“YE CANNOT SERVE THE LORD.”
JOSHUA foresaw the apostasies of Israel, by reason of their secret attachment to idols. His beautiful address to them just before his death is full of significant interest to us. All the goodness of God to them from the day in which he brought them out of Egypt until the day in which he had given them the good land was set before them in that farewell address, which closed with the exhortation: “Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord.” Josh. 24:14. To this exhortation the people made answer: “God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods.” No doubt they were sincere in this profession, and in the expression of horror at the thought that they would ever forsake the Lord. At the same time they were secretly holding onto some of their idols. If it was asked how they could be at the same time sincere in professing unwavering allegiance to the Lord, and cherish a love for idols, we need not go far to find the answer. Israel’s apostasy never took the form of openly and formally rejecting Jehovah as the true God, but in mixing with the worship and service of Jehovah the worship and service of idols. It was this which Joshua foresaw and warned them against; and it was this that came to pass, and which ended in the Lord’s turning and doing them hurt, after he had done them good. It was this foreseen attachment to and worship of idols which led Joshua to declare: “Ye cannot serve the Lord; . . . he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.” That is, while they were secretly attached to idols. “If,” he said in effect, “you worship idols and render them service in common with your worship and service of the Lord, he will reject your service and will not forgive your sins and trespasses, even though you bring the sin-offering before him in all regular and due form. For God is a holy God, and a jealous God. He will not countenance any form of sin, nor will he divide with any other object the worship that is due to him by his people.” We read the history of the ancient people, and wonder at their lack of spiritual perception, and their perverseness in adhering to idols. A little attention to the lesson set before us in this important bit of history and teaching will reveal the fact that the same mixture of idol worship with the formal worship of the true God is as common to-day among the professed people of God as it was then. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” was our Lord’s declaration to the people of his day, and it is his solemn word to us now. Attachment to the world and the things of the world, in the spirit of mammon worship, is just as vicious and deadly as was the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth by the children of Israel. No formal professor of religion will admit that he is serving idols, and if charged with so doing would say as they of old said: “God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve mammon.” No professors of religion will openly and formally renounce the service of God and declare that henceforth they purpose to give themselves wholly to the service of mammon, that is, the gratification of their own lusts—high and low, gross and refined—in connection with an open worldliness. The deceitfulness of sin is seen in that men persuade themselves that they can at once worship and serve the Lord and hold on to certain forms of worldliness; that covetousness and worldly pleasure, the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eye and the pride of life, may be indulged without apostasy from God; that these things may be indulged and yet their formal worship of God be accepted and their daily and formal petition for the forgiveness of sins be answered. It is worth our while to consider the declaration of the Lord above quoted: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon,” and the declaration of John, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (Matt. 6:24, 1 John 2:15), with the declaration of Joshua to the idol-loving children of Israel: “Ye cannot serve the Lord; . . . he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.” Josh. 24:19. The principle involved in both the Old and the New Testament declarations is the same. This is a most solemn matter, and ought to awaken our serious consideration. The practical truths gathered from the consideration of this principle are:— 1. That the indulgence of any known sin sets up, in the worshiper’s heart, a moral inability to serve the Lord. There may be the pretense of worship; the pious forms may be regularly gone through with; the Bible may be daily read; the prayer may be daily said; the language of worship may be maintained on the lips; the different outward acts of service may be performed; but it is a “vain oblation,” and God does not accept it. The formal worshiper is a hypocrite both to God and to himself, though he may be so blinded by his sin that he does not know it. Moreover, the mixture of worldliness with the ostensible service of God may be so common throughout the professing church that the hypocrisy is not noted by others. What a terrible thing is this! What an awakening will come by and by, when the door is shut upon all such, and to the vain and despairing cry, “Lord, Lord, open unto us,” comes back the answer, “I never knew you.” It will be in vain that we plead: “Have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils?” for it629will be then manifested that all our prophesying and service in the name of God was worthless, because, in fact, we had forsaken the Lord to serve the idols of our own selfish hearts, supposing that these beloved lusts and worldly ambitions might be safely indulged so long as we kept up a formal worship of God and a fair show of service in the flesh. 2. The indulgence of some sins or even of one sin prevents the forgiveness of all other sins. “He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.” We are ready and anxious to confess many sins, and we earnestly plead the divine forgiveness for them. At the same time we hold fast by some secret or self-excused form of sin which we do not confess. This is to demonstrate our insincerity and to make a mock of God’s holy jealousy, and to cut us off from his mercy. It was this kind of thing indulged in by Israel that was in the mind of the Spirit when he inspired Solomon to declare: “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord; but the prayer of the upright is his delight.” Prov. 15:8; compare Isa. 1:11; 61:8; Jer. 6:20; Amos 5:25; John 4:24.—Independent.