How To Have A Super Summer

Below is an excerpt from the sermon...

If you have your Bibles, let’s open them, please, for just a moment to the book of Ecclesiastes. You don’t have to know how to spell it to find it because it’s right after Proverbs. Ecclesiastes. We’re going to look down in chapter number 1 in just a moment. I want to speak this evening on this subject, as it’s the first Sunday of what we would call the Summer months. And I want to speak on “How to Have a Super Summer.”

I was thinking this afternoon about the weather change, what it does to my spirit when it’s cold, dark, cloudy. I’m naturally a little bit melancholy. I like what one pastor said. He looked at his pastor friend and said, “You look a little melancholy. Your head is shaped like a melon, and your face resembles a colly.” But that’s not what I’m talking about. But weather does affect us. Remember, it was just like a couple months ago we were out under that tent. And I remember I was just praying, “Lord can it be not in the 30s tonight?” And I remember just walking out there dreading it. And I live just three doors down! Just dreading it, thinking no one’s going to come. It’s dark, it’s gloomy. People sitting down blowing smoke out of their mouths because it was cold. And then to see—and it seems comical now—when it was raining, some of you had to pick your feet up as the water flowed beneath your seat. You know the song… I’ve got a river of life flowing under me (instead of out of me). And it was just terrible. And then the windstorm came, and he huffed and puffed and blew the tent down. But now it seems like it’s warmer weather, people’s spirits are more open, and things are different. And there’s something inside of you—not just television advertisements—that makes you want to do something different, makes you want to travel, makes you want to do things, plan. It’s not something’s that says, “Hey, it’s Summer. Let’s stay inside all three months.” You want to do some things. I want to speak a little bit on that tonight, and I hope it will maybe give you some ideas from some of these Scriptures.

Now we’re looking at the book of Ecclesiastes, and it needs a little bit of background here. The theme could be this: be satisfied. So, every book in the Bible, you could put the word “be” in front of it. And so, Ecclesiastes cries out, “hey, be satisfied.” We could call it “maintenance now or repair later.” And it’s talking about this life of Solomon. Solomon is testifying here, though it’s inspired, about his life. And so, let’s look at a few of these key verses, and then we’ll give you his background, his mistake, his endings and then what he said about all of it.

Notice, please, in Ecclesiastes 1:1 “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. 3. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? 4. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh…” (Ecclesiastes 1:1–4) And we’ll look at some of these verses in just a moment.

Let’s pray. Father, bless this time we have. Take Thy word and break it. Break the bread of life so it’s small enough pieces, palatable to where we can swallow it and get spiritual strength from it and see what this book has to do with us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

So, who is this guy, Solomon? Let’s talk about his background for just a moment. Solomon, of course, is the son of David and Bathsheba. And so, after the affair, after the baby died, David and Bathsheba did marry. Bathsheba was his wife. As far as we know, she was probably his favorite wife. It looks like she was not only a wife but also the queen there in Israel. And so again, the old lesson, God can take a bad thing and use it to be a good thing (Romans 8 28). And so, that’s his background. His dad is the king. He’s raised in the palace, much like the princes William and Harry. Much like that. He was raised in the palace. And so that was his background. Then, one evening—you know the story—he has a dream. And in the dream, God appears to him. It’s not a genie. He didn’t rub a lamp and get three wishes. But it was a dream where basically the Lord said, “Ask whatever you want, and I’ll give it to you.” And this was after Solomon had offered thousands of offerings and sacrifices to the Lord. He had a walk with the Lord. He’s a Godly man, and God appears and says, “I’ll give you whatever you want, one thing.” Immediately he responds and says, “I want wisdom.” He said, “I’m going to be leading the nation of Israel. I don’t have enough sense to come in and out of the rain.” He said, “I’m just a child.” He said, “I need wisdom to lead Your great people.” And God smiled on him and looked down and said, “Because you’ve asked for wisdom to help others, not only will I give you that, but I will give you… You didn’t ask for the life of your enemies or long life or great riches.  Because you asked for wisdom, I’m going to give you all the other things, too.” So, his life’s verse could be Matthew 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” He gets so much wisdom.

