Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 9, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 16: Solomon

Transcript

June 9, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 16: Solomon · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, welcome to Chrono today.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that you are here, even virtually.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: What would it be like to be the richest, wisest, most intelligent, and influential man on the planet?
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Most of us, probably none of us, will ever experience that or know what that's like, praise God, but Solomon did.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Solomon did.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to look at the good and we're going to look at the bad.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: And I hope and pray that you learn some things that you can apply to yourself as we go through this lesson today.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: So join me in prayer.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Father, we do thank you so much for this time and we pray that you would imprint on us the things that you want us individually to experience and to understand and to know.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: So that your spirit would just take these truths and work them deep into us.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So Solomon, we first see Solomon's birth and childhood.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: 2 Samuel 12 says, Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: The Lord loved him.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: And because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedediah.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting, right?
1:25
SPEAKER_00: The name Jedediah means loved by God.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: And the Hebrew word for Solomon is basically means peace or shalom, just kind of like it sounds.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure in the Jewish vernacular it would sound very much like shalom.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: But let's think about, and it's on your handout there too, let's think about the home that Solomon grew up in.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: What happened after Nathan confronts David about his sin with Bathsheba?
1:54
SPEAKER_00: The baby that was as a result of their of his sin with Bathsheba died, so there was loss.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Then Solomon is born to David, to David and Bathsheba, and he's highly valued.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Then Amnon, Solomon's half-brother, rap his half-sister Tamar, so there's drama and there's pain.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Then Absalon, Solomon's half-brother, kills his brother Amnon.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Absalom takes control of Jerusalem and the throne, and then Absalom is killed.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: David grieves deeply for Absalon, and there's a war against the Philistines again, another war.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: That is a lot of drama and trauma for a person to go through.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: That's a ton of dysfunctional drama.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Solomon is living through most of this at a very impressionable age, observing it at that impressionable age and taking it in.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: He has witnessed evil and tension and the silent treatment.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Remember that from David?
3:04
SPEAKER_00: He's seen the deception and the pride and the death and war and division and all that dysfunction.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot for one individual to take in.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: And after all this turmoil, David resumes leadership of Israel for many more years.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: But eventually David becomes old, and it seems he seems out of touch and is out of touch with what is going on in the kingdom.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: He failed to designate who would be his successor as king, which left the door wide open for his oldest son Adonijah to make a play for the throne.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: There's a leadership vacuum, and Adonijah steps in to fill it.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Aware of this coup, Nathan the prophet warns Bathsheba of what's going on, and that if she doesn't use her influence to influence David, that she and Solomon are going to be in grave danger at that point.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Bathsheba goes to David and she tells him what is going on.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: She also reminds him that he had promised that Solomon would be king after him.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: In response, David summons Bathsheba and Solomon and Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet and Beniah, and they immediately crown Solomon as David's successor and Israel's new king.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: While Adonijah and his supporters are celebrating his victory, Zadok the priest is anointing Solomon as king.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: The trumpet is sounded and the people are declaring, Long live King Solomon.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: And all of Zadok, not Zadek, but Adonijah's family and everybody flees from him.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Next we see Solomon's reign.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Solomon was almost 25 years old when he became king.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: In the first half of his reign, he we we see prosperity and loyalty and majesty.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Everything is great.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: So now Solomon, gotta go back.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: So Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king in place of his father David.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: He prospered, and all Israel obeyed him.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: All the officers and warriors, as well as all of King David's sons, pledged their submission to King Solomon.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: The Lord highly exalted Solomon in the sight of all Israel and bestowed on him royal splendor such as no king over Israel ever had before.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: For forty years, from 970 to 930, Solomon sat on the throne of a united Israel.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Solomon son of David established himself firmly over his kingdom, for the Lord his God was with him and made him exceedingly great.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: That's who the Lord loved him, and the Lord was showing his favor on him and making him, causing him to be exceedingly great.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: First Kings 4 20, we get a picture of life at the beginning of Solomon's reign.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: They ate, they drank, and they were happy.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Solomon is sovereign over all the kingdoms, from the Euphrates River down through the land of the Philistines all the way down to the border of Egypt.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: That is a huge area.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And if you can see it on the map, you can see how big it is.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: It's a big area.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: And the people brought tribute and gifts to him from all over the known world at that point.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: From an external perspective, Solomon had military success, he had economic prosperity, peace in the land, and everything the people ever dreamed or hoped for, they were experiencing under Solomon.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: For Israel, this is their one brief shining moment as a people.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: It was a golden era in Israel's history.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: It's during this time that Solomon builds the temple for the Lord.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: As for this temple you are building, if you will follow my decrees, observe my laws, and keep all of my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David, your father, and I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: So Solomon built the temple and completed it.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: This was one of the high points of Solomon's reign.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: This achievement meant more to Israel than anything else could have.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Solomon spent seven years building the temple, which of course became the central place of worship of God Yahweh for his people.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Solomon built the temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, and it became one of the wonders of the ancient world.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: He also built his majestic palace and gardens, which was the perfect place for him to display all of his wealth.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: There were twelve lions that stood on the six steps going up on each end of the step that led up to the throne.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: They were made of ivory and overlaid with gold.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Nothing was made of silver because that was considered common and of little value.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Everything was done in gold.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: He had a fleet of trading ships that brought in gold and ivory and apes and baboons.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: His palace complex took longer to build than the temple because it was so much larger than the temple.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: One commentary says ancient Near Easterners did not view a king's sovereignty as established until he had built a palace for himself.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: So Solomon's palace further enhanced his prestige because it was incredible.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: He also built roads and government buildings.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: He accumulated thousands of horses and chariots.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: And after securing peace with his neighbors, he built up trade and became one of the wealthiest kings of his time, probably the wealthiest king.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: His skills in architecture and management allowed him to turn Israel into the showplace of the Middle East.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: As a diplomat, he made treaties and alliances with all the other nations around him, which brought peace to his kingdom.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: But the thing that most marked Solomon, I'm sure you know what that is, is his God-given wisdom.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: As a kid, did you ever sit around with your friends and think about what three things you would wish for if a magic genie showed up?
