I remember last week, my wife and I were at the airport in London waiting for a flight. As we sat there an Indian man approached me. Approached me very slowly and very cautiously. He was looking at what I had in my hand and what my wife had. I thought, “he’s an airport detective.” He sat down right beside me. And I thought, “what is happening?” And he said, “Sir. I’ve been over there, sitting across the aisle. And I’ve been praying that God would lead me to a good Christian and I think you are a Christian.” So I pulled this Bible out of my carry-on and I held it here, and he said, “Praise God.”
And then he started to talk to me. He told how he had become a Christian. He said, “I used to be a Roman Catholic for years, but just recently I have become a Christian, and I have a saving relationship with Christ.” I said, “Well praise the Lord.” And then he said, “Are you a member of any particular church?” I said, “Yes, the Seventh-day Adventist church.” He said, “Well what a coincidence.” He said, “I’m not a Seventh-day Adventist”, but he said, “I keep the Sabbath. I got to reading the Bible for the first time in my life, and that’s the only day I could find, so, I keep the Sabbath every Sabbath.” And he’s been witnessing in Kuwait. I could give you his name, but you understand why I will not do that. He has been working with Moslems. And has had some phenomenal successes converting several Moslems, and baptizing them, and they have become Christians. And then he said, “One day the Moslem authorities found me doing this and they took me into their headquarters and they started interrogating me and they started beating me and kicking me, and I could feel a rib or two was breaking, and I was just praying, Lord, I’m willing to go through this for You. I don’t understand this. I haven’t done anything wrong.” And they said, “We will stop if you will just accept Allah as your god, and you will stop witnessing for Christianity.” And finally, he said, “they were raising their clubs to hit me and bringing them down and the clubs would not touch me.” And finally, the leader said, “You can go.” And so he went. They found several of the people that he had baptized and cut off their right hands. They said… anyway, the man said, “You are so fortunate to live in America.” And really, we are.
We have so many freedoms here in America. We think it’s bad, but it’s good. Praise God for our freedoms. In fact, I would like to ask you, what is the most important thing that you can possibly do in this life? And may I submit to you humbly that it is to make a free choice. You have that ability. Here in America especially, at each junction of life, your choices determine your destiny. And so, we’re continuing our series on the book of Solomon. Solomon’s Success Secrets.
And today is about Snapped by Snap Decisions. How to make a decision. That’s the greatest thing that we can do, is make a wise decision. And I believe that our choice determines our destiny. And where is our choice made?
Well, let’s go to the book of Proverbs, chapter 4. Proverbs 4 and verse 23, and you can read this in whatever version you have. The King James, The New King James, or whatever. And I will read from several different translations of the Bible this morning. Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23. “Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life.” You are what you think. The decisions that we make in our mind determine the actions of our life, and the actions determine our character. So wise decisions produce a good future. And poor decisions ruin us. I think we need to learn from the nail. The nail uses its head to keep it from going too far.
Stupid decisions ruin our lives. Proverbs chapter 19, and verse 3. “People ruin their lives by their own foolishness”, their foolish choices, “and then they are angry with the Lord.” When you choose to play around with a little sin and you eventually, that choice will ruin our life. Don’t do it.
Making a good decision is not easy. It’s hard. We think, well, this seems right. It seems, it’s certainly easy. It seems like clean fun. It seems like a good choice. I think I’m making a good choice. It seems harmless. This can’t hurt me too much. And just this once, and just this little bit. But Solomon says, in our text for today, "There is a way that seems right, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
So how do you make a correct decision? I would like to list several different ways. And you can take notes if you wish, or you could just simply listen.
Number 1. You need to pray. Before ever you make a decision in life, that you would consider you need a little guidance here, you need to pray. Pray about that. At the very beginning of King Solomon’s tenure he earnestly prayed to God. You can read that in First Kings chapter 3, verse 9, he said, "Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people, to distinguish between right and wrong" And God did.
My wife and I were in Tanzania for a month. We just got back. And to make a choice without bathing it in prayer is like eating a plumb in Tanzania. And I’ll explain that. For the first time in my life I am a “Returned Missionary”. Along with a whole bunch of other people sitting out here. We all made it back, and none of us got leprosy, as far as I know. And none of us got malaria, and we survived. My wife and I got $458.00 worth of shots down here at the health clinic. And we packed our bags, we flew 17 hours to Kenya. And we knew that once we got there we could not drink any of their water. Not even one drop. We had to drink bottled water. And so we could not eat anything unless it had been cooked or peeled. Peeled in a certain way, because the knife when it cuts through the peeling, drags germs on into the inside. So you have to be very careful.
