1 Kings 11, the Bible reads, but King Solomon loved many strange women together with the
daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites
of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, you shall not
go into 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, and he had seven hundred wives, princesses,
and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart.
So the title of my sermon tonight is Solomon's Strange Wives.
Solomon's Strange Wives.
Now Solomon was a great man, he was a godly man, he was chosen by God.
God loved Solomon and hand-picked him to be David's successor, but yet we see his downfall
in chapter 11.
It's a very negative chapter showing how Solomon's kingdom is going to fall apart and
after he dies it's going to be split and so forth.
If you would keep your finger in 1 Kings chapter 11, go to Nehemiah, it's going to be to the
right in your Bible, go to Nehemiah chapter number 13, and there's a reference to this
in Nehemiah chapter 13 starting in verse 23.
Nehemiah 13, 23, while you're getting there, in those days also saw-eyed Jews that had
married wives of Ashdod and Ammon and of Moab, Ashdod being part of the land of the Philistines.
And their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod and could not speak in the Jews'
language but according to the language of each people.
And I contended with them and cursed them and smote some of them and plucked off their
hair and made them swear by God saying ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons
nor take their daughters unto your sons or for yourselves.
Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things?
Now watch this.
Yet among many nations was there no king like him who was beloved of his God and God made
him king over all Israel nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.
So the Bible's making a point here to say that King Solomon was very unique.
He was in many ways the greatest.
You know it depends on how you measure it.
Which king is the greatest?
Is it David?
Is it Solomon?
Is it Josiah?
Is it Hezekiah?
But they're great on different metrics or based on different attributes.
You know which one's the greatest.
But in a sense here the Bible's talking about Solomon being unlike any of the other kings.
He was a special king and truly as we saw this morning the kingdom of Israel was in
its heyday under Solomon.
I mean that was the most prosperous period.
If you were to be living in Israel at any time you'd rather live under King Solomon
than under King David.
I mean King Solomon's time was the best time as far as just prosperity and peace and having
a good life.
So therefore we see that King Solomon, great man that he was, beloved of God, wise man,
yet is destroyed.
How?
How could such a man crash and burn?
Well the Bible tells us that it was the outlandish women that caused him to sin.
Now typically when we use the word outlandish we just mean something that's crazy like outlandish
is just ridiculous, it's wild.
But this is in the literal sense like out land-ish like they're out of, they're from
out of this land, they're from a different country is the literal meaning here.
It's talking about foreigners.
Now this is not something against quote unquote interracial marriage.
People will try to take stuff like this and make it interracial.
First of all, all these other nations that are being listed are of the same race anyway
because of the fact that these are the very near neighbors.
When you're talking about Edom and the Philistines, you know everybody there is pretty closely
related in that Levant region and so that has nothing to do with it.
It's not about the color of their skin or anything like that.
It's the fact that they're worshipping other gods.
It's the fact that they're of a different religion.
That's the big issue because we know if we study the Old Testament we know that anybody
of another nationality could join the nation of Israel anytime they wanted to.
They just have to get circumcised, keep the Passover, join the nation, worship the Lord
and they're considered as one born in the land.
They would even get adopted into a tribe and after a long enough time period goes by,
nobody would even probably realize that they'd ever even been from another nation so many
generations back.
The point here is that marrying these women of other religions and not just marrying them
but it says he loved many strange wives.
If you're there in 1 Kings 11, he claved to them in love.
It's not even just that he married them and that he's just using them or whatever but
he actually claved to them in love meaning that he actually had strong feelings toward
them.
He's enamored with them and because of that they end up dragging him into the worship
of false gods and leading him astray.
It says in verse number 4 of 1 Kings 11,
"'For it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned away his heart after
other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of
David his father.
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination
of the Ammonites.
And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord as did his
father.'"
And then it goes on to list more of the abominations.
And then it says in verse 9,
"'And the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God of
Israel which had appeared unto him twice.'"
Now let me explain something important here.
Some people have taken this as proof that somehow you could stop believing in Jesus
Christ and still be saved.
And they'd say, well what about King Solomon in the Old Testament?
He turns away from the Lord and he turns to other gods.
I don't believe that that's what's going on in this passage if you read it a little bit
more carefully.
Let's start with what we know from the New Testament using clear scripture.
We should always base what we believe on clear scriptures in context and especially the most
relevant scriptures.
Obviously we're living in the New Testament.
Our most relevant scriptures on this idea of people continuing in the faith are going
to be found in the New Testament.
That's where you're going to find clear New Testament teachings on this.
Like for example where the Bible says they went out from us but they were not all of
us.
For if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that
they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
That's a pretty clear scripture isn't it?
That's pretty powerful, it's pretty clear, it's pretty obvious what that's saying.
That when you see people departing from the faith then that tells you these people were
never saved to begin with.
Now again let's get the context.
What I just quoted to you is from 1 John chapter 2 and the context he says little children
this is the last time and as you know and as you've heard that antichrist shall come
even now are there many antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time.
They went out from us but they were not all of us.
So the they went out from us is talking about false teachers, false prophets, antichrists,
people denying the Father and the Son or people denying doctrines of Christ.
That's the going out from us.
It's that they did not abide in the doctrine of Christ.
Let's get the greater context of John's epistles.
