The Key to Making Wise Decisions – Dr. Charles Stanley
Start your day off right with the free In Touch devotional. Subscribe today. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ male announcer: "In Touch"
with Dr. Charles Stanley, celebrating 45 years
of God's faithfulness in sharing the gospel worldwide. Next on "In Touch," "The Key
to Making Wise Decisions." Dr. Charles Stanley:
How do you make decisions? What's the basis of your
decision-making process? All of us make
decisions every day, sometimes they appear
to be insignificant, and they become,
as we see, in time, they were very significant. Sometimes those decisions
have little or no consequence, and sometimes they
have great consequences. Sometimes the
consequences are joyful, sometimes they
are not so joyful. We're all in the
process of making decisions, and those decisions
don't just affect us, they oftentimes
affect other people, and we all have a
basis for making them, that is, we all make our
decisions based on something. But what I want to talk about
in this message is how do we make godly decisions? How do we make wise
decisions in our life? Well, there are many
examples in the Scripture, but I want us to look at one
particular passage and one particular man who learned
very early in life how to make godly decisions. And I want us to look at
the contrast between the right and the wrong way. So I want you to turn, if you
will, to the book of Daniel. And I want to give you
a little background. Everybody knows Daniel by the
fact that he was in the lions' den, but more important than
that is something that his parents taught him
very early in life. Well, Jeremiah the prophet had
been prophesying to the nation of Israel for a long time that,
because of their sinfulness, because they'd
walked away from God, the judgment of God
was coming upon them. And so, here was one
thing, for example, he said, "Therefore,
thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, 'Because
you have spoken this word, behold, I am making My words in
your mouth fire and this people wood, and it will
consume them.'" And this is the judgment
he said, "'Behold, I am bringing a nation against you from
afar, O house of Israel,' declares the Lord. 'It is an enduring nation;
it is an ancient nation; a nation whose
language you do not know, nor can you
understand what they say. Their quiver is
like an open grave, all of them are mighty men. They will devour your harvest
and your food; they'll devour your sons, your daughters,
devour your flocks, your herds; devour your vines, your fig
trees; demolish with the sword fortified cities
in which you trust. Yet even in those
days,' declares the Lord, 'I will not make you a
complete destruction.'" Now naturally, they
didn't like it. So what did they do?
They threw him in jail. They didn't like what
he was prophesying, so they put him in jail
thinking that'll stop him. But here's what happened. In the thirty second chapter,
"Then the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, 'Behold, I am the
Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too
difficult for Me?' Therefore thus says the Lord,
'Behold, I'm about to give this city into the hand of the
Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,
and he will take it.'" So, when you turn to the book
of Daniel, what's happening is that what we just read
prophesied began to take place. And that is, Nebuchadnezzar
attacked Jerusalem, Judah, and took away hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of people. Killed many, of course, burned
the gates, tore the walls down, and one of those who was
taken to Babylon was Daniel. He was probably
somewhere between thirteen, sixteen years of age,
somewhere thereabouts. And he, along with a number
of other Hebrew children, young people, were
taken to Babylon, and the king said, "Now,
here's what I want to do. I want to take
the smartest ones, the most educated ones,
the ones who are handsome, the ones who seem to
have a lot of potential, and what we want to do is
we want to babylonize them, that is we want them
to think like we think, act like we act,
live the way we live." And so these things began
to happen in their lives, and of course, they were growing
in the middle of all this and, up until a certain point,
there was no resistance. They did exactly what
they were supposed to do, and then there came a time
when they decided, no more. We cannot do that. This is where we take our stand. And so what I want us to talk
about in this message is this, I want to talk about the whole
idea of what's the basis upon which you make
decisions in your life. And there are two words
I want you to remember, if you forget everything else
about this message, because here's the crux of everything
we want to talk about. And I want to
define, first of all, the difference between a
principle and a preference. A principle is a moral rule
based on the Word of God guiding our conduct, it's a fixed or
predetermined mode of conduct, that is, if I'm going to operate
on the basis of a principle, then it is a
principle, a moral principle, in the Word of God. That's one way to think and
one way to make decisions, and when you--when a
person comes to that, these are principles out
