UNDIVIDED LOYALTY IN
SERVING GOD
Matthew 6:24
“No man can serve two masters.” Our blessed Lord here shows the utter
impossibility of serving two incompatible, opposing and different masters. As
light and darkness are different so God and Satan, God and dead idols, God and
the world, God and mammon, God and self are different. Satan, the god of this
world, with mammon, will want to be our master. We have a choice to make if we
truly desire to serve God for no man can serve two masters.
To serve God is to give our hearts to Him, to
love Him supremely, to allow Him to reign over us and rule all our decisions
and actions. We cannot serve God and at the same time give our heart, interest
and devotion to an object that is incompatible with Him. Serving God as Master
demands that we reject the lordship of Satan and other gods; loving God implies
that we hate every competitor that will take our hearts away from Him; holding
on to Him makes us despise the world and the flesh. Knowing the utter
impossibility of serving God and mammon, we make an irreversible covenant with
God to serve Him, only, always and ever.
1. THE
IMPOSSIBILITY OF SERVING GOD AND MAMMON
Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13; Joshua 24:14-21; 1 Kings 18:21; Hosea 10:1,2;
James 1:8; 1 Samuel 7:3;
Matthew 4:8-11; Galatians 1:10; John 6:24-27.
“No man can serve two
masters.” Christ’s declaration is true at all times, in all ages. This
is a law of human nature. A servant cannot serve two masters at the same time.
His affection, loyalty and obedience would be divided and he would fail
altogether in his duty to one or the other. No one can serve the true God and
at the same time be supremely engaged in loving the world or serving any
selfish interests. Our devotion to the world and the things of the world will
interfere with our commitment to God.
“Mammon”
means or refers to money, riches, wealth and because of man’s sinful tendency
to love and trust in riches, it was eventually considered as an idol - a
substitute for the true God. How dangerous it is to set our hearts upon riches,
seeing how easy it is for men to make it a god! “The love of money is the
root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:9,10). When money becomes an idol
master, a god of the heart, the true God is forsaken and man becomes destitute,
without God in this world and without hope in eternity.
2. THE
IMPLICATION OF SERVING GOD AS MASTER
Matthew 6:24; Luke 4:5-8; Malachi 1:6;
Deuteronomy 10:12; 13:1-4; 30:20; Joshua 22:5; 2 Chronicles 34:33; 2 Timothy
2:19-21; Hebrews 12:28.
“No man can serve
two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or
else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve
God and mammon.” From the text, we learn what it means to serve God
as Master. The Lord uses the words “serve”, “love”
and “hold to.” To serve
God is to love Him and to hold to Him or to cleave to Him. To serve God
is to love Him, not in words only but in deed and in truth. He who serves God
truly and acceptably must serve Him wholeheartedly. God will not permit a rival
to share the throne of our heart with Him. If our hearts are divided, He will
say, “they have not wholly followed Me” (Numbers 32:11).
Our text also makes it
clear that to serve God is to “hold to” Him or to cleave unto Him, that is, to cleave unto Him
with a perpetual covenant in all conditions and situations in life. It is to
hold to Him and His commandments, even when those commandments are not pleasing
to the flesh. It is to give God the first place in our affection and devotion,
preserving and presenting our hearts to Him as sacred ground on which neither
mammon nor the world is allowed to intrude or trespass. God must be Master and
Lord of all.
3. THE
IMPIETY OF SERVING GOD AND MAMMON
Matthew 6:24; 2 Kings 17:7-9,25,33,34; Luke 16:13;1 Timothy 6:9,10; Mark
10:17,21-24; James 4:4; Philippians
3:17-21; 1 John 2:15-17; Colossians 3:1-5.
“Ye cannot serve God
and mammon.” In broad sense, mammon is whatever seeks to compete with
God in our lives - riches, the world or whoever wants to displace God in our
lives and be another master! The prince of this world is ever seeking to be
lord and master of the souls of men. The world is also seeking control of our hearts
and affection. The two masters, God and mammon, are diametrically opposed to
each other. ‘ The one commands you to walk by faith, the other to walk by
sight; the one to set your affection on things above, the other to set it on
things that are on the earth; the one to look at the things unseen and eternal,
the other to look at the things seen and temporal; the one to be content with
such things as ye have, the other to enlarge your desires as hell; the one to
seek happiness in the Creator, the other to seek happiness in the creature’.
Truly, you cannot serve these two contradictory masters. If you love one, you
must hate the other. If you hold to and cleave to one, you must despise and
leave the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
