And now let us note the obligation it involved. The particular offense with which Elijah charges the people on this occasion is "halting." The word translated "halting" is old English. It does not mean standing still, but limping. Elijah's question, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" accordingly means, "Why do you not make up your minds; why do you not take a positive stand one way or the other and instead of vacillating between the worship of Baal and the worship of Jehovah, accepting neither fully, seize on to one or the other with full conviction, and follow that with _all_ your heart?" Decision, the taking of a position and holding to it, is the appeal of the prophet. And is his appeal not applicable in our own day? Is there no halting, limping, swaying, and swerving between two opinions? It is of just such people that our modern and immediate community is full; they take an intermediate position, a sort of betwixt and between; they are not out and out Christians, and still they wish to be rated as Christians. They admit their reverence for the Bible; they would not question anything taught on its testimony; they take delight in hearing occasionally a Christian preacher, attending upon Christian services; there is scarcely a mental or moral persuasion in favor of Christianity which they do not cheerfully entertain; they would not think of having their children grow up unchristened or a marriage in the family performed without a Christian minister, and when trouble and sorrow comes upon them, they look to Christian sources for consolation. And still, when the test comes for them to confess themselves in the appointed way as Christ's disciples, to take their places at the family table of the Christian Church, they have their excuses; they turn their backs and go off on to something else. "They've not been confirmed"; perchance, "they want to consider." As stated, our immediate neighborhood is full of such halting, compromising, so-near-and-yet-so-far people. What they want is not to "consider," but to act. Time for deliberation they have had plenty and long enough. One year, ten years, finds them still "considering." What they need is decision, action, and not to arrive at that is to remain in a state of sin and of danger, of ingratitude to God and discomfort to their own soul. If I am addressing any such, and I know that I am, let them not be offended, but earnestly regard and give up a position so unworthy, unsatisfactory, God and Christ-dishonoring.