 You know, I've been blessed to teach on Tuesday mornings our men's study and we've been going through first Kings and It's been a great book because it's been allowing us guys to see how the Lord works in our lives and this evening I want to use some refried manna and take you guys through first Kings chapter 11 We're gonna be looking at the first eight verses and I've entitled this the failure of King Solomon Let's pray Father we ask that your hand will be upon us in this study May your name be glorified and honored in Jesus name. Amen My question for you this evening is how do we measure? success or failure in our lives and What constitutes failure? What constitutes success? How do we measure if our lives are successful or if our lives are an utter failure? When we look here at first Kings chapter 11 the first thing that we see here in verse one is but now King Solomon loved We know that King Solomon is the successor of David his father and he was considered the wisest man ever He built a beautiful temple that housed the Ark of the Covenant the Holies of Holies he took great detail to To fix the the great details of the temple were amazing he had guys from Lebanon come and and Detail the walls and and to create such an amazing palace and structure He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes and the song of Solomon Matter of fact in first Kings chapter 3 the Lord appears to Solomon and asks him What shall I give you? Solomon didn't ask for fame nor riches nor did he ask for Recognition or power he asked God for an understanding heart to lead his people And when we look at first Kings chapter 3 verse 10 God was pleased with what Solomon asked We look at first Kings chapter 3 verses 11 to 13 and it says then God said to him because you have asked This thing an understanding heart and had not asked for a long life for yourself Nor asked for riches nor have asked for life of your enemies But asked yourself to understand and discern justice Behold I have done according to your words See I have given you a wise and understanding heart So that there has not been anyone like you before you nor shall there be anyone after you? And I have also given you what you have not asked both riches and honor That there shall not be anyone among you Of IQ in the kings of all your days. I mean this came straight From the Lord. What better encouragement when we we can have when we hear something like this from the Lord When you look at first Kings chapter 3 verse 3 We'll see the words and it says that and Solomon Love the Lord A kingdom so amazing A kingdom that is backed up by God A kingdom that is from God himself is firmly established What can possibly go wrong? I'm glad you asked Let's take a look Let's look at verses 1 through 4 But King Solomon loved many foreign women As well as the daughter of Pharaoh Women of the Moabites and the Ammonites and the Edomites and 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 shall nor they with you Surely they will turn your heart away after their gods Solomon clung to these in love And yet 700 wives princesses and 300 concubines and his wives Turned his heart away 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 his god And was their heart of their as the heart of their father David What can go wrong? A man whose kingdom has been established and when you look at first kings in the earlier chapters It says that his kingdom was firmly firmly established And god even said when the temple was built that my name will endure on this house forever So what can possibly go wrong? All the great things that Solomon has accomplished We see has been now wiped away And we notice that verse one begins with a very interesting word but I'm real big about transitions when we're looking at god's word because the transitions give us indicators and insight What the writer wants to tell us? And when you look through chapters one through ten you see all the great works that Solomon has done The temple the ark of the covenant instilling worship with the people. He was the wisest king ever And then we hear the word but We all know how this word works, right? Every day we hear it in our conversations You did a great job but Or you're a really nice person, but Just forget everything that was said right before that right because the truth is going to come out And this is what we see here We see the writer is transitioning with the word but Just forget about everything that Solomon has accomplished in the first ten chapters And we see here in verse one that Solomon loved many women What's interesting is that when we contrast that with first kings chapter three verse three It said that Solomon loved the lord What happened? What changed? There was no one else responsible For Solomon's love for these many women many women than he himself We can often put the blames on others for our sinful actions You know, I was born this way Or the devil made me do it The man who had loved the lord in chapter three verse three Has come to love many foreign women The difference here is so obvious But it's so subtle at the same time and this is what I want to point out with us this evening He had loved In chapter three verse three The king of kings and the lord of lords The one who created heavens and the earth The one who parted the red sea The one who brought the plagues against Egypt He loved him But now we see that Solomon's heart Has been turned away where he now loves many foreign women His love for the lord has been replaced with many And how oftentimes can we do the same thing? Maybe it's not so obvious as it as it is here, but in very subtle ways Look how we throw the word love out So easily today I love burritos But we throw it around so easily and we attach so many things to it that to eventually too much of it will lead our hearts away And before we know it the love that we are to have for the lord has now been replaced with many things And addressing the church of Ephesus Jesus gave a stern warning In in revelation chapter two verse four. We says you have left your first love Often love can be in our love can be infiltrated with so many things But one of