What would be the worst thing to happen to you at the end of your life?
For me, it might well be losing your mind.
For others, it may be the terrible tragedy of losing your children, somewhat like happened to Job.
For many, I guess, it would be that everything that you have spent your life building just crumbles away. In today’s passage, we see a repeat of God’s warning and the beginning of the end.
Rather than me reading it out, I’m going to play this version of 1 Kings 9 read out to us.
PLAY
PRAY
We join the story, picking up from where we left off last week, with Solomon finally finishing the temple, and he gives that amazing prayer that we looked at last week.
This chapter comes in two parts. The first is another appearance by God to Solomon. We kind of forget about this second appearance, even though an appearance by God to anyone is really quite an event to note. We forget about it, because God doesn’t really say anything new.
Verse 3
I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever.
Now we saw this in Chapter 6, didn’t we?
Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.”
I spoke on this two weeks ago, and I hope that you remember what I said. And this is important, because God doesn’t repeat himself without good reason. Let me remind you of what I said two weeks ago. We have this strange tension between what God promised to David, because that was without condition, and this conditional promise that He gives to Solomon. Why? Because God knows the future, He knows what Solomon will do, and He will fulfill His promises regardless of Solomon’s failure… and I showed you then that God fulfills His promises through Jesus Christ, who is God’s full plan for His temple and where He puts His name forever.
So it’s always worth asking, what’s different about this passage? Let’s look on:
Verse 6
But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my 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 that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”
Wow.
Solomon has just prayer an amazing prayer and offered a ton of sacrifices and completed the building of a magnificent temple for God and God say this to him?
Wow.
Why? Because God knows where Solomon’s heart is.
And this is my first point. We had better listen and heed God’s warnings. He is patient with us, and sometimes it takes God repeating it more than once to us, and we know that God listens to our prayers, but he also knows what’s in our hearts, so we better listen and we better heed God’s warnings. To Solomon, he gave this warning, and sadly, we know that this came about.
Let me read it again:
But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my 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 that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”
What a terrible and dire warning to Solomon, but also to the kings that followed him.
The second half of the chapter looks at Solomon’s actions, and we see some of the warning signs of what is to come in Solomon’s reign. The first thing he does is he gives Hiram, King of Tyre twenty cities. Perhaps you might think that this is a border move, but it not just giving away buildings here, he is giving away the cities and the inhabitants. And we see that Hiram is not pleased with this deal, but still, God is blessing Solomon and Hiram follows through with the deal and sends a tremendous amount of gold to Solomon.
Next follows an account of the slavery going on. The bible is silent as to whether this is a good or a bad thing. The Old Testament laws allowed for slavery and these are some of the inhabitants of Canaan that made deals with Israel as they entered the land. There is a double mention of Solomon’s wife, Pharoah’s daughter, in verses 11 and 24, which we know was not a good thing, but also speaks about the looming threat of Egypt to Israel, which we will see more of in Chapter 11.
We then see Solomon showing some devotion to God with his burnt offerings and peace offerings three times a year in ver 25, and finally more of his dealing with Hiram.
The small warning bells are there, but since we know what’s going to happen to Solomon, I’m going to take my message from these.
You see Solomon, after doing these great works and giving this great prayer, he just goes on about his daily business. It’s when we have just done something great that we are most vulnerable to complacency isn’t it?
I’ve heard it said that in tennis, the most likely time for someone to break your serve is when you’ve just broken theirs. In football, soccer for the Americans, I know that it’s very often that a goal is scored almost immediately after the other side has scored. It’s when we’ve done something great that we are most complacent… and this was true of Solomon as we see in the next couple of chapters. He’s done the great act. The thing that he will be remembered in the rest of history for. He can sit back and know that he has assured his legacy.
My first point was that we must heed God’s warnings.
My second point is that we cannot become complacent in our service to God.
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
My final point is this: our lives must match our devotion in church.
We’ve seen how much Solomon shows his devotion to God. We saw it in his building of the temple, we saw it with what he asked of God, in humility to serve God’s people, we see in verse 25 in today’s passage. Three times a year he give offerings to God, and these would not be our paltry tithe that we give week on week, these would have been massive amounts of blood sacrifices… but outside that, he goes about his day-to-day business.
I commented about this a few years ago when Mike said to me that he saw me at Horizon Hills, and he waved at me, but I didn’t see him. That’s one of the very few times I saw him outside church. The church doesn’t see what I do day-to-day, so how do they know what I get up to?
I don’t see you guys day-to-day. I don’t know what you get up to.
So this is the question: does your daily life match your devotion in church?
Romans 12:1 says
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship.
It is your body, your whole lives, that God demands.
I’m going to finish on a passage that should be familiar to many of us, and should have been echoing in our minds as we read that terrible warning to Solomon:
Matthew 16:26
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
We need to heed God’s warning.
We cannot become complacent in our service.
Does our daily life match our devotion in church?
PRAY
