Choosing Life
A. Maclaren, D. D. Deuteronomy 30:15-20 See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil;… I. THE SOLEMN ALTERNATIVE WHICH IS OFFERED TO EVERY SOUL. Now, young people come into life, and as you look forward, it has roseate tints, and there is a natural buoyancy in living by impulse, which is one of God's best gifts to you, and which I would be the last man to try to darken; but what I would press on you is that life, as it is opening before you, is no pleasure ground, still less a factory, or a shop, or a warehouse, least of all a place for dissipation. But that it is set before every one of you — a tremendous "either...or," which you have to deal with whether you will or no. You have the alternative of, on the one hand, a life of sense, and on the other hand a life of spirit. Is it to be sense, or is it to be spirit? Is it to be the lower needs of your nature gratified, and the higher ones starved? Is it to be licence or self-control, — which? To gather it all into one, the choice which every son of man has to make is between self and God. Now, mind! it is an alternative; that is to say, you cannot ride the two horses at once. There are plenty of us that try to do that. If we have religion at all it must be the uppermost thing in us, and must rule us. If it does not, we do not really possess it in any measure. Further, let me remind you of the issues which are wrapped up in this sharp alternative. Remember my text: "life or death, blessing or cursing," said Moses. You say, "Oh, I surely may indulge in these natural requirements of my corporeal nature." Yes! But in electing whether you will live for sense or spirit, for self or God, make clear to yourself that the one is life, the other is death; the one is blessed, the other is cursed. Eternal issues of the gravest sort hang upon your relation to Jesus Christ, and you cannot alter that fact. II. THE NEED FOR A DELIBERATE ACT OF DECISION. An enormous number of us do not live by the deliberate choice of our wills, but are content to take our colour from circumstances, like some lake that, when the sky above it is blue, is all sparkling and sunny, and when the great clouds are drawn over the azure is all dull and sad. So hosts of us have never once deliberately sat down to look realities in the face, or said to ourselves, in regard to the deepest things of our lives, "I see these alternatives before me, and here I now, deliberately, make my choice, and take this, and reject that." Circumstances rule us. There are fishes that change the hue of their spots according to the colour of the bed of the stream. How many of you owe your innocence simply to not having been tempted? How many of you are respectable people for no other reason than because you have always lived amongst such, and it is the fashion of your circle to be like that? Now, you cannot get away from the influence of your surroundings, and it is no use trying, but you can determine your attitude to your surroundings. And you can only do that by bringing a resolved will to bear upon them as the result of a deliberate choice. Now, remember that any man who lives by anything else than deliberate choice and resolve is degrading himself by the act. Have you not got reason, judgment, common sense — call it what you like — which is meant to be your pilot? And have you not got a conscience which is meant to be your compass? And what becomes of the ship if the pilot goes to sleep and lashes the helm right away up on one side, and puts a cover over the binnacle where the compass is, and never looks at the chart? Let me remind you, still further, that unless you make for the great things of life, the deliberate choice of the better, part, you have in effect made the disastrous choice of the worse. The policy of drift always ends in ruin for a nation, for an army, for an individual. To go down stream is easy, but there is a Niagara at the far end. You choose the worse when you do not deliberately choose the better. I do not suppose that any of you have deliberately said to yourselves, "I do not mean to have anything to do with Jesus Christ," but you have drifted. You have not resolved that you will have something to do with Him. Not choosing, you have chosen. It is that widespread indifference, and not either intellectual or any other kind of opposition to Christianity, that I for one am afraid of, and into which so many of you have fallen. And so there is need for decision. "If the Lord be God, follow Him; and if Baal, then follow him." III. SOME REASONS WHY THAT DECISION SHOULD BE MADE NOW. 1. I pray you to make choice of Jesus Christ for your Saviour and your King now, because this is your plastic, formative time. The metal is running fluid, as it were, out of the furnace when you are young. Its gets hardened into heavy bars when you get a little older, and it needs a great deal of hammering in order to bring it into other shape than that which it has taken. 2. Let me remind you, too, of another reason for immediate decision — that you need a Guide. Your desires, longings, passions are strong. They were meant to be. Your experience is little. You need a Guide; you will never need Him more. Take Him now. 3. Another reason is, because you will save yourselves from a great deal of pain, and sorrow, and disappointment, and perhaps remorse, if you now begin your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ. 4. And the last reason that I suggest to you is this, that every moment that you put off decision, and every appeal which you leave unobeyed, will make it harder for you if over you do choose Jesus Christ. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; WEB: Behold, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil;