Image: Swan Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, August 2018
Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on 1 Kings 11.
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 (1 Kings 11:4).
This might called be the theme verse of 1 Kings 11. It begins, “For
it came to pass, when Solomon was old….” Solomon
did not finish well. Young Christians sometimes might think, I can’t wait till
I’m older, because then I won’t have to deal with all the temptations I face as
a young person. But Solomon’s story tells us that sometimes the greatest
dangers come when we are older. We can become lax in our watchfulness, our zeal
for Christ can cool, our spiritual intensity diminish. I sometimes say that I
am hesitant to recommend the teaching or writing of any living Christian
teacher, lest he later prove a disappointment. Sometimes it is better to read
and admire only dead people, because then you at least know the outcomes of
their lives.
The
historian repeats that Solomon’s wives “turned away his heart after other gods”
(cf. v. 3). One might ask about Solomon’s agency here. He could not, in fact,
use “the women made me do it” defense. They turned his heart, but his heart was
prone to turning. The point is that he placed himself in a spiritually vulnerable
situation which began with violation of Scripture by taking these pagan wives (v.
2).
We
get the spiritual diagnosis of Solomon in v. 4b: “and his heart was not perfect
with the LORD his God.” Even as a saved man, Solomon had remaining corruption. Our
ear might also perk up at the comparison to David. We know David’s faults, and
they were great. But so was his repentance, especially as seen in Psalm 51.
Thus, he was “a man after God’s own heart.” We have no Psalm 51, however, in Solomon’s
writings.
This
text is here for our “learning” (Rom 15:4). We are reminded that we are prone
to sin just as Solomon was. Solomon broke both the first and second tables of
the law (idolatry and adultery). We too sin against both God and against man. We
have our own besetting sins, things that will turn our hearts away from the Lord.
Like the church at Ephesus we are prone to leave our first love (Rev 2:4). What
are we cleaving to in love, rather than cleaving to Christ?
There
are warnings here. We are to finish well. It is not enough merely to make a
good start. The man who starts out fast from the blocks and leads the pack may
stumble coming down the final stretch and lose it all.
No,
our hearts are not perfect with the Lord our God, but Christ’s is. He is our
hope.
Pastor Jeff Riddle
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