The

Scriptures
and
Obedience

“Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to hearken than the
fat of rams.”—1 Samuel 15:22

Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952)

 THE SCRIPTURES
AND OBEDIENCE

Contents

Honouring Christ in the World .................................................................. 3

Dangers of Disobedience ............................................................................... 3
1. God’s Demands upon Man .................................................................... 5
2. Man’s Failure to Meet God’s Demands................................................ 5
3. God’s Provision for Meeting His Demands ........................................ 6
4. Loving God’s Commandments .............................................................. 8
5. Yielding to God’s Commandments....................................................... 8
6. Praying for Enabling Grace .................................................................... 9
7. Enjoying Obedience .............................................................................. 10
© Copyright 1998 Chapel Library: compilation, annotations. Printed in the USA.
Permission is expressly granted to reproduce this material by any means, provided
1) you do not charge beyond a nominal sum for cost of duplication
2) this copyright notice and all the text on this page are included.

Chapel Library is a faith ministry that relies entirely upon God’s faithfulness. We
therefore do not solicit donations, but we gratefully receive support from those who
freely desire to give. Chapel Library does not necessarily agree with all the doctrinal
positions of the authors it publishes.

Worldwide, please download material without charge from our website, or contact the
international distributor as listed there for your country.

In North America, for additional copies of this booklet or other Christ-centered ma-
terials from prior centuries, please contact
CHAPEL LIBRARY
2603 West Wright Street
Pensacola, Florida 32505 USA
Phone: (850) 438-6666 • Fax: (850) 438-0227
chapel@mountzion.org • www.ChapelLibrary.org

2
 THE SCRIPTURES
AND OBEDIENCE

Honouring Christ in the World

All professing Christians are agreed, in theory at least, that it is the
bounden duty of those who bear His name to honour and glorify Christ in
this world. But as to how this is to be done, as to what He requires from us
to this end, there is wide difference of opinion. Many suppose that honour-
ing Christ simply means to join some “church,” to take part in and support
its various activities. Others think that honouring Christ means to speak of
Him to others and be diligently engaged in “personal work.” Others seem to
imagine that honouring Christ signifies little more than making liberal fi-
nancial contributions to His cause. Few indeed realize that Christ is hon-
oured only as we live holily unto Him, and that by walking in subjection to
His revealed will. Few indeed really believe that word, “Behold, to obey is
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1Sa 15:22).
We are not Christians at all unless we have fully surrendered to and “re-
ceived Christ Jesus the Lord” (Col 2:6). Oh, dear reader, we would plead
with you to ponder that statement diligently. Satan is deceiving so many to-
day by leading them to suppose that they are savingly trusting in “the fin-
ished work” of Christ while their hearts remain unchanged and self still
rules their lives. Listen to God’s Word: “Salvation is far from the wicked; for
they seek not thy statutes” (Psa 119:115). Do you really seek His “statutes?”
Do you diligently search His Word to discover what He has commanded?
“He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar,
and the truth is not in him” (1Jo 2:4). What could be plainer than that?
Dangers of Disobedience
“And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”
(Luk 6:46). Reality in life, not glowing words from the lips, is what Christ
requires. What a searching and solemn word is that in James 1:22. “Be ye
doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves!” There
are many “hearers” of the Word, regular hearers, reverent hearers, interest-
ed hearers; but alas, what they hear is not incorporated into the life: it does

3
not regulate their way. And God says that they who are not doers of the
Word are deceiving their own selves!
Alas, how many such there are in Christendom today. They are not
down-right hypocrites, but deluded. They suppose that because they are so
clear upon salvation by grace alone they are saved. They suppose that be-
cause they sit under the ministry of a man who has “made the Bible a new
book” to them, they have grown in grace. They suppose that because their
store of biblical knowledge has increased they are more spiritual. They sup-
pose that the mere listening to a servant of God or reading his writings is
feeding on the Word. Not so! We “feed” on the Word only when we personal-
ly appropriate, masticate,1 and assimilate into our lives what we hear or
read. Where there is not an increasing conformity of heart and life to God’s
Word, then increased knowledge will only bring increased condemnation!
“And that servant, which knew his Lord’s will, and prepared not himself,
neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Luk
12:47).
“Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”
(2Ti 3:7). This is one of the prominent characteristics of the “perilous
times” in which we are now living. People hear one preacher after another,
attend this conference and that conference, read book after book on biblical
subjects, and yet never attain unto a vital and practical acquaintance with
the Truth, so as to have an impression of its power and efficacy on the soul.
There is such a thing as spiritual dropsy,2 and multitudes are suffering from
it. The more they hear, the more they want to: they drink in sermons and
addresses with avidity 3 but their lives are unchanged. They are puffed up
with their knowledge, not humbled into the dusk before God. The faith of
God’s elect is “the acknowledging [in the life] of the truth which is after
godliness” (Ti 1:1), but to this the vast majority are total strangers.
God has given us His Word not only with the design of instructing us,
but for the purpose of directing us: to make known what He requires us to
do. The first thing we need is a clear and distinct knowledge of our duty;
and the first thing God demands of us is a conscientious practice of it, cor-
responding to our knowledge. “What doeth the Lord require of thee, but to
1
masticate – to chew up completely.
2
dropsy – accumulation of fluid in the body, causing swelling.
3
avidity – greedy and intense desire, craving.

