I Kings 3:1-3
"Give Me An Undivided Heart" • 5.20.08 • Autonomy, Authority And The Man Of God, Session #33
Intro
- 32 weeks later, and we have transitioned between the lives of the first 3 kings of Israel.
- King Saul was the popular choice of the people.
- King David was God's choice because he was a man after His own heart.
- King Solomon became the first king in the dynastic line of David, fulfilling a promise that the Lord had made to David back in II Samuel 7:10-12.
- Solomon is a relative unknown when he is crowned king in I Kings chapter 1. What we see in chapter 1 and 2 is a description of what Solomon was faced with when he came into power.
- What we find in chapter 3 is apt statement that sums up the life of Solomon.
• I Kings 3:3 : "And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places."
- This verse is a perfect microcosmic description of David's successor. Half of him was devoted to the Lord, loving and honoring him and walking in a way that was reminiscent of his Father.
- Then, as with most of us, there is an except.
- Solomon was a great guy, a fantastic example, excluding this fact: He sacrificed and burned incense at the high places!
- You might say, "Hey big deal! At least he was not, fill-in-the-blank-with-a-sin-that-offends-you! The phrase high place, literally means "an elevated place." When I was in Israel, we saw an example near an Old Testament city.
- The high place was next to the gate of the city, just three feet above the ground. The high place was not impressive for it's size, but it was intentional in purpose.
- High places were places that were dedicated to idols. When it says that Solomon sacrificed and burned incense at the high places, a person of that time would understand that Solomon was a man of divided interests.
- Yes, he loved the Lord. Yes, he outwardly conformed to the statutes that David had exemplified. But yes, he also allowed for other interests to survive.
- What I want us to see in this final session are the principles that lead to a divided heart.
- In Solomon's life, these were actual events which provide typical instruction for us.
- To the casual observer, this treaty might seem like good foreign policy, benign with any real meaning. But there are few geographical locations biblically that are as rich in Biblical typology.
- Egypt from the beginning of God's revelation is a type of the world and her systems.
- The picture is appropriate, as the world around us appears to be so strong.
- When the rest of the world would experience an occasional severe famine, Egypt, being watered by the mighty Nile river, remained immune. As a result, the Patriarchs were drawn to it.
- Abram went down to Egypt in Genesis 12 and almost lost his wife! But it's not what he almost lost that harmed him. It's what he brought out with him.
• Genesis 16:1-4 : "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, 'See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.' And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. Then Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes."
- This little arrangement was disastrous for Abram and his wife. Later in the book of Genesis, during the days of Isaac, another famine tempted his return.
- God seeing the intention of Isaac's heart tells him specifically, "Do not go down to Egypt!"
- Many years later, during the days of Isaiah, the temptation to flee to Egypt remained.
• Isaiah 30:1-3 : "Woe to the rebellious children,' says the Lord, 'Who take counsel, but not of Me, And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, That they may add sin to sin; Who walk to go down to Egypt, And have not asked My advice, To strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, And to trust in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore the strength of Pharaoh Shall be your shame,And trust in the shadow of Egypt Shall be your humiliation."
- This is the issue with Egypt. It's represents a world system that lures the believer to misplace their trust.
- Solomon made a treaty with them, physical and in time. But his physical action is spiritually typical for us.
- We are warned often in scripture that a friendship with the world is deadly to the spiritual life of the believer.
• James 4:4 : "Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."
- God tells us this because any entanglement with the world systems divides our loyalties and energies away from Him. The world's priorities, methods and motives all require us to operate on a level that is incongruent with those of the Lord for our lives.
- Solomon put himself in a compromising position when he made a treaty with Egypt. We do the same when we become friendly with the world.
- If there were a more clear prohibition in the law, it could not be more clear than the prohibition against intermarriage.
- Remember the context of the world as the Israelites came into the promised land. They were coming to inhabit a land that was filled with idolatry and wickedness.
