God's grace extends the midnight hour.
His clarion voice goes out with fire.
O man, take care.
O man, beware.
You'll surely meet God over there.
If you but turn, receive God's Son, repent.
Thy soul is one.
Too late, thou soul, at heaven's door.
Damnation falls forevermore.
I remember years ago as a young missionary,
I was in a meeting where different people
had come up with a preacher preaching, and
they asked me to sit with a young
girl.
And when I sat with her, she said
she would like to accept the Lord Jesus
Christ as her Savior.
She was a high school student.
But when she started sharing with me, I
began to realize that she didn't want a
Savior from sin.
She just wanted a Savior from hell.
She was in sin.
She wanted to continue in her sin.
She wanted a Savior with her sin.
She was not obeying the call to repentance.
We all know about the two prayers in
the temple that the Lord Jesus spoke about,
the Pharisee and the publican.
The publican was so conscious of his sinful
state that he actually couldn't look down.
He was just calling on God for mercy.
He was in true repentance.
But the Pharisee looked around and said, Oh,
that publican is really a bad person.
I'm so much better than he.
And he had no repentance in his heart.
And the Lord Jesus condemned him.
Sometimes when you grow up in Christian homes,
and we look around at the dreadful sins
of the people around us, so much worse
than we are perhaps doing, we start thinking
of ourselves not in need of repentance because
our sins seem so much whiter than their
sins.
But in God's eyes, there is none righteous,
no, not one.
If we say we have no sins, we
deceive ourselves.
If we say we have not sinned, we
make Him a liar.
The disciples spoke to the Lord Jesus about
the tower of Siloam that fell on those
people.
And they said, Oh, they must have been
so wicked for this tower to fall on
them.
They must have done dreadful sins.
And what did the Lord Jesus say to
them?
He said, Except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish.
Each one of us needs to repent.
There's another call in the obedience of salvation,
and that is the call to seek God.
The Bible says, Seek ye the Lord while
ye may be found.
Call ye upon Him while ye is near.
The Lord Jesus said, Come unto Me, all
ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest.
It also says, Ye shall seek Me, and
ye shall find Me, when ye shall search
for Me with all your heart.
I've been reading the life story of Francis
Ridley Havergill.
I've just gone a bit into the books
that somebody gave me.
And it was just interesting to note, she
had grown up in a Christian home, but
it took her years of seeking to come
to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
We don't just accept God, but we seek
Him with all our heart.
And sometimes we can be disappointed by failures
and others, and we say to ourselves, If
Christianity doesn't work for them, why should I
seek God?
It's not going to work for me.
And we don't seek God.
We've just repented, but we don't seek God.
But the Lord Jesus said, as He said
to the disciple, What is that to thee?
Follow thou thee.
About two years ago, a mother phoned me,
a widowed lady, and she was very concerned
about her daughter.
She was conscious that something was not right,
and she asked her to come to the
house for me to counsel that lady.
But when she knocked at the door, I
opened the door, and there was this beautiful
girl of about 23 standing there.
But something said to me, I must send
Samuel further away and let him do work
where he couldn't listen.
And when this lady started sharing, she said
that she was involved with a married man.
She'd come from a Christian home.
She had a praying mother, and yet she
was involved with a married man.
And what shocked me even more, that there
was no consciousness of the ugliness of her
sin.
There was sympathy for the man.
There was compassion for his loneliness.
It was mind-boggling to see somebody that
had no awareness of her sin, that had
no seeking after God, even though she was
in the depths of sin.
But God says to her, Seek Me, and
ye shall find Me.
Now the third call in salvation, in obedience
of salvation, is to accept.
God calls us to repent, He calls us
to seek Him in salvation, and He calls
us to accept Him.
Now all of us know the Bible story,
the true story of the rich young ruler
who came and threw himself at the Lord
Jesus Christ.
He was desperate.
He ran in front of everybody, and he
threw himself at the Lord Jesus Christ.
