Idolatry (Again)


1 Kings 9:1-9
1 As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build,
2 the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.
3 And the Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.
4 And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules,
5 then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’
6 But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,
7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
8 And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’
9 Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’ ”

Any student of the Old Testament will tell you that God has one issue that He brings up over and over again. That issue is idolatry. We’ve talked about it in this format before because a careful reading of the Word will bring it into the light on a regular basis. There’s a reason God has to continually bring it up; we have a deep seated propensity for running after other gods. It became a part of our DNA back in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and we still struggle with it today.

In our passage for today, we stand at the end of Solomon’s building program.

1 As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build,

The first 20 years of Solomon’s reign were consumed by building the Temple and his own palace. Those words at the end of the verse “desired to build” are important. That word desired goes deeper than simply something Solomon just wanted to do. The Hebrew for this phrase indicates a passionate burning to for something (or someone). Building these two houses went deeper than just something to do. Solomon was passionate to complete the projects. So, God allows and even blesses the efforts and when Solomon is done, they are spectacular. Now, God meets with Solomon once again to remind him that the one thing that will bring down this magnificent accomplishment is idolatry. And for Solomon, this is a valid warning, as he had a proclivity for foreign women who all brought their “gods” with them into Israel. Sadly, Solomon allows this and it spells disaster for the kingdom.

We cannot look at Solomon or the Children of Israel and shake our heads at their blatant disobedience of God’s command to have no other gods for we share the same problem. Idolatry still remains our greatest problem 3,000 years later. It is present deep within our souls and if we are wise, we will be on the constant lookout for those things that will draw us away from God. Sure, we don’t bow down to idols of gold or stone. No, we bow down to money, worry, jobs, other people . . . the list is infinitely long. Each of us must look inside and see what captures our imagination or ignites our passions and hold that thing up to the light of a holy God. Which do we love more, God or our passions? What gets more of our time and resources? Where does idolatry rear its ugly head in our lives? We’ve talked about this before and we’ll talk about it again. If God feels the need to bring it up with frequency, then perhaps we need to think about it frequently.

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