If you would, turn your Bibles
over to Genesis chapter 13 with me. I want you to turn it, turn your
Bibles there in Genesis chapter 13 and hold them there for just
a few minutes before I read my first text there. I have three
texts this morning I want us to look at. Genesis is the first
one. I want us to Consider this morning
choices that you and I make in our lifetime. There are some
sad choices. I want us to look at that. And
then there are some wretched, despairing choices. I want us to look at that. Then
there are good choices, and I want us to look at that. We make choices in our lives,
don't we? All of us do. Lost people make
choices. Believers make choices. There are some things, though,
that you and I have absolutely no choice in. Absolutely no choice
in. In the physical world, you and
I had no choice who our mother and our father would be. We had no choice over where we
were a male of where we were a female. We had no choice if
we would be born healthy or be born sick. We had no choice in
that. That choice was made for us. God made that choice. Solomon said to everything, there
is a season, and there is a time for every purpose under heaven. There's a time to be born, There's
a time to die, and who makes that choice? God makes those
choices. You and I don't know when we're
going to die, but we can be certain of this, the year, the day, and
the moment that God has ordained for us to die, we'll die. And
aren't you thankful for that? Virgin asked a woman one time,
he said, Dear soul, if the Lord referred it to you when you would
die, what would you do? She said, I'd refer it right
back to him. I want him in charge of that. That's his choice and
not ours. The apostle Paul said this about
that. He said, God hath determined
the times before appointed, and he set the bounds of their habitation. God has set the time for us to
be born, and he set the time for us to die. King David was
suffering a lot of grief, I imagine, and here's what he said. He said,
Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. My eyes are
consumed with grief, but I trust in thee, O Lord, thou art my
God. My times are in your hands. That brings us to something else
that we don't choose. We don't choose the way that
we take. We don't know when trouble is
coming to us. We don't know the afflictions
that are ordained for us. Only God knows that. He's appointed
the way that I take. He knows the way that I take.
There's no afflictions, dear child of God, that comes to you,
but they come from the throne. They come through the throne.
God Almighty chooses when they'll come. He chooses the depths of
them. And He'll choose the end of them.
That's not for us to choose. And aren't you glad for that?
If it was left up to me, I would never suffer any affliction.
And I'd be the weakest Christian you could imagine. The afflictions
the Lord sends are good. It was good for me that I was
afflicted. If you're here this morning and
you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you've been
brought to faith in Him, your name was written in the book
of life before time began. And you had no choice in that.
There's no new names being written down in glory. They're written
there in the Lamb's Book of Life before you and I had our being. And that was God's choice. God
has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. And
if you're here this morning and you have come to the Lord Jesus
Christ and you have believed on Him, the time for you to come
to Him was not your choice. When did you come to Christ?
When it pleased God, when it pleased God, He called me by
His grace. All of this is so, isn't it?
I believe all of this, and you believe it as well, and you and
I rejoice in it. And yet we know something else.
There are choices that you and I make in this world every day. There are choices that unbelievers
make and there are choices that believers make. Some are good
and some are bad. Some choices we make increase
our happiness and we're so thankful to God that we made them. If you're very old this morning
and you look back upon your lifetime as a believer, you've seen that
there are choices. that you were so thankful that
you made, and you seen that there were other choices, if you had
chose that, that would have been detrimental to your Christian
life. There are some choices that we
made. If we had made them, it would have brought us into devastation.
We can only see that as we look back. He would have brought us
so much trouble and shame that we would have bore it as long
as you and I were in this world. There are choices that you and
I have made, and we thank God. Even though we made them, and
even though they were bad, He overruled the evil of them and
blessed us anyway. And for that, we're terribly
thankful. And there are choices you and
I have made, brothers and sisters, that haunt us. I look back on
my Christian life, and I can put my finger on a few places
in my life, and I still carry the burden of those choices.