- They are meaningless names to us, but the Canaanites, were exceedingly wicked people groups, specializing in brutal, idolatrous "worship" practices.
- Consider this verse, which warns the children of Israel to avoid the sins that they witnessed.
• Deuteronomy 18:9-11 : "When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead."
- As a result, the Canaanites were destined to destruction. A prohibition against intermarriage makes all the sense in the world!
• Deuteronomy 7:1-4 : "When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly."
- Solomon, known for his great wisdom, obviously refused to take the counsel of wisdom personally when it came to intermarrying with this Egyptian.
- One must wonder what Solomon was thinking about! I can't help but think that he looked right into his own history, and saw a Father with a "freedom" in this area.
- One of David's wives, Maachah, was the daughter of the King of Geshur.
- Solomon saw that it wasn't so bad for his father. Maybe he would be an exception as well! However, what did not break David, because of God's grace, did indeed break Solomon.
- This phrase, "Solomon married Pharoah's daughter," opens a door that eventually leads to the destruction of the Kingdom because of Solomon's indulgence in this area.
- I Kings 10, tells us all of the gory details of Solomon's intermarriage with these heathen women. His heart went from entertaining them, to doing all that he could to please them!
• I Kings 10:6-10 : "Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord 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 keep what the Lord had commanded."
- Solomon's heart was divided, not just in matters of the kingdom, but in matters within his own family. As a result, his family tied him up.
- We might not be married to a person who is unequally yoked with us, but there may be some intimate relationship that is tying us up.
• I Kings 3:1c,2 : "...then he brought her to the City of David until he had finished building his own house, and the house of the Lord, and the wall all around Jerusalem. Meanwhile the people sacrificed at the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days." : Solomon brought this woman from Egypt into Jerusalem.
- Notice the set of priorities that Solomon had: It was his house and then the house of the Lord, and then the wall around Jerusalem.
- This was not the case chronologically of course. Solomon built the house of God first, the temple.
- It's interesting to me though that Solomon's house took 13 years to build. It must have been ornate, top of the line. But the temple took 7 years to build. Just about half of that time.
- No doubt that the temple was also lovely and ornate, but I think it might say something about Solomon's priorities being fixed upon himself.
- I really can't help but believe that the Lord preserved this part of the verse the way that it is to show us that Solomon had the duty of building the house of the Lord. But his passion was for his own home!
- Fast forward a few hundred years to Post-Exilic Israel.
- When the Israeli's returned from Babylon, there was a fervor among them, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, to rebuild their city. A few years went by and the fervor and the work stalled out.
- 14 years later, the Prophet Haggai brought this word from the Lord to the people of Israel.
• Haggai 1:4-6 : "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?' Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: 'Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; You eat, but do not have enough; You drink, but you are not filled with drink; You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; And he who earns wages, Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.'"
- For over a decade, the temple remained in ruin. The center of spiritual life lay in shambles while their own homes were attended to. I imagine several excuses that might sound familiar to us.
˚ “We can’t get much done at the temple, and I’m tired of living in a wreck. Time to start the remodel at home.” ... “I would fund more construction at the temple but all my money is tied up with my home renovation.” ... “I’m not living extravagantly - look at the other houses in my neighborhood! Look at the chariots in their driveway!” ... “The altar is there and we can at least sacrifice to the Lord. We’re getting by.” Pastor David Guzik
- The result of neglect was a sense of dissatisfaction. Each of these phrases points to the symptoms of neglect of one's spiritual life.
- Notice in the final verse that Solomon's priorities adversely affected the people of Israel.
- The people were also forced to offer to the Lord on the high places.
- The High Places were places where idolatrous worship was taking place. It was where the world brought their offerings to their false gods.
- If you take away that factor of holiness, among a people that require that understanding, you are effectively removing the spiritual legs out from underneath them.
