DECISIONS

N. T. Meek

Genesis 13: 8–13; Luke 10: 38–4: 2; Hebrews 11: 24–26

We have read about three persons who made decisions. Life is made up of making decisions and sometimes, as in Acts 16, important consequences hang on making a right one. Every decision in a believer’s life is important, enough to refer to God for direction. God has given us a brain and a measure of common sense, but He loves to be invited into a believer’s life and to be consulted about his affairs. Of course, He sometimes comes in even if He is not invited. One has also heard of fathers in a gathering inviting the north wind into their

localities, because they saw the need for some element of discipline to counter the damage that was developing through material prosperity and which was tending to carry all away.

You would need to be very spiritual to do that. Yet the Lord in His love for us sometimes comes in when we have not asked Him, to discipline us; that is His matter and He has a right to do it.

I have read firstly about Lot, who had gone up with Abram out of Haran. Lot, like many of us, had had the benefit and privilege of the company of a spiritual man, but there came a time when he was faced with a decision of his own. He had been down to Egypt previously and it seems that the world had somewhat damaged his soul. We are in the world but, so as not to be damaged, we need to keep clear of the influence and the principles which govern it. But it seems the world had had some effect on Lot so that when Abram gave him this choice he was confused. He confused the garden of Jehovah with the land of Egypt. The world is not the garden of Jehovah, yet many a believer sets himself to make his world the garden of Jehovah.

This tendency may be nearer to us than we think. Many an earnest soul in christendom cherishes the outlook that the millennium will come about through the gospel being preached and the world being converted, but it is not the truth. Lot made his choice, and alas it was the wrong one.

Every word in Scripture is meaningful, so perhaps the key to his wrong decision lies in the fact that ‘he chose for himself’; it seems that he did not discuss the matter with his uncle or ask his advice, nor does it seem that he prayed about it. Something appealed to him naturally, and things may appeal to us. Perhaps you have already made up your mind before you have carried a matter into the Lord’s presence. How important then to lay out every matter in prayer to the Lord first, for you cannot say anything to Him which is not the truth. You may delude yourself, but the great safeguard is to tell Him all about your problem, all your fears and doubts, and you will find that things will become much clearer in your own mind. It does not seem that Lot did that. The world is alluring and Lot saw this well-watered plain and chose it, yet shortly afterwards it was to be covered with dust and ashes. Jude (Jude 7) says it lies there as an example for us. Poor Lot! he had made the wrong choice. What a warning to us as to not reckoning with God. We should shrink from doing anything without considering how God views it.

Now Mary also made a choice, and I would like her choice to be ours. I do not wish to speak against Martha because, when you think about it, she had quite a lot on hand. I expect all the disciples were there and so in a way it is understandable that Martha was distracted. It is so easy to be distracted in a meeting. A baby cries, and everyone looks round—well, babies have been crying for years; there is nothing exceptional about it. So it is not only Martha, but you and I who can be distracted. Mary, however, quite deliberately chose to sit at the Lord’s feet. The attitude of her mind was to want to listen to what the Lord had to say. Put the distractions out of your mind for a moment and sit at the Lord’s feet and learn the deepest lessons. A hymn writer said—

‘Low at Thy feet, Lord Jesus,

This is the place for me;

Here I have learned deep lessons,

Truth that has set me free’.

You and I, like Mary, can have this privilege of sitting at the feet of the greatest Instructor that ever was. The way to learn is to be subject and ready to receive His words. Schools are not noted nowadays for students sitting at the feet of the instructor; rather the opposite, for the spirit of rebellion is never far away. In the divine system the way to learn is to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen to His word. The Lord commends that.

The Lord will, sometimes in most unexpected ways, speak to you in a meeting about your personal matters. It is therefore worth listening on that account, for He may say something which just bears on the situation facing you at the moment. This was not exactly the case with Mary, for she was listening to His word for its own sake. I am sure the Lord Jesus greatly appreciates anyone who is interested in His affairs. He loves to see someone who does not want to dash out into the playground as soon as the school bell goes at the end of the lesson, but who will stay and ask a question. The Lord enters feelingly and sympathetically into every circumstance, and I am sure the saints in their measure endeavour to do so too. But whatever the circumstance, the Lord loves us to stay and listen to His word, to glean the truth and rejoice in it. He says she “has chosen the good part, the which shall not be taken from her”. In the breaks between the meetings we have the joy of conversing to one another and keeping abreast of what the Lord may be doing here and there, which is valuable in its place, but I trust that we ever remember that the greatest thing is to listen to His word. If we listen, He will continue to supply it. No doubt Martha listened the next time, for in John 12 it just says “and Martha served”.

When Moses ‘became great’ may mean ‘when he became someone of note in Egypt’; but I would first like to take up this passage as it is translated in the Authorised Version, which is, “when he was come to years”. Mr. Taylor said this meant that he was mature. This raises the exercise with me as to whether I am mature and whether I am growing in my appreciation of divine things. I feel sure that many brethren are more mature than I am, but I would like to be growing. As the, weeks go by we all ought to know more about our inheritance. When Moses was grown he was prepared to refuse to be called son of Pharaoh’s daughter and to choose to suffer affliction. Had he been governed by his circumstances his choice would have been different. It comes back to what we were saying in the reading that, if you look at what is all around, that will tend to colour your judgment; but if you look at the truth and all that God has done, that will govern you. Which way will it be with you? As being governed by the truth, Moses made his choice and he cast in his lot with an afflicted people under reproach and suffering. In people under such circumstances he nevertheless saw features that were going to shine in glory. When the affliction, the weakness and the confusion have all gone, the features of glory in every believer on the Lord Jesus will shine.

Every feature will then reflect Christ and there will be no trace of anything else. There is that which is going through and we need to look ahead, like Moses, and not be ashamed of being identified with a suffering and afflicted people.

In certain newspapers there is a column called the ‘Court Circular’ which gives news about the high-ups of the land. What a stir would have been caused when the equivalent of the Court Circular in Egypt announced that Moses was refusing to be called son of Pharaoh’s daughter; but he had made his choice and it was a right one. What helped him to make that choice? No doubt the faith and prayers of his parents who had in type had him baptised lay behind it, just as the prayers of brethren and parents have been the preservation of many of us, but we cannot ignore personal responsibility. Moses made a right choice—you and I too have a responsibility to make right decisions.

Even if Lot made a wrong choice, it is encouraging to read of two who made right ones. If I am the one who has made a wrong choice, let me now start to make right ones. There is no reason why we should make mistakes. Through weakness we do make mistakes, and we need to plead as priests for one another so as to strengthen one another in order that weakness might not remain and become characteristic. The Lord is very gracious, of course, but He does love to be consulted, and we do need always to bring Him into all our circumstances.

Well, may we make right decisions. We do not know what it will be about, but let the next choice be a right one. If we have that before us, the Lord will help us and we shall be blessed in answering to His claims. May it be so, for His name’s sake.

Address at St. Albans
22 April 1978