The Peculiar Love of Solomon

Go ahead and open up if you would with me to 2 Samuel chapter 7. As we move into, this morning's message, we're calling it the peculiar love of Solomon. This is really A testimony of Solomon, a testimony of a son. In Dale Ralph Davies' commentary on First Kings.

when he's talking about Solomon in 1 Kings chapter 11, he starts off with this Peanuts cartoon where Lucy says, and so the king was granted his wish. Everything he touched would turn to gold. Now, the next day, Lina says stop. You don't have to read any further.

I know just what's going to happen. These things always have a way of backfiring. And that's the feeling that we get when we track the story and the life of Solomon. Everything seems to be going great.

Everything Solomon touches turns to gold and buildings and flourishing, and then you get to chapter 11 and there's this big thud. And the feeling that we, the reader is meant to have when we get to that chapter is what has gone wrong. Houston, we have a problem. And so, this morning, what we wanna do is, what I wanna propose is, is that we take a look at the life of Solomon and try to figure out how does this king who showed so much promise and so much, flourishing, end up with such failure and how are we to view him?

Many of you have been reading through Ecclesiastes. Raise your hand if you're reading through the Ecclesiastes through the summer. Great. So you guys are getting familiar with The writings most probably of Solomon and you guys are, many of you are probably looking at the Reichen commentary, which is a great commentary, I would really highly commend it to you.

This morning, what we want to do is In Solomon, I believe we see the testimony of a son. whose love life bears the the fruit of great flourishing and great failure. And his story warns and comforts us if we see it through the lens of God's covenant with David. And it seems like wherever you see Solomon, David's name keeps popping up.

And so, what I want, would like us to do this morning is to view the Lord's warning and comfort through 7 scenes as it were of Solomon. We're gonna look at his testimony through 7 different scenes, almost like we're watching a, a movie or hearing a story told, but we're gonna observe these scenes really through one lens, and that's the lens of what we call the Davidic covenant. That's established right here in 2 Samuel chapter 7. So let's, let's look at the first scene, which is right here.

And we're going to make this statement about this scene before. Solomon's birth. The Lord determines to establish a father-son relationship with him. So before Solomon's even born, Yahweh is saying, I am going to be a father to this son.

Let's read it together. If you look down at verse 12, Dave, if you guys remember the context, David wanted to build the Lord a house, right? And first, Nathan says, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. The Lord appears to him and says, hold on.

He's not gonna build me a house, but I'm gonna build him a house and I'm gonna make other promises to him. I'm gonna make his name great. But then you get down to the Solomonic part of the promise and the covenant, verse 12, when your days are fulfilled, the Lord is saying through Nathan to David, and you rest with your fathers. I will set up your seed after you.

who will come from your body and I will establish His kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever. I will be his father. And he shall be my son.

If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But my mercy shall not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. In your house, your kingdom shall be established forever, etc. So right here in the middle of the, the, the Davidic covenant, which we understand is what we call a unilateral covenant, God binds Himself to do this for David, for his own name's sake, not dependent upon anything that David does.

He says, I'm gonna do this for you, and part of the Davidic covenant. Is God, Yahweh guarantees that he is going to have this father-son relationship with Solomon. And then in verse 14, if he commits iniquity, and we already know in chapter 11, what he's going to commit iniquity, I will chasten him. With the rod of men and, and with the blows of the sons of men, but my mercy shall not depart from him as I took it from Saul.

So I want you to just keep that in mind in this scene as we move forward, that there's this promise of Father, Son, and if Solomon sins, God will chastise him, but he's not gonna do to Solomon what he did to Saul. What did God do to Saul? Saul sinned and the kingdom was completely ripped away. And before it, Saul at the end of his life is consulting mediums and dies.

Not a happy ending. But right here in chapter 7 of the Davidic covenant, we have a very, this is before Solomon's even born, right? There's things that are being said about Solomon before his birth that Solomon has nothing to do with. So let's look at the 2nd scene.

By the way, we're gonna move fairly quickly through a number of these scenes. When we get to the, the 5th scene, we're gonna dwell on it. We're gonna spend quite a bit of time there. The second scene is at Solomon's birth.

