The character of Solomon is unique--one of the loftiest and saddest of the sacred volume. Grand in its stately strength and towering height--sad in its demoralisation and fall. A morning fair and bright as ever dawned on mortal vision--high noon golden and glowing, flashing its glories far and wide--an evening clouded and mournful, with wailing winds and muttering thunders. Is it not the type of many another life? What were the causes that produced this mournful decline, and overhung with darkest clouds the closing years of a life beginning with such high promise? We approach this question with the more eager interest, because the principles upon which character is built, and the influences effecting its demoralisation, are generically the same in all ages. Men are rotting inwardly to-day, and the pillars of their characters crumbling to decay, from the very same influences that wrought the ruin of Solomon. Moreover, this fact of the decline and fall of character, once lofty and apparently strong, is but the commonest occurrence in modern society. We do well to study its insidious causes.
1. First, then, the superior endowments of Solomon became a snare to him, as they are liable to prove to every gifted nature. Great talents involve great liabilities. Every being is subject to inexorable laws, which cannot be violated with impunity; God secures no man from the legitimate penalties of their violation. One of theselaws is that which requires the improvement of talent as a necessary condition of increasing or even retaining it. When God gave Solomon that priceless largess of wisdom He did not exempt him from this law, nor take the work of preserving his character and insuring his ultimate well-being into his own hands. It is a fatal delusion that there is a mysterious gift of God, called Grace, which allows a man to sleep on the lap of some fair Delilah, without being shorn of the locks of his strength--a magic power that holds a man to the right against his own deliberate choice.
2. Another cause wrought with insidious influence to effect his overthrow. Solomon was the dupe of that prince of deceptive devils, misnamed Policy. It was from motives of policy, doubtless, that he entered into alliance with Egypt’s king; it was from motives of policy that he married the daughter of that king, and took to his bosom his first heathen wife. Did ever man or woman marry from policy--political, financial, or social interest--that in the end did not find it the most miserable policy that ever mortal pursued, yielding its bitter fruits of sorrow and sin? There is but one bond that can ever bind two human hearts together in union strong and holy enough for the marriage relation; and that golden bond is Love--true, pure, uncalculating, heaven-born love.
3. In estimating the causes of Solomon’s decline, we must also remember the danger that attends great worldly prosperity. Human nature is too weak to bear, unharmed, great elevation. Dazzled and blinded by the splendour of rank and honour and power and wealth, man reels and falls from the giddy height.
4. But finally Solomon fell, a willing victim to the seductive charms of pleasure and carnal indulgence. One sentence of the Inspired Volume reveals to us this fatal cause: “Solomon loved many strange women: . . . his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God.” Of all the insidious, corrupting, dangerous influences that ever wrought the ruin of man, the influence of a bad woman is the most fatal and irremediable. How powerless are reason and learning to preserve character in the light of such a history as this! How weak is human nature in its best and strongest estate! Who can trust his own heart when such as Solomon fall? Can you, young man? Are you stronger, safer than he, leaning on that broken staff? Let us learn to beware of the beginnings of sin. Not suddenly did this mighty prince fall. Young man, take care that no worm secretly gnaws at the staff of support on which you lean. What of Solomon’s final state? Saved or lost? The good God only knows. In the series of frescoes on the walls of the Campo Santo, at Pisa, he is represented, in the resurrection, as looking doubtfully to the right and to the left, not knowing on which side his lot will be east. If he wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes, as it is probable he did, he saw at least the folly of his sins. Let us listen to the deep-toned voice of warning that comes to us from his inspired wisdom--sadly illustrated by his uninspired life--“Fear God, and keep His commandments.” (C. H. Payne, D. D.)
Solomon’s fall
I. Neither age nor experience brings any release to a man from his exposure to sin. “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods.” There is no fool worse than an old fool. Wise man it was who said, “Count no one safe or happy till he dies.”
