From Splendor to Shadow

Attractive Women Prove a Snare

More and more the king came to regard luxury, self-indulgence, and the favor of the world as indications of greatness. Hundreds of beautiful women were brought from Egypt, Phoenicia, Edom, Moab, and other places. Their religion was idol worship, and they had been taught cruel and degrading rites. Infatuated with their beauty, the king neglected his duties. SS 28.4

His wives gradually prevailed on him to unite with them in their worship of false gods. “It came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.” 1 Kings 11:4, 5. SS 29.1

Opposite Mount Moriah, Solomon erected imposing buildings as idolatrous shrines. To please his wives, he placed huge idols amidst the groves. There before the altars of heathen deities were practiced the most degrading rites of heathenism. 1 Kings 11:7. SS 29.2

Solomon's separation from God was his ruin. He lost the mastery of himself. His moral efficiency was gone. His fine sensibilities became blunted, his conscience seared. He who in his early reign had displayed so much wisdom and sympathy in restoring a helpless babe to its unfortunate mother (see 1 Kings 3:16-28), fell so low as to erect an idol to whom living children were offered as sacrifices! He in later years departed so far from purity as to countenance licentious, revolting rites connected with the worship of Chemosh and Ashtoreth. He mistook license for liberty. He tried—but at what cost!—to unite light with darkness, good with evil, purity with impurity, Christ with Belial. SS 29.3

Solomon became a profligate, the tool and slave of others. His character became effeminate. His faith in God was supplanted by atheistic doubts. Unbelief weakened his principles and degraded his life. The justice and magnanimity of his early reign were changed to despotism and tyranny. God can do little for men who lose their sense of dependence on Him. SS 29.4

During these years of apostasy the enemy worked to confuse the Israelites in regard to true and false worship. Their keen sense of the holy character of God was deadened. They transferred their allegiance to the enemy of righteousness. It came to be a common practice to intermarry with idolaters. Polygamy was countenanced. In the lives of some, the pure religious service instituted by God was replaced by idolatry of the darkest hue. SS 29.5

God is fully able to keep us in the world, but we are not to be of the world. He watches over His children with a care that is measureless, but He requires undivided allegiance. “No man can serve two masters ... . Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24. SS 30.1

Men today are no stronger than Solomon; they are as prone to yield to the influences that caused his downfall. God today warns His children not to imperil their souls by affinity with the world. “Come out from among them,” He pleads, “and be ye separate, ... and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18. SS 30.2