And I will, probably, as long as I live. If someone tells us
that a believer in Jesus Christ is saved forever, and that believer
will never perish, I say amen. Bless God for it. And we've got
all kinds of proof of that, haven't we? The eternal purpose of God
secures His people. God has purposed their salvation. He's predestinated them to be
conformed to the image of His Son. And those He predestinated,
He calls, He justifies, and He glorifies. The purpose of God
secures that. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
secures the believer's eternal salvation. Who is He that condemneth? It's Christ who died. And when God calls a man and
gives him life and gives him the gift of faith, he'll never
take that back. He doesn't give you gifts and
then turn around and take it back. The gifts and calling of
God or without repentance. The intercessions of Jesus Christ
secures the believer forever. He cannot perish if the Lord
of Glory is seated at the right hand of His Father making intercessions
for Him. Peter's Satan has desired to
have you that he may sift you. But I've made intercessions for
you. I've prayed for you. He is able to save to the uttermost
for evermore those who come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth
to make intercessions for them. The promise of Jesus Christ secures
the believer, doesn't it? This is the promise that He has
promised us, eternal life. So I don't want you to go away
this morning and say, Bruce is saying if we make the wrong choice
as believers, it could cause us to be lost again. I don't
want to even imply such an awful, evil thing. But I don't want
to imply this either. If somebody comes and tells you
that as a believer it doesn't matter how you live your life,
and as a believer it doesn't matter what choices you make,
that you're all right, everything's going to be okay, I would say
to that person, go and read your Bible. Here in Genesis chapter 13, look
with me this morning in this text. This is a passage of scripture
that most of us are familiar with. Here in Genesis chapter
13, and look in verse 10. This is where Abraham and Lot,
his nephew, had abundance of cattle. They had so many cattle,
the land wouldn't support them, running out of grass and water.
And Abraham said to Lot, his nephew, if you choose the right
hand, then I'll go to the left. If you choose the left hand,
I'll go to the right. It's your choice where you want
to go. And this brings us here to our text in verse 10. And
Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that
it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom
and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord lacked the land of
Egypt, as thou comest unto Zorah. Then Lot chose him all the plain
of Jordan. And Lot journeyed east, and they
separated themselves one from the other. And Abraham dwelt
in the land of Canaan. And Lot dwelt in the cities of
the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of
Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. Lot chose him over all the plain
of Jordan. He pitched his tent right up
to the gate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, if the story stopped there,
then all right. But it doesn't stop there, does
it? We all know how this story ends. These men of Sodom and Gomorrah
and the cities of the plain were exceedingly wicked before the
Lord. And the Lord told Abraham, I'm
going to destroy these cities. And he did. He set fire from
heaven and brimstone and burned up all of those cities. Lot and
his daughter, his two daughters and his wife, escaped out of
Sodom. Lot finally wound up in the mountains
with his two daughters, committed incest with them in a drunken
stupor, and that's the last time we ever hear of that man in the
Old Testament. That's how it ended. And you
and I cannot help but see the correlation between the ending
of his story and the choice he made to pitch his tent towards
Sodom. And this is why I say it to you,
this is a sad choice. This word here in verse 12, Menloch
chose, this word literally means he chose for himself. He made a choice for himself,
and I imagine that he made it to secure an easier lifestyle. And maybe his wife wanted him
to make that choice because she lacked city living. But whatever
the reason was, the Scripture says here that he chose the well-watered
plain. And then right after that the
Holy Spirit said, now the men of Sodom were wicked sinners
above everybody. Brothers and sisters, there every
unbeliever is condemned. Every unbeliever is a lost man. But there are some people that
we've seen them and we've seen whole generations of them sometimes
that have given themselves over to such open and profane sins
that they're pleading for the justice of God to destroy them. We've seen it in our day, haven't
we? And it was a bad choice on Lot's
part to deliberately choose that place. knowing the kind of men
that was there. The first thing that we know
about this choice is that it wasn't by faith. Lot lifted up
his eyes. It's a terrible choice if you
let your eyes make the decision for you. Nothing was said about
he chose it by faith. Nothing was said that he sought
the Lord. Lord, would you lead me in this
choice? The choice seemed to be made
entirely on the sight of his eyes. Every time we make a choice,
determined in that way, it never turns out good, does it? I remember
a number of years ago, don't remember what year it was, Paul,
but when Ashland Oil was shutting down there in Ashland. And some
of the believers of 13th Street were being transferred in different
places. I don't know how many calls I got. from those people
that were going to have to be transferred or looking for other
jobs, and they wanted to know how far I was from Louisville
or how far I was from Columbus, and they said, wherever we settle
that, here's what's going to determine our choice, is the
gospel preacher there. Well, I tell you, it makes us
realize, does it not, that a little choice that we can make can so
devastate us that we have to live the rest of our life with
it. Is it not worth praying about? Is it not worth seeking the Lord's
face to lead us in the way and the choices that we should make? Brother Henry, years and years
ago, Brother Henry was telling me about a preacher. Never have
forgot about it. He had an opportunity to teach
the Lord's people, even pastor a church. But he had a choice to make.
