The Slow Drift into Darkness.

[aiki]

1 Kings 11:1-9
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 sons of Israel, "You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods." Solomon held fast to these in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
6 Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done.
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon.
8 Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
9 Now the LORD was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, ​

The end of the life of Solomon is one of the direst - and strangest - endings in Scripture, I think. How did a man given peerless wisdom by God, visited twice by God, and blessed enormously by God materially end up building "high places" of worship to pagan gods like Molech, on whose red-hot arms babies were burned to death in sacrifice? Well, it didn't happen in a single, great leap into darkness. Instead, the wisest man who ever lived was brought into vile and terrible evil one step at a time, one moment of disobedience after another, until he was complicit in the vicious, demonic murder of babies (among other deeply evil pagan worship rites)!

This lesson in Solomon's story, the principle of one wicked deed leading to another, and greater, wicked deed, is pretty obvious. But it is routinely ignored by Christians today. I have, myself, been guilty of doing so. It is, at least in my case, the seeming insignificance of a single wicked choice that has facilitated my making it. Individually, the smallness of one act of disobedience to God is fairly easy to downplay. Being sinful creatures, being so prone to selfishness and rebellion toward God, it is doubly enticing for us to make sin seem as innocuous as possible:

"It's just a stupid, campy horror movie. The demonic stuff and violent, gruesome death are so over-the-top I just laugh at it."

"So what if I've just spent six hours killing person after person in my favorite video game? It's just a game; it's not real. I can tell the difference."

"Yeah, there's lots of screaming and aggressive, pounding, thrashing sound in the music I listen to. Sure, the lyrics are full of cursing, and rage, and despair. But it's just music, sound, noise, without any intrinsic moral quality. And I like it."

"Okay, I look at porn - but not the hard stuff. I can't help it. I'm human. God made me a sexual being; it's His fault, really, that I want to look at porn."

"I like food. Maybe I eat too much. Sometimes. But I didn't eat all three bags of potato chips yesterday when I could have. I only ate a couple of bags while I watched CSI. And sometimes I have just one liter of Pepsi rather than two, when I eat chips. So, I'm in control of what I eat. I could drop the extra hundred pounds of fat I'm carrying around all the time, if I wanted to. But I don't feel bad or uncomfortable about my weight, so why should I?"

And so it goes, sinners blunting their sin, telling themselves lies about the evil of their choices, denying God's will and way in the process. But a step toward sin, however small we make it, is always a step away from God. And the farther from Him we move as we pursue our favorite sin(s), the greater the darkness grows in our lives.

There is "pleasure in sin for a season," which is, really, at the bottom of why we sin at all. It makes us feel good; sin gratifies us; sin is pleasurable. At first, anyway. Later on, when we're addicted to it, or, at least, strongly habituated to it, when we have fed our desire for whatever sin, stoking it to inordinate proportions, unable to get enough of it, the corruption and death of sin begins to appear (Romans 6:23; James 1:14-15; Galatians 6:7-8). As it does, the sinner is often brought up short, checked in their wickedness, if only for a moment, by the pain and wretchedness of their sin. In such a moment, they often look around and wonder how they got so far into darkness, how they came to be so mired in filth and evil. But one the most terrible things about sin is that it stifles such thinking, over time totally blinding, deafening and hardening the sinner so that they cease entirely to ponder, or want, righteousness. Read the grim words of Romans 1:18-32.

We think we would never be brought to the heinous end described of King Solomon, that our sinful choices wouldn't take us that far. Do you not think Solomon had the same kinds of thoughts as he chose, again and again, to marry non-Israelite women? He didn't take each wife and concubine thinking to himself, "And now I can help my new bride (or concubine) burn babies to death on demonic idols!" Of course he didn't. He did exactly what you and I do with our sin: ignore it, or downplay it, or redefine it as something not sin. He saw the pleasure he could take in sin and, following that pleasure, drifted easily, comfortably, and oh-so-gradually into deep, deep darkness.

So, how about you? Are you able to see in your life increasing holiness? Are you, more and more, being separated from the World, the Flesh and the devil in your desires, thinking and living? Or are you drifting, as Solomon did, one insignificant choice after another, toward depravity? You're always moving in one direction or the other.

1 Kings 8:61
61 Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the LORD our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”

 

[Halbhh]

While we don't actually read here what happened at the "end" of Solomon's life, we can see here that in middle age he had gone very far astray, despite his wisdom(!).... I'd like to hope that finally near the end Solomon repented and turned back to the Lord (the only true, real God), but we are not told about that either way.

It's such a great lesson you are pointing out for us here.

The road to destruction is "easy" and "broad" --

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." -- Matthew 7

Maybe one of the best messages about the possibility of turning back (which is over and over and over in the Old Testament, and in the New) is the Prodigal Son. Who though long astray finally repented. And then became "alive again"!