In 2 John it says whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ
hath not God.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ he hath both the Father and the Son.
So both of those when you put those together you get a picture here that's saying look
the doctrine of Christ is something that people who are actually saved abide in and when you
see people departing from the doctrine of Christ it's showing you that they were never
saved to begin with.
They were not of us.
They went out that it might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
So even while they were here they still weren't of us.
We thought they were but they weren't of us.
The proof of that is that they went out from us.
The going out all it did was just make manifest that they were not all of us.
It's not that they lost their salvation.
You can't lose your salvation.
Salvation is eternal.
It's once saved always saved.
Once we have eternal life nothing can separate us from the love of God.
We're his sons and daughters and we'll get to that a little bit later in the sermon in
fact but the point is though that when you see someone departing from the doctrine of
Christ I'm not saying that they're getting a minor doctrine wrong or a side doctrine
or a secondary doctrine.
I'm talking about people who would go out and start denying the Trinity or they would
say that Jesus is not divine or they would say that you know for example we're saved
by works and it's not faith that saves us or hey you can lose your salvation and they
go out and just start teaching these damnable heresies of workspace salvation that strike
at the very core of the doctrine of salvation through Christ or the very nature of who Christ
is if they start saying well you know Jesus Christ is just a created being.
He's just a human being.
He became divine or some you know some kind of a crazy doctrine.
You know that would just be a red flag where you'd say whoa this person wasn't saved this
person is a damnable heretic.
I'm not talking about getting end times prophecy wrong.
I'm not talking about being a little bit foggy on the gospel or muddy on the gospel.
I'm talking about people who go all the way over which is what transgress means to cross
the line.
People who go all the way over that line and are just teaching damnable heresies.
I mean if somebody left our church and joined the Roman Catholic Church or they left our
church and joined the East Orthodox Church or they left our church and became a Mormon
or a Muslim or something like that folks they're not saved.
The Bible says my sheep hear my voice they will not follow another a stranger will they
flee from for they know not the voice of strangers.
The saved child of God knows the voice of the stranger and he knows the voice of the
shepherd and he can tell the difference and he's not going to fully apostatize.
Now is it possible for a Christian to get mixed up in false doctrine?
Absolutely.
A Christian can get mixed up in false doctrine and they can even get a little bit mixed up
in doctrines of salvation or the doctrine of Christ but they're going to abide in general
in the doctrine of Christ.
They're not going to go all the way over the line.
They're not going to go all the way off the cliff.
Now people have criticized me for teaching that and said that that makes me a Calvinist
to teach that.
Well look first of all I've always been against Calvinism and now that my family's always
been against Calvinism.
My parents both hate Calvinism and yet my parents taught me this doctrine my whole life
because what we're teaching is biblical that you if you are saved will continue believing
in Jesus Christ and if someone says well I used to believe in Jesus and now I don't believe
in him anymore at all I would just say that person was never truly saved to begin with.
Now if somebody goes off and starts living a sinful life but they still have all the
right doctrine and they still believe the right things but they've just completely made
shipwreck of their life I would say that that person is still saved.
I would say yeah I'm not going to declare them unsaved just because they're living a
wicked life and here's the reason why because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
The flesh can lead people deep into sin even if they're a saved Christian which is why
we need to take heed lest we fall.
So it's possible to go deep into sin as a Christian but it is not possible to just stop
believing in Christ.
Now is it possible to have doubts?
Virtually everyone in the Bible you know has doubts.
I think everyone that would be honest would say that at some point they doubted the word
of God or they doubted their salvation or doubted something in the Bible.
That's just human to have doubts but there's a big difference between doubting and just
saying oh I'm an atheist now, I'm a Mormon now, I'm an agnostic now, I don't even believe
in Christ.
See the difference between those things?
Those who believe on and here's more proof John 3 18 says he that believeth on him is
not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
The one who believes not is the one who hath not believed because once you believe you're
saved, you have eternal life, the Holy Spirit moves in and the Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we're the children of God and he which hath begun a good work in
you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Now the reason that I've been accused of being Calvinist for teaching and believing that
my entire 15 year ministry and even when I was a little kid since my dad hammered that
doctrine into me, it's one of his favorite doctrines to bring up and he can quote all
the relevant scriptures off the top of his head in any moment.
He's always talked about this because why?
Because he lived a whole Christian life watching people fall away and saying hey that guy was
never saved look what look what he's saying now look what he believes now.
So the reason is because in the Tulip doctrine you know the the Tulip acronym for Calvinism
the fifth part of that is called perseverance of the Saints and so people have said well
you're a one-point Calvinist because you believe in perseverance of the Saints but here's the
thing it depends on how you define perseverance of the Saints.
I would prefer to call it preservation of the Saints or perseverance of the Savior but
here's the thing about that most Calvinists today would say that perseverance of the Saints
involves basically a saved person continuing to live the Christian life and I don't believe
in that for one second because I know it's possible for Demas to forsake us because he
loves this present world and that doesn't make Demas unsaved it just means he loves
this present world.
He got enamored with the things of this world.
He got seduced by the deceitfulness of riches or the pleasures and the fun that life has
to offer.
