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man will do his will, he shall know of the teaching whether it be of God."
2. "If any man willeth to do ... he shall know." The quality of our perceptions is to be determined by the character of our wills. If we look after our moral wills our spiritual eyes will attend to themselves. Our visions wait upon our volitions. Moral obedience is the secret of spiritual discernment. " If any man willeth to do " ; that is the first step in the exploration of eternal truth ; that is the " open sesame " into the region of light and glory. " If any man willeth to do," that is the instrument ; " he shall know," that is the consequent revelation. " If any man willeth to do " ; that is the telescope through which we survey the far-stretching panorama of Gospel truth, or it is the microscope through which we discern the mind of God in the immediate problem. " He shall know ! " The first part of the text proclaims the means, the second enshrines the issues.
^ Doing and knowing are blood relations. " Obedience is the organ of spiritual vision " — so Eobertson re-issued the truth, that, if we would know God's doctrine, we must do His will. Experi- ment and experience spring from the same root, and will not grow apart. Do you wish you had a Christian's experience ? Will to make the Christian experiment. Will you know who Christ is, and what He can do for you ? Obey Him ; do as He directs. Do not expect experience without experiment. "Follow me" was Christ's way of saying " Taste and see that the Lord is good : Blessed is the man that trusteth in him." ^
Obeying.
" 1/ any man willeth to do his will, he shall know." Here we have the means by which knowledge of truth is attainable. There are a number of instruments for finding out the will of God. One of them is a very great instrument, so far surpassing all the rest in accuracy that there may be said to be but one which has never been known to fail. The others are smaller and clumsier, much less delicate, indeed, and often fail. They often fail to come within sight of the will of God at all, and are so far astray at other times as to mistake some other thing for it. Still they are * M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every -Day Living, 38,
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instruments and, notwithstanding their defects, have a value by themselves ; and when the great instrument employs their humbler powers to second its attempts, they immediately become as keen and as unerring as itself.
The most important of these minor instruments is Reason \ and although it is a minor instrument, it is great enough in many a case to reveal the secret will of God. God is taking our life and character through a certain process, for example. He is running our career along a certain chain of events. And some- times the light which He is showing us stops, and we have to pick our way for a few steps by the dimmer lights of thought. But it is God's will for us then to use this thought, and to elevate it through regions of consecration, into faith, and to walk by this light till the clearer beam from His will comes back again. Another of these instruments is Experience. There are many paths in life which we all tread more than once. God's lic^ht was by us when we walked them first, and lit a beacon here and there along the way. But the next time He sent our feet along that path He knew the sidelights would be burning still, and let us walk alone. And then there is Circumstance. God closes things in around us till our alternatives are all reduced to one. That one, if we must act, is probably the will of God just then. And then there are the Advice of others — an important element at least — and the Welfare of others, and the Example to others, and the many other facts and principles that make up the moral man, which, if not strong enough always to discover what God's will is, are not too feeble often to determine what it is not.
Even the best of these instruments, however, has but little power in its own hands. The ultimate appeal is always to the one great Instrument, which uses them in turn as it requires, and which supplements their discoveries, or even supplants them, if it choose, by its own superior light, and might, and right. It is like some great glass that can sweep the skies in the darkest night and trace the motions of the farthest stars, while all the rest can but see a faint uncertain light piercing for a moment here and there the clouds which lie between. And this great instrument for finding out God's will, this instrument which can penetrate where reason cannot go, where observation has not been before, and memory is helpless, and the guiding hand of circumstance has
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3o6 THE WILL TO KNOW
failed, has a name which is seldom associated with any end so great, a name which every child may understand, even as the stupendous instrument itself with all its mighty powers is some- times moved by infant hands when others have tried in vain. The name of the instrument is Obedience, Obedience, as it is sometimes expressed, is the organ of spiritual knowledge. As the eye is the organ of physical sight ; the mind, of intellectual sight ; so the organ of spiritual vision is this strange power, Obedience. This is one of the great discoveries the Bible has made to the world. It is purely a Bible thought. Philosophy never conceived a truth so simple and yet so sublime. And, although it was known in Old Testament times, and expressed in Old Testament books, it was reserved for Jesus Christ to make the full discovery to the world, and add to His teaching another of the profoundest truths that have come from heaven to earth — that the mysteries of the Father's will are hid in this word " obey."