The Lord sends prophetic word. That he is beloved of the Lord, that Solomon is beloved of the Lord. So let's turn over to chapter 12. So this is another important scene in the life of Solomon in his testimony.

He would have probably not known anything about this until his parents told him. It's almost like Christians who grew up in the church. A lot of times when they get up to tell their testimony, and they're like, Well, my parents raised me in the church. Their testimony starts with their parents, right?

And then they hear about things that happened to them. And so here's one of the things that Solomon would have heard about. Verse 24, then David comforted Bathsheba, his wife. And went into her and lay with her, and she bore a son.

And he called his name Solomon or they called his name Solomon, some translations say. So just to reset the context here, remember David Bathsheba, bad stuff. Bathsheba gets pregnant, right? God says, I forgive you, there's this repentance, but your son is going to die.

The first son dies. We don't know how much time goes by, but then, obviously, Bathsheba's upset. David comforts his now wife. This is a relationship that began with adultery, but now they're married.

And, and so this other son is born and they named him Solomon. What does Solomon mean? Peace, it, it's similar to the word Shalom. So it's the, the idea that there's peace, they named him Peace.

And notice what it says right at the end of verse 24. Now, the Lord loved him. It's a very interesting phrase that just pops out of, out of nowhere. There's not a whole lot of places where, various Old Testament writers just stop and say, now the Lord loved this person.

We, we know that Abraham was a friend of God, that Moses saw God face to face. Here's, there's, there's a pause. Yahweh loved Solomon. This is not the word has said like covenant love.

This is the typical word that you would have for filial love. It's just ahh. It's, he just loved him like a husband loves a wife or parents love their children. He loved him.

Verse 25, and he sent word by hand of Nathan the prophet, the same one that came and brought the rebuke. and, and so he called his name Jedediah. because of the Lord and the, the pronouns here are difficult, but what it seems like is going on is the Lord sent Nathan and told Nathan, name him Jedediah. And so he does that because of Yahweh.

Yahweh had sent Nathan on this mission. What does Jedediah mean? Mean you look in your notes, probably it says in your margin, beloved of Yahweh. Beloved of the Lord.

So the Lord loved him, sends Nathan and says, OK, I know his name is Solomon, that's gonna be his royal kingly name, but I want you to name him beloved of the Lord. In all likelihood, as Solomon was just growing up around the royal, the royal family, he was called Jedediah growing up, but then when he would have ascended to the throne, he would have been taken on Solomon as his kingly name. And so we have this, the second scene. Yahweh says, I, I'm gonna be a father to him, before his birth, at his birth, he says he's beloved of the Lord.

Let's look at the 3rd scene now. Look at 1 Kings chapter 3. 1 Kings chapter 3. We see as a young king, Solomon's expressed love for the Lord is met with the approval of direct divine revelation.

In his youth as a young king, his expressed love for the Lord's met with the approval of direct divine revelation. Notice how this develops. We'll start in verse one. Now, Solomon made a treaty with, so he's, he's already king, he made a treaty with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh's daughter.

It was not uncommon at all for when there's treaties made for one king to give a wife to the other king, and so this is the first mention that we have of a treaty marriage. then he brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house in the house of the Lord, 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. So they're still sacrificing to Yahweh at high places because the house of the Lord had not been built.

High places is an interesting study because sometimes high places are Not so bad if it's being used only for Yahweh before the temple had been built, but then when they're being used after the temple had been built, it's bad, especially if they're being used for false gods, right? So when you look at high place theology, it's a little bit messy. And we see in verse 3, that Solomon loved the Lord. This is the same word that was used of God loving Solomon, Ahhav.

Solomon loved, he had an affection for the Lord, evidenced by walking in the statutes of his father, who? David. Here's an exception that he sacrificed and burnt incense at the high places. Here, this doesn't mean that he was burning incense to false gods, it just meant that There is no temple yet.

They were still sacrificing on high places. So as the Lord approved of him. He loved him, he walked in the, in the ways of David, except that he's doing this high, this high place worship. We'll see what happens in verse 4.

