The Great Choice
A LLOW me the privilege of addressing a few plain, aflfectionate words to one who is yet without a hope in Christ. I address you, my friend, as the possessor of an immortal soul. In the language in which Moses addressed Israel before he went up to his mountain death-bed, “I set before you life and death: choose life!” Every one has the power of choice. God made you a free moral agent. The very fact that you are now reading these lines proves that you have the power of choice. Every Christian in the world is a Christian simply because he accepted Christ when He was offered. Every impenitent sinner is yet one because he chooses to he. There is no decree of the Almighty which forbids your having eternal life, if you desire to secure it. Perhaps you cavil at “God’s decrees.” Just look at this one: “He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.” Or at this one: “As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” Or at this one: “Whosoever cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” God’s immutable decrees, in fact, secure salvation to every penitent believer and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When Joshua submitted the great alternative, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve,” he addressed his auditors as free agents. When Christ said to Andrew and James and John, “Follow me” he talked to them as rational beings, who had the power of choice. If they could not “follow” him, why did he ask them? When Simon Peter stood up before the mass-meeting in Jerusalem, and exclaimed, “Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost,” he addressed them as free agents; and three thousand of them accepted the Divine Saviour.
If you ask me what is meant in the Bible by “life” I would answer: It is the favor of God; it is the pardon of your sins; it is the sustaining strength to do right; it is a union of heart to Jesus; it is a divine support in the last hour, and everlasting holiness and joy beyond the grave. ^’^ Death” is the opposite of life: it is the absence of life. Spiritual death is the unbroken dominion of sin in this world, and the unending punishment of sin in the world to come. In this world the God of mercy says to every one, “I set before you life and death: choose life.” In the next world, the divine and all-righteous Judge will say to those who choose life, “Come, ye blessed of my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” To those who choose death he will say, “Depart, ye cursed!” and they “shall go away into everlasting punishment.”
But you may say, “I do not choose death. It is impossible that any sane person should deliberately choose to be eternally wretched, when he might be eternally happy.” This seems very plausible, and there’ is a sense in which it is true. Men do not commonly select wretchedness and ruin as the end of their voluntary endeavors. They do not set success and happiness on the one hand and ruin on the other, and then calmly choose to be ruined. Yet it is equally true that men are continually selecting and pursuing courses that inevitably lead to ruin.
Here is a young man setting out in life. Of course, his preference is to become rich and prosperous. But he chooses also to lead a career of indolence and thriftlessness, which inevitably brings him to poverty, and keeps him there. His poverty is the fruit of his own conduct. Again, no man voluntarily chooses the disgrace and disease and horrors of drunkenness. But thousands, alas! do choose to tamper with the wine-glass and the brandybottle, and their own free choice brings them, surely to the drunkard’s self-damnation. Did that poor girl who gave her heart and hand to the showy vagabond who stole her affections choose to become a wretched wife?
Yet she did choose to marry him; she did it in spite of reason and conscience, and dearly does she pay the consequences of her choice.
In the same manner, my impenitent friend, when you decide to reject the knocking Saviour from your heart, you do choose to risk the awful consequences. When you choose to live on in sin, to follow the devices and desires of your own lusts, and to grieve the Holy Spirit of love, you deliberately choose everlasting, death. You choose the road that leads to death. If you are lost, it will be your own fault. It will not be your heavenly Father’s fault: he says to you, “Choose life!” It will not be the loving Saviour’s fault: he says to you, “Look unto me, and live!” It is not the fault of that patient Spirit of truth, who is now pleading with you to renounce, sin and accept the atonement offered to you in the gospel.
It is a delightful thought that your encouragements to seek life are so abundant. The word of God overflows with encouragements.
You may grow discouraged in seeking wealth, or health, or office, or great literary attainments; but no living man or woman need despair of gaining salvation. If you seek it in time, and seek it rightly, it is yours. The only time you are sure of is the present; and the only way is, through penitence and faith in the crucified Jesus. Eternal life is now within your reach. It does not depend on intellect, or wealth, or social patronage, or on the will of another. It depends on your own willingness to accept the Saviour, and by divine help to serve him faithfully. God will not hinder you, and Satan cannot hinder you, if you are in earnest. The only being who can destroy you is your own self. God is love; and God sets before you life and death, and says to you with infinite tenderness, “Choose life! Give me thy heart!”
“There for thee the Saviour stands, Shows his wounds, and spreads his hands. Christ is lore, — this know and feel; Jesus weeps, and loves thee still.”
Not long since, a friend came into my study in deep distress of mind: she had been awakened by hearing me preach from the words, “Choose life.” She wished to know what she should do. I said, “You have been opposing God all your life. You have shut Christ from your heart. He seeks admission. Let him in. Give yourself all up to him. Choose life.” I prayed with her, and besought her to yield herself to Jesus while we were on our knees. After rising up, I handed to her Newman Hall’s blessed little book, “Come to Jesus.” She laid it down, and modestly said, “I want now to pray too.” We knelt once more together; and in sweet, artless language she just poured out her whole soul in penitent petition, and gave herself up to Jesus. She rose with brightened countenance, and said, “I feel more peaceful now.” She had made the great choice; she had given her heart to God; and on the next Sabbath she stood up and made a public profession of her faith in the Redeemer. My friend, you can make the same choice. It is only a moment’s work, when you are in earnest. God oflFers you his help. I have set before you life and death. Before you lay down this book determine to choose