Matthew 6:19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and eating destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and eating do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Introduction
You cannot serve two masters. Who is Jesus talking to here? Who wants to serve two masters? Is there a crowd of people out there who read this and think, “Oh, bummer. I really wanted to have more than one person telling me what to do”? I do not know about you, but the people I bump into usually are not clamoring for multiple masters. Most people think two masters is two too many - what they want is zero masters. So who is Jesus talking to that are tempted to have two masters?
One of the most basic principles of interpreting the Bible is to pay close attention both to what is stated and to what is implied. And that is especially important here because Jesus is making two points – one implied and one stated. And if you do not pick up on the first one then the second one is meaningless. So let’s look carefully at the context and make sure we understand what Jesus is implying about money. Then we can move on to what He actually states explicitly.
Implied: Earthly treasure enslaves (you cannot serve zero masters)
Two Treasuries, Two Outlooks, Two Masters
So far Jesus has given three paragraphs about earthly treasure. And all three paragraphs draw a line in the sand with two clear sides. First, there are two treasuries – treasure on earth or treasure in heaven. Then there are two outlooks – the evil eye (selfishness) or the sincere eye (generosity). And now there are two masters – money and God. And the two masters correspond to the two outlooks and the two treasuries. So the implication in context is that if you have treasure in heaven and generous eyes then God is your master. But if you have treasure on earth and selfish eyes then money has become your master.
Earthly treasure enslaves.
In other words, earthly treasure enslaves. The language is very strong. The word translated serve means to serve as a slave. And the word master means slave owner. If you have something in your earthly treasury (something in this world that you feel you must have to be happy), then you are enslaved to that thing. You are enslaved to it because whatever it takes to obtain that thing and keep that thing – those are your orders. And you will obey those orders.
Earthly treasure distorts perception, enslaving you to its conclusions
“Oh no, I won’t. I admit, I do covet that thing (or person, relationship, job, reputation), however I will not become enslaved to it.” Yes you will. It is unavoidable because of the principle Jesus taught us last week in verses 22-23. When there is something in your earthly treasury – something you believe you have to have in order to be happy, that distorts your spiritual perception. There is something deep down inside you that will color all the facts before they reach your mind so that your life becomes a pursuit of that treasure without you even realizing it.
Can you serve no master? No, because you do what you do for some reason
So what is implied here is that you cannot serve zero masters. If you talk to one of those people who is so proud of how he is his own master and bows the knee to no one, ask him, “Isn’t it true that there are things in your life that you wish you wouldn’t do, but you do them anyway? And things you know you ought to do but can’t get yourself to do them? If you are in such command of your own self, why are you behaving in a way different from the way you want to behave?” There is always a master in the background driving what we do. If you are a rational human being you do what you do for some reason. Unless you are having a spasm or seizure, you do what you do for some reason. So whatever that reason is dictates what you do and is therefore your master. If you just do whatever you feel like doing then your feelings are your master. If you do what you do to be successful then success is your master. If it is for maximizing your own comfort, fame, power, prestige, wealth, fun, a feeling of accomplishment, satisfaction, pride, to meet other peoples’ expectations – whatever the reason behind your actions, that thing is your master. Nobody intentionally sets out to become enslaved to anything, but…
2 Peter 2:19 a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
We are hard-wired to enslave ourselves to some master. And for most people that someone is the god of earthly pleasures and comfort.
Philippians 3:19 their god is their stomach
That means their appetites become orders. And they cannot say no to those orders. You cannot consistently disobey the orders of your master because deep down you believe you need that thing in order to be happy.
Who is calling the shots behind Master Money?
But where do those orders come from? Obviously an inanimate object cannot literally give you an order. A dollar bill has no mind or will or ability to issue commands, so who is behind the curtain giving the orders? Jesus gave us the answer to that question in John 12:31 where Jesus called Satan the ruler of this world. When something in this world starts ordering you around (even if that thing is your own appetites), the one who is behind it is the ruler of this world – the devil.
