SUCH HIGH HOPES

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When Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.
1 Kings 11:4‭-‬8 ESV

¶Let the horror and the sorrow of this rest fully on your heart. God's anointed turned all the honors and gifts bestowed upon him into idolatry, not just for a special few of his foreign wives but for ALL his foreign wives. Within a generation false gods had found their way into the heart of God's chosen ones. All the decades of Solomon's public building projects, all the forced labor, all the ruined lives, all squandered for some other lovers, some other gods. Solomon's kingdom found itself surrounded by enemies without and within, with no more effective means of defense against the powers that challenged it than any of its challengers. Such high hopes, so wrongly placed. Can we feel the pain and sorrow of Jesus over our own divided hearts and the divided kingdom that is his church today? How are we to be any better equipped than the pagan world around us to do any lasting good?

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