I think one of the greatest traps we can fall into as believers is the trap of compromise. Compromise with the culture and with the devil is often deceptive. It usually comes in small incremental steps which allows us to create justifications for each small departure from biblical standards. Typically, we fall into some kind of “the end justifies the means” thinking. In extreme cases we can seemingly justify almost anything and declare it to be within God’s will.
Recently, I met with a young man who described himself as godly and spiritual but was battling depression and some traumatic events in his life. He acknowledged that he was making a living selling marijuana on the streets in a state where it is still illegal. In his mind, he was providing something good for his clients, like a doctor dispensing medicine and, therefore, his drug dealing was God’s will for his life because he was “helping” people. After all, he noted that marijuana is legal in “enlightened” states and so that added to his justification. For him, selling weedhurt no one and was approved by some and, therefore, must be approved by God. He had also made considerable money from his business and believed with all his heart that God was blessing him financially and that was more confirmation of God’s approval. When I mentioned the command to obey the laws of the land, he simply said that he obeyed the laws of God, rather than men. When I raised the possibility that the financial blessing he was experiencing might be from the enemy and not from God, he dismissed that as unlikely. The fact that he didn’t sell heroin or cocaine gave him a sense of comparative righteousness and for him justified the compromise he had made with God’s word. Even though he had nearly been killed twice by people he met in his trade, he couldn’t see any misalignment with his lifestyle and biblical principles – many of which he could quote.
We find the same reasoning with believers who live together and share in all the privileges of marriage without being married. The justification is that they are in a committed relationship rather than sleeping around and so assume that God approves or, at least, gives them a pass on sex outside of the marriage covenant. They practice the value of commitment and, therefore find a way to ignore the standard of sexual purity outside of marriage. The Christian gay community does the same thing by declaring that because they practice love and commitment – two biblical values – they have God’s approval for same-sex marriage.
Compromise treats God’s standards as if he grades on the curve and if we are living out some of God’s values and commands then we can ignore others and still get a passing grade. To be sure, none us are without sin. However, falling short of God’s standards out of weakness or even rebellion and then repenting is a very different thing from simply deciding that we will ignore or modify his standards that keep us from what we want while we offer him a justification for doing so.
When we do that we simply find ways to compromise with the world or the devil and still consider ourselves committed Christians. That is a dangerous place to be. We can also ignore the standards of God in the name of tolerance and grace and explain away God’s clear commands in the name of acceptance and love. When we do that, we give away our view that God’s laws are restrictive and punitive rather than life-giving. We give away our view that some of God’s commands are unreasonable or outdated. Culture or the flesh wears us down so we begin to compromise in some areas of our faith while standing strong in others. We are in danger when we begin to justify that compromise. It would be better to simply acknowledge our sin or weakness while asking God to deliver us from that sin rather than deciding that our particular sin should not be considered sin at all.
King Saul lost his entire kingdom over the issue of compromising God’s standard and then justifying his compromise. “Samuel said to Saul, ‘I am the one the Lordsent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what the LordAlmighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ … Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed…When Samuel reached him, Saul said, ‘The Lordbless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.’ But Samuel said, ‘What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?’ Saul answered, ‘The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lordyour God, but we totally destroyed the rest’” (1 Sam.15:1-15).
Samuel went on to rebuke Saul while Saul continued to argue that the he had fulfilled the Lord’s command. You get the feeling that Saul was thinking that doing “most” of what God had commanded was sufficient and should count as full obedience. He adjusted the standard that God had set to meet his personal sense of what the standard should have been. As a result, God counted him as unworthy to rule and took away his kingdom.
One of the worst things we can do is to begin to justify our sin before God rather than simply acknowledging our failures and asking God’s forgiveness. When David sinned with Bathsheba, his heart was revealed in Psalm 51. He had committed murder and adultery but as he sought God again he never blamed anyone else or tried to justify or minimize his sin. He acknowledged his sin, took full responsibility, and then cried out for God’s mercy. He was fully forgiven. Saul, on the other hand, justified himself and blamed others for his failures. David found the favor of God again while Saul lost his kingdom.
I think each of us should ask the Holy Spirit on a regular basis to highlight areas of compromise in our lives and to show us places where we have begun to justify our sin. Whenever we do that, we come into agreement with Satan and open a door for him to camp out in our lives. Ask others to watch your life is well to see where those small compromises and justifications are sneaking in to our lives. When we discover those places of spiritual erosion, don’t ignore them, excuse them, or deny them. Simply deal with them through the cross and renew your commitment to God’s word as his eternal standard for life.