1 John 5:19 the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
But the great majority of people have no idea that they are under his control. They think they are serving their own interests, which is perfectly fine with Satan, as long as he can lead them around by the nose by controlling their treasure.
Materialism the worst ism
No wonder Jesus gave such strong warnings about the danger of money! Think about it - when Jesus decides to draw a line in the sand and say, “Either you are on this side with God or you are on the other side with…” think of all the things He might have put as representing the other side. He might have said, “You have to choose – God or atheism.” Or “Pick one: God or Phariseeism. Or God vs. legalism, or God vs. paganism. But when Jesus really wanted to boil it all down to two sides it came down to God vs. money. When you think of all the various “ism’s” that want to compete with the truth, which one do you see as the greatest threat? Some say Marxism, or secularism, or evolutionism. Some say liberalism or humanism or Catholicism or Mormonism. Those are all huge threats to be sure, but when Jesus boils it all down the one He points to is materialism. The choice boils down to this: God or greed. The greatest threat to my faith – the thing that is most likely to ruin my spiritual life is not all the anti-God philosophies and ideologies out there; the greatest threat to my faith is my paycheck. It wants to enslave me. You think of all the addictions out there – addiction to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sexual sin, etc. But the addiction that has a grip on more souls in the church than any other addiction is, no doubt, enslavement to money. When your standard of living increases, it takes all of about five minutes before you are hooked on that new standard, and you are enslaved.
Stated: You cannot serve God and money
So that is what is implied: Earthly treasure enslaves you. You cannot have zero masters. And once you understand that, you can understand what is stated – you cannot have two masters either. When earthly treasure enslaves you, you are not a slave of God.
Fourth reason
So what we have here is a fourth reason why not to treasure up treasure on earth. Reason #1 – Whatever you have in your earthly treasury will be lost. Reason #2 – If your treasure is on earth your heart will be oriented toward earth rather than heaven. Reason #3 – If you have something in your earthly treasury, that will give you a selfish outlook which will distort your spiritual vision, and your whole life will fill up with darkness. And now #4, and this one is the most frightening reason of all. You should not have treasure on earth because if you do, you are a slave to that treasure, and therefore you are not a slave to God. And that means you are not even saved because the only way to come to God is as a slave.
Christians are slaves of Christ
And if that sounds like strong language to you it is only because in our time we have softened what the Bible says by using the word “servant” in place of “slave.” When you read in your Bible about being a servant of God - the Greek word is not “servant” – it is “slave.” And it should be translated that way because a servant and a slave are not the same thing. A servant can be hired help; a slave is owned by his master. John MacArthur has done some very eye-opening work on this subject recently. He lays out all the evidence for this in his latest book (Slave: The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ), but really all you need to verify this is any Greek dictionary – doulos means slave, not servant. And if you translate it that way you get a much different feel about what Christianity really is.
Revelation 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his slaves what must soon take place.
1 Peter 2:16 live as slaves of God.
There is only one way to come to God. You bow your knee and submit to Him as a slave, or not at all. So when Jesus says that you cannot be a slave to both God and money, He is saying something that should rattle us to the core. If there is something in your earthly treasury, not only will you lose your treasure someday, and not only will your heart be oriented in the wrong direction, and not only will your perception be distorted and your life full of darkness, but you are not a slave of God, which means you are not even saved.
Is it possible for some earthly thing to worm its way into the treasury of a true child of God? Yes – it happens constantly. But if the person is a true child of God he or she will repent as soon as he realizes that thing has become a treasure in his heart. If a person treasures some earthly thing and does not repent – that person is lost. You will either make gold your god or make God your gold. Either God will be your treasure or your earthly treasure will become your god – it cannot be both ways.
Why you cannot serve both: Hating the other
Why is that? Why can’t you serve God part time? Why can’t you just be a Christian on Sunday and be your own person the rest of the week? Some people might read Jesus’ words and say, “What do you mean no one can serve two masters? I have four different bosses at work that I answer to.” We all have some contexts in which we answer to more than one person, so at first it does not even seem like what Jesus is saying is true. But Jesus did not say you cannot answer to two authorities. He said you cannot be a slave to two masters.
