Soli Deo Gloria - Day 187 Through the Bible

Part of the Toe River Canoe Trail outside of Bakersville, NC - near Mt. Celo Church

My Lessons, Applications, Meditations on Today's Readings

The Queen of Sheba Glorifies God, but Does Solomon Glorify Self or God?  2 Chronicles 9:1 - 10:19 - The Queen of Sheba (probably modern-day Yemen) has come to test Solomon.  Is he as wise and rich as the rumors that have reached her?  After posing all her questions to him, observing his wisdom, his house, the food, the seating, service and dress of his servants and waiters, and the entryway by which he went up to the house of the LORD,"there was no more spirit in her...I did not believe their words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half of the greatness of your wisdom was not told me.  You exceed the fame of which I heard...Blessed be the LORD your God who delighted in you...setting you on His throne to be king for the LORD your God!...Because your God has loved Israel...to establish them forever...therefore He made you king over them..to do justice and righteousness." (Ellipses are mine and used for pause for contemplation.)

My Lessons and Applications - Charles Stanley comments on this text, "Solomon knew he had received his gift from God, yet we have no record that he reminded the queen of the fact."  Yet..the queen reminds Solomon that it is all of God in HER praise and attribution of glory to God: Did Solomon fail the test spiritually?  Is this the beginning of his and Israel's fall?  Did Solomon start to see himself as a god? He has already given himself over to idolatry - worshipping the gods of his wives.  Has he now devolved into self-worship? Do we do this?  When success and the approbation of men come our way, do we give the glory to God, or in self-righteousness and vanity suppose we did it all by ourselves - "up by our own bootstraps" - the "no one else helped me" mentality?

Barnabas and Paul Worshipped by the People of Lystra - Acts 14 - The tables are turned here from what we see in our OT reading.  Paul and Barnabas, through the power of the Holy Spirit, heal a cripple in Lystra.  The people there believe they are the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes who have come down to them, and they seek to sacrifice to the apostles - giving Paul and Barnabas the glory for the miracle.  Barnabas and Paul tear their clothes...run among the multitudes...crying out...saying, "We also are men with the same nature as you and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways.  Nevertheless, He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." Then (as with Jesus) the Jews stir up these same multitudes, and they stone Paul, drag him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.

My Lessons and Applications - Time and again, I recall a minister saying that great blessings can become great curses - (intellectual, financial, athletic, physical beauty) - that they often attract the wrong kind of people and that we should teach our children this.  Solomon started as a humble heart with a great love of God, but after being so blessed by God, spent most of his life reveling in the riches and wisdom with which he had been gifted (Read Ecclesiastes).  He came to see it all as "a vanity, a chasing after wind." Paul started out as a self-righteous Pharisee persecuting, jailing, and encouraging the stoning to death of Christians, was converted by a vision of Jesus, and became the great Apostle to the Gentiles and the author of much of the NT, always giving glory to God, seeing himself as the "chief among sinners."  Barnabas, from the time we hear of him in the NT, was known as the Encourager - of the other apostles and of the new believers, a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, and of faith and (as a result) many were added to the Lord. (Acts 11:22-24)  What will our legacies be?  Did we start with hearts of faith and love for the Lord and then become hard-hearted unbelievers when life was difficult, when we became wealthy, when we felt we had become too wise for such a simple faith?  Do we have and live out a personal relationship with the living God, or were we just religious for a certain time of our lives?  Do we stand boldly for the faith and for Christ as Paul and Barnabas did, or do we "allow various winds and doctrines to turn our hearts" away from God as they did with Solomon? (Ephesians 4:14) Do we always give all the glory to God?

Everyone who believes is justified. - Acts 13:39 "May our present privilege awaken us to our present duty - now.  While we remain in this life, may we spend it - and be spent - for our sweet Lord Jesus."

Charles Spurgeon - Morning and Evening