LED ASTRAY. 1st Kings 11 Not everyone who starts out well in the things of God and is blessed with God-given wisdom in their early years ends well as they get older. Solomon is an example of this tragic fact. Solomon was led astray by foreign women who practiced idolatry and worshipped the gods of men's ideas. Taking foreign wives was a violation of the Lord’s word against marrying women from foreign lands. Also, monogamy has always been God’s standard for marriage. Solomon’s politically motivated marriages left him with women who worshipped other gods, and that affected his faith in God. Instead of trusting the Lord to guide him in international affairs, he resorted to doing the same as the idolatrous tribes around Israel. He moved from worshipping the Lord God only to worshipping many gods, though he would have believed the Lord was supreme.
Following the practices of the culture where we live, the excuse that we want to “win them” is disobedience to God. Materialism is one of the many gods of our day and is one way to lead to unfaithfulness to the Lord. Peer pressure and the desire to be “accepted” contrast how our Lord Jesus and the apostles lived among materialistic nations that mixed business and religion. Prosperity and piety, light and darkness, will always be separate. The Lord warned of a bad outcome when He said, “If that light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.” Sin always has serious consequences. The ideas of men are usually based on what makes people feel comfortable in their relationships rather than a commitment to God and His will.
Solomon began taking matters of leadership into his own hands instead of trusting and obeying God. The women who came into Solomon's life turned his heart "after other gods" and led him to a point where his submission to God's will no longer mattered to him. Solomon could handle the business of governing the nation but could not handle the pressure of his many wives, who soon had him yielding to their pagan gods. He could govern a country, but he could not govern himself. The Israelites had always been tempted by idolatry and, hundreds of years before, had worshipped idols in Egypt. Still, it did not become official and acceptable to the people until Solomon, their king, yielded to temptation.
The “high places” of Molech, with human sacrifices, Ashtoreth, and immorality in the name of religion, took Solomon, his wives, and ultimately the nation away from the Lord God and led to division and later to captivity. Solomon went so far as to build "high places" for the gods Chemosh and Molek to please all the women in his life. Consequently, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord was angry with him because his heart turned away from the Lord even though the Lord had appeared to him on two different occasions. Solomon took for granted the wisdom God gave him and used it without consideration for the will of God. His weakness for personal pleasure and expediency led him down a path from which he never returned.
Compromising with worldly philosophies, hoping to win people to Christ, fails to bring people to true faith in Christ and leads to apostasy—deliberately turning away from revealed truth. When one ignores the commands of the Lord, serious negative consequences follow. We are obligated not only to know and believe God's word but also to obey and follow it and apply its truths to our daily lives and decision-making. No matter how long we have been saved or how much God has worked in our lives, we are not immune to failure if we act on our own. Most people have one or more weak spots in which they are vulnerable to temptation and compromise. If we know we are weak in our character or ability, we need to set a special guard before our minds and eyes lest our testimony for the Lord falls into ruin.
When one’s heart is not loyal to God and His word, before long, that person will not be faithful to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, will mislead the Lord’s people, and will be half-heartedly committed to an assembly of His people. There will be consequences that will have to be faced sometime—often in future generations. They will be left high and dry without spiritual commitment and soon have no testimony that they are even Christians.
Perhaps at first, Solomon resisted the pressures put on him when he was actively involved in building the temple—God's house. When he got to his own projects, he began to tolerate what he once resisted. Then, he rationalized away the danger he had put himself and the people of God in. Solomon's compromises to please his wives and be politically safe soon led him to do "evil in the sight of the Lord."
To think the way to spread the Gospel and the knowledge of God to win converts is to join the unconverted and do things to make our message popular is the same mistake modern evangelicals make when they blend worldly philosophy and practices with the word of God. Confusion, counterfeit converts, and lost souls are the result. The steps people follow in doing these things lead to apostasy, as happened to Solomon. By the time the next generation was in leadership, there was no fear of God, no commitment to the word of God, and ultimately, the nation was carried away as captives.
It doesn't take long for a nation or an assembly with great potential to become a "castaway." When great "worship centers" established and served by a staff of preachers and teachers become popular and appealing to the world's people, they can't be "a pillar and ground of the truth." Such places are attractive, perhaps intellectually stirring, and emotionally appealing to the senses. But God intends worship to be "in spirit and truth."
