Solomon's kingdom was so great, his wisdom and knowledge so vast, and his power without rival, so much so that he forgot that it was all a gift from God. Forgetting to be humbled by God's blessing, his pride became his downfall. This is the 28th sermon in the series, The Kingdom Established, an exposition on the first book of the Kings and the reign King Solomon. A roll call and reading coming from First Kings in chapter 11, verse 13 verses as we read with sorrow the great downfall of our beloved King. The inspiration of God, the Prophet writes this, but King Solomon loved many strange women together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites and Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites. Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you. For surely they will turn away your heart after there are gods. Solomon claimed unto these in love. And he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods. And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milkon, the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord as did David his father. Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Moloch, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice. and had commanded him concerning these things, that he should not go after other gods, but he kept not that which the Lord commanded. Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. Notwithstanding, in thy days I will not do it for David thy father's sake, but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. Howbeit, I will not rend away all of the kingdom, but will give one tribe to thy son for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, which I have chosen. The apostle John, John in chapter five in verse 21, one verse only, verse 21, as he ends his admonition to his beloved children, He says this, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Thus far as the reading of God's most holy, inerrant, and finally authoritative word, the grass withers, the flower thereof fades away, but the word of God stands forever, and by his holy word is the gospel with all of its warnings and admonitions again preached unto us this day. Now it gives me, as I'm sure for all of you, it gives me no great pleasure to expound to you the next series of events, since we never should rejoice at the fall of such a great servant of God. Rather, these events should act as a warning and a humbling tool in the hand of God for our good. And what we ought to remember is that we are just as susceptible as Solomon was to the sin of pride, because we are flesh and blood, even as Solomon was. just as susceptible as this man. Now, at the outset, we have to ask, what actually happened when Solomon chose to rebel against the commandment of God by taking to himself these pagan wives? Now, it wasn't so much that he took otherwise, which was bad enough. That was bad enough. But it was the fact that they drew away his heart from holy following the Lord. That was what destroyed him totally. We remember that his father, David, he took otherwise, but he was never drawn away to their idols. According to the great Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs, Solomon made a dreadful choice by choosing sin rather than affliction. Instead of denying himself the pleasures that would come from these many pagan women, he chose to feed into his lusts. He chose to feed into his flesh. The affliction for Solomon, if he was to choose his affliction instead of the sin, was to deny, was to mortify his desires for these pagan women. But that required great commitment. And it seems as if he didn't want to be afflicted. Maybe he thought he was beyond that and he could indulge. But it takes commitment, godly commitment. in order to self-mortify, to resist sin. And in this case, the sin was from the seduction of these women by serving their God. Solomon failed to understand that these women, despite their beauty, and I'm sure they were beautiful, curious of all of their differences, taking some here, taking some there, it was exciting. But he failed to understand that despite their beauty or the possible political power that he would achieve by marrying them, which might produce political power, taking to wife any of these women was, according to God's commandment, unlawful. It was a matter of fact. It was not permitted. Now observe some of the things Solomon failed to consider that Jeremiah Burroughs, the great Puritan, warns us about first. Solomon failed to consider that there is more evil in the least sin than there is in the greatest of affliction. There's no evil in affliction, but there's great evil in the least of sin. Number two, we must remember that sin is the opposite of God. God is lawful, sin is unlawful. While Solomon was closest to God while he was obedient, He destroyed that bond by his rebellion, and the only way back was from a sincere repentance and the consequence of complete humiliation. He also, thirdly, failed to understand that sin is the opposite of mankind's good. As a result of the King of Israel's sin, it was also the opposite of the entire nation's well-being. It wasn't just that Solomon was destroying himself and his generation. He was destroying his own nation. The consequence was for the nation, and it was generational. There would be a generational consequence to a sin that one man committed. And whenever a nation rebels against God, the security and liberty of that nation hangs in the balance, as well as many generations suffering as a result. At one time, Solomon was to act as a priest before the people of God. But now that position was invalidated. That position was made void. Furthermore, no longer was the wisdom that made Solomon so great, and the wisdom that people looked to, now it was looked at as something to be questioned. At one point, it was something to