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Written by Darrell Cooper
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Sunday, 31 May 2009 16:10 |
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1 Kings 11:1-13
If you are a regular attender in our church then you no doubt know by now that we are in the middle of a sermon series through the Bible. We are also asking everyone to read through the Bible with us using a chronological Bible called The Daily Bible.
I am curious, by a show of hands, how many of you are still reading your Bible? (Pause for response) Good! I want to encourage you that we are almost halfway through now. Tomorrow is June, so we are only one month out from the halfway point. So, don’t give up. Keep reading.
Don’t raise your hands on this one, but how many of you are behind in your reading? Is it OK to admit that? I have been behind for over a week now, and I finally got caught up yesterday.
Speaking of getting caught up, let me just encourage you, if you get woefully behind, you might not want to try to catch up. That might just be too frustrating. So, I suggest that you simply skip ahead to the current day’s assigned reading and just keep going. You might miss a little bit here and there, but you are much more likely to actually finish the journey with us, and that is more important to us. So, I share that by way of reminder.
Recently we have been reading the great wisdom literature, also known as poetry. There are five books of poetry in the Old Testament. So far, we have read Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. We will get to Job later.
Most of the Psalms were written by King David. Most of the rest of the wisdom literature was written by his son, King Solomon. Both of them were great poets and prolific songwriters.
King Solomon had a great start. Very few people had as much talent or opportunity. He was an extraordinarily gifted man and his potential seemed almost limitless.
For example, we are told that he was the wisest man who ever lived, and, get this, the wisest man who ever will live (1 Kings 3:12). So, sorry, but none of us will ever get to be that smart. Solomon had extraordinary insight into almost everything.
He was not only wise; he was also wealthy. In fact, we are told that he had greater riches than any other king on the planet (1 Kings 10:23)
But he was not just rich; he was also respected. Solomon was a man held in great honor by all who knew him. (1 Kings 3:13)
He was also given the gift of peace. Unlike his father, David, who was a man of war, Solomon was a man of peace, mostly because God simply gave it to him. God gave him rest from all his enemies on every side. (1 Chronicles 22:9) During King Solomon’s reign Israel enjoyed an unprecedented season of peace, and one they have perhaps not experienced since.
Finally, god promised Solomon that if he would obey God, walk in His ways, and keep His commandments, that God would give him an extra long life. (1 Kings 3:14)
So, Solomon had a lot going for him. In fact, he had greater potential than even his father, David had. He had numerous and enviable gifts, abundant blessings, and the favor of God Himself.
And yet, near the end of his life, God rejected Solomon as king and tore the kingdom away from him. Technically, it was torn away from his son, Rehoboam, but that was a favor to King David. He still had some measure of wealth left, but he had lost his honor. He was no longer an honorable man.
He also lost his peace. God deliberately raised up enemies, from both within the kingdom and without, to harass and trouble Solomon during that latter part of his reign.
And ultimately, Solomon even lost his wisdom. Although gifted with unusual intelligence and keen insight, Solomon became a fool, and it slowly destroyed him.
So I have to ask the question today, “What happened?” How did King Solomon fall from such a great height?
Well, the answer, in a word, is disobedience. Solomon simply did not obey what God told him to do. You see, God had given certain rules, if you will, for the kings of Israel to follow. As I looked back over the writings of history I counted six or seven of them. Let’s just quickly review them for a moment.
Rule #1: The king must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself. (Deut 17:16) That may sound like a strange rule, but it was apparently important to God. The king was not to start a large collection of horses. Solomon, we are told had twelve thousand of them! (1 Kings 4:26) So, Solomon broke rule #1.
If you thought rule #1 was strange, wait until you hear rule #2. Rule #2: The king must not make the people return to Egypt to get more horses. (Deut 17:16) So, the king was not to accumulate a lot of horses, and whatever you do, don’t go back to Egypt to get them. However, we are told that Solomon’s horses were imported from, do-you-want-to-guess-where? You got it. Egypt. So, King Solomon broke rule #2.
Rule #3: The king must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. (Deut 17:17) In today’s reading we heard that Solomon “had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.” (1 Kings 11:3) Now, stop and reflect on Solomon’s house for a moment. This man had 700 first-class wives and 300 second-class wives. 1,000 women in his household! And they led his heart away from God.
Rule #4: The king must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. (Deut 17:17) We are told that “The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents.” (1 Kings 10:14) 666 talents. When I read it, that number meant nothing to me. Perhaps it doesn’t mean anything to you, either. So, I got some help from someone who is much better at math than I am and we worked out a conversion into our measurements.
When the market closed on Friday (May 29, 2009), gold was selling for $980/Troy oz. 666 Talents is the equivalent of 25 tons. So, to make a long story short, Solomon was raking in well over $3/4 billion every single year! ($787,514,250 to be exact) And that was just the gold! That does not include all he other sources of revenue he had. We are also told that Solomon made silver so common in Israel that it was nearly worthless.
So, clearly Solomon did not obey rule #4. Now, you might argue, “But didn’t God give Solomon that money as a gift, essentially as a reward for not asking for it, but asking for wisdom instead?” Granted. But as we will see in just a few moments, his wealth still proved to be a snare for him, and is part of what led his heart astray.
