Solomon’s Heart Fault

Read 1 Kings 11
1 Kings 11:1-6 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter – Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 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. 5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.
 
YOU might say, “Solomon had a heart attack.” His heart seemed to stop beating for the LORD God.
    What contrast from 1 Kings 4 declaring the happiness and peace in Israel! You read there of Israel’s glory under a wise ruler. Now we read one of the Bible’s most tragic paragraphs. Solomon’s wisdom left him when it came to women. He heard God’s warnings and deliberately disobeyed. He worshiped idols and religions that killed babies and used temple prostitutes. These horrible cults cut and killed. They annulled the Creator to glorify nature. What manner of lust was in Solomon’s heart that he preferred women to the gracious LORD of hosts? Did he really believe he would still receive God’s blessings? How could he believe God would ignore his disobedience? Apparently his wise heart stopped.
    Perhaps Solomon was as many of us; he thought he could have life both ways – his way and God’s way. Is this not sin? “I want.” “God wants.” “Let’s compromise. Surely God won’t mind giving me some of what I want, even if he says it’s wrong.” Too many Christians and too many churches today acts the same as Solomon. They’ve replaced “God correct” with “politically correct” – God’s way with the world’s way. Despite the Holy Bible’s truth and devoted teachers throughout the ages, the church acts the ignorant fool.
    Even worse, the sin did not stop with the sinner. God did as he promised. He removed his blessing from Solomon’s family, and Israel split, to suffer generations of warfare, idolatry and exile. Continue reading in 1 and 2 Kings, and you’ll see sin rage through the generations.
    This is a sad way to leave Solomon. But we know God powerfully used this man, his gifts and his reign to demonstrate God’s power on earth. As we look to the many people God used to fulfill his covenant of salvation for us, we praise His Name. We thank God he forgives and forgets our sins as we are faithful to repent and confess. Be diligent to love God as you remain in his commands. (John 15).
 
Proverbs 6:23 For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life, 24 keeping you from the immoral woman, from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife. 25 Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, 26 for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life.