“When all the work King Solomon had done for the temple of the LORD was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated — the silver and gold and the furnishings — and he placed them in the treasuries of the LORD's temple “. 1 Kings 7:51 NIV
Ok . Ok…You didn’t get it! Let me explain it to you. Follow me please will you…
There was a strong injunction in the book of Malachi on the need for trans-generational connection (Mal 4:4-6); the hearts of the sons must connect to that of the fathers else we will all come under a curse (that is , we will only struggle to no avail).
The dealings of God had always been such that connects one aging generation to another. The Psalmist says ‘one generation shall praise your works to another’ and our fathers have told us what you did in their lives.(Ps 44:1;Ps 78:3)All these are pointers and clear insights why we must not despise and disregard the dealings of God with past generations. Though new and ‘seemingly’ more radical truths are being restored in each generation yet there is a need to always link the chain: the ‘aged’ old with the ‘vibrant’ new. This was the simple lesson we learnt from this account of King Solomon in 1 Kings 7.
Surely, the new leader with the new dealings of God had just achieved a mean feat: Built the Temple! Any leader before him had never rivaled this. This surely was worth bragging about. He had done what none of the fathers, with all their anointing and the dealings of God, had dared to achieve. Not even those of them who saw ‘YAHWEH’ face to face. However it is noteworthy that the scripture says Solomon brought ‘in’ not ‘put on the fringe’ but into the inner most and most important and sacred part of the temple, the items of silver and gold that his father David had, in his own time of conquest, dedicated to the Lord in 2 Samuel 8:11.
What are the achievements of the fathers that we can celebrate today: Their revelations of salvation by faith in Christ alone, their emphasis on sanctification and then the infilling of the Holy Spirit with the physical evidences of speaking with new tongues , etc. We must never get too big to ignore this landmarks; being really careful and in the word of scripture (Pro 23:10)not to remove the old landmarks. Even the Lord Jesus showed that a good manager is one who could build the new , resting on the platform of the old(Matt 13:5).Could that be why Isaac redug the well earlier dug by his father Abraham? Whatever the landmark achievements of the fathers are, we must never let them go to waste.
Political successors need to translate policies of past leaders into present operations in the spirit of continuity. The lack of this has been the bane of African countries so much that, inevitably, there is the re-inventing of the wheel of progress. And whenever this is the case, investors are repelled for lack of faith in unstable government policies. Or who would not be scared that certain that policy arrangements with previous governments will not be honoured by successive ones. How could one forget so soon (among several other instances) the Virgin-Nigeria Airline alliance between Richard Branson(CEO,Virgin Group) and the Obasanjo government .What with the eventual collapse of that alliance under a successive government. It appears African leaders take pride in rubbishing the achievements of their predecessors (the fathers).
King (’President’) Solomon would not do that.He would respect past alliances entered into by his predecessor and even leverage on them(1 Kings 5:1-6).He would continue with policies that have been seen and proven to benefit the people and they(the people) would be the better for it.
Maintaining old landmarks would sustain the polity and not heat it up . It will engender a win-win situation . In the final analysis , everyone is happy and appreciated!
We ought to always remind and challenge ourselves to make sure that “the labours of our heroes past “are never in vain. Anything outside this, borders on pride which always the herald the fall of leaders. May we not become what the writer of Proverbs (Pro 30:11-KJV) called“ a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother”.
