You cannot worship both God and false gods.  Joshua is clear that choosing to serve false gods means you have determined that it is evil to serve God (Joshua 24:15).  Serving no god is not an option, so there really is no such thing as an atheist.  Everyone worships, whether the true God, idols, the ideas they represent, or self (Romans 1:18ff).  Worship of idols is incompatible with worship of God, which Joshua makes clear by giving the same reason God gave in the second commandment: God’s jealousy (Joshua 24:19 cf. Exodus 20:5).  

Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD….You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.
-Joshua 24:14-15,19-20, ESV
Last time, we looked at Israel’s tumultuous beginning culminating in Judah’s Adam-like failure when tempted and Joseph’s Christlike success when tempted.  After the conquest of Canaan five centuries later, Joshua tells them to choose whether they will serve God or idols.  Joshua said that he and his house would serve God, so he was exhorting Israel as families not individuals.  Worship, whether of God or idols, begins at home…and there are many American “Christian” households that have chosen the wrong gods.
It Begins at Home
God builds His Kingdom primarily through families and has always dealt with His people as families.  His covenants are corporate, made with households rather than individuals.  Even the tribes of Israel were essentially households of households.  The ultimate blessing of the Abrahamic covenant was that all of the families of the world would be blessed through him (Genesis 12:3, 28:14).  The family, not the church, has always been the center of worship.  The Westminster Divines understood this and devoted an entire document to family worship, but many churches today do not.
It is unsurprising then that Scripture’s first reference to false gods comes in the context of a family: when Jacob fled Laban, Rachel stole the household gods (Genesis 31:19) and hid them from him by sitting on them (Genesis 31:34-35).  Her claim that she was menstruating at the time would have caused Jewish readers to see that Rachel was essentially defiling the idols.  Thus begins a theme found throughout Scripture: mockery of idols and their worshippers.  We should laugh at how these idols were powerless to avoid being stolen, sat on, and defiled.  We see the same with the plagues of Exodus targeting specific Egyptian deities.  We see it when the idol of Dagon fell prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 5:3-4).  We see it when Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29) and when the ruins of Baal’s temple were used as a latrine (2 Kings 10:27).  And we see it when Jesus picked a longstanding hotbed of idolatry and demonic activity to proclaim: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).  Through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15). Isaiah illustrates the absurdity of idol worship by describing a man cutting a log in half, burning half in the fire, and carving the other half into an idol (Isaiah 44:10-17).  Jeremiah calls them “stupid and foolish” (Jeremiah 17:8).  The psalms are equally harsh: “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:8 cf. 135:18).  Scripture is clear that false gods are powerless, so it is absurd to worship them. This means that a man who leads his family to worship idols is a fool who makes his family into fools as well.  As goes the man, so goes the family. While Elkanah’s home was tumultuous, he led his family in the true worship of God.  However, the prevalence and persistence of golden calves and high places shows that he was in the minority.  Most men followed Laban, paying lip service to God while betraying Him by worshipping false gods.
No Room for Pluralism
That brings up another important point: you cannot worship both God and false gods.  Joshua is clear that choosing to serve false gods means you have determined that it is evil to serve God (Joshua 24:15).  Serving no god is not an option, so there really is no such thing as an atheist.  Everyone worships, whether the true God, idols, the ideas they represent, or self (Romans 1:18ff).  Worship of idols is incompatible with worship of God, which Joshua makes clear by giving the same reason God gave in the second commandment: God’s jealousy (Joshua 24:19 cf. Exodus 20:5).  Unlike sinful envy, God’s jealousy is “a zeal that arises when sin threatens a covenant relationship”.[1]  Trying to worship God while also worshipping idols is like a wife saying she is faithful to her husband while regularly sleeping with other men.  There is no room for an open relationship between God and His covenant people, so idolatry is often described as adultery.  Therefore, there is no room for religious pluralism.  We don’t know whether Rachel stole the idols because she was trying to be a pluralist or for some other reason such as spite against her father, but we do know that Israel tried to worship God and false gods throughout their history.  As we saw here, while the southern kingdom of Judah was sinning by selectively obeying God, the northern kingdom of Israel was attempting pluralism: “Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord GOD”  (Amos 4:4-5).  By trying to worship both God and idols, they were blaspheming God just as a wife greatly dishonors her husband when he is just one of the men she sleeps with.  Religious pluralism is and has always been abhorrent blasphemy against God, so every man is exhorted to choose whether he and his family will worship God or idols—he cannot worship both.
Today’s Household Gods
I have previously examined various idols in our culture.  Even faithful churches that abhor those idols likely have families that worship them at home then come to church on Sunday and fail to see the hypocrisy.  Idols are myriad and often subtle, but some are made blatantly obvious by a popular yard sign that declares: “In this house we believe: black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything”.  This is a clear acknowledgement that worship begins at home, and its credal structure proves that it is religious.  What one must believe in order to be a Christian is summed up in the historic creeds—the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, and Chalcedon Definition.
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This side of eternity we see through a glass darkly, and we must just cling to God in faith. And as I and others have often said, it is not so much a case of my great faith in God, but my (often weak and failing) faith in a great God. We can only trust him, believing that he is with us in these dark times. And we can do that with confidence, since he promises he will “never leave us nor forsake us” (Hebrews 13:5).

