But the strangest thing of all is that the foolish servants of sin and Satan fancy that they can at the same time be servants of Almighty God. They call themselves by Christ's name--Christians. They go to his church now and then: and although they have served Mammon all their days, they yet hope to enjoy God and his happiness for all eternity. Hence Jesus Christ in to-day's Gospel cries out in warning: "_You cannot serve two masters_." Hence in another place he says: "_Amen, amen I say unto you, that whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin_." So we have got to choose. We must be either servants of God or servants of Mammon; we cannot be both at once.
Therefore, brethren, instead of giving our time, and money, and health, and heart, and soul to sinful pleasures, to lust and intemperance, and fashion and avarice--all cruel tyrants--let us have the good sense to enter the service of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord and Master who made us, and who redeemed us, and who will judge us; whose yoke is sweet and whose burden is light; whose servants are innocent and happy in this life, and who shall enter with him into everlasting dwellings in the kingdom of heaven.
_The works of the flesh are manifest... Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God._ --Galatians v. 19, 21.
The works of the flesh--that is, the various ways in which the desires of the flesh can be gratified--have always been the chief obstacles presented by the world to our salvation. This was specially the case in St. Paul's day, when a corrupt and sensual civilization had been attained which placed the happiness of man in bodily pleasure. And it is also specially the case now more than at any other time since then; for a similar so-called civilization is the boast of the present age, in which the desires and appetites of the body are exalted above those of the soul.
But the temptations of this modern age are more concealed than those of the former one; and on that account they are more dangerous to Christians than those of the time of St. Paul were. Satan has, we may say, learned wisdom by experience. At the present day, instead of shocking us by sins like these of the pagans, which could only repel and disgust those who had even the weakest love of God, he has learned to seduce the faithful by the gradual introduction of amusements and pleasures having the name of being innocent, making them worse and worse as the moral sense of those who engage in them, or who witness them, becomes more and more blunted.