Welcome to part 4 of the Eternal Secret to Strength and Courage. Catch the part 1, part 2, and part 3 if you want the full experience. Or, just jump right in with today’s post.
Yesterday, I mentioned that Scripture gives us a great example of Excuse Making. In the book of law that Joshua 1 refers to, God gives some guidelines for the future Kings of Israel. You can see them in Deuteronomy 17:15-17. One to remember is verse 17, “And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.”
Solomon, the wisest king of all time, should have known to follow God’s commands fully. For much of his life he did, but eventually he started to bend the rules and turned away from the way of the Lord.
A typical Saturday for Solomon
In 1 Kings 11:1-8 we see that Solomon had “700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines.” First, we should note the general insanity of having that many wives. More importantly however, we see that what God predicted in Deuteronomy came true: “For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God”
There is really a progression here. Some of it is clearly in Scripture, and some of it you can kind of fill in the blanks. Solomon’s first move was not to set up idols for all of his wives. He didn’t finish the temple one day and worship Molech the next.
His first decision was to bend the rules by marrying foreign women. Even though God forbid it in Deuteronomy, Solomon did it anyway. He probably wasn’t trying to rebel, he just made excuses to justify his sin. “Does God really mean we can’t marry foreign women? This is for peace! And God loves peace! And besides, I’m the wisest king of all time, I won’t fall for their gods.”
Spiraling Out of Control
He found a way to justify his sin in his own eyes, and so he started to turn, even if it was a small turn, from God’s ways. Like I said yesterday, we do this all the time ourselves. We are professional excuse makers. The problem is, when we begin to turn from God’s ways it is very difficult to stop turning.
And so we saw the downhill progression of Solomon. First, his heart was turned away, and then he wasn’t wholly following God, and then he worshipped others, and then he set up a few idols, and then he set up idols for all of his wives, even the ones that demanded human children sacrifices.
Finally, we see in Ecclesiastes a man who had everything the world would count as a success: money, fame, women, power. But in his heart he felt empty and that he had nothing.
Let me tell you something, if Solomon’s ways are not better than God’s ways, than neither are yours. He thought he could find success by bending the rules, but it only left him feeling empty and without value.
The Path to Success, Strength, and Courage
God’s version of success is not the same as the world’s. “Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.” It’s really simple, if you want your life to be a success, follow His Word!
How does this connect with strength and courage? It’s simple. It is much more natural to be strong and courageous if your life is a success than if your life is a failure. God is good and wants what is best for us, so doing things His way will also be best for us and take away many fears that our sin could bring upon us.
What excuses do you make to bend God’s Word?
*Image Credit: zoetnet
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