2. The Evil of Dividing Between God and Anything Else
Chapter Two The Evil of Dividing Between God and Anything Else T his people would give God something and their idols something and so think to please both. 2 Kings 17:33: "They feared the Lord and served their idols." Thus Judah in the days of Josiah, Zephaniah 1:5: "Swore by the Lord and by Malcham." Swearing is a part of God's worship; therefore, no human-instituted religious ceremony ought to be joined with it any more than with the Sacrament or any other divine worship. No creature should share in it, but they joined Malcham, that is their King. The worship and service proper to God have been too much divided between God and the kings of the earth; but here it's probable it means their idol, to which they gave a kingly power over them. Their idol Moloch had his name from hence.
I have read of Redwald, King of the East Saxons, the first prince of his nation that was baptized. In the same place, he worshipped Christ and set up an altar to worship his idols. Many men's spirits lie like that haven in Acts
27:12 towards the southwest and northwest, two opposite points. Surely their spirits must be very winding and crooked which lie towards such opposites.
This dividing with God is very wicked; what communion has God with Belial? How can you partake of the Table of the Lord and the table of devils? 1 Corinthians 10:21. And lest they should think it a light thing thus to divide with God, he adds in verse 22: "Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?" It is a great provocation to God and a fight against him to divide in his worship. To think that God should accept such dividing is to make him cruel, like that harlot in 1 Kings 3:26 who was content to have the child divided: "Let it be neither mine nor thine, but let it be divided." God's worship is as dear to him as any child can be to the most tender-hearted mother in the world.
When Darius would have divided with Alexander, Alexander said no; there can be but one sun in the firmament. If we will be dividing with God, he will cast off all. In 2 Kings 17:33 it is said they feared the Lord and served their idols; but verse 34 says they did not fear God. God accounted a divided fear as no fear at all. Verse 16 states: "They left all the commandments of the Lord their God and made themselves molten images." If they give any part of God's honor to molten images, he acknowledges no honor at all given to him; he accounts all his commandments as left. So Jeremiah 32:23: "They have done nothing of all that thou commandest them to do," and verse 30: "The children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done evil before me."
God is infinite and has all excellence in him; therefore, he must have the whole heart. Idols do not challenge so much because they do not have universal excellence; a piece of worship is enough for them. Our hearts, estates, liberties—all we are or have—are more God's than our own. Cyrus took Babylon by dividing the river; the devil soon surprises us if he can but divide our hearts.
The reason why heathen Rome rejected Christ from being among their gods when such a thing was tendered to their Senate was because (they say) if we receive him as a god, he will suffer none of our other gods. If we take in any other new god, we may yet retain our old ones; but if we take this
Jesus, all our old ones must be abandoned. Many today reject Christ on this ground.
The Romanists since think they can take in Christ as a god and yet divide between him and other gods; their religion is made up of divisions between God and their graven images; between Christ the Mediator and saints and angels; between the Word and their own traditions; between divine institutions and human inventions.
1 Kings 18:21: "Why halt ye between two opinions?" We must not be voluntary cripples to halt between two. Why are you dismembered in your hearts and your opinions? So Josephus in his history mentions that place.
That is observable when the prophet put that question to them; the text says:
"The people held their peace," their mouths were stopped; they had not a word to say for themselves.
If anything is pretended for this dividing, it is that trouble may be prevented; exactness in religion through reformation—giving up ourselves wholly to God and his truth—has an appearance of bringing much trouble with it. Hence men wind and shift about and do what they do by halves.
It was a notable speech of Calvin to those who were offended with the troubles they met in the work of Reformation: "If we could be content with half a Christ," says he, "our work would more easily go on. We could soon bring about what we would have, and we should not meet with so much opposition, but nothing but a whole Christ will serve our turn."
Obj. 1. But is it necessary that all things be reformed at once?
Answ. No: Affirmative precepts do not bind at all times, but negative ones do; therefore, it is necessary at all times that there be no mixture of evil with any good we do. Our mediocrity should not be a medium of participation but a medium of renunciation between two extremes, which are evil, without partaking in any evil. No good thing is moderated by the mixture of evil but by removing from it something that is evil, which has already mingled itself with it.
Obj. 2. But must God have all our hearts, so that we may not let them out at all to anything else?
Answ. If we let out our hearts to anything but in subordination to God, then we divide between God and that thing sinfully. However, if we do let out our affections to other things, yet if it is in subordination to God, as far as God is in those things, and we may be led nearer to God by them, this is no dividing between God and other things but uniting all in God and enjoying God in all. The Saints are instructed in this mystery of godliness; they know how to give God the whole heart and yet enjoy the comfort of wives and children, estates, and callings as much as anyone in the world.
They have that heavenly skill to unite all in God and enjoy God in all. God is all in all to them in their enjoyment of all good whatsoever. But if our hearts are let out to anything otherwise than this, they go astray from God and will certainly vanish in their own folly. This is contrary to that singleness, to that oneness of heart promised as a blessing of the Gospel.
Many of you complain of barrenness; here is the reason: your hearts are divided. Were the stream of your hearts wholly after God, it would run strongly and bear down opposition before it; you would be fruitful in all the ways of holiness.
How fruitful and gloriously useful would men in public places be if their hearts were single and one for God; if they only cared to honor God in their duty and left the care of protection and provision for themselves and their state to God? Let not men's hearts be cut or divided with their cares and fears about consequences and successes. Their wisdom should be how to work all about for God, not how handsomely to contrive that God may have part and themselves part. The more fully we give up ourselves, our ends, and designs to God, the more securely may we sit under God's protection, care, and blessing.
Many of the good Kings of Judah had their hearts for God, but yet they let the high places stand; their political wisdom divided their hearts between God and their fears of disturbance in the state. If they should raise their
Reformation so high, by this division, their hearts lay flat, and the work was neglected. But in 2 Chronicles 17:6, Jehoshaphat's heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord; he took away the high places and groves. He sought the Lord God of his father and walked in his commandments, not after the doings of Israel (verse 4). But did he not bring disturbance to the kingdom by this zeal? No, verse 5: Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand, and all Judah brought presents to Jehoshaphat, and he had riches and honor in abundance. And verse 10: The fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were around Judah so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat. Verse 12: Jehoshaphat grew exceedingly great.
Let our hearts be for God alone, for God alone is enough to satisfy our hearts and supply all good unto us forever.
There is infinite reason our whole hearts should be for him; he is willing his whole heart should be for us. Jeremiah 32:41: "Yea, I will rejoice over
them to do them good, and I will plant them with my whole heart and with my whole soul."