The Unavoidable Choice Between Two Masters

Rehoboam's catastrophic reign illustrates a principle that transcends ancient Judah: humanity cannot exist in spiritual independence. The king received a narrow escape when Jeroboam's schism drove faithful priests and worshippers southward, strengthening his kingdom. Yet prosperity intoxicated him. He forsook the law of Yahweh, and the dreary cycle began: irreligion bred chastisement; chastisement brought repentance; repentance removed the invader—only for the nation to spring back to its old sin.

When Sheshak's army appeared, it took visible form as the consequence of Rehoboam's choice. Shemaiah the prophet, first of the noble men who would curb Jewish monarchs, spoke plainly: "Ye have forsaken Me." The king repented, and Jerusalem was spared destruction, yet the lesson carried a sting: Judah would become vassal to Egypt.

Maclaren's penetrating observation cuts to the universal condition: man possesses no independent mass sufficient unto himself. He must revolve around some central orb. The solemn choice is not whether to serve, but whom. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon"—the alternatives exhaust all possibilities. Yet the tragedy of multitudes is that they drift unaware, making their election by inaction. They fail to consciously and resolutely will the right, and by that very weakness of will—by allowing accident to determine their course—they choose the low and wrong. Not to choose God with coercion of the vagrant self is to have already chosen against Him.