Obedience Rethought
by Dr. Ken Matto
(Mat 21:28-29 KJV) But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came
to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. {29} He answered and
said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went.
The above passages are taken from the Parable of the two sons. Jesus told this
parable concerning two sons. A father who owned a vineyard came to his sons and
asked them if they would work in his vineyard. The first son said that he did
not want to go but later he had a change of heart and went to work in the field.
The second son had told his father that he would go to work in the field but he
did not. The second son was an outright liar who was also probably lazy but
wanted to impress his father by telling him that he would go out into the field.
Did this son actually believe that his father would not find out that he lied?
The first son was probably telling his father honestly that he did not want to
go work in the field. Yet something changed his mind. Maybe it was the fact that
his father was kind to him or the fact that maybe his father had supplied a good
home for him from the fruits of the vineyard. Yet, whatever happened, this son
had a change of heart which caused him to go to work in the vineyard.
This is representative of the mindset that many Christians have. It is a natural
reaction to some type of ministry which the Lord has given us and because we
feel inadequate, we initially believe that we will never be able to handle the
ministry. Then as we go along we begin to have a change of heart and then once
we are convicted of that assignment, we will go into it full blast. Yet how many
times does God have to prod us before we finally realize what our life’s calling
is. There have been many missionaries who were called to the field that
initially refused to go. They bartered with God and told Him that if they could
go into business they would fund missions to the best of their ability. Think
about it for a minute, if no one went to the mission field, then who would the
businesses be funding?
I think we have all tried to barter with God at some times in our life when He
calls on us to do something. We must keep in mind a very special principle. When
God calls us for a certain ministry, there is no way that we are going to refuse
it and tell God to get someone else to do it. Guess who found that out the hard
way? Remember Jonah? He received his marching orders from God and refused to go
to Nineveh. He then entered into a boat which was literally going hundreds of
miles in the opposite direction. Like Jonah, many Christians do not feel that
their disobedience will affect anybody else. The total opposite is true as we
see in Jonah the consequences of his disobedience. Unlike God blessing
Potiphar’s house for the sake of Joseph, God had brought calamity on the ship
where Jonah was. You see, our obedience can bring the blessing of God to others
while our disobedience can bring the stern hand of God against us and our
surroundings. I wonder how many homes been upset because of the disobedience of
God’s children within that home.
We must never entertain the notion that if we are disobedient to God, that
somehow we will get away with it. That can never happen! This does not only
apply to parents who may be walking disobediently but it also applies to the
children in the home too. Christian children are just as accountable to God as
Christian adults are. Look at the extended consequences of Jonah’s disobedience.
(Jonah 1:5 KJV) Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god,
and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of
them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was
fast asleep. Here we see that the sailors were so afraid that the ship was going
to be destroyed that they even threw the merchandise, their cargo, overboard.
Now that merchandise probably did not belong to the crew but to someone who was
paying them to transport it.
Now those third parties had nothing whatsoever to do with the disobedient Jonah,
yet because he was disobedient, they also suffered loss. Our disobedience to God
will affect people with a ripple effect. Throw a stone in a pond and you will
see the ripples go away from the center. Well that is how we affect people that
we do not even know. In the military, Generals and Admirals make decisions which
affect people that they do not even know. When a soldier dies, the commanding
officer will not likely know the name of the soldier, but his action affected
that soldier and his immediate and extended families plus his friends. We must
learn a mighty lesson from this that every action that we take will have an
effect upon someone.
There might be some who are reading this right now that some time in the past
the Lord had given you a ministry and you walked away from it hoping that
someone else would fill your shoes, yet you know in the back of your mind that
God is not allowing you to remain disobedient. If we know that somehow we walked
disobediently, then we must become like the first son who repented of his
refusal to go work in God’s vineyard. Then if we become obedient and repent of
any past refusals, we may find that the second time will be harder on us.
Delayed obedience will definitely have an effect upon us. It is better to obey
God the first time, even if we do not understand what is happening. This is why
the Christian life goes from faith to faith and not from sight to sight. (Rom
1:17 KJV) For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith:
as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
(2/25/05)
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