[Notes of a sermon preached at Holy Trnity Norwich, November 2006.]

Solomon was king of Israel.  He was a very successful king.  He was good at winning things, and so brought peace to the region.  He was good at organising things, and his country became rich and prosperous.  He was good at building things, and built houses and palaces, and even a wonderful temple for the Lord.  However, he had always had a fatal weakness.  His problem was that he loved too much…

Can it be possible to love too much?  Football?  Music?  Your children?  Your mum and dad?  Can you have too much of a good thing?  Too many Maltesers?

Read 1 Kings 11:1-6

‘He loved many foreign wives’.  He had started off with just one, but ended up with 1,000 foreign wives and lovers.  What was worse, he allowed them to carryon worshiping their pagan gods and idols, and he ended up worshiping them too.  For a man to cheat on his wife by going after other women is terrible.  But to cheat on the Lord by going after other gods is even more terrible.  Solomon had begun by loving the Lord.  But slowly, gradually, disastrously, he drifted away from his first love and made spiritual shipwreck.  He never intended to forsake the Lord, he just allowed his love for all these wives and their gods to draw him away.

What happened next?  (Shirt.)

Jeroboam, 1 Kings 11:26ff

Jeroboam is a capable fellow.  He is told by the prophet Ahijah that the nation will be torn apart.  But not yet, and not completely.  Jeroboam would be given 10 tribes in the North to rule over.  The remaining two tribes would be all that remained for Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, to rule over.

That is how God broke the news.  And this is how it came to pass…

Dramatic Reading – 1 Kings 12:1-19

One bad decision tears down in a few days what David and Solomon had laboured 80 years to build up.

Here was a great nation, promised to Abraham, sought by Moses, conquered by Joshua, secured by David, given peace by Solomon.  Now it was to be torn apart.  And all because Solomon drifted into idolatry and his son Rehoboam heeded foolish rather than wise advice.

So let us commit ourselves afresh to make the Lord number one in our lives, not letting anything or anyone take the place that rightly belongs to him.

But this is not only a story of human folly, but also a story of a God who continues to speak and act and carry out his purposes.  It was the Lord who had first given the command, “Do not have any other gods before me.”  It was the Lord who had decided beforehand that he would tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hands.  And then, at the very moment that the kingdom is torn apart, we read, 12:5 – “This turn of events was from the Lord.”  And it would be the Lord who would in due time re-unite his people, and send a Saviour for them and for the whole world.

Let us have confidence that even when all we seem to be able to see around us are the results of human folly and wickedness, the word of the Lord will prevail, and his just and loving purposes shall surely come to pass.