It remains the greatest comeback in NFL history to this very day. It was a playoff game on January 3, 1993, and my beloved Houston Oilers were up 28-3 at halftime over the Buffalo Bills. It felt so great to have my team playing well early in the playoffs. Oiler quarterback Warren Moon was unstoppable, completing almost every pass he threw and tossing four touchdowns in two quarters. But then the second half took place, and the Oilers walked off the field losers to a score of 41-38 in overtime.
The Oilers’ season was over. To NFL fans, it’s simply called “The Comeback.” But not in Houston. We call it something else. The entire off-season was filled with questions about the colossal meltdown. Fans wanted to know why the Oilers started so well and ended so badly that day.
Fans of the Bible might wonder the same thing about King Solomon’s life. Spiritually speaking, few people in all of recorded history can match his start . . . or his finish. The Bible says that, in the beginning of his reign, he “showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David” (1 Kings 1:3). God was so pleased with Solomon that He offered to give him anything he asked for.
Solomon asked for wisdom, and the Lord became even more pleased, so much so that He not only gave him wisdom but also great wealth. Solomon proved his discernment by successfully judging the famous case between the two prostitutes over the baby. At the high point in his reign, the Bible tells us that Solomon was renowned, “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart” (1 Kings 10:23-24). Solomon was doing very well, kind of like the Oilers at halftime.
Then something happened. Maybe it was a bunch of things that happened along the way. 1 Kings tells us, “The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice . . . So the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son’” (11:9, 11-12). Despite Solomon’s great start, he fumbled the ball somewhere along the way and never regained possession of it.
The Lord’s promise came true. Upon Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam took over and the people soon rebelled. Under their chosen leader Jeroboam, the ten northern tribes broke away and formed a separate kingdom that continued to be called Israel. Rehoboam maintained rule over the two remaining tribes in the south, a kingdom that became known as Judah.
Like ’93 Oiler fans, we want to know what happened. We want to know why. The answer is right there in the text. If we go back to 1 Kings 3:3, we see the first indication of Solomon’s error, “Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned offerings on the high places” (emphasis added). The “high places” were pagan shrines where people worshiped idols. 1 Kings 11:1 adds to the explanation, “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women.”
Now to us marrying a foreign wife does not sound bad. But God had forbidden it among the Israelites. 1 King 11:2 explains, “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.’” Far from obeying this command, the text tells us that “Solomon held fast to these (wives) in love” (1 Kings 11:2b).
Now, nowhere does the biblical text tell us that Solomon ever cursed God or rejected God, at least not with his mouth or his mind. We don’t have any record of Him speaking out against God. What the text tells us is that Solomon’s actions showed his lack of love for God and his rejection of God. In other words, actions DO speak louder than words, especially in God’s eyes.
Are we any different from Solomon in this way? We don’t marry Hittite women; they don’t exist anymore. We don’t offer sacrifices and burn offerings on high places to false gods, right? But we too commit Solomon’s error. One way we do it is by solely focusing on loving God. Yes, you read that right: focusing solely on loving God. It is true that loving God is good and important. It’s vital, in fact. More than that, it’s essential to having a relationship with Him. But we need to hate too. Please let me explain.
Think of it as a two-sided coin. On one side of that coin is love: the feelings we have for God and the things we do joyfully in His name. Look at what John says, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments” (1 John 2:3). So we can see that loving God, “knowing” Him, not only involves having warm and fuzzy feelings for the Lord, but it also entails doing actions that prove those feelings.
The other side of the coin, and this is the part we so often ignore, is hate. Not convinced? Look at Psalm 97:10, “Hate evil, you who love the LORD.” Here’s Romans 12:9: “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.” Abhor is another word for hate. Finally, John tells us, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
From these verses, we can conclude that people who love God not only love what He loves, but they also hate what He hates. And they show that love and hate in their actions. Our love for the Lord compels us to hate sin of every kind. So, we were designed to be great lovers of God and other people. We were also designed to be great haters of sin and evil.
So Solomon’s error was that he loved things that God hated. In addition to his great love for God, he also loved making sacrifices to false gods. He loved women that God had forbidden.
Does the idea of hating surprise you? It can be a shocking thought with all the love talk we engage in. So let me ask you a question: How’s your hate side doing these days? Is it as healthy as your love side? Or are you tolerating sin in your life? If you are, if your sin doesn’t leave a bad aftertaste in your mouth, if it doesn’t gnaw in your belly like a sour meal, then you’ve fallen into Solomon’s error. You’re lopsided, a spiritual hunchback constantly toppling over and veering off the straight and narrow path. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Through intentional and concerted effort, we can all take control of our thoughts and actions. Christ’s death and resurrection has freed us from slavery to sin and given us the ability to choose righteousness. We can do that. Through Christ we have the strength. And nobody wants the alternative. No one wants to end up like King Solomon or the ’93 Oilers. No, nobody wants that!
