As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
1 Kings 11:4 (NIV)

I heard a woman share her story a week or two ago. As I listened, I realized that this was a classic tale I had heard before – more than once. The woman unpacked how she was raised in a religiously strict Christian. Her mother ruled over her children as a tyrant. She described her childhood as the black-and-white existence of maternal law and punishment. There was no grace. And so, as this tale typically unfolds — she rebelled and did everything her mother told her never to do. Eventually, she had to come to terms with her past, her choices, and the consequences.

I find myself on the precipice of the “third phase” of my life journey. From here, I look back on life’s road and I see patterns. The woman’s story fit a pattern I’ve seen many, many times. Certain pieces of the story vary, but the pattern remains the same. The rebellion of youth is common, and adults often have to navigate the rough terrain that follows the path of rebellion in order to find a way back to a spiritually healthy path.

But there is another observation that I’ve made the further I’ve progressed in the journey: finding one’s way back to God does not guarantee a smooth road or prescribed oucome. I hear people talk a lot about the rebellion of youth. I rarely hear anyone talk about the duplicity of age — and that’s tragic. I observe that it affects many.

Solomon is Exhibit A.

How does the wisest man in Israel become the poster child for foolishness?

I mentioned in yesterday’s post/podcast God’s laws for Israel’s king in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. The king is specifically commanded not to accumulate:

• many horses,
• excessive silver and gold,
• many wives,
• or anything that causes Israel to return to Egypt.

In yesterday’s chapter and today’s chapter we’ve read that

Solomon accumulates enormous quantities of gold.
Solomon accumulates horses, notably imported through Egypt.
Solomon accumulates wives.
And where do Solomon’s adversaries flee to escape? Egypt.

The narrator isn’t being subtle. Solomon has essentially become a case study in Deuteronomy 17’s warning about kingship. Solomon’s appetite for acquisition has become grotesque. The king who possesses everything has become possessed by what he possesses.

God’s law stated multiplying wives will turn a king’s heart away.

Back at the beginning Solomon asked God for a “heart that listens.” In today’s chapter, the narrator repeatedly references Solomon’s heart.

Now 11:2 says Solomon “held fast” to his foreign wives in love.

Verse 3: “his wives led him astray.”

Verse 4: “his wives turned his heart…”

Verse 4 again: “his heart was not fully devoted…”

Verse 9: “his heart had turned away from the LORD…”

Solomon not only allowed his wifes to build altars to their native gods, but he participated in their worship. Solomon’s problem isn’t simply that he became an atheist. He apparently continued worshiping Yahweh. His heart became divided, and to me that’s more unsettling. He didn’t necessarily replace God. He added gods. Idolatry is often less “I no longer believe in God” and more “God is one loyalty among several.”

What strikes me about Solomon’s catastrophic end is that it does not happen overnight. There isn’t one spectacular moment where Solomon wakes up and announces: “Today I’m abandoning Yahweh.”

Instead, there is the accumulation I wrote about in yesterday’s post. One more wife and another alliance. Another palace for the additional wives. More horses and more gold. Another compromise, another altar and accommodation. Another justification.

Until one morning the man with the listening heart can apparently no longer hear the God who gave it to him. And for me, at the waypoint I find myself on life’s road, there’s something particularly sobering in the phrase: “As Solomon grew old…”

Rebellion may be a typical young person’s problem. Spiritual drift is too often a problem in life’s later stages — when a divided heart leads to spiritual duplicity. Solomon’s greatest spiritual failure showed up later in life after decades of wisdom and extraordinary experiences of God. After answered prayer and abundant blessing. After building the Temple and God appearing to him twice.

Faithfulness does not put future faithfulness on autopilot, and in the quiet this morning that’s the warning light blinking at me in the text.

Very few people consciously choose to destroy the things they once loved. We drift. We accumulate. We rationalize and make tiny accommodations because each one seems harmless by itself.

The danger isn’t usually waking up one morning and deciding I will sacrifice children at the altar of Chemosh. It’s allowing something perfectly ordinary—career, money, success, approval, comfort, politics, sex, possessions, reputation, even family—to become another altar beside God.

A divided kingdom began with a divided heart. Before Israel fractured geographically, Solomon fractured spiritually. Before ten tribes were torn away from his son, Solomon had already torn his allegiance into pieces.

Which makes my prayer for today remarkably simple:

“Lord, give me not merely a listening heart, but a whole one.”

Because the danger isn’t that I stop believing. It’s that I keep believing—while quietly building other altars.

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