And the reason Jesus gives is not what we expect. What we expect is for Him to say, “You can’t be a slave to two masters because when they give conflicting orders you will have to obey one and disobey the other.” But that is not what Jesus says. He takes it to a deeper level than that.
Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
It is not just that you will have to choose which one to obey. It is that the reason you choose to obey the one you choose to obey has to do with love and despising.
You cannot obey both
Now, it is true - you will have to choose which one to obey because the marching orders Satan gives through money are the opposite of God’s marching orders. God says, “Give me your heart.” Money says, “No, give it to me.” God says, “Be content.” Money says, “You need more.” God says, “Look to Me for your happiness.” Money says, “No, look to me.” God says, “Set your eyes on things above.” Money says, “No, pay attention to me.” God says, “Put yourself in a position to enjoy My benefits.” Money says, “No, seek my benefits.” God says, “Taste of My river of delights.” Money says, “No, eat of my delicacies.” God says, “Give freely and you will be blessed!” Money says, “Get as much as you can and hang on to it – you’ll need it to be happy.” God says, “Don’t worry about anything.” Money says, “Worry about me.” You cannot serve God and money any more than you can ride two horses in opposite directions. So you will have to decide which one to obey.
You cannot love both
Is that true?
But Jesus’ point goes beyond that. For Him the issue is not just which one you obey, but which one you love. You cannot serve two masters any more than a woman can be faithful to two husbands, because just like marital love is exclusive (no third party), so serving a master involves an exclusive love.
James 4:4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
Now again, at first this does not seem true. Someone might say, “I’ll admit I have some things in my earthly treasury, but I don’t hate God. I love my earthly treasures and God.” And that sounds reasonable.
You will resent the one that is not your true master
And it will work for a while. As long as the requirements of Master God and Master Money do not conflict with each other, there is no problem. But when the day comes when God says, “Do this” and your earthly treasure says, “No, do that” and you have to make a choice, if the real master in your heart is money, what will happen? You may very well go ahead and do what God said to do for one reason or another even though money is your real master. But the way you can tell money is the master is because even though you are doing what God commanded, something in you resents the fact that you have to do that. It seems unreasonable, like God is requiring too much, that He is taking from you, that obeying Him is loss, that doing what He requires is burdensome. When you feel like that you know the real master in your life is earthly treasure.
It is a very important flashing red light on the dashboard that whenever something God calls you to do feels burdensome or seems to you like loss rather than gain. Serving God is satisfying to the soul, like food to an empty stomach. So if it feels like a loss or a burden, then you know something has gone terribly wrong. That is a sign that there is some spiritual insanity – detachment from reality. You are not seeing things as they really are, because when you see things as they really are you see an easy yoke. And if your work is a real coming to Christ then it produces rest, not a sense of burdensome toil.
But when Satan sees that your own personal comfort, or your own glory, or your own preferences, are the priority in your heart; then he starts doing to you what he did with Eve. He points you to what God has forbidden and tells you that thing is essential for your happiness, and you start to see God as mainly wanting to take good things away from you, and your heart begins, ever so subtly, to resent God’s commands.
The rival master can fly under the radar
So when you have two masters and those two masters give conflicting orders, you find out which master you are truly serving because a feeling of resentment will arise toward the other one. However, until that happens, Master Money can go undetected for long periods of time. There are a great number of people who are sailing along thinking they are serving Christ but who are not. They are fully convinced that they are submissive to Christ, but in reality they have an, “I’ll submit as long as I agree with what you say” kind of “submission.” And that is not submission at all. You see that kind of thing all the time in marriage.
There are millions of wives who think they are very submissive to their husbands but in reality they only “submit” when they agree with what the husband is saying. (Which is most of the time because the husband is scared to death to cross her.) That is not submission at all – it is disguised rebellion. It is rebellion that is flying under the radar and going undetected. And people take that same approach with God. And a great number of them will go all the way through life that way and arrive on Judgment Day fully expecting a lot of reward for all the things they did in Christ’s name, and they will be shocked to discover that they are not even going to heaven. They will hear those dreadful words, “Depart from Me; I never knew you.”
