March 24, 2003
LifeWay Explore the Bible Series for April 6
A broken commitment bears a heavy price
___1 Kings 11
___By Jim Perkins
___Madison Hills Baptist Church, San Antonio
___We hate to admit it, and quite often we vehemently deny it. The research, however, is conclusive: No matter how good a driver you and I think we are, talking on a cell phone while driving compromises or diminishes our driving skills, sometimes with disastrous results. We must remember that when we get behind the steering wheel, our primary responsibility is to remain committed to safe and competent driving.
___Endangering commitments
___The first 10 chapters of 1 Kings celebrate the faith and wisdom of Solomon. Chapter 11, however, reports with brutal honesty the disappointing downfall of the king: Solomon compromised his commitment to the Lord when he loved and married hundreds of foreign women.
___The marriages were primarily for political expediency and were useful in fostering peaceful relations and trade with neighboring or competing countries. Solomon created several critical problems, however, with his marital practices.
___First, Solomon violated the Lord's commands about marriage (Deuteronomy 7:3-4; Exodus 34:15-16), which prohibited intermarriage with nations who did not worship God. God had warned his people "they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods" (Deuteronomy 7:4). Second, Solomon violated God's commands concerning the king taking many wives for himself, for here also the danger was that "his heart will be led astray" (Deuteronomy 17:17). Third, perhaps all the great wealth and power Solomon now enjoyed had caused him to forget God's admonition to stay close to the people and avoid the quest of secular kings for an ever-increasing supply of wealth and women (see Deuteronomy 17:20).
___Losing commitment
___One can only imagine the tears welling up in the eyes of the author of 1 Kings as he writes the discouraging report found in 11:4-8. As a result of the influence of his many wives, Solomon's devotion to God faded and his willingness to worship "other gods" grew. This popular, powerful and particularly wise leader of Israel now stooped to the low level of assisting in the development of pagan worship in Israel.
___The foreign gods Solomon now worshipped were representative of the neighboring lands Israel had conquered (11:8 states there were others). Ashtoreth was a fertility goddess of the Canaanites and had been a source of trouble previously for the Israelites (Judges 2:13). Molech (or Milcom), worshipped by the Ammonites, was a particularly detestable deity whose worship at times included human sacrifices (see 2 Kings 16:3, 23:10; Jeremiah 32:35). Finally, Chemosh was the deity of the Moabites.
___Looking at this list, the tragedy of Solomon's idolatry increases as we realize he reversed the normal practice of conquering kings--instead of introducing the worship of his God, Solomon adopted the worship of the powerless gods of those he had conquered.
___Two final comments on this section are appropriate. First, this section provides an extremely sad, disappointing commentary on the religious life of Solomon and the nation. In the short span of Solomon's reign they have devolved from a profound worship of God centered in the temple in Jerusalem to a scattered worship of worthless foreign deities destined to rob the people of their devotion to the one true God.
___Second, reminisce for a moment concerning the commitments God had made to his nation and Solomon--a covenant with mutual responsibilities. God had charged the people of Israel and the king with the responsibility to "walk in my ways" and "follow my decrees" (3:14; 6:11-13; 9:4-9; also see 8:61), with the concomitant promise of a relationship with him and continuous blessings. Solomon and Israel, however, chose to abandon those obligations to the Lord and forgo the resultant manifold blessings.
___Paying the price
___Solomon and the nation soon would pay an overwhelming price for their desertion of a singular devotion to and worship of the one-and-only God. The text is painfully honest in its assessment of Israel's revered leader--although God had "appeared to him twice" and had commanded Solomon to worship only God, the king had turned away from the Lord to worship other deities (11:9-10).
___As a result of Solomon's rebellion, God had determined to tear the kingdom away from him. This judgment, however, would be delayed in time and limited in scope because of God's decision to act with remembrance of "David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen" (11:13). The time would be after Solomon's lifetime: God would "tear it (the unified kingdom) out of the hand of your son" (11:12). The scope would be limited, since God promised he would not tear away the complete kingdom.
___In fulfillment of that promise, the text notes 10 tribes would be torn away (to be led by Jeroboam, 11:31-32) but that God would reserve for Solomon's son one tribe--Judah (11:13, also see 11:31-32). Most interpreters note that by this juncture Simeon for all practical purposes had been absorbed into Judah (see Joshua 19:1, 9).
___Questions for discussion
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