The drama associated with the worship of Ashtoreth was attractive to the world's people, even when child sacrifices were made. It involved sexual sin as well, which appealed to the ungodly. Today, people will actually kill their unborn children to accommodate their unrestrained sexual lust. Chemosh was the national god of the Moabites, and it was likely used as political leverage to keep people in bondage to the leaders. The Lord God had warned His people about this, and unfortunately, their king, Solomon, was leading them down this evil road.
During the reign of David, the men of war of Edom were killed. Others were taken captive, and others escaped to Egypt, among whom was Hadad. The Egyptian Pharaoh was reluctant to have Hadad return to Edom because Egypt had good relations with Israel - perhaps because of his daughter, who married Solomon. Hadad is the name of a pagan god. Rezon took over the leadership of Damascus in Syria, and even though David's control over Syria left Solomon's territorial control north to the Euphrates River, he did not control Damascus. Because of Solomon's compromising actions, the Lord raised the men as adversaries to bring Solomon's repentance back to faith in the Living God. Compromise always has a sinful effect that cannot be stopped without true repentance and a turning back to God from the heart.
A third adversary was Jeroboam from the tribe of Ephraim, who was an industrious supervisor of the laborers Solomon conscripted from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the descendants of Joseph. A corridor of land that included Gezer, which Pharaoh gave to his daughter, Solomon's wife, and the land of the Gibeonites, who Joshua had left to them, separated the northern tribes of Israel from the tribes of Judah and Simeon. The Lord had intended for the kingdom of David to be maintained, but it was in danger of being destroyed because Solomon had turned away from God. For David's sake, the Lord allowed David's descendants to continue to reign in Jerusalem.
To deal with some of these matters, Solomon assigned a young, ambitious, and valorous man named Jeroboam to lead those laborers he had conscripted from the discontented northern tribes. It didn’t take long for Jeroboam to be aware of the underlying resentment among the common people of Israel. High taxes, forced labor, and extravagant living in the leadership smoldered across the country. Then Ahijah, the prophet, identified Jeroboam as the future leader of the northern tribes.
When Ahijah met Jeroboam and divided his garment into twelve pieces, Jeroboam knew what that meant. There would be strife between brethren. One man's action changed the nation's course, and the effects are still present today. The same covenant terms God had given Solomon were given to Jeroboam. The status and power of David's kingdom were diminished, but it would not continue forever for David's sake. When "David's Greater Son" comes to rule and reign, there will be a full recovery to the terms of the covenant. Zion will be where He will rule the affairs of the nations. The Messiah will have a reunited kingdom, and the house of David will not fail under the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When Solomon heard of the prophecy and the new cloak he gave to Jeroboam, identifying him as the future leader of the north, he wanted Jeroboam killed, but he fled to Egypt and stayed there until Solomon died. God had told Jeroboam through Ahijah that if he obeyed the word of the Lord and did right in the eyes of God, He would be with him. But Jeroboam soon failed. He was not doomed to failure because he had the same opportunities as David, but “It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful,” and Jeroboam was not faithful. Solomon knew of Ahijah's prophecy but was so far away from God that he sought to kill Jeroboam in his resistance against the Lord. It may have been that Jeroboam was overly anxious to take over the northern kingdom ahead of God's timing and had to flee to Egypt until Solomon died.
Solomon's reign began well and ended badly. It would have been a blessing if he had followed the terms of the covenant and the promises and followed divine guidance. If he had continued the privilege of prayer, as he prayed at the temple's dedication, things would have been different. But he allowed and promoted rampant sin around him and became corrupted by sin. He had started as a humble man with promises, guidance, and answers to prayer from God. But sin, when allowed to continue, brings death. In this case, it brought death to a united nation. Solomon did not follow God’s leadership and soon had to begin to deal with enemies around Israel despite the alliances he made. Opposition came against him from the north and the south. God had appeared to Solomon twice, but now God was angry with him, and the Lord warned him of the consequences of his actions.
Solomon did not turn away from God all at once. His spiritual coldness began when he took the first step away by marrying the Egyptian princess. The first step away may not seem serious, but unchallenged sin soon spreads. When Solomon's heart was turned away, he soon turned to other gods. Then he turned to participate to the extent he built high places for other gods even though he had built the temple of the Lord. Then he turned away from God's word, turned to antagonism and murderous intent against one chosen by God, and ultimately, his turning away from truth, righteousness, and God led to his son turning away even further.
