1Kings 11: 1-13 A Stolen Heart

INTRODUCTION:

Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. — Proverbs 4:23 (CSB)

“Jesus focused on the heart of people.  He did not focus on their mind or intellect.  He did not focus on their actions.  He focused on their heart to understand what was going on inside. Our heart is where everything comes from.  Matthew 15:18 says that those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart.  In this passage Jesus talks about guilt being in the heart, fear is in the heart, people’s desires are in the heart, and feelings of rejection or abandonment are all in the heart of a person.  So, if you want to understand what is happening in a person, you have to focus on their heart.”  Pastor John Regier [1]

·       Our ability to receive love and to give love to others flow to and from our hearts. 

“Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it. — Matthew 7:13-14 (CSB)

·       The goal of the enemy lies with our heart.

1.     He wants to damage our hearts so we cannot receive or give love, including receiving the love of God and in turn loving others with the overflow. 

2.     He wants to deceive us to exchange our hearts for things he offers on the wide road. 

·       In the first thirteen verses of 1Kings Chapter 11, we see an exchanged heart.

SCENE 1: The .  (1-6)

·       Moabites were southeast on the other side of the Red Sea.

·       Ammonites were north of Moab.

·       Edomites were south.

·       All these had ancestral ties rooted in being enemies of Israel.

·       Sidonians were different and worked with King Solomon in the building projects.  Another King of Israel will have a bad relationship with a Sidonian woman named Jezebel. 

·       Hittites were among the occupants of the land when Israel arrived in the land.  Bathsheba’s husband Uriah was a Hittite and had been counted as one of King David’s mighty men. 

·       The writer refers to Deuteronomy 7:3-4

·       “deeply attached” – to cling or hold fast to 

·       “seven hundred wives” and “three hundred that were concubines” – worldly affections leave us wanting and often lead to access

·       “was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God” – it never works to give God part of your heart. 

“No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. — Matthew 6:24 (CSB)

Then Jesus said to his disciples,” If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it. For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life? — Matthew 16:24-26 (CSB)

SCENE 2: The (7-13)

·       Chemosh – false national god of the Moabites known as the god of war.  The writer describes this false god as “abhorrent idol”, meaning a detestable thing, and abomination and detestable thing. 

From the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. — Daniel 12:11 (CSB)

·       Milcom – Also known as Molech, also abhorrent.  This is what God said to Israel through Moses:

“Say to the Israelites: Any Israelite or alien residing in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death; the people of the country are to stone him. I will turn against that man and cut him off from his people, because he gave his offspring to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name. But if the people of the country look the other way when that man gives any of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will turn against that man and his family, and cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves with Molech. — Leviticus 20:2-5 (CSB)

·       There is no specific mention that King Solomon was participating in the worship of these false gods but was facilitating and allowing it. 

BIBLICAL PRINCIPAL:  To know about and yet, turn a blind eye to, fail to address, or facilitate sin, is sin. 

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles ​— ​a man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Shouldn’t you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this? Even though I am absent in the body, I am present in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. — 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 (CSB)

So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it. — James 4:17 (CSB)

·       A lack of spiritual accountability is a disease in the church in America.  Lack of church discipline, church hopping when someone tries, pew warming, attending but not serving, are all weakening what the Lord Jesus called to be strong in what the Apostle Paul called, “a crooked and perverted generation”.

·       “I will tear” – judgement

·       “However” – grace 

BIBLICAL PRINCIPLE:  The devil cannot change a believer’s destination, but he does not want us on the battlefield.  When he deceives us and steals our heart he keeps us on the bench. 

Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also those of wood and clay; some for honorable use and some for dishonorable. So if anyone purifies himself from anything dishonorable, he will be a special instrument, set apart, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. — 2 Timothy 2:20-21 (CSB)

EMERALD CITY:

1.     Embrace .

      2.    Get in the .