Read: 2 Chronicles 8:11-10:19; Romans 8:9-21; Psalm 18:16-36; Proverbs 19:26
In Kings 11:3 we read that Solomon had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines and his wives turned away his heart. Today, in Chronicles we read that Solomon had one wife that was the daughter of Pharaoh from Egypt. He built her a special house because he could not put her in the palace his father, David had built because the ark had been there. This makes me think of so many things. For one, the ark, which in Moses’ day was not even allowed to be looked on except once a year by the priest, but David had made the ark public property. God’s presence was now out of hiding and into personal houses like Obed Edom’s and David’s. When David brought the ark back, everyone danced in the city around it. It was no longer a fearful awesome mystery. It was now the people’s ark. God was showing them that he wanted to be seen and known by everyone. It is like what happened on Pentecost when God’s presence came down to dwell with man.
Back to the queen, Solomon built her a special house because her gods would not mix with God’s. Solomon was definitely beginning his backsliding years. Then he invited the queen of Sheba into his palace and showed her everything. This would come back to bite him also. Solomon seemed to have a weakness when it came to women…obviously!
The wealth of Solomon’s kingdom was beyond description. It was a little picture of what we are entering into in the kingdom age. God wants to bring heaven down to earth like Jesus prayed in his prayer…” may your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”.
The sadness of it all was that it was very short-lived. Solomon did not train his son to carry on his wisdom or the weight of his kingdom. When Solomon died, instead of following the wisdom of the men who had spent years with the wisest person on earth, Rehoboam chose to follow the advise of his own piers. They advised him to tell the people he would even be more demanding and harder than his father had been. This caused all of Israel, except Judah, to rebel against him. This was the division of the kingdom that David had united. The rest of Israel followed Jeroboam.
Roman’s continues to teach us about the power we have within us to overcome sin. If we are a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, then the same power that was in Jesus is in us. God is our father just as he is Jesus’s father so we will experience suffering just like Jesus did, but we will also experience resurrection power. All creation experiences life and death because of the fall and all creation will be liberated along with us.
Father, today, may we live in your resurrection power.
No comments:
Post a Comment