Choose Life                                                                           11/2/41

 

Scripture:  Deuteronomy 30: 14-20.

 

“Therefore choose life!”  This is not the first time that I have preached a sermon from this text in this pulpit.  There are some texts that are so timelessly great that one may return to them with profit again and again.

 

“Choose life!”  Those ancient Hebrews, whom Moses led, knew that living was a matter of choices, sometimes dangerous.  The only thing that had saved them from their hopeless slave-existence in Egypt was the daring choice to leave their masters and go “en masse” into the wilderness with no other assurance than the leadership of Moses and certainty of God.

 

The priceless gift of the Hebrews to the world through the ages has been the consciousness of God; the ethical imperatives of the Almighty; and the presence and assurance of the Unseen Spirit. 

 

I do not think that it is possible to find in any literature outside the Bible so clear a distinction in the conviction of right and wrong as appears here.  Written as directly as though Jehovah had spoken the words with super-human lips are the words of choice: “I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.”

 

“I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live...”

 

“But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish...’

 

Nothing delicate about those words!  Nor about these: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing;  therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”  Words to cause us the most sober meditation whenever we read them.

 

It is basically important for every one of us to get settled, for ourselves, the matter of God’s existence and His relation to each of us.

 

I have said before that I do not think it possible to prove God’s existence by cool intellectual logic. Neither can His existence be disproved by logic.  The atheist has no more logic on his side than has the religious man on his.  God is a reality to be experienced.

 

Assume, for all that it is worth, that the testimony of countless men in many ages, that God is the Great Reality of their lives, is a word of truth.  Let your mind believe that “the chief end of man,” in the words of an old catechism, “is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  Listen to the words of those who have built their loves on this assumption.

 

A few weeks ago, I heard a man speak who has given his whole adult life to the service of God, most of it through one of our neighboring Congregational Churches.  George Longencher’s face and words glowed with the fire of light and life as he talked informally, humorously, joyfully of the years filled with struggle and poverty but with peace and encouragement that pass understanding; and the assurance of eternal life.  He could have made a more lucrative living at some other occupation - and did for a time.  But he found here his best opportunity to show forth the Father.  So he stuck to his church.

 

Contrast with the daring of this faith the dullness, the hopelessness of the atheists’ assumption that there is no God; that this brief flash of earthly human existence is all that there is to life. Assume that the things that can be enjoyed at the moment, the personal satisfactions and self-gratifications of the present are all that count - and you have a picture that is lifeless and dead beside the radiance of the George Longenchers and the Wilfred Grenfells and the Saint Pauls and their Christ.

 

If you are tired of false safety, or disappointed with futile drifting, or desperate over darkness and sin, choose life by an act of your own will.  Let life be tested by great adventuring in active faith.  “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” pleaded a prophet, Ezekiel.  [Ezekiel 33: 11].

 

It would be silly to assume that it is always easy to “choose life” in this vital way which the Hebrews sensed.  Such a choice sometimes means failure in the eyes of the world.  Thomas Carlyle always insisted that everyone must ultimately answer for himself the question, “Wilt thou be a hero or a coward?”  This choice has confronted earnest people of every generation, and it comes to us with particular emphasis as we wrestle with the problems of our day.

 

I mentioned, you will remember, earlier this year, the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the heroic trio of young Jewish exiles who refused to bow before the evil will of a tyrant conqueror-king.  Life the modern Niemoller, steadfastly refusing, in the concentration camp, to yell “Heil Hitler,” these three youths refused to bow before the golden image as Nebuchadnezzer commanded them all to do.

 

These young men had been reared in religious homes, taught the holiness of God, and their duty of supreme allegiance to Him.  They could not give the obeisance due to God to any other object.  In spite of the threat of physical death in a furnace of fire, they chose life with the God of their experience and convictions.  Anything else would have been a death, to them worse than physical death.

 

Confident of the protecting care of God, they faced the consequence of their defiance unafraid.  They knew that, no matter what happened, it would be better to die like heroes than to live like cowards.

 

There are moral laws that are so grounded in the very nature of all creation that to deny them degrades character and denies one’s soul; to dare to live up to them means the only life worth having.  Some of these moral values are worth the stake of our very lives.  Walter Covert has recently called attention to several of them.

