His mother said to the servants, "Whatever he says to you, do it."
Is it your wish that, until you enter into his rest, you should always bear his yoke, and follow his footsteps? Temporary Christians are not Christians. Those who ask for furlough from this divine service have never entered it. We have put on our regimentals never to take them off. As certain old knights in times of war slept in their armor, and had the lance and shield always ready to hand, so must the Christian be, from this time forth and for ever. "Ours not to reason why," ours not to delay when the command comes; but ours, while there is breath in our body, and life in our spirit, to serve him who hath redeemed us with his precious blood. Thus I have feebly set before you what it is that we are called to do, that is, to obey Christ's orders.  II. Now for a few minutes let us ask, WHY IS THIS TO BE DONE? Beloved, why were these men to do what Jesus bade them? Let that melt into, "Why are you and I to do what Jesus bids us?"  First,  Christ is by nature worthy of obedience. I count it an honor to serve Christ. Oh, what is he? Perfect Man, rising nobly above us all; perfect God, infinitely majestic in his two natures. Why, it seems to me as if we ought to love to do his bidding, and long to be conformed to his image! Here is the rest for our aspiring spirit. Here are the glory and the honor and the immortality for which we pant. By the glory of Christ, whom you unseen adore, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." Beside that,  Christ is our only hope. All our prospects for the future depend upon him. Glory be to his blessed name! There is none like him. If he were gone from us, and we could not trust in him, life would be an endless darkness, an abyss of woe. By all the glory of his nature, and all that we owe to him, and all that we look for from him, I charge you, beloved friends, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." More than that,  he is all-wise, and so fit to lead. Who but he could get these people out of their trouble at the feast when they wanted wine? He knew the way out of it all, a way that would manifest his own glory, and make his disciples believe in him, and make everybody round about happy. But if be did not show the way, nobody could. So let us obey him, for his commands are so wise. He never has made a mistake, and he never will. Let us commit our way unto his keeping; and whatsoever he saith unto us, let us do it. Besides, beloved,  Christ has hitherto rewarded our obedience. Did you ever act rightly, and after all find it a mistake? Some of us have had to do very grievous things in our time, that have gone sorely against the grain. Would we do them again? Ay, that we would, if they cost ten times as much! No man has ever, in looking back, to regret that he followed the voice of conscience, and the dictates of God's Word; and he never will, though he should even go to prison and to death for Christ's sake. You may lose  for Christ, but you shall never lose  by Christ. When all comes to be totalled up, you shall be a greater gainer because of the apparent loss. He has never deceived you, and never misled you. Obedience to him has always brought you real solid peace. Therefore, "whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." Yet once more,  Christ is our Master, and we must obey him. I hope, beloved, that there is no one among us here who would call him Master, and yet not do the things that he says. We do not talk about him as one who was once great, but who is gone away, and whose influence is now upon the wane, because he is not up to "the spirit of the age." No, but he still lives, and we still commune with him. He is our Master and Lord. When we were baptized into his death, it was no mere matter of form; but we were dead to the world, and we lived to him. When we took his sacred name upon us, and were called Christians, it was no sham; we meant that he should be Captain, King, and Master of our spirits. He is no Baali, that is, domineering lord; but he is Ishi, our Man, our Husband; and, in his husbandly relationship he is Lord and Governor of every thought and every motion of our nature. Jesus, Jesus, thy yoke is easy, and thy burden is light! It is lightsome and joyous to bear it. To get away from it, would be misery indeed; and that is one reason why I say to you to-night, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it," because if you do not, you cast off your allegiance to him; and what are you going to do then? To whom will you go if you turn away from him? Every man must have a master. Will you be your own master? You cannot have a greater tyrant. Will you let the world be your master? Are you going to be a servant of "society"? There are no worse slaves than these. Are you going to live for pelf, for honor, for what is called "pleasure"? Ah, me, you may as well go down to Egypt, to the iron furnace, at once! To whom can we go? Jesus, to whom can we go, if we go away from thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life. "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar." Throw another bond of love about me, another cord of sweet constraint, and let me never even think of parting with thee. Let me be crucified to the world, and the world to me. Do not your hearts pray after that fashion? Oh, to be wholly Christ's, entirely Christ's, for ever Christ's! Yes, yes, we will listen to the command, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." I have given you the reason why we should obey Christ's orders.  III. And now, beloved, let me occupy the last few minutes in answering this question, WHAT WILL FOLLOW FROM THIS OBEDIENCE? Suppose we do whatever Christ commands us, what then? I will tell you what then.  