God – without . people resort in vain, Finale
Consider a few lessons learned from Solomon. First, how far his spiritual life had degraded between inauguration and exhaustion as king. Little resemblance exists of the king praying in I Kings 3 and the philosopher speculating in Ecclesiastes. This reminds us that growing older won’t automatically translate into growing wiser, more dedicated to and interested in God. We CAN fall from grace, regardless of Calvin’s assurance that we can’t. Second, God honored Solomon with the wisdom he sought. He also granted him wealth beyond calculation. As a wise he could have managed such privilege by filtering all experiences through God’s grace. He could have…had he remained close to his Benefactor. Since Solomon didn’t, his spiritual insights diminished, eroded and, finally vanished in interfering interests. As Jesus warned in the Parable of the Thorny Soil, every Christian can fail to become GOOD SOIL by welcoming too many interests in life. Third, becoming a Christian means we surrender all we are, and hope to be. It’s called Self-Denial Matthew 16:24. Someone I read made that point clear. Then wrecked it by saying that God would return to us what we had sacrificed to him. That’s untrue. From Christ’s viewpoint, he may insist we do without what we would like back. From our standpoint, we may not want back some of the things or habits we once thought irreplaceable. Having Christ as Lord renders those things, relationships and habits completely, if not easily, replaceable. Growth as a disciple has the most disarming way of changing us for the good! Fourth, for lack of space, thank God he didn’t allow an apostate believer to author the last book of the Bible. What faithful disciple would want to live in such a tormented personal world? One possible hope emerges from Ecclesiastes. Could Solomon have had a re-awakening of a long-lost wisdom in 12:13-14? Fini
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