the biggest things that our love can be infiltrated with is self Just do it makes you feel good. You deserve it And oftentimes our hearts are not turned away by many women It's turned away by the lust Of our pursuit of things because of self Jesus goes on to warn in revelation chapter two verse five remember therefore From where you have fallen Repent and do the first works Or else I will come to you and remove quick come to you quickly And remove your lampstand from its place Unless you repent What are some of the things this evening you guys that we throw around that we'd love What are some of the things that we have replaced the things that were to give to the lord with many things You know in deuteronomy chapter 17 17 god God's law for the king said you shall not acquire many wives for yourself So my question to you this evening would be how many is too many How much is too much in our lives? A writer here adds in chapter in verse one that Solomon loved many women as well as a daughter of pharaoh Solomon's pointing out that solomons god is point the writers pointing out that solomon's relationship just didn't Start with foreign women, but it also included the daughter of pharaoh The point that The point now is that solomons relationship with foreign women just didn't stop with them But it continued These many foreign women that are mentioned here the moabites the ammonites the edomites the sydonians and the hittites It's interesting when you look at this in the Hebrew language that these are in the plural form It's not just one ammonite Or one hittite Or one sydonian the word here in the Hebrew means plural there were many So this prepares us for the extraordinary numbers that we see in verse three All of these mentioned will eventually become sworn enemies of israel and the love for the sydonian women That won't end well Because in time another king will make a disastrous connection with a sydonian woman named Jezebel That is later describes in first kings chapter 16 verse 31 But when we look at verses two and three the writer makes something very clear here He's given a clear warning Regarding the love and the many that Solomon has turned his heart to This warning is telling us that if you love and have many Your hearts will be turned away after their gods And when you look at the end of verse two, we see something very disturbing here He says that he clung to these in love Our writers makes a rathereen and puzzling disturbing Statement when he says Solomon clung to these in love The language that is used here is really interesting Because when you look at the verb clung In the original language it applies to a marriage It applies to the intimacy that a husband and wife will share together It will it speaks of a bond that is closely knitted to one each other's hearts It can be as in genesis chapter 2 verse 24 A man shall hold fast or cling to his wife But it also applies to faithfulness to the lord Hold fast or cling to him Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 20 tells us that you shall fear the lord your god You shall serve him and you shall hold fast and take oaths in his name So what or who did Solomon cling to? Well, we look closely at the verse here and it says that he clung to these Well, what are these? Well, it could be obvious that he's referencing the foreign women the many foreign women But when you take a closer look at the word these in the original language, it's grammatically masculine So it's not talking about the many foreign women. It's talking about their gods He clung to their gods This suits in the context that if he clung to their gods then in verse three we see that he had 700 wives princesses 300 Concubines and his wives turned his heart away now because my wife is here this evening. I am not going to comment on 300 wives 300 Numbers are shocking aren't they? When we begin to allow our love to be misplaced and other things, there will be too many that eventually pull your hearts away from the lord We need to examine our hearts to see what are those things that we'd love that we throw around so easily What are those things that we are clinging to? So our writer is not exaggerating when he tells us in verse one that he loved many So what happened? What happened to Solomon? A man after a man that loved God What happened is what our writer tells us here in verse three And his wives turned away his heart Going back and looking at the word clung at the verse at the last part of verse two There's an application that we can make here for all of us We see that Solomon loved in verse one Then we see in verse two that he clung And in verse three we see that he's his heart was turned You know what we love in our hearts What we love in our lives Is what we're going to cling to And what we cling to is what we're going to love And what we love will dictate the direction we're going to go There is no loving the lord and clinging to the world and expect to have a heart that is for jesus There is no half foot in and loving the lord and expecting the holy spirit to work in our lives What are we allowing our hearts to cling to this evening? Solomon had asked the lord in first kings chapter three verse nine to give him a hearing heart And his request was granted So that he can say in proverbs chapter 21 verse one The heart the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the lord He turns it wherever he will King Solomon for many love for many foreign women introduced another power that turned His heart in a very different direction and that is loyalty We know that when the bible speaks of the heart it it's more than just the emotional center of the person It's the place where our thoughts our plans our decisions as well as our deep emotions really come from the heart Right. How many times this morning has your mind been changed? How many times this morning has your heart been changed? So what happened to king Solomon's heart? Well, look what it says in verse four For it was so so when Solomon was old His wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart was not loyal to the lord His god As was the heart of the father of the