be desired. Ordinarily, such a blessing of that magnitude of wisdom would be feared because of what it might do to the pride of man. But in Solomon's case, that wisdom didn't make him fearful of what God had given him to say, I'd better watch myself. This great wisdom, I should be terrified that I've been given such a gift. Instead, it made him prideful. And finally, it acted negatively since he failed to use that wisdom to mortify his fleshly lusts. Didn't he realize that that wisdom should have been applied to these women, whether or not he would take to himself all of these pagan women? Number four, the initial sin of marrying these women made Solomon comfortable to other sins, because once he took these women to himself, he then had no problem building idols, building temples, building sacrificial places for his pagan wives. In fact, he became taken with these idols, with these idolatrous practices. So the initial sin of marrying these women made Solomon comfortable to other sins. And so, as Jeremiah Burroughs puts it, quote, sin makes a man comfortable to the devil, end quote. Number five, Solomon's sins also disrupted the order of the nation of Israel. At one point, when Solomon was obedient, Israel was a nation under God. It was a nation under God's law. That's what it means to be a nation under God. To say we are a nation under God and then negate the law of God means you're not a nation under God. You're a nation under some other God, usually the state. But no longer was Israel a nation under God. It had originally God's blessings powerfully upon it because it was obedient. But as a result of Solomon's sin, the entire nation now was thrown off kilter. Number six, according to the Puritan, sin cannot be the object of a rational creature. With all of his wisdom, you would think that he was rational. But once he looked and he saw that that sin was good, like Eve looking at that tree, all of his rationale just left him. And yet we see here Solomon, the wisest man on the planet, choosing to do something entirely irrational. And if Solomon, if Solomon in all of his wisdom can do something so irrational, so can any one of us. Sin number seven also makes a man in the sight of God evil. Now this is a hard saying, but it's true. A man that sins does evil in the sight of the Lord. And without repentance, that man remains in the grip of evil. Note verse 6 of 1 Kings chapter 11, and Solomon did evil. He was a practicer, a practitioner of evil in the sight of the Lord. Notice, not only did he do evil, it was in the plain sight of God. Because we're always in the plain sight of God. Children, you need to understand this, that no matter what, you are always in the eye of God. You can't hide from God. You can hide from mommy, you can hide from daddy, you can hide from the preacher, but you can't hide from God. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord. But notice how the word Lord in your King James is capitalized, the entire word, L-O-R-D, all caps, because it is the word Yahweh. depicting the name of God who refers to himself in that phraseology as the covenant God. Solomon was doing evil in the sight of the covenant God who had covenanted with Solomon not to do evil. And yet now we find Solomon as a covenant breaker, not going fully after the Lord as David his father did. But notice what it is saying, implying he had to fully follow the Lord. Today, with easy Christianity and easy believism, well, I could follow God here and a little bit over there and a little bit over there. I don't need to follow him fully. I could choose the commandments that I wish to follow. I can choose what's easy. I can choose what's comfortable because to love my brother is afflicting. So I'll choose sin instead of affliction. But now we must ask this. Why was Solomon's sin more egregious than other sins? And I believe it's because Solomon's sin was a presumptuous sin. The Puritan Obadiah Sedgwick from the 1600s defines what presumptuous sin is. He says this, presumptuous sins are the bold darings and proud adventurings of the heart upon things always known to be unlawful, against express threatenings, either upon a false confidence or upon contemptuous sighting or desperate willfulness. In presumptuous sinning, a man knows the thing and the way to be unlawful. He knew it. With all of his wisdom, did not Solomon know it? Of course he knew it. This means that the presumptuous sinner sins not in ignorance, but with full knowledge of his actions. Solomon knew the law of God. He knew that the law forbade him to marry outside of Christianity. He knew that to erect idols was wrong. He knew this. He had to know this. He knew that marrying pagan women was unlawful, especially since he had written out the law of God himself when he became king. He had no excuse, and he can be given no excuses for what he did. And that makes his sin more sinful than someone that sins ignorantly without a willful knowledge of disobedience. Again, Cedric observes, he says, presumptuous sins arise from a false confidence. A false confidence. And what does that look like? I would never do that. I would, not me, not me, I'd never do that. Whether Solomon believed this or not, he was holding God's law in contempt. Cedric again adds this, he says, presumptuous sinning may arise higher than all sins, as when a man sins not only knowingly and willfully, but most maliciously and despitefully against God and Christ. willfully, despitefully, maliciously. These are those individuals that the apostle speaks of in Hebrews chapter 10, when he says that those who presumptuously sin crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to open shame. And this is what Solomon was doing. He was rebelling against God openly, without any remorse, until very later. There is, however, another aspect to the boldness of presumptuous