 

We are all familiar with the old proverb, “Honesty is the best policy.”  We have even cherished, perhaps in our youth, the belief that the practice of complete honesty is the key to success and prosperity in commercial or professional pursuits.  But the business of earning a living is not so simple by any means!  It takes a deal of whetting and grinding to keep that ideal keen as it strikes the rocks of experience.

 

When Jacob Riis was a young man struggling to make his way as a reported for a newspaper, he was offered an attractive position by a New York financier.  It meant a larger salary, promotion and advancement, social prestige - all of which appeal to the normal energy and ambition of anyone, especially at the threshold of productive life.

 

But, through his newspaper work, Riis had already learned something about this particular financier’s secret methods.  They were unsavory.  He knew that he could not maintain his own personal integrity in the employ of a man who used questionable, or shady, methods to achieve his ends.  So he chose to remain a poor reporter rather than sacrifice his honesty to a compromise.

 

Everyone in professional life or in commerce or in other lines of endeavor has to face a similar test.  What if it pays, in this world’s good, to be dishonest?  Have you and I the moral courage to face the golden calves of our 20th century and say:  “I believe I can succeed by being honest; but if not, I will not worship this evil image.  Rather than sell my integrity for material gain, I will if necessary face unemployment and poverty.”

 

Another oft-used saying is heard - “It pays to tell the truth.”  It sounds good.  It is good.  Often it is a fact.  “Let your word be as good as your bond.”  “Never stoop to a lie.”  George Washington’s reported escape from his father’s wrath and rod via the path of truth, has immortalized a cherry tree and “fableized” a great man’s childhood.  Always tell the truth and people will respect you and trust you and you’ll get ahead.

 

Yes, but what if not?  What if others believe a lie (as Mr. Hitler says they will, if it is a big enough lie!) and you feel yourself standing alone?  What if to tell the truth means that you will be severely criticized and misunderstood, and perhaps hated?

 

It was in 1858 that Abraham Lincoln first used the famous phrase “a house divided against itself can not stand.”  He was to give the address at a Republican state convention in Springfield, and he wanted greatly to be elected to the United States Senate. His friends urged him not to make the statement as they gathered in the hotel room before the speech was made.

 

Lincoln walked the floor for a while in meditation.  Then he said, “I have thought a great deal about this matter.  I have weighed the question from all angles and am thoroughly convinced that the time has come when it should be uttered.  If I must go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth and in the advocacy of what is just and right.”  He lost the election!  Does it pay to tell the truth?  Not always in worldly success.

 

The Israelites were taught that “Righteousness exalteth a Nation.”  Probably none of the nations in Europe have tried harder, or with better success, to created justice and fair opportunity at home and to deal honorably with other nations than have the Scandinavian countries.  But are they exalted now?  Is this the reward of righteousness - to be ground beneath the heel of a conqueror’s strength?  What nations are exalted just now on that unhappy continent?

 

It is our Christian conviction that there is a Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness.  The stars themselves fight against Sisera!  God is never defeated.  But the working out of His purposes, and the time required, remain in His hands alone.

 

When the constitutional convention was in session in Philadelphia, and delegates from the colonies, with their diverse interests, had failed to agree on a constitution, some suggested that the only way to get one framed was to write a document that would have a chance of being ratified by the several colonies.  Of course it would be an instrument of many compromises.  The chairman, George Washington, arose and reminded his colleagues that if they framed a form of government in which they did not themselves believe, they could not successfully and  effectively defend it before the country!  He closed by saying, “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and just can repair.  The event is in the hands of God.”

 

“Righteousness exalteth a nation.”  “Honesty is the best policy.”

“It pays to tell the truth.”  “All things work together for good to them that love God.”  But if it means a Gethsemane can we choose it and pray “Thy will be done?”

 

“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King.  But if not, be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”

 

That king, consistent dictator that he was, did not relent, but had all three youths thrown into the flames.  [Daniel 3: 13-30].

 

But the triumphant point of the story is that, not three, but four were seen to walk in the furnace.  God never deserts those who have chosen life and Him.  He does not always save them from the scorching, but he does go with them into suffering and triumph.

 

“”Therefore, choose life.”  It is the only ultimate freedom.

 

------------

 

Dates and places delivered:

 

            Wisconsin Rapids, November 2, 1941

            W.F.H.R., Wisconsin Rapids, February 2, 1942