"He will not fail or become weak or be crushed and discouraged till He has established justice in the earth"
“Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one [each] year was 666 talents. Besides what traders and merchants brought; and all the kings of Arabia and governors of the country brought gold and silver to Solomon. And King Solomon made 200 large shields or bucklers of beaten gold; 600 shekels of beaten gold went into each shield.
And he made 300 shields of beaten gold, with 300 shekels of gold spread on each shield. And the king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. Moreover, [he] made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with pure gold.
There were six steps to the throne and a gold footstool attached to the throne, and arms on each side of the seat, with two lions standing beside the arms. And twelve lions stood there one on either end of each of the six steps. The like of it was never made in any kingdom before.
King Solomon's drinking vessels were all of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; silver was not counted as anything in the days of Solomon. For the king's ships went to Tarshish with Huram's servants; once every three years the ships of Tarshish came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.” (2 Chronicles 9:13-22)
Francis Chan paints a vastly different picture of the kingdom of God and what it is to look like in his book “Crazy Love”. He writes, “I believe He wants us to love others so much that we go to extremes to help them. I believe He wants us to be known for giving—of our time, our money, and our abilities—and to start a movement of “giving” churches. In so doing, we can alleviate the suffering in the world and change the reputation of His bride in America.”
In Isaiah 58:2 the Lord says that the people “delight to know My ways, as [if they were in reality] a nation that did righteousness...” He told them rather than oppressing others and seeking one's own gain out of greed, to “pour out that with which you sustain your own life for the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in darkness, and your obscurity and gloom become like noonday.” (Is. 58:10)
“I see a mighty breaking in of revival” sings.
Somehow after this great outpouring of the Spirit where fire fell from heaven and the glory of the Lord filled the temple in 2 Chronicles 7:1-3, there was no lasting change in the king's or people's heart. There was no revival. They had this incredible outpouring of God's glory but they failed to allow it to change their hearts and lives.
When there is a true revival, people are transformed more into the likeness of Christ and there is justice for the poor. God the Lord says about and to His Son the Lord in Isaiah 42:1-4, “He will bring forth justice and right and reveal truth to the nations...I will give You for a covenant to the people [Israel], for a light to the nations [Gentiles], to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness from the prison.”
Solomon was no longer building God's kingdom but was beginning to build his own. While he was increasing his fame, wealth and 'wisdom, it was at the expense of others. He was oppressing the people, making their yoke “grievous” for his own gain (2 Chronicles 10:4).
Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 5:10, “He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with gain. This also is vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility)!”
Solomon went on to write, “There is a serious and severe evil which I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt... And this also is a serious and severe evil -that in all points as he came, so shall he go; and what gain has he who labors for the wind?”
Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:7-10, “For we brought nothing into the world, and obviously we cannot take anything out of the world; But if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content (satisfied). But those who crave to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish (useless, godless) and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction and miserable perishing.
For the love of money is a root of all evils [a]; it is through this craving that some have been led astray and have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves through with many acute [mental] pangs.”
Not mentioned by the author of 2 Chronicles, Solomon eventually also fell into idol worship and his heart was turned away from the Lord. 1 Kings 11:4 says, For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect (complete and whole) with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.”
Solomon did not set out to oppress the people, using them for his own fame, riches and glory. Nor did he intentionally turn away from God and to idols. Mother Teresa writes, “We must keep the heart pure. How does our heart become impure? By pride, by lies, selfishness, insincerity, especially want of sincerity.” [1]
As Mother Teresa notes we don't step into a big sin all at once but rather step by step and little by little. [2] For instance, we don't usually set out in dishonesty by stealing a car. Rather, we start by a few white lies, then a few bigger lies, then by a little cheating here and there, and maybe stealing a few candy bars from the store before we move into Grand Theft Auto.
