11:14-25). He compounded the problem even further by marrying. WebHe represents grandeur, nobility, wisdom and piety at the same time he represents base desires, pettiness and self-destructive tendencies. In His love, God chastened Solomon intensely because of what he did. Three verses inform us about the rest of his acts, his death, and his burial in Jerusalem, the city of David his father (1 Kin. The men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment and condemn the people of Jesus' generation because they did not respond to the message of repentance He brought. 12:13-15 that Solomon realized his boat was out at sea and finally returned his boat to the harbor before he died. When he was old, he allowed his foreign wives to turn his heart "after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God" (I Kings 11:4). Furthermore, Ecclesiastes also does not explicitly say that Solomon sinned against God. You can tell the difference. Theres hope though As for the other events of Solomons reign all he did and the wisdom he displayed are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon? (Maybe he is indeed IN THE BOOK!) God did the same thing to Moses after Moses disobeyed by striking the rock three times again when he should have spoken to the rock (Numbers 20). The time to stop the process is in the beginning, when the situation and the pulls are still small and simple. . And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. This is what trapped Solomon. He made his decision, and God made His. Solomon not only "went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites" (verse 5), but he also "built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, . Now, this did not happen overnight but by degrees. John W. Ritenbaugh When Rehoboam followed his fathers misguided policies the ten tribes in the north had enough and they divided from Judah. I Kings 11:4 says that Solomon "clung to" his wives. What is the meaning of know the Father in 1 John 2:12-14. This passage thus explicitly reminds us of Gods special love for Solomon, which again points to his not perishing eternally when he died. According to these statements, Solomon was a holy man of God whom the Holy Spirit moved to write the Scripture that he wrote. William Most. Vast territories: "Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the [Euphrates] River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt" (I Kings 4:21). And this is where we pick up the reading from Mass this past Saturday Morning: In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. Gods special promises to David about Solomon and His special love for Solomon as a baby make it certain that we will see Solomon in heaven one day. Yes, God promised David that his own flesh and blood (Solomon) would succeed him and it would fall to Solomon to build God's temple. In reality, the Bible shows that God's power was working on Solomon's behalf to produce these things. Each new wife confirmed his decision to violate God's law. King solomon will never be wise if he couldnt save his soul. And Solomon systematically failed to heed God. But its easy to get caught up in the ER lifestyle, which can be VERY liberal, and then when I go to Church I am often confused on what to think or believe on certain things. A discerner is one who habitually obeys God's laws and statutes and who faithfully keeps God's Sabbaths (cf. From the "minor" infraction of importing horses from Egypt, he eventually condoned, or at least was an accessory to, the sins of idolatry and murder, sins he would not have contemplated seriously at the beginning of his reign. Israel's leader was not to "multiply wives to himself." God is showing us through the life of Solomon that apart from God, life is absolutely, absurdly meaningless, regardless of intelligence, beauty, wealth, ability. Heres what God promised to King David, Solomons father: When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. I have an icon of Solomon on my wall. This is why God responded as He did. I am not saying I accept all this but only that the authorship by SOlomon was/is highly disputed. Wise Solomon fell victim to the same temptations that the rest of us so often face. In fact, his international liaisons found their roots in his romantic liaisons, of which he had not a few (I Kings 11:3). Influenced by his many foreign wives and concubines, Solomon became enmeshed in pagan worship. . 
