Then the LORD said to Solomon, "Because you have done this and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. Sermons
I. How THE ANGER OF GOD IS PROVOKED. It is provoked - 1. By the turning, away of the heart from Him. (1) And justly so, for to do this is to outrage the highest propriety. God is everything that should engage the affections of an intelligent creature - "the perfection of beauty;" "the altogether lovely." (2) For to do this is the straight road to the deepest demoralization. Man is made in the image of God expressly that his nature may have its perfection in union and communion with Him. To turn away from God must lead to depravation evermore. This, in other words, is everlasting damnation. (3) Then let us keep our hearts (Proverbs 4:23). No diligence should be spared. Our life is in it. 2. By doing this wantonly. (1) It was an aggravation of Solomon's sin that God had appeared to him. Review the circumstances of the vision he witnessed before he set about the building of the temple (see 1 Kings 3:5-15). He could not have been wholly ignorant of the glorious character of God. (2) It was a further aggravation that God had appeared to him twice (ver. 9). Review the circumstances of the vision after the work of the temple was finished (see 1 Kings 9:1-9). Note: Privileges imply corresponding responsibilities. Note further: God keeps account of His favours conferred upon us, though we may forget them. He will remind us of them all in the great day of judgment. (3) It was an additional aggravation that he had been forewarned of the very evils into which he fell. And the promises of God to him had been so remarkably verified that he had the best reason to accept the truth of His admonitions. How slow of heart are the men to believe the inflexibility of Divine justice! (4) A king who exacts obedience from subjects, or a master who claims the obedience of servants, should be the last to forget his duty to God. Consider - II. How THE ANGER OF GOD IS EXPRESSED. It is expressed - 1. In the severity of justice. (1) The kingdom of Solomon was now doomed to be rent. He had divided his affections (between Jehovah and Molech), so are the affections of his subjects now to be divided. (2) A considerable portion of his kingdom is to be turned over to one of his servants. What a fitness there is in this judgment also! Solomon, the servant of God, rebelled against God; Jeroboam, the servant of Solomon, rebels against Solomon. (3) What a melancholy reversal! Time was when God loved Solomon (see 2 Samuel 12:24; 1 Kings 10:9; Nehemiah 13:26). Severe is the fall from the height of a throne. From a vastly greater elevation is the fall of one east from the bosom of God. (4) Behold how sin works ruin! It ruins individuals, families, nations. The anger of God is expressed - 2. With the mitigations of mercy. (1) For the sake of David his father these judgments were not to come upon Solomon in his day. We little know the benefits or the evils entailed upon us by our forefathers. We should see that we entail not evils but benefits upon our descendants. (2) "For David's sake!" David, the beloved, was a type of Christ, for whose sake the entail of infinite mischief is cut off from his sons, and they are made heirs of inestimable blessings. (3) Even Rehoboam was to reap the benefit of the faithfulness of David. One tribe, the most important, was to be retained to him. The promises respecting the true son of David must be fulfilled. (4) "For Jerusalem's sake," also, mercy must rejoice upon judgment (ver. 13). The temple was there. The shechinah was there. Kingdoms are spared the severity of judgments in respect to the interests of religion in many ways little dreamed of by statesmen and rulers. - M.
But King Solomon loved many strange women. Monday Club Sermons. A few years ago two paintings were exhibited in this country, which attracted wide attention. One of them represented Rome in the height of her splendour, and the other in the depths of her decay. The contrast was melancholy and instructive. One could not repress the question as he turned from one scene to the other, What led to this mighty change? It was the old story, which every great nation thus far in history has illustrated sooner or later, that of a secret, slow-moving moral decay, preceding and occasioning social upheaval and ruin. We might fancy that a similar picture might be drawn between two periods in the history of Israel — one, that of the latter part of Solomon's reign, when there was an unsurpassed wealth and glory and power in the holy city; and the other, only a few years later, when the kingdom was rent and the sceptre had departed.I. SOLOMON'S SIN. This was no ordinary transgression of an ordinary evil-doer. It was not the general unworthiness of his life — an unworthiness that pertains to every child of Adam. It was a distinct thing. It had an historical character — Solomon's sin. We now ask briefly in what did it consist? 1. It was not, primarily, sensuality. That was only the outworking of an inner and far deeper evil. The simple and honest historian tells us that he loved many strange women, thus breaking an explicit command to the chosen people. Now the ultimate evil against which Moses was led to legislate in this particular was not polygamy nor licentiousness, but the idolatry which the foreigner would inevitably introduce. Among these women he found an intellectual stimulus and gratification. They were more brilliant than Jewish maidens, and their culture was a distinct and attractive element in the royal pursuit of "wisdom." For in that great experiment of life Solomon commanded the most costly and varied forms of pleasure and of learning. All the world — all there was in man — was made tributary to the object held up in view. 2. Nor was it pure and simple idolatry. That also was a symptom of inner disorder and weakness. It was like polygamy, a form only of heart-wandering from God. He built high places for his wives, which burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. There is not the slightest evidence that he ever abandoned the worship of Jehovah, or set up images of him as Jeroboam did, or that he ever lost faith in Jehovah as the one and only true God. But his heart was not perfect; and this was the sin beneath his sensuality and idolatry. He began to waver by tolerating the false religions of his wives. He was liberalised in religion. If people were only sincere, he may have said, no matter what they worship. If they live up to their light, it is well enough without letting in more light. Who knows absolute truth? Who can say, "Thus saith the Lord"? Who, thought this king, sets himself up to say that there is only one narrow way of life? The religious world of to-day finds its most