Preached Sunday, October 31, 2010
from
1 Kings 1-11
Theme: The privileges of God’s favor in our lives do not exempt us from the dangers of unfaithfulness to Him.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
We come this morning, in our study of the lives of the Kings of Judah, to the most glorious and splendid all of her kings—King Solomon.
No human being born of Adam was ever blessed with more earthly splendor from God than this man Solomon. The Lord Jesus Himself once used Solomon as the highest example of human glory men could imagine when, in the Sermon on the Mount, He said,
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:28-29).
Solomon was granted such outstanding wisdom from God that his counsel was sought out by all. He was used by God to write a large portion of the great biblical book of wisdom we know as Proverbs; and the most profound of philosophic treatises ever written—the Book of Ecclesiastes; and the great Song of Songs—a love song that has ‘been on the charts’ for nearly three-thousand years. In addition to his outstanding wisdom, God gave him such prosperity and wealth and fame and human glory that there truly was no king on earth who could have done more than he could do, possess more than he owned, or be greater than he was.
His life story has a great lesson to teach us. But it’s not a lesson to be learned with respect to how we might attain to the great wisdom or fame or wealth that characterized Solomon’s life; because these were unique to him alone. Rather, it’s a lesson to be learned from the tragic downfall that characterized the end of his life—in spite of all these other things. None of those great blessings of God’s favor could insulate even the great King Solomon from the loss he brought upon himself when he begin to turn away from God in unfaithfulness.
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To help guide our thinking about this great lesson from Solomon’s life, let me read to you from Romans 13:12-14. It contains an exhortation that all the people of God need to hear—whether they be as great and glorious as an earthly king, or lowly like you or me. Paul wrote;
The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts (Romans 13:12-14).
Our glorification at the coming of the Lord Jesus is closer today than it was the day before. And this fact calls for serious devotion on our part. We must be committed to, and grow daily in, a walk of committed faithfulness with the Lord. This walk of faithfulness with Him is to be translated—in a practical sense—into faithful and diligent obedience to His commands in the Scriptures. We must put the old sinful practices of the past away from us, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts”. We must be growing daily to trust in the Lord Jesus; and, at the same time, making sure that we’re not leaving any little space in our lives where sinful lusts can be kept hidden and on reserve for later gratification.
Many professing Christians fail in this call to “make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts”—and they suffer great loss as a result. Solomon himself is a remarkable example. In spite of all the provisions of God’s favor in his life, he nevertheless left room for disobedience to God. He made ‘provision’ for the flesh; and in the end, he fulfilled its lusts and made terrible wreckage of his otherwise-great life.
He was a wise king—but with an unfaithful heart. And not even the great favor that God bestowed on him could protect him from the consequences of such unfaithfulness.
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Let’s consider . . .
1. GOD’S FAVOR TOWARD SOLOMON.
Think of his birth. He was born of King David and David’s wife Bathsheba. After David’s and Bathsheba’s first child had died, Bathsheba became pregnant again. And Nathan, the prophet from God, came to David and Bathsheba and told them something very wonderful about the child she bore—that the Lord uniquely loved him. We know him, of course, by the name Solomon; but after hearing this news of God’s expressed love for the child, David and Bathsheba gave him the name Jedidiah at his birth—a name which means “Beloved of the LORD” (2 Samuel 12:24-25).
But Solomon’s unique favor with God was something that was established long before his birth. Way back at the time when it had entered the heart of his father King David to build a temple for the Lord, the Lord told David that it would not be him who would build the temple, but the son that would come forth from his body. He told David;
“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:12-16).
Theologians often call this ‘the Davidic Covenant’. And David himself recognized that, in it, God was promising something far greater than just that a son of his would one day build the temple. It was a promise that the Messiah would come from the lineage of David himself; and that David’s kingdom would be established forever in the reign of the Messiah. It was a promise of the coming of Jesus Christ, who was born “of the seed of David” (Romans 1:3).
Years later, when he was about to die, David made it clear to everyone that Solomon was the son through whom this great promise from God would be kept. He told Solomon;
“I go the way of all the earth; be strong, therefore, and prove yourself a man. And keep the charge of the LORD your God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn; that the LORD may fulfill His word which He spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons take heed to their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul,’ He said, ‘you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel'” (1 Kings 2:2-4).
