The Story Week 13

This chapter covers the rise and fall of the last king of united Israel; Solomon. Let’s start by just going over what we know about Solomon. He wrote Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. He was wise. He was David’s son. That covers what most people know about Solomon. Here’s some more of his story.

David got old and passed off the kingdom to Solomon. Before he died David gave Solomon a huge challenge. (Read the Story page 176, top paragraph). David’s charge to his son is basically this: Continue to serve God with passion and integrity and you’ll go down in history as a great king. If you don’t honor God, your reign is going to suck. Solomon starts really strong. He builds the first permanent temple for Yahweh. He worships God with a sincere heart. He’s humble and pure in heart. At one point God was so impressed with how Solomon loved righteousness and how he served the Lord that God said he would grant Solomon anything he wished. Solomon asked for wisdom to properly lead Israel. God gave him wisdom and everything else he could have asked for but didn’t.

            Solomon rules over Israel and his wisdom becomes world-renowned. People came from all over the world to hear him speak his wisdom. David extended Israel’s borders with the sword. Solomon maintained it with diplomacy and smooth talking. He ruled Israel so well that the country became very rich. The text says silver became worthless because everyone had so much. One of the results of Israel’s great wealth and growth was that Solomon obtained many, many...many wives. 700 wives and 300 concubines. That’s a lot of esposas. Solomon’s rule starts amazingly well, but ends very amazingly not well. He starts to let all these wives distract him from serving God alone and he starts dabbling in the religions of these wives from other countries. Because he ends up worshipping other gods, the one true God sends Israel down a road of several hundred years of war and turmoil.

            I want to focus on 2 things in this part of the story. The first thing that jumps out to me in this story is Solomon’s decision to ask for wisdom. Imagine the God of the universe shows up and says, “I like the cut of your jib. I’ll give you one thing, but it can be absolutely anything you want.” What would you ask for? Solomon asks for wisdom to rule Israel well. Imagine using that one request to ask for the know-how to do your job better. Because his request is so pure, humble and selfless, God says I’ll give you that plus everything else. The beauty of this part of the story is that Solomon put the first things first.

            Establishing a proper list of priorities is essential in the Jesus life. In this life the number one priority must be knowing and serving God, and when we do that the other things fall into their proper place on the list. Jesus said this exact thing in Matthew 6:33 “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”

            Everybody is seeking something. Everybody wants something: A fulfilling career, financial security, social approval, acceptance, family peace, success, fame, achievement, companionship, marriage, and on and on. The biblical message is that when you put these things in their proper place, behind Jesus, then these things will be taken care of in 1 of 2 ways. Either God will give them to you, or you will realize they aren’t as important as you thought.  

            So, what does it mean to seek the kingdom of God? If we aren’t careful “seek the kingdom of God” can become one of those annoyingly vague churchy statements that doesn’t really mean anything at all. First, what is the kingdom of God? It is not a fairy tale description of a magical place in a land far away. A king’s kingdom is the area or realm in which the king rules and has authority. When we allow Jesus to have the rightful place of rule in our lives, when we submit to God’s rule, when we turn over control of our lives to Jesus; that is the kingdom of God. Seeking God’s kingdom is not some weird super mystical thing where we meditate until we get some secret revelation or walk around singing hymns and Jesus juking everyone. It’s letting Jesus be the true Lord of our lives. When someone says something harsh and you choose to be forgiving instead of coming back harsh; that’s the Kingdom of God. When you feel the temptation to look at things on the computer that you shouldn’t, but choose not to; that’s the Kingdom of God. When you want to buy that new              but don’t because you’ve committed helping missionaries; that’s the Kingdom of God. You get the point.

            That’s the good. Here’s the bad. The second thing I want to focus on is how Solomon’s reign ended. Solomon had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines. He allowed his focus to shift from pleasing God to trying to please all of these wives. His loyalty became divided. This takes up a small part of scripture, but this probably didn’t happen quickly. It’s not like Solomon went to bed on Thursday completely devoted to Yahweh and woke up on Friday worshipping pagan gods. Solomon gradually went off course, first allowing his wives to retain their pagan practices, then becoming curious about their practices, and then dabbling a little in them himself, and then before he knows it he’s worshipping false gods.

            There is a vitally important truth here concerning how we serve God. A little error, unchecked, becomes a big problem over time. Going off course just a little bit doesn’t seem so detrimental at first, but eventually it will lead you far off course.

In the Marine Corps land-nav skill are essential, at least if your infantry. I was point man for my platoon because my land-nav skills were decent. The thing about land-nav is that you have to recheck your azimuth every so often to make sure you are still heading towards the objective. If you pick any point on the equator and travel all the way around the world, coming back to same line of longitude, but your direction is only 1 degree different than the equator you will stop about 500 miles away from your starting point.

In 1979 a sightseeing jet carrying tourists from New Zealand set out to fly over a certain part of Antarctica that would give the passengers a great view of ice sheets and frozen tundra. The night before they took off flight technicians loaded an upgraded navigation software that changed the flight direction by about one degree. Nobody told the pilots. Because the blinding white terrain all blended together they relied completely on instruments for the course. Unfortunately, the pilot’s figures did not match the new software in the instruments and they were actually 28 miles away from where they thought they were. The plain collided with Mount Erebus and all 157 people on the plain died.

We all get off course here and there. But when we continue in a direction that’s a little off course without making corrections we end up very far off course and that can be very dangerous. The fatal point in Solomon’s story is when he decided, “I’m going to serve God whole heartedly in every area…except with my wives.” God had said in Moses’ law not to intermarry with women from other nations. This was not an issue of racial discrimination. The law also prescribed how to graft a non-Jew into Israel, at which point that person could marry any Jew (ie Rahab). The issue was blending religions. Solomon’s fatal flaw was when he ignored God’s direction in this area and said, “I’ll serve God, except…” Think about your life and your faith as it is right now. Are there things in your life that you are allowing because you think they aren’t a big enough deal to warrant fixing? If you honestly search your heart would you say, “I’m willing to serve God in everything, except                                      ?”