subtle and powerful temptation in the general revolt against restraint and constraint. It takes now one form and now another. It comes as a protest against what is called narrowness, even in construing the terms of the gospel upon which men enter into life. The world has always seen the insolence of greatness against the law of God. It sees now the same insolence under cover of the grace of God. But whatever we may discover in science or art, whatever gains we may make in the domain of reason, there can be nothing essentially new in the way of life by Jesus Christ. The data of theology are all furnished, and have been for ages. The path of life is just as narrow and just as broad as ever. God demands the whole heart, because anything less is nothing at all to Him. Half even of Solomon's great soul is worthless in the kingdom of heaven. II. SOLOMON'S PUNISHMENT. We observe at once that it was of a character to be peculiarly felt by one of his great endowments and brilliant opportunities. It came very slowly In the first place, although we do not find it here recorded, he lived long enough to see that his splendid experiment in life had been a miserable failure. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, was his sad verdict. His "world" passed away and the lust of it. He ceased to desire. Punishment came in another form. He was unable to transmit the kingdom to his posterity; and such men have an eye to the future, in which their greatness will come to be fully seen and honoured. They are above the narrowest lines of an ignorant selfishness. They would make coming ages tributary to themselves. To Solomon, who had been made acquainted with the mind of God towards Israel, there must have been a profound sorrow in the certainty that his failure carried the nation down with himself. Those in authority hold a peculiar place in the divine economy, because their defections entail such widespread disasters. Hence God rightly exacts extraordinary punishments of them. (Monday Club Sermons.) I. A LIFE OF LUXURY IS PERILOUS TO THE SOUL. God intended man to labour even when he was in Paradise. The idler is practically opposing a fundamental law of the Most High. An abundance of wealth tempts a man to a life of pleasure, which is selfish idleness, and when official power is added to the wealth the flood-gates of sin are opened in the soul in almost all cases. He who, if busy in an honest trade or profession, would readily throw off the approaches of gross sin by his preoccupation. Solomon was a luxurious idler. He was not a statesman busying himself for the good of his country. The young man who has independent resources is in a very hazardous position. He is tempted to play the Solomon on his own small scale. The sin, however, is just as great, and the ruin as profound. He seeks associates who will amuse him, and, instead of growing in spiritual wisdom and strength, he descends rapidly to the plane of stupid carnality. II. THE WAY OF WICKEDNESS IS A STEEP DESCENT. Solomon found the step from Pharaoh's daughter to Pharaoh's god a very easy one. Youth flatters itself with an idea of its own strength, and plans a descent into sin only a short distance, when it will return and walk in the path of righteousness. It is the silly bird caught in the fowler's net. Association with evil blunts the perception of the evil, and the young man is soon found apologising for the wickedness he formerly condemned. III. THE WRATH OF GOD IS A DREAD REALITY. Men of loose life love to harp on the truth that God is love, and then interpret love as amiable weakness. It was the Divine anger with Solomon and his corrupted people which rent Israel asunder and raised up formidable foes to destroy the prosperity of the land. Our text is perfectly plain on that head IV. THE SOURCE OF THE FALSE LIFE IS IN THE FALSE HEART. Solomon's heart was not perfect with the Lord God. The word "perfect" here is not to be understood as referring to the character, but to the motive and intent. A perfect character never existed on earth since man fell, except the Lord Jesus. Solomon s religion was a political and fashionable affair. A heart devoted to God had nothing to do with it. He would pay outward respect to the religion of the land, but with the grand liberality of a worldly heart he would be so broad in his views and so free in his charity as to welcome all religious into his realm and capital. It is simply the heart that is not perfect with God pursuing its course of nature. It is the heart that can indulge in sin to any extent, and yet speak eloquently on universal love and the excellent glory of humanity in general. The so-called philosophy of the day is brimful of it, destroying the idea of the personality of God in order that it may make room for a universal righteousness, sin being eliminated as an old wife's fable. It is the religion that is lauded on the stage by depraved men and women, because it finds no fault with their defilement. This is the Solomonian religion, which is set over against the Davidic religion in our text. (H. Crosby, D. D.) 1. It was gradual. No man becomes wholly abandoned or altogether depraved at once; formation of character is, both in its construction and destruction, a gradual process. (1) (2) (3) (4) 2. It was sure. From bad to worse, like a stone rolling down a hill. II. THE CAUSES OF SOLOMON'S FALL. 1. The mixing of self-interest with God's service. He chose wives from nations with whom God had forbidden His people to intermarry; hence contagion from such a bad example. 2. The union of piety and superstition. III. THE CONSEQUENCES OF SOLOMON'S FALL. 1. It brought down God s displeasure. 2. It brought ruin on his kingdom. Even the sins of obscure men pass in their effects beyond the power of their perpetrators (as no man liveth, no man dieth, so no man sinneth to himself) but how much more the sins of the great ones of the earth! IV. THE LESSONS OF SOLOMON'S FALL. 1. Great opportunities bring great responsibilities, and such cannot be neglected with impunity. 2. Riches hinder access into the kingdom of God. Wealth applied to selfish ends carries no blessing, but hardens the heart and causes it to lose its hold upon God. (C. E. E. Appleyard, B. A.) 5120 Solomon, character 1351 covenant, with David The Fall of Solomon What Happened to Solomon "When Solomon was Old. " Scriptural Types. The Situation of the Jews During this Period. How to Split a Kingdom Political Religion "This Thing is from Me" Covenant Duties. Formation and History of the Hebrew Canon. Temporal Advantages. Redemption for Man Lost to be Sought in Christ. The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God, While He Continues Free from Every Taint. Kings |
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