The biblical Christian knows at least two basic truths: suffering is a universal condition which none of us are exempt from, and God is sovereign over this world and what happens in it. Other core truths can also affirmed, such as the fact that we are all responsible and accountable for the choices that we make.
Sometimes these things appear to conflict. But often they seem rather clear cut. For example, if you smoke three packs of cigarettes a day and end up getting lung cancer, the immediate cause and fault of this was your own bad choices. A non-theist will also recognise that reality.
But besides various moral evils involving human choices, there are also natural evils. If an earthquake strikes a place resulting in much death and destruction, it is not really due to human culpability (although some might argue that the way we treat planet earth accounts for much of this). So we look for bigger causes, and in times gone by insurance companies would speak of these things as being an “act of God”.
Of course whole libraries are filled with the volumes that discuss all this. Here I want to narrow things down quite a bit, and also make things a bit more practical. For as long as I have been a Christian, I have been interested in the issue of suffering and evil, and how Christianity accounts for it.
The term ‘theodicy’ has to do with justifying the ways of God in the face of great evils and so much suffering. So there is a theological and philosophical level in which all this can be teased out. But when suffering hits home, then it really becomes real, and you want theory to match reality.
With my wife’s battle with terminal cancer my thoughts about all this have simply increased greatly. I still ask the big questions, but I of course also pray like mad, as would anyone else who goes through such things. And I continue to meditate on these matters and read heaps, be it books or articles. I also watch various videos and so on.
And I have shared our story fairly often and fairly far and wide. But I find this interesting: I know of other couples who are going through quite similar things, but I do not hear much from them on this – at least on public forums. As I wrote last night:
We are all different. Some folks in our situation seem to say nothing on the social media about what they are going through. But I have said quite a bit. Neither is right or wrong. All I can say is, I am weak and I need help, and I am happy to admit it. The more prayers I can get for our situation, the better. So that is why I talk a lot about it. But others might have good reasons not to.
When it seems like your whole world is in upheaval, all you can do at times is cry out to God. As I have said before, sometimes I can only pray: “Help, help, help.” And I for one so very much greatly value the prayers of others. I sure do need them.
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Failure to keep the tongue in check does not simply tarnish a Christian’s reputation; it renders his whole religion worthless. Renders it useless, impotent, and devoid of force and power. In other words, an unbridled tongue takes a person’s whole public profession and divests it of potency and usefulness. Like a small leak in the hull of a magnificent ship, the tongue has the capacity to sabotage the whole vessel.

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. (James 1:26)
It’s no surprise that an age of unbridled passion should also be an age of unbridled speech. The tongue, after all, is the spokesman of the heart, and if the heart is allowed to roam free, it’s only natural for the tongue to follow suit. This, ultimately, is the reason underneath the various sins of the tongue we find running wild in our culture, families, and churches at present. Having “followed our hearts,” we have surrendered ourselves to the whims of feeling and desire, and thus unwittingly opened the lid to a whole host of destructive and harmful verbal vices. The heart, it turns out, is like a spigot: open it, and a “world of unrighteousness” issues forth (Js. 3:6).
Now, while the tongue’s capacity for destruction is of course a matter of interest for people and cultures generally, it is a matter of special importance for Christians. And this is because, as James warns us here, a man’s entire profession can be discredited through neglect of this one point.
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