Text: 1 KINGS 9: 4-7; 11: 4-11

SOLOMON’S SET UP

Solomon, the second-born of David and Bathsheba, was set up for life. His father had established the Kingdom of Israel and handed it over with no place to go but up. Solomon did not have to wage wars or conquer enemies; his era was a golden age for Israel, characterized by prosperity, growth, health, and wealth. Israel was the world’s superpower, and wisdom and justice flowed from the throne blessing not only the Jews but all the surrounding nations. Everyone wanted to do business with Israel, and all the world leaders wanted to meet Solomon and learn the secrets of his success.

Solomon built the first temple, using—by today’s standards—nearly two billion dollars’ worth of gold in its construction and ornamentation. Solomon’s virtue was well-touted by all. He was truly humble, concerned more for the good of the nation than himself. His intelligence was extraordinary, and he amazed the kings, queens, and leaders from other nations. His wise judgment was—and is—legendary. And he was an artist—a poet like his father and a lover of life and nature. It seems he initiated a golden age that could have gone on indefinitely. So what brings it to an end? 

COVENANT KINDS

As we read in the text, the covenant with David and Solomon is conditional:

“If you abide by the covenant, then you will be blessed.”

Other covenants were unconditional:

•Adamic: [implied] “be fruitful and multiply”

•Noahic: “Never again will I destroy the world by water.”

•Abrahamic: “I will make you a great nation, like stars and sand….”

The later covenants tended to be conditional, giving Israel (read: humanity) an active role in the relationship with The Lord:

•Mosaic: “If you abide by these stipulations, then The Lord will….”

•Davidic: “If you abide, then this kingdom will be established”

•Solomonic: “If you abide by the laws and decrees, then the kingdom will remain.”

The unconditional covenants are snap; we don’t have to do anything; God does is all. These tend to go very well for us.

The conditional covenants give Israel a chance to give something back to God—call it respect, or faith, or love. But we see a pattern whenever people are allowed are given a little religious responsibility—a chance to make our own choices—whenever humanity is given a chance at the wheel, things invariably find their way off the road and into the ditch, and fast. Even Solomon—the epitome of wisdom, intelligence, and virtue—manages to mess things up.

FATHER & SON

The Lord’s word to Solomon is that he should keep the statutes “as David your father did.” What? David the adulterer? David the murderer? Let’s compare them:

David:

•Man after God’s own heart

•Enormous integrity and focus

•Trusted in God when no one else did

•Anointed for the unity of Israel

•Anointed to see God’s promises fulfilled.

•Big sinner: adultery and murder

•Totally intolerant of idolatry

Solomon:

•God’s choice to build the temple

•Wise and good beyond human comparison

•No conflicts, no war—worldwide approval

•Anointed for the unity of Israel

•Anointed to see God’s promises fulfilled

•No adultery, no murder

•Open on idolatry

Clearly, one thing matters above all else: idolatry. Though David was a sinner among sinners in the human sphere, he never wavered in his devotion to The Lord. That relationship remained solid and connected. When David got caught in sin, he repented, but his love of God was never affected.

Solomon, who was relatively sinless destined to derail the entire kingdom—Israel’s greatest golden age—all because he tolerated idolatry. Why? With all his intelligence, wisdom, and wealth, why would he scuttle all?

I don’t want to step on any landmines here, but he did have 700 wives and 300 concubines. That isn’t a household; it’s a university. Most men have a tough time pleasing one wife; dare we imagine trying to keep a thousand content? (Did the landmine go off? Would someone please tell me?).

I suspect Solomon had no personal love for idols, but being the wise negotiator he was, he probably compromised.  The UWC (University of Wives and Concubines) asked for 200 shrines but Solomon talked them down to a mere half-dozen. Brilliant. We see that it doesn’t matter how smart, rich, powerful, or well-intentioned people may be, but that idolatry finds a way to worm into faith and life.

We might think that if we had the wealth of Solomon, it would have been easier to be obedient to God. Many people, even secretly, believe this, and it raises a question regarding the relationship between our faith and our health, wealth, and prosperity. I’m going to put this terms of prayer and the prayers we might pray. We’ll consider 3. 

