Introduction
We have all watched highwire artists walking some type of tightrope, an act that causes our nervous system to shout, “Danger!” Most of us will never attempt such a daring act and the very thought of it puts our anxiety level on high alert. But there is another type of tightrope attempt that every human being feels compelled to try out, which is far more dangerous. It is the attempt to walk the line between righteousness and sin. Another analogy for this dangerous act is to view it as trying to walk as close to the edge of a chasm as possible without losing our footing and falling into the chasm. The danger of it is set aside in favor of what we view as the benefits of taking the risks, dangerous though they may be. The bottom-line question we are asking ourselves is how much of the world can we enjoy without losing our souls?
Those even vaguely familiar with the Bible know that Satan is always tempting us to follow him instead of God. As we think of temptations, we are quick to think of temptations to get drunk or high on alcohol or drugs, to be immoral, to get extremely angry, to allow that anger to move into a condition of hate and bitterness, etc. Certainly Satan wants us to succumb to such temptations to commit overt sins, but they are not nearly as dangerous to our spiritual health as is his much more subtle temptation aimed at convincing us that we can walk the line between righteousness and sin. Almost all people try this highwire balancing act and a large majority of them end up losing their spiritual lives, and even their physical lives. This truly is a line that cannot be walked – at least not for long.
Biblical Warnings
Essentially, all warnings in the Bible are warnings against this huge temptation. God knows that we are extremely prone to try and experience as much of the world’s offerings as possible without falling off the tightrope and into the chasm. Younger people are especially susceptible to this temptation. The rigid rod of reality hasn’t hit them between the eyes as strongly and clearly as it has those who are older. But it eventually will. Whether they can crawl out of the chasm at that point or not is a question that will only be answered in time. Most cannot or at least will not. We start off being attracted to the thrill of it, becoming addicted to the practice of it, and end up being swallowed up in our own self-inflicted addiction of sin. As any addict will tell you, giving up your drug of choice becomes a lifetime battle and even when you beat it for a period of time, you are still categorized as an addict, and rightly so. The path backwards is far easier and more enticing than the path forward.
The tightrope I am describing is addressed specifically in several passages. Here are a few of them to consider.
James 4:2-4
2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
1 John 2:15-17
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
Luke 16:13-15
13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” 14 The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.
What Jesus says in Luke is especially pointed, as he says that trying to balance sin and righteousness is impossible. For the Pharisees, their love of money was controlling their hearts and lives. For others, it might be their love of what money buys – materialism and possessions. For others, it could be entertainment and pleasure. For yet others, it would be achievements and success, power and position or unhealthy relationships. Thankfully, the Bible gives us an in-depth look at a person who tried all of these avenues the world has to offer, and accomplished an incredible amount, but lived to recognize his abject failure in life. His example is especially helpful in recognizing the futility of trying to walk the tightrope, because he began as a young man walking closely with God but held on to bits of the world. Let’s examine his example.
Solomon’s Early Days
Solomon succeeded David as King of Israel. His initial entry into this role was accompanied by his understanding that the task was highly challenging and quite impossible without surrendering himself as a person and as a king to God. Yet, from the beginning of his reign, he tried to walk a tightrope, as 1 Kings 3:3 shows: “Solomon showed his love for the LORD by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.” He loved God and followed the Bible in many ways, but he made a compromise with the world which ultimately led to a vast number of compromises. However, his initial approach to God was quite spiritual and quite appreciated by God.
1 Kings 3:7-12
7 “Now, LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” 10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.
1 Kings 4:29-34
29 God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. 30 Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Kalkol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations. 32 He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. 33 He spoke about plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also spoke about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. 34 From all nations people came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.
One of Solomon’s greatest accomplishments was to build a temple for the Lord. It took seven years to build, and no expense was spared in making it a magnificent structure. His father, David, was forbidden to build it because he had been such a man of blood, but now Solomon had accomplished what David had commissioned him to do. His prayer of dedication at its completion, as recorded in 1 Kings 8, was most impressive, showing true spiritual insights into the nature of God and the needs of the people.
But the first sentence in 1 Kings 7 provides an obvious hint that Solomon’s values were mixed. He took seven years to build God’s temple yet took thirteen to build his own palace. To use our analogies, he was already getting wobbly on the tightrope or walking too close to the edge of the chasm separating spiritual values and worldly values. Here is a description of the world’s allure and victory in his life. Kings were warned against being sucked into the world’s values long before any king had been appointed in Israel, in fact the warning came while the nation was still in the period of wilderness wandering. Read the warnings.
Deuteronomy 17:16-20
16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” 17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. 18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
Another obvious hint from the very beginning of Solomon’s reign is found in the first sentence of 1 Kings 3. He made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. The Deuteronomy passage makes it clear that since Egypt had been the nation’s oppressor for 400 years, they should avoid doing any business with them. The ultimate result of Solomon’s attempts to walk a tightrope between God’s world and Satan’s world was shocking. Read it.
1 Kings 10:21-28
21 All King Solomon’s goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon’s days. 22 The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons. 23 King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. 24 The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. 25 Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules. 26 Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. 27 The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. 28 Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue—the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price.
1 Kings 11:1-9
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. 7 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. 9 The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.
Solomon wrote many wonderful parts of what we call “Wisdom Literature” in the Bible, but he ended with the saddest account possible, the Book of Ecclesiastes. In it he recounted in his own words his path to destruction and failure. He sought from the world the exact same things that people in the 21st century are seeking for meaning to life, but he not only sought them – he found them in abundance. Yet, he was left at the end of his days in a state of failure and misery.
What did he achieve? The greatest knowledge and wisdom imaginable, but it was a mix of godly wisdom and worldly wisdom. In chapter 1, he said it was all a “chasing after the wind.” He tried finding meaning in amassing great wealth and accomplishing great projects. In his own words, he “denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure” (2:10). He had power and position over everyone, and that didn’t satisfy either. His conclusion says it all, his tightrope walk had failed miserably. In 2:11, he sums it up with these words: “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”
He had everything in abundance that we moderns think will bring satisfaction in life: money, materialism, knowledge, accomplishments, pleasure, power and position. Near the end of his life, he finally figured out what did matter.
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Did he figure it out soon enough, and if so, was he able to truly repent and escape his addictions? I don’t think the Bible provides the answer to that question. I do believe the example of Solomon trying to enjoy the world while still hanging on to God answers the question about the line that cannot be walked. Despite all the good Solomon did with the breathtaking gifts he was given, the end of his life shouts, from his own lips, failure upon failure upon failure.
In your life’s decisions, are you asking if a given activity will aid or harm your spiritual direction? How many of those decisions would reflect an answer something like this? “Well, it isn’t going to lead me in spiritual directions, but I don’t think it will hurt me.” That’s tightrope walking, doomed to failure. When you get where you are going, where will you be? Life, like a bullet, always ends up where it is aimed. Where is yours aimed – right now? Well then, that is where it is going to arrive. Do you need a course correction? Then take it – now!
