Proverbs

A Walk in Proverbs. Introduction

I believe most of us have read proverbs at one time or another.  Written by the wisest man to ever live, King Solomon.  Yet if we look at the end of Solomons life, it almost seems that for all of his wisdom, in the end it did him no good.  What can we learn from Solomon and from reading the book of Proverbs?  

First lets take a quick look at where Solomon got off the track and started to go the wrong way.  He took a wrong turn the same place we all do, he did not obey the Lord.  This disobedience can be seen in a couple of ways.  He did not believe what God had said.  God had promised his father David that Solomon’s reign would be a reign of peace and without enemies. (I Chronicle. 22:9) He had rest from all who would be his enemies.  Yet in I Kings 4:26 we see that Solomon had built a large army with many chariots and horses.  Why?  He did not need an army God had promised him peace.  He also built many fortified cities. Again, for what purpose?  Here Solomon is doubting the protection of God.  I wonder how often we are like Solomon and doubt God’s protection in our lives and fail to take God at His word? Lastly and perhaps most importantly Solomon did two more things.  He doubted God’s provision by accumulating vast wealth for himself.  Good thing none of us try to accumulate money.  And he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines.  These wives were taken to form alliance’s with foreign kings.  In Deut. 17:17 God tells the people that a king of Israel should not, “ greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.”  In the same verse God warns against multiply wives and tells the people what would happen, “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away:”   This is exactly what happened, for all his wisdom Solomon’s heart was turned away from God.  I’m sure that Solomon’s fall was not some quick sudden thing.  No, like most of us this falling away or as some say, “back slide” was a slow process that took time.  If it was a quick event I think we would be more likely to notice.  Instead the devil works much more stealthy.  Satan knows that if he can bring just a little leven into our lives then mix it with the cares of the word, a busy life, he can slowly leven the whole.  We wake up one morning and realize that we have grown distant from our Lord.  The warmth of His face has become a memory.  Let us always be alert and on the watch for such danger.  Unlike Solomon let the wisdom of God fill us and guide us until the day we see Him face to face.