He had this desire to make money. He said, I want to make some
money and then I'll pastor. Then I'll teach. He made his
money. He made a lot of money. For his
day, that was a lot of money. But when he made all of his money,
And then he was ready to pastor a church. Nobody wanted him.
God had shut the door. He missed the season. He chose
his wealth over ministry. What an awful, awful decision
that was. Lot chose to associate with wicked
men when there was no need for it. He pitched his tent towards
Sodom. If it stopped there, all right.
But it seldom stops there, does it? When you begin to associate
with ungodly people, you take the wicked to be your bosom buddies. They usually influence you instead
of you influencing them. Evil companionship always seems
to corrupt good people, doesn't it? And good manners. That's
why we have to watch our young children so closely. He pitched
his tent towards Sodom, and then in chapter 19, he lived and he
sat in the gate of Sodom. The choices that we make. And man, this fellow lived grieved
every day. If it wasn't for the New Testament
telling us about this man, we'd probably wonder about his salvation. But Peter said this was a just
man. This was a believer in the Son
of God. He was justified by faith. Peter
said that righteous man, living among the ungodly, vexed his
righteous soul every day in seeing and hearing their ungodly deeds. Our dear Puritan forefathers,
John Newton and some of the rest, John Newton said, if I have to
go into town among the wicked society, I go there and do my
business and get home. I wonder what he would have said
if he lived in our day. Man, go into town and do your
business and get home. Don't associate with wicked people. Be careful about the choices
that you make. Here was a man that was grieved
with this conversation of the wicked every day. and the alarm
of his conscience when these angels came down and said, get
out of this place. We're going to destroy this place.
The Lord has sent us to destroy this place. We're going to burn
this place. The alarm just kept sounding
all night in his man's ears. He had no rest in his conscience.
He was disturbed. Destruction is coming to these
cities. He went to his sons-in-law. He had no influence over them. Boy, there's two things I often
tell people. There's two things, especially
as I've gotten older, there's two things that I do not want
to live without. I want to live in a quiet neighborhood, and I want to live with a quiet
conscience. And that calls for carefulness,
doesn't it? Carefulness. He chose by sight rather than
by faith. He chose to associate with wicked
people when there was no need for it. And his awful, awful
choice grieved him to the day of his death. One of the most dangerous things
that I've seen, brothers and sisters, in our day is an attempt
to secure ourselves, to secure our temporal advantages that
we have in this lifetime. It keeps us away from prayer.
It keeps us away from private worship. It keeps us away from
public worship. Lot had forgotten that his heavenly
father, who clothes the lilies of the field and feeds the birds
of the air, would clothe him and feed him. He forgot that
obviously. Brother Walter just read that
passage to us. The Lord shall choose our inheritance
for us. And if we trust Him to choose
our eternal inheritance for us, should we not let Him make the
choice? of where we go and where we live
and where we work and how big a bank account we've got. Lord, choose for me. Make these
choices for me. Lead me to make the right choice. What a sad choice. And the reason
I'm telling you this this morning, I don't want to make these choices
and I don't want you to make these choices. Look at the second place. This
is what I refer to sometimes as a wretched, despairing choice. Joshua chapter 24. Joshua chapter 24. This is another
very familiar passage of scripture. It's found in verse 14. Joshua chapter 24 and verse 14. Joshua 24 and verse 14, Now therefore
fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth. And
put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side
of the flood, on the other side of Jordan. And they served in
Egypt, and served you the Lord. And if it seemed evil unto you
to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve.