4
do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Mic 6:8).
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his
commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc 12:13). The Lord
Jesus affirmed the same thing when He said, “Ye are my friends, if you do
whatsoever I command you” (Joh 15:14).
1. God’s Demands upon Man
A man profits from the Word as he discovers God’s demands upon him:
His undeviating demand, for He changes not. It is a great and grievous mis-
take to suppose that in this present dispensation God has lowered His de-
mands, for that would necessarily imply that His previous demand was a
harsh and unrighteous one. Not so. “The law is holy, and the command-
ment holy, and just, and good” (Rom 7:12). The sum of God’s Law is, “Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy might” (Deu 6:5); and the Lord Jesus repeated it in Matthew
22:37. The apostle Paul enforced the same when he wrote, “If any man love
not the Lord Jesus, let him be Anathema” 4 (1Co 16:22).
2. Man’s Failure to Meet God’s Demands
A man profits from the Word when he discovers how entirely and how
sinfully he has failed to meet God’s demands. And let us point out for the
benefit of any who may take issue with the last paragraph that no man can
see what a sinner he is, how infinitely short he has fallen of measuring up to
God’s standards, until he has a clear sight of the exalted demands of God
upon him! Just in proportion as preachers lower God’s standard of what He
requires from every human being, to that extent will their hearers obtain an
inadequate and faulty conception of their sinfulness, and so the less will
they perceive their need of an almighty Saviour! But once a soul really per-
ceives what are God’s demands upon him, and how completely and con-
stantly he has failed to render Him His due, then does he recognize what a
desperate situation he is in. The Law must be preached before any are ready
for the gospel.

4
anathema – a person accursed or damned.

5
3. God’s Provision for Meeting His Demands
A man profits from the Word when he is taught therefrom that God, in
His infinite grace, has fully provided for His people’s meeting His own de-
mands. At this point, too, practically all present-day preaching is seriously
defective. There is being given forth what may loosely be termed a “half
gospel,” but which in reality is virtually a denial of the true gospel. Christ is
brought in, yet only as a sort of make-weigh. 5 That Christ has vicariously
met every demand of God upon all who believe upon Him is blessedly true,
yet it is only a part of the truth. The Lord Jesus has not only vicariously sat-
isfied for His people the requirements of God’s righteousness, but He has
also secured that they shall personally satisfy them too. Christ has procured
the Holy Spirit to make good in them what the Redeemer wrought for
them.
The grand and glorious miracle of salvation is that the saved are regen-
erated. A transforming work is wrought within them: their understandings
are illuminated, their hearts are changed, their wills are renewed. They are
made “new creatures in Christ Jesus” (2Co 5:17). God refers to this miracle
of grace thus: “I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their
hearts” (Heb 8:10). The heart is now inclined to God’s law; a disposition has
been communicated to it which answers to its demands; there is a sincere
desire to perform it. And thus the quickened soul is able to say, “When thou
saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek”
(Psa 27:8).
Christ not only rendered a perfect obedience unto the Law for the justifi-
cation of His believing people, but He also merited for them those supplies
of His Spirit which were essential unto their sanctification, and which alone
could transform carnal creatures and enable them to render acceptable
obedience unto God. Though Christ died for the “ungodly” (Rom 5:6),
though He finds them ungodly (Rom 4:5) when He justifies them, yet He
leaves them not in that abominable state. On the contrary, He effectually
teaches them by His Spirit to deny ungodliness and worldly lust (Ti 2:12).
Just as weight cannot be separated from a stone, or heat from fire, so can-
not justification and sanctification.

