On the Fence
Joshua 24:15 "And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve...."
We share a fence with our backyard neighbors, although technically, it is their fence. One of the things that our kids have come to really enjoy is that the neighbor boy will come outside and sit on top of the fence and talk with our boys. Sometimes he faces our yard and sometimes he turns back to his yard.
It Is A Decision
To “be on the fence” about something, by one definition, is to be “uncommitted; neutral; undecided.” The way we commonly understand the phrase, is someone who doesn’t really take a side, but is stuck between two opinions. But actually, fence-sitting is choosing a side. For instance, if I’m on the fence about whether I’ll go out to eat with my friends, there comes a time when my fence-sitting actually proves to be a decision not to go. I can’t come to my friends the next day and say, “I think I’ll go out to eat now.” They would say, “We already went. You decided not to go.” I can’t sit on the fence forever, because the decision has passed. Which is just a proof that being on the fence was truly a decision all along. Time just revealed where I actually stood.
Back to my neighbors’ fence. I asked my wife, “When the neighbor boy sits on the fence, whose yard is he in?” After some discussion, we realized that even when he is on the fence, he is still in his yard, because it’s his fence. We can be tricked into thinking he’s in both yards, because he is often facing us, but in reality, the fence is in his yard. And in a spiritual sense, this is what it is to be “on the fence” about God.
On the Fence About God
No one is actually on the fence with God. “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). Those who seem undecided about God and His gospel aren’t really undecided at all. They’ve made friends with the world, and this makes them an enemy with God. They might say they’re “on the fence”, but in reality, the fence is in the other yard. The fence is in the world. And time is the thing that makes this plain. There is coming a day, “burning like an oven” (Mal 4:1), that will reveal all those on the fence as merely in the neighbors’ yard, friends with the world, and enemies of God. That indecision is actually a total decision to reject God and His Christ. Don’t be deceived. Just because you’re facing God’s direction from the “fence” does not put you in God’s “yard”.
So what should you do? Don’t remain on the fence about God! Don’t comfort yourself into thinking that, because you peek over the fence and talk to Christians, you belong to Christ. You should repent of your sin and trust in Christ. You should give all your allegiance to the One who died for your sin and rose from the dead. You should “choose this day whom you will serve” (Josh 24:15). The Day is coming where God will deal out righteous judgement on all those who have made friends with the world. Please turn to Christ, and get off the fence.
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