But nowhere do we read that he accepted
the Lord Jesus Christ.
In fact, we read in the Bible that
he went away sorrowing.
And it is so sad if we can
come so close to accepting God, but yet
we do not accept Him as our Savior.
He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life.
But as many as received Him, to them
gave He the power to become the sons
of God.
We have to accept God.
There's a song that I loved as a
child.
I used to think of different people that
we were praying for.
It was a sad song.
It said, so near to the kingdom of
heaven, and yet with us again.
Isn't it so sad if we are so
near, but we do not accept Him as
our Savior.
And then it is too late one day
when we enter death or the Lord Jesus
comes.
Why does the gate of God's mercy beckon?
Oh, enter within.
High was the price paid on Calvary to
conquer and cover all sin.
Yet at thy heart, man, he standeth, knocking.
Oh, bid him come in.
Years upon years he is waiting to free
you from guilt and from sin.
It is God, mighty God, you've rejected.
His voice, tender voice, you have stilled.
And slowly, with pride, degradation, your heart, heart,
stony heart, has been filled.
One day when time shall be ended and
God's knock shall never be more, you will
be standing and calling Too late, soul, at
heaven's closed door.
Oh, may it not be said of somebody
in this meeting, too late.
They did not obey God's call to salvation.
But now the second great obedience in our
lives is the obedience of full surrender.
And for those who do know the Lord
Jesus Christ as their Savior, who have obeyed
the call to salvation, the second great obedience
in our lives that is essential for us
to fulfill God's purposes for us is the
obedience of full surrender.
The Bible says no man can serve two
masters.
Either he will hate the one and love
the other or hold to the one and
despise the other.
In Amos 3 verse 3 we read, Can
two walk together except they be agreed?
Now if two walk together, one has to
lead.
Is that not correct?
You cannot walk together unless somebody is telling
you where to go.
And so in the Christian walk we need
to totally give ourselves over to God so
that we can follow where He wants to
lead us.
I recently, the last two months in our
Bible study at home, it was so beautiful
to see God working in a young man's
life where God brought him to this place
of full surrender.
He had a little bit of a foot
in the world, this young man.
You could see that he was tugged by
the world.
And then every Sunday as we went to
church he sat opposite us.
I could see that he went through a
struggle.
God was speaking to him.
God was calling him to full surrender.
And you could literally see the struggle and
the unhappiness and the desperation on his face.
And about, I think, two Sundays ago we
went to church and suddenly his face just
shone.
And you could just see he had one
master.
His face just shone.
At the Bible study we couldn't wait to
share about God and God's word.
You could see he'd been delving in the
Bible.
He was just transformed because he had one
master.
Now if we read in the Old Testament
about the love slave, that's actually a picture
of full surrender.
Because that slave had come to the point
where he could go out free.
And he turns to his master and he
says, I don't want to go out free.
I choose to be your slave.
I want to be your love slave.
And that's what we say to God in
full surrender.
I'm not only going to obey you because
I have to obey you.
I'm not only obeying you because I want
to get to heaven.
I'm obeying you because I love to obey
you.
I want to obey you.
Everything that I am is thine.
George Miller said, there was a day when
I died, utterly died.
Died to George Miller, his opinion, his preference,
his faith, his will.
Died to the world, its approval or censure.
Died to the approval or blame even of
my friends and brethren.
And since then, I have studied only to
show myself approved unto God.
One master, approved unto God.
My granny said to us when we were
children, if you have the cross in your
life, if you have died to self, all
it means, my darling, she said to us
because we were still very little, is that
Mr. I has been crossed out.
The cross is Mr. I crossed out.
That's all the cross is.
So she said, when your mommy comes home
from Port Elizabeth and you don't go to
mommy and say, what have you brought for
us?
You say, mommy, what can I do for
you?
Can I make you a cup of tea?
It's what he wants, not what I want.