- Eventually, the people of Israel would plunge headlong into idolatry, and I can't help but think that their acceptance of idol worship was a direct result of their familiarity with the High Places.
- "Oh, I used to worship the Lord here. It's no big deal!" WRONG! For a people that are supposed to be set apart unto the Lord, the distinction, the separation is critical.
- Listen to these peculiar verses:
• Deuteronomy 22:9-11 : "You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together."
- Commentators are divided on the actual point of interpretation of these verses. Most allude to the concept that these practices are condemned because they were a part of the culture of the Canaanites. It is thought that the Canaanites were always looking for magical combinations.
- In prohibiting this, God is not condemning the action, but He is enforcing the fact that His people are not to imitate the ways of the world around them.
- You might think: God is so particular! This is such a small detail. Why would God care?
- You might think with our New Testament mindset that this is a minute point, but let me remind you that large compromise in our lives begins with minute deviations!
Conclusion
- As we come to the end of this session, and this study, I remind us that the world around us refuses the authority of the Lord.
- As a result, we must be careful to keep ourselves in the love of God, unstained by the methods and practices of the world.
- This may require a re-examination of our relationship with the world, our relationship with the people of the world, as well as the priorities that govern our life.
- In the end, we will never regret ordering ourselves correctly in each of these areas.
"Give Me An Undivided Heart" • 5.20.08 • Autonomy, Authority And The Man Of God, Session #33
Intro
- 32 weeks later, and we have transitioned between the lives of the first 3 kings of Israel.
- King Saul was the popular choice of the people.
- King David was God's choice because he was a man after His own heart.
- King Solomon became the first king in the dynastic line of David, fulfilling a promise that the Lord had made to David back in II Samuel 7:10-12.
- Solomon is a relative unknown when he is crowned king in I Kings chapter 1. What we see in chapter 1 and 2 is a description of what Solomon was faced with when he came into power.
- What we find in chapter 3 is apt statement that sums up the life of Solomon.
• I Kings 3:3 : "And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places."
- This verse is a perfect microcosmic description of David's successor. Half of him was devoted to the Lord, loving and honoring him and walking in a way that was reminiscent of his Father.
- Then, as with most of us, there is an except.
- Solomon was a great guy, a fantastic example, excluding this fact: He sacrificed and burned incense at the high places!
- You might say, "Hey big deal! At least he was not, fill-in-the-blank-with-a-sin-that-offends-you! The phrase high place, literally means "an elevated place." When I was in Israel, we saw an example near an Old Testament city.
- The high place was next to the gate of the city, just three feet above the ground. The high place was not impressive for it's size, but it was intentional in purpose.
- High places were places that were dedicated to idols. When it says that Solomon sacrificed and burned incense at the high places, a person of that time would understand that Solomon was a man of divided interests.
- Yes, he loved the Lord. Yes, he outwardly conformed to the statutes that David had exemplified. But yes, he also allowed for other interests to survive.
- What I want us to see in this final session are the principles that lead to a divided heart.
- In Solomon's life, these were actual events which provide typical instruction for us.
I. Friendship With The World (v.1a)
II. Family Ties (v.1b)
III. Faulty Priorities (v.1c,2)
TextII. Family Ties (v.1b)
III. Faulty Priorities (v.1c,2)
I. Friendship With The World (v.1a)
• I Kings 3:1a : "Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh king of Egypt..." : Solomon inherited the kingdrom from his father David, at the zenith of Israel's power.- To the casual observer, this treaty might seem like good foreign policy, benign with any real meaning. But there are few geographical locations biblically that are as rich in Biblical typology.
- Egypt from the beginning of God's revelation is a type of the world and her systems.
- The picture is appropriate, as the world around us appears to be so strong.
- When the rest of the world would experience an occasional severe famine, Egypt, being watered by the mighty Nile river, remained immune. As a result, the Patriarchs were drawn to it.
