If you don’t change the filter, even something as good and necessary as water can start to taste really awful.
What’s the point of me sharing this, you ask? Because if you don’t change the filter, even something as good and necessary as water can start to taste really awful. The right filter can give you the right flavor, but a bad filter will almost certainly equate to a bad experience.
Let’s see how this principle applies to us scripturally. You remember Solomon, right? Son of King David and Bathsheba, post Uriah the Hittite. At one point in his life, God said to Solomon, “Ask for whatever you want me to give to you.” And out of all the things in the world he could want, Solomon asks for wisdom.
God granted his request. Solomon is still known as the wisest man who ever lived, and there are chunks of the Old Testament credited to him: Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and a great deal of the book of Proverbs. We are all wiser because of Solomon.
And yet, towards the end of Solomon’s life, things got rough. The wisest man in the world was somehow not wise enough to heed God’s instruction, and as a result, the filter went bad and remained unchanged.
The right filter can give you the right flavor, but a bad filter will almost certainly equate to a bad experience.
1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.
1 Kings 11:1-6
Funny how when you forget to change the filter, utter nonsense can start to feel like wisdom.
God told Solomon not to marry them, but even more than that, He told Solomon what would happen if he did. Most of the time, we don’t get the answers to our ‘why’ questions, but Solomon did. God has equipped him to handle this kind of knowledge – he had that extra dose of wisdom to help him understand.
But he didn’t listen, and as a result, the wisest man in history did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
I don’t want to linger too much on how awful the sacrifices to these false gods were, but to at least one, people offered up their children – babies – to please the god. The murder of some of the most innocent lives on earth was considered an act of worship.
Funny how when you forget to change the filter, utter nonsense can start to feel like wisdom.
But my friend, if it can happen to Solomon – the wisest man on earth – should we not be on guard all the more?
If it can happen to Solomon – the wisest man on earth – should we not be on guard all the more?
I think Solomon’s story shows us that it is possible to be a Christian and still operate in a wrong worldview. There’s a reason that the Apostle Paul implores us to renew our minds in Romans 12. We need to change the filter from time to time. Allow ourselves and our opinions to be dictated by the Word of God rather than looking for scripture to support our opinions.
It is possible to be a Christian and still operate in a wrong worldview.
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