Hey that doesn't make Demas unsaved that he loved the world and and and got taken away.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and so if that's what perseverance of the
Saints is then I'll reject that doctrine all day long because I know that it is possible
for a saved Christian not to persevere in their works, not to persevere in living the
Christian life or persevere in church attendance.
Look the Apostle Paul said hey I keep under my body and bring it into subjection less
having preached to others I myself should be a castaway.
He said I don't want to become all washed up.
I don't want to become a loser.
I don't want to crash and burn.
I don't want to be somebody that God can't use anymore and look he's not talking about
losing his salvation because there are an abundance of scriptures teaching you cannot
lose your salvation.
So you can't lose your salvation but you know what you can lose your effectiveness.
You can lose your testimony.
You can lose the will to go to church or you can lose the desire to go soul winning and
you can become backslidden and worthless.
Hey if the salt loses its savor and so there's a big difference between those two things.
So do I believe that that a Christian will persevere in believing in Jesus and believing
the gospel?
Absolutely.
I believe that if someone is truly saved then they will continue to believe the gospel.
Okay and if somebody said well I don't believe that anymore then I would just say you never
believed it in the first place or you'd have the Holy Spirit inside you and you'd be saved
and you wouldn't be saying that.
Okay and again I'm not talking about doubt.
So look the Bible teaches in the New Testament that those who are saved are indwelled by
the Holy Spirit and it says that when you see them not abiding in the doctrine of Christ
it's because they don't have God and when you see them going out from us and we're not
talking about geographically.
There's no problem with somebody switching churches, going to another church across town
and there's absolutely no problem with somebody moving to a different state and going to a
different church.
We're talking about departing from the faith.
That's the going out from us okay and if they do that they were never saved in the
first place.
So then people will try to bring up this story about Solomon and say well what about Solomon?
You know he turned away from the Lord and started worshipping other gods but if you
actually read carefully what does the Bible say?
It says in verse 4 for example at the end it says his heart was not perfect with the
Lord his God and then in verse 6 it says he went not fully after the Lord.
Now if the Bible says that he didn't go fully after the Lord you know what that means?
That means he did partially go after the Lord.
He just didn't go fully after the Lord.
The Bible nowhere says that he forsook the Lord, that he stopped worshipping the Lord,
that he stopped believing in the Lord and replaced the worship of the Lord with the
worship of other gods.
That is not what happened.
It's not what the Bible teaches.
What the Bible is teaching about King Solomon is that these outlandish wives got him into
their false religions that he's just tagging on to his biblical Christianity.
And obviously I realize that's anachronistic to call it Christianity but you know what
I mean.
I like to apply things into the New Testament because that's the relevance that matters
to us okay.
So here's the thing.
He's tagging on idolatry and false religion to his faith in the Lord.
He didn't stop believing in Christ.
He didn't start believing hey now I think that Milcom is the way to heaven and you got
to believe in Milcom to be saved.
He's basically just participating in this occultic stuff, this wrong religion in order
to please his wives.
It's not because he just thinks it's so cool.
It's that he's doing it for them.
They want him to do it and he's doing it.
That's the issue.
That's what's going on.
It's pretty easy to see that in this passage that it's the wives that got him to serve
other gods but he's not ceasing to serve the Lord.
So I mean it's kind of hard to come up with like a modern illustration of this or a modern
equivalent of this just because we're living in such a different world.
So it's a little bit hard to understand because of the fact that back then it's kind of like
they have the God of Israel.
They just have all these gods, tons of different gods and they're just these every, it's like
you drive three miles and it's a new god now.
You know what I mean?
You're just constantly in a new god's territory.
Whereas now in today's world things are pretty well boiled down to like five major religions
in the whole world that things are kind of classified in.
But basically I was trying to think of a modern equivalent of what this would be like
and to me some of the illustrations that I came up with were let's say you have a saved
Christian man and he marries a Roman Catholic wife and basically she drags him to Roman
Catholic mass and he basically goes through the motions but he still believes the right
gospel.
He didn't convert to Catholicism in his heart.
He's basically just trying to shut her up or shut her family up.
Then you know obviously it'd be a wicked thing to do.
He's a spiritual weakling to be sucked into such a thing and I don't think that any of
us should ever participate in any kind of Catholic or Mormon service for any reason.
Okay you say well it's a special baptism or communion and you know I'm just I'm just gonna
kind of go through the motions.
Wrong.
We shouldn't participate in that.
Okay that is over the line.
But yet I've met people that I believe were truly saved that went to a Catholic Church
because their spouse dragged them there and they said well I don't believe like Catholicism.
I believe like a Baptist.
I believe the Bible.
So you wouldn't declare that person unsaved but if that guy just hook line and sinker
just got into the Catholic doctrine then you'd say this guy's not even saved.
He doesn't believe the gospel.
So that was one illustration that I came up with.
Another illustration that I came up with was how let's say a Christian let's say a born
again child of God and again you know we're not necessarily talking about spiritual giants
here but you know maybe somebody who is backslidden or you know a babe in Christ or weak in the
faith you know what if they just started getting into say new age kind of stuff and just kind
of augmenting their Christianity with a little bit of new age a little bit of meditation
and doing some of that.
You know I believe that a saved person could get mixed up in that kind of stuff.