Rule #5: The king must not marry foreign women or they will turn your hearts away from God. (Deut 7:1-4) So, the king was not to marry a lot of women and especially not foreign women. “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women . . .and his wives led him astray. 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.” (1 Kings 11:1-4)
This leads us to rule #6: The king must not worship other gods, but must “break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in the fire.” (Deut 7:5) The king was supposed to be an idol-smasher. One of the king’s roles was to tear down and destroy idols wherever he found them throughout the land of Israel.
But King Solomon did the exact opposite. “He followed Ashtoreth . . . and Molech . . . On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh . . . and for Molech . . . He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.” (1 Kings 11:5-8)
Just to get a little perspective, it is important to understand that when Solomon participated in this idol worship, he was not simply strolling up to the top of a nearby hill and then bowing down before some cold stone and mumbling a chant to a dead idol. No, the Bible says that the worship of these gods was “detestable”. It uses that word repeatedly. It was detestable to God, and I think you would agree. If you had the chance to see what went on at these high places it might make you want to throw up.
Some of these idols were, among other things, fertility goddesses. The worship of the goddess involved shrine prostitution. Imagine a big drunken orgy, and you start to get a sense of the scene at these shrines. It was gross and rampant sexual immorality in the name of god.
Molech demanded blood, human sacrifice, particularly child sacrifice. They would build altars with big fires at the base and large metal ramps leading down into the fire. Then they would strip their children, sometimes even babies, throw them onto the searing hot iron and let them slide and stumble down the slide into the open flames and burn them alive.
This is the kind of thing that Solomon was doing in his later years! He was financing and promoting these kinds of detestable practices! The same man who once, in his youth, built the temple to the Most High God was now building altars to pagan idols on the high places. Instead of tearing down their altars, he built them up.
This leads us to rule #7, which was not a rule just for kings, but for everyone. We talked about it several months ago. It is called the Shema, the ancient creed of the Jewish faith. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
However, as we read earlier, “As Solomon grew old . . . his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God . . . his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel.” (1 Kings 11:4, 9)
The story of Solomon’s life is such a tragic tale. He broke every single rule and it destroyed him. He fell from such a great height. He started out even higher than his father, David, but in the end he fell even lower than his father, in spite of David’s terrible sin. It was a terribly tragic end to what began as a glorious life.
As tragic as Solomon’s life turned out, it would be even more tragic, I think, if we didn’t learn anything from it. So, I would like to see what kind of life lessons we can glean from Solomon’s life. There are so many from which to choose. I tried and tried, but I only managed to whittle it down to four. So, let’s take a quick look at four life lessons gleaned form the life of King Solomon.
Lesson #1: If we are not careful, the blessings of God can replace God. God’s blessings can compete for the allegiance of our hearts.
Back in Deuteronomy eight, before Israel entered the promised land, God told them what was going to happen in the future. He said, “You are about to go in to claim your inheritance. When you do, I am going to bless you richly. I am going to give you great weather, abundant crops, lots of children, and consequently, great wealth. When you become rich and comfortable, do not forget Me.” He says that over and over throughout that chapter. He says, “Do not forget Me!”
It seems that God is concerned that the very thing He intends as a blessing will turn out to be a curse, that the prosperity He intends as a kindness will compete for the loyalty of their hearts and ultimately replace Him.
We face the same danger today, particularly those of us in this affluent culture. If we are not careful, the blessings from God can replace God, in our hearts. The New Testament teaches that money is the single greatest, number one competitor with God for our affections. 1 Timothy 6:10 warns, “Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
So, we need to guard our hearts very carefully to make sure that whatever else is competing for our affection and allegiance, it does not win. Let nothing replace God as our first love.
Lesson #2 is for the young people, particularly for those who are not yet married. Lesson #2 is that it is not wise, it is never wise for a believer to marry an unbeliever.
Young people take note, even Solomon, in all his wisdom, was pulled away from God by loving pagan women. He was “un-equally yoked”, so to speak, and you know what it cost him? It did not just cost him his kingdom. It cost him his God. It cost him his relationship with God Himself.
So let us learn from Solomon and not make the same mistake. Do not even consider marrying someone unless he or she is passionately in love with and following Jesus Christ. Don’t even date them. If you do, they are likely to turn your heart away from God and you will end up just like them.
But even if they do not succeed in turning your heart away from God, you will be condemned to experiencing the daily grief of being in a relationship with someone, perhaps even a covenant relationship with someone who essentially despises the person you hold most dear, and whose values and priorities are not formed by truth and righteousness at all. You will, to borrow a phrase from 1 Timothy, “pierce yourself with many griefs.”
You may very well be tempted to compromise on this issue, but don’t. Solomon tried it and it destroyed him. Don’t think that you are smarter than Solomon.
Lesson #3: Knowing the right thing and doing the right thing are two different things. Knowing the right thing is called knowledge. Doing the right thing is called wisdom.
