Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Good morning, dear ones.
Sure pretty again out there. Becki and I just completed a walk with the dog. I didn’t jog this time as I’m still on the weak side as a result of this infection that I hope has run its course…so I only walked. It sure rendered me struggling on Saturday when I took on a portable mill job in the hot sun. Whew! There were times that I wondered if I was going to make it.
We did a run to Silverton yesterday and noticed a great quote on the Methodist Church sign board there. I’m using it below as my quote at the end of today’s composition. “Don’t believe everything you think.” Isn’t that a profound piece of advice! Most people do…they are easily duped to think that their thinking is virtually infallible. After all it’s what they think!
Becki just called me to the breakfast table. Blessings on your day.
Love, Dad/Ray.
The golden years of Solomon’s reign have ended. Things have turned sour in Israel. It’s all very predictable. God cannot allow His blessing to be compounded with compromise, rejection, and heresy.
We will all do well to pay attention to the warning that Solomon’s track record represents. He demonstrates a remarkable paradox—while achieving greater wisdom and wealth than anyone before or since, he went on to become the world’s most extravagant fool. He failed to maintain the humble recognition that no matter how big he became, the LORD was bigger—infinitely bigger in wealth, in wisdom, in knowledge, in intelligence, in power, in control, and in TRUTH—saying what He means and meaning what He says.
Let’s get our bearing in this case and review what GOD SAID earlier—which Solomon obviously came to question, reject, or ignore—Deuteronomy 17:14-20: “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, "Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us," be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.”
If we can identify the range of Solomon’s violations against the range of God’s clearly stated rules, how could he possibly claim innocence for the resulting disaster? How could God allow things to turn out otherwise and still uphold the integrity of His Word?
Question: If Jesus clearly instructs us to “seek first the his kingdom (come under His rule) and his righteousness” (Matt 6:33-34), how well can we expect things to go for us if we rate that prescribed objective as invalid or secondary? If God says, “'People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God'" (Matthew 4:4, NLT), how truly successful can we expect to become if we think, “I think I can get along just fine on the basis of what I think?”