They could get mixed up in a little bit of Buddhism a little bit of Hinduism a little
bit of new age stuff and just not that they're believing that that's going to get them to
heaven or they might just say oh well you know this just makes me my doctor said if
I meditate is healthy for me or something and then they kind of start going down that
rabbit hole and next thing you know they're saying om shanti shanti or whatever you know
they're saying this stuff it doesn't necessarily mean that they have denied the gospel or stopped
believing in Jesus Christ do you see what I'm saying.
So you can see how a guy like Solomon could get mixed up in something like this the bottom
line is he's doing it because of the strange wives they're the ones who got him into this
and look if we get around people that are in that are into wicked stuff eventually they
can get us into that wicked stuff and this is why we have to be very careful about who
our friends are and not get really close to people that are a bad influence on us.
What could be closer than marriage and this isn't just a marriage on paper like well I'm
just making a lot of strategic alliances well you got a lot of alliances buddy 700 princesses
but again this is a different world where you say how could there even be that many
kings how can there be that many princesses and this is just in the local region I mean
he's probably not bringing these princesses from you know India or even Ethiopia or something
I mean these are from the region it's because of the fact that this is a different period
where like I said you go a few miles and you're in a new kingdom there's a lot of city states
it's sort of like you know you might have in school grown up learning about the Greek
city states so you got the king of Thebes the king of Sparta the king of Athens and
all these different local kings and they've all got their princess or you know if that's
an analogy that's lost on you you could think about maybe the Native Americans right they
got just hundreds of tribes back in the day before the white man showed up they had all
these hundreds of tribes and so lots of chiefs lots of princesses that's why all of us have
a Cherokee princess in our lineage myself included all right it's never just a Cherokee
it's always a Cherokee princess why because there are just that many princesses all right
because of the fact that there are just so many chiefs and so many kings so the word
king when we think of a king today we think of him as a king over like a nation of millions
of people whereas back then it could be a smaller group there could be a more local
king okay so he didn't just have these 700 wives on paper as an alliance or even just
as a concubine but the Bible says he claved to them in love it used the word he loved
many strange women so he is actually emotionally involved here I believe that comes across
in the passage and it's that emotional involvement of wanting to please them that caused him
to go into sin you see it says in first Corinthians chapter seven that he that is married cares
for the things of this world how he may please his wife and that the married woman cares
for the things of this world how she may please her husband so he wants his wives to be happy
and so he ends up building temples unto their God now you can imagine how this could have
started as just well hey look I know you're worshiping Jehovah and you believe the Bible
and everything but I'm from Ashdod and I have my own God Dagon or whatever I've got Milcom
and I've got that and basically hey can't you just build me a place for me to worship
my God you know you go ahead and do your thing but I'm gonna do my thing over here but then
I think in the process of him building these temples and building you know then he starts
getting kind of into it like oh it's kind of cool I mean think about it if you attended
churches of a false religion or worship services of a false religion there could be some parts
of those services that could appeal to your flesh like for example the artwork or the
music you might get into the music and be like whoa I love that Mormon tabernacle choir
you know I'm not into Kolob and and you know other gods on other planets and everything
but hey that Mormon tabernacle choir huh and you get you know and then he starts getting
into it and starts showing up just for the just for the you know I just go for the music
I'm just going for the stained glass windows I just go for the incense whatever and so
you can see how it probably starts as a small sin as sin often does sin starts small but
when you do it once you've kind of opened that door toward you're building a shrine
unto Molech or whoever then next thing you know it's like well hey let me go to the dedication
service or oh hey my wife really wants me to go and I want to make her happy so let
me do that so you can see how dangerous it is to be unequally yoked with unbelievers
and you young people you listen up the number one most important thing about who you marry
is that they're saved and not only that you want to marry somebody who actually loves
the Lord but if you think that you're going to marry an unsaved person and live a happy
Christian life you know what you got another thing coming to you okay you are in for some
serious problems and you know what marriage is hard enough when you're both saved and
you both love the Lord how about one of you isn't even saved or some super carnal Christian
that's not going to make a great spouse either you think that's going to be the best husband
for you the best provider for you the one who's going to put you first or is he going
to selfishly do everything his way and leave you to basically have the short end of the
stick you don't think listen up girls you don't think that there are husbands out there
who go out and they get paid and they spend all the money on themselves buying all their
toys and going on trips for themselves and going out partying themselves you don't think
there are husbands who just take the money and spend it on strong drink spend it on gambling
even god forbid spend it at a strip club or with hookers it's out there folks god forbid
but even one who's not that far off the deep end don't you think there could be husbands
that just spend all the money on just fun things for them and basically just leave you
with some super tiny budget to work with because they're just out eating every gas station
hot dog between you know here and Levine and they're just they're stopping at every
QT and spending twenty dollars and folks let me let me tell you the guys that are going
out and spending twenty dollars at QT in the morning and twenty dollars at QT halfway through
the day hey they're burning up how much money per month I mean if you if you just it's pretty
easy to blow forty bucks every day am I right if you just indulge every big gulp and every
big gulp and every snack and every drink and food and fast food and just go out and do
that you know it's pretty easy to burn through forty bucks if you're just indulging every
fancy agreed okay well what's forty times thirty sorry to get you into a math class