It's the I crossed out.
I mentioned at Rochester that there was a
lad in the Solomon Islands that a knight
mentioned that a man came to who tried
to influence him to gamble.
He was a simple lad, not a learned
person.
And he told him, I want to teach
you how to gamble.
And this boy said, I'm sorry, sir, but
I can't gamble.
I haven't got any hands.
So the man said, don't be ridiculous.
There are your hands.
You've got hands.
What are you talking about?
And the lad says, no, these hands are
not my hands.
They belong to Jesus.
And in that simple way, that simple lad
had grasped what we sometimes do not grasp,
that when we surrender ourselves to God, we
give every part of ourselves, every part of
our being, in one dedication of ourselves.
We all know about F.B. Meyer, how
God said to him, give me the keys
of your life.
And it was so literal to him, God
saying, give me the keys of your life,
that my dad said, he read in a
book that F.B. Meyer literally took out
a bunch of keys and put it down
on the table.
And then God said, there is a little
key that's not there.
And he said to God, all the keys
of my life.
And that's what full surrender is.
When I surrender myself to God and I
say, God, thou canst have every key of
my life.
Romans 12 verse 1 and 2 says, I
beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of
God, that you present your bodies, a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.
And be not conformed to this world.
They would never do what I'm asking of
you.
Be not conformed to this world, but be
you transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that you may prove that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God for your life.
There were so many little things I gave
up, Lord, to thee.
Somehow I thought I'd sacrificed what was required
of me.
And then I read thy word anew, which
said so tenderly, My child, I ask not
little things, but every part of thee.
And that's what God asks of us.
Every part of thee.
Now we come to the third obedience.
And the third obedience is perhaps the most
difficult obedience.
But if we have obeyed God in the
call to salvation, if we have obeyed God
in the call to full surrender, then the
obedience of daily submission to God should not
be difficult for us.
But this obedience is an obedience between us
and God.
It involves choices that only we know about.
It is choices between us
and obedience between us and God.
It involves choices that only we know about.
It is choices between us and God.
Choices that nobody else knows about.
The choice to go the extra mile.
The choice to be patient and compassionate with
a difficult child or a sister or a
brother, a father or a husband.
My mom told me the story that when
she was a young girl in the valley
that they lived at, there was a dear
little lady.
She was tiny.
She was like a little bird, my mom
said.
And she was such a wonderful Christian.
She served the Lord.
She always had missionaries in the home.
If there was somebody sick, this little lady
would take a little basket of goodies to
the person.
She was wonderful.
But she had a very difficult husband.
And he only got saved later in her
life.
But my mom said that sometimes she used
to arrive at the farm and this little
lady used to come running out to meet
him.
And she used to say, My dear, please
be very careful how you speak to my
husband today.
It's taken me hours to get him into
a good mood.
Let's keep him so.
So there are many choices that we make
that are only between us and God, that
only God knows about.
And that His smile rests upon.
There's a choice to witness or not to
witness.
A choice to answer back or not to
answer back.
A choice to defend myself when I know
I'm right.
Or just to be quiet that God can
defend my cause.
A choice that determines the way I dress.
O child of God, thy steps thy dress
should God's allegiance claim.
One look should tell a mocking world that
thou dost bear His name.
A choice in our dress.
A choice to bear all things, to hope
all things, to endure all things.
Choices that nobody knows about.
But we know because it's a choice that
we know God is asking of us.
A lady wrote to me recently and she
spoke about a choice they made as a
family.
They were going to take in a very
difficult, unsaved mother into their home.
It was a choice they made.
But that choice resulted in many more choices.
It was the start of many choices in
which they had to be obedient to God.
Difficult choices that they made and that they
would continually be making.
One of the most important areas of submission
in our daily submission to God is in
the area of our tongue.
It is there that we can fail so
deeply.
Not so long ago, about a year ago,
a year and a half ago, I was
so saddened by Christian workers who were failing
through the tongue.