5
make-weigh – something added to a scale to complete the required weight.

6
 When God really pardons a sinner in the court of his conscience, under
the sense of that amazing grace the heart is purified, the life is rectified, and
the whole man is sanctified. Christ “gave himself for us, that he might re-
deem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, [not
“careless about” but] zealous of good works” (Ti 2:19). Just as a substance
and its properties, causes and their necessary effects are inseparably con-
nected, so are a saving faith and conscientious obedience unto God. Hence
we read of “the obedience of faith” (Rom 16:26).
Said the Lord Jesus, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me” (Joh 14:21). Not in the Old Testament, the
gospels, or the epistles does God own anyone as a lover of Him save he who
keeps His commandments. Love is something more than sentiment or emo-
tion: it is a principle of action, and it expresses itself in something more
than honeyed expressions, namely by deeds which please the object loved.
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1Jo 5:3). Oh,
my reader, you are deceiving yourself if you think you love God and yet have
no deep desire and make no real effort to walk obediently before Him.
But what is obedience to God? It is far more than a mechanical perfor-
mance of certain duties. I may have been brought up by Christian parents,
and under them acquire certain moral habits, and yet my abstaining from
taking the Lord’s name in vain, and being guiltless of stealing, may be diso-
bedience to the third and eighth commandments. Again, obedience to God
is far more than conforming to the conduct of His people. I may board in a
home where the Sabbath is strictly observed, and out of respect for them, or
because I think it is good and wise course to rest one day in seven, I may re-
frain from all unnecessary labour on that day, and yet not keep the fourth
commandment at all! Obedience is not only subjection to an external law,
but it is the surrendering of my will to the authority of another. Thus, obe-
dience to God is the heart’s recognition of His lordship: of His right to
command, and my duty to comply. It is the complete subjection of the soul
to the blessed yoke of Christ.
That obedience which God requires can proceed only from a heart which
loves Him. “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord” (Col 3:23). That
obedience which springs from a dread of punishment is servile. That obedi-
ence which is performed in order to procure favours from God is selfish and
carnal. But spiritual and acceptable obedience is cheerfully given: it is the

7
heart’s free response to and gratitude for the unmerited regard and love of
God for us.
4. Loving God’s Commandments
We profit from the Word when we not only see it is our bounden duty to
obey God, but when there is wrought in us a love for His commandments.
The “blessed” man is the one whose “delight is in the law of the Lord” (Psa
1:2). And again we read, “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that de-
lighteth greatly in his commandments” (Psa 112:1). It affords a real test for
our hearts to face honestly the questions. Do I really value His “command-
ments” as much as I do His promises? Ought I not to do so? Assuredly, for
the one proceed as truly from His love as do the other. The heart’s compli-
ance with the voice of Christ is the foundation of all practical holiness.
Here again we would earnestly and lovingly beg the reader to attend
closely to this detail. Any man who supposes that he is saved and yet has no
genuine love of God’s commandment is deceiving himself. Said the psalm-
ist, “O how love I thy law!” (Psa 119:97). And again, “Therefore I love thy
commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold” (Psa 119:127). Should
someone object that that was under the Old Testament, we ask, Do you in-
timate that the Holy Spirit produces less a change in the hearts of those
whom He now regenerates than He did of old? But a New Testament saint
also placed on record, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man”
(Rom 7:22). And, my reader, unless your heart delights in the “law of God”
there is something radically wrong with you: yea, it is greatly to be feared
that you are spiritually dead.
5. Yielding to God’s Commandments
A man profits from the Word when his heart and will are yielded to all
God’s commandments. Partial obedience is no obedience at all. A holy mind
declines whatsoever God forbids, and chooses to practice all He requires,
without any exception. If our minds submit not unto God in all His com-
mandments, we submit not to His authority in anything He enjoins. If we
do not approve of our duty in its full extent, we are greatly mistaken if we
imagine that we have any liking unto any part of it. A person who has no
principle of holiness in him may yet be disinclined to many vices and be
pleased to practice many virtues, as he perceives the former are unfit ac-
tions and the latter are, in themselves, comely actions, but his disapproba-

