For forty years I led you through the desert … yet your sandals did not wear out." Duet. 29:5
“Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there’s no use arguing with God about your destiny.”
I’m not sure where old King Solomon is coming from here. Read one way, this verse is very fatalistic.
I don’t believe in fatalism. I believe that life is dynamic, and full of promise. As a minister told me years ago when I was a young man: “Just all of you, given to all of Him, will make your life all God ever planned it to be.”
“And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life—this is indeed a gift from God.”
Sounds like common-sense advice, the kind of advice you might get from your Grandpa. The question we must ask ourselves is this: What is the real wealth that we receive from God, and with which we should be satisfied?
“It is better to be a poor but wise youth than an old and foolish king who refuses all advice.”
Perhaps Solomon wished that he could turn back time and be a young man again. What he might have done differently! What godly advice might he have heeded!
“[God] has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”
As human beings, we instinctively know that “this” is not all there is. There is somehow a grand scheme to life. There is a grand purpose to all of it, an overarching design. Even so, we are not able to figure any of it out on our own. Without divine revelation, we are clueless.
“For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?”
We really do depend on God for everything: for our next breath, for the next beat of our heart, for the next sane thought in our head. It doesn’t seem like it It doesn’t seem like we on planet earth are traveling over 8,000 miles an hour either, but in fact we are.
“Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea.”
“Same ol’, same ol'” is the way we might put it today. Nothing’s really new. Nothing’s really gonna change. If there’s a purpose to all this, I’m not really sure what it is.
Not the way you would describe an abundant life.
“He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines. And in fact, they did turn his heart away from the LORD. In Solomon’s old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the LORD his God, as his father, David, had been. Solomon worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites.”
When a man’s heart is turned away from the LORD, it is turned toward emptiness, no matter how many material possessions he has.
“The king had a fleet of trading ships that sailed with Hiram’s fleet. Once every three years the ships returned, loaded with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. So King Solomon became richer and wiser than any other king on earth. People from every nation came to consult him and to hear the wisdom God had given him.
This chapter describes the high-water mark in Israel’s history. The long-promised blessings were now a reality. This surely was a land flowing with milk and honey.
“Solomon moved his wife, Pharaoh’s daughter, from the City of David to the new palace he had built for her.”
This would seem to be a harbinger of Solomon’s troubles.
The LORD was generous in his promise to bless obedience; he was very firm in his promise to judge disobedience.
“May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us or abandon us. May he give us the desire to do his will in everything and to obey all the commands, decrees, and regulations that he gave our ancestors. And may these words that I have prayed in the presence of the LORD be before him constantly, day and night, so that the LORD our God may give justice to me and to his people Israel, according to each day’s needs. Then people all over the earth will know that the LORD alone is God and there is no other. And may you be completely faithful to the LORD our God. May you always obey his decrees and commands, just as you are doing today.”
Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices to the LORD. Solomon offered to the LORD a peace offering of 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep and goats. And so the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the Temple of the LORD.
