The Dangers of Being Partially Religious

In this world today, there are many people who honestly and sincerely try to serve God the best they know how. And there are many who explicitly deny God—who disbelieve in the true God or simply refuse to serve Him. But I think far more than either of these groups are the people who are “partially religious.” These are the people who want to talk about God and maybe even got to church, but also want to live life on their own terms and in their own way.  They want to be able to sing “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” on Sunday but still be able to walk peacefully with the world on Monday.

This is an easy mindset to fall into. It seems safe and reasonable, to try to keep one foot in Heaven and one in the World. But the attempt is always doomed to failure. There is nothing quite as dangerous and ultimately futile as trying to be partially religious. And we can see the dangers of this lifestyle by looking at a character from the Old Testament, Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel. 

As you may remember, after King Solomon died, his son proved to be a poor ruler, and the kingdom of Israel was divided into two separate countries; the kingdom of Judah under the rule of the Davidic line, and the kingdom of Israel which was ruled by a man named Jeroboam. Jeroboam revolted from Solomon's son and became King of Israel, establishing his own government—and his own religion. Jeroboam was a man who had been chosen by God, who owed his very position to the supernatural intervention of God. He recognized the power and wisdom of God. When he truly needed miraculous insight, he knew where to turn to—he went to a prophet of the true God. In many ways, Jeroboam was a religious man.

And yet he also was very far from God. He broke one of the most fundamental commandments of God's law by building and worshipping idols—and not only did he do this himself, but he actively encouraged an entire nation to do the same. He still paid lip service to the true God, but he was not living according to God's law. He was religious—but only partially religious. And in his life, we see the dangers of being partially religious.

In Jeroboam's life, we see the danger of trying to hide something from God. I came up with the idea for this study when I ran across the story about Jeroboam found in 1 Kings 14 and was struck by how ironic and (in a tragic way) funny it is.

This story takes place late in Jeroboam's reign. One of Jeroboam's sons was very sick and he wanted to know if the boy would recover or die from his illness. And so he decided to seek out information from a prophet; specifically, the prophet Ahijah, the man who had first given Jeroboam God's message that he would become king. Everything in Jeroboam's life since that point had been a fulfillment of that prophecy, so it makes sense that he would go to Ahijah in his time of uncertainty.

But he also had enough sense to realize that he had not conducted himself in a way that was pleasing to God or God's prophet. He knew that Ahijah might not be friendly to him and not be readily willing to perform any service for him. However, Ahijah was an old man now and had become virtually blind because of his age. So Jeroboam sent his wife to inquire concerning their son and had her go incognito, in disguise and under a false name.

And that's the bizarre irony of this story. Jeroboam had faith that God's prophet could reveal the future. He sent his wife to the prophet specifically because he believed that he was a broker of supernatural wisdom, of knowledge that could not be obtained by human means. He was addressing an oracle of Divine vision and perception. And he tried to fool him. He thought the prophet could see tomorrow with super-human clarity but be humanly blind about today. 

Matthew Henry comments on this story: “[W]hat a strange notion had Jeroboam of God's prophet when he believed that he could and would certainly tell what would become of the child, and yet either could not or would not discover who was the mother! Could he see into the thick darkness of futurity, and yet not see through the thin veil of this disguise?”

Just on a human level, this is really a stupid attempt; to seek simultaneously to receive information from God and to conceal information from God. But the truth is that many people do the same thing, even if not as blatantly as Jeroboam did. Many people will go to God in prayer in time of need, asking God for help and strength, for supernatural power or wisdom. And yet, in the rest of their life, they are living flatly contrary to God's word. It's as if they somehow think that God will hear their prayer without hearing every other word they say; that God has tunnel vision, so He can see them on their knees, but not see them the rest of the time.

Jeroboam went to God's prophet, wanting and expecting him to only know one thing. And many people go to God today, wanting and expecting Him to only know or care about one thing. They want God to know about their need without knowing about their sin.

And many of them come like Jeroboam's wife; in disguise. Many of them come in religious clothing, decked out in Bible verses and religious cliches like so much fringe. Some of them may have a good enough disguise to fool other people; even in the church. Sometimes their disguise is so good it fools themselves. But it is the height of folly to think that our disguise can ever fool God.

That doesn't mean we have to be perfect to come to God. God invites all to come to him; but only if they come without disguise. God has no embargoes or travel restrictions, but all must honestly declare their luggage.

To think that we could hide anything from God is frankly silly. But the problem is more than just its silliness. If a man went to a doctor because he was sick, he wouldn't necessarily tell the doctor about his financial problems or the difficulties in his marriage. If those topics came up, he might even lie about them. Because all he wants from the doctor is information about his illness; he doesn't want the doctor's diagnosis of the non-medical problems in his life. That was how Jeroboam was. He wanted God to help him with one specific problem, but he had no idea of letting God control his whole life. That was why he wanted to hide the rest of his life from God. That is silly, but it is also really tragic. Jeroboam is recorded in Scripture as a failure, both as a man and as a king. But he didn't have to end that way. He could have been a good man and a good king—if only he had been honest with God and with full commitment had allowed God to search and direct his life.

