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2 Chronicles 9:17-19  Then the king made a great throne covered with ivory and overlaid with pure gold.  The throne had six steps, and a footstool of gold was attached to it.  On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing beside each of them.  Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step.  Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom.

I picture King Solomon, dressed in his magnificent robes, standing before the impressive, gold-covered throne without rival in all the world, and getting ready to ascend its six glorious, lion-guarded steps to sit as the LORD’s King and Representative over all his blessed people.  The beautiful Queen of Sheba had just visited him and praised him profusely with the words: “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true.  But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw with my own eyes.  Indeed, not even half the greatness of your wisdom was told me; you have far exceeded the report I heard.  How happy your people must be!  How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!  Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the LORD your God.  Because of the love of your God for Israel and his desire to uphold them forever, he has made you king over them, to maintain justice and righteousness.” (verses 5-8)

I believe Solomon would have been in complete agreement with the Queen of Sheba that the One who rightly deserved all the praise for all this was ‘the LORD his God’, and the purpose of all the blessing and splendour was in order to give ‘the LORD his God’ all the honour and praise.  But sadly, this ‘omni-wise’ King failed to note the warning signs of all the glory displayed before him!

Only 200 years earlier the valiant, highly successful ‘Judge’ Gideon, had collected all the gold he could from the people to make an ephod, sincerely intended to be a memorial to God’s goodness and power, but, sadly, “all Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it [at Gideon’s home own of Oprah], and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.” (Judges 8:27)

We all know how things ended up as a result of all Solomon’s ‘fame and riches’, and how his story points to the need we all have for a Saviour-King who “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)  Jesus turned his back on his glorious, gold-covered throne in heaven to come into our broken, sin-torn world to be “despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:3), and to die a criminal’s death in our place.

The next time I am tempted to bask in glory and honour while pretending to give all the glory to God alone, may I remember Gideon and Solomon!  May I learn to say with John the Baptist concerning Jesus, genuinely, in my head and heart and not just with my lips, “He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:30)

– Bruce Christian