II. It is possible for even a devout man to become a practical idolater in his secret heart. “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians.” We are solemnly warned against idols in our hearts, three times in one chapter, by a prophet. Idolatry is still a possible sin to dread.
III. Progress by steps of persistent advance into deeper sin may always be expected when one has taken quick start away from the right andtowards wrong. “Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab,” etc. There is nothing more to be feared than the unperceived inroad of what might be termed a little sin. The old parable relates that the trees of the forest once held a solemn parliament, wherein they consulted concerning the innumerable wrongs which the axe, first and last, had done unto them and their neighbours. They insisted that this dangerous implement of steel had no power of its own; and they therefore instantly passed an enactment that no tree should hereafter be allowed to furnish any blade with a helve on pain of being itself cut down to the root. So the axe journeyed through the forests, begging but a bit of wood from the oak, from the ash, from the cedar, from the elm, from even the willow and the poplar; but a stern denial met it at each turn; not one would lend it so much as a splinter from its branches. At last, it desired just this small indulgence: give it but a chip--a mere handle with which it could trim away useless boughs, or cut off briers and bushes, for such suckers, as was well known, only used up the juices of the ground; they always hindered the growth of any thrifty tree and obscured its fairness and beauty. The forest win, impressed with such moderation in the argument; it agreed that the axe in this instance might be supplied with one fragment which a storm had riven from an unfortunate sapling--a mere little stick, lying there, which no one prized and no one dreaded. But the instant that keen edge of steel was fitted with any sort of a handle, it struck off thebranch of a sturdy oak at a stroke, then hewed itself a new helve at its will; and down went the elms, over toppled the cedars, and the hills grew bare as never before. The time for all defence was passed when the forest surrendered.
IV. The guilt of all transgression is in the sight of a holy god aggravated by past warnings given. “And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel,” etc.
V. Retribution gathers up the entire history of the sinner, even if it is discharged in one act. “Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou has not kept My covenant and My statutes which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant.” Henceforward it would do no good for this rejected monarch to awake himself to paternal zeal, and try to build up the fortunes of his shattered realm for his children. It is often worth while to attempt to avert a great catastrophe; but one of the punishments sometimes inflicted for sin is the denial to the sinners of all success in after usefulness.
VI. It may be possible to misunderstand and even pervert God’s forbearance into excuse for further sin. “Notwithstanding, in thy days I will not do it for David thy father’s sake: but Iwill rend it out of the hand of thy sore Howbeit, I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son, for David My servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen.” On the shore of eternal history stands this beacon-light for human warning. The wisest man in the world lived to behave like a fool! ( C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Solomon’s, life; its spiritual significance
I. The co-existence of good and evil in the same human soul. So long as we are in this world, this is more or less the case with the best of us; evil is not perhaps entirely subdued, until this “mortal puts on immortality.” In heaven evil is not found in alliance with good in any heart, nor in hell is good found in alliance with evil. Their co-existence is only in the human heart, whilst here. This fact should always be recognised by us in estimating the characters of our fellow-men. A man is not to be pronounced utterly bad because he has committed a wrong, nor completely good because he has performed some virtuous deeds. “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou us from secret faults.”
II. The energy of the degenerating tendency in human nature. There seems to be in all men a something, call it original sin, depravity, or what you like, which urges to the wrong; a law in the members warring against the laws of the Spirit. You see this force in the case of Solomon. It was in him stronger than three things.
1. It was stronger than the influence of parental piety.
2. The degenerating force within him proved stronger even than his own religious convictions.
3. It proved stronger, moreover, than his own clearest conceptions of duty.
III. The utter insufficiency of all earthly good to satisfy the mind. “I said in my heart, go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and behold this also is vanity.”
IV. The superiority of true thoughts to all the other productions of man. Solomon was an active man, and accomplished many material works while here; but what were they all compared with his thoughts contained in the Book of Proverbs?
1. What are they as to their utility?
2. What are they as to their duration? Where now is his throne of “ivory and gold”? etc. (Homilist.)
