Where will your path of life lead? What choice will you make? What is your goal? Are you willing to sacrifice the eternities for an ephemeral trinket or bauble? Always choose the Lord’s way. It leads to exalted heights and rises above the thick, choking smoke of the mists of darkness. There is no time for indecisiveness; the time to choose is now. We cannot afford to remain undecided.
The great leader of the host of Israel, Joshua, told his followers that it was time to stop lusting after the gods of Egypt. It was time to follow and serve the one and true living God. “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers serve that were in the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15).
In these last days, the time for planting is past. It is the time of the harvest. “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the [vats] overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:13-14). We are all in the valley of decision. We have two choices: we can serve the Lord or not. There is no middle ground in this valley. It’s one or the other. The Lord is coming again to the earth. The wicked shall burn as stubble. Who’s on the Lord’s side? Who? Great upheavals of all forms abound on the earth; things will only become more tumultuous over time.
There are some frightening times ahead: “The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake.” But there is comfort: “But the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel…. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim” (Joel 3:16,18). If we choose the Lord, we will find hope and strength in Him. We need not fear in these troubled times.