- Abram went down to Egypt in Genesis 12 and almost lost his wife! But it's not what he almost lost that harmed him. It's what he brought out with him.
• Genesis 16:1-4 : "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, 'See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.' And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. Then Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes."
- This little arrangement was disastrous for Abram and his wife. Later in the book of Genesis, during the days of Isaac, another famine tempted his return.
- God seeing the intention of Isaac's heart tells him specifically, "Do not go down to Egypt!"
- Many years later, during the days of Isaiah, the temptation to flee to Egypt remained.
• Isaiah 30:1-3 : "Woe to the rebellious children,' says the Lord, 'Who take counsel, but not of Me, And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, That they may add sin to sin; Who walk to go down to Egypt, And have not asked My advice, To strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, And to trust in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore the strength of Pharaoh Shall be your shame,And trust in the shadow of Egypt Shall be your humiliation."
- This is the issue with Egypt. It's represents a world system that lures the believer to misplace their trust.
- Solomon made a treaty with them, physical and in time. But his physical action is spiritually typical for us.
- We are warned often in scripture that a friendship with the world is deadly to the spiritual life of the believer.
• James 4:4 : "Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."
- God tells us this because any entanglement with the world systems divides our loyalties and energies away from Him. The world's priorities, methods and motives all require us to operate on a level that is incongruent with those of the Lord for our lives.
- Solomon put himself in a compromising position when he made a treaty with Egypt. We do the same when we become friendly with the world.
II. Family Ties (v.1b)
• I Kings 3:1b : "...and married Pharaoh's daughter..." : Solomon was not content to have a distant, business relationship with Egypt. He brought Egypt right into his very home!- If there were a more clear prohibition in the law, it could not be more clear than the prohibition against intermarriage.
- Remember the context of the world as the Israelites came into the promised land. They were coming to inhabit a land that was filled with idolatry and wickedness.
- They are meaningless names to us, but the Canaanites, were exceedingly wicked people groups, specializing in brutal, idolatrous "worship" practices.
- Consider this verse, which warns the children of Israel to avoid the sins that they witnessed.
• Deuteronomy 18:9-11 : "When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead."
- As a result, the Canaanites were destined to destruction. A prohibition against intermarriage makes all the sense in the world!
• Deuteronomy 7:1-4 : "When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly."
- Solomon, known for his great wisdom, obviously refused to take the counsel of wisdom personally when it came to intermarrying with this Egyptian.
- One must wonder what Solomon was thinking about! I can't help but think that he looked right into his own history, and saw a Father with a "freedom" in this area.
- One of David's wives, Maachah, was the daughter of the King of Geshur.
- Solomon saw that it wasn't so bad for his father. Maybe he would be an exception as well! However, what did not break David, because of God's grace, did indeed break Solomon.
- This phrase, "Solomon married Pharoah's daughter," opens a door that eventually leads to the destruction of the Kingdom because of Solomon's indulgence in this area.
- I Kings 10, tells us all of the gory details of Solomon's intermarriage with these heathen women. His heart went from entertaining them, to doing all that he could to please them!
• I Kings 10:6-10 : "Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord 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 keep what the Lord had commanded."
- Solomon's heart was divided, not just in matters of the kingdom, but in matters within his own family. As a result, his family tied him up.
- We might not be married to a person who is unequally yoked with us, but there may be some intimate relationship that is tying us up.
III. Faulty Priorities (v.1c,2)
• I Kings 3:1c,2 : "...then he brought her to the City of David until he had finished building his own house, and the house of the Lord, and the wall all around Jerusalem. Meanwhile the people sacrificed at the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days." : Solomon brought this woman from Egypt into Jerusalem.
- Notice the set of priorities that Solomon had: It was his house and then the house of the Lord, and then the wall around Jerusalem.
- This was not the case chronologically of course. Solomon built the house of God first, the temple.
- It's interesting to me though that Solomon's house took 13 years to build. It must have been ornate, top of the line. But the temple took 7 years to build. Just about half of that time.
