Free Sunday School lesson on King Solomon for ages 10-12, teens, and older.
Opening question: If you were given a blank check to get anything you wanted, what would you wish for? (Give the kids a chance to answer.)
This exact scenario happened to a man in the Bible. Turn in your bibles to 1 Kings 3: 3-15 (Kings James Version [KJV]).
Solomon knew that he had big shoes to fill. His father had been the second king of Israel and had brought peace to the kingdom, even making Israel one of the most powerful nations in the world.
Solomon was only 20 years old. That may seem pretty old to you, but that’s younger than a lot of people, such as your parents and your teachers at school. Twenty is young for someone who is going to be a world leader.
When given this blank check from God, Solomon asked for wisdom. He could’ve asked for anything, and God knew that, which is why he was so impressed with Solomon.
For Solomon to make such a wise choice, he had to have decided to follow God when he was younger. We would like to think that we will do the right thing when put in situations, but the truth is, God works on us over time. We have to make a decision to pray, read the bible, and grow close to him if we want to become like him.
Solomon became the wisest man in the world (1 Kings 4:29 KJV).
1 Kings 3:16-28 KJV – This is story of the harlot women and the baby. Solomon’s wisdom got him a lot of respect. When you are wise, people respect you. He went on to write Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes.
Solomon isn’t the only person who can be wise.
According to the bible, anyone can have wisdom.
James 1:5 KJV – If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
James 3:17 KJV – But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
Turn to Proverbs 3:13-18 KJV.
The bible has a lot to say about wisdom, including how it is better than just about anything the world has to offer.
According to Proverbs 15:20 KJV, it is important for children to be wise, especially for their parents, so you guys aren’t excluded.
Proverbs 14:1 KJV – Every wise woman buildeth her house: But the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.
1 Kings 10:14-27 KJV – Solomon became the greatest king, and Israel became the greatest nation, all thanks to a request that Solomon made.
However, despite all this wisdom, Solomon messed up.
He wasn’t supposed to bring horses out of Egypt, or anything else out of Egypt for that matter. Look at the verse of the very next chapter (1 Kings 11:1 KJV).
The Lord had commanded that the kings should not multiply wives to themselves and shouldn’t get things from Egypt. That is exactly what Solomon did (Deuteronomy 17:16-17 KJV).
We do this too, sometimes. We learn all these things from church and the bible, about all the things that we shouldn’t do. We’re told stories about people who go out and do things they shouldn’t, and they suffer. Still, we also all know people who have been raised in church, raised believing the bible, and go do these things anyway. We are guilty of it, too. We know better than to talk back to our parents, to take our siblings’ things without permission, to lash out and say things or do things when we’re angry, but we do them anyway.
The world and the devil will lie to you and tell you that you are the exception. That’s why so many people get in the messes that they get in. They know the consequences that so many others have faced, but they think that they will be the one to get away with it.
They think, I can get away with cheating. I can handle listening to this type of music. It’s okay if I watch these kinds of shows or play these sorts of video games. It isn’t a big lie, so it doesn’t matter if I tell it. The list goes on.
What most people are forgetting is that when you sin, you earn something. A consequence. A wage is something you earn. It’s payment. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23 KJV). When you sow something, you reap it. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7-9 KJV).
All sin has consequences. You know this; I know this, yet we still sin. In fact, we know that the only way to overcome sin is to have a relationship with God (reading the Bible, praying, going to church), but we don’t do it. We know what to do, but we just don’t do it… because it’s not that bad, or we simply don’t want to.
Solomon knew better. He knew better than any of us, but he did it anyway.
(1 Kings 11:1-4 KJV)
The bible tells us that his heart was not perfect. He was still following God to an extent, but not perfectly. Not with all his heart. Maybe he wasn’t reading God’s law everyday like God had commanded. Maybe he was more concerned with making his wives happy than making God happy. We don’t know, but we do know every day he slipped further and further away until he was building high places and alters to gods who demanded human sacrifice, such as Molech (1 Kings 11:5-8 KJV).
At the very end of his life, Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. His sin had turned him into a depressed and bitter old man. That’s exactly what sin does. Vanity of vanity, all is vanity. Vanity means worthless. Wisdom, foolishness, it’s all vanity. None of it matters because no matter what you do, you will die, and the sun will keep turning, and life will go on, and no one will remember you.
Turn to Ecclesiastes 2:1-13 KJV.
Ecclesiastes is a very depressing book, and if you read it and understand it, you will see Solomon’s wisdom. There is a heaviness with wisdom. A sadness. The saying is that “ignorance is bliss.” This means that people who are ignorant are happy because they don’t know any better.
Children who have parents and families who love them don’t know the pain and horror of not having that. Many of these kids take it for granted that they know they will have dinner tonight. They know their mom will wash their clothes, and their dad will spend time with them. Maybe you are like this. You take for granted how well your parents treat you because you don’t know better. You’ve never experienced anything else.
Just by living life and surviving things, you will get wisdom. But, you don’t have to “live and learn” as they say. You can read the Bible to learn how to live. Despite the sadness and unfairness in life, we can have joy because we have access to knowing how to have joy. We have access to a relationship with God.
Ecclesiastes 11:9-10 KJV – in these verses, Solomon is warning against those people who think, Oh I can serve God when I’m older. I can worry about a relationship with God in the future. I’m young, I don’t need to think about this right now. The prodigal son came back, so I can do this now and just come back to God later. He’ll accept me.
Turn to Ecclesiastes 12 KJV. (Read the entire chapter.)
Solomon describes the difference between the young and old, and there is a difference. There are a lot of Christians today who were older when they got saved or when they started living for God. If you were to talk to every one of them, they would say the exact same thing: I wish I’d gotten saved younger. I wish I would’ve started serving God when I was younger, when I was stronger and more able. I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time on meaningless things.
Verse 13 – This outlines the whole conclusion of the matter. What has Solomon been writing about? What did he write the entire book of Ecclesiastes about? Life. And what is the conclusion of life?
Serve God, and don’t wait until you’re old. This is wisdom, because it is the ultimate advice from the wisest man in the world, and despite that, so many don’t do anything with it. What will you do?
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