The thing that stood out for me from today's passage was the whole grand idea of unbelievable-ness. The things talked about in these verses almost seem too unbelievable to be true:
King Solomon offered as a sacrifice 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.
22,ooo oxen?!
120,000 sheep??!!
I can hardly wrap my head around the unbelievable amount of animals and the logistics involved in the sacrifice of them.
Then the verses go on to describe Solomon's accomplishments and his visit from the Queen of Sheba and the gifts she leaves him. The Bible says that these had never been seen before. Unbelievable.
Solomon's wealth is described in detail:
* in one year was 666 talents of gold
* he made 200 large shields of beaten gold;
* 600 shekels[i] of beaten gold went into each shield
*he made 300 shields of beaten gold;
*300 shekels of gold went into each shield;
* a great ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold.
*The throne had six steps and a footstool of gold
*All King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold
* all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold.
* King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.
*4,000 stalls for horses and chariots,
*12,000 horsemen,
*And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone
* he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah.
Unbelievable. It's hard to even fathom Solomon's riches. It just seems exaggerated it seems too far-fetched and too big. It seemed too unbelievable to be true.
The NT passage has a similar theme. When Jesus heals the withered hand after he has forgiven his sins. Unbelievable. When Jesus chooses the apostles...ordinary men who literally left everything behind to follow Him. Unbelievable. All of the healing miracles that Jesus performed on the masses. Unbelievable.
The Beatitudes paint the most unbelievable picture of mixed-upness. Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the ones who cry, the ones who are hated...but woe to the ones who are rich, who are well fed, who laugh, and have lots of friends. Say what? It's hard to imagine...
But God is the god of the unbelievable. Just when things seems so unbelievable and impossible, God works.
Yesterday, a man in our church was baptized. He had only been in Canada for a few days when sometime unbelievable happened. God had been tugging on his heart in his homeland before he came to Canada but this man never really wanted to acknowledge Him. It was right after he arrived here that he was in Walmart when someone from our church felt led to reach out to him and they obeyed. Their interaction with him led him to finally accept Christ as his Saviour and stand up to boldly proclaim his faith. God used the meeting of two strangers at Walmart to add another member to his family. Unbelievable.
God makes the unbelievable...believable. He makes the impossible....possible. What a great God we serve.
3 comments:
Even the Queen of Sheba was blown away by the unbelievable-ness of Soloman's wealth
2 Chronicles 9:3-4
"And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, 4 the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, and their clothing, his cupbearers, and their clothing, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her."
All of Soloman's wisdom and wealth were from God
2 Chronicles 9:23
And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind
Amazing indeed!
And you didn't even mention the fire falling from heaven. That would've been amazing to see.
Definitely an amazing God in all His splendor!
I like how The Message concluded in our NT reading:
There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests
Something I need to rember and apply to my life. I interact with people daily who need to hear about God's love, and I should not care about what they think of me for wanting to share how amazing He is!
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