They had God and they had gods. They liked the latter best. They gave
God formal worship, but they gave the others more active service.
Such a kind of religion is a type of much that we see around us; the
attempt to be Christians and worldlings, the indecision under which
many men labour all their lives, being drawn one way by their
consciences, another by their inclinations.
You cannot unite the two. God requires all. He fills the heart, and
claims supreme control over all the nature. There cannot be two
supreme in the soul. It cannot be God and self. It must be God or
self. You may look now one way and now another, but the way the heart
goes is the thing. Mr. Facing-both-ways does not really face both
ways. He only turns quickly round from one to the other.
Such divided religion is impossible in the nature of God--of the
soul--of religion.
To attempt it, then, is really to decide against God.
It is weak and unmanly to be thus vague and decided by circumstances.
You would have been a Mohammedan if you had been born in Turkey.
You ought to decide for God.
He claims, He deserves, He will reward and bless, your whole soul.
'Choose you this day whom ye will serve. If the Lord be God, follow
Him' If Baal or Succoth-benoth, then follow him. 'You cannot serve God
and Mammon.' 'He that is not for us is against us.' Be one thing or
the other.