- No doubt that the temple was also lovely and ornate, but I think it might say something about Solomon's priorities being fixed upon himself.
- I really can't help but believe that the Lord preserved this part of the verse the way that it is to show us that Solomon had the duty of building the house of the Lord. But his passion was for his own home!
- Fast forward a few hundred years to Post-Exilic Israel.
- When the Israeli's returned from Babylon, there was a fervor among them, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, to rebuild their city. A few years went by and the fervor and the work stalled out.
- 14 years later, the Prophet Haggai brought this word from the Lord to the people of Israel.
• Haggai 1:4-6 : "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?' Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: 'Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; You eat, but do not have enough; You drink, but you are not filled with drink; You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; And he who earns wages, Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.'"
- For over a decade, the temple remained in ruin. The center of spiritual life lay in shambles while their own homes were attended to. I imagine several excuses that might sound familiar to us.
˚ “We can’t get much done at the temple, and I’m tired of living in a wreck. Time to start the remodel at home.” ... “I would fund more construction at the temple but all my money is tied up with my home renovation.” ... “I’m not living extravagantly - look at the other houses in my neighborhood! Look at the chariots in their driveway!” ... “The altar is there and we can at least sacrifice to the Lord. We’re getting by.” Pastor David Guzik
- The result of neglect was a sense of dissatisfaction. Each of these phrases points to the symptoms of neglect of one's spiritual life.
- Notice in the final verse that Solomon's priorities adversely affected the people of Israel.
- The people were also forced to offer to the Lord on the high places.
- The High Places were places where idolatrous worship was taking place. It was where the world brought their offerings to their false gods.
- If you take away that factor of holiness, among a people that require that understanding, you are effectively removing the spiritual legs out from underneath them.
- Eventually, the people of Israel would plunge headlong into idolatry, and I can't help but think that their acceptance of idol worship was a direct result of their familiarity with the High Places.
- "Oh, I used to worship the Lord here. It's no big deal!" WRONG! For a people that are supposed to be set apart unto the Lord, the distinction, the separation is critical.
- Listen to these peculiar verses:
• Deuteronomy 22:9-11 : "You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together."
- Commentators are divided on the actual point of interpretation of these verses. Most allude to the concept that these practices are condemned because they were a part of the culture of the Canaanites. It is thought that the Canaanites were always looking for magical combinations.
- In prohibiting this, God is not condemning the action, but He is enforcing the fact that His people are not to imitate the ways of the world around them.
- You might think: God is so particular! This is such a small detail. Why would God care?
- You might think with our New Testament mindset that this is a minute point, but let me remind you that large compromise in our lives begins with minute deviations!
Conclusion
- As we come to the end of this session, and this study, I remind us that the world around us refuses the authority of the Lord.
- As a result, we must be careful to keep ourselves in the love of God, unstained by the methods and practices of the world.
- This may require a re-examination of our relationship with the world, our relationship with the people of the world, as well as the priorities that govern our life.
- In the end, we will never regret ordering ourselves correctly in each of these areas.
1 comment:
1 Solomon made a treaty with Egypt, which is a picture of friendship with the world. James 4:4 tells us that friendship with the world is hostility with God. First, what does it mean to have a friendship with the world? Second, why does this produce hostility with God? Third, how do we know when we have crossed over the line in the area of our affections toward the world?
2 Solomon married Pharoah's daughter, the beginning of a long line of intermarriage with idolatrous women. This would later be the issue that would bring his own life and his kingdom down to ruin. Are there areas of your life that left unchecked would do the same to you? Can you identify areas that the Lord has singled out in your life for removal? Share your experiences with your table.
3 Solomon priorities when it came to his own house and the temple of God seem to have been in conflict. Explain how you order your priorities throughout any given day? Discuss how your priorities conflict with the Lord's priorities, and how you have remedied that in the past.
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