The Landmine of Compromise - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, February thirteenth. Life is full of cleverly disguised temptations that can result in debilitating attitudes and actions. Today we begin a series of messages that helps us spot and avoid landmines in the path of the believer. There are landmines laid out there in the Christian life, very well camouflaged. And one of the reasons that in the believer's life that people have a problem is simply because they're not even aware of it. They're not even aware of how to spot these dangers in their life. One of those landmines is the landmine of compromise.

Very, very seductive, very, very treacherous. And oftentimes it's too late when a person steps into that. And so, I want to give you an example this morning in the Scripture of a man who compromised everything he really and truly believed. And the truth is it happens every day in your life and my life. That is that compromise is always out there. We don't always have to step into it, but it's always in the pathway of every single believer. People ask you to do things. They say things.

They require of you those things that would cause you to compromise your conviction. So, I want you to turn, if you will, to First Kings. And in the Old Testament, First Kings and the eleventh chapter, and I want us to look just for a few moments at the life of Solomon.

Because here is a tragic example of compromise. And while you're turning there, let me just give you a little background of what's happening. The Scripture says about him, So King Solomon became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. All the earth was seeking the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart. And the Scripture says that the queen of Sheba came and she'd heard about him and she just didn't believe all that.

But when he got through answering her questions and also showing her all of his riches, the Bible says in the tenth chapter and the fifth verse, there was no more spirit within her. And so, it's interesting how God had blessed Solomon being the son of David, blessed him in so many ways. And God had told him what he would do.

And the Scripture says in the ninth chapter and the first verse, for example, came about when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to do, which was a tremendous blessing that God gave him the privilege of building the temple, that the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as He had appeared to him at Gideon. And the Lord said to him, I've heard your prayer and your supplication which you've made before me and I've consecrated this house which you have built by putting My name there forever and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. And He says, as for you, speaking to Solomon, if you will walk before Me as your father. David walked in integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I've commanded you and will keep My statutes and My ordinances, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever. Just as I'd promised to your father David, saying, You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. But if you or your sons indeed turn away from following Me and do not keep the commandments of My statutes which I've set before you and go to serve other gods and worship them, then I will do the following things, which was to be, of course, to be cut off. Then, so, I want us to begin looking here, if you will, and here's what I want to show you. I want to show you, I want you to listen carefully because this is one of those treacherous things that causes many of God's people great difficulty, not just injuring them, but also ultimately destroying them spiritually.

It doesn't mean that it makes them lost, but it destroys their testimony, their peace, their joy, their happiness, and their success in life. So, here is Solomon with all this wealth and all this wisdom. And God warned him, You must not turn away from it.

And listen what happens. The Scripture says in verse twenty-eight, and I'll just mention this and come back to it. So Solomon's import of horses was from Egypt. You say, What's that got to do with it?

Watch this. And then, that is, he imported these horses and chariots from Egypt. And then the eleventh chapter begins. Now, King Solomon loved many fallen women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, from Egypt of course, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonion, and Hittite women. From the nations concerning which the Lord said to the sons of Israel, You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods. Solomon held fast to these in love. Very clearly God said, You shall not do it.

He held on to them anyway. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods, and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Asheroth, the goddess of the Sidonians.

After Milcom, the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not follow the Lord fully as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem. And for Molech, the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon, which is where they sacrificed babies. Thus also he did for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed to other gods. Now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice, and it commanded him concerning this thing that he should not go after other gods. But he did not observe where the Lord had commanded him. So the Lord said to Solomon, Because you've done this and you have not kept My commandment and My statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Now, here's what I want you to see. Here is a perfect and tragic picture of a man who compromised the truth of God, who compromised his conviction, and who compromised what he knew to be the will and purpose and plan for God.

Compromise goes on continually, but I want you to see what happens. The Scripture says here concerning him that here's what he did. That first of all, he called to Egypt for horses and chariots. The next thing you know, he married an Egyptian woman.

