2 Samuel Lesson 81
Solomon Begins Administration by Purging
Traitors – 1 Kings 2-8
This is going to be one of those times when we are going to dash through
some 8 chapters of Scripture, and we’re going to finish the Samuel series as of
tonight. The first two chapters of Kings
we have gone into simply to close out the book of Samuel. The book of Samuel leaves unanswered and
unfulfilled questions and promises of God.
These questions must be answered if God’s Word is true, and obviously
the promises verify if God’s Word is true, therefore 1 and 2 Kings is needed to
finish out that portion of history.
We found in 1 Kings 1 that it definitely shows the selection of Solomon
as king. Adonijah was David’s third son,
who tried to, or was in line for the throne.
David had many, many sons, don’t think he only had four or five, David
had numerous sons. It’s just that the
Bible only reports material about these four in particular. And Adonijah, in his person, represents the
fourth main contender for the throne who dies.
And that fulfills the threat of 2 Samuel 11 given by Nathan.
Now in 1 Kings 2:1 we find the official selection of Solomon. Solomon has been anointed before but now
David charges Solomon. This is the
deathbed of David, remember he was confined to bed, and he had a situation
where he was utterly incapable of handling the kingdom, he was senile in other
words, and at this point it’s imperative that the hands of power be transferred
quickly and publicly into Solomon’s hand.
Incidentally, Solomon too is very young at this point; it’s not an ideal
transfer of power. So we’re going to
note certain interesting things, but to get perspective on all that is involved
in David’s charge to Samuel requires going to another book of Scripture that parallels
kings, and that is 1 Chronicles 23, and from chapters 23-29 we have what has
gone on up to this point in David’s life that we haven’t even studied
about. And this should alert you to the
fact that there are many, many things, things we probably will be learning in
heaven, about what went on in David’s life and the lives of others that just
simply never was recorded in canonical Scripture. Remember Scripture is selective, it doesn’t
tell us everything that happened, it tells us things that happened that are
sufficient for faith and that’s all.
1 Chronicles was written centuries later; it was written by the Levites
and 1 Chronicles is a book that looks at history through the eyes of the
priesthood, and therefore you would expect that Chronicles narrates, records
and analyzes things that are directly pertinent to priests. So in 1 Chronicles 23 we have the parallel
and it gives us much, much more material on David. Some of this will show you David’s character,
and part of why God selected Solomon.
Verse 1, “When David was old and full of days, he made Solomon, his son,
king over
And so to diagram this from 1 Chronicles 23:3 through 1 Chronicles
26:28, we have the organization of the Levites.
We are just going to skim parts of this to show you how instrumental
David was in organizing the kingdom. If
you don’t have access to this material or you don’t read 1 Chronicles 23-29 you
are going to get a false impression late on when you study Solomon. The impression you’ll get and I know you’ll
get it because most of us who haven’t dug into Chronicles have had this happen
to us, and that is we think that Solomon, being the great king, being the great
administrator, that he was the one who basically designed the kingdom in its
most powerful form. Such is not the
case; these chapters will conclusively prove that Solomon did not originate the
organization. The organization of the
priesthood, the organization of the civil government, the organization of the
temple were all spelled out in blueprints given to Solomon before his father,
David, died. Solomon only administered
what his father had already outlined.
So let’s look at some of these details.
In verses 24, “These were the sons of Levi after the house of their
fathers … as they were counted by number of names,” by their polls, that’s the
censors, “who did the work for the service of the house of the LORD, from the
age of twenty years and upward.” That differs from the thirty. [25] For David said, The LORD God of
Besides all the details, you’ll notice in 24:1, “Now these are the
divisions of the sons of Aaron. The sons
of Aaron: Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar,” and it gives you the
tremendous genealogies, notice for example verse 7, the lifting of the lots and
how they came out. You wonder why is all
this detail included in Scripture. This
is because the book was written by priests.
And it was important for previous generations of believers to know this
and may be important for us to know it later on, we don’t know why.
But skimming this through, as you look through very quickly, notice
chapter 24, chapter 25, notice how it divides into chapter 26, you’re seeing
listing after listing after listing after listing; this is the administration
that David set up over the Levites.
Various details are given, there are notices such as in chapter 26,
you’ll see these biographical details if you look closely at several of the verses. And then finally we come to the end, 26:28,
“And all that Samuel, the seer, and Saul, the son of Kish, and Abner, the son
of Ner, and Joab, the son of Zeruiah had dedicated; and whosoever had dedicated
any thing, it was under the hand of Shelomoth, and of his brethren.” In other words, they had a museum, in which
was preserved the great artifacts of Israel; and it would be just wonderful if
modern archeology found that some place around Mount Zion in the present
diggings that are going on. That would
be one of the most fantastic discoveries ever made because you would have
actual artifacts that we can place into the chronology of the Bible, and it
would probably be very clearly labeled, Shelomoth was to be the custodian of
this. So it gives you another function
of the Levites.
