You Can’t Serve Two Masters

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. –Luk 16:13a

I was listening to my audio Bible this morning on my way back from shopping and I heard Luke 16:13. This is not a new scripture to me, but it just seemed so plain and forceful to me.

Jesus tells us that the person that “committeth sin is the servant of sin” (Jn 8:34). Paul made it clear that “For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness” (Rom 6:20) and that when you are “free from sin” you “become servants to God”.

So when you commit sin, you are the servant of sin. When you are the servant of sin, you are free from righteousness. When you are free from sin, you are the servant of God. And you can’t serve or have two masters. When you have sin as your master, you hate God, and when you have God as your master, you hate sin.

Like, this is so plain! A person would have to be unregenerate to not understand this!

“But,” says the sin-you-must advocate, “committeth” is in the present tense and means ‘continuously committing’ sin.”

Ok, so the Greek word ποιῶν (poiōn) translated here “committeth” is present active participle, which indicates continuous action. So, take those who commit one known or willful sin every day; is that not continuous sinning? It makes no difference that there are different kinds of sins. Sin is sin.

Or, even if you only commit one known or willful sin every week or every month, is that not continuous sinning? And besides, if God can keep you to one known or willful sin per week or per month, then can’t He keep you free from known or willful sin altogether?

What about the promises in the Bible about keeping us when we are tempted? Do you believe the Bible?

Here, look at these scriptures:

1Co 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

2Th 3:3 But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and keep you from evil.

2Pe 1:10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

Jud 1:24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

What do you ever do with these scriptures?

It is a mystery to me why professing Christians want to plead for sin and reckon themselves alive to sin when the Bible tells us that those who are converted have — past tense — “been freed from sin” (Ro 6:18 NASB, Ro 6:22 NASB) and that we are to “reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin” (Ro 6:11).

“Oh”, they say, “we have only been freed from sin positionally, not experientially.” “We continue to sin, but God doesn’t see our sin, but only sees the blood of Christ and declares us freed from sin.”

If that is the case in Romans 6, why does Paul say “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof” (Rom 6:12)? Surely he is talking experientially, not only here, but throughout the sixth chapter of Romans. How can you positionally not let sin reign in your mortal body? This and the rest of the chapter can only be experiential.

Oh, the loops that professing Christians are willing to jump through to excuse sin in their life!

Yes, I used to be one of them also. I pled Romans 7:19, 23, claimed Paul’s unconverted title of “chief sinner” (1Ti 1:15), and felt security in 1Jn 1:8 — until I got saved.

My friend, if you have not gotten free from the spirit of disobedience (Eph 2:2), you have nothing to offer the world but more of the same that you have — a “form of godliness” that is “denying the power” (2Ti 3:5) in the power of Christ.

This sin-you-must teaching which seeks to serve sin and God at the same time is “another gospel” (Gal 1:6) that is nothing more than “turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness”, which is “denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jud 1:4).

“Repent ye” (Mat 3:2) and “bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance” (Mat 3:8).