Following God

King David followed God, to the point that God identified him as a man after His own heart. As it happens, David was also filled with the Holy Spirit:

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel arose and went to Ramah. (1 Sam. 16:13; emphasis mine)

Still, as any Christian who is honest will admit, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives does not mean we have some kind of insulation against sin. Hence, King David sinned, and grandly so. He also confessed his sin and returned to God, more than on one occasion. As it happens, we have some of his prayers of confession in the book of Psalms.

King Solomon stands in contrast to David. God made an incredible offer to this newly anointed king—ask whatever you want, and I’ll give it to you. He asked for wisdom. God blessed him with wisdom all right, but threw in riches and honor as well.

He gave Solomon the same promise He gave David: follow Me and there will be one of your descendants on the throne . . . forever.

I think Solomon tried. He went about building a temple where the nation of Israel could worship the LORD. But he had a divided heart. He also made places for his wives, who worshiped idols, to perform their religious activities.

And when he was confronted with his sin, he did not repent. We have his spiritual journey recorded in Ecclesiastes, and it does have a hopeful end:

The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. (Ecc. 12:13-14)

Following Solomon was his son, Rehoboam. This guy came to the throne and immediately faced a request from his people. As near as I can determine, he had neither the Spirit of God or the wisdom from God that his more famous predecessors had. His solution to a crisis of confidence from those he was to govern? As for counsel.

No, he didn’t ask God. He asked the men who had advised his father. The he asked some guys like himself who had never ruled before. He liked their advice better. Clearly, Rehoboam was depending on himself. Not God. Not God’s gift of wisdom. Not even the men God had put in place who could give him God’s perspective.

The result was a national split—a civil war. The nation that had been one, became two. There’s much more to say about the Hebrew kings, but the point for this post is this: David had the Spirit of God and followed God; Solomon had the gift of God and turned to it to guide him; Rehoboam had advisors and followed the ones he found to be more to his liking. In other words, he followed his own way.

During the period of the Judges when there was no king, Scripture says that “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” Now Israel (and soon after, Judah) had a king who did what was right in his own eyes.

I don’t think much has change when it comes to following God. We can look to His Spirit, His gifts, or our own way. What constitutes God’s gifts? Maybe spiritual gifts like love and joy and peace and patience. Maybe the Church God is building. Those are obviously very, very good, as was the wisdom Solomon had. But they are not substitutes for God Himself. We are not to follow “church tradition” or the “sense of peace” we may or may not feel if either of those take us away from God.

For instance, the woman who leaves her husband because she’s sure God wants her to be happy—or be at peace. Well, yes, God does give us peace and His love means He desires the best for us. But “the best” may not mean the kind of peace we think.

There’s a peace that comes from depending on God that is beyond comprehension, and may not override external turmoil. As a radio minister pointed out today, the apostle Peter was in jail, awaiting trial that would end in his execution, most likely, and he was asleep! The external turmoil surrounded him, but his soul was at peace. And as it happened, an angel broke him out of prison so that he didn’t die then—though Peter had no way of knowing that was God’s plan. His peace simply allowed him to have a good night’s sleep.

Thoughts on Solomon

Solomon, the wisest and wealthiest man to live, drifted from God. His egregious behavior included building altars and temples for idols. Because of Solomon’s disobedience, God split Israel, preserving for Solomon’s heirs only a portion of the kingdom on David’s behalf.

Solomon’s story terrified me as a child. How was it possible to be so wise and still choose false gods rather than Almighty God?

What I later learned was that Solomon’s abandonment of God started with something no one around him may have noticed. It certainly was no different from the kings in neighboring nations. His wayward act? He amassed a standing army—horses and chariots and men. The problem was, this build up was against God’s law, recorded in Deuteronomy 17:16.

As follow-up to this initial departure from God’s plan, Solomon accumulated wives, particularly foreign wives, also prohibited in Deuteronomy. But with this disobedience, he fell victim to the very thing the passage warned about—the foreign wives would lead him into idolatry.

Solomon’s slide away from God is a classic example, given to us for our instruction. Certainly the central point is obedience, but David was no paradigm of adherence to God’s law either, yet he experienced God’s forgiveness. Why not Solomon?