9:57
SPEAKER_00: I did.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: I did that a lot with the kids on my block.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And you'd have to sit there and think hard, what would be my most, three most specific and greatest things I would want?
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, God is obviously not a genie, but it's pretty incredible that he kind of does that with Solomon.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing what he does for Solomon.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: God showered Solomon with blessings of wisdom and knowledge, with discernment and with strength, with riches and fame, with vision and skill for his purposes, for God's purposes.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, Lord God, let your promise to my father David be confirmed.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: For you have made me king over all over a people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Give me wisdom and knowledge that I may lead this people, for whom, for who is able to govern this great people of yours.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: God said to Solomon, Since it this is your heart's desire, and you have not asked for wealth, possessions, or honor, nor for the death of your enemies, and since you have not asked for a long life, but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you king, therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: And I will also give you wealth and possessions and honor, such as no king who was ever before you had, and none after you will have.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's heart is obviously right with God.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: He is in a very good place.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's and it's reflective of David's, his father's heart that David had after God.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And it pleased God.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: He was off to a good start as Israel's shepherd, because in the beginning it was all about the people rather than being all about him.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: He devoted himself to making worship at the temple and fellowship with God possible for the Israelites.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: And remember, that was what God wanted in the tabernacle in the wilderness was fellowship and worship.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: And God was teaching them how to appropriately approach and come to God.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: So now he's helping to fulfill that, that fellowship and that worship at the temple in Jerusalem.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: You've already read the prayer that Solomon prayed when he dedicated the temple, but it is just such an amazing prayer.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to include it, but it's it's so lengthy, but it's so great.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: God gave Solomon so much.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: 1 Kings 4 says, God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and that's saying quite a bit.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Greater than all the wisdom of Egypt, he was wiser than anyone else.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: He spoke about plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the walls.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: He also spoke about animals and birds and reptiles and fish from all the nations.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: People came to hear, to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world who had heard of his wisdom.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Solomon was somewhat of a mixture of Leonardo da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin and George Washington Carver and Frank Lloyd Wright and Robert Frost and Einstein and Beethoven and Bernstein and Gershwin.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of got it all.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: He was a poet and a musician and a scientist and a writer.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: The whole nation benefited greatly from his leadership and his giftedness, this giftedness from God.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: So he received almost 25 tons, which would be 800, 800,000 ounces of gold a year.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: A year.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: The Lord God of Israel made him great.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Solomon led the people to a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity and hope.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Yet one day, there would come a leader even greater than Solomon.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 12, 42, Jesus makes this stunning, I don't know where my video went.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: This stunning, stunning statement about himself.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: He says, now one greater than Solomon is here.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: When we we we kind of tend to skim over that, but it's important for us to understand how much Solomon had and did.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus makes that statement.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: To them, Solomon was the most glorious and greatest in their history.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: How could a simple impoverished carpenter son claim that he was greater than Solomon?
17:06
SPEAKER_00: It's a remarkable statement by Jesus, isn't it?
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said in Matthew 12, 6, I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: In the same chapter, verse 41, he says, one greater than Jonah is here.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: What's he proclaiming?