here that's twelve hundred bucks okay you say well forty bucks that's a trick okay let's
just say you go out and burn through twenty bucks a day that's six hundred dollars a month
twenty times thirty is six hundred six hundred dollars so then your wife doesn't have what
she needs you know you get you're giving her some tiny operating budget and then you're
just out going to roach coach after roach coach after drive through after gas station
mini mart just living large right great hey but you know what you can do you can bring
a lunch from home how much does it cost to bring your lunch from home a couple of dollars
literally a few bucks now look I'm not trying to step on anybody's toes if it's in your
budget to go out to lunch every day hey then go out to lunch every day but here's the thing
though you know if you're if you're if your children are clothed in rags and you're living
in a some messed up dwelling and and and your wife doesn't have what she needs and you're
going out to lunch every day you know you might stop and think about not being so selfish
you know to just go out and just blow money blow money blow money on stuff for you and
then she doesn't get to ever go out to eat but but here's the thing I'm not even preaching
about that I'm preaching to the young ladies and telling them you marry a carnal guy you
marry an ungodly guy guess what that's what he's going to do because people who are carnal
are carnal because they are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God because they love
themselves more than they love other people let me tell you something about people who
love other people and put others first you know what they are good Christians right hey
look loving God and loving your neighbor go hand in hand so if you want to marry a guy
who doesn't love God don't expect him to treat you like a princess I don't care how many
Cherokees you descend from because of the fact that if he doesn't love God he's gonna
love himself over you the guy who loves God is the guy who's also gonna love you and be
unselfish and say hey let's go out to eat together not hey let me constantly go out
to eat and you need to make do with very little folks is it out there or not you know that
there are guys out there that are like that and then we could flip this over hey you want
to marry a girl that's that's that's rebellious toward her parents and not interested in the
house of God let me ask you this do you think that that is going to be the happy homemaker
that you want to be married to if she's rebellious against her parents newsflash she's going
to be rebellious against you too if she doesn't obey dad why would she obey you you know what
our society teaches children to obey their parents a lot more than it teaches wives to
obey their husband am I right who has more authority in 2020 America fathers or husbands
fathers way more authority legally and culturally in 2020 America fathers have a lot more authority
than husbands do if she's not listening to her own dad if she's not obeying dad you think
she's going to obey her husband dream on you're crazy okay and by the way did you know
speaking of the guys going out and blowing money on stupid things what about the women
who go out and blow money on stupid things how many wives are out just dumping a bunch
of money into their hairdo Nancy Pelosi and you know what she's still as ugly as homemade
sin I don't care how many hairdos she gets you can't even polish that apple the wicked
witch of the West but here's the thing you know how many women just they're they're they're
they're racking up the credit cards and here you are you're going out and breaking your
back at work every day trying to make a little extra overtime bring home a little extra money
and then she's just constantly getting the hairdo and the nails and she's going to Nordstrom
right she's going to Neiman Marcus she's going to Dillard's and she's buying the hundred
fifty dollar dress and the ninety dollar skirt meanwhile the godly Christian wife is
being economical because the Bible says about the virtuous woman that she's going to do
her husband good and not evil all the days of his life and he doesn't have any need of
spoil he doesn't need overtime because she's being frugal and economical and she brings
her meat from afar meaning that she'll drive across town and get the deals whereas the
uneconomical wife the non virtuous wife the ungodly wife sits on her rear end watching
a bunch of soap operas or playing a Facebook video game all day right and all the food
has to be ready-made which is more expensive she's not cooking things from scratch and
then it's expensive when you have to go to the doctor with a heart attack from all the
nitrates and and and and partially hydrogenated soybean oil that she's been plying you with
and then you end up with the surgery and whatever and here's the thing there are wives
that are lazy that that waste money that rack up the credit cards and the credit card bill
comes in the mail and their husband's like what have you been doing what is this two
thousand dollars five thousand dollars you don't think a husband's ever opened the bill
and just see thousands of dollars on a credit card and his wife just went out on a spending
spree I just needed to go shopping you know she just went to the mall and just bought
everything didn't even look at the price it's out there these aren't the things that
teenagers think about teenagers don't think about this do they it's just oh he's so handsome
oh she's so pretty oh he's so cool he's such a bad dude you know oh I just love him he's
so bad but you know what you don't it's fun you know what no wife says oh I love how bad
my husband is now a lot of girlfriends love that bad boyfriend don't they a lot of boyfriends
love that bad girlfriend but you know what nobody loves their husband because he's so
bad nobody loves their wife because she's just so bad because you know what when you're
married it's like okay be good now it's like okay we're dating bad bad bad all right time
to be good now and she's like uh-uh this is who you married and he's like uh-uh this is
who you married this is who I am hey newsflash you want to marry a good husband you have
to date a good guy you want to marry a good wife you have to date the good girls not the
ones who are skanky and sleazy and trying to show how worldly they can be and they're
showing you how edgy and how worldly they can be well guess what you're gonna be married
to that person and she's gonna show you how worldly she can be with your finances she's
gonna show you how worldly she can be with other dudes she's gonna show you how worldly
she can be when it comes to the kitchen or not being in the kitchen absence from the
kitchen it's a look you need to think about who you married because you say well I'm a
good Christian I'll be okay really cuz Solomon was a good Christian was he okay Solomon
was a godly man he was pretty unique person but yet being married to the wrong wives led
him into all this garbage so don't you think that being married to the wrong woman could