father of david For Solomon went after asterisk the goddess of the Sidonians and after milkan the abomination of the ammonites 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 Chimosh the abomination of moab and on the hill that is east of jerusalem and for molek the abomination of the people of amon And he did likewise for all his foreign wives who burn incense and sacrificed to their gods We see another transition word here in phrase in verse four for it was so In other words in this sad truth of this all Solomon went after You know, it seems that this effect that we see here this process that's going on was not immediate and apparent And that's how kind of things sneak up in our lives, right? It's not really immediate and apparent Sometimes we're subtly or we compromise a little here and there and it becomes a little easier each time All we have to do is turn off the the lights in this room and walk in and give our eyes a few minutes And then it gets easier to walk in the dark And in Solomon's old age his wise influenced his devotion to god And he worshipped other gods How did this outrage occur? How did this happen? What we see at the end of verse four And his heart was not loyal To the lord his god In other words, his heart was no longer loyal to god the the lord had ceased to be a major factor in his life And once this shift occurred The next steps to idolatry become more natural and an easier step but now The new Solomon He's generous He's tolerant He's understanding and open-minded You Christians stop being so rigid He's flexible and tolerant to all these different gods That's probably how he thought about himself But doesn't it sound familiar to today's Christian? Just accept everything There's no repentance There's no obedience There's no dying to self. No picking up our cross and following the lord It's all roads lead to heaven and we begin to Now compromise as each step gets easier and easier and easier I love her lord and and I want to be respectful to their beliefs You know, I just want to keep the peace and I don't want to get anybody upset You know, their their view is their view and my view is my view Their Jesus is their Jesus and and my Jesus is my Jesus. Let's not just let's just keep the peace loyalty If there's one thing that has been lost Today, it's loyalty to the lord A heart that is not loyal will have a heart that is turned away by many things There is no such thing as half-hearted loyalty There's no such things as being loyal to the things of the lord and having loyalty to the things of the world There's no such thing Loyalty requires a full and hearing and loving heart But so many times what we can do is that we can fill our lives with a love for many things And those that hearing heart that God has given us to listen to his spirit and to be led by the spirit Is often distracted by these many things What have we allowed in our lives this evening guys? What loyalty Do we have? Because there's no such thing as half loyalty There's no such thing as unbeing loyal to the lord, but I still want to wear the patch of the world It will never work And you're eventually your heart will be turned away In mark chapter 12 verse 30 it says and you shall love the lord your god with all your heart With all your soul with all your mind with all your strength. This is the first commandment It's not a suggestion It's not calling dr. Phil or Oprah and asking them what they think It's not going down the street and checking in with your friends. It is from the lord as a commandment And in verse five we see that Solomon now begins to go after other gods and two are mentioned here asterisk and milkham And the bible tells us that he went after him which precisely is what the law of moses Forbade listen what it says in deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 19 It says then it shall be if you by any means forget the lord your god And follow other gods and serve them and worship them I testify you against you this day that you shall surely perish There's no gray area in that verse right there, right? It's telling us straight out So who is asterisk? she was a god Considered to be the female partner of ba all The great canaanite storm god She's known outside of our text by different names as astarte She was among other things a goddess of war But mostly she was referenced as the goddess of sex And this goddess asterisk has been a stumbling bot to the israelite since they came into canaan Because in judges chapter 2 verse 13 it says they forsook the forsook the lord and they serve ba all and the asterisk Isn't it fitting for Solomon to worship a sex goddess Given the number of women referenced in verse 3 The second god here is interesting He's known here as milkom, but when you look at it in the hebrew it's a variant of a couple different gods But it's referencing the god of called molek I don't know if you guys have heard of molek But we are confronted here with something pretty horrendous That the writer is showing us here Molek was the deity to whom children were burned alive in sacrifices There would be a statue of molek and they would heat his arms up to a brass A brass statue and they would heat the arms up until the arms turned white And the they would come and they would place their newborn babies or their babies on the arms of the statue And they would sacrifice them to molek Imagine the screams that were going on as these babies were being scorched to death When the people of israel adopted the practices of molek, they became utterly corrupt Jeremiah chapter 32 verse 35 says and they built high places of Baal which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom To cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to molek Which I did not command them nor did I did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin What's interesting in verse 5 is that the writer here can't even hide his disgust Because what he says here is that milkham Was this uh milkham the abomination of the ammonites the writer is so disgusted about this god that he doesn't even call him a god He calls him an abomination See when there is idols lifted