Search and See. Some questions from J.C. Ryle (good stuff!)

Are you making any sacrifices?

Does your religion cost you anything?

I put it to your conscience in all affection and tenderness. Are you, like Moses, preferring God to the world, or not?

Are you willing to give up anything which keeps you back from God, or are you clinging to the Egypt of the world, and saying to yourself, “I must have it, I must have it: I cannot tear myself away”?

Is there any cross in your Christianity?

Are there any sharp corners in your religion, anything that ever jars and comes in collision with the earthly-mindedness around you?

Or is all smooth and rounded off, and comfortably fitted into custom and fashion?

Do you know anything of the afflictions of the gospel?

Is your faith and practice ever a subject of scorn and reproach?

Are you thought a fool by anyone because of your soul?

Have you left Pharaoh’s daughter, and heartily joined the people of God?

Are you venturing all on Christ?

Search and see. —J.C. Ryle, (Holiness)

Have you left Pharaoh’s daughter, and heartily joined the people of God?

"But Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharoah..." (I Kings 11:1)

Notice how the Holy Spirit singles out Pharoah's daughter as an individual. The multitudes of strange women, the Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, Zidonians, the Hittites, all these women are included [i]together with[/i] the daughter of Pharoah. In verse 8 of chapter 7, we read of Solomon [i]building a house[/i] for her. He was careful to keep her house a separate dwelling, as to not defile the temple of God.

This very action shows that Solomon's conscience was already defiled, that he was compelled to build a separate structure, apart from God and his own house, to accomodate something he knew in his heart was an object of God's disapprovement. Notice also that he built the temple of God as he built the house of Pharoah's daughter - and much of the structure of her house, I would wager, was built of the same materials reserved for the house of God: the gold, ivory, the silver and bronze, and even the special wood from Lebanon that King Hiram's lumberjacks floated down from Tyre.

To Solomon, Pharoah's daughter deserved a house, and not just any old house - a house adorned with the same material reserved for God's house. Only, he knew to keep them separate, of course, for the former would defile the latter. Hypocrisy! I recall the Pharisees not wanting to enter Pilate's Roman quaterers during the Lord's trial, believing they would "defile themselves" by coming under the roof of a Pagan Gentile; the same men, who, with hands already dripping with blood from the buffeted King of Glory, considered it unthinkable to touch a Roman door latchet.

Brother Paul

This very action shows that Solomon's conscience was already defiled

Actions do speak louder than words at times. Thanks for the many great points you brought up brother Paul.

BRO Paul Greetings in Jesus' Name by Whose Blood we are Saved.AMEN.

that was a very interesting insight into Solomon and Pharoah's daughter...annointed stuff.

Grace and PEace are ours in Jesus.AMEN.