cause you to crash and burn too don't you think that you marrying the wrong husband
could cause you to crash and burn if it made Solomon crash and burn I don't think that
you could crash and burn it's obvious now one of the interesting things that always
struck me about this chapter and one of the reasons why I'm preaching on this tonight
is because of the fact that I love the comparison between chapter 10 and chapter 11 it's great
to read these two kind of as one unit because we went over chapter 10 this morning about
the Queen of Sheba it's no coincidence that the Queen of Sheba is what what is she what
is the Queen of Sheba a foreigner she's from super far away right so isn't there a connection
between chapter 10 and chapter 11 in chapter 10 we have a strange woman a foreign woman
from a distant country and in chapter 11 what do we have strange women foreign women from
another country and here's how these two chapters dovetail together it's no coincidence that
God gives us chapter 10 and then chapter 11 right back to back in this order chapter
10 is about Solomon's interaction with a foreign woman and all the goodness and prosperity
and blessings and everything is great chapter 11 is about Solomon's interaction with foreign
women it's bad it's a curse it's destructive these chapters could be thought of as a coupling
here okay and this shows us that we can have a positive interaction with this world or
we can have a negative interaction with this world we can have a positive interaction with
the heathen or we can have a negative interaction with the heathen because what's Solomon doing
in chapter 10 he's evangelizing the heathen he's evangelizing the Queen of Sheba he's
evangelizing the heathen and notice he does not enter into an intimate relationship with
the Queen of Sheba this is not some romance love story I'm sure Hollywood's probably done
one like that about King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba but if you actually just read the
Bible and go by what it says this is not some amorous encounter this is one sovereign showing
up and having a meeting with another sovereign giving gifts marveling at his wisdom being
impressed being blown away believing on the Lord worshipping the Lord and going to heaven
according to Matthew she'll be in judgment of the wicked on that day because she came
from the uttermost part of the earth through the wisdom of Solomon so stop and think about
it okay we can either have a good interaction with this world where we are the salt and
light changing them influencing them reaching them or they can reach us now I don't believe
that we should seclude ourselves from this world because look if Solomon was that much
of an isolationist where he's just stopping the Queen of Sheba at the border and just
saying hey you turn around and go home you're not welcome here then there will be a good
welcome here then there be one less person at least in heaven and who knows who she went
back and evangelized okay you know it was good that she was able to show up with her
entourage she got saved maybe even people in her entourage got saved hey that was a
good encounter we want to have those kind of encounters of a chapter 10 kind of encounter
what we don't want to have is a chapter 11 situation now what are the differences between
chapter 10 and chapter 11 well one major difference is the level of intimacy here because
in chapter 10 it's not a romantic relationship it's not an intimate relationship it's not
a physical relationship it's not a marital relationship it's just him basically shining
the light of the gospel and showing her wisdom and and the wisdom of God so you know that's
something that we should all be doing as Christians but should we be best best buddies with the
unsaved heathens should we be dating the heathens should we be marrying the heathens absolutely
not and that's one of the big colossal differences between these two you know what I'm not telling
you to just completely you know just withdraw from the people at work because they're not
saved and withdraw from your neighbors because they're not saved you know the Bible said
look if I told you that you'd have to you'd have to go out of this world he said it's
okay to be around unsafe people even though they're fornicators covetous drunkers if they're
non-christians if they're not saved and they're just heathens being heathens he's saying it's
okay to be around those kind of people why because you're there to be salt and light
and to be a good influence and to reach those people but what you don't want to do is become
too close with those people you don't want to become too close you see Jesus in the Bible
is he eating with publicans and sinners yes is he afraid to get close to a prostitute
to give her the gospel no I mean he's oh he's ready to talk to her and she's welcome and
he chats her but how many times my friend how many times if you read Matthew Mark Luke
and John does the Bible tell us hey he just goes apart with just the twelve he just goes
apart with just these three hey he's just over at Lazarus's house with Mary and Martha
you know constantly he is resorting to godly people as his close friends Jesus had his
close friends he's got the disciple whom Jesus loved Lazarus whom he loved he loved Mary
and Martha he loves the twelve he's got the seventy hey he had his close circle of friends
nowhere is he best buddies with a practicing publican or harlot or some super sinful person
that is just his best buddy his best buddies were good people godly people and guess what
our best buddy should also be right to be hey it doesn't mean that we're afraid to talk
to the harlots and the sinners when we're out soul winning you know we should be ready
to engage you know whatever the biker or juggalo or whatever amen you know and give the gospel
to whoever will listen you know we we don't go out and just look at people and say no
no we're now somebody's in drag god doesn't expect us to look at that that's an abomination
that's filth and we should get away from that person okay but our somebody's naked somebody
comes the door naked or something yes it's happened you know hey obviously we're gonna
take off at that point but the point is though you know when we see somebody who's rough
some biker dude somebody covered in face tattoos or somebody who just looks like they've lived
a really rough life hey that's a great candidate for getting saved it's gonna be no problem
convincing them that they're a sinner that point's gonna go super fast so you know those
are the kind of people that often get saved so we don't want to shy away from giving those
kind of people the gospel but here's the thing and look your buddy at work treat him well
buy him lunch you know not with your wife's grocery money but no I'm just kidding wine
them and dine them you know no but I'm saying look hey buy your buddy at work a soda buy
him lunch be nice hang out with him chew the fat but do not become best friends with people
that aren't saved you can't you gotta know where to draw the line of being just bosom