God demands total allegiance
And the line of people who will hear those words is getting longer and longer because of the false gospel of cheap grace and easy believism. These are the people who teach that you can accept God as your savior while simultaneously rejecting Him as your master. They say all you have to do is agree to a few basic facts and pray a little prayer and you are saved – even if your heart is rebelling against God.
Non-lordship teaching
In the Ryrie Study Bible it says that the following things are NOT required when a person comes to Christ: repentance, confession, and surrender to the lordship of Christ. Charles Stanley wrote in one of his books that a person can get saved by believing temporarily, then stop believing altogether and walk away from the faith and still go to heaven. Zane Hodges says that becoming a Christian requires “no spiritual commitment whatsoever.” Even Chuck Swindoll has fallen into this. He said, “We are gloriously free - free to please Him. But we don’t have to.” "Yes, grace frees us to choose. We can decide to walk with God … Or we can decide to walk away from God..." That is not to say he is advocating sin. He goes on to say that if you choose the sinful path there will be painful consequences. But the fact that he sees grace as something that gives us the option to choose sin is extremely troubling. He even says that if you are a preacher and no one in your congregation is taking advantage of grace and using it as an excuse for sin, “maybe you haven't preached [grace] hard enough or strong enough.” They see grace as the freedom to choose sin. And they insist that if you tell people that coming to Christ requires any kind of commitment or behavior change or willingness to bow you knee to God’s authority you are adding works to salvation. Now, I am not trying to be critical and I do not have anything against these guys personally, but we have to come to grips with the difference between what those teachers are saying and the words of Jesus.
Luke 14:26 If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. … 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Does that sound to you like coming to Christ requires no spiritual commitment whatsoever? Becoming someone’s slave is the most extreme spiritual commitment there is!
Can’t divide your heart
You can answer to two different managers, but you cannot give your heart to two different masters. Remember when the two women appeared before Solomon with a little baby and they both claimed it was theirs. So Solomon ordered that the baby be cut in half and divided between the women, and the one woman said, “Fine,” but the real mother said, “No – go ahead and give the baby to the other woman. Don’t kill him.” And immediately Solomon knew who the real mother was and gave the baby to her. Your heart is like that baby. Divide it in half and you destroy it. It cannot be divided in half, which means if it belongs to earthly treasures it does not belong to God.
Ephesians 5:5 For of this you can be sure: No … greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
God has never accepted people who want to come to Him while clinging to some idol.
1 Kings 18:21 Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him."
Joshua 24:15 choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve … as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
1 Samuel 7:3 And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, "If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you
And Jesus is saying the same thing.
You cannot serve both God and money.
Just like a man would say to a woman, “No, I will not marry you until you are willing to stop living with your old boyfriend,” God requires us to choose between Him and our idols. It is greed or God, not both. Choose this day whom you will serve.
Solution: Subordinate your money to God
But how do you do that? In practical terms – what can you do to make sure you are not kidding yourself about who your real master is? I think the answer is pretty straightforward from what Jesus is saying. If you want to make sure God is your real master, subordinate your money to God. Force your money to bow its knee to Christ. And there are various ways to do that – three in particular that stand out in Scripture.
Give to God (three ways)
Give to the poor
The first one we already discussed last week – give to those upon whom God has special compassion.
Proverbs 19:17 He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord
Poor people are the receptacles for your eternal 401K. If you give generously to the poor and you find it difficult because of how in love you are with your money, you do not have to have a long, tearful goodbye – just whisper to your money, “See you in heaven” and let it go. That is the most secure investment there is. Let the promises of reward loosen your grip on your money so you can give, and then let love for those God loves drive you to give it.
