©LaBelleLife.com
Chapter 12:9-14 (ESV) - Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.
The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Question to consider: How does Solomon conclude that the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments?
In some ways, Solomon was the anti-Job. Job was righteous and yet experienced hardships and accusations against his character in having experienced those hardships. Job's conclusion was that if God is just, he could put his trust in a Redeemer who would intercede on his behalf, and he would be raised up and restored to new life.
Solomon tested the justice of God from the other end, experiencing all that life had to offer and coming to the realization that everything in this world is temporary and meaningless outside of God. While he shared what he had learned with the people of Israel, Solomon concluded that God would bring every deed into judgment at the resurrection.
Worldly wisdom is valuable in that it leads us forward into good works and with a purpose while we enjoy this temporary life. However, it is not the best thing. The best thing is to be reconciled to our Creator.
You may be wondering how Solomon or Job could make this leap into a supernatural view from the evidence they presented. However, we live at a time in which people assume secular ideas and require proof of the supernatural. Solomon and Job began with a supernatural framework and sought to reconcile the justice of God in a world filled with sin and death.
When the Greeks referred to Christians as “atheists,” it was not because they didn’t believe in the supernatural. It was because they proclaimed that a man was God in flesh, and this man was not among the pantheon of gods that were sanctioned for worship.
I’m sure when Adam and Eve first rebelled against God, they thought the action was insignificant because it was merely eating something God said not to eat. I doubt they could even imagine that the world would eventually rebel against every word given by God and hold to the ridiculous idea that a complex universe could be ordered from a random explosion that appeared on its own out of nothing in particular.
Because of the order of events that have led to the world in which we are now living, I have heard people profess that they believe we are living in a simulation. Movies like Interstellar find it more believable that man saved himself because he was able to reach back in time and space and push a book off a shelf in the past. If ever there was evidence that the Biblical view of man’s rebellious nature was true, it is the lengths to which he will go to prove otherwise.
Dear heavenly Father, please open our eyes and hearts to the conclusions of Job and Solomon. Help us to see our own rebellion against You so that we can turn from it and be reconciled through Christ. May we turn from cursing His name to lifting it above all names. Amen.