I did'nt use `make -C lisp compile`. I just use `make` and `make compile`.
Check out my original email, it's the output from command `make`.

I did a search, found this `make -C lisp compile` is from `mk/targets.mk`.

[stardiviner]           <Hack this world!>      GPG key ID: 47C32433
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On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 12:18 PM, Yasushi SHOJI <yasushi.shoji@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 10:24 AM, numbchild@gmail.com
> <numbchild@gmail.com> wrote:
> > When I try to compile with command `make`, but got this output:
> [...]
> > make -C lisp compile
>
> just do `make compile`.
>
> you can't use `-C` in org-mode source tree.
> In my case with `-C`, I get:
>
> $ make -C lisp compile
> make: Entering directory '/home/yashi/src/org-mode/lisp'
> Makefile:4: *** This make needs to be started as a sub-make from the
> toplevel directory..  Stop.
> make: Leaving directory '/home/yashi/src/org-mode/lisp'
>
> $ git describe
> release_9.1.6-419-g4b2006db3
>
>
> `make help` for more option.
> --
>            yashi
>