Now, the king went to Gibeon. This is about 5 miles northwest of Jerusalem to sacrifice there, for there was the great high place. This would have been again before the temple was built. Solomon offered, what, how big is his offering?

1000 burnt offerings on the altar. That's a lot of offerings and it takes a lot of time, and it's very expensive. How does the Lord react? Verse 6, Solomon said, I'm sorry, verse 5, at Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, ask, what shall I give you?

This is direct divine revelation. He doesn't send a prophet. He appears in a dream directly to Solomon and basically just says, what do you want? this is like the genie in the lamp, right?

It's like, all of a sudden you show up, you're watching some show, and there's some lamp that shows up, they rub the lamp, the genie comes out and says, what's your wish? And what would you say? God, the God of the universe, the one who has all the power, just says, what do you want? And you guys know the story.

Solomon starts in verse 6, he says, you have shown great mercy to your servant, David. David comes up again, my father, because he walked before you in truth, in righteousness, and uprightness of heart with you, and we're meant to think, wait a minute, what about Bathsheba? While he repented, that's the point is he had repented and came back and served the Lord and stayed faithful to the Lord. Not that David was perfect, but his heart was to repent and to move in humility towards Yahweh.

And by the way, the Davidic covenant now that's been settled is unilateral. It's based on God's mercy and name, not based upon David's previous or past performance. Verse 7 now, oh Lord, you have made your servant king instead of my father, David, but I'm just a little child, I don't even know how to go out and come in and look down to verse 9. Therefore, give to your servant an understanding heart.

Give me wisdom. That's what I want. How in the world am I as a young king, going to govern your great people? How does the Lord react to this in verse 10?

The speech pleased the Lord. That Solomon had asked this thing. you guys have experienced this. Those of you guys that are parents, right?

you guys You ask your kids about something or all of a sudden something comes out of their mouth where they're like, I wanna give my piggy bank to Jesus. And you're just like, yeah, that's awesome. Or all of a sudden you go and you, you hear your kid, your, your child is taking a bath or something and you hear in the, in there, they're humming a hymn from church, and you're just like. Didn't that just fill your heart when you see the evidence of spiritual life and, and things in the, in the hearts of your kids.

And so no doubt, God the Father, Yahweh, the Father, hears this request from his son, Solomon, and he's, he's pleased. He's excited And then look down at verse 13, and I have also given you what you have not asked for both riches and honor. So keep that in mind as we press forward. The Lord does give him wisdom, but also he promises to give him more wealth and more honor than any before him.

And so when you see the next several chapters, this development of, of the, the buildings and the grandeur of the kingdom. This all starts as a result of the promise in verse 13. Who's giving him all of this stuff? It's coming from the Lord.

but notice the qualification, the if then statement of verse 14. So if you walk in my ways, To keep my statutes and my commandments as your father David walked in humility and repentance, then I will lengthen your days. So, what you kinda, you get from this whole scene is Lord basically appears, says, what do you want? You offered me a 1000.

This, this has come from your heart, remember this all starts with, with love. Verse 3 is Solomon, love the Lord. That's where it starts. He loved the Lord.

And what came as a result of that? A 1000 burnt offerings. What's the Lord's response? What do you want?

I'll give you whatever you want. Then Solomon upset and Annie and says, I want wisdom. The Lord says, whoa, baby, I'm giving you wisdom, not just that, I'm giving you wealth and honor. So in this context, wealth and honor is not bad.

Why? Because Solomon loves the Lord. He says as long as you continue to walk with this heart that you're demonstrating right now, which is like my servant David who walked before me in humility, guess what? This wisdom, this honor, these riches things are gonna continue because you're gonna have it all in the right place.

Not as a man under the sun, but as a man in love with Yahweh, right? And so this is a great scene. Life is good. Right?

Not only that, let's look at the 4th scene. We get to the 4th scene now. Solomon as a maturing king. So many years go by, to build the type of temple that Solomon built, this doesn't happen overnight.

this takes quite a number of years. As a maturing king, the completion of Solomon's temple is graced with the Lord's glory. And a second appearance. So let's look first at just a couple of verses in chapter 8.

