April 19, 2009 · 1 Kings 11:4

1 Kings - Solomon

“Finally, I want to point out that God is forgiving. That God is bigger than our mistakes. Even after his monumental screw up, God still blesses Solomon. God brings Jesus through the line of Solomon. Imagine that. The great-grandchild of Solomon is the light to the entire world. What bigger blessing can you have than that when your great-great-grandchildren is the Messiah? God blesses Solomon still. It's not just that. Jesus himself says it later. It's one of the places where you have to realize that Jesus wasn't shy about telling you who he was. He says at one point he says, now one greater than Solomon is here. Imagine saying that to the people of Israel. The greatest person they can think of is Solomon. The greatest king they ever had and Jesus is further going, yeah, I'm better than Solomon. What's up? Not only that, but God let Solomon's words stand for his very own. Did you realize that? Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs and the song of songs and arguably perhaps Ecclesiastes. There's a little bit of debate on that one. Parts of the Bible were written by our fallen hero. Whoa, you've got to realize that God can make good from your mistakes. Don't let your mistakes define you. God is great. His mercy is great. No matter how big we've screwed up God will redeem us if we keep faith in Him. That's beautiful. Now, sure, you might have fallen into that trap. Your eyes rate this moment might actually have been off-kilter not looking towards God. Your eyes might have been somewhere else distracted. Just remember, God is merciful. Return to Him and He will use you. That's mercy.”