1 Kings 11:6 And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. If we fail to work at keeping things fresh, we have a proclivity to forget them. WebEven if he transgressed throughout his entire life and repented on the day of his death and died in repentance, all his sins are forgiven as [Ecclesiastes, op. There were kings who did much evil throughout their lives, such as Ahab and Manasseh, but they repented for the evil they had done. Parables of Matthew 13 (Part 2): Leaven. And, Why Outside the City Gate, Not in the Temple, See What the End Shall Be A Homily for Palm Sunday. His ultimate conclusion, found in verse 26, is that God determines whether we experience joy. (Or were the books written in explanation after the event?) Salvation without repentance is not possible to anyone. A similar kind of unintentional drifting from God's truth can take place in our minds. 1) Genuine repentance must have actions. Did lust and greed cause him to make steady compromises with the world? (NASB) 1 Kings 11:1-4, Today many Christians would admire this man and probably place him in church leadership. You have written artistically but so much so that I am not sure I understand your point. And keep the charge of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn, so that the LORD may carry out His promise which He spoke concerning me, saying, If your sons are careful of their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. (NASB) 1 Kings 2:3-4. Doesnt seem fair nor does it sound like something that the Father of Love would submit mankind nor His children to. Men see all kinds of possibilities in which they can use this new technology, but will it make life any less vanity-filled? (NASB) 1 Kings 3:2-3. The Bereans "received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" (Acts 17:10-11). Drifting from what we once thought thoroughly lodged within us can indeed happen when we allow our focus to wander through neglect. Was it greed? Solomons horrific sinfulness so angered the Lord that He decreed that He would certainly tear the kingdom from him and give it to his servant (1 Kin. He was a great man, but he had feet of clay and succumbed to idolatry. 43 Then he rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father. In this context, these things are not really new. Because I have had some bad experiences with the church, I sometimes feel very insecure when I go to church. So, he is an excellent study case of one who neglected his gifts in favor of something of lesser value. Conditional promise: ". He had to be subject to circumstances that were beyond His control. WebHaving just repented of his own sin of denying Christ, and having received the Holy Spirit, he was able to boldly advise believers on the Day of Pentecost that they, too, needed to repent of their sins and be baptized (Acts 2:38). Lust, greed, fascination with the world, these are human problems. But he gave up his personal authority and binding with God for power it seems, and material advantage, perhaps despite himself. Msgr. Long before Solomon had been born, God made some special promises to David about a special son named Solomon (1 Chron. God wants to draw special attention to it because it is the one that is also most easily broken. Does Solomonssinfulness late in his lifeand the lack of mention of his repentance mean that he died as an apostate and perished eternally? Why did He do that? It was just too strong. The number of wives and concubines Solomon had was crazy. 
There are four examples of this: In addition, he had clear evidence of God's power working directly for him. A momentary bit of excitement, a fleeting relationship with another flawed human being, a temporary chance of wealth, ephemeral prestige, or some other transient, earthly achievement? When I eventually returned to the Church, I felt much more at peace, and was much less likely to do the big sins that I did when I left for a while. Yes, we can hope. Solomon, though, cleaved to the wrong women, and his attachment to them led him astray. He reigned forty years and died at the age of 52. Just like modern man. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. This is a remarkable promise. Now, it is true that the children of Israel experienced God's blessing during Solomon's reign. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away. It is the little compromisesthe ones we think are so meaninglessthat grow into full-blown sin and apostasy. All Western religions (and maybe now even some of these New Age religions) share some of the same terminology, butthe theology behind the terms is radically different. Psalm 111:10). Dad knew God and Solomon did not. And Solomons wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. The Berean: Daily Verse and Comment Sign up for the Berean: Daily Verse and Comment, and have Biblical truth delivered to your inbox. Archaeologists have found skeletal remains of infants at three sites where this brutal human sacrifice occurred. There can be no doubt about it: Israel's stature under Solomon certainly represents a typical fulfillment of God's promises to the patriarchs. As mentioned above, this verse describes a man who has remorse for what he did and returns to the Lord. Now the LORD was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not observe what the LORD had commanded. 17:13). Even those whom God chastens with death because they do not repent (many sleep [1 Cor. On top of the human race degnerates with each new generation the toll of sin continues to separate us from our originally intended design. . One of them is King David. God Almighty distributes these gifts to each member specifically and individually as He wills, as we see in I Corinthians 12:11: "But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.". Whether it was in botany, biology, building projects, wine, women, and song, Solomon hit the top of the charts in everything he did. 4) As the prophet Ahijah prophesised Jeroboam to be the King over ten tribes, what action Solomon take? Could someone whose heart had turned away from the Lord have written Ecclesiastes (a book of the Bible)? The tribes would naturally be angry at the implied taxation and loss of power of the tribal lords. Because death is not alive it is a property or a state which happens to living beings. Why is light never dark? Because it is a matter of definiti If this isnt an overwhelming theme in our culture, whether its lust, wealth, power, what is? Israel under Joshua and his immediate successors did not totally possess the land God had promised the patriarchs. Surely. Let us fear to sin as Solomon did through his ungodly associations with ungodly people. Prayer and Mass attendance slip away. Once he was accustomed to it, it wore away his loyalty as each compromise made the next step easier. Arguing against Sauls salvation is his record of jealousy, hatred, and murder. We could add "justification," "mercy," "kindness," "forgiveness," and "grace." WebHis apostasy late in life shows how seemingly inconsequential compromises can lead to greater sins and the resultant difficulty in repentance. You are welcome. Thus, as Solomon sees matters, no new thing appears on the scene. Shall be a Homily for Palm Sunday self-destructive tendencies is the little compromisesthe ones we think are meaninglessthat. Not explicitly say that Solomon sinned against God shows that God determines whether we experience.. 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