Sermons

The prodigal son took his share of his father’s estate, went off to a far country and squandered it all. When the money ran out, people abandoned him and he ended up among the pigs. Only then did he long for his father and set out for home, and his father was already waiting with open arms. Solomon, too, once he had been given wisdom, wealth and power in abundance, came to think he could live without God, and he brought in foreign gods and idols.

Solomon swelled with pride as he watched people serve him as though he were a god, yet within, his soul had no peace. He had to guard his own life and power by himself, and the only things around him were idols and people who meant to use him. The wealth and power that could be seen had made the unseen grace of God look worthless.

To keep his promise to David, God did not withdraw his favor as he had from Saul, but led Solomon to repentance in his old age. Solomon realized that he could not straighten his crooked life by his own strength, and, lamenting that all is vanity of vanities, he returned to God. The message is that those who have sinned must not simply stay where they are, full of regret, but must leave that place while Christ is waiting for them.

After Adonijah is put to death and Abiathar is driven out at David’s command, Joab takes hold of the horns of the altar in Yahweh’s Tent. But unlike Adonijah, he is put to death at once. Shimei had cursed David but survived, and instead of putting him to death, Solomon commands him to live only within Jerusalem.

Joab served David loyally for more than forty years, but to keep his own position he deliberately killed Abner, Absalom, and Amasa, who had no strength to resist. Because deliberate murder cannot be escaped even at the altar, his death was the response to that sin. Shimei was given the chance to keep his life twice, first because of David and then because of Solomon, but he took grace lightly and treated his oath carelessly, and in the end he left Jerusalem and was put to death.

When the wicked are not punished as soon as they sin, it means they are being given a chance to turn back as they go on living. Joab and Shimei failed to take hold of that chance and fell back into their own greed and complacency. This is also why we have nothing to boast of in what we have done well. It is nothing more than one more chance at a good choice, received by the grace of God.

Solomon lived in such abundance that he had no one to envy, yet late in life, looking back over his years, he lamented that all was vanity of vanities. He saw people who served God and were content even in poverty and hardship. From them he came to understand that wealth does not make anyone happy, and that reigning as king does not satisfy either.

The vanity Solomon speaks of is wind that cannot be grasped, or a hollowness like something left empty. He had enjoyed the wisdom, riches and honor God gave him. Yet to hold on to his wealth and power he took in foreign gods and turned away from God. From that moment his life became like an empty vessel, and the emptiness of his soul was never filled. As the sun rises and sets and the rivers run to the sea, the world only goes round again. One generation goes and another comes while the earth stays as it is, and human sin stays as it is too.

So Solomon urges others not to live as he did, turned away from God, but to receive Christ and live. An arrow that has left the bowstring cannot be called back, and neither can time that has passed. And so, he says, the blessed life is one that worships God through these few short years and fills that vanity with joy and hope.

Someone staying in a country illegally has not a single identity document and lives in constant unease. If caught, they are deported at once, and at work they cannot answer back even when treated with contempt.

Christians are no different. While they sojourn for a little while in this world, they cannot simply follow its laws; the moment they came to know that they are the people of God’s Kingdom, they gave up their citizenship in the world of their own accord. Because Paul had already possessed the things the world boasts of, he was not ashamed to cast them aside, and he did not waver when he was mocked.

The only way to keep the citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven is to walk by faith according to the Word, whatever the circumstances. Those who compromise with the world and go their own way are stripped of that citizenship. Only those who are assured of their heavenly citizenship, and that their names are written in the book of life, can overcome death and fear and press on with boldness.

As death drew near, David left his final charge to Solomon. He first passed on a blessing, urging him to keep the word of God, and then commanded him to deal wisely with those who had done him wrong.

Adonijah had committed the grave sin of trying to seize the throne, yet he was pardoned; but he could not be thankful for that grace. Where gratitude had faded, resentment took its place, and in the end his foolish desire to have Abishag, his father’s woman, as his wife cost him his life. Abiathar was the priest who had stood by David at the risk of his own life in his hardest days, but when David grew old, anxious for his own future, he went over to Adonijah’s side.

Adonijah, who so readily forgot the grace he had been shown and set out to satisfy his own desires, and Abiathar, who let the faith he had kept all his life give way at the very last — both came to a sorry end. To live soberly and watchfully before God, thankful for the grace received and content with what one has: this is the life of God’s people who are wise and true.

Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy grain and bow down before him. He recognizes them as his brothers, but he treats them as strangers and sternly asks where they have come from.

At every turn Jacob chose by human reckoning, while Joseph sought in each moment to live according to God’s will. That difference divided the two men’s lives. Even as a slave and then as a prisoner, Joseph believed that the dream God had shown him would come to pass, and so he strove not to sin. He simply weighed things and decided in keeping with that faith, and yet he came to stand in the place of prime minister.

As he watched his brothers bow before him, Joseph realized that his judgment and his faith had been right, and he took deeply to heart how much God is to be feared. Only those who believe the Word as the Word of God experience a miracle like this. If God’s people live with steadfast faith as Joseph did, glad news will be heard from every home.

When Jacob met Pharaoh in Egypt and was asked his age, he answered that the years of his pilgrimage were a hundred and thirty, and that they had been hard years. After he obtained his brother’s birthright for a bowl of red stew, he was forced to flee from him and spent twenty years in the house of his uncle Laban, deceived the whole time. In the land of Shechem, his daughter came to harm and his sons went as far as murder.