They were undermining each other.
They were accusing each other.
Slanders were spreading from the one side of
our country to the other and they were
Christian workers.
Young Christians were stumbling over what they were
doing and what they were saying.
Their own children became bitter and the world
started saying if that's how a Christian acts,
where is Christianity?
And in praying for them and thinking of
them, I wrote a few verses on the
tongue.
There is a little member which is not
hard to find.
It is a mighty weapon which cannot be
confined.
It can bring joy and comfort.
It spews both hurt and woe.
A balm to weary pilgrims.
A help against the foe.
A weaker brother stumbling is made to turn
around.
A wounded sister bleeding is lifted from the
ground.
But ah, this little member can cause a
world of pain.
If not to God surrendered, His servant to
ordain.
It hurts, it cuts, it murders the lives
of fellow men.
It dims the light of heaven.
It makes the world condemned.
Ah, little son, I beg thee, bend to
thy Lord above that on the path you
travel your ministry is love.
May we guard our tongues and be obedient
to God with our tongues.
But you know, each home is different.
Each home has different choices.
I don't know about you.
Have you sometimes looked at the next home
and think, oh, it must be so much
easier for that person to be obedient to
God in her dailyhood?
Circumstances seem so much easier than mine.
It's much more difficult for me to be
obedient and submissive to God.
But there's an Indian proverb that you can
probably quote better than I can, which says,
if you haven't walked in another's moccasins, you
don't know anything about their experiences.
And even though others might look as if
they've got easier choices to make, each one
of us, it's not easy to be obedient
to God in daily submission in the home.
Daniel is a wonderful example to us of
daily submission.
We all know about Daniel when he initially
says, I will not.
But Daniel purposed in his heart, in Daniel
1 verse 8, not to defile himself with
the king's meat.
He was a young man and he made
that decision, I'm going to follow God all
the way.
But that was the beginning of many choices,
of many yes lords in his life.
And the choices didn't become easier to make.
They were more difficult.
He ended up in a den of lions.
But Daniel did not only say, I will
not.
He continually said, I will not listen to
the devil.
I will obey God.
I will not, Daniel purposed.
And what a stand made he to all
the dangers he had faced.
He never swerved from thee.
I will not, blessed purpose, to meet the
tempting foe.
For then my very will is schooled to
firmly answer no.
I will not be your purpose, dear child
of God today.
So that no one, no thing, no call
can tempt you from God's way.
And so we have to daily say, I
will not.
I will listen to God and I will
not listen to Satan.
What God is actually asking us in our
daily submission to him is really to be
faithful to him in everything that we do.
He's just asking us to be faithful.
We've saved, we've dedicated our lives to him
and now he says to us, my child,
I want you to be faithful to me
in all the little issues of life that
nobody else knows about but you and I
know about.
Just to be faithful, that's all I ask.
Not an impossible, grievous task.
Just to be faithful throughout the day.
Just to be following all of the ways.
That little word that I asked you to
say was springing to harvest some far distant
day.
That little visit you knew you should do
has made a poor sister to take hope
anew.
That little arm you were prompted to give
has given another the courage to learn.
And so through your life I will whisper
to you all the small things I would
want you to do and when you're in
heaven my praises shall sing may you have
been faithful in serving your King.
That's all God asked of us.
Just to be faithful.
We do not press realize that even though
our choices are only between us and God,
secret choices, yet those choices are witnessed by
those in the home.
And they know if we are obedient to
God.
They sense if we are disobedient to God.
They know if we are submissive to His
will and they do know they're not.
And Paul speaks about that when he says
in 2 Corinthians 3 verse 2 he says
he calls the Corinthians an epistle known and
read of all men.
What does that mean?
They are a letter known and read of
all men.
And that's what we are in the home.
We are a letter, an open letter where
our disobedience or obedience is read by those
in the home.
