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Their heart is divided - They wish to serve God and Mammon, Jehovah and Baal: but this is impossible. Now God will do in judgment what they should have done in contrition, "break down their altars, and spoil their images."
Their heart is divided - Between God and their idols, in that they would not wholly part with either, as Elijah upbraided them, “How long halt ye between the two opinions?” 1 Kings 18:21. When the pagan, by whom the king of Assyria replaced them, had been taught by one of the priests whom the king sent back, in order to avert God‘s judgments, they still propagated this division. Like Jeroboam 2 Kings 17:32-33, 2 Kings 17:41, they became fearers of the Lord,” His worshipers, “and made to themselves out of their whole number (i. e., indiscriminately) priests of the high places. They were fearers of the Lord, and they were servers of their gods, according to the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. These nations were fearers of the Lord, and they were servers of their idols, both their children and their children‘s children. As did their fathers, so do they unto this day.”
This divided allegiance was their hereditary worship. These pagan, as taught by one of the priests of Israel, added the service of God to that of their idols, as Israel had added the service of the idols to that of God. But God rejecteth such half service; from where he adds, “now,” in a brief time, all but come, “they shall be found faulty,” literally, “they shall be guilty,” shall be convicted of guilt and shall bear it. They thought to “serve at once God and Mammon;” but, in truth, they served their idols only, whom they would not part with for God. God Himself then would turn away all their worship, bad, and, as they thought, good. “He,” from whom their heart was divided, He Himself, by His mighty power which no man can gain-say, “shall break down their altars,” literally, shall “behead” them. As they out of His gifts multiplied their altars and killed their sacrifices upon them against His will, so now should the altars themselves, be demolished; and “the images” which they had decked with the gold which He had given, should, on account of that very gold, tempt the spoiler, through whom God would spoil them.
He shall break down - He Himself. The word is emphatic.: “God willeth not that, when the merited vengeance of God is inflicted through man, it should be ascribed to man. Yea, if anyone ascribeth to himself what, by permission of God, he hath power to do against the people of God, he draweth down on him the displeasure of God, and, at times, on that very ground, can hurt the less” (see Deuteronomy 32:26, Deuteronomy 32:7; Isaiah 10:5 ff). The prophet then says very earnestly, “He Himself shall break,” meaning us to understand, not the lofty hand of the enemy, but that the Lord Himself did all these things.
Many are on the enchanted ground of the enemy. Things of the least importance—foolish social parties, singing, jesting, joking—engross their minds and they serve God with a divided heart. In these things you have one unseen in your midst, helping you—Satan is present, full of hellish exultation. The declaration of Christ, “No man can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24), is unheeded. TDG 10.2
Read in context »The great sin of God's people at the present time is, we do not appreciate the value of the blessings God has bestowed upon us. We serve God with a divided heart. We cherish some idol and worship at its shrine. The truth of God is elevated and holy, sanctifying the soul, if brought into the life and interwoven with the character. God is seeking with His truth to make us a separate and peculiar people. This is the influence of the truth. Our obedience and devotion are not equal to our light and privileges, and the sacred obligations resting upon us to walk as children of the light are not fulfilled by us. As Christians we fail to come up to our high calling. Warnings and reproofs have been given us from God but only for a time have an influence upon us because we do not consider it as our lifework to press forward and upward to the mark of the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. TDG 50.3
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