So, in chapter 8, look down at verse 10. So, OK, the temple's been built, they bring the ark in, the priests are starting to do all the things they're supposed to do in worship of Yahweh. But something happens, something gets in the way. God gets in the way.

Verse 10, and it, it came to pass when the priest came out of the holy place that the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priest could not continue administering because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Do you think the Lord is pleased? With this temple. Yes, he fills it with his glory.

And there's such a cloud that everybody has to stop doing what they're doing. It's like the Lord's presence has just filled this place. We can't even see what we're doing. And so you see the Lord's glory fills the place, but then look over at chapter 9.

Verse one And it came to pass when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house. So, and the king's house and all Solomon's desire, which he wanted to do. So this is about a 20 year period. If you add the numbers of the temple and the king's house, we're talking about 20 years.

So this is now a maturing king. This is not a teenage king asking for wisdom. This is now a king that's been on the throne for a while. Verse 2, that the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

OK, so this is another direct divine revelation. This is not Nathan or anybody else. This is just God and Solomon. Verse 3, and the Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me.

I have consecrated this house which you have built to put my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually. Now we get 2 if then statements. Now, if you walk before me as your father David walked in the integrity of his heart and uprightness to do all that I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and judgments, so David loved the law, he, he walked in humility and repentance. David meditated upon the law, verse 5, and then I will establish your throne of your kingdom over Israel forever as I promised David, your father, saying, you shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.

Davidic kingdom, Davidic kingdom, Davidic kingdom, it's all over the place. Verse 6, but here's the other if then statement. If you or your sons at all turn away from following me and do not keep the commandments of the statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I gave them, and this house which I've consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

If then promises, if then warnings. What's interesting is this, in this scene is, does God know what's going to happen? He knows exactly what's going to happen. And yet God blesses Solomon with this, the, the glory filling the temple.

He appears direct divine revelation, says, here's what's gonna happen. If you do this, then this, if you do this, then this. Suddenly, we come to the 5th scene, and this is where we hear the big thud. So turn to chapter 11.

Up to this point, it just seems like the movie should end, right? Solomon, it's just the, the scene should close with this grand music and Solomon on his temple and everybody's just having a great time. The end. But the Old Testament, that's what's interesting about the Old Testament.

If you ever noticed, some of the books of the Old Testament have the most depressing endings. Just read through the Old Testament. Just go look at the last two verses of every book in the Old Testament and you're like, boy, these guys don't know how to do good English literature, right? That's not the way you're supposed to end the story.

And so here's Solomon. We get to what should be a beautiful ending and you come to this statement, this scene. As Solomon ages, his love is turned away from the Lord, resulting in short and long-term chastisement. Look at verse one.

But, and that should be like, boom boom, but King Solomon loved many foreign women. Let's think about that word love for a second. How to, what is that word love? It's the same word that we've seen in the previous context, aha.

It's the same word you would use for loving a wife or loving a family member. In, in English, we can talk about I love soccer, I love that song, I love this church, I love vacationing in the Sierras. I love my wife. I love my children.

In the Old Testament, in this context, these scenes we've seen, we see that the Lord loved Solomon. Solomon loved the Lord, and now King Solomon loved many foreign women. We've got a love problem here. There is a love problem.

The love has been turned. Many foreign women as well as or besides the daughter of Pharaoh. The daughter of Pharaoh doesn't seem to be The problem, it's It's the foreign women who worship other gods, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, 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. Why?

Surely. They will turn your hearts away after their gods. Why should you not intermarry? Why should Solomon and the other kings not get unequally yoked with these worshippers of false gods?

Surely, do we believe God when he warns us? Surely, they will turn your heart. Towards other gods. The issue here is idolatry.

Intermarrying with these foreign wives will turn your heart away from me and end of verse two says, Solomon clung to these in love. The word clung is the same word that we see in Genesis 2:24 that a man will leave and cleave to his wife. He's cleaving to these women in love and so on, on the one hand, some people argue well these are just, these are political wives for treaty's sake. and that could be the case.

He definitely, this would have, this definitely happened in the ancient Near East where you would accumulate wives to yourself when you make treaties. But the Bible doesn't say it's just the political aspect that's the problem. It's that he clung to them in love. He loves them.