While we will be tempted by Satan to sin, as Mother Teresa notes, just like Jesus in the wilderness, we have to chose to say yes for it to be a sin. She writes about Satan, “He can do nothing unless we want... The whole of hell can come near you, but no one can force you, no one can touch you.” [3]
She notes that temptations will come, but with our Lord, we can fight them with confidence and humility. It is our pride that often gets in the way. It is allowed by God because it is “like fire in which gold is purified.” [4] It is actually in the struggle that we come alive to our true convictions and have the opportunity to live them out.
Sometimes we can have all the right things to say, but then temptation comes and we immediately give in to it, appearing hypocritical and inconsistent. We have all heard the parable of the sower in Mark 3:3-20. What is sown of the truth is sometimes taken away at once. Other times, it is received and welcomed with joy, but does not take root deep enough. The belief is superficial. Therefore one endures a little while but once difficulties come, it is taken away. Other times, the cares of the world and temptations suffocate the Word and it becomes fruitless. It is only when the seed is received, welcomed and then takes root, enduring difficulty and temptation that it bears great fruit.
Too often, we follow after God on the 'big' things but we allow smaller sins to eat away and erode our relationship with God. In Song 2:15 the beloved says, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards; for our vineyards are in blossom. Beloved”
As Mother Teresa notes that Satan temps us because he wants to destroy God in us. She writes, “If we allow ourselves to be unfaithful in little things and say, 'it doesn't matter,' the day will come when we want to get rid of it, and we will be so blinded that we won't know how to.” [5]
And Francis Fenelon in “The Seeking Heart” writes, “To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid “big” sins— is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?” [6]
When asked by the scribes, Jesus noted in Mark 12:29-31 the greatest two commandments involved wholehearted love for God. He answered, “The first and principal one of all commands is: Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; And you shall love the Lord your God out of and with your whole heart and out of and with your soul (your life) and out of and with all your mind (your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. This is the first and principal commandment. The second is like it and is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Deuteronomy 6:7 goes on to note that when you love the Lord wholeheartedly “[then] You shall whet and sharpen them so as to make them penetrate, and teach and impress them diligently upon the [minds and] hearts of your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you like down and when you rise up.”
We can only pass on to our children what we have truly received. We teach our children not with our words alone, but with what we truly put as priorities in our lives. We can have all kinds of words of wisdom to give our children, but what they inherit from us is what we genuinely live.
Mother Teresa notes that love begins at home just as sin begins at home. She quotes John, “You are a liar if you say you love God and you don't love your neighbor.” She writes, “I think this is something we must all understand, that love begins at home. Today we see more and more that all the suffering in the world has started from the home.” [7]
She goes on to note, “Our children depend on us for everything -their security, their coming to know and love God... And if the parents do not show their children what love is, who else is going to show them? These children will grow up to be spiritually poor, and this kind of poverty is much more difficult to overcome than material poverty.” [8]
Children often learn to value what their parents value whether they intend to or not. In my family, my father valued working hard because his father did. His father was raised on in an orphanage where you worked to 'earn your keep.' As my father was growing up, his father owned a business as a ditch digger and was also a farmer. My father 'earned his keep' by working hard farming and helping with digging ditches all his younger years until he left home.
My father was very much a hard worker and valued this. In our family, often the value people had was somewhat based upon how hard they worked. As a result, I grew up valuing working hard. My sister and I both married men who valued working hard. In the same way, my son inherited this value. My son is exceptionally bright and considered intellectually gifted, however the first thing people at his work will say to me about him is “he is such a hard worker.”
At the same time, since my father never had opportunity to have 'fun' growing up, he broke away from the pattern of thinking that hard work was all that mattered. Besides working hard, he would go out of his way to make opportunities for our family to do some fun things.