The Oilers’ season was over. To NFL fans, it’s simply called “The Comeback.” But not in Houston. We call it something else. The entire off-season was filled with questions about the colossal meltdown. Fans wanted to know why the Oilers started so well and ended so badly that day.
Fans of the Bible might wonder the same thing about King Solomon’s life. Spiritually speaking, few people in all of recorded history can match his start . . . or his finish. The Bible says that, in the beginning of his reign, he “showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David” (1 Kings 1:3). God was so pleased with Solomon that He offered to give him anything he asked for.
Solomon asked for wisdom, and the Lord became even more pleased, so much so that He not only gave him wisdom but also great wealth. Solomon proved his discernment by successfully judging the famous case between the two prostitutes over the baby. At the high point in his reign, the Bible tells us that Solomon was renowned, “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart” (1 Kings 10:23-24). Solomon was doing very well, kind of like the Oilers at halftime.
Then something happened. Maybe it was a bunch of things that happened along the way. 1 Kings tells us, “The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice . . . So the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son’” (11:9, 11-12). Despite Solomon’s great start, he fumbled the ball somewhere along the way and never regained possession of it.
The Lord’s promise came true. Upon Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam took over and the people soon rebelled. Under their chosen leader Jeroboam, the ten northern tribes broke away and formed a separate kingdom that continued to be called Israel. Rehoboam maintained rule over the two remaining tribes in the south, a kingdom that became known as Judah.
Like ’93 Oiler fans, we want to know what happened. We want to know why. The answer is right there in the text. If we go back to 1 Kings 3:3, we see the first indication of Solomon’s error, “Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned offerings on the high places” (emphasis added). The “high places” were pagan shrines where people worshiped idols. 1 Kings 11:1 adds to the explanation, “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women.”
Now to us marrying a foreign wife does not sound bad. But God had forbidden it among the Israelites. 1 King 11:2 explains, “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.’” Far from obeying this command, the text tells us that “Solomon held fast to these (wives) in love” (1 Kings 11:2b).
Now, nowhere does the biblical text tell us that Solomon ever cursed God or rejected God, at least not with his mouth or his mind. We don’t have any record of Him speaking out against God. What the text tells us is that Solomon’s actions showed his lack of love for God and his rejection of God. In other words, actions DO speak louder than words, especially in God’s eyes.
Are we any different from Solomon in this way? We don’t marry Hittite women; they don’t exist anymore. We don’t offer sacrifices and burn offerings on high places to false gods, right? But we too commit Solomon’s error. One way we do it is by solely focusing on loving God. Yes, you read that right: focusing solely on loving God. It is true that loving God is good and important. It’s vital, in fact. More than that, it’s essential to having a relationship with Him. But we need to hate too. Please let me explain.
Think of it as a two-sided coin. On one side of that coin is love: the feelings we have for God and the things we do joyfully in His name. Look at what John says, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments” (1 John 2:3). So we can see that loving God, “knowing” Him, not only involves having warm and fuzzy feelings for the Lord, but it also entails doing actions that prove those feelings.
The other side of the coin, and this is the part we so often ignore, is hate. Not convinced? Look at Psalm 97:10, “Hate evil, you who love the LORD.” Here’s Romans 12:9: “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.” Abhor is another word for hate. Finally, John tells us, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
From these verses, we can conclude that people who love God not only love what He loves, but they also hate what He hates. And they show that love and hate in their actions. Our love for the Lord compels us to hate sin of every kind. So, we were designed to be great lovers of God and other people. We were also designed to be great haters of sin and evil.
So Solomon’s error was that he loved things that God hated. In addition to his great love for God, he also loved making sacrifices to false gods. He loved women that God had forbidden.
Does the idea of hating surprise you? It can be a shocking thought with all the love talk we engage in. So let me ask you a question: How’s your hate side doing these days? Is it as healthy as your love side? Or are you tolerating sin in your life? If you are, if your sin doesn’t leave a bad aftertaste in your mouth, if it doesn’t gnaw in your belly like a sour meal, then you’ve fallen into Solomon’s error. You’re lopsided, a spiritual hunchback constantly toppling over and veering off the straight and narrow path. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Through intentional and concerted effort, we can all take control of our thoughts and actions. Christ’s death and resurrection has freed us from slavery to sin and given us the ability to choose righteousness. We can do that. Through Christ we have the strength. And nobody wants the alternative. No one wants to end up like King Solomon or the ’93 Oilers. No, nobody wants that!