There's a love problem. Notice verse 4, for it was so when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods. And his heart was not loyal to the Lord as God, as was the heart of his father, who? David.

He turned, he's now different from David. Notice that this happens over time. It's, we really see the fruition of this as he ages. there's probably compromises that are made early in his life.

He's just doing what royals do. He's doing what kings do in the ancient Near East. If you're gonna make a treaty, if we wanna be able to get this lumber, from, the sea over to our area, I've got to make a treaty. Once I make a treaty, they're gonna give me wives.

If I don't take the wives, I can't get the money. And then he takes the wives and then they turn his heart. The idea, the feeling here that you get the text and how many times it says turn, turn, turn, heart, heart, heart, it's a very slow turn of the doorknob. It's a very slow, imperceptible turn.

Almost, I don't know if you guys, those of you guys who wear glasses, we have these little, screws that are inside of your glasses, your frames, and you open them up, you close them every day. You don't even notice that there's a little screw that's slowly working its way out to your work one day, all of a sudden, pop, there goes your lens, and you're looking for a little screw. You, yeah, I didn't know that was going on. It was just happening very little every single day and all of a sudden we wake up and Solomon's in love.

He's clinging. To foreign women. That's what it says in verse 3. He had 700 wives, princesses.

The idea would be that many of these wives were exalted to the level of princesses, 300 concubines, these would not be princesses, and his wives turned his heart away. And almost certainly what this means is he didn't have 1000 wives all at the same time, but over the course of his royal career, he had 1000 wives. If you look at Solomon, like 6/8, there's a 60/80 split. There's 60 wives and 80 concubines.

But still, 1000 wives over the course of his lifetime and they turn his heart. Some people, some commentators want to say that the cause of, of Solomon's heart problem is that there was all of this development of gold and accumulation of stuff and all of these buildings and royalty and accumulation of things and, and that's really, it was materialism that led to his heart problem, but the text says it was a love problem. It was a love problem for foreign women that led him to idolatry.

This is like 1st and 2nd commandment stuff.

Who said that God was, who said that Solomon was gonna grow and riches and honor? It was God. And so the riches and honor was not the problem. It was where was his heart in relationship to the riches and honor.

Once he started to accumulate foreign worshippers as wives, they began to turn his heart. He became very ecumenical, as it were. In fact, he became, it's no doubt as we, as we look at the, at the context is that he became very open-minded. To very multicultural in his approach to other gods.

Solomon probably, he was known for sitting down and writing songs and things like that. Perhaps he sat down and wrote a song called I Wish They All Could Be Solomonic Girls. That's a joke. But really it's not very funny.

this is, this is tragic stuff. Notice, verse 5, for Solomon went after Ashreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milham, the abomination of the Ammonites. He becomes a pluralist. 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 or Kimosh, the abomination of Moab on the hill that is east of Jerusalem and from Molech, the abomination. Of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all of his wives who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. What is going on here?

Solomon goes from a man who is offering 1000 bulls and worship to the Lord, who is now offering incense or building temples for 1000 wives who worship false gods. There's no indication here that he's turned away from worshiping Yahweh. He's just become more open-minded and he's, he's, he's now taking the position of a good dignitary. He's, he's willing to accommodate all the religions that are in Canaan.

That's what any good A political leader would do, right? Is you want to keep everybody happy, including your wives who are connected to these foreign kings. He became liberal, he became enlightened in his religious Expression. There's one big problem, that's verse 6 that the author says he did evil.

In the sight of the Lord. His pluralism, his multiculturalism is called evil. Notice how the Lord responds in verse 9. So the Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.

He should have known better and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after God, but he did not keep what the Lord had commanded. Therefore, the Lord said to Solomon, now God's gonna mete out the punishment or the chastisements. What are the punishments? Because you have done this and have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.

Man That should be the 2nd thud that we hear in this chapter. What does that remind you of? Anybody know? It reminds us of Saul.

Saul had it torn away. And when he reaches out to grab the cloak, Of the prophet, right? Samson, Samuel, there's a tear and Samuel turns around and says, so is the kingdom and torn away from you and God is gonna give the kingdom to someone better than you. And then we just see the decline.