David had passed on to his son Solomon a deep love and devotion to God and desire to walk in all his ways, calling the people to do the same. In David's last charge to Solomon, he told him, “walk in His ways, keep His statutes, His commandments, His precepts, and His testimonies, that you may do wisely and prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn.” (1 Kings 2:2)
And in 1 Kings 3:3 it says, “Solomon loved the Lord, walking [at first] in the statutes and practices of David his father, only he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places. “
Solomon was following the Lord wholeheartedly at first as king. Sacrificing in the 'high places” was not a compromise at this point because the temple had not yet been built. 1 Kings 2:2 says the people sacrifice in the high places..., for there was no house yet built to the Name of the Lord.” Abraham also sacrificed in the high places, on top of Mount Moriah when he offered up Isaac to God.
One of the other things that David passed on to Solomon was a value for wisdom. Solomon writes in Proverbs 4:3-5, 8, 11, “When I [Solomon] was a son with my father [David], tender and the only son in the sight of my mother [Bathsheba], he taught me as said to me, Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and life. Get skillful and godly Wisdom, get understanding (discernment, comprehension, and interpretation); do not forget and do not turn back from the words of my mouth... Prize Wisdom highly and exalt her, and she will exalt and promote you; she will bring you to honor when you embrace her..I have taught you in the way of skillful and godly Wisdom...”
Solomon had not started out in his ministry having learned from his father David to oppress the people for his own gain. Rather, David was someone who cared deeply for the flock that was given into his care.
Solomon having received a value for wisdom and desire to serve the people from his father, started out in ministry deeply desiring this. The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and asked him what He he could give Solomon. Solomon responded, “Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chose, a great people who cannot be counted for multitude. So give Your servant an understanding mind and a hearing heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge and rule this Your great people?”
Commentary notes, “This is the high privilege of the child of God. Each one's life tells what he has asked for-- “in heaven above or earth beneath.” Which shall it be, God's will and glory, or our own?”
Solomon, unfortunately, after starting out so well and after praying and seeing fire fall from heaven and the glory of the Lord fill the temple, began compromising. Solomon had success after success and was told by others how great was his wisdom and renown. He probably began to believe it himself and fed his ego it, caring more about his renown than those he served.
Solomon not only built up excessive wealth, but he also acquired many wives and concubines. In doing so, he failed to demonstrate to his children what love looked like. 1 Kings 11:3 says, He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.”
It was if God directly wrote Solomon a little love note warning him of this in Deuteronomy 17:16-17. It says, "The king must not build up a large stable of horses for himself or send his people to Egypt to buy horses, for the LORD has told you, 'You must never return to Egypt.' The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the LORD. And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself.
Besides accumulating large amounts of silver and gold, and having many wives, 1 Kings 10:26 says, Solomon accumulated chariots and horses [from Egypt and Kue]; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.
Rather than passing off a value for wisdom, integrity and faithfulness to God like his own father David, greed, power and renown are the values he passed on to his son Rehoboam. To be great, his son in his spiritual poverty thought he would have to do more than Solomon in oppressing the people to acquire for himself so that he could look good and gain renown.
Mother Teresa asks, “How do you know, love, and serve [God]? How do you prove that you love him? In the family, the father proves his love by all he does for his children, for his wife. We prove our love for Jesus by what we do, by who we are.”
Solomon failed to demonstrate what love looked like to Rehobaom – both love for God and love for others. Mother Teresa also notes, “If a father and mother are not willing to give until it hurts to be faithful to each other, and to their children, they are not showing their children what it means to love. And if their parents do not show their children what love is, who else is going to show them?” [9]
When Rehoboam was to be made king, the people came to him asking him to lighten their load and offering then to serve him. Rehoboam disregarded the counsel of the old men who spoke of love. They had told him, “If you are kind to [those] people and please them and speak good words to them, they will be your servants forever.” (2 Chronicles 10:7)
Instead, Rehoboam chose to go with the advice of “the young men who were brought up with him” (those who would have been raised under Solomon's leadership in his days of compromise). They told him, “Tell the people who said to you, Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter: My little finger is thicker than my father's loins. For whereas my father put a heavy yoke upon you, I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
Also, what Rehoboam saw with his father is that once he was totally established and everything was going well for him, he no longer needed the Lord. He could do it all and be successful on his own. So when Rehoboam had established himself as king and strengthened his position, 2 Chronicles 12:1 says, “he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.”