The first thing is, that you will feel  free from responsibility. The servant, who has done what his master has bidden him, may in his own mind fear that some dreadful consequences may follow, but he says to himself, "It will be no fault of mine. I did what I was bidden to do." Now, beloved, if you want to get rid of the whole burden of life, by faith do whatsoever Christ commands you. Then, if the heavens should seem about to fall, it would be no business of yours to shore them up. You have not to mend God's work, and keep it right. I remember what Mr. John Wesley said to his preachers: "Now, brethren, I do not want you to mend my rules. I want you to obey them." That is pretty strong from John Wesley; but from our Lord Jesus Christ it comes most suitably. He does not want us to get altering, and mending, and touching up, and looking at consequences. No; do exactly what he tells you, and you have nothing to do with the consequences. You may have to bear them, but that he will give you grace to do; and it shall be your joy to bear all ill consequences that come of firm obedience to Christ. This kind of doctrine does not suit the year 1889. If you go over to Scotland, and see where the Covenanters' graves are, anybody who thinks according to the spirit of this age will say that they were just a set of fools to have been so stubborn and so strict about doctrine as to die for it. Why, really, there is not anything in the now philosophy that is worth dying for! I wonder whether there is any "modern thought" doctrine that would be worth the purchase of a cat's life. According to the teaching of the broad school, what is supposed to be true to-day may not be true to-morrow, so it is not worth dying for. We may as well put off the dying till the thing is altered; and if we wait a month, it will be altered, and thus, at the last, you may get the old creed back again. The Lord send it, and send us yet a race of men who will obey what he bids them, and do what he tells them, and believe what he teaches them, and lay their own wills down in complete obedience to their Lord and Master! Such a people will feel free from responsibility. Then you shall feel  a sweet flow of love to Christ. The disobedient child well, he will not be turned out of the house, because he will not do the bidding of his mother and father; but when he does not submit to the rule of the house, he has a hard time of it, and he ought to have. There is that evening kiss, it is not as warm as it would have been; and that morning greeting, after long disobedience, has no happiness in it; and, indeed, the more kind father and mother are, the more unhappy he is. And the sweet love of Christ is such that it makes us unhappy in disobedience. You cannot walk contrary to Christ, and yet enjoy fellowship with him; and the more dear and near he would be to you, so much the wider does the gap seem to be when you are not doing his bidding. Besides, there is no  carrying out your faith except by doing as he bids you. That faith which lies only in a creed, or in a little pious book, is not good for much. Faith does what Christ bids it do, and it delights to do so. It rejoices to run risks, it delights to put off from the land, and get out to sea. It is glad to sacrifice itself when Jesus calls for it, because faith cannot be satisfied without bearing fruit, and the fruit of faith is obedience to him in whom we believe. Beloved, I also think that, if we will obey Christ in what he says, we shall be  learning to be leaders. Wellington used to say that no man is fit to command until he has learned to obey; and I am sure that it is so. We shall never see a race of really first-rate men unless our boys and girls are made to obey their parents in their childhood. The essential glory of manhood is lost when disobedience is tolerated; and, certainly, in the Church of God, the Lord does put his leading servants through very severe ordeals. The best place for the books of a minister is not his library, but a sick-bed very often. Affliction is our school; and before we can deal with others, God must deal with us. If thou wilt not obey, thou shalt not be set to command. And lastly, I do believe that learning to obey is  one of the preparatives for the enjoyments of heaven. Why, in heaven, they have no will but God's will! Their will is to serve him, and delight themselves in him; and if you and I do not learn here below what obedience to God is, and practice it, and carry it out, how could we hope to be happy in the midst of obedient spirits? Dear hearers, if you had never learned to trust Christ and obey him, how could you go to heaven? You would be so unhappy there that you would ask God to let you run nto hell for shelter, for nothing would strike you with more horror than to be in the midst of perfectly holy people who find their delight in the service of God. May the Lord bring us to this complete obedience to Christ! Then this world will be an inclined plane, or a ladder such as Jacob saw, up which we shall trip with holy gladness till we come to the top, and find our heaven in perfect obedience to God. It is not Mary who speaks to you to-night, but it is the Church of God, the mother of all who truly love Christ; and she says to you, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it," and if you will do it, he will turn the water into wine for you. He will make your love more glad and happy than it ever would have been without obeying him, and he will provide for you. Obey him, and he will comfort you. Obey him, and he will perfect you. Be with him in the ways of duty, and you shall be with him in the home of glory. The Lord grant this, of his infinite grace, giving to us to know the will of Christ, and then working in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure! Amen and Amen.