I Kings 2:43 So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he went out and struck him down, and he died. Thus the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

 

    At the very beginning of Solomon’s reign, he had some issues to deal with. Issues that were present in his pre-king days: His half-brother, Adonijah, David’s former commander Joab, and Shimei. Each of these men presented different challenges to Solomon’s kingship. They had to die. It’s difficult for us to wrap our minds around the seemingly brutal ways of the past, but let’s try to just accept that they did happen for now. 

    Solomon could have let them live. He could have established a ‘live and let live’ policy right at the outset of his kingdom. He could have allowed each of them to go on in the kingdom, causing problems, spreading dissent, possibly even inciting rebellion. He could have taken a more reasonable approach. (He actually did try a ‘reasonable approach’ with Shimei, but Shimei would not cooperate.) Perhaps he could have ordered Coexist bumper stickers on all his chariots. But he didn’t. It wasn’t until after these men were killed that his kingdom was established. 

    When we come to Christ, we come with baggage. Bad habits and destructive ways. Jesus forgives us our sins and grants to us new life. However, for us to be established in Him will require that we deal with the issues that were present in our pre-Christian days. We will discover that, while Jesus forgives us of our sin, He doesn’t just remove from us all of the things that caused us problems before our surrender to Him. We have to go in and ruthlessly eliminate things. There are things in our life that will always work to pull us away from Jesus. These things must go. We have to get rid of them. We cannot try to live peaceably with things that draw us away from God. We will never be established as a Christian while holding on to things that are not pleasing to Jesus. We have to take drastic action. 

    It is just this sort of drastic action that will mark the Christian as being different from the world. We don’t do it so that we may be different from others; marked as special. We do it to establish our Christian life. New life in Christ will require death. Death to ourselves and death to the things that pull us away from Him. A Christian isn’t just like everyone else with the exception of being forgiven. We can’t be. 

    Paul wrote to the church in Rome, For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)

    It’s not a pleasant topic. It’s not an easy task to put to death those things that are not pleasing to Christ. But He will help us! Paul said we do it “by the Spirit”. So let’s get established! You’ll soon find you are so much better off without them!

    

Blessings,

Pastor Russ