Rehoboam never realized that his lack of ability to love the people was the issue. He saw the people as something to be used for his own power, glory, and gain. He thought the reason he did not rule over the rest of Israel was because he was not 'forceful enough' when he was young and inexperienced. This is what he taught to his son Abijah.
Abijah went to war against Israel telling them, “Ought you not to know that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the kingship over Israel to David forever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, a servant of Solomon son of David, rose up and rebelled against his Lord [the king]. And there gathered to him worthless men, base fellows, who strengthened themselves against Rehoboam son of Solomon when Rehoboam was young [as king], irresolute, and inexperienced and did not withstand them with firmness and strength.” (2 Chronicles 13:5-7)
Abijah did not forsake the Lord like his father however. Abijah called on the Name of the Lord. In the midst of the battle when Abijah was losing, he cried out to the Lord and the priest blew the trumpets, then the men of Judah gave a shout. Because Israel was in a great deal of compromise during that time, having dispersed the Levites and sacrificing to golden calves, God smote Israel before Abijah and Judah. (2 Chronicles 13:13-15)
Just because one's father follows a path of evil, or forsakes the Lord, it does not mean the children are destined to follow in the same direction. A child still has a choice. They can choose a different path than what they learned as a child growing up. .
Asa is an example of someone who chose loving God and others rather than seeking after his own gain and glory. He sought after the Lord and brought genuine revival to the land. As a result, the people had rest and peace on every side (2 Chron. 14:7).
2 Chronicles 14:2-5 says about him and his reign, “And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He took away the foreign altars and high places and broke down the idol pillars or obelisks and cut down the Asherim... And commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers [to inquire of and for Him and crave Him as a vital necessity], and to obey the law and the commandment. Also Asa took out of all the cities of Judah the idolatrous high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had rest under his reign.”
Asa also taught his son to follow in the ways of the Lord through his own faithfulness to God. 2 Chronicles 21:32 says about Jehoshaphat, “And he walked in the ways of Asa his father and departed not from doing it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord.” As Jesus notes, the most important thing we can do is learn to love – both God and our neighbor.
However, even if someone follows the Lord, it does not guarantee their child will follow in this same path. There have also been times that the 'son' has chosen evil rather than following after the ways of their father. This was the case with Jehoram, Jehoshaphat's son. In 2 Chronicles 21:6 it says about him, “He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab, for he married the daughter of Ahab and did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.”
Jehoram foremost demonstrated his greed and hunger for power in the way he behaved within his family. As soon as he was established as king, he killed all his brothers with a sword and also some of Israel's princes that he viewed as a threat.
Lord, we long for a revival where people are genuinely transformed, loving You and others with their whole hearts and bringing your justice to those around them. And we so long for our sons and daughters to inherit something of true value: how to love you and others. Would you teach us how to love You well first of all and then love well those around us, especially our families. May we not waste our time and energy on the things that don't really have any value.
a. Revelation 13:18 is the other place (other than the parallel verse in 1 Kings 10:14) where the number 666 is referenced. The verse in revelations says, “Here is [room for] discernment [a call for the wisdom of interpretation]. Let anyone who has intelligence (penetration and insight enough) calculate the number of the beast, for it is a human number [the number of a certain man]; his number is 666.”
It was Jewish tradition to refer to something previously in the bible without explaining, expecting the reader to understand because they knew the scriptures. For instance, the prophet spoke in Jude 1:11, “Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.”
While there is much debate around the interpretation of the verse in Revelation, I lean towards believing John could have been referring to 666 as “the number of the beast” in relation to 2 Chronicles 9:13 / 1 Kings 10:14 -referring to greed and oppressing of people for ones own gain.
1-5, 7-9. Mother Teresa. “Where There Is Love, There is God.” Random House, Inc. New York, NY. 2010.
