INSOLENT DAY 191 - I have been reading through 1 Kings these last few days. 1 Kings is primarily the story of Solomon and his meteoric rise to rule all of Israel. During King Solomon’s reign Israel became the greatest nation on the planet. For the first time, the ark of the covenant – and God Himself – had a permanent resting place with His people. King Solomon built a magnificent temple for this very purpose. King Solomon also amassed tremendous wealth. He also amassed a number of wives . . lots of them. So began his downfall. The Lord had warned Solomon not to intermarry with foreign women. Solomon, however, followed the lust of his heart, and had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Like many men, Solomon had too great of an appreciation of God’s greatest creation – woman. Many of Solomon’s foreign wives led him astray and he began to worship foreign gods. King Solomon – the builder of the Lord’s temple – also built a number of places of worship in honor of these foreign gods. This angered the Lord. God directly confronted King Solomon. The Lord told Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.” Through the remainder of 1 Kings 11 we can read how enemies began to form against King Solomon. Some enemies within his kingdom, and some from without. In fact, some of the enemies arose as a result of his father’s – King David’s – actions from years before. What we do not find, however, is King Solomon righting himself. He never reconciled himself to his Lord. Then, he died. The wisest man this world has ever known – at the end – died incredibly stupid. Here was a man that had been tremendously blessed by God. Here was a man that had direct and intimate conversations with God. In spite of all this, he rejected God for the lust of his heart. Insolent. Insolent means that a person is “boldly rude or disrespectful; contemptuously impertinent; insulting”. Solomon had become insolent. How else can you describe Solomon’s behavior? Here is a guy that absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt knew the Lord; that had been blessed by God; corrected by God; and yet, still headed down a path of total destruction. Many of us today are insolent. We are no different than Solomon. We well know the Lord. We have been blessed by God beyond imagination. The Holy Spirit has been pounding on our soul trying to correct us. Trying to get us back on a path of holiness. Yet, we remain blissfully happy to skip down a path towards total destruction. Dear friend, don’t be incredibly stupid and die. Reconcile with your Heavenly Father. Relinquish your carnal desires and follow the Holy Spirit’s leading. Today can be your day of renewal if you’ll simply quit being insolent. So what’s it going to be? C2013
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:59:15 +0000
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