Luke 15:32 But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'"

 

[aiki]

While we don't actually read here what happened at the "end" of Solomon's life, we can see here that in middle age he had gone very far astray, despite his wisdom(!).... I'd like to hope that finally near the end Solomon repented and turned back to the Lord (the only true, real God), but we are not told about that either way.

Well, we are told about the enemies that God raised up against Solomon in judgment upon his wickedness. The only other thing we hear about Solomon in 1 Kings 11 is that he tried to kill Jeroboam in response to the prophet Ahijah prophesying that, through Jeroboam, God would break up the Israelite kingdom. This doesn't sound like Solomon recanted his wickedness and turned back to the Lord. It seems to me, if he had done, such a big reversal would have been worth mentioning. But there is nothing even slightly hinting this occurred.

This is, though, quite consistent with what God's word says happens to those who persist in sin. Even the great and wise Solomon fell to the hardening effect of wickedness, ending his days under God's judgment, trying to murder his God-appointed replacement.

It's such a great lesson you are pointing out for us here.

The road to destruction is "easy" and "broad" --

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." -- Matthew 7

Verse 13 sums up my OP well, doesn't it? Thanks for offering this passage!

Maybe one of the best messages about the possibility of turning back (which is over and over and over in the Old Testament, and in the New) is the Prodigal Son. Who though long astray finally repented. And then became "alive again"!

Luke 15:32 But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'"

I see as many instances in Scripture, if not more, sadly, of the hardening danger of sin that moves the sinner finally into darkness from which they cannot be retrieved (Ahab, Jezebel, Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, the people of Noah's day all doing that which was right in their own eyes, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah mad with perversion, etc.). This is actually indicated in what Jesus said in the verses from Matthew 7 that you offered. Most, pursuing sin and hardened into it, follow the Broad Way, not to last-minute rescue from their sinful living, but destruction. Only a comparative few choose the Narrow Way. But this is the necessary result of God allowing us to be free moral agents able to freely choose to love Him and also able freely not to choose to love Him. It would violate our free agency for God to undo the hardening, blinding effects of our sinful choices all the time, effectively negating our free agency. Being free, for the unrepentant sinner, means being able to choose evil and to suffer its dreadful consequences.

God redeems us from our sin. Amen. But I don't believe He does this in direct violation of our choice not to be redeemed by Him. And so, it is REALLY important that people take sin very, very seriously. As Romans 1 explains, if we are determined to chase after sin, suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness, God will let us do so, allowing us to suffer the delusion and vile perversion that is the harvest of our sin.

Thankfully, such an end as Romans 1 describes doesn't happen all at once. The sinner has time to turn from their sin before being irretrievably hardened into it. But no one knows where the line is beyond which a retreat from hardening is no longer possible. And so, my post urging folks to heed the warning of King Solomon's drift into darkness.

 

[bèlla]

Great post.

I made a similar point earlier. You can’t put unrighteousness in your eyes, ears, connections, or environment and believe you’ll go unscathed. Or embrace anti-biblical ideals and not expect a consequence. There’s always a price.

We have to see ourselves and the world from God’s perspective. If He calls it sin it is. If its forbidden that’s the answer. We can’t be hoodwinked by the flesh, progress, movements, and things that tickle our ears.

We have to start asking questions.

Where is it heading?
What is it meant to accomplish?
Who’s behind it?
And how will it impact my relationship with God?

We wouldn’t be bamboozled if we spent more time in His presence and less with the elements for our demise. But we enjoy them and believe we can handle it and find fools who feel the same.

I’ve learned that whatever I want to become must be present in some capacity. If Proverbs 31 is the goal I need likeminded companions. Women who love the Lord, respect themselves and others, and have a biblical worldview and perspective on marriage. I can’t eat from the tree of knowledge and expect a harvest from the tree of life.

But we tell ourselves otherwise. We’re planting broccoli and expecting cantaloupe and the devil’s laughing. When you understand the deeper meaning of seeds you’ll be more discriminating with your garden and what you permit.

Because everything’s a seed and I’m pursuing a holy harvest. Whatever I have to set aside to make that happen is fine. The consequence of its continuance isn’t worth it. Something will be birthed for my benefit or destruction.

 

[aiki]

We’re planting broccoli and expecting cantaloupe and the devil’s laughing.

Exactly. Well said.

 

[Halbhh]

Well, we are told about the enemies that God raised up against Solomon in judgment upon his wickedness. The only other thing we hear about Solomon in 1 Kings 11 is that he tried to kill Jeroboam in response to the prophet Ahijah prophesying that, through Jeroboam, God would break up the Israelite kingdom. This doesn't sound like Solomon recanted his wickedness and turned back to the Lord. It seems to me, if he had done, such a big reversal would have been worth mentioning. But there is nothing even slightly hinting this occurred.