6. Chan, Francis. Crazy Love. David C. Cook Distributions, Colorado Springs, CO. 2008. First chapter located at: http://www.crazylovebook.com/the_book.html Last Accessed 12/7/11.
And he made 300 shields of beaten gold, with 300 shekels of gold spread on each shield. And the king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. Moreover, [he] made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with pure gold.
There were six steps to the throne and a gold footstool attached to the throne, and arms on each side of the seat, with two lions standing beside the arms. And twelve lions stood there one on either end of each of the six steps. The like of it was never made in any kingdom before.
King Solomon's drinking vessels were all of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; silver was not counted as anything in the days of Solomon. For the king's ships went to Tarshish with Huram's servants; once every three years the ships of Tarshish came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.” (2 Chronicles 9:13-22)
Francis Chan paints a vastly different picture of the kingdom of God and what it is to look like in his book “Crazy Love”. He writes, “I believe He wants us to love others so much that we go to extremes to help them. I believe He wants us to be known for giving—of our time, our money, and our abilities—and to start a movement of “giving” churches. In so doing, we can alleviate the suffering in the world and change the reputation of His bride in America.”
In Isaiah 58:2 the Lord says that the people “delight to know My ways, as [if they were in reality] a nation that did righteousness...” He told them rather than oppressing others and seeking one's own gain out of greed, to “pour out that with which you sustain your own life for the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in darkness, and your obscurity and gloom become like noonday.” (Is. 58:10)
“I see a mighty breaking in of revival” sings.
Somehow after this great outpouring of the Spirit where fire fell from heaven and the glory of the Lord filled the temple in 2 Chronicles 7:1-3, there was no lasting change in the king's or people's heart. There was no revival. They had this incredible outpouring of God's glory but they failed to allow it to change their hearts and lives.
When there is a true revival, people are transformed more into the likeness of Christ and there is justice for the poor. God the Lord says about and to His Son the Lord in Isaiah 42:1-4, “He will bring forth justice and right and reveal truth to the nations...I will give You for a covenant to the people [Israel], for a light to the nations [Gentiles], to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness from the prison.”
Solomon was no longer building God's kingdom but was beginning to build his own. While he was increasing his fame, wealth and 'wisdom, it was at the expense of others. He was oppressing the people, making their yoke “grievous” for his own gain (2 Chronicles 10:4).
Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 5:10, “He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with gain. This also is vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility)!”
Solomon went on to write, “There is a serious and severe evil which I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt... And this also is a serious and severe evil -that in all points as he came, so shall he go; and what gain has he who labors for the wind?”
Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:7-10, “For we brought nothing into the world, and obviously we cannot take anything out of the world; But if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content (satisfied). But those who crave to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish (useless, godless) and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction and miserable perishing.
For the love of money is a root of all evils [a]; it is through this craving that some have been led astray and have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves through with many acute [mental] pangs.”
Not mentioned by the author of 2 Chronicles, Solomon eventually also fell into idol worship and his heart was turned away from the Lord. 1 Kings 11:4 says, For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect (complete and whole) with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.”
Solomon did not set out to oppress the people, using them for his own fame, riches and glory. Nor did he intentionally turn away from God and to idols. Mother Teresa writes, “We must keep the heart pure. How does our heart become impure? By pride, by lies, selfishness, insincerity, especially want of sincerity.” [1]
As Mother Teresa notes we don't step into a big sin all at once but rather step by step and little by little. [2] For instance, we don't usually set out in dishonesty by stealing a car. Rather, we start by a few white lies, then a few bigger lies, then by a little cheating here and there, and maybe stealing a few candy bars from the store before we move into Grand Theft Auto.
While we will be tempted by Satan to sin, as Mother Teresa notes, just like Jesus in the wilderness, we have to chose to say yes for it to be a sin. She writes about Satan, “He can do nothing unless we want... The whole of hell can come near you, but no one can force you, no one can touch you.” [3]
She notes that temptations will come, but with our Lord, we can fight them with confidence and humility. It is our pride that often gets in the way. It is allowed by God because it is “like fire in which gold is purified.” [4] It is actually in the struggle that we come alive to our true convictions and have the opportunity to live them out.
