A Two Master System

We cannot serve God and still bow down to the world. When we do we’ll end up serving the world and no longer bow our knee in submission to God.

This reality is brought forth in 2 Kings 17 where Assyria deported the people from the northern tribes of Israel, and resettled in their place peoples from other nations who served other gods.

They only knew the Lord God as the local deity. Therefore God sent wild beasts to harass and kill to get their attention.

When the king of Assyria heard what was happening he sent a former priest from Samaria to teach them the rituals of God. The only problem is that he didn’t know God, only the rituals. He was a hired priest, not a Levite call by God.

The ending is very telling for us.

“They feared the Lord, yet served their own gods–according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away. To this day they continue practicing the former rituals; they do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances, or the law and commandment which the Lord had commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel.” (2 Kings 17:33-34)

How this speaks to our time and society.

There are those who are Christians following the rules and regulations of the church, but have no relationship with the God in whom they say they follow. There are also those who call themselves Christians but follow the gods of our culture and society. They make America and their particular political party their god, following and serving them with little if any regard to God and His word.

We cannot serve two masters, Jesus said, because we’ll end up hating the one while loving the other. (Matthew 6:24)

We cannot serve God while following and serving the gods of religion or the world, because in the end we’ll stop fearing God and His word.