Were there the gods which your father served that were on the
other side of the flood? Are the gods of the Amorites
in whose land you dwell? But as for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord. Choose you this day which god
you're going to serve. Hasn't this been one of the most
misunderstood passages of scriptures in the Old Testament? How many
times have you and I heard this voice interpreted like this?
Over here is the true and living God. And over here is all of
these little gods, all these idols. And you need to make the
choice whether you're going to serve this one only true and
living God or choose these false gods. That's the way we've heard
that interpreted. Brothers and sisters, that's
not the meaning of that verse. I would go as far as to say that
hinges on blasphemy if it's not blasphemy. What a dishonor that
brings to God, and what a deception that is for sinners. If Paul was standing on his front
porch, and here comes Mindy with a man on her arm, And she says,
Paul, I really like you a lot, but I sort of like this fellow
too. And I'm trying to choose if I'm going to choose him or
if I'm going to choose you. What would you say? Let me help
you out. Get out of my face. Wouldn't you say that? And to tell a sinner, an unbeliever,
you can either choose the true and living God or you can go
ahead and choose your idols. No, you can't. That's not the
meaning of this verse. Joshua is saying this. If it's
repulsive to you to serve the true and living God, if you're
so repulsed by His grace and His rule, then go to these little
gods that your father served in the desert Or go to these
little gods the Amorites are serving, and you pick which one
of those little gods you're going to serve. That's what he's saying. Well, the church needs to confront
the world with this same choice today, especially this religious
choice. If you're not willing to own
your ruin as a sinner, and you're not willing to own your inability
to save yourself, and you're not ready to be saved by the
merits and power of somebody outside yourself, then deny Christianity
altogether and go and find you another God. The world needs to hear this,
doesn't it? If you hate God's sovereign right,
to do as He will with His own. If it seems evil in your heart
to be saved by the free and sovereign grace of God alone apart from
any of your marriage or power, then go worship a God of your
imagination. Pick which one. Pick the little God of Mormonism.
If you get tired of them, go to the Jehovah Witness that believes
Jesus Christ is a mere creature. Go join that harlot Catholicism. Live like you want to. Believe
what you want to. When you come down to die, call
a priest to absolve you of your sins. Go join that little violent
God of Allah and live in despair and die in your sins and perish
forever. But if you don't want to come
to God and you don't believe in the Son of God and you don't
want to bow to Him and His way of saving and His rule over your
life, then go choose your little God and be a man about it. Don't be a hypocrite about it.
Say, this is my choice and I'm sticking with it and perish with
a little God. And that's what he tells them
down here in verse 19. Look what he tells them. Joshua tells the people. And
Joshua said unto the people, You cannot serve the Lord. You
cannot serve the Lord. For He is an unholy God and a
jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions
nor your sins. You cannot serve God unless you're
born of God. You cannot serve God if you're
not a Christian. And you cannot be a Christian
until God makes you a Christian. You cannot. You can't have your
sins forgiven apart from Jesus Christ and faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's nothing you can do to
please God. You cannot serve God until He
makes you His child. God will not share His glory,
will He? He's a jealous God. He don't
have to share it. He must be a whole and complete
Savior or He will be nothing. Nothing! He must be wholly trusted
and all these little gods must be denied. And they must be counted
as dung. And your own life and all your
righteousness must be counted as dung. And if a man isn't under
God willing to come there, then for God's sakes, just deny Christianity. Deny God. Deny the God of the
Bible. Deny the Son of God. And find
you a stump and find a stone and worship that thing. And you
can have any of them, can't you? Go make your choice. Ain't that
a wretched, despairing thing? Have you seen anybody go from
one false religion to another false religion? They do it all
the time, don't they? Look now for the third thing
over in Luke chapter 10 and verse 38. This is a good choice. A good choice. Look here in chapter
10 of Luke. And look in verse 38. Luke chapter 10 and verse 38. Now it came to pass, as they
went, that he, our Lord, entered into a certain village, and a
certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had
a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard
his word. But Martha was cumbered about
much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not
care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore
that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto
her, Martha, Martha, you are so worried, and anxious, and
careful, and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful. And Mary has chosen that good
part which shall not be taken away from her. What a good choice. She chose to sit at Jesus' feet
and hear His Word. Martha didn't choose that here,
did she? This was her choice, and what a good choice it was. I began to think about this one
time and I thought, I wonder what she heard while she was
sitting there at his feet and her looking down and teaching
her, right to her heart. And I've come up with three things
I think is very scriptural that he must have been teaching her.
