Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text is the Old Testament Lesson just read, from 1 Kings. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- The wisdom of Solomon is legendary within Christian circles. Virtually everyone knows how the Holy Scripture describes Solomon’s great wisdom and knowledge. The essence of his wisdom is described in the words of our text.
- The vast knowledge of Solomon was astounding – and many people focus on that, and consider that great knowledge to be his greatest wisdom. But rather, it was his knowledge of God, his faith and trust in God, that constituted Solomon’s greatest wisdom – and this is the same wisdom that we see in the centurion in the Gospel reading, the excellence of faith that Jesus commended.
- It is this wisdom that we are instructed to pursue, a wisdom which God grants to His people through faith in Jesus Christ. And how blessed we are if God grants us this same excellence and wisdom of faith! For the real “WISDOM OF SOLOMON” was that:
I. Solomon Knew God Properly
A. He Knew God’s Great Majesty
Text: “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth beneath . . . Behold the heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how much less this house that I have built.”
B. Solomon Also Knew God’s Covenant Of Steadfast Love, And His Faithfulness
Text: “There is no God like You in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to Your servants who walk before You with all their heart; You Who have kept with Your servant David my father what You declared to him. You spoke with Your mouth, and with Your hand have fulfilled it this day.”
Statement: These are the two most basic components of wisdom: to know the majesty of God, and to know His steadfast and intimate love for us. The person who has these things – and holds to them humbly and in fervent faith in God has the greatest wisdom of Solomon, and all other blessings as well. Yet these are the two things that people most readily reject or forget: they whittle God down to their own size, and consider Him easy to manipulate and subject to their own sinful whims and wishes; and they also doubt His goodness and love, and consider it their duty and within their capability to earn and deserve God’s blessings and goodness. To do this, however, is abject foolishness and nonsense – and spells ruinous disaster to the person engaging in such arrogance and haughtiness.
Application: So let us grasp what Solomon understood, and stand in absolute awe of God, humbling ourselves that He should allow us to stand in His presence. And we should let the greatness of His love for us, which we have come to know in Christ Jesus, fill our hearts with wonder, peace, joy, and confidence – that He has kept the “new covenant” of gracious forgiveness, cleansing, and pardon of our sin and guilt in Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world! Yes, God is full of grace and mercy, and He is faithful to His promises – all of which He has kept in Christ Jesus!
Transition: For wisdom is certainly in keeping with truth, and it is part of “THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON” that :
II. Solomon Knew The Life Of Repentance And Faith – That All People Must Call Upon God For Forgiveness And Mercy
Text: “Have regard to the prayer of Your servant and to his plea, O LORD my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that Your servant prays before You this day, that Your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which You have said, ‘My Name shall be there,’ that You may listen to the prayer that Your servant offers toward this place.”
And now I am going to read some of the intervening verses omitted from our reading of this same chapter:
“And listen to the plea of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven Your dwelling place, and when You hear, forgive. If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath and comes and swears his oath before Your altar in this house, then hear in heaven and act and judge Your servants, condemning the guilty by bringing his conduct on his own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness. When Your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against You, and if they turn again to You and acknowledge Your name and pray and plead with You in this house, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel and bring them again to the land that You gave to their fathers. When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge Your name and turn from their sin, when You afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, when You teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon Your land, which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.”
Statement: This is the real “WISDOM OF SOLOMON,” a wisdom which so many Americans, including many of our leaders, have forgotten – to acknowledge God’s judgments upon us, and to pray His forgiveness, and to allow Him to teach us the “good way in which we should walk,” so that God’s blessings might be upon us! Sadly, there are so many around us who refuse to acknowledge the dignity and majesty of the LORD God, the great Creator and Master of the whole universe – and many who have plunged themselves into all manner of immorality and sin, and who would rather perish than ask God for mercy and forgiveness!
Application: Pray God this has not happened to us – even though in many segments even of the church this darkness has fallen on people’s hearts and minds! And if it has happened to us, let us even now repent and turn to the LORD for forgiveness, remembering His covenant and steadfast love in Christ Jesus, His forgiveness and mercy – that even now we may be healed and returned to “THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON.”
Transition: And then let us grasp and understand the nature of our sinful flesh, for:
III. Even Solomon Stumbled And Fell Away From God – So Let Us Take Great Care That We Not Turn Away From And Desert God
We read a bit later in this same book of 1 Kings:
1 Kings 11:4-10 “For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and did not wholly follow the LORD, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods. And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the LORD commanded.”
Likewise, the Christians of Galatia suffered the same kind of falling away from God:
Gal. 1:6 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him Who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ.”
Statement: In our own day and time there are many temptations to desert God – whether in grotesque idolatry and immorality like Solomon succumbed to, or the clever and insidious distortions of the Gospel of Christ within “Christian” circles. The evil one is always around us, always creating new and alluring ways to destroy our relationship with God. His temptations always center in eroding God down to our size, and rejecting His gracious mercy and steadfast love for our own goodness and righteousness.
Application: Let us pray that God would help us avoid and resist all such temptations, and that through His Word He would strengthen us in “THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON,” that we remain firm in proper reverence for God, and trusting in His gracious mercy, forgiveness, and love. For we need His help, just as Solomon did!
Conclusion: In so doing we will have the same wisdom as the legendary Solomon – and may perhaps escape the dismal fall that befell him. This is God’s good and gracious will for us. May He always grant this blessedness to us! Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.