"Now
fear the LORD and serve him with
all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the
River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:14-15
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:14-15
Why is God landing in
this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to
undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He
is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we
do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the
chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have
thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into
Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder
whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite
realise what it will be like when He does. What that happens, it is the end of
the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going
to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then,
when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something
else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in;
something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us
will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise;
something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or
irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose
your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become
impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the
time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it
before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.
God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must
take it or leave it.
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