You may see many today whose sorrows have been multiplied as the result of this exchange—exchanging God for some other god.

Making a god of money has multiplied the sorrows of our generation. Because of the worship of mammon, fidelity and honesty and truthfulness in dealings have retreated to such an extent as to endanger the whole structure of society. We need to be reminded of Paul’s words: “They that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils; which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (I Tim. 6: 9-10, A.S. Version). Ministers need to guard against this danger. Paul goes on to urge the young minister Timothy: “Shun that, O man of God, aim at integrity, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, modesty” (v. 11, Moffatt).

And there are Christ’s words touching this matter of money worship: “No one can serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will stand by the one and despise the other—you cannot serve both God and mammon” (Matt. 6: 24, Moffatt).

Another popular god is pleasure--men and women “preferring pleasure to God.” Many of these “keep up a form of religion, but have nothing to do with it as a force” (II Tim. 3: 4-5, Moffatt). You can judge of the sorrows that multiply to these pleasure worshippers from Paul’s description of the woman who lives for pleasure: “She that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth” (I. Tim. 5: 6.)

Many people have exchanged the Lord for the god of education and culture. We admire culture. Education is good. But we can gain much knowledge and acquire a high degree of culture, and yet go wrong in life. Many tragedies and sorrows have resulted from education of the head without education of the heart, culture of the mind without culture of the conscience. That is the kind of education and culture we get when God is ignored and left out.

“Where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? Let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble” (Jer. 2:28).