This is, though, quite consistent with what God's word says happens to those who persist in sin. Even the great and wise Solomon fell to the hardening effect of wickedness, ending his days under God's judgment, trying to murder God's appointed replacement of Solomon.



Verse 13 sums up my OP well, doesn't it? Thanks for offering this passage!



I see as many instances in Scripture, if not more, sadly, of the hardening danger of sin that moves the sinner finally into darkness from which they cannot be retrieved (Ahab, Jezebel, Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, the people of Noah's day all doing that which was right in their own eyes, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah mad with perversion, etc.). This is actually indicated in what Jesus said in the verses from Matthew 7 that you offered. Most, pursuing sin and hardened into it, follow the Broad Way, not to last-minute rescue from their sinful living, but destruction. Only a comparative few choose the Narrow Way. But this is the necessary result of God allowing us to be free moral agents able to freely choose to love Him and also able freely not to choose to love Him. It would violate our free agency for God to undo the hardening, blinding effects of our sinful choices all the time, effectively negating our free agency. Being free means both to choose evil and to suffer its dreadful consequences.

God redeems us from our sin. Amen. But I don't believe He does this in direct violation of our choice not to be redeemed by Him. And so, it is REALLY important that people take sin very, very seriously. As Romans 1 explains, if we are determined to chase after sin, suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness, God will let us do so, allowing us to suffer the delusion and vile perversion that is the harvest of our sin.

Thankfully, such an end as Romans 1 describes doesn't happen all at once. The sinner has time to turn from their sin before being irretrievably hardened into it. But no one knows where the line is beyond which a retreat from hardening is no longer possible. And so, my post urging folks to heed the warning of King Solomon's drift into darkness.

We agree on those, and it's so clear to us that Solomon was at that time far into the wrong, lost. Yet, we haven't ourselves God's omniscience to know what happened in Solomon's heart on his last day, or last hour, his deathbed inner heart situation.

God does know though, and we can trust God to judge fairly and justly.

----

The overall message in your OP is such an important one for Christians to hear, and it would be good to see it repeated again several times a year here!

 

[Blaise N]

U

1 Kings 11:1-9
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 sons of Israel, "You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods." Solomon held fast to these in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
6 Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done.
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon.
8 Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
9 Now the LORD was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, ​

The end of the life of Solomon is one of the direst - and strangest - endings in Scripture, I think. How did a man given peerless wisdom by God, visited twice by God, and blessed enormously by God materially end up building "high places" of worship to pagan gods like Molech, on whose red-hot arms babies were burned to death in sacrifice? Well, it didn't happen in a single, great leap into darkness. Instead, the wisest man who ever lived was brought into vile and terrible evil one step at a time, one moment of disobedience after another, until he was complicit in the vicious, demonic murder of babies (among other deeply evil pagan worship rites)!

This lesson in Solomon's story, the principle of one wicked deed leading to another, and greater, wicked deed, is pretty obvious. But it is routinely ignored by Christians today. I have, myself, been guilty of doing so. It is, at least in my case, the seeming insignificance of a single wicked choice that has facilitated my making it. Individually, the smallness of one act of disobedience to God is fairly easy to downplay. Being sinful creatures, being so prone to selfishness and rebellion toward God, it is doubly enticing for us to make sin seem as innocuous as possible:

"It's just a stupid, campy horror movie. The demonic stuff and violent, gruesome death are so over-the-top I just laugh at it."

"So what if I've just spent six hours killing person after person in my favorite video game? It's just a game; it's not real. I can tell the difference."

"Yeah, there's lots of screaming and aggressive, pounding, thrashing sound in the music I listen to. Sure, the lyrics are full of cursing, and rage, and despair. But it's just music, sound, noise, without any intrinsic moral quality. And I like it."

"Okay, I look at porn - but not the hard stuff. I can't help it. I'm human. God made me a sexual being; it's His fault, really, that I want to look at porn."

"I like food. Maybe I eat too much. Sometimes. But I didn't eat all three bags of potato chips yesterday when I could have. I only ate a couple of bags while I watched CSI. And sometimes I have just one liter of Pepsi rather than two, when I eat chips. So, I'm in control of what I eat. I could drop the extra hundred pounds of fat I'm carrying around all the time, if I wanted to. But I don't feel bad or uncomfortable about my weight, so why should I?"

And so it goes, sinners blunting their sin, telling themselves lies about the evil of their choices, denying God's will and way in the process. But a step toward sin, however small we make it, is always a step away from God. And the farther from Him we move as we pursue our favorite sin(s), the greater the darkness grows in our lives.

