Downfall – 1 Kings 11:1
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women.
From world-renowned wisdom, unmatched wealth, and abiding love for God to abject spiritual and emotional poverty, such was the journey of King Solomon.
Where did the young man who loved God and walked in His statutes[1] go so far wrong? How did the soul who asked not for power, possessions, nor personal comfort, but rather for the wisdom to lead his people well,[2] fall into such a deep pit? Why did someone who had enjoyed peace and good fortune on every side of his kingdom[3] come to consider it all vanity, of no benefit, like shadows, which disappear in the noonday sun?[4]
In a word, disobedience was Solomon’s downfall. He failed to walk in truth with a dedicated heart before the Lord, and he neglected to obey all of the Lord’s ordinances and commandments as his dying father, David, had admonished him to do.[5] Though he loved the Lord, he disobeyed Him from the beginning of his reign by sacrificing in the high places rather than demolishing them according to the Lord’s instruction.[6]
God graciously continued to bless Solomon in spite of his early indiscretions,[7] but his unchecked sin would come to demand a devastating price. For sin is never content with limited conquest. Rather it desires to consume and ultimately destroy its host, and so it did to Solomon. Having worshiped in the high places of foreigners, Solomon, being comfortable with that which he should have despised, further disobeyed the Lord by importing horses and chariots from Egypt and by taking foreign women for his wives and concubines. Thus, Solomon ignored the Lord’s explicit instructions to do neither, since the former would shift his dependence from God and the latter would turn his heart after other gods.[8] Wholly deceived and totally blinded by sin, blatantly doing evil in God’s sight, Solomon’s sin-ridden spirit allowed him to ignore the Lord’s warning of the disaster his disobedience would bring upon his family and kingdom,[9] and he went like a sheep to the slaughter. Disobedient step by disobedient step away from God led Solomon to his sad, disillusioned end.
Do not allow disobedience to be
your downfall. Rather, obey God with
your whole heart and undivided devotion.
Despise that which God despises, having no fellowship with it. Keep yourself pure before God, walk in
integrity, and you, along with your descendants, will receive the fullness of
God’s blessings.[10]
[1] 1 Kings 3:3
[2] 1 Kings 3:9
[3] 1 Kings 5:4
[4] Ecclesiastes 1:2-3
[5] 1 Kings 2:3-4
[6] 1 Kings 3:4, Numbers 33:52, Deuteronomy 33:29
[7] 1 Kings 8:66
[8] Deuteronomy 17:16-17
[9] 1 Kings 11:1-3, 9-13
[10] 1 Kings 9:3-5
