God said to Solomon, “Because your greatest desire is to help your people, and you did not ask for wealth, riches, fame, or even the death of your enemies or a long life, but rather you asked for wisdom and knowledge to properly govern my people— I will certainly give you the wisdom and knowledge you requested. But I will also give you wealth, riches, and fame such as no other king has had before you or will ever have in the future!”

2 Chronicles 1:11-12

If you’re just joining in this week, you may want to check out Parts 1, 2, and 3 of “We Three Kings”. Here’s a quick recap:

• In Part 1, we explored the fallout of the Israelites rejecting God as their only King and discussed using history to seek God’s wisdom and apply what we learn to our own walk with Him.
• In Part 2, we dug into how Saul allowed his insecurities to undermine his confidence in God and reminded ourselves through the Word that God equips those He calls; our confidence is not in ourselves but in God Almighty!
• In Part 3, we looked into what it means to be a person after God’s own heart as David was and learned valuable lessons about Lordship, repentance, and restoration.

Now, on to Part 4: Solomon, whose wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt (1 Kings 4:30).

Solomon was truly a great king and walked with God for many years. As we read in 2nd Chronicles 1, God blessed Solomon with wisdom and knowledge as he selflessly requested and also with wealth and riches and fame. Wise King Solomon is legendary in many cultures not only for his wisdom but for the many buildings and gardens that were built during his reign including God’s temple.

But, how many of us remember Solomon’s walk near the end of his life?

King Solomon loved many foreign women besides the daughter of Pharaoh—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites— from nations of which the Lord had said to the Israelites: You shall not join with them and they shall not join with you, lest they turn your hearts to their gods. But Solomon held them close in love... 

When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to follow other gods, and his heart was not entirely with the Lord, his God, as the heart of David his father had been. Solomon followed Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he did not follow the Lord unreservedly as David his father had done...The Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and commanded him not to do this very thing, not to follow other gods. But he did not observe what the Lord commanded. - 1 Kings Chapter 11:1-2, 4-6, 9-10, emphasis and ellipses mine

That wasn’t as glorious to read as other verses about Solomon’s life, but it is important to know.

Sweet friend, Solomon had become distracted by the religions of his wives, the very reason that God had told the Israelites not to marry people of different beliefs (1 Kings 11). As God had warned, Solomon began to love his wives more than he loved God and as he put his wives first in his life, he also raised their gods to be his gods. Reading on, we see that Solomon’s unfaithfulness to God led to a fracturing of the kingdom in the next generation with 10 tribes going one way and 2 another. Solomon’s distraction and disobedience led to a humbling of David’s line for centuries, thus impacting not only Solomon but all of his family moving forward.

Oh dear heart, there are several lessons here, but the two that really stand out to me are:

Putting anyone or anything before God creates conflict and pain.

Beloved, we like to think of God firstly as a merciful and forgiving God and He assuredly is both, but we must also remember that God loves us with a jealous love (Exodus 20:3-6, Deuteronomy 4:24). And rightly so. He is our Creator, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is love and perfection and righteousness.

When our lives are out of alignment with His plan, when we place someone or something higher than God, we quickly find ourselves in trouble (Genesis 3:1-19; Isaiah 59:1-15). Over time, Solomon grew to love his wives more than he loved God. The Kingdom of Israel was literally torn apart by Solomon’s distraction and unfaithfulness. Truly, there is none other that should take place in our lives ahead of God, nor will He tolerate others to be placed ahead of Him.

Why not? That brings us to the second lesson.

God’s boundaries give us peace and life.

God is very clear that He disciplines us as a good father disciplines his children (Hebrews 12:4-11; Proverbs 3:12). He sets boundaries on our lives to help us avoid sin – because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and God wants everyone to live (John 3:16). In fact, God wants us to live not just a spiritual life eternally with Him after we die, He also wants us to live a life more abundantly here on earth (John 10:10).

God gives us boundaries to save us from conflict and pain. In Deuteronomy 11:26-28, God tells us that He sets a blessing and a curse before us; when we follow His instructions, we are blessed, but when we turn away from Him to pursue our own way or someone else’s, then we experience the curse of being out of fellowship with Him and the consequence of sin. Now, if we’ve trusted on Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, the wages of sin as described in Romans 6:23 are removed by grace through the redemptive power of Christ’s blood, but though we will not suffer an eternal death, sin in our lives can still create spiritual, emotional, mental, or physical death. Sin grieves us because it grieves Holy Spirit (causes us to waste away emotionally as described by David) and some types of sin can cause us physical harm. Sin in our lives also gives the enemy a stronghold from which to attack us.

God does not want His children to live in spiritual torment or physical pain and so He sets boundaries for us. His boundaries are for our good, to prosper us, to give us a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

Christian, we may not live in a culture that still worships multiple “gods”, but we certainly have our share of idols, whether they be human, technological, or financial. We have surely all at some point listened to or followed something or someone other than God; like Solomon, we too can become distracted, can come to love someone or something more than God and shift Him out of the position of first in our hearts. Being imperfect as we are, how can we avoid falling into the same situation as Solomon?

Be vigilant in keeping God first through prayer and study and worship. Be like David when our vigilance fails: grieve our sin, confess it to God, repent from it, help others avoid it.

Father God, You are a great and mighty God. You are merciful and loving and kind and You are jealous for our love and deservedly so. Lord, we are beset daily by distractions, by the desires and loves of our lives. Help us Father to faithfully put You first, to follow the boundaries You have set for our lives and see them as the healthy boundaries for our good that they are. Shape our relationships with others to be healthy and pure, helping each other seek You first.