But that isn't what Jeroboam did. He thought he was all right and didn't need to follow all of God's directions. And that was the second danger of his course—the danger of presuming on God's favor. I realize that language sounds a little archaic but bear with me. 

Remember how the story of Jeroboam went. Jeroboam was chosen by God. He was just an ordinary government official until the prophet came to him with the message that he was to be a king. (1 Kings 11:28-39) Just picture that for a moment. You are just an ordinary man, going about your life, when out of nowhere a stranger comes up to you and tells you that you are going to be exalted to the highest position in the land; that you are going to lead a successful revolution and become the founder and leader of a new nation. That was what happened to Jeroboam.

When Jeroboam first staged his revolution and broke off from Judah, the people of Judah planned to launch a war to re-conquer the rebellious people—but they were stopped by a messenger from God who told them that Jeroboam's rebellion came from God and so they stopped their expedition. (1 Kings 12:24) In other words, God was the active agent in exalting, establishing, and protecting Jeroboam as king.

Sometimes in the Bible, we see that God would exalt a man and the man would then forget it. But Jeroboam remembered When he wanted a prophet, he went to the man who first brought him God's word. He remembered that it was only because of God's favor that he was in the position he was in.

And yet, for all of that, Jeroboam did not actually seek after God or try to obey him. Quite the opposite as a matter of fact. After becoming king, he followed his own ideas and his own political wisdom, even when that went directly contrary to the law of God. He had received God's favor and he knew that he had received God's favor and yet he made no attempt to follow God or acknowledge God in his life.

He had every reason to know the extent of God's power and yet he didn't seem to fear God in his actions. And while we don't fully know his attitude, I think it was probably partly this: he had gotten comfortable in God's favor. He had come to take God's grace for granted. He had come to just take it as a matter of course that God had installed and kept him in his position as king. This is what older writers refer to as Presumption. It is taking God for granted. It is taking God's privileges as excuses.

What makes me think this was Jeroboam's attitude?  The fact that this is such a common attitude for people to fall into. Go a few generations forward to the time of Jeremiah. The Jews were very confident in their knowledge that they were God's people. They knew that God had protected and preserved them throughout the generations. And they used that as an excuse to live selfish and ungodly lives. In Jeremiah 7:9-10, God speaks through the prophet in something like exasperation to the people: “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?” They were presuming on God's mercy, taking God's protection and goodness to them as an excuse to keep on sinning.

Turn to the New Testament, and you'll find this same problem was one of the largest that faced the New Testament church as it dealt with the Jews. The Jews felt that because they were God's people and had received God's good favor that they didn't need the gospel. They thought God's favor gave them immunity to judgment and that they didn't need to be saved.

But this isn't just a problem the Jews had. Go to Revelation 3 and you'll find God's word to the Gentile church of Laodicea: they were a blessed church who had received much from God. And they had allowed that to make them lukewarm, unconcerned with God's work. Revelation 3:17 is Jesus's comment on the situation: “Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”

And the truth is that this didn't end with the Bible. There are still countless people today who are taking God's blessings for granted. Maybe once God intervened providentially to protect them or supply a need for them. Maybe God gave them a touch of healing when they stood a the door of death. But rather than allowing that to drive them closer to God, they take it as an excuse to live their own way. The fact that God once stepped in their life is taken as some kind of rubber stamp which justifies all their sins.  Sometimes it takes on a more horrible but also more subtle form. Sometimes people think that because God has forgiven them their past sins that it doesn't matter if they go on and commit some more. All of this is presumption. It is exactly what we see in the life of Jeroboam. God worked, but rather than allowing that to draw him to God, Jeroboam wandered away from God. And yet, not completely. And that is where the final danger lies, the danger of treating sin lightly.

I mentioned before that Jeroboam introduced idolatry into Israel. Not that it hadn't always been a problem, but he is the once how made it an official, state religion. He didn't want the people of Israel returning to Jerusalem to worship in the temple there. So he established his own temple with his own idols. But it's interesting what he said about his idols. 1 Kings 12:28 records his words: “Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” Notice that Jeroboam connected his idols to the deliverance from Egypt. It seems that Jeroboam didn't really intend for these idols to be new gods at all, but rather visible representations of Jehovah. Certainly, as we go down through the period of the kings, the Bible always draws a clear distinction between those who worshipped Jeroboam's idols, as bad as that was, with those who worshipped other gods such as Baal.  

