God gave his words out of love for the mankind so that they could be protected from the deceiving and evil words of Satan. That is why God teaches complete obedience to the words of God. When we obey the words of God, we can be protected and blessed. But when we disobey his words, we could be easily influenced by the evil scheme of Satan and put into a dangerous situation spiritually. Therefore, we must completely obey the words of God. Then let us find out why we should obey to the words of God through the bible.
Hebrews 5:8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him 10 and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
Matthew 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Romans 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Joshua 6:17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. 18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.”
But Achan took some devoted things for himself and because of this sin of one man all the Israelites were defeated in a war and suffered a heavy loss. Just because of the disobedience of one man, all the people were put in danger and they could not enter and conquer the Promised Land. Finally when the sin of the one man was punished, they could conquer the city.
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| Jonah’s Preaching by Leonaert Bramer |
But also we can see the obedience of one man could bring salvation to everyone in the city. When Jonah was sent to the city of Nineveh, which was a enemy city of Israel, so Jonah became frightened and ran away to another place to save himself. But later he repented and obeyed the words of God and preached his words, to his surprise people of the city–whom he once thought as enemy of Israel–listened to his words and they could be saved from the impending disasters which were proclaimed by God.
Jonah 3:3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth….10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
When Jonah completely obeyed the words of God, he could save 120,000 Ninevites from the destruction. One man’s disobedience can bring calamity to everyone, but also one man’s obedience can bring salvation to many. And the bible says all these things are recorded to teach us a lesson. (Romans 15:4) Then what is the lesson that we should learn from the bible? Just like the Israelites who were conquering the land of Canaan to possess it by fighting against the enemies living in there, in the same way the spiritual Israelites or God’s people are waging a war against the enemy Satan to enter into the Promised Land Canaan, the kingdom of heaven. In this spiritual war, one man’s disobedience can bring disasters to everybody just like Achan who stole devoted things from God and punished for his disobedience. Because of the sins of one man all the nation suffered a heavy loss and defeated from the war.
And also many of the Israelites could not enter the land of Canaan because of their disobedience. Even though 600,000 started journey to the Promised Land, only Joshua and Caleb could enter the land and all other people from the first generation died in the desert as punishment for their disobedience.
Hebrews 3:16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Revelation 14:1 Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. …….They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among mankind and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. 5 No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.
2 Corinthians 10:3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.