of God's Word and they're principles by which we establish
our whole sense of conviction, our belief system, that is,
all of us have convictions, we all have a belief
system of some sort, and so the question is: What's
the basis of what you believe? Those of us who are
believers, we say the basis of what we believe
is the is the Word of God. And so we make
decisions consistent with that. For example, let's take
the Ten Commandments. Thou shall not
steal, lie, cheat, commit adultery,
worship one true God, in other words, these are basic
principles of the Word of God. So, if a person says, "I'm a
Christian and I live with the truth of God's Word," then we
live consistently with what God teaches in His Word. So, when a person says, "I
live by principle," what you're saying is this: I
have established a roadway in my life. And I'm going to
walk that roadway. And I'm going to do what my
convictions tell me to do because my convictions are
based on the Word of God. And so that makes it rather
simple and plain to some degree. So, when you think about
what are the principles in your life that you live by? Can you say, for
example, "I live by principle"? Now the other word, preference. Preference says decisions
and choices based on likes, dislikes, and desires. So, here's the way
that person operates. Well, today, it's a bad day. I don't like this day,
and so you know what? I'm just gonna call
and tell them I'm sick. Now, I'm not sick, of course,
but I'm gonna call and tell them I'm sick. So preference says I'm gonna
lie because lying will give me what I want today, and
that is a free day. Preferences says
I'm gonna operate on the basis of
the circumstance. I'm gonna operate on
the basis of my feelings, my desires, operate on the
basis of things that please me, honor me,
make me look good, make me feel good,
or could profit me. And so a person makes decisions
based on one of those two. Either I'm gonna live by the
principles of the Word of God, or I'm gonna just sort
of be all over the place, and that is, it just
depends on the circumstance, 'pends on what the situation is. And people talk
about situation ethics, that is, I'm gonna make a
decision based on the situation and what I desire
to get out of it. Now, here's the
problem with that, because it is a very
dangerous way to live, and it is a very dangerous and
destructive way to raise your children because if they see
parents operating on the basis of preference, if they see
this kind of contrast going on, here's what I'm saying,
here's what I'm doing. What you're doing is you're
teaching them to live in a fashion that has no
sense of strength, honesty, and protection. Here's a good example. Let's say that you're driving
down the highway and it's midnight, and
there's a center line. Let's say it's a
white center line. As long as you're driving
down the highway and the center line's there, you
know where you are. You know as long as
you stay on this side, the other guy stays on his
side, then you're gonna be safe. But it's midnight, and there are
no street lights because you're out in the country. So all of a sudden, there's
no white line in the middle. Then what? You don't know where you are
because you may be wobbling on this side a little
while and on this side. It's all pitch black dark and
you--you're just all over the place because you don't have
any center line to guide you. A person who makes decisions
based on preferences is like the guy who's driving down the
highway and no center line. Because, you see,
your desires change. Circumstances change. Life changes for you. And so as a result, as things
change, you make a decision based on this preference
today, that one tomorrow. And so, there's no real
sense of direction and guidance for your life. Now, a person can
have convictions without being a Christian. They can have convictions that
certain things are right that you and I would never agree to
because the Bible's very clear. But a follower of Jesus
has basic convictions, and those convictions becomes
the principles by which we live. And without them,
you're just there. So when we come to Daniel,
it's very evident that Daniel's mother and dad taught him
very early in life to live by principle because
here's what happens, they were coming
along and, of course, they changed their names, and
they had to learn the literature of Babylon, which
was a Godless nation. And they had to learn about
their worldview and their gods and their worship and
their lifestyle and so forth. Then there came the time
when the king said to him, he said, "Now
here's what you must do. I want you to teach
them the literature. I want you to teach
them about our worldview. I want you to teach
them all these things, and then because I want
them to be their best, do their best, and
look their best, I want you to feed them
from my table," the king said. That is, "My table
is the best food, so I want them to
look their best. So I'm gonna give
you a period of time, and then when you bring
these young men to me, I'm expecting for them
to be handsome, I'm expecting for them to be very
committed to our way of life. I'm expecting them to be
excited about Babylon." In other words, you're