Knowing the right thing to do does not guarantee we will do it. We all know that. The newspaper headlines are replete with stories of high profile Christian leaders who fall into great moral failure. It seems like it is usually some kind of sexual immorality. And these are often the very ones who preach and teach about the dangers of sexual sin. They know, perhaps better than anyone, that it is wrong and we should stay away from it. But knowing right and doing right are two different things.
Solomon’s life is a cautionary tale. The bottom line is that if the wisest man who ever lived can fall, so can you. So can I. So can any one of us at any time! 1 Corinthians 10:12 says, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!”
Remember, future blessing depends on present faithfulness.
Lesson #4: People never crumble in a day. I am borrowing that principle from a line in a song by Casting Crowns called “Slow Fade” It is a powerful song with an even more powerful music video. If you get a chance to watch the video, you will see that the song is about a family man who is also a business man. He meets a beautiful woman at work to whom he is attracted. One thing leads to another and eventually, while on a business trip, he has an affair, and it utterly destroys his whole family. I would like to read to you the chorus of that song.
It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
Daddies never crumble in a day
Families never crumble in a day
It’s a slow fade.
I cannot imagine a wife waking up one morning and saying to herself, “You know, I think today I will crush my husband’s heart and shatter the hopes and dreams of my children. I am just in the mood to destroy my family today!” No. Of course not! No wife ever starts out with that intention.
It is far more likely to begin something with thoughts like, “My husband is never home. He works all the time and has little time or energy left for me or the children. He is so preoccupied with other things that he doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t know what is happening in my heart and what is worse is that he doesn’t seem to care.
But Jack is not like that. Jack is such a kind man. He loves his wife, I can tell, but I can also tell that they have been having trouble lately, too. Perhaps I can help him. You know, listen to him, support him, give him some encouragement, perhaps a shoulder to cry on. Maybe I should stay after Sunday School and pray with him. He looks like he needs a friend.”
It’s a slow fade.
Likewise, no husband ever starts out thinking, “You know, I think on my next business trip I will take off my wedding ring and hole up in my hotel room and watch X-rated movies on the pay-per-view channel and then spend the night with a prostitute.” No one ever starts out that way.
It begins late one night when he is alone at home working on his laptop and accidentally stumbles across some porn site. Shocked, yet titillated, he thinks to himself, “Wow, what was that? I think I will take another look. Just for a minute. It won’t hurt to look a little. Besides, I have been under a lot of pressure lately. I have been working so hard and I could use a bit of stress relief. Just for a minute. No one will ever know.”
It’s a slow fade.
Solomon did not finish the temple for the Lord one day and wake up the next morning and say, “You know, I think I will forsake the worship of the one true God and go to the next hill and build a shrine to a foreign god and then worship it by burning little children to death on the altar.”
No, it began with a thought like, “Wow, who is that? She is beautiful! OK, so she is not an Israelite. So she is an Ammonite, big deal! After all, Ruth was a Moabite, right? I wonder if she is married.”
It’s a slow fade.
No one ever sets out to ruin her life. No one ever sets out to destroy his family. And yet we all know it happens every day. “People never crumble in a day. Daddies never crumble in a day. Families never crumble in a day.”
It’s a slow fade.
So we need to learn our lesson from Solomon well, to guard our hearts, even in the little things - especially in the little things. Because that is where it begins. He who is faithful with little will also be faithful with much.
Those are a few of the lessons I think we can learn from the life of Solomon. I know it is sobering, perhaps borderline depressing. It might be a bit frustrating if I just dropped it there. Perhaps you are wondering, like I did, “OK, so what do we do about it?”
None of us want to end up where Solomon did, right? None of us want to end up a dishonor, a disgrace, an embarrassment to our God and even lose our relationship with Him. So, is there a way to prevent it?
Well, yes, of course there is. There are a number of things I could suggest. I am only going to suggest two. One has to do with God and one has to do with God’s people.
The first thing we can do is pray. That is a great Sunday School answer, isn’t it? We should pray. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray using what we have come to call The Lord’s Prayer, He said that among other things we should pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’” (Matthew 6:13)
We can ask God to keep the devil away from us and to keep us away from the devil. It is OK to ask God for help with temptation. We can ask Him to keep us away from things that might tempt us. And then, by all means, stay away from them. Avoid those people and places and circumstances where you know you are likely to be tempted., and ask God to keep the devil at bay.
The second thing we can do is to help each other in the form of accountability. You see, sin, by its very nature, is deceiving. It blinds us. The net effect is that while it is relatively easy to see sin in the lives of others, it is often next to impossible to spot it in the mirror.
So, if you see sin in my life, if you see that I am going the wrong way, if you see me walking in disobedience to God, I might need you to say something, because chances are I don’t see it yet. This is why it is vitally important that we maintain close relationships within the community of Jesus so that others have access and opportunity to speak into our lives.
So, those are two things we can do. We can pray and ask God for help avoiding evil, and we can create and maintain the kind of genuine and transparent relationships that allow others to see into our lives and hearts and give people permission to speak truth into our lives, even if that truth hurts. Because most often other people are going to spot our sin long before we do.
I want to close by reading 1 Corinthians 10:12-13. This is both a warning and a promise.
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
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