One day I was visiting in the house of one of our people that were attending the meetings on my site, and these people where speaking in Swahili. And his wife brought out some sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. I didn’t eat any. They gave me a nice plate and a fork and everything, and I kind of played with it and so forth, but my American friend who was there with me at that particular time took a bite. A couple of hours later he said, “I don’t feel very good.” And he was sick for a couple or so days. And we heard about another man who was not part of our group who ate one plumb and he was in the hospital for one week. You can’t do that. You’ve got to wash that food.
We went to the Crutcher’s house. They live there in Kenya, in Nairobi. And they went out to the market and bought a bunch of fresh things because all we had been eating were cooked things, mainly. And I watched what they did. They brought them all home. They put them in the sink, filled up the sinks with water, poured bleach in there and washed these vegetables. Washed them with soap. Each leaf of the lettuce was carefully washed. It took a long time. And they rinsed them with good water, that they had prepared, and then we could eat a nice tossed salad and enjoy some tomatoes and cucumbers and all different sorts of wonderful, wonderful things. They bathed them in bleach water.
You don’t dare make a decision without bathing that decision in prayer. Is that fair to say? Because this world is a deadly place. There are germs out there that are going to kill you if you partake of them and there are deadly sins out there that will get you if you don’t bath your decisions in prayer.
Number 2. Study the Bible. Don’t ever, ever make a major decision without studying the Bible. King Solomon urges us, Proverbs chapter 2 and verse 4. He says, “If you look for it as silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and you will find the knowledge of God.” Verse 9, “You will understand ...every good path.” But you’ve got to search. You’ve got to search the scriptures. And Seventh-day Adventists ought to be a people of The Book. Read. Study. Mark. Underline. Memorize the Bible.
Number 3. Consult with other mature Christians. Now you know, I didn’t just say, go out and get some advice. Proverbs chapter 5, verse 13, listen to your instructors. Get all the advice you can. Four eyes are better than two eyes. Two eyes are better than one eye. And one eye is certainly better than no eyes. Get all the advice you can get. Listen carefully to your teachers. But don’t follow all the advice you get. Is that good advice? Don’t do that. He who builds according to every man's choice will have a crooked house. Only follow the good advice. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Sure. Ask someone, “Now, is this good advice?” “No.”
How do you determine if it’s good advice? Well, prayer and Bible study. You bathe it in prayer, you line it up with the word of God, and if it lines up accordingly, then it’s good advice, right? And if it doesn’t, it isn’t.
Number 4. Give it time. Don’t make a hasty decision, in other words. A good cabinet maker, that’s a member of this church, he makes cabinets. One day he said, “You know, I measure twice and I cut once.” That’s great. Why is it… I don’t understand this, but why is it that there is always time to do it over but there’s never enough time to do it right the first time? I don’t understand that. So Ecclesiastes 7, verse 9, Solomon says, “Do not be quick-tempered.” So unless you’re between the hammer and the anvil, and the hammer is coming down in your direction, don’t make a hasty decision. The only thing, we Americans are too fast, I think, many, many times. About the only thing you should do fast is swatting flies. We need to slow down. The man who does not have time to stop at the railroad crossing always takes time to attend his own funeral. We need to slow down. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Hot hasty words never result in cool, sound judgment. And somebody else said, “The emptier the pot, the quicker it boils.” So watch your temper. Could A quick temper be proof of a small, empty little brain? I don’t know. Proverbs 21, verse 5, “Good planning”, listen to this. “Good planning,” verse 5, “and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” Hasty shortcuts. That’s neat. Proverbs 21, verse 5.
Number 5. How do you make a good decision? Consider all your possible options. Consider them. I want to focus on the word consider. Proverbs chapter 14, verse 15, “Fools will believe anything, but the wise think about what they’re going to do.” Think it over. Successful people look well into the matter. They study it through. They do some research. Do your homework. Learn as much as you can in the time that you have. And don’t make hasty decisions. Let me illustrate. I’m going to ask you a question. And I want you to give me an answer. In baseball, how many outs are there in an inning? You know. Who said three? The answer is six. One for each… You know how baseball works, here? You jumped to a snap decision there, didn’t you? When you said three.
Let me give you one more chance, ok? Now that I have your attention. Here comes the last question. Now pay close attention. You are driving a train eastbound on a railroad track, you’re going 60 miles an hour. I’m going to go slow so you can remember. You travel for 30 minutes, you pick up 10 passengers. That’s easy. You go 30 more minutes. And all but three of the passengers get off the train. So here’s the question. What is the engineer’s name? How many of you got it? You got it. Why didn’t you get it? YOU are the engineer, remember? You are driving a train, eastbound, 60 miles… What is the engineer’s name? It’s your name! You are the engineer.