Sometimes we can have all the right things to say, but then temptation comes and we immediately give in to it, appearing hypocritical and inconsistent. We have all heard the parable of the sower in Mark 3:3-20. What is sown of the truth is sometimes taken away at once. Other times, it is received and welcomed with joy, but does not take root deep enough. The belief is superficial. Therefore one endures a little while but once difficulties come, it is taken away. Other times, the cares of the world and temptations suffocate the Word and it becomes fruitless. It is only when the seed is received, welcomed and then takes root, enduring difficulty and temptation that it bears great fruit.
Too often, we follow after God on the 'big' things but we allow smaller sins to eat away and erode our relationship with God. In Song 2:15 the beloved says, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards; for our vineyards are in blossom. Beloved”
As Mother Teresa notes that Satan temps us because he wants to destroy God in us. She writes, “If we allow ourselves to be unfaithful in little things and say, 'it doesn't matter,' the day will come when we want to get rid of it, and we will be so blinded that we won't know how to.” [5]
And Francis Fenelon in “The Seeking Heart” writes, “To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid “big” sins— is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?” [6]
When asked by the scribes, Jesus noted in Mark 12:29-31 the greatest two commandments involved wholehearted love for God. He answered, “The first and principal one of all commands is: Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; And you shall love the Lord your God out of and with your whole heart and out of and with your soul (your life) and out of and with all your mind (your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. This is the first and principal commandment. The second is like it and is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Deuteronomy 6:7 goes on to note that when you love the Lord wholeheartedly “[then] You shall whet and sharpen them so as to make them penetrate, and teach and impress them diligently upon the [minds and] hearts of your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you like down and when you rise up.”
We can only pass on to our children what we have truly received. We teach our children not with our words alone, but with what we truly put as priorities in our lives. We can have all kinds of words of wisdom to give our children, but what they inherit from us is what we genuinely live.
Mother Teresa notes that love begins at home just as sin begins at home. She quotes John, “You are a liar if you say you love God and you don't love your neighbor.” She writes, “I think this is something we must all understand, that love begins at home. Today we see more and more that all the suffering in the world has started from the home.” [7]
She goes on to note, “Our children depend on us for everything -their security, their coming to know and love God... And if the parents do not show their children what love is, who else is going to show them? These children will grow up to be spiritually poor, and this kind of poverty is much more difficult to overcome than material poverty.” [8]
Children often learn to value what their parents value whether they intend to or not. In my family, my father valued working hard because his father did. His father was raised on in an orphanage where you worked to 'earn your keep.' As my father was growing up, his father owned a business as a ditch digger and was also a farmer. My father 'earned his keep' by working hard farming and helping with digging ditches all his younger years until he left home.
My father was very much a hard worker and valued this. In our family, often the value people had was somewhat based upon how hard they worked. As a result, I grew up valuing working hard. My sister and I both married men who valued working hard. In the same way, my son inherited this value. My son is exceptionally bright and considered intellectually gifted, however the first thing people at his work will say to me about him is “he is such a hard worker.”
At the same time, since my father never had opportunity to have 'fun' growing up, he broke away from the pattern of thinking that hard work was all that mattered. Besides working hard, he would go out of his way to make opportunities for our family to do some fun things.
David had passed on to his son Solomon a deep love and devotion to God and desire to walk in all his ways, calling the people to do the same. In David's last charge to Solomon, he told him, “walk in His ways, keep His statutes, His commandments, His precepts, and His testimonies, that you may do wisely and prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn.” (1 Kings 2:2)
And in 1 Kings 3:3 it says, “Solomon loved the Lord, walking [at first] in the statutes and practices of David his father, only he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places. “
Solomon was following the Lord wholeheartedly at first as king. Sacrificing in the 'high places” was not a compromise at this point because the temple had not yet been built. 1 Kings 2:2 says the people sacrifice in the high places..., for there was no house yet built to the Name of the Lord.” Abraham also sacrificed in the high places, on top of Mount Moriah when he offered up Isaac to God.