up in our lives, we must have that same Discuss as a writer has here. There is no room for idols in our lives The word here that he uses the abomination of the ammonites is the expression Of the strongest revulsion and discuss in the Hebrew language But what is truly the difference? We look at this passage and we say how disgusting How can anybody do that really? What's the difference? Many of us are here that that put our babies on a sacrifice to the god of soccer to the god of sports To the god of i need to more time away at work so i can make more money I need to do this and pursue that what's really the difference That our babies are being sacrificed for the pursuit of something What's truly the difference? What are we sacrificing our children for? It doesn't have to be soccer. It can be sports. It can be a number of different things But what are we sacrificing our children for a position at work? More money a title recognition More hours a better car We say this is disgusting, but really what's the difference? In verse five it tells us that Solomon went after It reminds me of the same language that is used in proverbs chapter seven Describe in the young man devoid and of under devoid of understanding remember that guy that's explained in chapter seven of proverbs In case you don't i'll read it to you In proverbs chapter seven verses 22 to 23 we see a young man that's being described And the same language is used here immediately He went after her as an ox goes to the slaughter or as a fool to the correction of the stocks till an arrow struck his liver And a bird hastened to the snare. He did not know it would cost him his life The same one after that is used here in verse five is the same went after in verse in proverbs chapter seven So what are we going after? Are there idols in our lives that we're pursuing? When we hear the word idol we often think of statues and objects and reminiscent of those that are worshiped Pagan gods here in the old testament, but what about the idols of the 21st century? to men today What about the idols of the 21st century that often bear no resemblance of these artifacts that were used thousands of years ago? What's the difference? We know that an idol can be anything that we place ahead of god in our lives And today there have been many that has replaced the golden calf with a voracious drive for money for prestige for success in the eyes of the world And an idol can be anything that we place ahead of god anything that takes god's place in our hearts such as possessions careers Relationships hobbies spoits sports entertainment goals greed addictions. You notice this list doesn't have golf So i'm good But in the end it doesn't matter Which Idol is pursued but what does matter is that will lead to an empty pleasure that we will continue to Chase after over and over and over and over until we're filled with many It doesn't matter what what empty pleasures we chase after or what idol or which false god we bow down to the result will always be the same Separation from the one true god and utter failure and destruction. How does Solomon fail? Because he loved many In deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 13 it says you shall fear the lord your god and serve him and shall take oaths in his name But it's so unfortunate today you guys that god is often shoved out of the way as we zealously pursue idols But worse than that it's the amount and the significant amount of time that we spend in these idolatrous Pursuits that leaves us with little or no time to spend with the lord something. I always challenge the men with What is your prayer life look like? What is your devotional life look like? How much time are you spending in god's word or how much time are you watching espn? See the idolatrous pursuits don't come necessarily With an object it can be the time that is involved This is another form of idolatry today. That's very prevalent Its growth is fostered by cultures that continue to drift away from the sound bop biblical teaching And just as the apostle paul warns us it says for they will there will for the time will come when men will not endure sound doctrine This is the biggest idol worship going on today When we have these pluralistic And liberal times that were many cultures have to some large degree try to redefine god And there has been a time where the god that is revealed to us in the bible has been forsaken And as we have changed him to comply to our own preferences and desires He's the kinder and gentler god Who is more tolerant Than the one that is truly revealed in scripture the bible tells us that When god references himself that i am a jealous god But sometimes we portray a god who is less demanding Or he's less judgmental who will tolerate many lifestyles and and without placing guilt on anyone's shoulders That's the idol that is prevalent today that god has been redefined to fit in their little box But we know we serve a true and mighty and awesome god that there is no way that our finite minds can put an infinite god in a box And we see here in verse six Solomon did evil In the sight of the lord and did not fully follow The lord as did his father david You know at one time things had been different in the kingdom Solomon loved the lord It's interesting when you look back at chapter three verse three and it says Solomon loved the lord they didn't reference him as king But here in chapter 11 it references that king What does that tell us? Do you think there was some pride? Do you think that he began began to be too big for his britches? When we think everything's going well and i'm in a place where i'm good with the lord This is where we need to be more earnest in seeking the power of the holy spirit And Solomon's failure also resulted that in verse six that he did evil in the sight of the lord And the writer here makes a contrast of Solomon fully not following the lord as did his father david And we need to need to make no mistake in what fully following is Because if we're not fully following then we're not following There's no middle ground We can't follow this and follow god fully Look what it says