Giving in worship
The second way to subordinate your money to God is by giving to God in worship. We learn that right at the very beginning of human history. Before Moses, before the law, before Israel – back to the first act of worship ever recorded, Cain and Abel both gave to the Lord. And God accepted one gift and rejected the other. Abel brought fat portions of the first fruits, which is an act of faith, and so God accepted that (Gn.4:3-5). But it says Cain just brought “some” of what he had, and it was rejected because there was no faith involved. So right at the beginning of the Bible it is established that a key aspect of worship is offering God from our firstfruits.
Proverbs 3:9 Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops
So when you get your paycheck your very first priority is to set aside your offering to God, and then you use what is left to pay your mortgage and buy groceries and pay bills. That is firstfruits. If you do it the other way around – pay your bills first and then write a check for offering out of what is left, that is Cain’s method. And God did not accept that as worship because what pleases God is not money but faith. And it takes faith to give to Him first.
Malachi 1 – serving God leftovers
Last week some people asked me what you should do if you have to choose between paying your bills and giving to the Lord. The answer is this – the only money the Lord wants from you is firstfruits. He is not interested in your leftovers. If you say, “Groceries are my first priority, then the house payment, then Uncle Sam, then utilities, car payment, credit card bill, etc and then if there are any leftover scraps I will throw some of that to the Lord” – if that is your approach you need to read Malachi 1. Malachi 1 is about the people who were offering God lambs that were sick and blemished and injured. And God rejects that worship. God is not a beggar who is happy to get the scraps that fall off your table. He is the Supreme Lord of all who calls you to worship and serve Him alone, and not money, and to trust in Him alone and not in your paycheck, and one way to train your heart to do that is to honor Him with a significant percentage of all the first fruits of all your increase, and to do all that joyfully. If your giving is out of guilt or duty you would be better off just hanging on to your money, because the only kind of giving that honors God is the kind that shows faith in His promises of reward. So do not give any more than you can give joyfully, because God is honored only by joyful giving.
The reason for that is because if you give out of guilt or duty and not joy, that means you do not really believe His promises about reward and supplying all your needs. There are a lot of people who are struggling so much financially that they say, “I can’t give anything to the Lord because I can’t afford it.” They do not think they can trust God to take care of their needs if they honor Him with their first fruits, so they give nothing, and they struggle and struggle. No doubt in many cases the Lord allows them to always be struggling because of the very fact that they do not trust Him enough to give Him their firstfruits. Someone once said, “Raise your giving to match your income lest God reduce your income to match your giving.”
And if you think things will be different once you are rich, do not kid yourself. If you do not honor God with a percentage of your income now, then what makes you think your heart will be any different when you have more money? There are extremely rich people who do not give a percentage of their income because that would be so much money. I heard of one man who was meeting with his pastor, and his pastor urged him to tithe (give ten percent), and the guy said, “I can’t do that. Do you have any idea how much money that would be?” And the pastor said, “OK, brother, I will pray for you that the Lord would help you earn a lot less money this year so you could afford to tithe.”
If ten percent of your income seems like a lot of money to give to the Lord, then bless God that your income is so massive that just one-tenth of it is still a large sum! And if your income is tiny then one-tenth of it is really tiny and should not be a problem.
I am not saying the amount you give has to be ten percent. There is a lot of Biblical precedent for that amount – even before the Mosaic law and the existence of Israel – but it is not directly commanded in the New Testament so I do not think it is binding on us. Ten percent is a great place to begin, but even in the Old Testament – before they had seen the Lord Jesus Christ, before they had the indwelling Holy Spirit, before they had all the promises and blessings we have – even then they delighted in worshipping God by giving freewill offerings over and above their ten percent offering. It was in their heart to give more than ten percent because of how much they loved the Lord.
When the time came to build a Temple the people gave huge amounts of money. These were not rich people – certainly not at our level of wealth by any means. And yet the amounts of money that were collected were huge. And when they saw how much they had given they were astonished that God would allow them to play such a big role in His work, and they prayed, “Who are we that we should be allowed to give this much?” (1 Chronicles 29:14). They felt unworthy to have such a big role in what God was doing. And if that is the attitude of the people who have not even seen the Savior and who did not know a fraction of what we know about the rewards of the life to come, how much greater should be the love in our hearts since we have seen the glory of God in Christ and are actually living in the kingdom?