And I think when you begin to hear these three things, then
you'll realize I don't blame her for not going and helping
her sister. We can miss a meal to hear this. And the first one
is this. Don't you imagine that He was
revealing to her His love? You say, Bruce, why do you say
that? Because the Scripture says specifically in the 11th chapter
of John that Jesus loved Mary. He loved her brother, Lazarus. He loved her sister, Martha.
And He loved Mary. But how is she going to know
that? She can't until He tells her. Don't you imagine that He
looked down in her and said something like this, Mary, I have always
loved you. Before you had a being, I loved
you. And Mary, I love you right now and I'll never cease to love
you. Oh, brothers and sisters, can
you imagine To be sitting on your floor and looking up at
the Son of God and He looks down at you and say, I love you. I love you with my everlasting,
redeeming love. And it goes to your heart. I stand amazed in the presence,
first song you played tonight, wasn't it? Of Jesus the Nazarene
and wonder how He could love me. A sinner condemned unclean. But when He tells you that, when
He reveals that to you, there'll be no doubt about it. She sat
at His feet and heard His Word. Listen to this in Deuteronomy
chapter 33 and verse 3. Try to remember this and go look
it up sometime. Yea, the Lord loved the people. All His saints are in His hands. And they sat down at His feet,
every one, and received of His Word." Isn't that amazing? That's
exactly what Artex said. She sat at His feet and heard
His Word, and the Lord loved her, and He revealed that love
to her. I tell you, as I get older, there's
one thing that I crave more than anything else. There's nothing
that calms my spirit. There's nothing that enthuses
me, inflames my will like this, the love of Jesus Christ of my
soul. I can hardly believe it. It is
so great and so immense that Paul said, it passeth knowledge. You can't grasp the height or
depth or the breadth of it. There was a great theologian,
I think for the life of me, remember his name, way, many, many, many
years ago. And he came to one of the popular
schools for preachers here in the United States. And there
was crowds there to hear him. He had a question and answer
session after his message and one of the men there in the seminar
said, what is the greatest doctrine, the deepest doctrine in your
mind that's contained in the scriptures? You know what he said? What's
the deepest doctrine contained in the scriptures to your heart?
And you know what he said? Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so. Isn't that wonderful? That's
right up there with God being made manifest in the flesh. That's
right up there with God speaking the Word and creating everything.
Jesus loves me. This I know. And He came down
from Heaven to weep for me. and to fear for me, and to pray
and to cry and die for me. Oh, the love of Christ. And that
was what he was telling this woman, revealing to her heart
his love. Secondly, I think he was telling
her also of his death in her place, in her stead. And I say
that because just a little while after this, our Lord was in this
house again. And Mary took that costly box
of ointment and poured it on his feet. That's when Judas got
mad. Why wasn't this soul given to
the poor? But the Lord Jesus said, let her alone. She did
this for my burial. She understood what the apostles
didn't understand. When our Lord told the Apostle,
I'm going to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. I'm going
to be crucified and buried and raised the third day. Peter said,
Lord, be that far from you. It ain't going to happen. But
this woman knew that Jesus Christ was taking her place, was burying
her sins and her guilt and the wrath of God on her part. How did she know that when hardly
anybody else did? She sat at His feet. and heard
His Word. Oh, brothers and sisters, I love
to sit there, don't you? I have learned more sitting privately
at the feet of my Master than I have from studying all the
commentaries that I've got. He can teach you in five seconds
more than you can learn from a man in a whole lifetime. And
when He teaches you, it will go home to your heart. You need assurance? You need
assurance of His love? You need assurance that He stood
in your place? Then go sit at His feet and hear
His Word. The third thing that the Lord
must have taught her is found here in the text itself.