We do not get away from God all at once. Sin that is not judged and departure that is not repented of has very adverse effects on the generations following those who turned away in the first place. If we are not willing to follow the Lord and maintain the heritage He has given us on His terms, we, too, will lead others to go on a path that will be felt for generations to come. We first allow one "little thing" to go unchallenged in our lives, and the "snowball effect" occurs. Sin allowed to go unjudged spreads like a contagious disease. The sins we allow to happen and soon accept as usual will cause trouble that cannot be stopped.
When sin takes place, it must be judged. If it is personal, confess and forsake it. If it is in an assembly, deal with it scripturally. Sins in a nation must be warned and spoken against lest the outcome brings that nation down to defeat and disintegration. We can start well and not follow through to the end. When that happens, we lose everything that counts for eternity. Faithfulness to our Lord in every part of our lives is our privilege and obligation. If we are unfaithful to our commitment to the Lord, all we have is in danger of being taken away.
The choices we make have consequences that are sometimes very far-reaching. The more responsible a role one has, whether it is in a family, an assembly, or a nation, the farther one's influence for good or evil spreads. We must be careful when God calls us to remain in close fellowship with Him. Our relationship as children of God is secure when we have accepted Christ as our Savior, but our fellowship with God must be maintained and nurtured through His word and fellowship with His people.
Solomon did not keep the terms of the covenant David and the nation had made with God. He didn't bother with the statutes that governed everyday life. God allowed materialism, selfishness, idolatry, and ungodliness that started with Solomon. Because of the moral and spiritual mudslide that affected the whole country, severe consequences brought the nation down. There must have been a written account of the life of Solomon that is not part of the Bible.
Things written in the scriptures have a spiritual reason behind them so that following generations can have guidelines that have been tried and proven. We learn lessons today from Solomon and the ancient people of those past generations that if we apply them to ourselves, we will find them work for us. Lessons from their successes and failures must be learned and applied to our lives. Solomon wrote many wise things, which we can read in the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. If we read them carefully and prayerfully, we gain significant insight into the fundamentals of living and why our lives can be helpful when we live in fellowship with God.
Where is he? Why is he not here? He was here at the beginning; has he no fear, reverence, or gratitude? The God of his father, and his God, too, dwells with His people and is not through with the work He established at first with His people. The Lord wants the assembly he was involved in from the first to continue and for him to be faithful in continuing the work that he started, and he started well himself in his life of faith.
He was a blessing to many until he fell into temptations, which he chose not to resist. Under pressure to compromise, he yielded and would not turn back to God nor “cease and desist” from doing what he knew was wrong. He soon found excuses to tolerate what was wrong and either turned a blind eye to what he was doing wrong or overrode his conscience. He must have known the difference, for he lost his song. His conscience had to have pricked deeply, but he began rationalizing his decisions so that a temporary prize would be his to claim, though he knew it was a passing fancy.
It caused him to lose his reputation and testimony as a man of faith. Not only that, but it caused him to lose his character over something so flighty as a sinful woman’s demands. His pride and lust turned away his heart, and he soon turned to other gods, none of which were real, nor could he trust in them. They were only figments of man’s vain imagination, but they turned him away from the God of his salvation. Because he turned away, many others did too, and instead of leading them in the right ways of the Lord, he was used as a tool of Satan to lead them into idolatry and, ultimately, hell.
The nation was ultimately condemned before he was through going his own way. What remorse he must have had when he was an old man who thought back over his decisions when full of himself and living in the ways of the ungodly world. May God have mercy on me and help me resist becoming a foolish old man who doesn’t take time to pray, read the Scriptures, and meditate on God’s truth. I fear lest I lose my mind, tolerate sin, and not turn away. Toleration follows weak resistance and then leads to rationalizing without trusting wholly in the Lord. When this happens, it turns one away from God, the good, and the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.
The tragedy of turning away from the revealed will of God cannot be over-emphasized because its effects are so long-lasting. It is incumbent on us to make sure we are in fellowship with our Lord, and if anything arises or pressures come upon us to compromise the truth of God, we will not yield to them. The effects of turning away from God are felt all across the whole evangelical world today to the extent that many who claim to be children of God have never come in repentance to God. Some change their lifestyle a bit, and others don't even bother with that and still say they have been born again with no signs of new life in Christ.
On the other hand, some who have been saved by God's grace and have been given the relationship of a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ do get away from God because of allowing a little sin in their lives to continue. Our confession of sin doesn't bring about forgiveness of sin. That has been secured in the work of Christ, whose "blood cleanses us from all sin." The confession of sin restores our fellowship with God so we can "walk in the light" with Him and enjoy the blessings of our salvation.