sins. Presumptuous sins may start out small, but if not arrested soon, they grow and grow and grow, adding sin upon sin, sin upon sin, and those mostly of a presumptuous nature. Solomon presumptuously married women that he knew were forbidden to him, and yet he did it anyway. Later, however, we are told that he sinned even further, yet further. by acquiescing to his wife's paganism by building for them pagan worship places in contrast to God's revealed law. That was contrary to the law of God. It was that act which caused God to be that much more angry when Solomon built these idols. It was Solomon's rebellion against the knowledge of God's law that made God so angry. Note the account. But King Solomon loved many strange women, The key word, they were strange. They were not Christian. Together with the daughters of Pharaoh, who was a convert, by the way, but not the women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites, and not of the nations concerning the other nations of the world, because God had told them, they will, they will. Notice verse two, for surely they will, they will. He told them without any question, they will. Turn away your heart after other gods. So we see here that God not only forbade the marriage of these women, he had clearly warned Solomon what would happen if he didn't obey. And sometimes we read the scriptures and God says, surely this will happen. This will happen if that's done or this or the other thing. And we say, yeah, well, maybe yes, maybe no, maybe I don't know. No, no, no. If he says it's going to happen, it's going to happen. If he says there are consequences to your sin, you take that to the bank. These women not only would turn away his heart from following the Lord, they did turn away his heart from following the Lord. And this is a principle for all of us, the saints of God today. Those who are God's people cannot, in other words, they are forbidden to marry outside of the religion of Christianity. You can't marry and say, well, I'll convert that individual. No, no, no, they will convert you. The problem here is in our modern easy believism, this vetting process whereby an individual is determined to be a sincere child of God just because they say so. The vetting process of determining the sincerity of a child of God has been watered down, whereby everyone and anyone that simply says, I love Jesus, they're a Christian. And that's dangerous. Because today, if you're not a Muslim, you're a Christian. If you're not a Buddhist, you're a Christian. But we need to ask the question, OK, especially when we're vetting spouses for our children, where is the fruit? I would even go further. I would ask the question, where's the hunger? For those who are most blessed, they hunger and they thirst after righteousness. They just don't speak about it. I would also ask the question, where's the passion, the piety, the humility, the zeal? What about the consistency of fidelity? What about the consistency of service? These are questions we need to ask ourselves, not only when we vet a suitor for our children. Is it not the better part of wisdom to vet the individual throughout a lengthy vetting process of observation, instead of running headlong into a covenant that should never be broken? Do we simply take an individual's word that he or she is actually a believer without first examining the individual's life? I think part of the problem is that we don't like to examine someone else because we don't like to be examined. But examination is necessary. We need to examine ourselves as the apostle commands us. Examine yourself to see whether or not you are truly in the faith. Because if that spouse is not a Christian, it will destroy the entire family. And yet, Solomon cleaves to these women in love. He destroys his entire family and the nation. This was pure emotionalism. While he should have been cleaving to God in love first, he sidestepped his love for God for the love of these women. When God says that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, he sidestepped that and loved these women first. so amazing is that Solomon's emotions, you think about, wrap your head around this, Solomon's emotions overrode his reason. They overrode his wisdom. That's how strong our emotions are. And that is why I believe that the fall destroyed emotions probably in the most dramatic fashion. He was reduced by these women, as what the scripture says, to a piece of bread. By the seduction of these women, he was reduced to a piece of bread. John warns about the power of deception that comes from the lust of man. In 1 John 2.15 and following, he says, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And that was true of Solomon. The love of the Father had been sidewinded. It was sidestepped. He pushed it to the side. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." Now observe how Solomon's disobedience metastasized from loving many women to loving too many women. Verse 3, And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. 700 wives. That was a curse in and of itself. Princesses, 300 concubines. When women from each of the nations listed, obviously it was not enough. Solomon had to multiply a harem of beauties to himself, adding sin to sin, willfully endangering himself and God's kingdom and his generational legacy. And his wives turned away his heart just like God had warned You know, sometimes, especially when I'm counseling young couples and I tell them, this is what God says, not really often, but once in a while, oh, no, no, we don't believe that. And I have to scratch my head, say, what is it that you don't believe? Oh, well, we have another way to go about those things. So Solomon's wives turned away his heart just like God said they would. Now this too is very distasteful since it was Solomon, Solomon that begged his sons to give their hearts to their father so that they would follow his example because at that time when he said this, he had given his heart to God. And notice what he tells his sons. Proverbs 3, 1, and 3, and 5. