To whom much has been given, much is expected. Solomon had been given much. More than wealth and wisdom, God had met with him personally. Such a divine encounter ought to have forever transformed the king’s life. Yet not only did Solomon renege on his promises, he ultimately indulged in the most abominable sin of all: idolatry.<\/p>\n
The gods Solomon chose to support were not innocuous tooth fairy like deities. These were the most heinous and vile of all the local gods. These idols promoted gross sin and the most licentious immorality. They could not have been more diametrically opposed to the values and standards of the true God. It was supremely insulting to God to be forsaken for such despicable gods.<\/p>\n
The high places consisted of worship centers on hilltops that dotted the land. Building altars and temples in such elevated locations led people to believe they were closer to the gods. Jerusalem is surrounded by hills. Solomon would have been able to view the high places from his palace. The king had built the impressive temple close to his own home. Yet he negated that fete by constructing pagan altars on the mountains that surrounded the temple. Every day Solomon gazed up at the pagan worship centers he had built in defiance of God’s commands. Yet so hardened had his heart become that he remained unmoved. Have you allowed high places to remain in your life? Have you surrounded yourself with false gods?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed tot heir gods. So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God if Israel, who had appeared to him twice. 1 Kings 11:7-9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotionals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4901"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15457,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901\/revisions\/15457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}