So, Solomon’s father David died; and after he became king, Solomon set about to establish and solidify the reign over Israel that his father had passed on to him. And it was soon after he did so that one of the most significant events in all of Solomon’s great life occurred. God Himself appeared to him in a dream and said, “Ask! What shall I give you?” (1 Kings 3:5).
What an amazing offer! God would give Solomon whatever he asked! How would you respond to such an offer? What would you ask? We’re told that Solomon said,
“You have shown great mercy to Your servant David my father, because he walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?” (vv. 6-9).
In other words, Solomon asked for the wisdom from God to lead God’s people. God was very pleased with this request. In it, Solomon had put the Lord and His agenda for His people first. And so, He told Solomon,
“Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days” (vv. 11-14).
And the life of Solomon, from that moment on, was marked by astonishing and unprecedented splendor. The Bible goes on to tell us of the greatness of his administration—of how his vast empire began to be managed by a wise network of administrators that brought an abundant daily provision to him (4:20-28).
The Bible tells us of his prosperity—that the people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea for multitude, “eating and drinking and rejoicing” (4:20). It tells us that his territory expanded from as far north as the Euphrates River and as far east as the land of the Philistines, and even to the borders of Egypt; and that from this fast empire, tribute was brought to him regularly for all his life (4:21). It tells us that his personal provision was massive yet consistent; and that all the people who dwelt in his domain lived safely and plenteously (4:25). It tells us that among his holdings were 40,000 stalls for horses, 12,000 horsemen with all their provision (4:26-28), and 1,400 chariots (10:26). He even had his merchants that bought and sold imported horses for him (10:28-29); so that he made “silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar trees as abundant as the sycamores which are in the lowlands” (10:27).
The Bible also tells us of his wisdom. It tells us that God gave him “wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore” (4:29)—which suggests an almost limitless capacity for understanding and for the retaining of knowledge. He spoke 3,000 proverbs and composed 1,005 songs (v. 32). His knowledge of trees and of animal life was vast (v. 33); and his wisdom and counsel were sought-out by kings and dignitaries from all parts of the world—all of whom were all willing to pay him richly for them (v. 34).
No doubt, the crowning moment of his splendor was when he built the temple of God. He was able to hire the very best craftsmen in the world, and was able to afford the greatest materials, in addition to all that his father David had already provided for him. And in the midst of this great building project, God sent a word to him—perhaps through one of the prophets—in which He communicated the following promise:
“Concerning this temple which you are building, if you walk in My statutes, execute My judgments, keep all My commandments, and walk in them, then I will perform My word with you, which I spoke to your father David. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake My people Israel” (1 Kings 6:11-13).
And when the day came to dedicate the temple, seven years after it had been begun—after all the exquisite furnishings and articles of the temple had been completed, and after the ark of the covenant had been moved in, and after the glory of the Lord had so filled the temple that the priests could not minister in it, and after Solomon had prayed a great dedicatory prayer before it—Solomon blessed the people of Israel and said;
May the LORD our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. May He not leave us nor forsake us, that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, which He commanded our fathers . . .” (1 Kings 8:57-58).
And he closed with this appeal to the people;
“Let your heart therefore be loyal to the LORD our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day” (v. 61).
And just as if to give us a final testimony of the staggering beauty and splendor that God had poured out on Solomon and his reign, we’re told that he received a very important visit from a famous dignitary not long after the temple was finished—the Queen of Sheba. This queen from the regions of southern Arabia had heard of “the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD”; and she came to him with a great company of servants who bore precious gifts in order “to test him with hard questions” (10:1). He answered every one of her questions; and the Bible tells us that
. . . when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his waiters and their apparel, his cupbearers, and his entryway by which he went up to the house of the LORD, there was no more spirit in her. Then she said to the king: “It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. However I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard. Happy are your men and happy are these your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom! Blessed be the LORD your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne of Israel! Because the LORD has loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness” (1 Kings 10:4-9).