The next thing you know, he began to look around and he got all kind of women. And the Scripture says that they came from all kind of different places named by his forefathers as their enemies. And he said they were Ammonites and Hittites and Jebusites and Sidonians and all the rest. And the Scripture says not only that, not only did he take these women into his household, but the next thing you know, he began to worship their gods. And the next thing you know, he began to build altars to their gods. And the next thing you know, he built an altar in the high place to sacrifice human life. Here is a man whose father was David the king, who knew the truth, who understood the truth, who was brought up to understand another truth, the most blessed man, the man to consider to be the wisest of all. How could a man like that stoop to go so far down and finally be the cause of God tearing the kingdom out of his hand and the kingdom was divided and from then on ten northern tribes and then the southern tribe and finally the whole nation was in Babylonian captivity.

And when you look at the destruction that took place, where did it begin? I want you to listen carefully because I won't say it just once. Listen carefully.

The first step is the most dangerous step of all. Now, there are two different kinds of compromise. For example, there is good compromise. Let's say that you and your friend decide to go to dinner tonight and you want steak. You're all ready for it. He wants chicken or she wants chicken, whatever. And so, he says, Well, here's what I've got in mind. She says, Oh, well, here's what I have in mind. So, you say, Okay, you want steak.

I want chicken. Let's just go to the seafood place and, Oh, that's fantastic. We are both happy. So, you've had a very pleasant compromise.

Nothing wrong with that. Now, watch this carefully. Anything that causes you or leads us to compromise for evil, the things that we know are not right, disobedience to God, rebellion toward God, participating in, talking about those things that are not of God, any compromise is going to cost you.

Now, watch this carefully. Anytime you compromise with evil, evil wins every single time. That's the nature of it. And so, I want us to think about this whole issue in light of the fact that every day of your life and mine, we have the privilege and the opportunity and the temptation to compromise something. Somebody says, Well, like what?

Okay. For example, you can compromise your morals. You know what's right. You know that certain things are not right. You know, for example, that any kind of adultery or any kind of sexual immorality is wrong.

It's clearly written in the Word of God. No question about it. But you say, Well, after all, I mean, everybody's doing it.

Everybody's not doing it. And so, you compromise by just taking a little step. And so, in your office, for example, somebody's having a big party and wants you to come. And you say, Well, what are you all saying? Well, why don't we just have a great time at the party?

I mean, you know, just come on. So, you go to the party and you're looking for the Cokes and the Pepsis and the 7-Ups and the ginger ales and so forth. And the only thing they have is something you mix up. And so, somebody hands you one. Oh, well, I don't drink well. You know what?

You don't have to drink. Just hold it. Just hold it. Listen to me. If you take it, you compromised.

For the simple reason, and we'll talk about this later, the effects and the consequences of compromise on other people, for example. You say, Well, I just held it. Why'd you hold it?

Well, because oftentimes if you just hold it, then what happens? You take a little sip just to see how it tastes. And the next thing you know, what happens?

The next party you go to, give me one of those. And so, what you've done, you've compromised. Every facet of life. For example, some of you young ladies and you fellows, you guys, you know not to go out with certain people. It's just not a good idea. And they come along and they offer you this and that and say, Well, you know what?

Let's just, we just have a good time and so forth. Next thing you know, you're into something you had no business being in. And what did you do? You compromised. You knew you shouldn't go in the beginning. But you did it anyway.

You could go through every facet of life. Sometime, for example, somebody says, Look, here's a real deal. And you can make a lot of money in a hurry. But now here's what it'll do.

It'll cost you a little bit here. You look at it. You know it's shady. In fact, if you look, the longer you look, it isn't shady.

It's just pure dark. It's not the right thing to do. But listen, it's just one time and you can make enough.

It'll help you and your family. And so, okay, just one time, you stepped across the line. Every time you step across the line, what happens? You endanger yourself in ways you do not realize. That's why this whole message is about really making us aware of compromise, its danger, its consequences, how it works, and how to avoid it. And so, people live every day getting themselves in trouble doing what?

Compromising their convictions. For example, somebody says, Look, I want us to go to this movie. Well, it's ready and so forth. Well, it's not going to hurt you a little bit. That's not going to hurt you.

Let me ask you this. How much will a little bit of rat poison hurt you? It doesn't even take a spoonful.

