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24
Royalty and Ruin
have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there
forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.”
Verses
12-16
.
If Israel had remained true to God, this glorious building would
have stood forever, a perpetual sign of God’s special favor. “The
sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,
and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—everyone who
keeps from defiling the Sabbath, ... even them I will bring to My
holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. ... For
My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
Isaiah
56:6, 7
.
The Lord made the path of duty very plain before the king: “If
you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according
to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and
My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as
I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to
have a man as ruler in Israel.’”
2 Chronicles 7:17, 18
.
If Solomon had continued to serve the Lord, his entire reign
would have exerted a powerful influence over the surrounding na-
tions. Foreseeing the terrible temptations that come with prosperity
and worldly honor, God warned Solomon against apostasy. The
beautiful temple that had just been dedicated, He declared, would
become “a proverb and a byword among all peoples” if the Israelites
“forsook the Lord God of their fathers” and persisted in idol worship.
Verses 20, 22
.
Israel’s Greatest Glory
Strengthened and cheered by the message from Heaven,
Solomon now entered the most glorious period of his reign. “All the
kings of the earth” began to seek his presence, “to hear his wisdom,
which God had put in his heart.”
2 Chronicles 9:23
. Solomon taught
them about God as the Creator, and they returned with clearer ideas
of the God of Israel and of His love for the human race. In nature
they now saw a revelation of His character, and many were led to
worship Him as their God.
Solomon’s humility when he acknowledged before God, “I am a
little child” (
1 Kings 3:7
), his reverence for things divine, his distrust