Should We Admire Solomon or Shun Him? | thebereancall.org

Should We Admire Solomon or Shun Him?

February 16, 2002
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Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.

For the last two weeks we’ve been discussing one of the most fascinating individuals in the Bible, and, in many ways, the most puzzling. And that’s King Solomon. Dave, last week we said we would discuss Solomon’s problems in relation to what’s going on today. Certainly—was it Romans:15:4 or around there—it says that “These things were written beforehand for us,” that we could really learn by them, of course referring to the Old Testament.

But we want to relate what happened to King Solomon, not just with regard to the leaders and the ecumenism that’s going on today, but also to how that affects our individual choices; how we live our life for Christ. I think that’s very important. Now, to begin with, Solomon started out—he was right before the Lord with just a couple of exceptions. He married the daughter of Pharaoh, and that seemed to be a political move, but he also . . .

Dave: Right there, Tom, that was a violation of the scriptures. The Jews were to keep themselves a pure race. They were not to intermarry with the heathen. Certainly Pharaoh’s daughter was one of the heathen, an unbeliever. So even if that had been his only wrong step, it was a wrong step.

Tom: Right, and of course we can look ahead to how that grew and really affected Solomon, but I’m getting a little bit ahead here. I’m looking at 1 Kings 3 and some of the other things—the people at the time were making sacrifices on high places, and the scripture says in verse 3, 1 Kings:3:3: “And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed and burned incense in high places.” So . . .

Dave: So, Tom, let’s deal with the “high places” for a minute, because maybe some people don’t understand. If you went to Exodus 20, God says, “If you have a sacrifice to offer, you are to make an altar of earth”—nothing fancy, just pile some dirt up. But if the soil is so rocky you can’t get enough earth scraped together, then you could make it out of rocks, but you must not lift up your tool upon it. You must not square them out and much less carve anything on them, beautify them, and you are not to go up by steps to my altar. That was a very clear command from God.

Now, the heathen, what do they do? Well, they make it as fancy as they can because their works are contributing to appeasing this “god” that they are serving or worshiping. And they want this thing to be as high as possible, you know. It’s like the Tower of Babel. The tower of Babel or “Babble,” however you want to pronounce it, was the ultimate rejection of what God said. They were going to climb by steps of their own making right into heaven itself!

So this is the whole religious ritual, the “works” trip, the sacramentalism, and so forth, and the Israelites fell into this! You could understand, perhaps, how they would fall into this. If you travel in Europe or even South America and so forth, you see some of these cathedrals that they built with cut stone and stained glass, a “high place”—many churches in America, they have the steeple. It’s kind of pointing to heaven, as though this somehow assists us in pleasing God. You can see that, well, as you travel through England, you travel through Europe, they were vying with one another. They were competing with one another—“We’ve gotta build a better one!” Notre Dame—the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris— is fabulous! Well, then, maybe in Chartres we can have a more beautiful one, you know. And I think the Israelites did the same thing; Solomon did the same thing.

Tom: You also had the minarets among those in Islam and so on.

Dave: Right. “Let’s get a high place!” And Solomon fell for this. It was a step in the wrong direction.

Tom: Right. So there were aspects of Solomon’s life that you would say he was deviating from what God had said.

Dave: Right, unfortunately.

Tom: Nevertheless, verse 5 . . .

Dave: Tom, let me just interrupt you for a second. Why would he be doing this? I can’t read his heart, and the scripture—I don’t know that it tells us that. But you can easily imagine—he wants to please the people. And the people like high places. Solomon is saying, “Well, I mean, that’s not so wrong. After all, we’re still worshiping Jehovah, and maybe I can be closer to the people, and I want to help the people and so forth.” He may have had good . . .

Tom: . . . intentions.

Dave: . . . good intentions, yeah.

Tom: Well, that could go back to the marriage with Pharaoh’s daughter. He wanted to . . . you know, we’ve talked on this program before about Constantine trying to . . . here he enters a religion, and why? He enters a religion to keep his empire . . .

Dave: Right.

Tom: . . . to keep it running smoothly, as it were.

Dave: He was the first ecumenist. He . . .

Tom: But to go back to Solomon, you marry the Pharaoh’s daughter—are you putting your trust, then, for what God has given you? He put, God put Solomon on the throne of his father, David. Now he wants to secure the throne, but is he going to do it God’s way, or does he do it . . . what seems to be politically expedient?

Dave: Of course, he had a weakness for women, didn’t he? And she must have been beautiful, but Tom there is no excuse for disobedience, compromise.

Tom: Now, let’s look at part of Solomon that I find just tremendous. In verse 5—this is 1 Kings again, 3:5—“In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night . . . ” And you have a dialog that goes on between the Lord and Solomon. And this is what Solomon says—this is verse 7, “And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: but I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.” This is a humble individual.

