1 Kings 3:1-4 - Spiritual compromise

Scripture:

1 Kings 3:1-4
1 Then Solomon formed a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem.
2  The people were still sacrificing on the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days.

3 Now Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
4  The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place; Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.
NASU


Thoughts:

There's some foreshadowing here into Solomon's life.  We are beginning to see the things that will one day be his spiritual downfall.

First, he marries a pagan woman (verse 1).  This marriage was apparently the seal of a peace agreement between Solomon (Israel) and Pharaoh (Egypt). 

Secondly, he does not have appropriate reverence for God's commands.  Though his worship does not appear to be to a pagan god, he is offering his worship to God in the wrong place (verses 2-4), on a high place as the pagans did.  The tabernacle was the place given by God for worship offerings to Him at that time, prior to the temple's completion: 

Leviticus 17:3-5
3 "Any man from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp, or who slaughters it outside the camp, 4 and has not brought it to the doorway of the tent of meeting to present it as an offering to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, bloodguiltiness is to be reckoned to that man. He has shed blood and that man shall be cut off from among his people. 5 " The reason is so that the sons of Israel may bring their sacrifices which they were sacrificing in the open field, that they may bring them in to the Lord, at the doorway of the tent of meeting to the priest, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord.
NASU

Solomon apparently didn't recognize these areas of compromise as dangers to his spiritual walk with God.  But eventually, he would be building places of worship to the gods of his many pagan wives, and leading Israel into the worship of them, on these high places. 


Prayer:

Lord, reveal to me any areas where I'm compromising.  I don't want to fall as Solomon did!  I want to walk with You all of my life, not just some part of it.

I've seen far too many Christians destroyed by seemingly small, inconsequential compromises, when the cumulative effect of those compromises was their turning away from You.  They, like Solomon most likely, never believed it would happen to them.  Keep me sensitive to Your Spirit!  Let me be a faithful Christian by Your strength.

Amen

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.