gonna transform these men. So Ashpenaz, who was
the king's servant, comes to Daniel,
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and he
says, "Now this is the diet. The diet is right
off the king's table." Well, that sounded pretty good. In fact, to be sort of a slave
somewhere and you're gonna eat off the king's table
and drink his wine, you couldn't get
any better than that. So preference would
have said, absolutely. Why not? Daniel said, "Ashpenaz,
this is where we stop. We've learned your literature,
we've done all these things, but we're not gonna do this." Well, why not? "Because it is against the
Mosaic law, and we have principles by which we live that
we cannot and will not violate. Whatever the consequence is,
we're not going to do it." And you recall the thing that
people know most about Daniel was he did so well that the king
had given him a position that made the other
guys sort of jealous. And so they had this law
that they had formulated that everybody had to bow down to
the king and then you couldn't worship any other god, you
couldn't pray to any other god. And so what does Daniel do? He does what he
always did, and that is, he had a principle by which he
operated that daily he prayed a certain number of times to God. Well, so they arrested him and
threw him in the lions' den. He could have said, "Well look,
you know, I can pray by myself. I can pray secretly. I don't have to tell
anybody I'm praying. I can do this to myself
and nobody will ever know and I'll get by." But you see, that's preference. He said, "I have a principle by
which I live that, daily, I'm on my knees before the presence
of Almighty God praying, and I'm not
keeping it a secret." And so it's interesting
that they changed his name, but when the king came looking
for him that morning and said, "Oh Daniel, is your God
able to deliver you?" He didn't call him Belshazzar,
he called him his Hebrew name. Now, watch this, Daniel
stuck to his conviction. He said, "I'm--you know,
whatever the cost, I'm not eating meat and drinking
wine offered to an idol." Watch what happened,
not only did God spare him, but Daniel lived about 70 years
under 4 kings, Nebuchadnezzar, his son Belshazzar and
Darius and King Cyrus. He had tremendous impact on
the lives of those four kings. Now, there's one other
word I want to put up here, and that's conviction. And I want you to notice
that all of us should have convictions, but look at this,
it's a principle of which I'm committed and
purposed to follow. All of us have convictions,
and it's as if some people have convictions that are not
biblical, but because we are followers of Jesus
Christ, then biblical principles should be the basis of
all of our convictions. These are the things that
guide our thinking, so forth. Now, let's think about some of
these areas in which you ought to have immovable,
unalterable conviction. For example, let's take Jesus. Do you have an unalterable,
unchangeable conviction about the fact that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God and the only Savior of the world? You have a
conviction about that? For example, let's take money. Do you have
principles about money, that is, that money
is not to be God? Money is a means of
accomplishing and achieving or giving or helping or
whatever it might be, many, many good
things about money. But do I have a preference
about money to the point that, listen, if it takes me
doing a little cheating over here, it's
gonna be all right. For example, let's say you go to
the grocery store and the lady gives you $20 more than you
should have gotten and you walk away saying, 20
bucks, praise the Lord. $20, and your 9-year-old son
says, "I was in Sunday school last week and they said
thou shalt not steal. How does this work?" Because
preferences will kill you. Preferences will
destroy your testimony. In other words, if--listen,
if stealing is a sin, if stealing--if
it's a nickel, $20, if you steal from your daddy,
if you steal from a stranger, whatever it might be,
stealing is stealing. In other words,
principles don't change. And our conviction should
be based on principles, and those principles
are divine principles, the principles of
the Word of God. You--listen, you can't
violate the principles of God and get by with it. You know, people
can say, "Well, I don't know that
I believe that." Look around. Just look around. We're to be people
to live by principle. There's certain things that we
will not tolerate in our life, and when we do, what we're doing
is we're going by preferences. This is what I
prefer to do today, and lots of people do things
that are very questionable, and you ask them
why, and they say, "Well, it's
just--it's my own business." When you're a child of God, it
isn't just your own business. Now, the question is
why do people do that? Let think about it. Why do people choose to live
by preference when it's not the best way to live? Well, one of primary
reasons is they fear rejection by other people. If I don't do what they want me
to do and I don't go where they want me go, then
they're gonna reject me. If that's not where God wants
you and you are convicted about it, it doesn't make any
difference what they think, but that's the reason