Dave: Yeah, he’s like Moses. We talked about this, I guess, a couple programs ago, but he’s like Moses, who says, “Lord, why are you asking me to go to Egypt to deliver your people? I can’t even talk! I’m no deliverer!” That’s the proper attitude to have before God, and if you think that it’s about time that God realized that you’re the man or the woman for the job, then I don’t think you’re in the right place. But we are nothing. And Paul said, “Unto me who am less” . . . that’s our verse around here, Tom, for our staff to think about over and over: “Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” So that’s a proper attitude to have, and Solomon undoubtedly was very sincere in this.
 

And where would this come from? Tom, I think it could only come from his recognition of God’s greatness. When we realize how great God is, we understand we are nothing!

Tom: Well, he goes on. He says, “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad, for who is able to judge this, thy so great a people?” And it pleased the Lord.

Dave: Yes, his desire is that he wants to help the people.

Tom: Right.

Dave: He genuinely wants to give righteous judgment, he genuinely wants to be God’s ruler over these people, and I’m sure that came from a sincere heart. This is his passion, his desire, but somehow other things got in the way.

Tom: Right. Well, God does indeed honor his request. In verse 12 it says, “Behold, I have done according to thy words: I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.”

Now, Dave, one of the things I find interesting—this is the account in 1 Kings. In 2 Chronicles, again dealing with Solomon, the Lord lays out a condition for Solomon that you don’t have to be someone who is so intellectual or theologically astute. It’s very simple; a three- or four-year-old can understand this. God is just laying out a condition. He says,  “And if thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked and do all according to I have commanded thee and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments, then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, there shalt not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel. But if ye turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given thee and this house which I have sanctified for my name . . .” (2 Chronicles:7:17-22). Now, Dave, I want to go on. Verse 21: “And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and unto this house? And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.”

Dave: It’s an amazing scripture, Tom. God knows what’s going to happen. But He lays it out very clearly. He knows that Solomon is going to go after other gods, so He warns him about this. He knows that because of Israel’s deviation after other gods., He is going to . . . the temple will be destroyed! This temple that starts out so beautifully fabulous, with God’s presence filling it, so that the priests can’t even stay in there!

This was unprecedented for man on this earth, that God comes now, and He dwells among His people in Jerusalem. And, in fact, He says that this is the city of God, the city of David—the place where He has put His name forever! So He’s not going to finally wipe them out, but he warns Solomon! It’s just staggering that in view of this specific warning not to go after other gods . . . !

Tom: It’s very simple, Dave. As I said, it’s a very simple statement by the Lord. It didn’t take scholarship—all the things that we esteem today: learning, wisdom, and all—it didn’t take that. It just took an obedient heart.

But this is—I want to pick up in chapter 11 of 1 Kings. It says (v. 2), “Of the nations [concerning] which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: [for] surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. [This is interesting.] And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.”

Dave: Well, Tom, he became very ecumenical. That’s a word we hear today also. We’re hearing it especially in relation to something that has very recently taken our attention, and that is Islam.

Tom: Dave just let me underscore this ecumenism on Solomon’s part. This is verse 6:11, 1 Kings: “And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as [did] David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that [is] before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.” There is his ecumenism.

Dave: It’s incredible, Tom. Incredible! And I am sure he had his justifications for this. We are seeing it today. I mean, we’ve talked about ecumenism in the past, we’ve written books about it, and we’ve done articles in the newsletter. Ecumenism, mainly between Protestants and evangelicals and Catholics—and it is very clear, we don’t need to go back into that again. Roman Catholicism has a false gospel—a gospel of ritual, of sacraments, of works. You were a Catholic. You didn’t know that you were saved. We’ve quoted Cardinal O’Connor, who is dead now, but at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, who said, “Church teaching is that I do not know at any given moment what my eternal future will be.” Pope John Paul II doesn’t know whether he will get to heaven, nor does Mother Teresa of Calcutta, because it’s not just simple faith in Christ having finished the work upon the cross, but even after you’re dead, they have Mass after Mass after Mass, hoping to get you out of purgatory.

Tom: Which is a rejection of Christ’s finished work on the cross.

Dave: Exactly. The Mass is called the “Sacrifice of the Mass,” but the Bible in Hebrews:10:18 says, “There is no more sacrifice for sins. This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever . . .” But there is an insistence that Christ is still being immolated—still being offered—and you can never know whether enough Masses have been said. You can never be sure, because good works, the scapular, you know—I have a scapular in my Bible that I carry around to show people that it says “Whosoever dies wearing this scapular shall not suffer eternal fire.” What kind of a God lets you out of hell because you wear a scapular? And why would someone who believed that Christ—what Christ said—“You believe in me,” He says, “you have passed from death to life. You will not come into condemnation.” Then why would I wear a scapular? So . . .

Tom: Dave, coming back to the ecumenism, then, if one belief system rejects the gospel but has a lot maybe in common with biblical Christianity—still, as Paul wrote to the Galatians, “If you are preached another gospel, even by an angel or whoever it might be, you are accursed.” So, this is no small issue, this is not something—“Well, they are sort of splitting hairs here.” This is the heart of biblical Christianity! If you have a false gospel, you have no eternal destiny with Christ.

