beaconchurches

Been reading I Kings and came upon a couple of questions that bug me:

1. Is Solomon in heaven today? He started out walking with God and was blessed by God but at the end of his life, he was worshipping false gods with his many wives. So, was it possible to "lose your salvation" in the Old Testament, I guess is what I'm asking. Opinions?

2. In I Kings 8 the Ark was brought into the Temple and the scripture states that the only thing in it was the stone tablets of Moses. What happened to the pot of manna and the budded branch of Aaron?

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tred" and I am not known for my reticence so here I go. I will need to give more research to your second question but am ready to venture a guess about the first. You will meet Solomon at the foot of the throne and hear his story of sin and grace through Jesus Christ. All the Old Testement saints, like all the New Testement saints and you and I are saved by the blood of Jesus. The Sacrificial System was anticipatory of the Sacrifice on Calvary. God, who lives in what we call past, present, and future, saves all who call on the name of his son according to their faith. Solomon was a weak and vinial man, but he was a man of faith. Like so many (how about Joseph, who saved Israel but almost killed Moses, or Jacob, whose infatuation with a pretty face prevented him seeing the perfect will of God and caused so much pain to his decendents. Shall we go on to the murdering adulterer, David, or Manassah, the worst king in Judah's history, who after leading them to such a depth of sin that even Josiah's reform could not overcome it, repented and was saved) who failed in the middle, he returns to his faith, a broken and cynical old man yet committed to God. I accept his authorship of Ecclesiastes and see it as his last will and testament . For all the pain and disappointment he demonstrates he still believes and trusts. Solomon is an example for many of us who have been through the wars, have lost more than we have gained, and would have quit if God had not kept His protecting hand on our feeble spirits.
Solomon is saved on the same grounds I am. Weak we might be, but our God is great, and a protector of all who seek him in truth.

Thanks Ernie. I was actually looking for a repentance from Solomon and thinking it would be in I Kings as David's was in II Samuel. My thought upon reading the account in I Kings was that his heart was like the rocky soil which took root but fell away and withered in the heat.

It is tempting to see Solomon that way. We have many like him in the church; saints who really love Jesus but have no clue that they are letting the world guide their actions.

I am also ready to do the truly foolish thing and take a stab at the question about the Ark and its contents. The subject gets very little discussion in scripture. Jewish tradition says more. In Exodus, in the Manna story, Moses instructs Aaron to fill a jar with Manna and place it in front of the Ark, Ex. 16:33 (this is anticipatory by the way. The Ark had not yet been built.) When God gives the instructions for the creation of the Ark, Ex. 25:16, he says only the Tablets were to go inside the Ark. I Kings 8:9 agrees with this. That is all the Old Testament information I can find on the subject. In Hebrews 9:4, the author says the Ark contained 3 items, the tablets, the manna pot, and Arron's rod. I am going to do something very dangerous to try to clear up the seeming conflict. I am combining the little I can find of Jewish tradition, my poor memory and some, I hope, intelligent speculation. Arron's budding staff is never mentioned except in example after the incident of rebellion until Barnabas names it in Hebrews. Moses' instructions about it had been to place it in front of the Ark. Moses gave instruction that the manna pot be placed in front of the Ark. We know that the Bronze Serpent (called Nehushtan) was kept after the incident near Mt. Hor (Numbers 21:4-9) although there was no divine sanction for the keeping. Hezekiah had to destroy it after the people made it an object of worship, II Kings 18:4. Jewish tradition held that the Ark was the repository of the people's greatest treasures. Since the Manna pot and Staff were set before the Ark in the Holy of Holys, and since all the Tabernacle was transportable and moved regularly, might it have happened that at some point after the days of Moses, when the people were less careful of the law, that they might have begun to transport the national treasures inside the Ark for safety and convience. I read somewhere, I cannot now find the statement, that the Nahushtan, was placed in the Ark. When Solomon had the Ark brought into the Temple He had read the Law and knew the other things were not to be in there and had them restored to their right positions. Since the Nehushtan was never given a place in the Holy of Holys, it was placed elsewhere in the Temple where the people began to worship it in their growing apostasy.
Barnabas, in Hebrews 9, was comparing the inadequate human worship with God's fully sufficient act in Christ and chose to describe a time when the people were out of sync with God's instructions for worship. That would explain the descrepency. One preacher's speculation--take it for what its worth. Hopefully it spurs one of the true scholars to do better.

Thanks Ernie. I do hope others find the time to weigh in as well but this gives me some food for thought and places to look in the Bible.

Now, if only we could just figure out for certain what happened to the Ark itself. I noticed the box holding it at Area 51 was broken open in the last Indiana Jones movie.