More and more the king came to regard luxury, pleasing himself, and the favor of the world as marks of greatness. He brought hundreds of beautiful women from Egypt, Phoenicia, Edom, Moab, and other places. Their religion was idol worship, and they had learned its cruel and degrading rites. Swept away with their beauty, the king neglected his duties.
His wives gradually got him to unite with them in their worship of false gods. “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, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.” 1 Kings 11:4, 5.
Opposite Mount Moriah, Solomon erected impressive buildings as shrines for idol worship. To please his wives, he placed huge idols in the groves. There before the altars of heathen deities, worshipers practiced the most degrading rites of heathenism. See verse 7.
Solomon’s separation from God was his ruin. He lost the mastery of himself. His moral compass was gone. His fine sensibilities became blunted, his conscience seared. In his early reign he had displayed so much wisdom and sympathy in restoring a helpless baby to its unfortunate mother see 1 Kings 3:16-28. Later he fell so low as to set up an idol to whom people offered living children as sacrifices! In his later years he departed so far from purity that he no longer opposed the sex-centered, revolting rites connected with the worship of Chemosh and Ashtoreth. He mistook license for liberty. He tried—but at what cost!—to unite light with darkness, good with evil, purity with impurity, Christ with Belial.
Solomon let his unholy passions rule, and he became the tool and slave of others. His character became effeminate. Atheistic doubts replaced his faith in God. Unbelief weakened his principles and degraded his life. The justice and generosity of his early reign changed to despotism and tyranny. God can do little for people who lose their sense of dependence on Him.
During these years of apostasy the enemy worked to confuse the Israelites in regard to true and false worship. He deadened their keen sense of God’s holy character. The Israelites transferred their allegiance to the enemy of righteousness. It soon became a common practice to intermarry with idol worshipers. People accepted polygamy. In the lives of some, idolatry of the worst kind replaced the pure religious service God had instituted.
God is fully able to keep us while we are in the world, but we are not to be of the world. He watches over His children with a care beyond measure, but He requires undivided loyalty. “No man can serve two masters. ... You cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24.
People today are no stronger than Solomon; they are just as likely to yield to the influences that caused his downfall. God today warns His children not to risk their eternal life by joining with the world. “Come out from among them,” He pleads, “and be separate. ... Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18.
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