MPC
30th October 2016.October 30 - 1 Kings 9-11 - "The End of Wisdom"
MPC
30th October 2016.
Gary Millar
Let me cut straight to the chase and tell you what these chapters are about - 1 Kings 9-11 are about the human heart.
They are the spiritual equivalent of an angiogram.
Like many really important medical tests, reading these chapters may cause some discomfort, but if you have a serious problem, it really is better to know. You don't have to read very far into chapter 9 to get a sense of where this final phase of the Solomon narrative is going...
1 When Solomon had finished building the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, 2 the LORD appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.
Just as he did back in chapter 2, God speaks to Solomon, But things have changed. The narrator, using a very strong expression, says that Solomon had devoted his life to doing... Well, to doing exactly what he wanted to. Solomon had built, yes, but he had built all that he desired. I think that's pretty telling. Solomon had spent his life doing exactly what he wanted.
Don Carson told me once about a conversation he had with a pastor in a local church. The pastor told him about a young man who had grown up in the church. He had done well in his exams. He had gone to uni, and led the Evangelical Students (ES) group. He had come top of his year in medicine, but had gone to work in a mission hospital in Africa. He had come back, married his childhood sweetheart from the youth group, and settled down. He had become an Elder in the church. They had had children. Then he had walked out on his wife and moved in with his secretary. He would listen to no-one - not his family, not his friends, not the other elders, not the Pastor. Don asked the Pastor what he thought had gone wrong. The Pastor answered, 'I think it was because he isn't a Christian'. Don asked if he thought he was being a bit harsh. But the Pastor said, 'when we thought about this, we realized that at every stage, he had done exactly what he wanted - he did medicine because he wanted, he lead the ES group because he wanted, went to Africa because he wanted to, came home, got married, had kids because he wanted to - had an affair, because he wanted to.' He was completely consistent. He never showed any evidence of living for God rather than himself. As we move through these chapters, Solomon starts to look very like that. We need to be aware that sometimes, obedience and selfishness can look very similar. And that's how it was with Solomon. The little comment in 9:1 is the first sign that Solomon has real heart issues. Which is why God says what he does in verse 4.
God takes Solomon back to the promise he had made to his father David in 2 Samuel 7 - but God adds a little twist:
4 'As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, 5I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.''
The issue for Solomon is clear - it's his heart issues. The challenge for Solomon will be walking before God faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness.
In the Old Testament, the heart isn't where we feel our emotions, it's the control centre of the personality. The heart is the home of our convictions and passions. We make our big decisions with the heart, as well as thinking (and feeling) with it. So to have 'integrity of heart and uprightness' is to think straight, and long for the right things, and to make good decisions in the long haul. Right back in 1 Samuel, when David was chosen by God to be King, God says he did it on the basis of what was going on in David's 'heart'. David looked at things from God's perspective, that he trusted God, and was concerned for his honour. This showed up straight away when David was the only one willing to stand up for God in 1 Samuel 17 in the face of Goliath and his gods . It was made really obvious when he said 'I come in the name of the Lord God Almighty... It is Yahweh who saves... . The battle belongs to Yahweh, and he will give you all into our hands.' This is integrity of heart. It is looking at everything from God's perspective. And this was Solomon's greatest challenge.
If you still need to be convinced that these chapters, which outline Solomon's building activity, and business activity, and political brilliance, and international prominence, and incredible affluence, are ultimately about Solomon's heart - his real convictions and passions, what was actually going on in his head behind his decisions - then come with me to the start of chapter 11:
1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter-Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, 'You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.' Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been... 9 The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD.
What has been hinted at repeatedly from the beginning of 1 Kings is now made explicit - Solomon has heart issues. What Moses feared back in Deuteronomy 17 has come true:
17 The King shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. 18 'And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, 20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
Just as Moses feared, there is a real issue with the King's heart. So where did Solomon, who seemed to start so well, Solomon with all his wisdom, go so badly wrong? In the time we have left, we're going to answer that question, and then run the diagnostic tests supplied by this chapter on our hearts. So, where did Solomon go wrong?
The answer given in these chapters is a complex one. For Solomon, his heart problems, it seems had developed slowly over years.
In 2001, my mum died. She was a lovely gentle Christian woman, whose love for Jesus and desire to tell other people about him had kept growing in the last 10 years of her life. She was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 1998, had surgery, radio- and chemotherapy and went into remission. In late 2001, she had a recurrence, and another round of radiotherapy, before being given the all clear. Then in about 12 hours, she got sick and died, before either my brother or I could make it back home to see her. When my Dad and my brother and I were called to see her consultant after he'd received the post-mortem, we assumed he was going to tell us that the cancer had got her after all. But no. He told us that she had died of a heart attack. Her main artery was an incredibly 85% blocked, and apparently she could have died at any moment over the previous 25 years! My mum was a bit of a health freak, who looked really fit and healthy and was always going on at us about our poor eating habits, when all the time, her own heart was growing weaker and weaker. And that seems to have been the case with Solomon. In his case, there were four major cardiac issues.
