The Story:Three more proverbs assault the here-and-nowworldview of Rehoboam. Additional appeals to common sense, they are again designed to arrest his mindset of consumption and lead him to think about the consequences of a life of folly. Rehoboam could predict the rain probably as well as anyone. And that fallen tree would be in the same place tomorrow as yesterday, so there’s no need to harvest it as soon as it falls. Farmers don’t want their seeds to be scattered by the wind, and they know that harvesting is more difficult in the rain. What about the fool? Can he read the signs that his father has been parading before him to know that his chosen course in life will neither satisfy nor succeed?

The Structure:We should not be discouragedby the blindness to truth that characterizes many in our day. While we are preaching repentance, faith, and moral renewal, they are pursuing indulgence, materialism, and experiments in moral disobedience that will harm them and the society in which they live. It would be easy to give up on this unbelieving generation and invest our efforts in evangelism in “more fertile” soil. But God has left us here in this nation, at this time, to work by every means and in every season in order that some might be saved (1 Cor. 9.19-23). Like Solomon, we need to stay the course of our calling to the bitter end, appealing to every witness, from creation and common sense as well as from the Scriptures, in order to talk sense into our unbelieving contemporaries.

How are you working to “stay the course” of your witness with the unbelievers in your sphere of influence?

Each week’s studies in our Scriptorium column are available in a free PDF form, suitable for personal or group use. For this week’s study, “Think of the Days Ahead: Ecclesiastes 11,” simply click here.

T. M. Moore

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved