“The Foolish Wise Man” – FBC Morning Light (6/11/2024)

Good Tuesday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading, we're reading 1 Kings 10 and 11, and then a few verses in 2 Chronicles 1 and then 2 Chronicles 9. I want to zero in on 1 Kings 11, which presents to us quite an enigmatic situation, doesn't it?

A puzzle, a puzzle. Solomon was considered the wisest man who ever lived. You think of his incredible books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's, and this wisdom literature, and yet you read the first few verses of chapter 11.

King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh. So he married the daughter of Pharaoh, and that was probably a political thing to, you know, bring alliance with Egypt, but then also women of the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Sidonians, and the Hittites, from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, you shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you.

You know, the other day we looked at Ecclesiastes 12, where the conclusion of the matter is this. You're not going to find satisfaction and pleasure in the acquisition of goods and having all kinds of stuff.

And I really think that Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes later in life and looked back over his life and realized that he really blew it in this regard, because clearly he did not fear God and keep all of his commandments when it came to his relationships with women.

He violated God's Word. He did not keep God's commandments, and the result was, in the marrying of these 700 wives, who were his princesses, and then taking also 300 concubines, which were, I don't know, servant wives, I guess would be the best way to think of it.

They didn't have the full status of a wife, but they were given some of the privileges of being in the household. They were taken care of by the husband king, and he could use them for his pleasure as he wanted to.

But it says at the end of verse 3, his wives turned away his heart. And then the passage goes on to describe the way that they did so. He ended up building altars to their gods and worshiping before their gods and so forth, and says in verse 8, he did likewise for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

And what was the result? Verse 9, the Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods.

But he did not keep what the Lord had commanded. And the Lord came to Solomon and said, okay, because of that, here's the consequences. I'm gonna tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.

And it's a prediction, a prophetic announcement of the divided kingdom that would come after Solomon died. It was going to be torn away from him. And, you know, I think you scratch your head at this, don't you?

You scratch your head over this. How could a man who is so wise be so foolish? Well, the short answer, of course, is sin and the destructive power of lust. But I think, if I can put it this way, there was a redemptive end in it all, in that I believe that much of the accumulation of the Proverbs in the book form, and this is completed, of course, in the reign of Hezekiah, but much of that which Solomon collected, and what he actually wrote himself in those early chapters in Proverbs, addressing wisdom principles to his sons.

One of the things he kept emphasizing is stay away from the foreign woman, stay away from the strange woman, the woman who you don't have a right to have, stay away from them. I think Solomon wrote some of this later in life.

And the book of Ecclesiastes, where he had the vantage point of years behind him to look back and say, none of these things that I did brought satisfaction. The one thing that I didn't do well, that is fear God and keep his commandments, I didn't fulfill that duty.

Do it, please do it, don't make my mistakes. And even the Song of Songs, which we looked at a couple of weeks ago, is a song that is written to the daughters of Jerusalem, to the virgins of Jerusalem, challenging them, encouraging them to remain pure for the one man that they will marry, and to be celibate until that time, and to hang on to just one man, one man and one woman.

I think when Solomon heard the announcement of the consequences of his sin, it sobered him, and he realized from that point forward what he needed to do to provide some measure of corrective to the horrible mistakes that he had made through the years of accumulating all of these wives and false worship in the land.

Well, perhaps it didn't come later in life, but nevertheless, let's learn from Solomon's mistakes how very critically important it is that we not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Let this be a message to young, unmarried individuals.

Be sure that if you're looking for a mate, that the mate is a believer in Christ and is a lover of God. Not just a professing Christian, but one who truly loves God and wants to serve God, so that there won't be this unequal yoke where that mate will turn your heart away from the Lord.

Don't go there. So our Father and our God, we thank you for this sober warning and reminder from the failure of Solomon. Blessed to our hearts, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Tuesday.

May the Lord bless you in it. Good day.