As we've already seen, Solomon's primary heart issue was selfishness. He did exactly as he wanted. In 9:10-14, it seems that he doesn't treat his old friend Hiram very well. Not only does he sell a foreigner 20 cities in the promised land to make some extra cash he ripped his old friend off! According to verse 13, Hiram called them 'junk', but as far as Solomon was concerned, he'd got a good deal, so that was that.
He also didn't seem to worry too much about the people he conscripted to run his building programme in 9:15-23. Even though he did distinguish between the 'full-time slaves' (all foreigners according to verse 22), and the part-time Israelite slaves who worked a four month fly-in, fly-out roster, his preoccupation is his buildings, and his legacy. Solomon's main concern is Solomon. Selfishness was a big issue. But so were the big three heart-stoppers money, sex and power.
The encounter with the Queen of Sheba is a strange one. On the one hand, this is a further example that the promises God made to Abraham are being fulfilled - they are a nation in their own land, and God is blessing the whole world through his people. The Queen of Sheba is, a little like Rahab before her, quick to acknowledge Solomon's God - 10:4:
4 And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, 5 the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the LORD, there was no more breath in her. 6 And she said to the king, 'The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, 7 but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. 8 Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! 9 Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the LORD loved Israel forever, he has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness.' 10 Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold, and a very great quantity of spices and precious stones. Never again came such an abundance of spices as these that the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
This is stirring stuff. But what's interesting is Solomon's response - where he says not 'It's all down to God.' Not, 'To him alone be the glory!' What does Solomon say? Not much it seems. Nothing. He seems to have forgotten the source of his wisdom - even though the Queen of Sheba strongly nudges him in that direction. The implication is that Solomon is starting to let all this power, all this praise, go to his head. The silence is deafening.
Then there's the fact that Solomon seems to devote more and more of his energy to accumulating more and more money. He gets into boats in 9:26-28, and that gets him another pile of gold. By 10:14, his annual haul was a massive 666 talents - over 22,000 kg. He exploited Israel's position on the north-south and east-west trade routes. That brought in a tidy sum each year. And that meant he had to solve the problem of where to keep all this stuff - he had only so much room under the mattress, so he put some on the walls, and made some very large shields which went in his wife's house (10:17), and also made an enormous throne for himself (10:18-20) the like of which had never been seen before. 10:23 sums up the situation - 1 Kgs 10:23:
King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. 24 The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. 25 Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift-articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules. 26 Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. 27 The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. 28 Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue - the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price. 29 They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.
Hear that against the words of Deuteronomy 17:16 again:
Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the LORD has said to you, 'You shall never return that way again.' And he shall not ... acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
The paradox is fascinating. Is Solomon wise? Humanly speaking, yes. But his accumulation of wealth suggests that in terms of real wisdom - the fear of the Lord - his wisdom is shrinking, not growing. There is an issue with his heart.
And then there is the issue of sex. Look with me at 1 Kgs 11:1:
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter-Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, 'You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.' Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray... 7 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 8He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.
His worship of sex led him into all kinds of other idolatries - worshipping Ashtoreth, the sex god, and the vile Chemosh, and Molek. But for Solomon, it started with sex.
Solomon's heart issues are everywhere in these chapters - money, sex, power, self. And from this point in the narrative, it really is downhill all the way. Solomon, in chapter 11, starts to run into all kinds of political problems. Yahweh (11:3) raises up his first adversary, a guy called Hadad the Edomite (who takes Solomon's place as Pharaoh's favourite son-in-law in verse 19). He is soon joined by Rezon in 11:23. Finally, the nemesis of the united kingdom, Jereboam son of Nebat steps out of the shadows in 11:26. Another prophet, Ahijah, intervenes in Solomon's life in 11:29, this time to give the terrible news that as soon as Solomon is gone, the kingdom will shatter right down the middle. And the chapter ends with Solomon attempting to use his wisdom as he did back in chapter 2, by killing off his enemy - but this time, it is no use. It is all too late.
So where did Solomon go wrong? It was very definitely a heart problem. And these chapters unerringly show that up. But so much for Solomon - what about us?
So what about us? It is important first up to recognise that we are in a different position to Solomon. Not only are we not ancient Kings with a huge harem, but we are also living under a 'new covenant'. We have already been given new hearts, or as Paul puts it, we already have the mind of Christ - the spirit-given ability to think straight. However, before we dismiss the gap between us and a man like Solomon too quickly., it's good to remember that what the new covenant does is put you and me in a position that is very like that of prophets, priests and kings in the Old Testament. These three groups were given the Spirit that they might know God and talk for him and about him, and act as go-betweens for God, and rule with God. In one way, the new covenant is an extension of these privileges to gentile nobodies like us. Yes, there is a ramping up of the privileges - yes the Spirit lives in us with a permanence and probably power that they did not know. But God has not changed - and nor has the potential of our hearts to go astray.
The truth is that you and I will face the same heart issues as Solomon in these chapters. These are the great obstacles to living authentically for God. When we read these chapters, we see some of our own heart issues played out in front of me. So let me ask you, what's the state of your heart just now?
