1 Kings 7:1 It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace.
Sometimes our priorities speak loudly, like the sound of a hurricane just before the eye wall hits. Others can see exactly what is important to us. They can see through our rhetoric to the reality. They know what we deem important.
But too often we fool ourselves into thinking we are living our our stated priorities. But for everyone, the distance between our stated priorities and our lived priorities is much greater than we will admit. I am beginning to recognize this in myself, much to my consternation. This is not what I want!
Our text tells us a story, and it might not be the story you were expecting. That is because our chapter divisions in our Bibles sometimes fall at strange places. Like todays!
The verse right before this verse tells us that Solomon spent seven years building the Temple of the LORD. This did not include the four years he spent getting the foundations set for the Temple. These foundation stones are still being discovered today as they did literally under the city of Jerusalem. The Wailing Wall shows us some of those stones!
OK, so it took seven years to build the Temple and thirteen years to build his palace. What is the big deal? What was Solomon’s priority! The Temple or his palace? If we look at the time spent building it, and the size of each, we would probably conclude that his palace was more important.
And this illustrates his priorities. And it also shows the path to his downfall. He spent more time establishing the symbol of his kingdom and he did establishing His Kingdom. And Solomon’s kingdom mirrored Pharaoh’s kingdom. Power, wealth, chariots, warriors, buildings, grand statements of importance.
We might call his palace structure a “power projection platform.” Foreign dignitaries would come and visit him in his palace and be wined and dined on the best of the land, collected through taxation and forced labor, just like his palace. He used his consolidated power to enhance his position, a political position.
Now it might seem that I don’t like political power. You would be correct! But I don’t like collected power in the hands of humans. Humans always seem to mess up when they hold too much power. History is replete with examples of consolidated power run amuck.
Human power was never meant to be the ruling force in the world. The LORD didn’t want to establish an earthly human king. He wanted that role for Himself. He wanted people to come to Him for wisdom about working in this world. He wanted to be their King.
He was present. He showed up in the same pillar of cloud and fire when the Temple was dedicated. The people could see the manifestation of His presence. There was no doubt that He was there in their midst.
But they wanted to be “like all the other nations” having an earthly king. So as Solomon establishes his kingdom, his grip on power, he does a superb job. He becomes the wisest earthly king there was, for a time, for a season. But then the power moved him in the wrong direction. It corrupted his motives and it was downhill from there.
The LORD is the one to hold the power. We are just temporary holders of that power that is His. We must discipline ourselves into remembering that. The power is not ours. It is His.
Earthly kingdoms are currently just a very poor skeleton of what was intended because we have removed the LORD from the central core. We have ripped the heart out of this human endeavor; the LORD is not the pulse that signals life for humanity any longer. Just like Solomon, our downfall is on the way
The Arnold Journey 