people choose to live by that. Principles say I have a
guideline that is for my protection, and once I
go beyond the guideline, I'm like the guy who's wobbling
down the highway with no center line, pitch black
night and, listen, no lights on the highway,
and I'm all over the place. And that's the way
most people are living. They're living by preference
and they lack moral convictions. They've never stopped to say,
"Now, what do I really believe? What is it I really and truly
believe about life and about how I treat people and how they
treat me and what I do and how I give and I am jealous? Am I generous?" In other words, what
are the guidelines? The guidelines
are all right here. In the Word of God,
both the Old Testament, New Testament teaches
how to live, and it's always by principle, not by preference. And when people start living by
preference, they get in trouble. All of life is a
decision-making process, and when we decide this is
the way I'm going to live, these are the principles I'm
gonna follow no matter what. And sometimes, as we
said, it's costly, but God always honors obedience,
and you have to decide, am I gonna be obedient to
God and just leave all the consequences to him or am I not? And you see, God does not want
us to live with this upheaval on the inside of, how am I gonna? How--suppose this happens and
suppose I get this offer and suppose he says this and
suppose she says that? Listen, when you're
living by principle, you know how
you're gonna respond. You say no to sin, no to things,
listen, that may not even be sin, but things that you
know will not get you where God wants you to go and things
that can become sin eventually, you say no because of
where it will lead you. Principles are
for our protection. They're not, listen, they don't
prevent us from having fun. They're for our protection. Now, there's certain
requirements if you're gonna live by principle, so just
look at them for just a moment. I'll just mention a few of them. First of all,
you've gotta decide, I'm gonna live for a cause
that you're greater than myself, and that is, I'm going to live
for Jesus Christ, for the kingdom of God, and bear witness
of who he is in my life. I'm gonna live for something
that's more important and greater than I am, and
that is the kingdom of God. That's number one, you
have to decide that. Am I gonna live for myself?
Any of these other things go. Secondly, I have to be very
clear, watch this carefully, I must be very clear in my
mind as to what I believe. Now, watch this, there's some
things that are nonnegotiable. If you're unmarried and somebody
wants to go to bed with you, that's nonnegotiable, no. Well, what
about--nonnegotiable, that means this conversation is over. The decision has been made, we
move on to the next subject. Nonnegotiable. Once you get an offer of
something that is ungodly, watch this, and you start
turning toward that to consider it, you're in trouble. If you have a
principle in your life, listen, principles don't move. They don't change. I think also, you have
to expect conflict, that is, if you're
gonna live by principle, you can expect conflict because
there are gonna be people who don't like it and don't want
you to be a part of their life because they don't like
the way you're living. You can expect conflict. Another thing is this,
you've gotta make your decision, watch this, make
your decision and go, I'm leaving all the
consequences to God. If he lets me suffer, so be it. If he blesses me in most
unusual ways, so be it. I'll leave the consequences
of my obedience by living by these principles. I'm gonna leave all that to God. But you have to come to
the conclusion in your life and make that decision. And the last thing is
this, if you're gonna live by principle, you've got to believe
in the sovereignty of God that he is in absolute
control of every single thing. That means when you
live by principle, you're living in
obedience to him, and therefore, you believe
that he is great enough, powerful enough, loving enough,
and interested in you enough and with you in every circumstance
of life that you don't have to worry about the consequences. It's who he is. So I would simply ask
you this: Which one of these best fits you? They can call you dogmatic, they
can call you a fundamentalist. They can call you
anything they want to call you, but which one fits you best? Are you a person who
knows what you believe, you're committed to those
beliefs because they're the moral laws of God
and you don't budge, period? Does it mean you're perfect?
No. Does it mean that
you'll never sin? No. But in the decision-making
process in your life, that's how you
live, which means, watch this, you only travel
roads that have a white line right down the middle. Now, if you forget everything
else about this message, here's what I want
you to remember, two words, what are they? congregation:
Principle or preference. Dr. Stanley: And the other
thing I want you to remember is this: How would you feel driving
75 miles an hour down a dark road, no white line, and
there are ditches on both sides? Would you not agree
that that is dangerous? When you set aside
your principles, that's the road you
choose to follow. ♪♪♪