And so, the Lord says this to Solomon, and no doubt Solomon's thinking, This is I'm gonna be Saul. But then notice what happens in 1213. Nevertheless, I will, there's 2 mitigations here. Nevertheless, I will not do it in your days.

This is not going to happen in your lifetime. Why? For the sake of your father, David? Because of David, because of the Davidic covenant, because of this promise I've made to David, I'm not gonna have this happen in your lifetime.

I will tear it away out of the hands of your son. And if anything about Jewish thought process, that's not a lot of comfort. we might say, oh great, at least it won't happen in our lifetime. In the Jewish's mindset, the fact that it's going to happen to your children is worse.

It's gonna happen, but it is a mitigation nonetheless. Verse 13, however, I will not tear away the whole kingdom. I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen. So, I'm gonna keep one tribe and it's not gonna happen in your lifetime.

So that's really the long term chastisement. The short term chastisement kicks off in verse 14 and we'll have to move to this section. Rather quickly and that is basically the Lord raises up three different adversaries. Look at verse 14.

Now the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon. Hey Dad, the Edomite. So he raises up, hey Dad, to be an adversary. This is part of the, I will bring blows upon him.

If he sins, I'm gonna bring blows upon him from men and the sons of men, right? So, hey Dad, is one of the ones that God sovereignly raises up to chastise Solomon. But notice verse 15, when does hey Dad arise? For it happened when David was in Edom and Joab, the commander of the army, had gone up to bury the slain after he had killed every male in Edom, da da da, verse 17 that Hadad fled to Egypt and certain Edomites of his fathers and you just track the story and you're like, what?

What is happening here? There's this flashback scene to a time before Solomon was even born. That Haddad is one of the survivors of this annihilation of the Edomites, goes to Egypt, is there for a long time until David and Joab die, and then he finds out, hey, I can go back now and harass Solomon the sun. So on a timeline, when did Hadad begin to be arisen by the Lord to be an adversary to Solomon?

Before his birth. I don't know about you, but my mind just blew up. Before Solomon was born, that means before God said, I'm gonna be a father to him as a son, before God said Jedediah, beloved of the Lord, before any of these loving pronouncements were made by Yahweh, God and his sovereignty had already arisen, someone named Haddad, to be a chastisement for Solomon when he gets to this 1 Kings 11 stuff. There is no God in any other religion like this that can control and move pieces.

So it, it just begs the question, how can God simultaneously pronounce Solomon as beloved and at the same time be raising up a chastiser? How does that happen? Because God had clearly determined that he was going to be faithful to this covenant of David and faithful to David's son that Yahweh had taken as his own son. And even though he knows what the sun is gonna do in the future, and even though he knows where his trajectory, he knows what his testimony is, he still drops down in the middle of 1 Samuel 12:24 and says, beloved, Jedediah, call him Jedediah.

Was God ignorant of the future? Did God have amnesia when he called him Jedediah? No, this is part of the whole theology of us coming in as sons of David, and the ultimate son of David, Jesus Christ. And so consider the last couple of scenes here, but The 16th scene We have to Keep all of this together.

In the 16th scene before Solomon dies, Solomon again acknowledges the fear of the one true God. How do we know that? How do we know that Solomon again acknowledges the fear of the one true God? Well, first of all, stay in this chapter and look at verse 39.

we didn't really talk about how the Lord was raising up Jeroboam and there's this whole mad prophecy scene, which you can read on your own. It's a lot of fun about Ahijah. And Ahijah's telling Jeroboam what's going to happen in him coming to become the king of the 10 tribes. But verse 39, the Lord says through Ahijah, and I will afflict the descendants of David because of this, but not Forever I'm gonna afflict Solomon.

I'm gonna afflict the, the descendants that come in the future, but not Forever, he says. Now look down at verse 41 and we see basically the obituary of Solomon. There almost seems to be a gap here because in in verse 40, he tries to kill Jeroboam because Jeroboam had taken this prophecy and rebelled, but then verse 41, and the rest of the Acts of Solomon. And you need to imagine pleasant music here in the background.

The rest of the Acts of Solomon, all that he did in his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the Acts of Solomon? And the period that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was 40 years. Then Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David, his father. It's like, did I miss a scene here?

