"CHOOSE YOU"

A THRONG of people stood in reverent silence listening to the words of a great leader. It must have been a dramatic, awe-inspiring occasion, and although it took place more than three thousand years ago, the words spoken at that time are as important and pertinent to us today as they were to those ancient Israelites who first heard them.

It was Joshua who spoke. He reminded the people of the great goodness of God and of how He had delivered them from the slavery of the Egyptians. God had taken them safely through the Red Sea, guided and sustained them on their long, laborious journey through the wilderness. He had brought them into the promised land of security and supply.

Joshua knew the temptations to which his people had been exposed, especially the temptation of idolatry. The neighboring peoples had gods, or idols, which they could see and touch. The Israelites had one God, the great, ever-present, all-powerful I AM. It was a magnificent heritage—this monotheism of their forefathers—the most magnificent heritage in all the world. But it was a constant challenge as well. And over and over again the Israelites were lured away to the easier, less spiritual forms of worship of their neighbors.

We who look back upon those pages of early history are wont to condemn the Israelites for their foolish running after other gods. It behooves us to see that we do not do likewise. Modern so-called gods may have different names, but their characteristics are quite comparable to the idols of antiquity, to the false gods of materialism, superstition, and fear.

Joshua was constantly counseling his people not to worship false gods. On this great day of decision, he called upon them for an immediate choice, immediate loyalty to the one God. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve," he cried (24:15). Then he added, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The account continues: "And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods. . . . And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the Lord, to serve him. . . . So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day. . . . And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God."

In the eighteenth chapter of First Kings is the account of another prophet, the prophet Elijah, who centuries later challenged the people to choose between God and the idols of materialism. Confronted by the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets "of the groves," all of whom were in high favor at court, Elijah called upon the people to make their decision. "How long halt ye between two opinions?" he demanded; "if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him." And there, before their very eyes, he demonstrated the power and glory of God. And the people with one accord cried out, "The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God."

In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew are recorded some of the temptations which Christ Jesus faced. He was told that "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them" would be his if he would but fall down and worship the devil, or evil. Jesus' reply rings out through the centuries, "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." The Bible account continues, "Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, was faced many times with a choice between God and mammon. But valiantly and with unfaltering trust in God, good, she withstood the temptations and gave to the world the religion of Christian Science, the Comforter which Christ Jesus promised would surely come and would abide with us forever.

To each one of us temptations come in many guises to serve Baal: to believe in the reality and power of sin, sickness, and death; to be afraid, to be jealous, to hate, to bear false witness against ourselves and our neighbor; to accept false values of wealth, popularity, and success. We too may feel that we are in a wilderness of insecurity or suffering or doubt. In the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy starts the definition of "wilderness" with the words (p. 597), "Loneliness; doubt; darkness." And then she adds these comforting words of spiritual import: "Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence."

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve." This is the daily, the hourly, challenge to us. Choose you whether to remain in the wilderness of materialism or the promised land of plenty—plenteous health, plenteous supply, plenteous good of every kind. The choice is up to us. And really it is a very simple one. There are not minds many, wills many, ways many. There is actually only one Mind, God; one will, God's will; one way, God's way. Man is the image and likeness of God, the full and perfect expression of God, of divine Mind. There is no halfway expression of God's will; no halfway or limited intelligence; no halfway or limited health; no halfway or limited good. When we truly acknowledge these great truths, healing takes place, for healing is a result of the recognition of the perfection of God and of man as God's child, God's workmanship. "Love's work and Love must fit," one of our hymns tells us (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 51).

The idols of materialism may seem very real. The evidence of the material senses, the diagnoses of material conditions, the propaganda of material ideologies, may shout at us from every side. Then it is that we must choose between God and Baal. There is but one choice—God, good. However loud and alluring the claim of evil may seem to be, however successfully it may seem to fight against Truth, however slyly to ridicule Truth, evil is nevertheless godless. Therefore it is powerless, an utter nonentity, no person, place, or thing, for God is All-in-all. And man, the beloved of God, is never for an instant separated from the power, guidance, and goodness of God.

One of the hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal reads (No. 258):

Thou shall fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. . . . Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to cast out all thine enemies from before thee, as the Lord hath spoken.—Deuteronomy 6:13, 17-19.