I Don't Get It

​Love you all, praying for you.
 
I just love God’s Word.  It tells the truth, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  It doesn’t sugarcoat, it doesn’t need to.  God is truth – and people make choices.  The Bible tells it all.  Just like all will be exposed on that day.  An amazing story and God’s response are fascinating to me.  God asked Solomon what He wanted from God - a blank check.  What would you ask?  Here is David’s son, David – the man after God’s own heart, who God told Him that this son would replace him on the throne. Not his oldest son, or any of his other sons.  Solomon had just escaped sure death, as another brother assumed the throne, which would have ended his life.  But God intervened and established Solomon as King over Israel.  God asked him what He wanted.  And Solomon asked for wisdom to rule God's people well.  God was so pleased with Solomon, that He said, “I’ll answer that prayer, and I’ll give you what you didn’t ask for – riches and power.  Your enemies will be subject to you, and you not only will be the wisest man to ever live, you will be the richest man who will ever live.  And instantly God showed His power though the wisdom given to Solomon – who rendered judgments that inspired the awe and respect of the whole nation, and surrounding nations that soon heard of Solomon’s fame.  But I don’t get it… how could the wisest man who ever lived.  Be so foolish?   Can you be wise and also foolish?  I don’t think so.  If you’re wise you aren’t foolish, and if you’re foolish, you’re not wise.  But apparently you can have wisdom and ignore it – and choose folly.  That means you have wisdom, but don’t operate in it.  You can cease to be wise.  Wisdom was given from God, but Solomon made choices.  I always thought wisdom was ‘the right use of knowledge.’  But Solomon in all his wisdom, didn’t walk in it his whole life.  He started well but ended abysmally.  God didn’t reneg, He didn’t remove His wisdom, yet Solomon reaped the harvest of his foolishness, and it’s impact on others was devastating.  God commanded the kings of Israel – Do not take for yourselves foreign wives, for they will surely turn your heart away from God.  But Solomon’s Achilles heel was women.  Beautiful women from the kingdoms around him, political marriages.  Beautiful women who insisted on their own palace, and a temple for their gods.  And Solomon obliged them.  How stupid.  By the end of his forty-year reign, the whole nation was steeped in sin.  Worshipping many different god’s, sacrificing and offering incense on the high places to gods that didn’t even exist, created with their own hands.  An affront, and an abomination before the God of all creation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God of Solomon’s father, David.  Solomon started well but crashed and burned at the end.  A somber warning.  You can have wisdom, but not walk in it.  Women weren’t even his only mistake.  He pursued wisdom, devoted himself to study and knowledge, the understanding of wisdom, but then he also pursued folly, He then pursued pleasure to see the extent of it.  And the result – disillusionment.  “Everything is meaningless.”  No it’s not!  You left the One who gives meaning to it.  The secret to Solomon’s failure.  Ecclesiastes 1:16 – I thought to myself…  that's your problem. He thought in his heart, he didn’t ask God.  He didn’t get God’s thoughts, he chose his own.  Of course everything is meaningless if God is not in it, if God is not directing it.  God never gave you wisdom to chase it! Certainly not pleasure, or folly – that’s just foolish.  Wisdom is just to lead you and God’s people in righteousness.  If Solomon had chased God like his father David did, instead of wisdom and folly and pleasure and women.  He would have known the joy of the LORD.  Instead, Solomon despite his wisdom, didn’t live by it, and chose foolishly – and sowed the seed of the destruction of the nation - the same people whom he asked God for wisdom to rule righteously.  And because of him, the people eventually were vomited out of the land just like God warned would happen to them.  They would be driven out just like their predecessors – if they followed in their sin.  Solomon’s end of life was an abomination to God.  Clearly Wisdom comes from God, you can know it, but not do it.  So where does wisdom slip begin?  You can tell by what you justify.  Whatever God said not to do, if your first reaction is, I’m not, or it’s not that bad, or He didn’t mean this, or I’m not really doing it fully, or other people do it, or whatever your excuse – it’s a sure sign, you’ve left the path. Any time your mouth says anything different than what God says.  It’s perverse.  The very thing God hates - perverse lips.  If when questioned, you come up with an excuse – you’ve left wisdom, and you’ve left God.  There is no fear of God before your eyes.  Wisdom doesn’t guarantee a heart after God.  God said get wisdom above all else, but once you have it.  Be sure that you heed it, that you don’t tire of obedience, that you don’t forfeit the grace or the blessing.  God said He’ll keep you, He will fulfill the purpose He has for you.  Keep your eyes on Him, get His plans, love His Word, get His thoughts, not your own, overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony.  And let wisdom be a blessing that increases in you, not a passing phase that you walk away from.  Keep your eyes on Jesus, don’t think other things in your heart.  Fill your heart with His Word and His will, and rejoice in every step He leads you in.  He will give you wisdom, knowledge and joy.  Stay with God.  He has better things to come.  So your latter years will be even better than the former!  He is faithful, He will do it.  Just keep your eyes on Him, and stay on the path He has for your good!  It gets better!  
 
Love you all,
dad