The Inconsistent Worship
A. K. H. Boyd. 2 Kings 17:33 They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from there. I. The first thought which I think suggests itself to our mind, is of THE CURIOUS INCONSISTENCY OF THEIR CONDUCT. They worshipped the true God; and, along with Him, they worshipped various false gods. Now, this seems strange to us. We cannot imagine a man being at once a Christian, a Mohammedan, a Jew, a heathen, and an atheist. You must make your choice what religion you will profess: you cannot profess several inconsistent religions together. But it is just because Christianity has so thoroughly leavened our ways of thinking, that there appears to us anything strange in the conduct of these inhabitants of Samaria. For Christianity, we all know, is an exclusive religion. It not merely calls men to believe in itself, but to reject every other faith. It not merely claims to be right and true: but it boldly says that every other faith is wrong and false. The God of the Bible not merely commands us to worship Him: He commands us to worship no one else. This is their great characteristic as compared with all other religions. Christianity is a faith which admits no rivals, no competitors: it demands to stand alone. And the true God is not the God of this land or that land: He is the God of all the earth: He tolerates no brother near His throne. But it was not so at all with the gods of false religions: with the gods whom these poor Samaritans worshipped; no, nor with the gods and goddesses who were worshipped by the polished nations of Greece and Rome. It did not follow that because you held Jupiter to be a true god, you held Mercury or Apollo to be false gods. It did not follow because you worshipped Dagon, that you failed to worship Moloch. It did not follow that Beelzebub would feel himself slighted, because you offered a sacrifice to Rimmon. Each false god had his own province, and he held by that. And so you can see that these ignorant Samaritans, when they "feared the Lord, and served their own gods," had no sense at all of the inconsistency, — of the self-contradiction, — of what they did, such as that which we might feel. II. A second thing worthy of notice in their conduct is this: THE MOTIVE WHICH LED THEM TO OFFER WORSHIP TO THE TRUE GOD. You observe, that motive was pure and simple fear. They worshipped God, because they were afraid of Him. They worshipped Him, because they thought He had done them much mischief already; and because they thought that unless they did something to conciliate Him, He might do them more mischief yet. Good might have come, in any measure; and they would never have seen God in that. But when evil befell them, such was their conception of the Divine nature, they said, Now, here is the finger of God. The lions came prowling about their fields and dwellings; and this neighbour and the other was devoured by them: and then at once their thoughts ran up to a God as the sender of mischief: that was all they knew about Him: and they determined to worship Him, not because He was good and kind and deserving of all worship; but because, unless they affected some measure of regard and respect for Him, He might send them something worse than even the lions who had already come. III. It is evident from the entire account of them, that the WORSHIP WHICH THEY PAID TO THE TRUE GOD, WAS NOT REALLY SO HEARTY AND REAL A THING AS THAT WHICH THEY PAID TO THEIR OLD IDOLS. "They feared the Lord": they stood in a vague terror of Him, which prompted them to offer Him a sacrifice now and then; to meet for His worship now and then: but "they served their own gods": — they lived day by day in mind of them: they were not merely the worshippers, at long intervals, of these false gods: they were the servants of these false gods, — obeying them, working for them, from hour to hour. When the two things came together: the worship of a Being from whom they simply feared evil, and the worship of beings from whom they expected good: you can easily see which of the two would have the predominance. There is many a man who has that degree of superstitious fear of what God may do to him, that he dare not cast off God's fear altogether; while yet the love of money, or the love of pleasure, or the love of eminence and honour, really sits upon the throne of his heart! He "fears the Lord": and at the same time he thinks to "serve his own gods," — wealth, pleasure, or ambition. The fraudulent trader who adulterates his wares, and yet is never out of church on a Sunday: the greedy farmer, who will tell many lies to get a sound price for lame horse, yet who would not on any consideration be absent from a sacrament: and I say it with sorrow, brethren, I have known several such: what are such men doing but what the Samaritans did: "fearing the Lord, and serving their own gods!"(A. K. H. Boyd.) Parallel Verses KJV: They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. WEB: They feared Yahweh, and served their own gods, after the ways of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.