I'll be brutally honest with you. The degree to which I am being selfish at any given point is a true guide to where my head is at - to where my heart is. When I talk a lot about myself, it reveals the condition of my heart. When I start saying 'I've done a long hard day - I think I've earned a glass of wine in front of the TV' it reveals where my heart's at. When I'm asked to travel Interstate, and my mind doesn't run straight away to how that will affect Fiona and the girls, it is a tell-tale sign of where my priorities are. When I wake up in the morning thinking 'I really need to get into work - I have so much to do' - it's a dead giveaway of what matters. When I say to myself 'I don't have time to read the Bible and pray this morning', it shows up that there is something wrong with my thinking, my decision making, my desires. It shows up my heart problem. So where does your selfishness show? How selfish are you being right now?
Similarly, when I find myself maneuvering and manipulating to make sure that I get my own way, when the goal of my words and actions are all about seizing control, when I take delight in bossing other people, or take pride in being one step ahead of the pack, or when I force people to bend to my agenda, then it is a clear sign that I have heart issues. So how is it for you? How important is it for you to be in control? To make sure that you are in charge?
And when we start thinking about money too much, something has gone wrong with our hearts. I don't know if you've realised it, but our hearts do tend to go off the rails very quickly when it comes to money, irrespective of how much we actually have. In a moment, we become preoccupied with why we aren't paid more; how we could earn more, what we would spend it on if we had more. If we get a windfall or an unexpected bonus, in a matter of seconds we start thinking about how to spend it - in a flash, we are checking out every other car on the road, or thinking how good it would be to renovate the bathroom, or wondering where the best place to buy the new MacBook Air is, or whether the carbon fibre frame is worth the extra money on that bike. If we aren't careful, money will very quickly take a grip on our hearts. So how are you going in your attitude to money?
At the risk of stating the obvious, if we are thinking too much about finding someone, having sex with someone or the sex we aren't having with someone, then something has gone wrong with our hearts. We are so vulnerable in this area. One of the problems with our hearts is that they love to be stroked. That means when we find someone who listens to us, who takes us seriously, who values us, who praises us, who actually seems to like us we are in real danger. Over the years, I have known a few people in ministry who have made terrible decisions and wrecked their families and their ministries by having affairs. And do you know what almost always triggers things? Not lust. Not simply sexual temptation. It generally starts with someone who is feeling bad about themselves as a husband, as a human being, as a pastor, as a woman, being praised and listened to and affirmed. And a couple of bad decisions and a few lies later, without sensible boundaries in place, and it ends up in disaster. But the problem isn't in people's pants. It's in their hearts.
So what about your heart? What about mine? Let me ask you bluntly. Right now, where do you find your greatest joy? Where do you find your mind running to in idle moments? What are you really looking forward to in the next 24, 36, 48 hours? What will you rearrange everything to do? You don't need me to tell you that 'Where your treasure is, your heart will be also'. I don't think it's accidental that just a couple of lines after he says that in Matthew, Jesus mentions Solomon in all his glory. Heart issues are right at the core of this narrative, and they are the biggest issue we all face - and they don't go away! So what can we do about this, now that our heart problems have been searingly exposed?
To be honest, there is no answer in 1 Kings 1-11 - apart from one little note of hope tucked away in 11:36:
I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name.
Even as Solomon slides into unfaithfulness, God says that one day, a better king than Solomon will come. One who lives and breathes wisdom. One who loves Yahweh perfectly, and does it for us, One who can forgive us and change on the inside - one to whom we can run to in our brokenness and sinfulness.
So what can people like you and me do with our ongoing heart issues? The answer is not complex. We are to do what Solomon never did - we are to humble ourselves before God. Admit we are messed up to the core, and run back to the God who made us and loves us. We are to bring our heart issues to Jesus himself. Here's how James, Jesus' younger brother, who seems to have thought more about wisdom and foolishness than anyone else, describes both our basic problem, and what we need to do in response. James 4:1:
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. ... 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: 'God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.' 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
This is real wisdom. Real wisdom sees the power of God's promise in Christ, and delights in the life that Christ has given us, and realizes the vast gulf between us and God, yet trusts in Christ alone and his strength to help us to negotiate this world which is dominated by selfishness, money, sex and power. This is the wisdom we need. The wisdom that flows from the one who makes this promise:
I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. (Ezek 11).
This is the only treatment that can fix our hearts. This is the key to loving God and other people. This is the wisdom which God encourages us to ask for in Christ, knowing that he is poised to give.
Jonathan Edwards, in A treatise on Religious Affections wrote this:
All gracious affections which are a sweet odour to Christ, filling the soul of a Christian with a heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are broken-hearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints however earnest are humble desires, their hope is a humble hope and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble, broken-hearted joy leaving the Christian more poor in spirit, more like a little child and more disposed to true lowliness of behavior.
So this morning, let's face our heart issues as we see them played out in the life of Solomon, and let's run to the Lord Jesus, the one who is far greater than Solomon - for we have been joined to him through faith and brought to life in him in the power of the Spirit.
Let's humble ourselves before him, knowing that he can lift us up.