The easy answer is, he was not repentant. Like King Saul of an earlier generation, his response to God’s judgment upon him was an effort to escape the sentence, although the last chapter of Ecclesiastes seems to indicate he did come back to God. Still, his father David’s reaction, when he was confronted for his sin, was humble submission.

But what led to Solomon’s stubborn rebellion? I wish I could point to chapter and verse that explains it because then I would know what to guard against. What I suspect is that Solomon’s heart belonged to what he acquired. His great army became his protection against invasion. His great wealth became his hedge against famine. His foreign wives became negotiating chips for his spreading influence. He had political savvy, glittering wealth, and unstoppable power. Why would he need God?

Ironically, God told Solomon He was giving him riches and honor (I Kings 3:13) to go with his wisdom. And still, according to what Solomon himself wrote, he claimed the credit. “I collected for myself silver and gold … I provided for myself male and female singers … I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me.” (Ecclesiastes 2:8-9)

No mention of God, of His promise to pour out blessings on Solomon.

Apparently, long before Solomon built the first idol temple to appease his foreign wife, before he himself started worshiping these false gods, he had set himself up—in his own heart, at least—as God’s rival.

Now that sounds familiar. “In the day you [Eve] eat from it [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil], your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.” – Satan

This post is an edited version of one that appeared here in March, 2008. No kidding. I really have been blogging that long, and this really is one of my early posts.

Decision Making

Whether we like it or not, we all need to make decisions of one kind or another. Some choices, like when to get up in the morning or whether to shower before heading out the door, don’t seem like decisions any more because we’ve done them so long they’ve become a habit.

Mixed in with those automatic decisions are hundreds of smaller ones we make without realizing we are. Do I stop three feet behind the car in front of me or seven? Do I wear the blue or the black? Do I have a piece of toast with my cereal or not? Do I stop at the post office on my way to work or after? Do I take a jacket? And on and on.

Besides these daily, almost trivial decisions, are the Big Decisions of Life–who to marry, what school to attend, what job to apply for. Then there are the life changing decisions–will I read God’s Word today? Who should I pray for? How should I pray?

Interestingly, the Old Testament gives us three kings of Israel who model different decision-making styles. First was King David. He repeatedly went to God and asked for specific leading. Should he go up against this army, should he stay in that city? In return, God answered him quite specifically, at one point even giving instructions about setting up an ambush.

David wasn’t perfect. He didn’t ask God about how he should bring the ark into the place he prepared for it, for example, and a man died as a result. But on the whole, as God indicated, David was a man after God’s own heart. Despite his sin with Bathsheba and the resulting death of her husband, God said David’s heart was “wholly devoted to the Lord his God” and that he followed the Lord fully.

1 Samuel 17 tells us “the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day [of his anointing] forward.” David, then, had the Spirit of God and he inquired of God. He remained faithful to God, loving and serving Him to the end.

His son Solomon who took the throne next, encountered God and when given the opportunity to ask for anything he desired, asked for wisdom. God granted that request, but nowhere does Scripture say His Spirit came upon Solomon. He, too, made mistakes, marrying foreign women and setting up places of worship for their gods. When he was confronted, he did not repent as David had, but remained resistant. In summary, he had God’s wisdom, but he relied on himself. As a result of his decisions, he brought God’s displeasure.

The third king is Rehoboam, Solomon’s son. He was confronted with a decision right away–should he lighten the load of servitude on the people as they asked? He had the elders who counseled his father and he asked them what he should do. Yes, lighten the burden, they advised. Apparently Rehoboam didn’t like that answer because he turned around and asked a group of counselors his own age. Be tougher than your father, they said. And that’s the path Rehoboam decided to follow. The result of that decision was civil war.

Three kings. Three methods of decision making:

• David, filled with God’s Spirit, inquired of God.

• Solomon, gifted with God’s wisdom, followed the influence of his wives

• Rehoboam, provided with the counsel of elders, listened to the counselors who told him what he wanted to hear

The most apparent thing in the decision-making process of these kings seems to me to be whether or not they were filled with God’s Spirit.

It’s instructive to look at a fourth king at this point–King Saul. Scripture tells us the Spirit of God also came upon him, though He did not stay. Why? Saul inquired of God, heard what He had to say, then did as he pleased. In practice he behaved more like Rehoboam than like David.

Decision making? I’d say David should be the model. First he had a right relationship with God, and then he more often than not asked God what he was to do. In the end, he trusted and obeyed.