A SINGLE STEP

Is it possible to really love the Lord, have a heart for God, spend time and money in His work, put God first, be dedicated to Him—and still hold on to areas of disobedience to the clear Word of God?

With all his heart Solomon wanted divine wisdom and discernment to know the difference between right and wrong. God appeared to him in a dream and said, “Ask what I shall give thee” (1 Kings 3:5). Solomon was given “an understanding heart to . . . discern between good and bad” (1 Kings 3:9). But God added this warning: “If thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days” (1 Kings 3:14). Solomon heard a powerful sermon from God Himself! He had the sermons of his father David ringing in his ears and also the example of his father’s sin and consequent judgment. He had the law and the judges, including Deborah, Samuel and the prophet Nathan. David warned, “Keep the charge of the Lord thy God . . . to keep his statutes, and his commandments . . . as it is written in the law of Moses” (1 Kings 2:3).

Solomon knew the Word. As a result of all God revealed to him, he wrote over a thousand songs and three thousand proverbs! In his proverbs, he warned against the evil power of strange women: “Her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell” (Proverbs 5:4-5). Oh, how he knew the Word! How good he was at preaching it to others. World leaders came to consult with him. But as wise, discerning, and God-blessed as he was, he still clung to areas of disobedience in his life.

Solomon took a single step of disobedience which eventually turned him into a hardened, sermon-proof, lust-driven man. He considered it a small indiscretion when he took the daughter of Pharaoh as his wife; to him it was just a marriage of convenience. He “took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David” (1 Kings 3:1). She was the strange woman Solomon warned against in his proverbs, the woman whose gate led to hell! The daughter of Pharaoh represents that single cord that still holds us to something of this world, a single, besetting sin that is not surrendered—that single compromise that always seems justified!