Bishop Fulton Sheen on Suffering

Our Times and All Times

Wisdom for his times that can fit in ours too. On understanding the times, and freedom.







Behold, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

Truth: Obedience: A Study of Obedience

[Adapted and excerpted from a study by me on the topic of obedience. It was written to be read aloud, and to a small group of teens.]


Why does obedience matter?

Obedience is something God loves, and, consequently, something God blesses. Disobedience is punished in the same manner and degree that obedience is blessed. I have a raft of Scripture examples of all this, if you want. (Exodus 15:26; 19:5; 20:6; 23:22 Leviticus 26:3-43 Deuteronomy 4:1,4) Perhaps the most famous example of God blessing obedient people is one of the Ten Commandments. Deuteronomy 5:16 and Exodus 20:12 both have the same words. “'Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD, your God, has commanded you, that you may have a long life and prosperity in the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you.” The New Testament, in Colossians 3:20 and Ephesians 6:1, says it straight out. Obey your parents, because it is the right thing to do and pleases the Lord.

Consequently, the first type of obedience I am choosing to deal is obedience to parents. It is clearly Scriptural, and it is just as clearly hard. Parents say stupid things, do stupid things, make stupid rules, etc. Moreover, society does not make it easier, either. From day one, it teaches us, and expects us, to rebel against our parents. As teenagers, this is especially hard. Dare I use the phrase ‘teenage rebellion’?

However, none of this matters. It does not matter if your parents tell you to do twenty jumping jacks every time you exit the washroom, and it does not matter if they randomly ban you from using the computer for a week. Or a month. You see, God did not put any clauses in this command. He said, ‘obey your parents.’ He DID NOT say ‘obey your parents when it’s easy’, ‘obey your parents when it’s convenient’, or even ‘obey your parents when it makes sense to.’ Yes, that is right – God wants us to obey our parents when it is hard, when it is not convenient, and even when we do not understand. No clauses in this one, my friends. God did not say it would be easy, and He did not say it was optional. This, by the way, is because it is not easy, and if you want to be fully ‘right with God’, it is not optional, either.

Not what you wanted to hear, eh? It gets better. Or worse, depending. You see how much obedience we are to render our parents – how much more, then, are we to obey God? It is by the authority of God, after all, that we are to obey our parents. It is because their authority is given by God that we are to obey earthly authorities. This comes from Romans 13:1-2.

I was trying to find a Scripture verse that said straight out that God has all authority, but as I did so, I noticed that all of Scripture presupposes God’s authority. In fact, the principle of Scripture presupposes God’s authority. Every time you acknowledge Scripture to be true, you acknowledge God’s authority; and every time you acknowledge Scripture to be untrue, you deny it. The words of Scripture are nothing special if they are not divinely inspired, and the commands in Scripture have no authority but that of God. At the same time, one must accord Scripture with all of the authority of God, for it is ‘God-breathed’ and thus is Word of God. [Timothy 3:16-17]

So what does all of this circular mumbo-jumbo mean? Quite simply this: God has all authority, Scripture has His authority, earthly rulers and authorities are to be obeyed, and, here is the crux – the commands of God in Scripture are to be - indeed, must be - obeyed.

You may notice a lack of a clause. That is because there is not one. As Christians, we are sons and daughters of God, and we are servants of God, above all. We must obey Him even when His commands contradict everything else we know and every other, lesser, authority. In short, as servants, we must obey His commands, period. We do not have to understand them, we do not have to agree with them; we just have to follow them. Indeed, it is truest obedience that obeys even without understanding. Do not practice false obedience, and obey only when you understand. The Lord sees into our hearts, and knows the truth of all things hidden and unhidden.

Furthermore, obedience to God is not supposed to be easy. He promised it would be hard – he promised that it would result in pain, suffering, persecution, the destruction of families, and all these nasty things. [Matthew 10:34-36] He did not promise it would be a cakewalk – it will hurt inside and out to follow him. Just from personal experience, I know that it can hurt, inside and out, to follow Him so much you think it will be fatal, but then it is not. It destroys your life, but then it rebuilds it in the way God wishes it to be rebuilt. Even were your body destroyed for obeying God, your soul remains alive. Obedience is well worth it, and disobedience only leads to more pain, and not just merely in the long run.

Yes, unquestioning and immediate obedience is inconvenient, but Hell is also inconvenient, and it is by the grace of God that any of us can escape it. We owe Him a favour. In fact, we owe Him everything – our lives, our time, our accomplishments, our achievements, and, of course, our obedience. After all, it is God who gave us our everything; it is now our job to give it back.

As C. S. Lewis said in the excellent and highly recommended book Mere Christianity, “So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, 'Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.' Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now.”

Vlosh's Dialogues

Just so you know, on my other blog, Written in Memories, I have placed several fictitious parts of a speech by a demon in a Screwtape Letters-esque manner, which should supply your desire to be exhorted for awhile - each part is over a page long in Word, and full text.

Find it here.

Sin, Conscience, and Confession

More from the amazing orator Bishop Fulton Sheen.

Why You Don't Get Anything Out Of Mass... Revealed!

Its not the fault of the Mass. Bishop Fulton Sheen said it best. Or, at least, very very well.







[Thanks to, first, The Dawn Patrol, and then Catholic and Enjoying It!, for inadvertantly working together to bring this to my attention.]

Just so you know...

I have started a literary blog. In contrast with Exhortations of a Different Kind and Why Yes, I Do Believe in Something, Actually, this blog is for some of my writing, and perhaps discussion of it. There will be some poetry, maybe a song or two, and some stories (all of which will be fictional).

Currently, there is a single in-progress story, titled 'Alone', there for your perusal. Enjoy or not, it is all here, at Written in Memories.