Don’t make a snap decision. Listen. Get all the facts, ok? Weigh the pros and the cons. Think about it. Especially before making a big decision. Think it through. Give it time. Make sure you know everything about it.
So, let’s suppose you’re facing a big decision in your life. And you don’t really know what to do. Let’s suppose it’s a dilemma, and this way could be right and this way could be right. There’s about three things you could do.
Here’s a suggestion. Suppose that your personal decision should be a global tradition and everybody in the world would do as you are choosing to do. Would the world be a happier place? Would it be worse? That’s one scenario. Another one. If you’re in doubt as to what to do, simply ask yourself this question. When tomorrow comes, what would I wish that I had done? Today. And often that’ll answer it. And another one, of course, is what would Jesus do?
Think about your decision. Your decision, that you make, will affect the future,. And not just your future, but the future of your children, the future of your wife, your family.
You’ve heard about the Max Juke’s family. I did a lot of research on this, and a lot of the facts that most people tell are wrong, but as far as I know, these facts are correct. Max Juke lived in New York. He was a hard drinker. He was averse to steady toil. Several of his children were illegitimate. And I would say, from the research that I have done, that he did not put Jesus Christ first in his life. Sounds like it already, doesn’t it? There is no record of him taking his children to church, or church membership. The best that I can tell, he had 540 blood descendants. And fully 52.4% of the Juke sisters were "harlots". 142 Jukes received state aid for an average of 5 years. 150 were sent to jail for an average time of 1 year. This is just in this one family. 60 became thieves. Only 20 of them learned a trade, and 10 of those learned it in jail. The total cost to the state of the whole Jukes family was 1 million, 308 thousand dollars. And that was a fortune back in the early days of America.
Then look at another family that lived in the north-eastern United States. Not far away. Jonathan Edwards about the same time as the Jukes family. He made his decision for Jesus Christ. Jonathan Edwards attended church. He took his family to church. And there were practically no lawbreakers in Jonathan Edwards’ family. There were more than 100 lawyers, 30 judges, 13 college presidents. Over one hundred were university professors. 62 were physicians.
There were 100 clergymen and missionaries. 80 were elected to public office. There were three mayors, three governors, several members of congress, three senators, and one vice president of the United States. His family wrote 136 books. They contributed immeasurably to society. The descendants of two people. Two choices, that each of them made a choice. One choice for the Lord. One choice not. And what a difference. And what an impact on the families. Can your choice impact the future? Absolutely!
Number 6. Decide clearly and decide decisively. Make your decision. Nothing is so exhausting as indecision. In fact, not to decide is to make a decision. And what is the best way to cut off a dog’s tail? Should you do one inch a week? What is the best way to make a decision? Do it, take your time, and then make the decision all at once. Do it. Do it decisively! In fact, I read, “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good or the evil side.” Don’t dilly-dally around forever. Come to your decision.
And then, number 7. Stick with it. Stick with it. I heard the story, last night, of Dan Ford’s niece. Had three fingers cut off. Was scheduled to be baptized today. Three fingers were cut off yesterday. She’s going to still be baptized. Going to carry through. Make a good decision. Stick with it. The devil will throw a loop in your life. Stick with your decision. If it’s the right decision, decide who you’re going to get married, stick with it. Decide you’re going to change your lifestyle as far as health goes, stick with it. Confirm that it is right by your Bible study, immerse it in prayer, and make the intelligent decision and then stay with your decision unless God should show you otherwise. Unless you… you know, good advice is no better than poor advice, if you don’t follow the advice.
Thousands of Americans decide every day to quit smoking tobacco. They decide to give up alcohol. But they decide later in the day to go back to it. How many of them actually stick with a wise decision? Stick with it.
Number 8. Let time prove the correctness of your decision. Proverbs chapter 4 and verse 18. “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter until the breaking of the day.” That path gets brighter as you go along. As time goes by, the correctness of your decision will be shown.
You know, in darkness there is no choice. Let’s assume that you are driving home, that you’re going 30, 40, 50 miles an hour. It’s a pitch dark night. And all of a sudden the headlights go out, and you can’t see anything out there. Which way do you turn the steering wheel? May I humbly submit to you that it is light that enables us to see the differences between things; and may I humbly submit to you that it is Christ who gives light to our life.
Without Jesus, you can’t make a wise decision. You’ve got to have light. And Jesus said, “I am the” what? “The Light of the World.” Focus the light of Jesus upon your path and you will see which way to go. It’ll clarify it for you. The best choice that you can make is to choose Jesus Christ. Then you’re walking in the light. It’s wonderful.
Hymn of Praise: #34, Wake the Song Scripture: Proverbs 16:25 Hymn of Response: #554, O Let Me Walk With Thee
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McDonald Road Sermon transcribed by Steve Foster 9/8/07