THREE PRAYERS

Prayer 1: “Lord, if you will bless me, then I’ll be good”

We may like to turn the “conditional covenant” back on God, but there is a subtext, which is, “I’ll follow as long as it works for me”  This is a false bargain—an attempt to be the issuer of the covenant rather than the recipient. The delusion here is that health/wealth/prosperity will bring virtue. As we see in Solomon, it doesn’t work that way.

Prayer 2:“Lord, I will be good, so please bless me.”

This is more common—we’ve all prayed this at some point, usually desperation. “Oh Lord, please heal my mother and I will be good forever.”

The subtext here is, “I will deserve Your support. I am earning it.” Again we have a false bargain, with ourselves as the one in control of the agreement. The delusion: that virtue brings health and wealth.

“If I’m good, then I will be protected.” This is as natural as rain and as common as sin itself. This instinct to please God and thereby receive his good favor is at the heart of all religious instinct. It is part and parcel of all paganism and too much  part of Christianity.

We remain in constant danger of reducing God to a cosmic gumball machine who, if we pray rightly or act good enough, will give us our gumball.

It should not be our way of thinking, because it suggests that we somehow hold controls on God’s favor rather than God himself. Properly, we acknowledge that all good things come from God and God alone, and that we are worthy—worthy—of none of them. Every good thing is a grace, a blessing, and we should feel that every blessing we receive is actually beyond what we deserve. That is basic gratitude.

Even so, the old prosperity mindset manages to worm its way back into our thinking again and again.

THE TROUBLE WITH WISDOM LITERATURE

The problem with Wisdom literature is that it does not comport with the New Testament—the life and example of Christ and the Apostles.

Do you know good people—devout Christians—who have contracted infections or diseases and not been healed? Yes, of course, we all do. Were they lacking faith or virtue? No, no more than those who do receive healing.

Question: So why does God heal some and not others?

First, let’s acknowledge that there are plenty of bad answers to this question. We should know them and avoid them.

I read a disappointing book by a popular teacher at Fuller seminary who spoke of “effective prayer.” Some people’s prayers weren’t “effective” [read: they didn’t get the gumballs] because they had  unconfessed sin in their life, or they lacked faith, or even that they hadn’t prayed long enough—all of these are preposterous in that they suggest that God would have exercised his power if only you were a better Christian or a bit better at praying.

This kind of thinking keeps people looking to Proverbs rather than Jesus for help. Beware anything suggesting: Be righteous and maybe God will start answering your prayers in the positive. God is provident, which means he doesn’t need our sincerity or righteousness to heal whomever he chooses to heal. 

Why God heals some and not others is entirely up to God and not at all about us.

It plays on our feelings tremendously, for we all know saints—or relative saints—who still suffer the ravages of dementia and Alzheimers.  We know people of excellent character and deep piety who have succumbed to the same diseases from which others—even monstrous sinners—might recover. Our sin is that we want all the control in our own hands. We don’t really like God’s total control as much as we might think, so we take what we can out of our own lives and we make it matter to God:

“Oh Lord, please! If you’ll just heal my mother, then I’ll be good, I swear!” As if our being good alters God’s mind. Even so, God tells us repeatedly that he wants us coming to him in prayer. When we are at our wits end, almost all people come to God for help. A person can ignore God for years, but when there is real trouble, they are back on their knees at his throne, begging for help and feeling totally dependent.

It is right and good that we should feel this kind of dependence—let’s affirm this feeling without reservation—I want to feel like that every day of my life, but let’s not indulge the delusion that our good intentions somehow loosen God’s grip on his healing power.

When we pray, we are right to pour out our hearts and ask for what it is we want from God, but we must not pretend that his responses—yes or no—depends upon us and our sincerity or good intentions.

God is sovereign. He alone knows all things. He wants us asking and leaning in because that is part of the way he draws us to himself, and being drawn to him is the purpose of this life.  Which lead us to our third prayer:

Prayer 3:“Lord, I want to be good, and You are enough fo me.”

The subtext is simply that God is God, and we live this life accepting the good that God intends for us beyond the goods we envision for ourselves. This is faith.

God’s only plan for your life and mine is that we should grow into the image of Christ, albeit through blessings or sufferings.

TRUE HEALTH/WEALTH

If we have The Lord, we have the wealth of the cosmos at our disposal. If we have God, we have no needs whatsoever. We have the wealth of Solomon many times over, and for those with faith, the covenant [with Christ] is unconditional. †