There is "pleasure in sin for a season," which is, really, at the bottom of why we sin at all. It makes us feel good; sin gratifies us; sin is pleasurable. At first, anyway. Later on, when we're addicted to it, or, at least, strongly habituated to it, when we have fed our desire for whatever sin, stoking it to inordinate proportions, unable to get enough of it, the corruption and death of sin begins to appear (Romans 6:23; James 1:14-15; Galatians 6:7-8). As it does, the sinner is often brought up short, checked in their wickedness, if only for a moment, by the pain and wretchedness of their sin. In such a moment, they often look around and wonder how they got so far into darkness, how they came to be so mired in filth and evil. But one the most terrible things about sin is that it stifles such thinking, over time totally blinding, deafening and hardening the sinner so that they cease entirely to ponder, or want, righteousness. Read the grim words of Romans 1:18-32.

We think we would never be brought to the heinous end described of King Solomon, that our sinful choices wouldn't take us that far. Do you not think Solomon had the same kinds of thoughts as he chose, again and again, to marry non-Israelite women? He didn't take each wife and concubine thinking to himself, "And now I can help my new bride (or concubine) burn babies to death on demonic idols!" Of course he didn't. He did exactly what you and I do with our sin: ignore it, or downplay it, or redefine it as something not sin. He saw only the pleasure he could take in sin and, following that pleasure, drifted easily, comfortably, and oh-so-gradually into deep, deep darkness.

So, how about you? Are you able to see in your life increasing holiness? Are you, more and more, being separated from the World, the Flesh and the devil in your desires, thinking and living? Or are you drifting, as Solomon did, one insignificant choice after another, toward depravity? You're always moving in one direction or the other.

1 Kings 8:61
61 Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the LORD our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”

I agree also aiki.I can’t even fathom how foolish Solomon was to abuse such a gracious gift from God.He even spoke to God and had fellowship with him,which is a very rare privilege to be given,and turned around and abused it all for women.If h were Solomons advisor,I would’ve annoyed him to strongly reconsider his actions.For someone who was the wisest man in history,he sure also was the most foolish.Having audible fellowship with God is an insanely rare privilege to be offered,so rarely so that only no more than 20 men in history(All the old testement prophets,the apostles,Paul and his disciples) Even Solomon’s own father,if I were given such a privilege,I wouldn’t dare ask for anything more ever again.

 

[Blade]

"the mind of the flesh [with its sinful pursuits] is actively hostile to God. It does not submit itself to God’s law, since it cannot," Saved or not this effects every one of us. Even Paul said the things he should be doing he does not he keeps doing the things he should not. God talks to us every day some way some how and we all just ignore it most the time or we question it lol.

Its a fallen world. All of us like Solomon fall miss it.

 

[DiscipleOfChrist85]

Great post.

I made a similar point earlier. You can’t put unrighteousness in your eyes, ears, connections, or environment and believe you’ll go unscathed. Or embrace anti-biblical ideals and not expect a consequence. There’s always a price.

We have to see ourselves and the world from God’s perspective. If He calls it sin it is. If its forbidden that’s the answer. We can’t be hoodwinked by the flesh, progress, movements, and things that tickle our ears.

We have to start asking questions.

Where is it heading?
What is it meant to accomplish?
Who’s behind it?
And how will it impact my relationship with God?

We wouldn’t be bamboozled if we spent more time in His presence and less with the elements for our demise. But we enjoy them and believe we can handle it and find fools who feel the same.

I’ve learned that whatever I want to become must be present in some capacity. If Proverbs 31 is the goal I need like minded companions. Women who love the Lord, respect themselves and others, and have a biblical worldview and perspective on marriage. I can’t eat from the tree of knowledge and expect a harvest from the tree of life.

But we tell ourselves otherwise. We’re planting broccoli and expecting cantaloupe and the devil’s laughing. When you understand the deeper meaning of seeds you’ll be more discriminating with your garden and what you permit.

Because everything’s a seed and I’m pursuing a holy harvest. Whatever I have to set aside to make that happen is fine. The consequence of its continuance isn’t worth it. Something will be birthed for my benefit or destruction.

Well said, my biggest problem is that I always chase after ungodly things and then I wonder why I fell so terrible all the time. I sow bitter fruit expecting to harvest oranges, but I thank God in his infinite grace for helping me see this and turn things around.

 

[bèlla]

Well said, my biggest problem is that I always chase after ungodly things and then I wonder why I fell so terrible all the time. I sow bitter fruit expecting to harvest oranges, but I thank God in his infinite grace for helping me see this and turn things around.

Thank you for the compliment. I’m glad the Lord opened your eyes. Don’t despair. Your mistakes and lessons may bless others in a similar place.

 

[DiscipleOfChrist85]

Well I would hope so it's funny my pastor was doing a sermon on this very thing. God can and does use our mistake to help us grow. He doesn't cause these mistakes and he doesn't want us to make them if possible but God is a master of turning our trails into his triumph.

 

[aiki]

Bump.