The Stupidity of Solomon
One
1 John 2:16 warns us about the three-fold disordered desire of lust, greed, and pride.
These are the three big temptations. Money, sex, sower. Or self, sex, and stuff.
Often in different phases of our life, we’re tempted more or less by each of these. For instance, young adults are often tempted largely by lust. Those in the middle of their lives are often tempted by power or influence. And those at the end of their lives are often tempted most by the need for certainty and stability and comfort that comes from money and stuff.
But the point is that if you don’t get a handle on these disordered desires, they will destroy your life.
And nothing shows that more clearly than the tragic story of Solomon.
Two
Solomon’s Gifts and Instruction
The story of Solomon is a sad one, especially since it starts out so well. God promises David that He, God, would be a Father to David’s son Solomon. And then when Solomon first became king, God gave Him extravagant gifts, great wisdom, political security, health, and prosperity.
But God also tells Solomon that he must keep God’s statutes and decrees. Now the decrees for a King were pretty simple. God had given them to Moses generations earlier.
What a king had to do, was three things. First, do not multiply wives. This would help the king resist lust. Second, the king had to not multiply silver and gold. This would help the kind resist greed for money and the stuff money can buy. Third, the king had to not multiply horses.
Horses were what gave you great military advantage in the ancient world, so not multiplying horses would help you resist the pride of life or the impulse of selfish power. Again, pretty simple. Don’t multiply wives, silver and gold, or horses. Don’t indulge in lust, greed, or pride and the lust for egotistical power. But Solomon, unfortunately, for him, did exactly the opposite.
Three
Solomon’s Indulgence
In the first book of Kings, we read that Solomon grossly multiplied wives, money, and horses to an astonishing degree.
He had 700 wives and 300 hundred concubines. He gets six hundred and sixty-six gold talents in taxation (and you know six hundred and sixty-six is not a great number) and “made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones.” Finally, he acquires so many horses for his chariots that some of the cities of his kingdom are called “chariot cities.”
So instead of being careful to follow the fatherly instructions of God, Solomon throws himself headlong into sex, stuff, and power…
And what do you think is the result?
Four
Solomon’s Fall
The first effect of Solomon’s indulgence is estrangement from God. You can’t be close to God if you’re just completely lost in self-indulgence.
And so, Solomon begins to worship pagan gods. He worships Moloch. The demon god who required child sacrifice. That is just how far Solomon has fallen away from God because of his lust, greed, and pride.
Now, remember, all this is happening in the Old Testament and a lot of us think of the “God of the Old Testament” as a God who punishes, smites, sends lightning or a snake on anyone who disobeys Him. But actually, God doesn’t do anything to punish Solomon. He doesn’t have to because we punish ourselves by the consequences of our evil choices.
The sin of Solomon does two things, it is the cause of the civil war that destroys his Kingdom and it makes himself and everyone around him miserable.
One of the books of the Bible that is attributed to Solomon is the book of Ecclesiastes. And in the first two chapters, Solomon talks about how he indulged himself in every kind of pleasure. He says, “Nothing that my eyes desired did I deny them, nor did I deprive myself of any pleasure” (2:10). But soon enough, he finds his mind and his senses are dulled, incapable of enjoying any of it. And he says, “Therefore, I hated my life.” (2:17).
And we all know this is true. Overindulgence creates insensibility. Immorality makes it impossible to enjoy even the good things God offers. And this is why the Lord gives us His law. So that we don’t end up hating our own life.
Five
Why God gives us His law
Sex, and Self, and Stuff are good things, all of which come from God. But God knows that they are, of themselves, incapable of giving us happiness. And He knows that if we seek our happiness in them, there is just no way we will not end up miserable.
St. John of the Cross, commenting on Solomon’s story, says, “Who would have thought that a man as perfect in the wisdom and gifts of God as Solomon could have sunk into such blindness and torpor of will… Although in the beginning he was truly restrained, this rush after his desires and the failure to deny them, gradually blinded and darkened his intellect so that finally the powerful light of God’s wisdom was extinguished. Consequently, in his old age, Solomon abandoned God.”
And when we abandon God, we abandon our happiness.
Now what happened to Solomon can so easily happen to us. So pray to God to show you which of these three passions, the desire for money, for sex, or for influence, is the strongest with you. And then ask God to show you how to begin detaching from that desire. So that you don’t spoil your own chances for happiness.