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table of thine heart. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. And then in Proverbs 4, 4, he taught me also and said unto me, let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live. what happened between the writing of his Proverbs to the taking to himself a harem of women. Now consider further Solomon's own words that he obviously had forgotten to apply to himself. Proverbs 6 beginning verse 20. My son, keep thy father's commandments and forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually upon thine heart and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee. When thou sleepest, it shall keep thee. And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs and instructions are the way of life, to keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. What was he thinking? Lest not after her beauty in thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman, a man is brought to a piece of bread, and the adulterous will hunt for the precious life. Solomon also understood the command to love the Lord with all the heart, the entire heart, the entire strength and mind. Moses was very clear as to that commandment as to be no piecemeal loyalty. It was to be a comprehensive devotion. Loyalty today, it's a thing of the past. whether it's to a wife, a husband, a son, a daughter, a mother, a father, a church, a nation, or God Himself. Moses says this, Deuteronomy 6, 5, And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart. We need to read, when we read, we need to read every word. It doesn't say, love the Lord thy God with thy heart. All thine heart. All thy soul. All thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart, in the fabric of thy being." That's what that means. And yet Solomon, this placed love, began his long slide downward into the destruction of an entire nation, even an entire generation. Verse 4 gives us further sorrowful details about Solomon's downfall. And we cannot read this glibly. We have to read this emotionally, sorrowfully, if you will. This is a very tragic thing. For it came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wife's turned away his heart after other gods. And his heart was not perfect with the Lord, his God. Well, first God here says that when Solomon was well advanced in years, that his heart was turned away from his God to other gods. And this might be an indication that initially The younger Solomon remained faithful after marrying these pagan women, but after a time, he succumbed to their religion and began following their gods. Now we must remember, however, that in all of this, Solomon remained one of God's elect. Even though he fell, he does repent, and he was not totally condemned for his sin. He was restored, but not before the consequences ravaged Israel and his generation. And we infer this from his repentant testimony in his writing in the book of the Ecclesiastes. It is more probable that Solomon followed after the ways of apostate Israel by following Yahweh while at the same time following the gods of the nations. Perhaps he was doing both. But he was not focused. You cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot serve God and Baal. You cannot serve God and Chemosh. You cannot serve God and the state. You must serve God alone because God is a jealous God. But we like to live at the margin. We like to live at the margin. A little bit here, a little bit of God there, a little bit of state there. I'll trust in the state a little bit. I'll trust in God a little bit. I'll trust in money a little bit. Solomon's eye was no longer focused in devotion to God. Secondly, Solomon's heart was no longer perfect. with Yahweh His God. The Hebrew word that God uses for perfect is a form of the Hebrew word for peace. It is the word shalom, or a form of the word shalom. In other words, once He went down that road, there was no peace between Him and God. There was war. There was animosity. The meaning, therefore, is that Solomon's heart was no longer expressly at peace, or completely at peace with God as a result of his rebellion. And so whenever we are in sin, Our hearts are no longer complete, nor are we at peace. In other words, there's something missing, and I hope this is the fact. When you find yourself violating God's law, thinking wrong thoughts, doing wrong things, I hope that your conscience is being moved by the Holy Spirit, where you know that there's no peace. And you could put that to the marriage as well, in the marriage institution. When you are at odds with your spouse or with your children, there's something not right between you and God. There's something missing. And the only way back is through repentance. Third, God compares Solomon's heart with his father, David, in that David never left off following the Lord, even in light of his great sin with Bathsheba. In other words, David never looked to other gods, as Solomon is now doing. Now consider for a moment which of the gods and goddesses Solomon followed. We read these gods, they don't mean anything to us, but they meant something to God. God gives us the names of these deities, these idols, which are no deities, for a reason, so that we might know the extent of Solomon's temptation. Notice, for Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. Then did Solomon build high places for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem. Right in the face of Jerusalem, he builds the abominations high place. And for Moloch, the abomination of the Chilavan. He wanted to touch every base. Notice first, in this list of horribles, Ashtaroth, or