p. 3 | Marching Orders by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 23, 1902

Marching Orders

By Uriah Smith

CONSIDERING the work laid upon the servants of God, and what they are to accomplish in the world, what must we conclude would be the commands they are to obey, and the orders they are to fulfill? An immense work is laid out before them. Here it is: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15. “Teaching them,” says Matthew, “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Matt. 28:20. What will be the result of this instruction? “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Mark 16:16.

“All the world” takes in the whole superficial area of the earth, and “every creature” takes in every intelligent inhabitant of the world. Thus the work is plainly laid out. And the least moment’s intelligent thought must make it evident to every one that great activity is required, and that earnest and well-laid plans and courageous determination must precede work.

The marching orders to the church have many times been repeated to them, in their history, and recorded in the revelation God has left on record for their guidance. The ever-binding order

laid upon us is couched in these two living and all-potent words: “Go forward.” This was the word to Israel, as they, in their flight from Egypt, came around up to what was to them an impassable barrier—the Red Sea. The Lord then said unto Moses: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.” Ex. 14:15. But what a preposterous command! Do you not see that worldly policy might have said, Lord, the sea lies directly in the way? And how are we to go forward with such a barrier across our path? Can we conquer the sea?

But the Lord told Moses to lift up his rod and stretch out his hand over the sea, and divide it; and he gave him the assurance that the children of Israel should go over on dry ground, through the midst of the sea. Verse 16. Moses walked out by faith on the Lord’s command; and when the time came, the people followed his lead.

Men often act in this way toward their fellow men, either through faith in their word or in obedience to their commands.

“Sir,” said the Duke of Wellington, to an officer of engineers, who urged the impossibility of executing the directions he had received, “I did not ask your opinion, I gave you my orders; and I expect them to be obeyed.” So the Lord does not ask the opinion of his followers. He gives his orders, and expects them to be obeyed. What force would the words of Christ have had if expressed in this way: Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, if, in your opinion, there is no objection to it; and if you see nothing in the way? If Wellington found it expedient to act so peremptorily as to say, “I gave you my orders; and I expect them to be obeyed,” can our Lord be any less positive in his orders? We read in Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade,”—

“Ours not to reason why, Ours but to do and die.”

Of the Lord’s doings, we cannot say, “Some one has blundered,” for he never calls us into strait places out of which he provides no way of deliverance. So the Christian should act, and at the Master’s word, even through flood and flame, should be on the move, at the thrilling words, “Go forward!”

But this is a hard lesson to learn. “I read some time ago,” says Dr. Richard Newton, “of some volunteers who found this out. The captain was drilling his company of volunteers. The parade ground was a field by the seaside. The men were going through their exercises very nicely; but the captain thought he would give them a lesson about obeying orders. They were marching up and down in a line by the water, at some distance from it. He concluded to give them an order to march directly toward the water, and see how far they would go. The men were marching along. ‘Halt, company,’ said the captain. In a moment they halt. ‘Right face!’ is the next word; and instantly they wheel around. ‘Forward march,’ is the next order. At once they begin to march directly toward the water. On they go, nearer and nearer to it. Soon they reach the edge of the water. Then there is a sudden halt. ‘Vat for you halt?’ cried the captain. ‘Why, captain, here is the water,’ said one of the men. ‘Vell, vot of it?’ said the captain, greatly excited. ‘Vater is nothing; fire is nothing. Ven I say, Forward march! then you must forward march.’”

The captain was right. The first duty of the soldier is to learn to obey.

Dr. Payson says: “What God calls a man to do, he will carry him through. I would undertake,” he says, “to govern half a dozen worlds, if God called me to do it; but if he did not call me to do it, I would not undertake to govern half a dozen sheep.”

In 2 Tim. 2:2-5 the apostle Paul gives some good instruction to those who are willing to become soldiers of Jesus Christ. They are counseled to endure hardness as good soldiers. They must not entangle themselves with the affairs of this life, that they may “please him” who hath chosen them to be soldiers; for no man is crowned except he strive lawfully. Then he must have long patience, even as the husbandman hath long patience till nature perfects the growing crops for the harvest. A missionary returned from India, says that the Hindus do not act on their own convictions; but as showing what the motive is that influences them, he quotes this as one of their phrases: “I do as ten men do;” that is, I will do as ten men do, who will lead the way. The maxim of the Christian should rather be, I will do, not as ten men wish me to do, but I will do as my God wishes me to do.

U. S.