Love and worship - Solomon

David and Solomon were two of the most powerful kings in Israel’s history.  Their reign was marked with peace and prosperity.  Both men were chosen by God and loved by God greatly, yet at the end of their lives here on earth, one ended having strayed away from God.

Both of these kings were worshippers and had a reverent fear of God.  In 2 Chronicles 1 it is said that Solomon organised a nationwide worship service for God and offered a sacrifice that had never before been seen in Israel.  In fact the sacrifice was so great that it caused God to come and ask Solomon to ask for anything and it would be his.

He believed in God so much so that when he built the temple of God in Jerusalem, in 2 chronicles 6, he prayed that anyone who turned to the direction of Jerusalem and prayed, the lord God should hear and answer their prayer.


He had zeal and he lived to serve.  He was determined to follow in the foot prints of his father and build on the legacy his father David left him.  He knew who chose him to sit on the throne.  He knew that by legal right he shouldn’t have inherited the throne, and he also knew that it was the love that God had for him and his father that gave him the throne.

This was a man that had all the ingredients of a worshipper.  If Solomon was born today, he probably would been raised in the house of God by a father who was a man of God. He had no reason to fail as a child of God. He had no excuse to backslide.  But at the end of his life, he looked at all that he had achieved and he called it all vanity.


I have asked myself several times why Solomon who had it all, money, beauty, prestige, God on his side and above all, had a personal contact and relationship with God could end up the way he did.


Solomon had fame and with the fame came praise and women.  There was one thing that God told the Israelites not to do, He told them not to intermarry with their neighbours lest they be led astray by their strange gods. Deuteronomy 7:2-4


Solomon had one weakness, the same one his father David had, women.  He loved them and they came to him in their numbers.  The bible says that he made alliances with foreign countries by marrying their daughters and each of those daughters brought in their own gods and Solomon allowed them to set up altars for those gods in Jerusalem.  Eventually the bible says the women and their gods led Solomon astray.  The man who started out with all the right ingredients ended following other gods because he compromised.


I guess Solomon didn’t see anything wrong with allowing his wives to bring in their gods, after all he was not going to worship them, but like the Asians say, the first step is the most important one.  All it takes is one compromise and the rest won’t be so difficult to make.


The love that God had for Solomon was not enough to keep him from straying.  God’s love keeps Him faithful to us, but it won’t keep us faithful to Him until we love him back and take a hold of that love. God’s love as it was available to Solomon is also available to us and just us it did not keep Solomon from straying, it won’t keep us from straying either.


God’s love is always there for us but we have to hold on to that love.  We have to choose to stay connected with that love like David did.  God expects us to love and trust him enough to choose him daily as David.

Written by Aba Dadson


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