as it is sometimes spelled Ashtar. This was a female goddess. She was known as Ishtar in Mesopotamia, but in Syria, she is the female consort of Baal. And remember the worshippers of Baal, they were destroyed by Elijah later on. This Ashtaroth was the goddess of fertility and sensual love. And of course, Solomon is being led by the nose. Secondly, Milcom. Milcom actually means, it's a form of Malcolm, it actually means king. And little is known of this king other than he was the national god of the Ammonites. And yet, in order to please his wife, Solomon builds this high temple, this high place of worship on Mount Olivet, which Josiah had to later destroy. As if Milcom was king and not Yahweh. Now it seems that there's some discrepancy between Milcom and Moloch. Some scholars believe that they are one and the same, while others think that they are different. Whatever the case, they're all bad. No matter what name they go by, they're still pagan deities who often posture themselves as bloodthirsty and vengeful. And then we have Chemosh. Chemosh is also mentioned. Chemosh was the national deity of the Moabites whose name most likely meant destroyer or subduer, often known as a fish god. According to Judges 11.24, he seems to have also been the national deity of the Ammonites as well. So he's shared between the Moabites and the Ammonites. And we see this from verse 7, that the abomination of the Moabite god, Chemosh, was imported to Jerusalem by King Solomon. He goes out of his way to import a false deity into the holy city. What was the man thinking? King Josiah had to destroy that as well, because it became a cult of Chemosh. And we read this in 2 Kings chapter 23. And so God makes it very clear that the things that Solomon did in erecting worship centers for these gods and goddesses were for his strange pagan wives. And we think about the churches today. They want to please the secular realm. And so they manufacture, they erect these worship centers, which are drawing in the secular realm with theater and fanfare and all of these things that the world has to offer. And I've always said, what you win people with, you win people too. Win them with the bands. Win them with theater. Win them with all of this hoopla and easy-believe-ism. Win them with Jesus loves everybody, don't worry about your sin. Choose sin, not affliction, because Jesus loves us and He wants us to be happy. You win them with that, and that's what you'll win them to. But you win them with the Word of Christ alone. Just the pure, unadulterated Word of God, the sacrificial service that we owe to our God, and that's what you'll win them to. Win them with that. And that's what you win them to. Verse 8, And likewise did he for all his strange wives. Think about all his wives. How many requests were they giving the man? Fathers, husbands, how many things are you doing for your one wife? The list goes on and on. And you do it because you love her. Solomon's heart was drawn away because he loved his wives. How many things was he doing? He was doing everything. And he was doing everything wrong. So far we have focused upon Solomon's sins of commission. But is he not also guilty of sins of omission? What did Solomon fail to do as king other than restraining his own sinful tendencies? What should Solomon have done when he realized that his wives were drawing him away from Yahweh to worship strange gods in a direct violation of his oath as king? Consider his duty as king. The apostle gives us some insight. Notice Romans 13.3 and following. for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. He was not a terror to the evil. He was complacent. He supported the evil. He's admonished by the apostle to do that which is good, because he is a minister of God for good. But if he were to do that which is evil, then be afraid. Solomon was all backwards. He failed in his duty as king. He had to know the history of his people. He had to know the admonition of the Lord when it concerned the worship of strange gods. He understood his own heritage when they were worshiping the golden calf. Even that, you could make an excuse, okay, the calf, they were sacrificing calves, that was legitimate, but the golden calf, well, okay. But these were strange gods. These were totally outside of the purview of any any normalcy. And so he had to know the ramifications of worshiping strange gods from the law and from his own history. Note the many references to the sin of idolatry and what should be done about it. You see, that was also his sin of omission. He didn't do anything about it. Genesis 35. Then Jacob said unto his household and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel. And I will make thee there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. Destroy those strange gods. Put them away. Leviticus 19.4, Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods. I am Yahweh Elohim. Leviticus 26 Verse 1, ye shall make you no idols nor graven images, neither rear up you a standing image, neither shall ye set up an image of stone in your land to bow down unto it. For I am Yahweh Elohim, the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 32.16, they provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked him they to anger. Joshua 24.20, if you forsake the Lord and serve strange gods, Then he will turn and do you hurt and consume you. After that, he had done you good. Isn't he reading his own testimonies? And then in verse 23, Joshua 24. Now, therefore put away, said he, the strange gods, which are among you and incline your heart unto the Lord, your God of Israel. Judges 10, 16. And they put away the strange gods from among them and serve the Lord. And his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel. First Samuel 7, 3. And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If you do