You know the story. These two harlots bring a child, and one says, “It’s mine.” The other one says, “It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine.” And who knows. He said, “Give me a sword. All right, cut it, cut that baby in half. Give her half, give her half.” Immediately, the real mother screams and says, “No, no, no! It’s her child.” He said, “You’re the mother. Takes the child.” And rumor got out how wise he was. People began coming to see him. He wrote the book of Proverbs during that time. We believe he wrote the book of Song of Solomon during that time. And even the Queen of Sheba came to hear him. The Bible says when she saw how his servants stood and how he ascended up to the throne, there was no breath left in her. She said—and we get the song from this—"The half has never been told.” She said, “I heard a lot of great things about Solomon, how wise he is, but they didn’t even tell me the half of it.” And the Bible says he answered or told her all her questions. What a wise man. He wrote over 1,000 songs. He wrote the Proverbs. He had wisdom in botany and geology and astronomy. You name the subject, he knew it. People came to him for advice. What a guy. And that’s why ofttimes, we will say that so and so has the wisdom of Solomon. And Jesus even referred to him on several occasions and said, “Notice the flowers. Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” And so that was his background, a great background.

But notice here, for a moment, his mistake. Look back, if you will please, just for a moment into 1 Kings 11. We need to see how he got here. And it’s interesting. In 2 Samuel 11, David meets Bathsheba, the neighbor. In 1 Kings 11—interesting these elevens—Solomon meets all these strange, foreign, idol-worshiping women. Notice what it says. Now he’s the king. 1 Kings 11:1 “But king Solomon loved many strange women…” God has always been for one woman, one man, one lifetime. Anytime you start adding to that, it gets complicated. And notice what it says: “many strange.” It doesn’t mean they were weird—that they had one ear, one eye in the middle of their forehead, six toes. That’s not what it means. It simply means that we’re foreign. There were strangers to the nation of Israel. The strange woman, he was not supposed to have them or with them.  1 Kings 11:1 “But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh…” I thought he was the enemy. He marries Pharaoh’s daughter, one of Pharaoh’s daughters. “…women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;” That’s who God’s people fought. You don’t marry them; you battle them. 1 Kings 11:2

“Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love.” Verse three, last phrase: “and his wives turned away his heart.” Middle part of verse four: “that his wives turned away his heart.” Verse five: “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father. 7. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. 8. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.” (1 Kings 11:5–8) And the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord of Israel.

So, what happened? Solomon ends up marrying all these women. And gradually—it wasn’t immediate—they turned his heart away from worshiping God to worshipping their false idols. How in the world he could do that I will never know. His daddy was David who killed the giant. His daddy was the one who penned the book of Psalms. He grew up with royalty. He grew up with God being first, but it just took a wrong marriage to turn his heart toward the false gods. That turning is always slow. It didn’t say it happened in a year or two years. It could have taken 10, 20, 30 years. But in the next chapter, you see Solomon kneeling down, burning candles to idols. How did he get from where he was to here? It was a slow, gradual thing.

I’ve often told teenagers there are three ways to get away from God: join something, get a job, (None of these are wrong, but it puts you around people you ordinarily wouldn’t be around), or fall in love. Pastor, “You know, I can’t come to church all the time. I’m in love.” Uh huh. “Man, you used to be faithful in church.” “I know but we got plans now. I’m in love.” She’s going to come to my church one Sunday, and I’m going to go to her church because I’m in love…” Solomon was in lust… excuse me, love. But it was 300 women and 700 substitutes in case the mother-in-laws were in town. A 1,000 women. Now Solomon is way away from the Lord.

You say, “Pastor, how can anybody get that far away from the Lord?” How can we get as far away from the Lord as we have? He grew up with all these blessings. Yet, you can backslide from anywhere. Well, how did he fall so quickly? It wasn’t quick. It was gradual. It’s always gradual. It’s in the mind, it’s in the heart, and then there’s a turning.

So, we see this background, we see his mistake, then we see his ending. He did get right, and thank the Lord for that. When most people think of Solomon, they think of the wisdom of Solomon. They think of Solomon’s temple. Most people, if you say “Solomon,” they don’t say 1,000 wives that turned this heart to idols. That was one chapter in his life. Thank God that God had mercy. God forgave him. God used him again. And the Book of Ecclesiastes was written after this. So, that means wherever you are in your life, God can use you again. God is the God of new beginnings. “In the beginning, God. You just begin again. “Pastor, I’m away from the Lord.” Begin again. “I started to read the whole Bible through this year in January, and I’m in Exodus 1. Man, I’m way behind.” Begin again.