buddies with people versus just being a good testimony having an acquaintance and being
friendly versus being just oh man my best friend's Mormon my best friend's Muslim my
best friend's Catholic well you know what then something's wrong with your Christianity
if your best friend is those things oh my best friend's an atheist well that's amazing
how you have so much in common with someone who doesn't believe in God that tells me a
lot about you by who your friends are okay so we need to be careful that we have a first
Kings chapter 10 interaction with this world yeah we'll hang out we'll have a meal we'll
talk to them and answer their questions but we're not going to bring them into the level
of intimacy where they can start reaching us and they start being a real bad influence
on us that's what we see in chapter 11 that's one of the colossal differences between these
two is the difference in how close he brings them in okay and by the way in chapter 10
you know we have somebody who's actually interested or receptive in some way to the word of God
think about the irony here you have the Queen of Sheba traveling this incredible distance
to be with Solomon and then just wow your ascent up to the house of God blows me away
you're so wise these judgments so wise and then you have these these Philistine and and
Moabite and Edomite broads who come in and it's like they you know they didn't have to
travel that far and they actually get to be married to Solomon so you think they're gonna
just have so much respect for him and everything and then they're not willing to convert to
the worship of the Lord they just want to stick with Milcom they just have to stick
with think about what kind of garbage people these were there look there are some people
that just have no interest in the things of God they have no interest in the gospel don't
bring those people in too close you know if somebody is more receptive then that's that's
who you want to spend more time with not people who clearly have no interest all they want
to do is get you to be like them they're not interested in the wisdom of God that you have
to offer and what does the Bible say a prophet is not without honor save in his own country
and his own house so Solomon he's a prophet with a lot of honor to the one that's over
in Sheba queen of the south but then when it comes to the one who's living in his house
the the queen that's living in his house she doesn't respect him enough to even listen
to the preaching of God's Word from his own mouth and she's just hell-bent no pun intended
on following Milcom or Ashtoreth or any of these other false gods and goddesses so you
can see another big difference there is number one the level of intimacy and number two the
difference is you know who is the target is it somebody who's actually somewhat receptive
or even halfway receptive or is it somebody who clearly has no interest in learning and
following God and so let's get let's just finish up quickly in this chapter here it
says in verse number four for it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned
away his heart after other gods and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God as was
the heart of David his father for Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddesses Zidonians
and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites and Solomon did evil on the side of the Lord
and when not fully after the Lord as did David his father then did Solomon build a
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 so he builds them the temple so
that they can worship their false god and the Lord was angry with Solomon because his
heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel which had appeared unto him twice and and
you know just for sake of time I got to hurry up for sake of time but but here's the deal
in the rest of the chapter what we find out in the rest of the chapter is that God's not
going to discard Solomon because Solomon served the Lord for a long time worshiped the Lord
for a long time he was a good preacher he was a good prophet and so what God ends up
doing is he says you know what it's going to happen after you're dead but the kingdom's
going to be taken away from your descendants you know I'm going to let you finish since
you're old anyway but your descendant your son you know the kingdom is going to be taken
from him and ten of the tribes are going to go away ten of the tribes are the majority
of the tribes are going to go away and so your son is just going to become one of these
kind of city state type kings almost where he's ruling over just a really small area
instead of ruling over this big giant coalition of twelve tribes now what's what's being
symbolized here go to Psalm 89 this is the last place we'll turn what's being symbolized
here is found in Psalm 89 and Psalm 89 is talking about David but of course it's symbolic
here David symbolizes Jesus so it says in Psalm 90 verse 20 I found David my servant
with my holy oil have I anointed him and the word anointed means Messiah or Christ Messiah
or Christ means anointed so the symbolism here Jesus is the son of David Jesus is the
Christ and David is a foreshadowing of that with whom my hand shall be established mine
arm shall also strengthen him the enemy shall not exact upon him nor the son of wickedness
afflict him and I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that hate
him but my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him and in my name shall his horn
be exalted I will set his hand also in the sea and his right hand in the rivers he shall
cry to me thou art my father my God and the rock of my salvation also I will make him
my firstborn higher than the kings of the earth now you can see here even though it's
literally about David can't you see a lot of foreshadowing of Jesus a lot of symbolism
of Jesus being the son of God and king of kings etcetera but look what the Bible says
in verse number 28 my mercy will I keep with him forevermore and my covenant shall stand
fast with him his seed also his seed also will I make to endure forever and his throne
is the days of heaven now who are the seed of Jesus Christ or the seed of God God's chosen
people it's Christians those who are saved and we're going to endure forever because
we have everlasting life we have eternal life so you can see this is symbolizing salvation
so basically David pictures Jesus and his sons picture those who are saved his seed
the literal meaning is people like Solomon and Rehoboam and Abijah they're always going
to sit on the throne until the Messiah comes but it says his seed also will I make to endure
forever and his throne as the days of heaven if his children forsake my law and not walk
in my judgments if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments then will I
visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes isn't that how
it is for us if we break his commandments we get chastened we get chastised we get disciplined
by God nevertheless verse 33 my loving kindness will I not utterly or completely take from
