A Jot from John
It is said that a certain king employed two servants to dip the water from a well that was on his premises. He placed a basket into which they should pour the water, and left them to the performance of the task. One of them reasoned thus: “It will be of no use to pour the water into the basket, for it will run out and be lost. Therefore, I will not do it.” And he put down his bucket and went away.
The other said, “Though I see no reason for doing this except that the king has commanded it, he undoubtedly has a good reason for it.” And so, he continued dipping water until the last bucketful was poured into the basket, then he saw in the bottom of the basket a diamond of great value. The king was very pleased with the faithfulness of this servant and made him the chief officer of his realm. He had shown himself faithful in a little thing; he would be made ruler over many.
This little fable teaches one thing if it teaches anything at all; -- that whether we can understand by human reason why God commands certain things or not, it is our duty to obey. Someone wrote, “Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do or die.” This is so very true. We do not walk by what we see but by what we believe. “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7). We can afford to follow our Lord for he will not lead us astray. “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,” said Jesus. Darkness is dispelled wherever Jesus goes. And, if we walk, “in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7.)
Many things that the Lord commands us to do seem to be very foolish to some. In fact, Paul, in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians discusses some things that men count foolish. But, he adds, “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” He did not say that foolish preaching pleased God, but the foolishness of preaching. There is entirely too much foolish preaching in the world today. People in Paul’s day looked upon preaching as so much nonsense . . . some have the same attitude now. But the preaching was not foolish; men just looked upon it as being foolish.
It is never foolish to do what God commands. I can’t understand why he commanded the children to march around the walls of Jericho to bring them down; I can’t understand why Moses had to speak to the rock to bring forth water; why Naaman had to dip seven times in the Jordan to have his leprosy cleansed; why the blind man had to wash in the pool of Siloam, but when these did what they could not understand, God blessed them just as he said he would.
We may not understand any particular reason for preaching, for hearing, for believing, for repenting of sins, for confessing Christ before men, for being baptized into Christ, except God commanded these acts.
Onward Rejoicing, John B. Daniels, Associate Minister