This passage here in chapter 10 and the last verse, Mary has
chosen that good part. That word means portion. She has chosen that portion which
shall not be taken away from her. And it's the same word that
Asap used in Psalm 73 when he got in that awful temptation
to envy the rich. And he got jealous of the foolish
because they prospered. And poverty had come to Asaph. He didn't have anything. He couldn't
even take his wife out to celebrate a birthday dinner. He had nothing. And he said, I got so envious,
my steps were ready to slip. And God took him into the house
of God. The preacher got up and preached to him, everything you
got is going to perish anyway. And here's what he wrote in Psalm
73, 26. When he had come into poverty,
my flesh and my heart felleth me, but God is the strength of
my heart and my portion for ever. That's the same word that the
Holy Spirit uses here, that good part. The Lord was her portion. Brothers and sisters, listen
to me. If Jesus Christ loved you yesterday, He loves you today. If He loves you today, He'll
love you tomorrow. He'll love you for all eternity.
That cannot be taken away from you. That's your portion forever. I could live with that, could
you? When my bank account is gone? When I don't have a car
to drive? When I get old and decrepit?
He is my portion. And if He's your portion, everything
that He is, everything that He accomplished from the time that
He set His heart to come to this world to right now, everything
that belongs to Him and everything that He's done is yours. His
death and all the benefits of His death is yours. And it's
yours forever. That's what he taught her. I
am your portion. Oh, what a compassionate friend.
Oh, what a Savior. I know why Mary wouldn't go help
her sister, don't you? There's a time, brothers and
sisters, we can't escape some necessities of this world. We
absolutely can't. We've got to work. A man who
won't work and support his family is worse than an infidel, isn't
he? Nothing wrong with taking a vacation.
We have relationships that we value in this world with our
children, with our spouses, our relatives. But you know something? We're
going to lose all of that. I lost the union with my first
wife. I've got another beautiful wife
that I love. I'm going to lose that union
too. The relationship that we have with our children is for
this lifetime. Everything that we have temporarily
is for this lifetime. When it comes to time, when it
comes to time in your daily life that you choose between these
temporal things and these eternal things, make the right choice. We have choices, don't we? Oh,
we have choices. when Martha came down and pillared
her dying head, if she thought to herself, I wish I could have
kept that house cleaner. I wish I'd have fixed a better
dinner. I wish I'd have fixed more dinners. I bet she wasn't
thinking that, was she? I wonder what Mary was thinking
when she come down to pillar her dying head. I bet she was
singing that old hymn, Jesus, lover of my soul. Let me to thy
bosom fly, while the nearest waters roll, while the tempest
still is high. Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till
the storms of life be past. Safe unto thy haven, God, O receive
my soul at last. And she sang that with confidence.
And you can't help but see her singing that with confidence
because it correlates so well with that choice she made to
set at His feet and hear His Word. All that my soul has tried,
even these necessary things of this world, have left a dismal void. Only
Jesus has satisfied. Jesus is mine. And all I would say this morning,
and I hope I haven't said this in a self-righteous legalistic
manner, every choice you make, brothers and sisters, make it
with the attitude of prayer. Bring it before the Lord. Make
it in the light of your deathbed. Make it in the light of eternity.
Make it in the light of God's glory and the eternal salvation
of your soul. Do everything with that in mind. Thank you, Pastor.