What, what did I miss? I will afflict him, not forever, and all the other wonderful things he did and wisdom, are they not in the annals, Annals of Solomon? what are the Annals of Solomon? We don't really know.

there are some other books that were written, that the Lord deemed not to necessarily put them or put all of them into, the revelation that we have at our disposal, but I have a theory, this is just a theory. That one of a part of the Annals of Solomon was the Book of Ecclesiastes. And that we have, I have this gap theory that basically between verse 39 and, and end of 41, that we have the book of Ecclesiastes that is written towards the end of Solomon's life. Turn to Turn to Ecclesiastes 12.

Ecclesiastes 12. Many of you are reading through this book and, and you've read this part, but you haven't. You haven't got there in the commentary yet. In chapter 12, we have this just amazing poem about death that's actually pretty depressing and just like As it seems that Solomon is contemplating just the end of his life and And.

some of the, the sad things that happen at the end of the life of a, a person who has many regrets. In life But when you look down, At chapter 12. Starting at verse 9 and moreover, because the preacher was wise. He still taught the people knowledge.

Yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find acceptable words. And what was written was upright words of truth. Now, some will point out that this is the third person, so this could be Solomon, but actually I don't think that's uncommon at all in Hebrew literature for writers to refer to themselves in the third person.

John referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, never refers to himself by name. Verse 11, the words of the wise are like goats and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails by one shepherd. Just about everybody admits that the shepherd is a reference to Yahweh by one shepherd. And further, my son, now we're in the first person, he's talking probably to Raya Boam, be admonished by these of making many books, there's no end and much study is wearisome to the flesh.

So let's conclude the matter. Fear God. Not many gods fear God. Keep his commandments.

This is man's all, for God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Rabom, what's the end of the matter? Fear God. Solomon knows in his head that the kingdom is going to be taken from his son because of his own sin, right?

Hard days are ahead for Reaboam and so at the end of his life, Solomon is now acknowledging the one shepherd, the one God, and he's trying to exhort his son to follow that one God. Turn back to 2 Samuel, just as a reminder here. Remember, in the Davidic covenant, What had been promised. And if he sins in 7:15, I will chastise him, but my mercy shall not depart from him as I took it from Saul.

So, how do we know that Solomon returned, even though we have to read into the context of First Kings? It's because God had already promised to have mercy upon Solomon and not to take everything away from him the way he had done with Saul. And so I believe that the book of Ecclesiastes is a testimony to the things that Solomon had learned when he was in that stage of life, when his, his, his riches and honor had, he had lost the whole centric of love and he began to try to enjoy those things as a man under the sun rather than as a man in love with Yahweh.

And then his wife slowly, one turn at a time, made him into this ecumenical, helped him turn himself into this ecumenical leader, which leads us to really the last point.

The last scene that we'll use to drive this whole thing home and that is a millennium later. Fast forward 1000 years after Solomon's death. And we see in Matthew 12:42 that a greater than Solomon. is here One greater than Solomon that arises, that really is the ultimate fulfillment of that Son of David promise passage.

In fact, when you consider Luke chapter 1, verse 31 and following, this is just one place where Christ is spoken of as the Son of David. Verse 31 of Luke 1, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, Mary is told and shall call his name Jesus, and he will be great, will be called the Son of the highest. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom, there will be no end. This one greater than Solomon arise, arises, and this is really the last chapter of Solomon's testimony is that while he was a son of David, he was not the ultimate son of David that is being pointed to, while Solomon sinned and fell and failed in significant ways.

It was really the next Solomon that these passages are pointing to, the one that would not sin, the king whose kingdom would never end, who would sit on the throne of his father David, and the ultimate fulfillment of the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7. And so Solomon really looks to the same hope that all of us look to, and that is to the hope of Jesus Christ, the son of David, who would reign forever on the throne. Without turning his heart away from Yahweh. Let's ask a question here.

Jesus says to Peter, Jesus says to us this morning, do you love me? Do you love me? The core issue I want to propose to you is the core issue with Solomon was not his goal. It was not his honor.