One of the other things that David passed on to Solomon was a value for wisdom. Solomon writes in Proverbs 4:3-5, 8, 11, “When I [Solomon] was a son with my father [David], tender and the only son in the sight of my mother [Bathsheba], he taught me as said to me, Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and life. Get skillful and godly Wisdom, get understanding (discernment, comprehension, and interpretation); do not forget and do not turn back from the words of my mouth... Prize Wisdom highly and exalt her, and she will exalt and promote you; she will bring you to honor when you embrace her..I have taught you in the way of skillful and godly Wisdom...”
Solomon had not started out in his ministry having learned from his father David to oppress the people for his own gain. Rather, David was someone who cared deeply for the flock that was given into his care.
Solomon having received a value for wisdom and desire to serve the people from his father, started out in ministry deeply desiring this. The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and asked him what He he could give Solomon. Solomon responded, “Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chose, a great people who cannot be counted for multitude. So give Your servant an understanding mind and a hearing heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge and rule this Your great people?”
Commentary notes, “This is the high privilege of the child of God. Each one's life tells what he has asked for-- “in heaven above or earth beneath.” Which shall it be, God's will and glory, or our own?”
Solomon, unfortunately, after starting out so well and after praying and seeing fire fall from heaven and the glory of the Lord fill the temple, began compromising. Solomon had success after success and was told by others how great was his wisdom and renown. He probably began to believe it himself and fed his ego it, caring more about his renown than those he served.
Solomon not only built up excessive wealth, but he also acquired many wives and concubines. In doing so, he failed to demonstrate to his children what love looked like. 1 Kings 11:3 says, He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.”
It was if God directly wrote Solomon a little love note warning him of this in Deuteronomy 17:16-17. It says, "The king must not build up a large stable of horses for himself or send his people to Egypt to buy horses, for the LORD has told you, 'You must never return to Egypt.' The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the LORD. And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself.
Besides accumulating large amounts of silver and gold, and having many wives, 1 Kings 10:26 says, Solomon accumulated chariots and horses [from Egypt and Kue]; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.
Rather than passing off a value for wisdom, integrity and faithfulness to God like his own father David, greed, power and renown are the values he passed on to his son Rehoboam. To be great, his son in his spiritual poverty thought he would have to do more than Solomon in oppressing the people to acquire for himself so that he could look good and gain renown.
Mother Teresa asks, “How do you know, love, and serve [God]? How do you prove that you love him? In the family, the father proves his love by all he does for his children, for his wife. We prove our love for Jesus by what we do, by who we are.”
Solomon failed to demonstrate what love looked like to Rehobaom – both love for God and love for others. Mother Teresa also notes, “If a father and mother are not willing to give until it hurts to be faithful to each other, and to their children, they are not showing their children what it means to love. And if their parents do not show their children what love is, who else is going to show them?” [9]
When Rehoboam was to be made king, the people came to him asking him to lighten their load and offering then to serve him. Rehoboam disregarded the counsel of the old men who spoke of love. They had told him, “If you are kind to [those] people and please them and speak good words to them, they will be your servants forever.” (2 Chronicles 10:7)
Instead, Rehoboam chose to go with the advice of “the young men who were brought up with him” (those who would have been raised under Solomon's leadership in his days of compromise). They told him, “Tell the people who said to you, Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter: My little finger is thicker than my father's loins. For whereas my father put a heavy yoke upon you, I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
Also, what Rehoboam saw with his father is that once he was totally established and everything was going well for him, he no longer needed the Lord. He could do it all and be successful on his own. So when Rehoboam had established himself as king and strengthened his position, 2 Chronicles 12:1 says, “he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.”
