“The people whose hearts are deceitful must now suffer for their sins. God will break down their altars and destroy their sacred pillars”. Hosea 10:2 GNT
This passage may be taken as referring to the people of Israel as a nation, and it is not less applicable to the Church today. It is one grievous fault with the Church at the present day that it is not merely divided somewhat in its creed, and somewhat also in its practice of the ordinances, but it is also somewhat divided in heart.
But we must observe again of this divided heart, that it is a division in itself and that it is peculiarly loathsome. Men who are possessed of it do not feel themselves to be unclean; in fact they will live in the sin of the world, they will venture into the church, they will receive communion, and they like to be numbered with other Christian members. They will afterwards go and mingle with the world; and they do not feel that they have become dishonest. They think themselves fit to mingle with the sins of the world and with sincere Christians too.
If you look at the man's heart, you will discern that it is loathsome, because Satan and sin reigns there. Although the man goes about and has knowledge of what is right and what is wrong and should be uneasy in his sin, yet he has such an intense love of his sin that he allows Satan to come and dwell in his heart.
But his loathsomeness is worse than this because all the while that he is really living in sin he is a repulsive hypocrite, pretending that he is a child of God. Of all the things in the world that stink in the nostrils of an honest man, hypocrisy is the worst.
If you want to serve Satan, serve him. If Baal be god, serve him, but mask not your service of self and sin by a pretended service of God. Appear to be what you are, tear off the masks. The Church was never meant to be a masquerade.
Stand out in your true colors. If you prefer Satan's shrine say so, and let men know it, but if you want to serve God, then serve Him, and do it with all your heart, as knowing Him who is a jealous God and searches the heart. It is a terribly and loathsome disease to have a divided heart.
“Daniel was DETERMINED not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king…” Daniel 1:8 NLT
Daniel purposed in his heart; he laid it to heart; he made up his mind; he set his heart on the right course. He determined that he would not defile himself but that he would keep himself pure for the Lord.
What determination have you made in your heart?
What course is your life set on?
“……we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did”. I John 2:3-6 NLT
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