The core issue with Solomon was really not even about his harem. He's led to these sins because of a love problem. In chapter 3, we see that he loved the Lord and no doubt he felt the love of Yahweh. But in chapter 11, 1 Kings 11, he loved something else.

And I want to ask you this morning, do you love Yahweh, do you love God? Not just do you have some knowledge of God that you read, you, you can memorize certain verses and recant certain doctrines. Where is your heart? And, and what is produced as a result of that love.

When, when Solomon was in love with the Lord, guess what? He's offering 1000 bowls. When you get to the, we didn't even look at everything that was offered when he built the temple, thousands of sacrifices. When our hearts are turned to other things, we can fill them with all kinds.

Of idols I wanna just give a, a, a, a short exhortation to parents here. Those of you guys that are, you're trying to raise up your children up in the Lord and, and you express your love for them and this relationship, you try to set them up in the best way spiritually, at the bottom line, they still got to decide to love the Lord or not. You can set everything up for your kids. But there's still a man or a woman who's going to stand before the judgment on their own.

And it's all gonna come down to one question, do you love me? Do you love me? So let me give just a, a warning and then a, a comfort from this morning's texts. The warning is this, do not think that because you love the Lord now that your love cannot be turned by your own compromises or by unwise associations.

One of the things that we learned from the life of Solomon, that this is a guy that clearly loved the Lord and had God's blessing on his life. There's no doubt about it. And yet there were compromises, slow compromises, perhaps because of his position. Where he began to make and no doubt it seemed like the right thing to do at the time and he unwisely associated with pagan worshippers.

Just like today, there's, there's so many associations that Christians have with people in the world that turn them. All you have to do is just read the paper, read the blogs of how Christians are being turned. Away from the true God and open to more experiences and concepts beyond Yahweh. A small leak can sink a ship.

And yet There is a comfort in the testimony of Solomon. Do not think that because your heart is turned away from the Lord, that your love was never real and that you cannot return to your first love. There's no doubt on the pages of scripture that Solomon's love was real. that he really did love the Lord and the Lord calls him Jedediah.

And yet he failed and fell terribly. And yet we see evidence of his return back to the Lord, no doubt very scarred by what you see and read in the book of Ecclesiastes. We consider ourselves like the Church of Ephesus. Jesus says to the church in Ephesus, but I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

So what's the solution? I've left my first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds that you did at first. He doesn't say your love wasn't real.

He just says, remember, remember the relationship that we had. Remember the times in the word and prayer. Remember when you felt my presence when you met together with God's people in the sanctuary. Remember the ways that we enjoyed fellowship together and the fruit that was born in your life and go back and do those things again.

It's not too late for you. So what is your love story? We love him because he first loved us. I want to encourage you just to go back to that place.

If you're here today and you're like, my love is all over the place. I want you to go back and just consider one thing. Christ's love for you. If you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that right now you're at a place where your love is divided, I can't judge your heart, but I want to encourage you to go back to the memories of your first commitment to Christ.

And just recall his love for you, Jedediah. All of those in this room who are truly born again can take that name unto themselves. You are Jedediah, you are beloved of the Lord. You are the disciple whom Jesus loved.

He will not take away. His mercy from the true sons of David as he did with Saul. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will be saved.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much that you have covenanted to be a father with your children on the basis of a covenant that has to do with your name and your Your love. We thank you, Lord, for this, this difficult testimony that you've laid out. In the scriptures, it gives us great warning and yet comfort.

We thank you, Lord, for your awesome power to be raising up. chastisement at the same time that you're pronouncing blessing, that is beyond us. It is. Too beautiful for us to fathom.

We thank you, Lord, that for your mercy and for your grace, we thank you for being our Savior, Lord Jesus, the Son of David, the one greater than Solomon, who came to bear the sins. Of those he came to save, we ask Lord that as we Depart from this time of worship and preaching, that we would worship you in song, that you would fill our hearts with wonder and that we would worship you forever and ever and ever. Receive also our offerings as part of our worship. Use these gifts, Lord, to cause your word to go out through our mission teams and through individuals in this church and may Lord, you get great glory and honor for yourself.

We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, and all God's people said, Amen.