Choose You This Day by Max Hill

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jul 24, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 30.

"Choose You This Day."

By Max Hill

WHEN the people of Israel were settled in the land of promise, they were called together to hear the last words of Joshua, now a feeble old man, ready to die. In the hearing of all, the leader of the mighty hosts of Israel recounted to them the wonderful works of God, His promises, and His commandments, comparing all these with the perishing idols and achievements of the heathen whose destruction had been so signally the result of their course of evil. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve."

"Choose." Never in the history of the world has God arbitrarily demanded obedience. Man in Eden was a free moral agent; he might partake of the tree of life and live forever; he might by so doing become immortal and his life of innocent purity and righteousness measure with the life of sinless angels. Again, he might, with just the same effort, partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and by that single act forfeit all that lay before him, the garden home, comfort and happiness, purity and life, and the association of heavenly intelligences. Which choice he made is only too evident. But he had his choice, his own choice. The God of the universe recognized that created beings had the right to obey or to disobey, and He granted it to the first man, as well as to every man.

"You." The power of choice rests, and

can only rest, with the individual. Not all the powers of earth can make the final choice for man, for good or ill; nor can another assume the responsibility or answer in any wise for man's actions. The most insidious flattery, the most ingenious guile, the bitterest persecution, need not shake the one whose hope is fixed on the Source of power. "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God." Realizing this, the man of God may exclaim, "Jehovah is my Light and my Salvation; whom shall I fear? Jehovah is the Strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

"This day." "To-day, O that ye would hear His voice! Harden not your heart." "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

The first man Adam chose to eat of the forbidden fruit, and his choice brought death upon the race; the second Man Adam met the tempter in the same strength that the first man might have grasped, and His obedience brought life. Saul chose to walk in the way of the world, and ignominious defeat was the result; David was a man after the heart of God, obedient, tho sometimes failing, coming down to the close of an eventful life with the charge to his son to walk in the way of righteousness. Israel as a nation illustrates the results of obedience and disobedience. In all cases the individual's own course determined his reward.

By nature man is prone to sin and subject to death; "the gift of God is eternal life." "The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" "he that hath the Son hath life." "Choose you this day whom ye will serve."

MAX HILL.