A letter in the home am I my
life is written bold in every action, every
word, a message is being told.
What is the message I portray from week
to week, from day to day?
Is it a round of constant strife or
Christ in every sphere of life?
A letter, what a solemn thought a letter
good or ill hath wrought.
O God may mine obedience bring to bring
my family to Thee.
I was always struck by those words of
the Lord Jesus about Jerusalem.
The Lord Jesus said, I would but ye
would not.
And I've thought a lot about that and
I've thought how sad it is if God
looks at our lives and he says, I
would but ye would not.
And I don't know about you but when
you get towards the end of the year,
which we are getting to, I often look
back over the year and I look at
the year and I say Lord, did I
obey Thee?
Was Thou able to fulfill Thy purposes in
my life for this year?
Or will Thou write across my life, I
would but ye would not.
What sad words they are.
If we were disobedient in our daily obedience
to God, in our daily submission to God,
that He would say across our lives, ye
would not.
I would, my child, this year that you
had grown, that you, my word, had better
known.
I would have led you higher on the
way.
I would have fashioned, oh, the broken clay,
but ye would not.
I would that you, a tender mother, be,
knowing your child, my special gift to thee,
taking the time to let him learn of
me, teaching the sacrifice of Calvary, but ye
would not.
Will you heed all that I do ask
of thee?
Will you reveal what I so long to
see?
Will you respond to my own agony?
Will you obey your Master's tender plea in
daily submission?
Or will you not?
There's still part of the year left.
Joshua is another biblical example, a wonderful example
of daily submission to God, of continual submission
to God.
Joshua stood with Moses in his youth.
He was the one that was with Moses
when the other Israelites turned from God to
do the golden calf.
Joshua was one of those spies who said,
we must trust God.
He stood with Caleb.
Joshua led them through Jordan.
He obeyed God with Jericho, marching around.
He was willing to have Achan killed because
he was disobedient to God.
Joshua followed God through his life.
But suddenly in the Bible we get Joshua
in his old age.
He's an old man now.
He's not young anymore.
He'd been obedient, but now he stands before
Israel as an old man.
He knows there isn't much time left for
him.
And what does Joshua say?
Choose ye today whom ye shall serve, but
as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord.
What is Joshua actually saying?
I served God all my life, but today
again I reiterate my determination to serve God.
And that is actually what daily submission means.
We need this in the morning when we
wake up to say, as for me, I
will serve the Lord today.
Just as Joshua did.
Joshua said to the nation of Israel, choose
ye today whom ye shall serve.
And I think in a sense that's what
God says to us every morning when we
wake up.
My child, choose ye today whom ye shall
serve, because it's so easy to not serve
it.
O wondrous day when thee I chose, and
mercy reached my deepest woes, and I in
sorrow clung to thee to save my soul
eternally.
My choice was made, the battle won, with
sin, with the past forever done.
And yet each day I make a choice,
as silently I hear thy voice so tender
saying, Whose art thou in this small matter
wilt thou bow?
The bed seems oh so warm and sweet,
another sleep for him I'll meet.
Ah, then I'm robbed of inner power.
I choose to miss that sacred hour.
At school I choose to linger near when
dirty words I know are here, or else
I turn and run away so that my
heart can purer stay.
At work I choose to compromise and drift
along with sin and lies, or else I
stand for truth and right, although it is
a harder fight.
I find the world that beckon me to
places I should never be, and I must
choose to stand alone.
If I would reach that higher home, temptation
comes to me each day to lead me
from the narrow way, and I must ever
cling to him to keep my choices free
from sin.
God called us to obey him in the
call to salvation.
He calls us to obey him and to
give our bodies as a living sacrifice to
him in full surrender.
And thirdly, he called us every day of
our life to bow to him and to
say not my will, but thy will be
done.
May God help each one of us to
be obedient to him in these calls so
that we can shine for him in our
home and in our surroundings.
Amen.