Sermon Tone Analysis

Leader Guide ESV, Unit 12, Session 4

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Edited by Rev. Lex DeLong, M.A., Oct. 2022.

Summary and Goal

The death of Solomon marked the end of Israel’s Golden Age, the United Kingdom under Saul, David, and Solomon (circa 1050-930 BC).

Soon after Solomon’s death, the kingdom of Israel was torn in two.

Judah and part of Benjamin formed the nation of Judah in the south while the remaining tribes in the north kept the name Israel.

While on the surface it might seem as though Israel divided because Solomon’s son Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders, the seeds of the split were sown long before that during Solomon’s reign.

Compromise led to sin, and sin brought consequences that were felt for generations after.

But even though God’s people were unfaithful to Him, God was never unfaithful to them.

God had told David that there would always be a son of David on the throne.

And because of Jesus, that is a promise kept.

Session Outline

++Foolish choices compromise devotion to God (1 Kings 11:1-8).

++Foolish choices come with consequences (1 Kings 11:9-13).

++Foolish choices create problems for others (1 Kings 12:12-17).

Session in a Sentence

Sin against God has consequences that impact others.

Christ Connection

Solomon was a king whose reign was marked by prosperity and peace, but in the end, Solomon’s sinful compromise led to the division of the kingdom.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus spoke of Himself when He claimed “something greater than Solomon is here” (Luke 11:31).

Whereas Solomon’s sinful choices divided the kingdom, Christ’s righteous submission to God established a new unity for God’s people.

page 121 of the DDG

On an unusually cold Florida morning in January of 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral to begin its tenth mission.

Onboard was schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, and her status as the first teacher in space ensured millions of school children were tuned in to watch the launch.

Seventy-three seconds later, the Challenger exploded in a horrifying plume of smoke and fire.

The investigation into the disaster determined that the explosion was caused by the failure of a rubber gasket—an O-ring—that had become brittle and stiff due to the cold.

As a result, flames escaped from the booster and ignited the fuel tank.

It’s hard to believe that the failure of such a small ring of rubber could have such catastrophic consequences.

What is even more tragic is that engineers were aware of the possibility of failure based on data from previous shuttle missions.

Tragically, warnings were unheeded, and the shuttle blew apart, killing all seven onboard. 1

Ask:

Why are people prone to ignore warnings and the possibility of consequences?

(we are prideful; we believe we can manage the potential consequences; we don’t believe bad things will happen to us)

The story of Solomon is another story of warnings ignored, leading to tragic consequences.

Just as the integrity of the Challenger O-ring was compromised by the cold temperatures, Solomon’s coldness toward God’s commands compromised his devotion and the standing of his son as king over Israel.

Summarize: Soon after Solomon’s death, the kingdom of Israel would be torn in two: Judah in the south and Israel in the north.

While on the surface it might seem as though Israel divided because Solomon’s son Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders, the seeds of the split were sown long before that during Solomon’s reign.

But even though God’s people were unfaithful to Him, we will see that God was never unfaithful to them.

Point 1: Foolish choices compromise devotion to God (1 Kings 11:1-8).

Read 1 Kings 11:1-8 (DDG p. 122).

1 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.”

Solomon clung to these in love.

3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines.

And his wives turned away his heart.

4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.

5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.

7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.

8 And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

Pack Item 15: Tell them to notice the first paragraph in the DDG (p.

122) as you point out the ways Solomon violated the instructions for a king given in the law and how his disobedience flowed from his compromised love for God.

Use the map to highlight Solomon’s imports of horses, chariots, and gold.

DDG p. 122, 1st Paragraph, “In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, the Lord gave instructions to His people about how a king should behave.

But looking at 1 Kings 10:14-29, it almost seems as though Solomon used these instructions as a checklist of “Things to do to disobey God.”

And what he didn’t check off in chapter 10, he checked off in chapter 11: acquiring many wives.”

· “Many horses?” (Deut.

17:16) // Check! (1 Kings 10:26).

“Horses from Egypt?”(Deut.

17:16) // Check! (1 Kings 10:28-29).

“Large amounts of silver?” (Deut.

17:17) // As common as stone!

(1 Kings 10:27).

“Large amounts of gold?” (Deut.

17:17) // What else can one do with gold?

(1 Kings 10:14-25).

· In 1 Kings 3:3, Solomon “loved” the Lord, but in 1 Kings 11:1-2, Solomon “loved” many foreign women.

Solomon’s love for his many wives and concubines detracted from his wholehearted love and devotion to the Lord (1 Kings 11:4), just as Deuteronomy 17:17 said would happen.

Ask:

How is our love for other people related to our love for God?

(when we love others more than God, we enter into idolatry; our love for God should cause us to love others as ourselves; our love for others is a matter of joy and obedience in our love for God; our love for God must be supreme)

DDG (p.

122)

Solomon’s love for his many foreign wives led his heart astray, resulting in compromised, half-hearted devotion to the Lord.

He didn’t merely indulge his foreign wives with their false gods, he followed these false gods himself.

At some point, Solomon left his first love for the Lord (Rev.

2:4), and as goes the king, so goes the kingdom.

· The wise king of Israel permitted and participated in the worship of false gods in the promised land of God.

Ashtoreth, a fertility goddess, had been a snare to the Israelites since they first arrived in the promised land (Judg.

2:13).

The worship of Milcom (Molech) was known to involve child sacrifices (Lev.

20:2-5; 2 Kings 23:10)—he was rightly described as “an abomination,” and the same apparently could be said of the god Chemosh.

There’s no telling how many gods and goddesses Solomon worshiped, being that he loved many foreign wives with their foreign gods (1 Kings 11:8).

· Solomon also built a high place for Chemosh and for Milcom on the hill across from Jerusalem.

The text mentions the hill to the East of the city…we know that hill as the Mount of Olives upon which the garden of Gethsemane is located in the time of Christ.

The great builder of the temple for God built pagan altars within sight of that very temple.

This is the shamelessness of sin.

· Although verse 4 says Solomon’s heart was turned away from God when he was old, the seeds of that turning away were planted years and decades before as he began accumulating foreign wives.

We merely see the fruit born from it here.

It is the nature of sin to work on us over time, if necessary (see Jas. 1:14-15).

Illustration: Few things reveal a person’s devotion like college football.

For example: Travel to any town in Alabama wearing an Auburn University shirt and chances are that half of the town will love you and the other half of the town won’t even tolerate you.

But imagine if you wore the colors of both schools: What would people say if you claimed to be a fan of both Alabama and Auburn?

Or what if you declared yourself a fan of whichever team was having the better season?

You probably would have an entire town against you.

The reason is simple...

...Halfhearted devotion to a team means not being devoted to that team at all.

Devotion to a team means you root for that team no matter what and especially that you abstain from rooting for its arch-rival.

Foolish choices compromise devotion.