In fact, a dropperful is all it'll take. A little bit of a lot of things in life may look like they are very, very innocent, but they're not. You and I live in a world where we are continually being confronted with those things that will destroy us, that will injure us and ultimately destroy you. A little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Not a whole lot, just a little bit. For example, somebody says, Well, you know, a little bit, I mean, we know we hear all these things about drugs, but look, just, man, you should get the thrill, man. You should get the thrill.

Just give it a try. Deadly. When God says something is wrong and sinful, it's because He's trying to protect us.

Now, think about this. If your friend wants you to participate and he urges you to participate in something that you know is wrong, is that good or is it bad? It's bad.

It's not bad sometimes, it's bad all the time. Listen, God didn't put anything in the Bible to keep us from having fun. This is not a non-fun book. This is a book of righteousness that talks about peace and happiness and joy and all the rest. So, when God prohibits something, it's for our own protection, it's for our own protection. And what I want you to see is simply this.

There's a world of things laid out there that will tempt you to violate your very conviction. Somebody says, Now look, in your office they are talking to you or at school or whatever it might be and they say, You believe that all that Bible stuff? Yes. Well, let me ask you this. Do you believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin when that would take an absolute miracle?

Yes, it would. Do you believe that? Yes, I do.

Well now, wait a minute. Suppose you said, and you've got four or five of your friends around you and sure you don't believe that. Yes, I do believe that. Do you have the courage to stand for what you say you believe?

Think about this. Do you want to please God or do you want to please the world? And so, our convictions are very important. What we believe is extremely important to us because it's going to affect the way we live. And so, there are all kinds of opportunities out there. Every single day we're given those opportunities to disobey God.

And that's why I call it the landmine for the simple reason. Oftentimes it's so well hidden and what's happened is you step on it before you know it and somebody, you've compromised something that's very important to you because you were sort of coerced into doing it. You and I have to live the kind of godly life of courage and boldness and determination to be obedient to God that if something is not right, it's not right. If it's wrong, it's wrong. If God says it's wrong, it's not right no matter how I feel. And God wants to grow up godly men and women who will stand for truth.

And what does that do? That impacts other people to stand for truth. It gives them the courage to do the right thing in life. And so, there are many, many areas in which a person can face that. So, look, let's look for example at the very nature of compromise.

How does it work? Here's how compromise works. And that is, first of all, you are asked to do something that's not really all that terribly bad.

I mean, after all, I've named a number of things, none of which will send you to hell. But the issue is, is it right and wrong? And somebody says, well, you know, just a little drink's not going to hurt anybody.

Here's what happens. This is where all compromise starts. Just, just a little bit across the line. You have a line.

You know what's right. You have, for example, if I were to ask you, do you have a standard by which you live? Do you have a basic convictions by which you live? You do have some convictions for sure. Our convictions ought to be based on the Word of God. A person with no convictions is dangerous. A person who has no biblical standards is dangerous because a person with no moral standards, anything goes, whatever they want to do, wherever they want to do it, to whomever they want to do it, whenever they want to do it.

You don't even want to live in a society like that. So, we should all have basic biblical convictions by which we live. They are here for our protection. But all compromise usually begins with a little step. When you take a little step, what happens? It's easier to take the next step and the next step and the next step and the next step until finally, what? It becomes a part of your thinking. What happens is then you begin to defend your steps. You also begin to defend those people who agree with you.

You know why? You have become desensitized to your conscience. It doesn't make any difference anymore. And what's happened is you have taken a big step in the wrong direction. And it's interesting when believers really backslide. That means they slide back into the situation they were acting like they were before they were saved.

Now, I'm not saying that any of that'll make you unsaved. But it makes you dirty, dirty in your heart. And what happens is there are consequences, there are consequences of compromise. And one of the worst and the most powerful is that it desensitizes your convictions and your conscience. And a desensitized conscience is very, very dangerous.

How many people have said, if I'd a, if I'd a only listen, if I'd a this, if I'd a that. God wants us to walk obediently before Him. It's for our own protection. Listen, compromise will damage you. And compromise can destroy you if you don't listen to God. Thank you for listening to The Landmine of Compromise. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.