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We could spend much more time this morning talking about the splendor of Solomon’s glory; because the Bible tells us much more about it. But I wonder if you have noticed that, mixed in throughout the Bible’s testimony of his splendor, was . . .
2. THE WARNING TO KEEP FAITHFUL.
After Solomon had prayed his great dedicatory prayer to God concerning the temple, God Himself again—a second time—appeared to Solomon and told him,
“I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built to put My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the LORD has brought all this calamity on them'” (1 Kings 9:3-9).
And if you think back to the things we’ve learned so far, you’ll see that this same warning—so sternly communicated after the temple was completed—was a constant theme throughout Solomon’s great life. Back when God promised that he would be born to David, He said, “I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men” (2 Samuel 7:14). King David himself passed this warning on to Solomon; urging him to “keep the charge of the LORD your God; to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn” (1 Kings 2:3).
When Solomon asked God for wisdom, and God graciously answered his prayer and promised to prosper him richly, God urged him, “So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days” (3:14). When he began to build the temple, God promised to bless it on this condition: “if you walk in My statutes, execute My judgments, keep all My commandments, and walk in them” (6:12).
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This one man—singular upon the earth for wisdom, prosperity and favor with God—knew all this. He in fact knew it so well that he urged the people, at the public dedication of the temple, to make sure that they themselves “be loyal to the LORD our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments” (9:61).
And so, given the fact that God had kept all His great promises to bless Solomon abundantly, you would have to think that he couldn’t possibly do anything else but stay faithful to such a God. How, you would wonder, could Solomon not have kept his part of the covenant that God had so graciously entered into with him—and had Himself so faithfully kept toward him?
But its then that we encounter the shocking fact of . . .
3. SOLOMON’S UNFAITHFULNESS AND LOSS.
The Bible tells us,
But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites—from the nations of whom the LORD had said to the children of Israel, “You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart (1 Kings 11:1-3).
The Old Testament law specifically forbade Israel from ever turning back to Egypt again (see Deuteronomy 17:16); but Solomon disobeyed that command in that he entered into a treaty with the Pharaoh of that day by marrying his daughter (1 Kings 3:1-3). What’s more, God’s law also specifically forbade the kings of Israel from accumulating wives for themselves; but Solomon disobeyed this command too by marrying a multitude of foreign women from pagan lands—taking to himself a total of 700 wives and 300 concubines!
More to the point, however, is where these acts of disobedience led Solomon in his relationship to the God that had so richly blessed him. The Bible goes on to tell us,
For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not fully follow the LORD, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods (vv. 4-8).
Solomon had made “provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts”; and his disobedience had led him down a path of unfaithfulness to God that, in his earlier years, he never would have imagined he would go. By the time he was old, he had adopted the paganistic ways of his foreign wives, had built places of worship for them in the very sight of the great temple he had built for God, and had even descended to the level of turning to their false gods along with them.
We cannot be surprised, then, when we read;
So the LORD became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the LORD had commanded. Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. Nevertheless I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen” (vv. 9-13).
Now; I happen to believe Solomon eventually repented. The Book of Ecclesiastes seems to be a book he wrote in later years that had become characterized by disobedience, disillusionment, and repentance. His closing advice, it seems to me, testifies of a restored relationship with God; because he says, “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13b-14).
But what loss he suffered in the process! The Scripture ends its report of the history of Solomon’s life by telling us of the enemies that God permitted to rise up against him; and of how his own servant Jeroboam was told that God would tear ten tribes of the kingdom of Israel away from Solomon and give it to him (11:31).
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So; let’s make very sure that you and I learn the lesson from his story. Solomon was remarkably blessed with favor from God. And in the midst of all the blessings of wisdom, fame, power and wealth that God gave him—in the midst of all the privileges of service to God’s cause—Solomon never would have imagined that he would one day turn aside from God to idols. But he did; and it was because he allowed little compromises in his obedience to God’s commands to take root in his life. He made “provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts”; and in the end, those lusts hardened his heart and turned him from God. Not even the great favor that God had bestowed on him could protect him from the consequences of his unfaithfulness.
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters,
. . . let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts (Romans 13:12-14).