in verse seven Then Solomon built a high place for chimoosh The abomination of moab on the hill that is east of Jerusalem and for molek the abomination of the peoples of Ammon And he did likewise for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed To their gods Another couple of guides are mentioned here chimoosh He was that national god of the moabites also considered a god of war This false god was the absolute god to the moabites The bible references chimoosh here in numbers chapter 21 verse 29 where it says, what do you moab? You have perished. Oh people of chimoosh He has given his sons as fugitives and his daughters into captivity to saihond the king of the amorites Chimoosh This is where we get the word chismosos So all of you who are chismosos are following the god of chimoosh When we begin to pursue other things Our hearts will begin to build contradiction to the lord Because when we look at verse seven here We see that Solomon built high places Now Solomon was the builder of god He was built. He had built the temple as mentioned earlier He built the the holies of holies He he built the place specifically for the ark of the covenant to rest where god's presence would dwell But when we begin to lift our hearts to other things, there will always be a contradiction of worship in our hearts Because when we see here the writer here in verse seven makes it really clear Because it says Solomon built a high place for chimoosh Not only did he build a high place for him, but look where it's located It says here on the hill that is east of jerusalem That's something we can pass over so quickly reading this passage But when we stop to take a look about what took a close look at what the writers telling us Is that the building that once Solomon did for the lord and a heart that loved god He is now building high places for these gods in a place that is significant in jerusalem Because east of jerusalem is the mount of olives And we know how significant the mount of olives is we even see how significant the mount of olives will be in prophecy When jesus returns for the second time he will set foot on the mount of olives It's on the mount of olives where jesus spent a lot of time praying It's a lot place where he spent a lot of time with his disciples And it's the mountain that is directly east of jerusalem and him building this high place for chimoosh here What he is doing is that he is to confronting the temple of god himself Because remember the temple is there in jerusalem just east of jerusalem is the mount of olives He was confronting the true place of worship by building a high place for this false god How did this happen? Solomon the builder are so many find in important buildings Specifically the house were the name of the lord dwelt But at his old age he built high places of worship for these disgusting gods The mount of the mountain isa jerusalem where these Detestable high places were built was a mount of olives as if he were to confront the temple in which god himself dwelt in See what leads up to when we begin to follow many or love many That leads us from the the worship of god to the worship of other things Our hearts will begin to confront the true place of worship later in second kings Chapter 23 verse 13 it will be called the mount of corruption We have been created To worship the lord But oftentimes we can build those high places in our hearts that confronts the heart that belongs to the lord And the result is that our hearts become the hearts of corruption When we see here in verse 8 that he did like wife for all his foreign wives He burned incense and sacrificed to their gods I hope that we're disgusted And what happened in solemn's old age? I hope that we're troubled by the fact that the heart of solemn's terrible failure as god's king is at the heart Of failure in every human being I hope we examine our hearts and and look at those things that we may love and and to measure isn't many I hope that we will now look to jesus christ and see this amazing wonder That he did not fail as we fail His whole hearted love and faithfulness to god His father never faulted Our hearts have been designed to worship the lord Our hearts are not designed to build high places Our hearts are deserved for god's love only our hearts do not deserve the love for many things Because when we think about what jesus christ has done for each and every one of us How could we not lift our hearts to him? But what can happen is that we can become complacent And we allow a compromise here a compromise there And our loyalty begins to shift What are we in love with this evening? What are we pursuing? Are we pursuing the many promises and riches in christ jesus that Ephesians chapter two tells us or are we in pursuit of worldly things? There is no middle ground Either our hearts are fully following god or our hearts are not fully following god Where are we? Where's our love and who are we loving? Philippians chapter two verses eight and eleven says And being found in the appearance as man as he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death Even the death of the cross Therefore god has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name That at the name of jesus that every knee shall bow Of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth And that every tongue should confess that jesus christ is lord To the glory of god the father What has jesus done for you? What has he done for you? everything So why would we build high places in our hearts? Your heart belongs to jesus Your worship belongs to jesus your love and affection belongs to jesus nothing else And if you're honest with yourself and you ask what am i in love with? Now i know my wife would say me of course Why are you guys laughing? What are we in love with? My prayer is that we examine our hearts and that we If there are high places that we strike them down My prayer is that our hope and trust is in jesus christ My prayer is that we live lives that bring glory and honor to his name Especially in the world that is lost in dying May our worship be for the true god only May our love be for him only amen