So there is nothing now in our day that would call for us to be less expressive in our giving to the Lord than they were. And while there is no direct command in the epistles about tithing, there is a New Testament principle that more than once calls us to give according to our income. Your giving does not honor the Lord unless it is commensurate with your income. And I do not think you can say you are giving according to your income if you are giving less than one percent - which is what quite a few people are doing evidently. I say that because if the people in this church have average income for this area, then ten percent for this number of people would be around $16,000 per week. But our offerings are about one-third that amount. So evidently our average giving is around three percent. But I know that a number of people give ten percent - or more. And so the only way the average can be three percent is if most people are not giving anything (or some tiny percentage less than one percent of their income). And I think it is safe to say if you are giving less than one percent of your income, you are not giving according to your means.
I am not saying any of this because we are in a budget crisis. We are not. The point is not to raise money; the point is to worship God. And it is a frightening commentary on our hearts if God says, “Give whatever is in your heart to give” and we end up giving nothing (or next to nothing).
One symptom of materialism – one way you can discover if earthly treasure is your true master – is when your worship stops short of anything that would cost you financially. The man after God’s own heart said:
2 Samuel 24:24 I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.
That is the heart of true worship. But when we say, “I’ll sing and pray and fellowship and listen to the sermon and take communion and every other form of worship – just as long as it costs me no money” it is questionable whether that can even be called worship.
And if all this is new to you and overwhelming to you, I don’t think the best response is to just go home hanging your head and beating yourself up over how stingy you are. If you see a problem in this area of your spiritual life – or in any other area for that matter, then the thing to do is to simply begin making progress. If you think your giving is not what it should be, don’t say, “Well, I’ll never be George Muller and so I might as well not even try.” If you are not where you need to be, and where you need to be is a long ways away, then do not fret about how far away it is – just start taking steps in that direction. If you are not satisfied with the level of generosity in your heart, take one step today. Figure out what your current percentage is and increase it by one or two or three percent. And each time you get a raise, or you redo your budget, try to make a little more progress. And then a little more, and a little more, and more, and eventually you will find that you have made great progress.
Kingdom giving
So how do you subordinate your money to God? Be generous with the poor and needy, honor God with the first fruits of all your income, and take all that is left and invest that into the kingdom. Use every tool at your disposal, including all your money, for kingdom purposes. If you buy a car because you need it to carry out your calling, and you get the car that would be best suited for that purpose – God will reward you. God gives us money and possessions not to be our master, but to be our servants. We must choose between God and money. And whichever one we choose as a master, the other one you will treat as a servant. If money is your master God will become your bellhop – to assist you in all your earthly endeavors. But if God is your master money will be your servant as a tool for kingdom purposes. In Luke 19 Jesus refers to money as “a very small matter,” and your handling of that very small matter is what determines whether you will be entrusted with great things. And that applies to one hundred percent of your income as well as every other earthly treasure.
Earthly treasure is a terrible god
Earthly treasure makes a terrible god. It demands everything from you and gives so little in return. Money does eliminate some problems and anxieties in your life, but it brings with it more problems and anxieties than it eliminates. It is an absolutely helpless god that depends totally on you to take care of it. And in the times when you are most in need of comfort or joy or courage or strength (like when a loved one dies or your spouse leaves you or you fall into depression) it has nothing to offer you and you forfeit God’s grace. But if you seek God’s kingdom first He will give you all these other things as well. He will richly and abundantly supply you with absolutely everything you need to do His will. And He will always be there with more than enough grace for any situation you ever encounter. Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. If money is God, serve it. But if the Lord Jesus Christ is God, serve Him.
Benediction: Joshua 24:15 if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." 16 Then the people answered, (and if this is your answer then I would like all of you to respond with a loud Amen” at the end) "Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! 17 It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of … the land of slavery … We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God."
