No servant can serve two masters … Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Very vividly is this experience brought out in the great parable which immediately follows There the rich man was evidently one who observed the sacred ritual of the Law of Moses: this we learn without doubt from his conversation after death with Abraham.
Thus he tried, after his light, to serve God, but he also served mammon: this we learn, too, clearly from the description given to us of his life, from the mention of the gorgeous apparel and the sumptuous feeding.
The service of the two was incompatible, and we know from the sombre sequel of the story to which master the rich man really held, and whom—alas for him!—in his heart he despised.