Special Insights No. 13
First Quarter 2007
“Ecclesiastes”
(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)
The Conclusion of the Matter
Are you glad that these 13 weeks have come to an end, so that we can say Goodbye to the old man with the flowing white beard pictured on our cover?
He had wasted many years of his precious life that the Lord had given him; he had abandoned the true “wisdom” that he was given when he was a young king. Now Solomon must end his days with the message, “Don’t do like I have done!” That’s now his “gospel.”
It’s much like the “gospel” that we so often hear from Seventh-day Adventists who are on our camp meeting platforms who tell our young people, “Don’t do like I did!” when they recount their years of rebellion when they were young in
Is it possible for us to proclaim a “third angel’s message” in our church schools and academies and colleges that will be such “good news” that our youth will have the Christ-like courage to take up the cross and yield self to Christ while they’re young and never apostatize?
The answer is “yes!” if we will proclaim to them the new covenant instead of the familiar and popular old covenant!
In recently reviewing Prophets and Kings, chapter 24, for a sermon on Hosea, this writer was struck with the repeated emphasis therein on the fact that the nation of Israel had entered into the old covenant with the Lord at Mt. Sinai, and that this dearth of understanding the new covenant had predisposed ancient Israel’s constant apostasy into paganism and Baal worship. The history of the northern kingdom is the saddest chapter in the Bible (2 Kings 17); but unfortunately it is repeated in the later history of the southern kingdom which ended in Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest and the captivity in
The same old covenant legalism prevailed in the return from the captivity, and the final fruit borne by the old covenant was the rejection and crucifixion of the Messiah Israel had long professed to be waiting for.
Did King Solomon ever understand the new covenant?
For sure, he could not have apostatized into such a dismal fall into confused immorality as displayed in his mature life. The first Israelite who we read of in Scripture who came to understand the true significance of
Ellen White was overjoyed when she heard for the first time (in forty-five years) the two 1888 messengers at
Thank God we can leave our 13 weeks with Solomon with this blessed good news ringing in our hearts! He will come up in the first resurrection and join the kindergarten of gospel truth; he will have lots of blessed learning to do!
He talks much about death in his chapter 12, and our Lesson 13 keeps emphasizing over and over that “we all must die.” What has happened to “the third angel’s message”? Paul says the opposite! “We shall not all die, But when the last trumpet shall sound, we shall all be changed in an instant, as quickly as the blinking of an eye” (1 Cor.
And those who believe the message cherish what Paul said is “the blessed hope,” “looking for the glorious appearing of ... our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us” (Titus
Solomon, bless him, never had such good news to look forward to.
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