Moses looked to the reward!! He weighed the passing pleasures of sin against the never ending, never diminishing, ever increasing pleasures of heaven, and he chose the greater. Does that make him a mercanary, serving God for his own gain? No, because what is the gain but God himself!? I was at Biola this week to hear Dr. Piper and he said it this way, “Eternal life is not eternal golf, or eternal ultimate Frisbee, or eternal fill in the blank, it is eternal God!" You gain God! And though you lose everything else, you sacrifice nothing, for you have gained the one and only thing which can satisfy your soul for all of eternity, namely the unbroken, unhindered glory of God. That’s what we were made for! John 17:3 reads:

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

I thought to myself after reading Hebrews 11:24. Is there anyone else in the Bible who gave up more earthly wealth than Moses? I couldn’t think of anyone, largely owing to the fact that there just aren’t many people who could ever lay claim to such wealth in the first place, but there is at least one other, King Solomon. As great and powerful as the Pharaoh’s were, no kingdom can compare with Solomon’s. The Bible tells us that King Solomon was the wisest mortal to ever live, with a wealth that far surpassed any other kingdom of the world. Nevertheless, Solomon finds no mention with the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11. His father David is there, but he is not. For all his wisdom, his faith wavers.

It would be easy to place Solomon and Moses side by side and say that Moses left riches and become a great man of faith...Solomon received riches and become a very inconsistent man of faith. Therefore, it must be earthly wealth which is the problem. That would be a very neat and clean comparison, but the conclusion doesn’t work.

Solomon’s problem was not his wealth. His fortune was God-given. In fact God blessed him with such abundance for the very reason that Solomon did not seek it out for himself. Solomon asked for wisdom not wealth. His problem was something much more serious, but in order to be fair to Solomon and to scripture, I want to take the next five minutes or so to give you a quick survey of Solomon’s life as it lays out in I Kings. I’ll be quickly skipping through chapters 1 through 11 so you can just listen along and try to stay with me.

So Nathan spoke to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, saying, “Have you not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith has become king, and David our lord does not know it? Come, please, let me now give you advise, that you may save your own life and the life of your son Solomon.

So Bathsheba went into the chamber to the king. And Bathsheba bowed and did homage to the king. Then she said to him, “My lord, you swore by the Lord your God saying, ‘Assuredly Solomon your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne’. So now, look! Adonijah has become king; and now, my lord the king, you do not know about it.

And the king took an oath and said, ‘As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life from every distress, just as I swore to you by the Lord God of Israel, so I certainly will do this day.

So Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule, and took him to Gihon. Then Zadok the priest took a horn of oil from the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. And they blew the horn, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!”

Now the days of David drew near that he should die, and he charged Solomon his son, saying: “I go the way of all the earth; be strong, therefore, and prove yourself a man. And keep the charge of the Lord your God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgements, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do.

So David rested with his fathers, and was buried in the City of David. Then Solomon sat on the throne of his father David; and his kingdom was firmly established.

Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharoah king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh’s daughter; then he brought her to the City of David until he had finished building his own house, and the house of the Lord. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places.

Now the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there. At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask! What shall I give you?” And Solomon said: “You have shown great mercy to Your servant David my father, because he walked before You in truth, You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, you have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil.

The speech pleased the Lord. Then God said to him, “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, behold, I have done according to your words, see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days.