# Adventuring Through the Old Testament

## Metadata
- Author: [[Ray Stedman]]
- Full Title: Adventuring Through the Old Testament
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. He brought her to the City of David until he finished building his palace and the temple of the Lord, and the wall around Jerusalem. The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the Lord. Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the statutes of his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places (3:1–3). ([Location 4012](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004X2HY0U&location=4012))
- Here is a man who loves God with all his heart. Solomon begins his reign with a wonderful expression of yieldedness and a desire for God’s rule and authority in his life. He follows in the footsteps of his father, David. Nevertheless, he does two little things—seemingly trivial matters—that plant the seeds for the ultimate overthrow of his kingdom. First, he makes an alliance with the daughter of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Throughout Scripture, Egypt is almost always a symbolic picture of the world. Solomon brings this daughter of the world into the central life of the nation of Israel, and Israel, through its king, makes an alliance with the world. Second, Solomon worships at the high places. In the pagan religions of that day, all the worship and rites were conducted up on the mountaintops. The pagan tribes had erected altars, many of which were the center of very idolatrous and licentious worship. Frequently, the altar was the place where the fertility of sex gods was worshiped in a sexual display. These altars were taken over by the people of Israel and used for the sacrifices to Jehovah. ([Location 4017](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004X2HY0U&location=4017))
- Outwardly, this young king’s rule was admirable and his heart honorable. Nevertheless, one area of his life was not fully committed to God. His fellowship with God was weak. He did not understand that the secret of God’s blessing lay in an inner yieldedness to God’s will, represented by a worship in strict accordance with His Word and practiced before the ark of the covenant. Solomon’s lack of adherence to the Levitical rules regarding worship is the first indication that something is wrong in his life. ([Location 4030](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004X2HY0U&location=4030))
- Solomon made only one request of God—wisdom—and God granted it to him. But Solomon’s request contained one slight weakness. He asked for ([Location 4067](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004X2HY0U&location=4067))
- wisdom that he might govern the people. We can only wish as we read that this fine young man had asked for wisdom to govern his own life first. That is where he began to fail. God granted Solomon the wisdom of governance, but He also allowed circumstances in Solomon’s personal life that put his wisdom to the test. Along with wisdom, God gave Solomon riches and honor; and it was riches and honor that overthrew Solomon. As Solomon gloried and exulted in the magnificence of his kingdom, pride began to enter his heart; and his pride produced his downfall. ([Location 4069](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004X2HY0U&location=4069))
- The first step in moral decline always begins with our desires and emotions. What has captured first place in your mind, your desires, and your emotions? If it is not something that God has endorsed, if it is something that God has disallowed, then you have planted the seeds of destruction in your own life just as Solomon planted them in his life. ([Location 4116](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004X2HY0U&location=4116))
- Our God is the God of all circumstances. He is the God whose will is accomplished even through seeming accidents, chance, and coincidence. He is behind all the movements of our lives, and His judgment is accomplished! That is what this account reveals. Outward circumstances will never dethrone you from ruling your life as God intended from the ([Location 4191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004X2HY0U&location=4191))
- beginning. Nothing you encounter—pressures, mistreatment, obstacles, accidents—can ever succeed in dethroning you. You can be dethroned and driven into the bondage of the flesh and the devil only if you allow it, if you permit some rival form of worship to enter into your heart, leaving no room for God. That rival form of worship may be a habit, an obsession with status and money, a sinful desire or forbidden affection, a self-willed attitude of rebellion, or something else. If you, like Solomon, allow folly to replace godly wisdom in your life, then your kingdom’s days are numbered. But if you make God and His kingdom the single, true desire of your heart, then you will reign forever, and the kingdom of your life will be secure. ([Location 4195](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004X2HY0U&location=4195))