Monday, February 11, 2013

Wiser than Solomon

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Seven hundred of his wives were daughters of kings, but he also married 300 other women.

As Solomon got older, some of his wives led him to worship their gods. He wasn't like his father David, who had worshiped only the Lord God.Solomon also worshiped Astarte the goddess of Sidon, and Milcom the disgusting god of Ammon. Solomon's father had obeyed the Lord with all his heart, but Solomon disobeyed and did what the Lord hated.

Solomon built shrines on a hill east of Jerusalem to worship Chemosh the disgusting god of Moab, and Molech the disgusting god of Ammon. In fact, he built a shrine for each of his foreign wives, so all of them could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods.

The Lord God of Israel had appeared to Solomon two times and warned him not to worship foreign gods. But Solomon disobeyed and did it anyway. This made the Lord very angry,

I Kings 11:3-10

What a serious warning about remaining faithful to God even in your old age. The wisest man who had ever lived turned to false gods toward the end of his life. I think Solomon is one of the saddest characters in the Bible. He had it all, wealth, wisdom and power. But Solomon's heart turned away from God.

Here is the most sobering and perhaps the most encouraging word in the Bible. Even if you have the wealth and wisdom of Solomon, you can turn your heart from God and disobey Him. But also, you can be the most faith filled believer who had ever lived and not even know how to read the Bible! You may be poor, destitute and homeless and still have the most vibrant faith of anyone on earth!

You can be the world's greatest theologian and have no faith at all. Or, you can walk daily in a vibrant relationship with Jesus without even knowing how to define the word "theology."

Even knowledge of the Bible is not an automatic path to faith. You can expose your ears to the Word and never HEAR what it is saying!

The saddest part of the story of Solomon is the part that is not there. There is no account of Solomon turning back to God before he died.

Be wiser than Solomon and turn your heart back to God, if you have wandered away from your walk with Jesus. Amen.

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