But Solomon slipped and fell

Monday 5-18-15  (Los Menucos, Argentina)

Scripture reading:  1 Kings 3    2 Chron 1    Ps 78    2 Thess 2

S.  1 Kings 3:1  “Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and married one of his daughters. He brought her to live in the City of David…”

Vs 7-9  “O LORD my God, now you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn't know his way around.  And here I am among your own chosen people, a nation so great they are too numerous to count!  Give me an understanding mind so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great nation of yours?”  NLT

O.  Solomon started out with a humble attitude, recognizing that he needed special wisdom to face such a great task.  Now in a dream he pleads for Godly wisdom.  Yet even before this dream he had taken a step in the wrong direction.  He fell for a pretty foreign woman.  He had made a treaty with Pharoah and taken Pharoah’s daughter as his wife.  I suppose this may have been, in part, a security so that Pharoah would never attack him, but it was precisely against the charge of the Jehovah God, since the Lord had warned the Israelites that foreign women were certain to bring their false gods and religions with them. 

A.  Solomon was given a great deal of wisdom and used it to judge God’s people, construct the temple and maintain peace for many years, yet as the years passed he allowed women to be his downfall.  Solomon is my mentor.  His story is written in God’s manual for my spiritual health and moral conduct.  Solomon was used of God to give us proverbs of great wisdom, yet he allowed the women in his life to pull him down into the pit of their pagan rituals.  

Nehemiah later writes of Solomon; “Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women.”  Neh 13:26  NIV

P.  Oh God, how we need your help to keep us men out of trouble!  We are born sinners.  Our eyes seem pre-programmed to look where we should not look.  Strange women become “every man’s battle.”  And now with internet access, while we are all alone in secret behind closed doors, we have their images flashed before us and calling to us.  Oh God, give us the strength of Your Holy Spirit to take a firm stand and never let Solomon’s downfall become ours.  We must set our hearts to forcibly avoid Satan’s prostitutes and like Joseph of old, we must run… run… run from that dangerous thing that threatens to drag us into this terrible, addictive sin.  Lord Jesus, I pray for myself, my sons, my grandson, my fellow ministers and missionaries.  Keep us from slipping into Solomon’s debasing, hopeless pit.  Amen.

Ralph