In other words, Jeroboam didn't go all the way into sin. He didn't fully throw away the true God. That why he is a type of the partially religious. Idolatry is a sin and Jeroboam knew that. And didn't fully commit to being an idolater. He just tried to be a little bit of an idolater. He didn't want to go full out and get married to idolatry—he just wanted to flirt with it a little.

But what was the net result of his attempt?

Many kings or famous people have names or titles attached to them because of their character or deeds; titles that follow them through history. The English king Richard is often called Richard the Lion-Hearted because of his courage and daring. George Washington is sometimes referred to as the Father of His Country because of the important role he had in the founding of the United States. And Jeroboam also had a title that follows him through history. Over and over throughout the Bible, he is referred to as “Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.”

Jeroboam treated sin lightly. He thought he could bring a little sin in to help his political cause without fully turning away from God or committing to another religion. But the net result was that he was a sinner; that he (seemingly) died as a sinner; that he established sin as normative practice; that the entire nation (as a whole, though of course not every individual) was given over to sin. Throughout the entire course of Israelite history from that moment until the Assyrian destruction, they never escaped from the corruption of Jeroboam's sin. Sometimes they went into deeper sin and sometimes they returned from it. And even at the worst, there were still some who stayed loyal to God. But the net effect of Jeroboam's actions was to bring about sin and corruption—in his own life, in his family, and in his entire nation for generations.

It is easy to treat sin lightly. So often the wrong course of action seems so innocent and so obvious. The wrong deed so often seems just slightly off from the right one. I'm not talking about some cases where there is actual uncertainty about what is right and what is wrong. That's something different. What I mean is that often the wrong thing seems so reasonable. That lie is almost the truth and really won't do much harm. That comment you want to make is hurtful and unkind, but they certainly deserve it. That business transaction might be dishonest but it's perfectly legal and far better than what many people do. Of course, we wouldn't do this as an ordinary course, but just this one time wouldn't hurt anything...

That is the danger. The danger of treating sin lightly; of thinking that it doesn't really matter; that we can flirt with sin a little without actually rejecting God or God's way. That is what Jeroboam tried to do, and it ended in disaster.

George MacDonald wrote: “There is no heaven with a little of hell in it—no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather.” No man can serve two masters. If are not fully committed to God, we will find in the end that we are fully committed to Satan. If our steps are not directly headed towards Heaven, then they will lead straight to Hell.

And not only does a light view of sin destroy our own life, but it will have an impact on others. That was Jeroboam's tragedy. Not only did he fall, but he led an entire nation to fall. William Barclay wrote: “The gravest disservice any man can do to a fellow man is to make him think lightly of sin.” 

To be partially religious always means trying to keep hold of sin as well as God; and that is an attempt that always ends in disaster.

Once upon a time, there was a man who had purchased a new stove to heat his house, a large wood-burning stove. It was so large that in order to keep it burning, he found that he quickly burned through all the firewood he had prepared. So, looking for more wood to keep his furnace alive, he tore down the wooden wall which ran around his house and fed it into the fire. And when this wasn't enough, he began to tare down his entire house and fed the beams and timber into his furnace. And for a few hours, it burned brightly. But soon the fire died out, and the man was left alone without heat and with nothing to protect him from cold and fury of the wind.

We can easily see the folly of such a man. He sacrificed the real security and protection he had for the sake of something shallow and temporary. But that is what many people are doing with God. They realize the importance of God and a relationship with God. They try to surround themselves with religious words and ideals. But when push-comes-to-shove, they sacrifice God and the things of God to feed the furnace of their own plans and desires. And when those plans and desires give way, as they inevitably will, they are left alone in the cold with nothing. 

Trying to be partially religious will always end in failure. We cannot hide anything from God; God always knows just what and where and who we are, no matter what kind of pretensions we put up. We cannot presume on God's favor. The fact that God has given us grace and help should drive us closer to God; it is not an allowance to wander away from God. We cannot treat sin lightly. Our actions always have consequences. That is how Jeroboam lived and he ended in judgment and his whole family (and ultimately his entire nation) was destroyed.

But the point to remember is that the story didn't have to end that way. We may look at ourselves and realize that we have been guilty of a similar path—that we have tried to fool God, have presumed on His favor, have been treating sin lightly. But that doesn't mean we have to end up like Jeroboam did. Jeroboam could have changed his course. Jeroboam could have repented of his folly and turned full-heartedly to God. Jeroboam could have been a king like David—a man after God's own heart.

C. S. Lewis said that this life consists of crossroads; we are always choosing one path over another, and sometimes that means taking the wrong road. But he adds: “I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road... never by simply going on.” That is our hope—the hope of turning, full-heartedly to God and living fully in presence, aware of his knowledge and submitting to his direction. That is the only safe way for us to live.