8
tion 6 of vice and approbation of virtue arise not from any disposition to
submit to the will of God.
True spiritual obedience is impartial. A renewed heart does not pick and
choose from God’s commandments: the man who does so is not performing
God’s will, but his own! Make no mistake upon this point; if we do not sin-
cerely desire to please God in all things, then we do not truly wish to do so
in anything. Self must be denied; not merely some of the things which may
be craved, but self itself! A willful allowance of any known sin breaks the
whole law (Jam 2:10-11). “Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect
unto all thy commandments” (Psa 119:6). Said the Lord Jesus, “Ye are my
friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you” (Joh 15:14). If I am not His
friend, then I must be His enemy, for there is no other alternative (see Luke
19:27).
6. Praying for Enabling Grace
We profit from the Word when the soul is moved to pray earnestly for
enabling grace. In regeneration the Holy Spirit communicates a nature
which is fitted for obedience according to the Word. The heart has been won
by God. There is now a deep and sincere desire to please Him. But the new
nature possesses no inherent power, and the old nature or “flesh” strives
against it, and the Devil opposes. Thus, the Christian exclaims, “For to will
is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom
7:18). This does not mean that he is the slave of sin, as he was before con-
version; but it means that he finds not how fully to realize his spiritual aspi-
rations. Therefore does he pray, “Make me to go in the path of thy
commandments; for therein do I delight” (Psa 119:35). And again, “Order
my steps in thy Word and let not any iniquity have dominion over me” (Psa
119:133).
Here we would reply to a question which the above paragraphs have
probably raised in many minds: Are you affirming that God requires perfect
obedience from us in this life? We answer, Yes, God will not set any lower
standard before us than that (1Pe 1:15). Then does the real Christian meas-
ure up to that standard? Yes and no. Yes, in his heart and it is at that which
God looks (1Sa 16:7). In his heart every regenerated person has a real love
for God’s commandments, and genuinely desires to keep all of them com-
6
disapprobation – disapproval.

9
pletely. It is in this sense, and this alone, that the Christian is experimental-
ly “perfect.” The word “perfect,” both in the Old Testament (Job 1:1; Psa
37:37) and in the New Testament (Phi 3:15), means upright, sincere, in con-
trast with hypocritical.
“Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble” (Psa 10:17). The “de-
sires” of the saint are the language of his soul, and the promise is “He will
fulfill the desire of them that fear him” (Psa 145:19). The Christian’s desire
is to obey God in all things, to be completely conformed to the image of
Christ. But this will only be realized in the resurrection. Meanwhile, God for
Christ’s sake graciously accepts the will for the deed (1Pe 3:5). He knows
our hearts and sees in His child a genuine love for and a sincere desire to
keep all His commandments, and accepts the fervent longing and cordial
endeavour in lieu of an exact performance (2Co 8:12). But let none who are
living in willful disobedience draw false peace and pervert to their own de-
struction what has just been said for the comfort of those who are heartily
desirous of seeking to please God in all the details of their lives.
If any ask, How am I to know that my “desires” are really those of a re-
generate soul? We answer, Saving grace is the communication to the heart
of an habitual disposition unto holy acts. The “desires” of the reader are to
be tested thus: Are they constant and continuous, or only by fits and starts?
Are they earnest and serious, so that you really “hunger and thirst after
righteousness” (Mat 5:6) and pant “after God” (Psa 42:1)? Are they operative
and efficacious? Many desire to escape from hell, yet their desires are not
sufficiently strong to bring them to hate and turn from that which must in-
evitably bring them to hell, namely willfully sinning against God. Many de-
sire to go to heaven, but not so that they enter upon and follow that
“narrow way” which alone leads thereto. True spiritual “desires” use the
means of grace and spare no pains to realize them, and continue prayerfully
pressing forward unto the mark set before them.
7. Enjoying Obedience
We profit from the Word when we are, even now, enjoying the reward of
obedience. “Godliness is profitable unto all things” (1Ti 4:8). By obedience
we purify our souls (1Pe 1:22). By obedience we obtain the ear of God (1Jo
3:22), as disobedience is a barrier to our prayers (Isa 59:2; Jer 5:25). By obe-
dience we obtain precious and intimate manifestations of Christ unto the

10
soul (Joh 14:21). As we tread the path of wisdom (complete subjection to
God), we discover that “her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths
are peace” (Pro 3:17). “His commandments are not grievous” (1Jo 5:3), and
“in keeping of them there is great reward” (Psa 19:11).



11