return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtoreth from among you. Sound familiar? And prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only. Then he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. Speaking of wicked King Ahab, he says in 1 Kings 21-26, And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things that did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel." And if you didn't know that Solomon was a child of God, preserved by God, even in his sin, you would think that Ahab and Solomon did the same thing. They were one and the same. The only difference between Ahab and Solomon was Christ. Another amazing aspect of Solomon's sin is the fact that David, throughout his Psalms, condemned any departure from the one true God unto idols. Was not Solomon listening to his father's songs of praise and instruction to his son in all Israel? Ask your sons, son, are you listening? Are you listening to the admonition of your father or your uncle? or your grandfather, or the minister, or the word of God. Fathers and mothers, just because you told your son or your daughter something one time here in a devotion there, don't take it for granted that they actually heard you or that it sunk deeply into their own being. Be consistent, admonish, correct, challenge, continue to encourage, rebuke if necessary, So the things you tell them stick, and then watch to see if those things stick. To worship these abominable gods and goddesses was a capital offense in Israel. It wasn't just, oh, he's sinning against God. No, you could be killed if you were living in the nation of Israel that time. It was one of the Ten Commandments that was being violated, a fundamental Ten Commandment. You shall have no other gods before the one true God. Did Solomon ever read that? But because there was no one higher in authority than Solomon, the king, he and his wives were able to do whatever they wanted with impunity. Well, who's going to stop him? Anybody going to go and say, you know, Solomon, you're in big trouble with God. Nathan was gone. He wasn't around any longer. And there were no prophets at that time, at that particular moment. Obviously, otherwise God would have sent the prophet to reprove him. Instead of doing good in Israel, Solomon was doing evil by omission as well as commission. He failed to act. He should have rebuked his own wives. He should have destroyed the idols. If they failed to repent, he might've had to bring them into legal confrontation for violating the law of God because he was the king. And if his wives had committed sacrilege, he needed to do something about it. He was responsible, not only for his wives, his concubines, his princesses, He was responsible for His own nation. And what kind of example was He setting? Notice verse 10 and 11, which reiterates the grave nature of Solomon's rebellion. And the Lord was angry with Solomon. And that should bring tears to your eyes, because before this chapter, all we read is how He loved Solomon. That's all we read about. How He loved him. Of course, we know he still loved him, even though he is angry with him, as you would be angry with your son, even though you still love him and he's still your son. But he's angry. And he's angry because his heart was turned away from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared to him twice. Notice, God is making I appear to you twice. I don't do that to everybody. I don't give you that privilege just because it's common, it's particular. I appeared to you twice. I commanded you concerning this very thing that you should not go after other gods. Well, a couple of things stand out here. Number one, God makes it very clear that He had appeared to Solomon twice. Very special revelation. You know, when you read the Bible and you understand it, or when you hear a message, even if you're confused reading the Bible, and it's all gobbledygook to you, but you hear it, expound it, and you understand it, that's a blessing! That's an incredible blessing to know the difference between right and wrong. What a great blessing. A very special revelation God gives to us, especially when we hear the word and understand it. He gave this special revelation to the young King. It was God who even initiated these visitations precisely to ask Solomon what he wanted and to admonish him as to what he should be doing. Secondly, we know from verse 11 that Solomon was clearly warned that he should not go after other gods. This wasn't a vague warning. It was not just something implied. Solomon was not inferring this. No, God said, don't do this. Solomon follows the wrong pattern. Instead of following the second Adam, he follows the first Adam. God says to Adam, don't do this. And Adam did exactly that. Don't do it, crystal clear, even by my revelation to you, and yet Solomon paid no attention. So where does that leave us today? Well, certainly we are not erecting idolatrous groves or building temples for strange gods of sensuality or vengeance, or are we? Or are we? What is so dangerous about our modern world today is that Idolatry wears a mask. It is more cunning than it was in the days of ancient Israel, and yet just as real and just as dangerous, perhaps because of its nature of stealth, it's perhaps more dangerous than it was even in the days of Solomon. As a result of Solomon's failure to address idolatry, his son Rehoboam And the future king of the 10 tribes of Israel also failed to address idolatry. And the results were devastating. We will consider that when we examine next the actions of both of these men in the future sermons, as well as some of the cunning forces of secularism, bringing idolatry into our own midst. When we continue to examine the Lord's response to Solomon's sin, And this we shall do, God helping us, unto the praise of the glory of His grace. Amen.