17:25
SPEAKER_00: He is proclaiming that he is greater than Israel's temple, he is greater than Israel's prophets, and he is greater than Israel's kings.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: And he is.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Such amazing statements from Jesus.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Because of Jesus Christ, you and I, we believers in Christ, are similarly blessed.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: We are blessed with the mental ability to have wisdom and knowledge.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: We know this because of what James 1:5 says.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: You and I are blessed with discernment and strength.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through him who gives me strength.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: We are blessed with vision and skill.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 3, 23 and 24.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: We are blessed in so many ways.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: We are blessed with riches.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 1.18.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: I really like what Colin Hansen in an article from Gospel Coalition website says.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: He says, the wealth of many Christians in America and the West rivals, if not surpasses, the glories of Solomon's kingdom.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Considering the vast array of rich foods that are available in our grocery stores, the wide assortment of music that we are able to listen to, the climate-controlled buildings that most of us live and work in, we would be the envy of Solomon.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought of that?
19:35
SPEAKER_00: We're as rich as Solomon?
19:37
SPEAKER_00: We surely face many, if not all, the same temptations that Solomon faced: money, sex, and power.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Like Solomon, we are tempted to live in luxury, sometimes at the expense of the poor.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Solomon had a thousand sexual partners.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Through the poison of pornography, we can have just as many virtual liaisons.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: And even if we are not kings or queens, we are still tempted to abuse whatever power we have by using it for our own advantage instead of serving other people.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: If we can see our temptations for what they really are, we will not find it hard to relate to King Solomon as a fellow sinner.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: I love those insights that he gives.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
20:25
SPEAKER_00: What am I doing with the blessings that God has given us?
20:31
SPEAKER_00: We have to be doing something with them.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: You are either using them for God and his people or you are using them for self.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: And as we're going to see as we move forward, that's what Solomon ended up doing.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: That's why God gave the blessings to Solomon, so that he could bless others.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: That's why he blesses us.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: We are blessed to be a blessing.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to skip ahead and see the failures in Solomon's later years, but we really need to see and understand that first he was a very blessed man, and for God's reasons and God's purposes.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: But then we come to his failures.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Solomon started out well with genuine humility, with personal integrity, with a love and reverence for God.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: But then he did what so many people do.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: He lost sight of the fact that it was God who blessed him and who made him great, and he turned those blessings into greed.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: He was consumed by the blessings.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe a better way to say it is that the blessings consumed him.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: He acquired more and more and more.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And along the way, he started to violate every law that God had given for the kings.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: And this is such a sad thing.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes chapter 2 shows us some of the failures.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's accomplishments first, we'll look at.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: I undertook great projects.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: So he had great accomplishments.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: His accomplishments led him, I think I gotta go back, led him to extravagance.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Aren't I so great?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: I denied myself nothing, my eyes desired.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: I refused my heart no pleasure, my heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: His extravagance led to boredom.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: A chasing after the wind, nothing was gained under the sun.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun is grievous to me.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: His boredom led to disillusionment.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?
23:55
SPEAKER_00: All his days, his work is pain and grief.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Even at night, his mind does not rest.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: This too is meaningless.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: His accomplishments, his extravagance, his boredom, his disillusionment all led to deterioration.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: It's important here to remember the specific commands that God had given to those who would rule over Israel.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Remember whenever the people are crying out for a king, and finally Samuel's Samuel brings it before the Lord, and the Lord's like, give them what they want.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And then they got Saul.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is what God said the king, uh, through Samuel, said the king would do.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses or for himself, or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord has told you, you are not to go back that way again.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: He must not accumulate lords, large amounts of silver or gold.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: This seems pretty clear, right?
25:02
SPEAKER_00: No horses from Egypt, not too many wives, and not no large amounts of gold and silver.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: But Solomon didn't think that these things and these commands applied to him.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: It's important to realize that these specific commands that God is giving here are three centuries earlier written in the book of Deuteronomy.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And they were all broken by Solomon.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: When these are listed in 1 Kings, they show up in essentially the same order as they were given in Deuteronomy.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: It's like, don't do this, he did this, almost in the same order.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: 1 Kings chapter 10, Solomon accumulated chariots and horses.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses, which he kept in the chariot cities, and also with him in Jerusalem.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore trees in the foothills.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: After King Solomon, the King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: 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.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievably, Solomon was led astray by the wives to follow other gods, the god of Ashraf and the god of Molech.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: The false deity Ashtaroth exalted temple prostitution that degraded the people and highly, highly offended God.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Molech was the detestable god of the Ammonites.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: The Ammonites and the others who followed Molech were expected to sacrifice their infants on the altar to this false God.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: And remember, these are the same gods that messed with Moses and the people in Egypt, and they are the same gods who are still messing with people in our culture today.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, idolatry is viewed as spiritual prostitution and adultery.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Anything we give our hearts to that competes with our relationship with God and causes us to be unfaithful to Him is a form of idolatry.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: God had given these instructions to Israel's kings so that they would stay focused on the responsibilities and not be distracted or corrupted by materialism and power.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: Solomon knew this.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: He knew these commands and in his wisdom, his wisdom, he had to be aware that his choices were against what God had said.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: How did Solomon go from such extreme wisdom to blatant disobedience to God in such a short time?