Rehoboam never realized that his lack of ability to love the people was the issue. He saw the people as something to be used for his own power, glory, and gain. He thought the reason he did not rule over the rest of Israel was because he was not 'forceful enough' when he was young and inexperienced. This is what he taught to his son Abijah.
Abijah went to war against Israel telling them, “Ought you not to know that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the kingship over Israel to David forever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, a servant of Solomon son of David, rose up and rebelled against his Lord [the king]. And there gathered to him worthless men, base fellows, who strengthened themselves against Rehoboam son of Solomon when Rehoboam was young [as king], irresolute, and inexperienced and did not withstand them with firmness and strength.” (2 Chronicles 13:5-7)
Abijah did not forsake the Lord like his father however. Abijah called on the Name of the Lord. In the midst of the battle when Abijah was losing, he cried out to the Lord and the priest blew the trumpets, then the men of Judah gave a shout. Because Israel was in a great deal of compromise during that time, having dispersed the Levites and sacrificing to golden calves, God smote Israel before Abijah and Judah. (2 Chronicles 13:13-15)
Just because one's father follows a path of evil, or forsakes the Lord, it does not mean the children are destined to follow in the same direction. A child still has a choice. They can choose a different path than what they learned as a child growing up. .
Asa is an example of someone who chose loving God and others rather than seeking after his own gain and glory. He sought after the Lord and brought genuine revival to the land. As a result, the people had rest and peace on every side (2 Chron. 14:7).
2 Chronicles 14:2-5 says about him and his reign, “And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He took away the foreign altars and high places and broke down the idol pillars or obelisks and cut down the Asherim... And commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers [to inquire of and for Him and crave Him as a vital necessity], and to obey the law and the commandment. Also Asa took out of all the cities of Judah the idolatrous high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had rest under his reign.”
Asa also taught his son to follow in the ways of the Lord through his own faithfulness to God. 2 Chronicles 21:32 says about Jehoshaphat, “And he walked in the ways of Asa his father and departed not from doing it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord.” As Jesus notes, the most important thing we can do is learn to love – both God and our neighbor.
However, even if someone follows the Lord, it does not guarantee their child will follow in this same path. There have also been times that the 'son' has chosen evil rather than following after the ways of their father. This was the case with Jehoram, Jehoshaphat's son. In 2 Chronicles 21:6 it says about him, “He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab, for he married the daughter of Ahab and did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.”
Jehoram foremost demonstrated his greed and hunger for power in the way he behaved within his family. As soon as he was established as king, he killed all his brothers with a sword and also some of Israel's princes that he viewed as a threat.
Lord, we long for a revival where people are genuinely transformed, loving You and others with their whole hearts and bringing your justice to those around them. And we so long for our sons and daughters to inherit something of true value: how to love you and others. Would you teach us how to love You well first of all and then love well those around us, especially our families. May we not waste our time and energy on the things that don't really have any value.
a. Revelation 13:18 is the other place (other than the parallel verse in 1 Kings 10:14) where the number 666 is referenced. The verse in revelations says, “Here is [room for] discernment [a call for the wisdom of interpretation]. Let anyone who has intelligence (penetration and insight enough) calculate the number of the beast, for it is a human number [the number of a certain man]; his number is 666.”
It was Jewish tradition to refer to something previously in the bible without explaining, expecting the reader to understand because they knew the scriptures. For instance, the prophet spoke in Jude 1:11, “Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.”
While there is much debate around the interpretation of the verse in Revelation, I lean towards believing John could have been referring to 666 as “the number of the beast” in relation to 2 Chronicles 9:13 / 1 Kings 10:14 -referring to greed and oppressing of people for ones own gain.
1-5, 7-9. Mother Teresa. “Where There Is Love, There is God.” Random House, Inc. New York, NY. 2010.
6. Chan, Francis. Crazy Love. David C. Cook Distributions, Colorado Springs, CO. 2008. First chapter located at: http://www.crazylovebook.com/the_book.html Last Accessed 12/7/11.
Comments