The hard years Jacob went through were not a matter of bad luck. They came because, at every turn, he judged and decided by his own thinking rather than by the word of God. Deceiving his brother was one such decision. So was settling in Shechem, which seemed safe, when God had told him to go up to Bethel. Yet God made use even of Laban’s greed, and through Jacob he went on forming the people of Israel.

Left to himself, Jacob would have died at his brother’s hands or been exploited by Laban all his life. What kept him alive was not his own wisdom but God, who stepped in at every moment. God’s people should not go looking to the world again once their prayers have been answered. The way they must live is to entrust their judgment and decisions to God, and all the more when life is at peace.

Because of the census, Joseph and Mary leave home and go up to Bethlehem, where the child is born and laid not in an inn but in a manger. Shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night are the first to hear the news, brought to them by an angel, while the wise men from the East follow a star to worship the child, offering gold, frankincense and myrrh.

All of this came to pass exactly as it had been ordained long before. The poor and lowly manger does not conceal that this King is the God who was from the beginning; rather, it reveals it. A man named Simeon lived holding fast to the word that he would see the Christ before he died, and only when he met the child in the temple did he confess that he could now depart in peace.

Those bound by the belief that salvation comes by keeping the law are not free. Only those who, like Simeon, believe the word and walk with the Holy Spirit enjoy freedom in the truth, and in due time encounter the Christ. Like those who received Jesus in faith at his first coming, the task left to us today is to wait in faith for the Christ who will come again, living righteous and godly lives.

As King David grew old without naming a successor, his fourth son, Adonijah, put himself forward to be king and gathered chariots, horsemen and an escort of guards. He had the birthright, a handsome appearance, and even the backing of Joab and Abiathar, yet Solomon was the one man he did not invite to his feast.

Adonijah rested his claim to the throne on his birthright and his looks, but Scripture says that God looks not on the outward appearance but on the heart. Solomon did nothing to win the crown, yet even before he was born he had been chosen and loved by God. In the end the prophet Nathan and Bathsheba went in and spoke before David, and in a moment everything was overturned: Solomon took his seat on the throne, and Adonijah was left clinging to the horns of the altar, begging for his life.

Unlike Adonijah, who sought to exalt himself, Solomon had done no more than live quietly and faithfully in his own place, and it was God who raised him up. Rather than rushing to and fro after results they can see, God’s people must be faithful in small things right where they now stand, and wait for God’s appointed hour. Even when no one seems to be watching, God searches the heart, and when that hour comes he will without fail bring them into their rightful place and use them.

Beside the altar the command goes out: strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. So fierce is God’s anger that he would pursue Israel to the very end and kill them, and the judgment begins with God himself tearing down the temple he had cherished.

He brought it down not because judgment was his aim but because he hated sin. That he waited until Israel’s sin had reached its full measure, and that even in judgment he did not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, both show the heart of a parent who cannot abandon a child. Through the remnant left in this way he promised to raise up again the fallen tent of David, and that promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who came from the line of David.

Israel, once carried off into captivity, returned to the homeland by the decree of Cyrus, rebuilt their towns and ate the fruit of what they themselves had planted and gathered. Just as he promised to plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted, so those who are in Christ are secure. Now it falls to us, who received the gospel through the devotion of the Jewish people, to carry it to the ends of the earth.

God shows Amos a basket of summer fruit, left too long and now overripe. It is a sign that Israel has let the time for repentance pass. The priest Amaziah heard Amos’s warning, yet went to the king to turn him against the prophet, and Israel would not take hold of even its last chance.

This was what they truly were: they cheated the poor with false scales and sold people into slavery for the price of a pair of sandals. God swore judgment by the pride of Jacob, and that judgment came to pass just as he had spoken, with the sun going dark at midday. The songs of the palace turned to wailing, and when at last they called on the name of the Lord, God was silent.

Famine comes not from a lack of bread but from not hearing the words of the Lord. God’s people must listen to the word while it can still be heard, and each one needs to examine where their faith stands today. When God says he will no longer pardon Israel, he does not mean he will cast them away; it is his earnest longing that they turn back, even now.

Faced with visions of locusts stripping the land of every blade of grass and of a great fire devouring the earth, Amos pleads with God to hold back his judgment for the sake of a poor and helpless people. But in the third vision, when a plumb line is set in the midst of Israel, God declares that this time he will not forgive. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, threatens Amos for calling the nation to repentance, ordering him to go back to Judah and prophesy no more.

Amos, once a shepherd, answers boldly that he was never trained as a prophet; it was God himself who called him and set him in his place. Amaziah measured Amos by worldly power and rank and scorned him, yet the one he was truly mocking was the God who had called him. To weigh with human eyes someone whom God has raised up, and to stand in that person’s way, is not mere obstruction; it is to set oneself against God.

Judgment fell on Amaziah’s house in all its misery: his wife became a prostitute and his children fell by the sword, and the word Amos had spoken came to pass exactly as he had said. However humble someone may appear, if God has called them they must not be judged rashly but helped. Like Amos, who proclaimed the word with honesty, God’s people must cherish life and give themselves quietly and faithfully to his service.