Solomon was a wise man. God greatly blessed his reign over Israel. He wrote Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. His advice to his son in the book of Proverbs serves as a guidebook to successfully navigating around the pitfalls of immorality and foolishness.
And yet, in the end, Solomon failed God. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. The Lord had warned him not to intermarry with these foreign women, but he ignored God. The text of 1 Kings 11 records his mistake. “Solomon clung to these in love” (2). “…his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lords, as did his father David” (3b-6).
Solomon’s idolatry had serious consequences. “Therefore 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 surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant” (11). This the Lord did, as Jeroboam took away the northern tribes after Solomon’s death.
Solomon’s departure from God’s path serves as an object lesson to us today. God’s treatment of him was a matter of fairness. The principle is stated clearly in Ezekiel 18: “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sing which he has committed, because of them he shall die” (Ezekiel 18:24).
This retribution from God was considered unfair by the unfaithful Israelites. The prophet relates the conversation, “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair? When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies in it, it is because of the iniquity which he has done that he dies” (Ezekiel 18:25-26).
Sin always separates man from God. It is not because God is capricious, uncaring or harsh. It is because sin is contrary to God’s nature. This is why Paul wrote, “it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation” and take “vengeance on” the disobedient and unbelievers. (cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9).
God’s grace and protection does not in any way abrogate the requirement that we repent of our sins. It simply does not work that way. It can’t work that way because of who God is. In times past there were certain things that God overlooked, but Paul said that now God, “commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained” (Acts 17:30-31).
So, how is the Christian to deal with the sin he commits? John tells us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
What God requires from us is a lifetime of faithfulness. Remember, “Be faithful until death, and I [Jesus] will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).
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