him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail my covenant will I not break nor alter the thing
that has gone out of my lips once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie into David
his seed shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me look he's saying even
if the children disobey they're going to be punished they're going to be disciplined they're
going to be scourged they're going to be chastised but you know what I'm not going to stop loving
them I'm not going to break my covenant I'm not going to alter the thing gone out of my
lips they will endure forever and you know that's a picture of eternal security of the
believer the fact that if we break God's commandments we don't lose our salvation we get chastened
but we will endure forever we will have everlasting life and he will not take away his loving
kindness utterly from us we're always going to be his children he'll always be our father
does everybody see that so now let's kind of think about that symbolism and then let's
think about that with first Kings chapter 11 okay here's what I believe is being pictured
when he says I'm not going to take the kingdom away from you but I'm going to take it away
from your son here's what you need to understand if you marry an unbeliever and you get backslidden
and start living a carnal and sinful life you're still going to heaven because you can't
lose your salvation but you know what could happen your kids could end up growing up unsaved
your kids might end up being unsaved or your grandkids are going to end up being unsaved
or let's say your kids are saved though but they they could even go further off the deep
end than you even deeper into sin because what often what the parents in the Bible do
in moderation the children do to excess and so we need to understand the consequences
that we will face if we turn away from God if we get watered down if we get liberal you
know we're going to be okay in many cases but what are we doing to our children yeah
if we quit the church and stay home we might be okay because we've heard enough Bible and
learned enough Bible hey just having your children with you is enough reason to go to
church three times a week just to get them hearing this preaching three times a week
that should be a big enough for you know it always cracks me up when people get offended
by something I say and take their family to some liberal watered down church I'm thinking
myself you know I get it that you're offended because you're a spiritual weakling but is
that really the preaching you want your kids listening to or don't you want your kids
listening to the guy that's going to scream and yell at them not to marry an unbeliever
I would want my teenagers listening to somebody scream and yell about not drinking not smoking
pot not fornicating not shoplifting you know that's the kind of preaching I want my kids
to hear I wouldn't take them to some watered down church down the street that doesn't care
about my kids to preach to them and tell them the truth and to warn them about marrying
an unbeliever and so do it for your kids amen be in church and and and and stay right with
God so that they can turn out right now you've already turned out right great what about
them think about them care about them okay you don't want to turn away from God and have
your children suffer for it and let me say this too you know obviously I'm focusing on
the literal interpretation here which is about him actually marrying foreign wives so I made
a big deal about don't marry an unbeliever or don't marry a Christian who's who's super
carnal and backslidden and worldly but here's the thing we could also take a more symbolic
approach and say it's not just marrying strange wives but how about just falling in love with
the things of this world it doesn't have to be a person folks it could be falling in love
with the bar scene falling in love with the casino scene falling in love with the club
scene falling in love with the worldly music industry or the worldly movie making industry
or falling in love with you know professional sports and just kind of falling in love with
these things that are of the world and letting those things pull you away from serving God
and get you to do things that you wouldn't have done before but then those buddies you
get in with that crowd and they start to drag you in that direction hey we need to make
sure we surround ourselves by godly people that are going to pull us in the right direction
and not surround ourselves with worldly sinful people and you don't have to be married to
them for them to be a bad influence because you could still get close to them in other
ways and they can hurt you spiritually and so we don't want to fall in love with the
things of this world the Bible says if any man loved the world the love of the Father
is not in him the Bible says the adulterer is an adulterer says know you not that the
friendship of the world is enmity with God whosoever therefore will be a friend of the
world is the enemy of God so we need to make sure that we are on the Lord's side that
he is who we love more than anything else we love the Lord with all our heart mind soul
and strength and that we love not only God but we love the people of God and that our
crowd are seen ought to be the local church first and foremost and obviously we have other
circles that we go in and we have other people that we hang around with and you know what
I don't want to take that away from you God doesn't want to take that away from you because
like I said that could be a Queen of Sheba type moment you know and I think it's great
to interact with people this world you got your work buddies and you got school buddies
or you got people in your neighborhood or whatever but hey those should be fringe people
and it's the the Christian friends that you should be really tight with okay and keep
those other people at arm's length bring in your brothers and sisters in Christ close
but keep the worldly people at arm's length try to be salt and light and reach them but
don't lose your Savior don't don't just become like them to win them it's not going to
where they're going to win you they're going to influence you it's a lot easier to pull
somebody down than to lift somebody up because gravity is on your side and there's a gravity
in this world that everything tends towards sin everything tends toward the wrong and
it's an upstream battle in order to do what's right so don't allow outlandish women to make
you sin girls don't marry that heathen boy that's going to lead you into wickedness and
don't even have close friends that are heathen make sure that your close friends are godly
Christians.
Father we thank you so much for this chapter Lord and everything we can learn from it I
just pray that we would take the warning seriously and not think that we're better than Solomon
obviously Solomon is better was a better man than I will ever be Lord and so help me to
learn from his example so that I do not crash and burn the way he did and help others also
to take heed lest they fall in Jesus name we pray Amen.