So Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

And it came to pass in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, that he began to build the house of the Lord.

And in the eleventh year, the house was finished in all its details and according to all its plans. So he was seven years in building it.

But Solomon took thirteen years to build his own house.

And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he wanted to do, that the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time. And the Lord said to him: “I have consecrated this house which you have built to put My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. Now if you walk before Me, in integrity of heart and uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever. But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them.

Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. So Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing so difficult for the king that he could not explain it to her. And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, she said to the king: “It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. However I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard.

But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, “You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines’ and his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God.

So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statues, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. Nevertheless I will not do it in your days, for the sake of you father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

And the period that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. Then Solomon rested with his fathers, and was buried in the City of David his father. And Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.

And I Kings tells us that Rehoboam did not reign long before the kingdom was taken from him and given to Solomon’s servant, Jeroboam.

Solomon’s downfall was not his earthly wealth. Solomon’s downfall, his great evil, was simply this. He forsook the fountain of living waters, God, to hew out for himself cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

That’s how Jeremiah describes evil in Jeremiah 2:13. It fits Solomon and it fits us. We seek our reward in the wrong place, turning from the cup of abundant blessing to drink from the filth of a broken cistern. How do we know this is Solomon’s problem? He tells us himself in Ecclesiastes 2:10, 11.

Whatever my eyes desired I did no keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure...Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.

He pursued his pleasure everywhere, except in the one place where it could be found. But someone will ask, “didn’t Solomon go to heaven? Wasn’t his faith shored up in the end. And if he is rewarded with eternity after a life of so much compromise, isn’t he getting the best of both worlds?...a lifetime of sinful pleasures and an eternity of paradise?

If you read Ecclesiastes, you will hear the heart cry of a man who poured his life out in vain pursuits, pursuits which ultimately yielded misery, not joy. Consider Solomon’s declaration in Ecclesiastes 4:1-3:

Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead, More than the living who are still alive. Yet, better than both is he who has never existed, Who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Solomon’s love affair with foreign women and false gods cost him a lot of joy. He sacrificed a lot of satisfaction for the despair of sin. He lost the kingdom for his descendants. He established a legacy of sinfulness for his sons, and he went to his grave amidst strife and adversity. Solomon sacrificed a lot for his sins.

So here’s where it hits home for us. Is heaven at stake when we are tempted to find our pleasure outside of God? Well… not if we’re justified. But how do we know that our faith is sufficient to justify if we don’t walk in obedience, and how can we walk in obedience if we count the Christian life a life of sacrifice rather than reward? You can grit you teeth and fight off sin for a few days, or weeks or years, but the day will come when only the promise of reward will be sufficient to sustain you in obedience. How else can you be like the believers in Hebrews 11:27, believers who were sawn in two, Hebrews says, “that they might obtain a better resurrection”. It wasn’t the nobility of sacrifice that kept them, it was the promise of reward! If you were to stand before your executioners who are ready to run you through if you don’t recant your faith in Christ, what is going to hold your tongue? At that moment, if you don’t look to the reward and say in your heart with the apostle Paul, “to die is gain!”, then all will be lost.

If you view the Christian life as a life of sacrifice rather than a life of reward you will never triumph over sin in any meaningful way. The Christian never has to make a sacrifice because the only thing worth attaining is the very thing we will never, never, never, never, never be called to give up. Give up everything but Christ. If you want to live a life of true sacrifice, be a heathen. What do they sacrifice? Everything. The heathen sacrifices an eternity of unbroken and ever increasing satisfaction for a mere breath of worthless gain.

In closing I want to consider Christ, our Savior, our Lord, our Treasure, and our example. Didn’t He prove that sacrifice is a noble and beautiful thing? Aren’t I belittling the fact that our very salvation hangs on one great sacrifice? Hopefully I am not for Christ too gave up the lesser glory to attain the greater glory, and we read of his motivation in Hebrews 12:2:

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus endured the cross, not for the sacrifice, but for the joy.

Let’s pray.