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Things do not deteriorate suddenly.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: They deteriorate gradually.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: It just happens gradually over time.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: And that is what happened with Solomon.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: He let little things slip over time.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: He didn't take care of business like he should have.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: And that pulled him farther and farther away from God.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: He built a temple for the Lord, a place where his word could be read and stored.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: But he quit storing God's word in his heart.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: He quit giving the principles of God, the commands of God, the obedience that they deserved.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: He stopped worshiping the one true God in the temple that he had built for him.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: David had sinned against God deliberately and occasionally when tempted, but his heart remained devoted to God.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's did not.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Chuck Swindell says, Because God is slow to anger and infinitely compassionate, we could easily be lulled into believing that God is soft and tolerant of sin.
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SPEAKER_00: But being slow to anger does not mean never being angry.
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SPEAKER_00: Sin is not tolerable to God.
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SPEAKER_00: And when warnings and reproofs are spurned, his judgment comes upon us like a whirlwind and his anger like a fire.
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SPEAKER_00: Wow.
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SPEAKER_00: What did God's anger look like toward Solomon?
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SPEAKER_00: 1 Kings 11 tells us.
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SPEAKER_00: Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord's command.
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SPEAKER_00: So the Lord said to Solomon, Since this is your attitude, and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and will give it to one of your subordinates.
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SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime.
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SPEAKER_00: I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
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SPEAKER_00: Yet I will tear not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.
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SPEAKER_00: God's anger toward Solomon is going to lead to consequences, not just for Solomon, but for the entire nation.
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SPEAKER_00: And in a word, that's going to be division and removing the blessing of Solomon's from Solomon's lineage.
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SPEAKER_00: The kingdom will be divided and ultimately conquered.
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SPEAKER_00: You're reading about that now.
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SPEAKER_00: So what do we see in Solomon's life?
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SPEAKER_00: We see too much indulgence and too little restraint.
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SPEAKER_00: We see too much power and too little resistance.
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SPEAKER_00: There was no one.
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SPEAKER_00: Scripture doesn't record anyone who came alongside Solomon to help him get some perspective.
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SPEAKER_00: Solomon had no one like that.
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SPEAKER_00: No one is close to him.
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SPEAKER_00: He has no equal.
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SPEAKER_00: He has no accountability.
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SPEAKER_00: No one pointing him to God's word and showing how his actions were violating the word of God.
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SPEAKER_00: How wise of it would it have been for Solomon to put into place some accountability, and yet he doesn't do it.
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SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes, which Solomon wrote, is a painful book.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a difficult book to read because of the emptiness and the meaningness that Solomon felt at the end of his life, which is displayed in that book.
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SPEAKER_00: Chuck Swindall says, not once in Solomon's entire journal of Ecclesiastes does he look back and speak tenderly of someone he loved, someone he shared his life with, and with and cared deeply for.
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SPEAKER_00: Not a parent, not a friend, not a mate, not a child, not God.
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SPEAKER_00: This man worked for himself, spent his wealth to serve himself, used many women to give pleasure to himself, forgot God, and lived for himself.
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SPEAKER_00: His wealth and wisdom extended beyond anything the world had ever known.
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SPEAKER_00: But he did not extend himself in love.
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SPEAKER_00: Wow.
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SPEAKER_00: Such a true statement for him.
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SPEAKER_00: And remember that one of the reasons David was considered a man after God's own heart, even after he had sinned with Bathsheba, was because he kept turning back to God and turned back.
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SPEAKER_00: Every time David turns back to God, that is not at all what we see Solomon doing.
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SPEAKER_00: Solomon, David's son, failed to learn that lesson from his father.
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SPEAKER_00: He might have observed a lot of things, but I think he missed that one.
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SPEAKER_00: He failed to turn back and he started out well, but he ended poorly.
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SPEAKER_00: And that needs to be a warning for all of us.
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SPEAKER_00: For all of us.
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SPEAKER_00: We have got to finish well.
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SPEAKER_00: We've got to finish well.
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SPEAKER_00: And finishing well means keeping God first and foremost on the throne of your heart.
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SPEAKER_00: Pray with me.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, so much.
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SPEAKER_00: For all of these things that we see about Solomon, you clearly give them to us in your word as a warning for us to consider and for us to see clearly how the steps of deterioration, because we are all prone, Lord, to go down that slippery slope.
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SPEAKER_00: We are.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me today, and I will see you the next time.