Above the Law?


1 Kings 11:9-13
9 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice
10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.
11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.
12 Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
13 However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.”

When I first turned 16 and was allowed to date, my parents imposed at midnight curfew. That was the rule in our house. If you’re going out, you have to be home by midnight. My first night out, I managed to disregard that curfew by 15 minutes. At 12:15, I tried to sneak back into the house. By rights, it should have been easy; except for that shatteringly loud CLICK that accompanied the locking of the back door. What occurred to me in that moment was that if my parents were asleep I should be fine. I stood in the doorway for about 2 heartbeats and then my dad’s voice comes from his room, “It’s about time you got home, Dolly!” (He called me Dolly when he was less than pleased.) That’s all he had to say. I knew I was busted. I went down to my room and wondered what else would happen the next day. Surprisingly, nothing. It was apparently enough for him to know that I knew he knew. And then there was that little discussion a few days later about trust. Anyway, for that brief moment, I thought I could live above the law. Maybe I could get away with the one rule that had been imposed. Not so much.

Solomon knows that God isn’t going to rubber stamp his idolatry. He knows that God had commanded there be no other gods. But apparently he believed he was immune to the wrath of God and could get away with breaking this most important of rules. But he is trapped by his vice (beautiful women) and will not turn away from their gods. Needless to say, “the Lord was angry with Solomon”. The penalty God imposes is stiff. The kingdom will now be split and taken from his family. Out of respect for David, God maintains a remnant, but the glory and majesty of Solomon’s kingdom is gone. While he will live out his life in luxury and opulence, he has squandered the blessings of God for the entire nation. Never again does Israel rise to the level that was achieved during Solomon’s reign.

Whenever we think the rules don’t apply to us, we are sadly mistaken. The thing with God is that we may not pay an immediate price. My dad didn’t wait 2 seconds to call me on my error, but God is a little slower to act. God does chastise Solomon and I think that Solomon may have even been able to turn this thing around had he changed his lifestyle. But he didn’t and God proves faithful to His promises yet again. You see, not all promises are positive! God promises judgment and wrath for Israel because of Solomon’s sin and that is what they get. The responsibilities of leadership are great. God promises judgment and wrath for those who choose to deny Christ, but they have an entire lifetime to turn that around! Again, we can take a page from Solomon’s life and be more intentional about living faithfully before the Lord, accepting His judgments and trusting Him to follow through on every Word He has spoken. Maybe we should avoid intentionally breaking the rules just to see if we can get away with it, because we can’t!

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