1 Kings review continued

We are told a lot about the reign of Solomon, starting with David asking him to avenge what Joab did to two of the captains of Israel, Abner and Amasa.  David had asked Solomon to follow the ways of God but told him in God's wisdom to not let Joab live.  We need to make sure that we act in the wisdom of God and not just to seek revenge for something someone may have done to us.  We cannot have true wisdom if it doesn't come from God.  We are told of Adonijah still attempting to gain some status by asking through Bathsheba to take Abishag as his wife.  This resulted in his being killed.  We cannot fool God by our attempts to go around His word.  We also know that in spite of his wisdom that Solomon made a pact with the Egyptian Pharoah and took one of his daughters as his wife. We cannot make pacts with the lost people of the world that are against God's will.  This pact and marriage led Solomon to worship false gods.  There was basically peace during Solomon's reign, and he did many good things for God, but he still allowed the worship of idols.  We know of Solomon asking God for wisdom when God asked him what He could give him.  After we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord, we need to ask God for His wisdom to guide us through life.  Many of his first decisions came before this, and we may have made many bad decisions before we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord, but we need to look to Him for wisdom in all that we do afterwards.  We are told a lot about Solomon having the Temple built and how ornate it was, but he still wasn't worshipping God alone.  We can build all the beautiful buildings that we want to and dedicate them to God, but if we allow false gods to guide us as we worship in them, they are going to do us no good.  He also had many other buildings built for his own use or pleasure.  The only thing that is really going to matter are the things that we build for God, and they should always come before anything else.  Solomon dedicated the Temple to God, but also asked if the God of the heavens and the earth would dwell in a building on earth.  No matter how beautiful a church building may be God does not live there.  After this, God appeared to Solomon a second time and asked him to follow after David in being obedient to Him.  Solomon was noted for his wisdom and many people came to him seeking advice, but he still had an affinity for strange women, those who were not Israelites, and when he was old they led him to worship idols, or false gods.  Because of this, God told Solomon that the kingdom was not going to pass to his sons.  If we are worshipping false gods, we can never really be a part of God's kingdom.