We All Have Our Ashtareth!

The best of men are but men at best! We all have many remaining corruptions we are all encompassed with many infirmities. And what effect should the consideration of this humiliating but undoubted truth, produce? Ought it not, among other results, to excite in us a spirit of constant watchfulness?

We are frail creatures ever liable to fall! And being exposed, in addition, to the wiles of our spiritual adversaries our danger is considerably greater. It is on our indwelling corruptions that Satan works and often, alas, with sad success! In addition to our general infirmities, it is probable that there is some one, or more besetting sins to which we are particularly liable; in which case it befits us to be doubly on our guard!

Samuel exhorts them to rid themselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths. But was not Ashtareth simply one of the many idols an idol like all the rest? Would not one specification, therefore, do for all? It appears not. And why? It was because Ashtareth was their favorite idol, after whom they were specially liable to go! So that while they were to put away all their foreign gods, they were to put away their Ashtoreths in particular.

And just so with us. We all have our Ashtareth, of whom, by reason of  the temper of our minds, or the constitution of our bodies, or our circumstances in life, we are in especial danger! And while we are to be on our guard against every sin our spiritual forces must be mustered against this besetting sin with more than ordinary energy and decision.

Compassed about, then, as we are, with infirmities some of a more special, and others of a more general nature, we should continually be on our watch-tower! Let us never dream that we are free from danger; for when we imagine that there is the least danger there may be the greatest!

Reader, remember therefore, and that continually, the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, "Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation!"

[John MacDuff]

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Psalm 77:10 ... And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.

1 Samuel 7:3 ... And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.


Hebrews 12:1 ... Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,❤