2 Chronicles 8:1-9:31

In Solomon, we see strength and weakness. He was strong - ‘the House of the Lord was completed’(8:16). He was also weak. He was infatuated with foreign women, who did not belong among the redeemed people of God. He married ‘Pharaoh’s daughter’, a woman who had no love for ‘the holy places’ of worship (8:11). To the queen of Sheba, a woman who had more love for ‘her own land’ than for life among the people of God, ‘Solomon gave all that she desired’(9:12). Solomon was a complicated man. He had a real love for the Lord, yet the world still had a strong hold on him. “O let me feel Thee near me: the world is ever near; I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear; My foes are ever near me, around me and within; but, Jesus, draw Thou nearer, and shield my soul from sin’(Church Hymnary, 434).

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