Dave: You are giving people a false hope; a false way of getting to heaven, appeasing God through prayers to saints and so forth.

Okay, now, but we’ve dealt with that in the past. Now we’ve got something new that’s come up since September 11th, and that is Islam. And we have our president, who, I’m persuaded . . . at least people who seem to know him, he is a real Christian, he means well—we’ve talked about this in the past, but he is saying Islam is peace!

Now we’ve documented that thoroughly—we don’t need to go into that. Islam is not peace. You can’t give me one example where Islam brought peace. It has brought nothing but revolution and double cross and assassinations. And Muhammad himself spread Islam with the sword, and so it has been down through history.

So the terrorists are Muslims, but now we have a procession, almost an endless procession for a few months, on radio and TV of memorial services for the victims, and you have representatives of many religions! You’ve got Buddhists and Hindus and Muslim imams praying in Arabic to Allah, “the one true God, the creator of all,” and various other religious beliefs—Sikhs and so forth. And then along with them you have evangelical leaders praying, giving the impression we are all praying to the same God—a false impression! It’s not helping the Muslim, it’s not helping the Buddhist; why are we afraid to say, “Wait a minute! There is only one gospel, there is only one way, there is only one hope! I don’t want to join with you and give the impression that ‘any god will do,’ that ‘any gospel will do.’” It’s a tragedy what has been happening!

Tom: Dave, pick up with this filtering down. Now, let’s go back to Solomon just for a second. Now, Solomon is the king of Israel. What he does influences, certainly, the people under him and certainly his own family. We could look at Rehoboam, following in the footsteps, to a great deal, with the errors of his father. But we also find the people of Jerusalem, of Judah, doing the very things that the king was doing.

Dave: Of course. Well, we have leaders—Tom, you were about to mention some churches. Bill Hybels had a Muslim in his pulpit. Now, he did make some corrections, but in general you get the impression that there’s some kind of a commonality that we have. I’ve heard so many Christian—fine Christian leaders—men that I love, say, “I will not separate myself from anyone who names the name of Jesus Christ.” Wait a minute, Mormons name the name of Jesus Christ; so do Jehovah Witnesses, and so forth. I can’t give a false impression to people that Islam is okay. We have Robert Schuller, for example, who told the imam there at the Crystal Cathedral in the Joint Christian Muslim Institute for Peace, he said, “If I came back in 100 years and found out that all of my descendants were Muslims, it wouldn’t bother me, so long as they’re not atheists.”

But wait a minute! Islam is a false religion, a false god. Or Robert Schuller preached in the mosque in Damascus, and he says the man is holding . . . the Grand Mufti of the faith is holding his hand, and he says, “I never felt such oneness of the spirit as I did with this man.” Or, he told Billy Graham, when Billy Graham was on his program, the Hour of Power, Robert Schuller said, “They tell me a million Muslims—more than a million Muslims, thousands of pastors, and hundreds of rabbis, watch this program.” Well, now, what message could you preach that Muslims love it, rabbis love it, and pastors love it?

So on the one hand, I can’t judge a person’s heart. On the other hand, I have to be very careful! And I think even our president, you know I would just plead with him—I know he’s got to have a coalition that involves, tragically, Islamic countries who have been the major sponsors of terrorism. But now they’re part of a coalition against terrorism. Well, maybe that will embarrass them enough that they will acknowledge the problem and open their borders to the gospel. I don’t know, but I’ve got to be very, very careful. When I see what Solomon did, and I read the scripture that you’ve quoted, Romans:15:4, that “What things were written aforetime were written for our learning,” and I see what Solomon did, a man who started out so well, and then, for various reasons, became very ecumenical; began to worship other gods. Maybe he did it in the name of Jehovah, but there’s no excuse!

Tom: Dave, there’s two points about this that I find really interesting. Number one, we said before, Solomon had content. He had wisdom and understanding. So that wasn’t the problem for Solomon. His heart, as they say, went south.

On the other hand, some of these leaders we’re talking about, you could say some of it is naiveté. You mentioned the president. I think he’s getting counsel, but I think he’s getting bad counsel from many evangelical leaders who are really steeped in this. That’s a problem!

Dave: We have had evangelical leaders, others, who said that we’re closer to Islam than we imagine. After all, Muhammad honored Jesus as a great prophet—of course not as great as himself, that’s not going to help. We have people who try to preach Christ from the Qur’an because it talks about [how] Jesus did miracles, and so forth. Well, Tom, there’s nothing like what Solomon did and ended up worshiping these other gods, but there’s an ecumenism that is dangerous—maybe the leader understands, but those who follow him, could be led astray.

Tom: Dave, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam—I’m going to end with this quote, 2 Chronicles:12:14, which says, “And he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord.” That’s the solution to everything we’ve been talking about. If we will obey, seek Him, and obey what God says, we’re going resolve a lot of these problems.

Program Number: 
0232a

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