"AS I DO, SO SHALL YE DO"

“AS I DO, SO SHALL YE DO”

I must write to you, as I am not to see you before you leave England. It is a highly privileged post to be one of the 300. And there was only one thing required of them or enjoined. They had been proved to be truly devoted, so devoted that present mercies could not divert them from their service. The one thing enjoined was Gideon’s word: “As I do, so shall ye do” (Judges 7: 17). This is the order now, and it is very encouraging and helpful because it confines our eyes to Him only. The eye likes to look where the heart rests, so no way could be easier or happier for us to learn our duty.

^[p. 226] Whatever He is doing that surely is the happiest thing for me to do. You must be near Him to see what He is doing.

A servant knoweth not what his master doeth. To see what the Lord is doing in a place, and to follow in His wake, is the sure road to success. When we originate we look for Him to bless our endeavour, and this at best is only gilding the potter’s clay. But when He leads and we follow it is all pure metal. Perhaps there is nothing in which the missionary errs more than in attempting to import the line of blessing in which he has been in England into the new country. It is like introducing the treasures of a civilised country into an uncivilised one. True, I am not to surrender civilisation when I go to a less ordered country, but I should have patience in promoting it. How much more when I go as a missionary of the light that is above the brightness of the sun should I learn from the Lord how far He is in the work I am about to enter on, how He has gone before working in their souls. I am not to surrender my light because of their twilight, but I am not, on the other hand, to press them beyond what they are able to bear. Where the Lord is, there am I His servant to be, for He knows where they are, and true teaching and help must reach souls where they are.

Gideon’s order holds good, “As I do, so shall ye do”. The Lord is about, through you and others, I trust, to shed great light on your native land. It is very blessed that no service can be truly done apart from Him; as the branch is nothing without the sap, so is our work nothing apart from Him. It is not only that dependence is necessary, but there is a positive consolation in the fact that “without me ye can do nothing”. The Lord keep you happily dependent on Him, counting it, as it undoubtedly is, the brightest moment of your life when your eyes are simply set on Him, and thus conscious of how you receive power from Him. May He richly and abundantly bless you.