Now the second part of this begins in verse 29, and 26:29 all the way to
27:34 deals with the organization of the civil government. Why is this important? Because this is the beginning of the
centralization of power. The centralization
of power did not begin with Solomon; it began with David. The centralization of power is evil; why is
David doing this? Because the people
wanted a king, and 1 Samuel 8, the great political document in the Old
Testament prophesied that once you had a king this gravitation of
centralization of power was going to happen, it was unavoidable, there’s no way
you can get around it once you place your allegiance to centralized power, you
are going to create the power, and this, of course, was why freedom was always
destroyed by the centralization of power.
Incidentally it was during this time that we had the problem,
historically, of the census. Now this
section goes on all the way to 27:34, at the end of 27 you find the words, “And
the general of the king’s army was Joab,” that’s how it was organized up to the
time of Solomon. All these listings are
the gradual transitions that happened up to 1 Kings 2:1.
Now beginning in chapter 28 the third area; so far we’ve studied the
organization of the Levites, we’ve looked at the organization of civil
government, the point being looking at these passages only to show you Solomon
didn’t originate these, David did. Now
we come to the temple. I Chronicles
28:1, “And David assembled all the princes of Israel, the princes of the
tribes, and the captains of the companies that ministered to the king by
course,” in other words it was a general national mobilization. Verse 2, “Then David, the king, stood upon
his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people: I had in mine heart to
build an house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and for the
footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building.” This tells us one other thing; Solomon did
not draw the architectural plans for the temple; they were drawn up in David’s
time, previous to Solomon.
Verse 3, “But God said unto me, Thou shalt not build an house for My
name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood.” What’s the significance of this? In the Ancient Near East, whether you go to
Egypt, or whether you go to Assyria, you’ll find a custom; the custom is that
when a king wins his battle and he’s finished his campaign, he will build a new
temple or he will refurbish an old one.
This is his way of expressing gratitude to his gods; so the sequence is
victory in war and then temple building.
You can see this in Thutmose III, you can see this in many, many of the
Pharaoh’s, who would dedicate the temples to the gods who supposedly gave them
victory. David is no exception. He’s thinking in the Ancient Near Eastern
culture, obviously purged of human viewpoint, but the form remains the same;
David at the end of his series of victories wants to do something for God. God refuses to allow this to happen. We
studied that in 2 Samuel 7.
Verse 4, “However, the LORD God of Israel chose me before all the house
of my father to be king over Israel forever; for He has chosen Judah to be the
ruler, the house of my father” now that announcement in verse 4 is very
important because this settles for all times that the dynasty will be… and
notice he’s called a general meeting to the people who are listening to this
represent all tribes; David is saying I want it clear to all of you that the
tribe of Judah and Judah only is to receive the authority. “…and among the sons of my father he took
pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel.” Notice verse 5, “And of all my sons (for the
LORD has given me many sons),” again it would be nice to know how many sons
David had; we don’t know, “He has chosen Solomon, my son, to sit upon the
throne of the kingdom of the LORD over Israel.”
So there is a very clear unambiguous national announcement that it is
Solomon who is to sit on the throne.
Verse 7, “Moreover, I will establish his kingdom forever,” which we’ll
study more in 1 Kings. Verse 11, “Then
David gave to Solomon, his son, the pattern of the porch of the temple, and of
its houses, and of its treasuries, and of its upper chambers, and of its inner
parlors, and of the place of the mercy seat.”
So verse 11 shows you that Solomon did not design the temple, David
did. Now in all of this why have we
stressed… we could go on in chapter 29, but our objective isn’t to study it in
detail, verse by verse, just to draw out a principle.
Have you noticed, the civil government under Solomon is Davidic. The temple under Solomon is Davidic. The Levites under Solomon are Davidic. Now what does that tell you about the nature
of the kingdom? Even though David must
die, David patterns the kingdom. Solomon
becomes greater than his father in immediate power but the design and the
flavor and the orientation, and the attitudes are all Davidic. So, we call this the Davidic Kingdom. Such things as David rides on a mule when all
the other kings in the Ancient East rode on horses. And he insisted that Solomon ride a mule, not
a horse. Why? Because the Davidic character must be imposed
on the kingdom. Wherever you see the
kingdom in the Old Testament it must have Davidic flavor to it from this point
forward.
This means, furthermore, that when Jesus Christ is born, Jesus Christ
will not only have the nature of David, legally and through his mother the
genes of David, but Jesus Christ in His character, when He reigns as King must
reign in the spirit of David. In fact,
the Messiah is called David in passages in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ must conform to a certain
Davidic character of humility. This is
why David’s life is so important. David
was a man of grace; when he sinned it let it all hang out, but that was to show
grace, and Jesus Christ in His person, though He has no sin nature, shows
grace. So Davidic equals gracious, and
the kingdom is Davidic in design, Davidic in character. Jesus Christ, as king of that kingdom, will
also be Davidic.
Jesus Christ in His person summarizes David and Solomon. Now here’s how it works; you have an
excellent correspondence in these two men.
Both of their lives tie together and picture parts of Jesus Christ. You and I as believers operating at this
point in history see only the Davidic side of Christ. David was anointed before he became king;
David struggled and struggled and struggled and was essentially an outcast for
many, many years even though he had been previously anointed. Jesus Christ was anointed by John the Baptist
19 centuries ago and He still doesn’t have the throne of Israel. Jesus Christ, identified with the Church, is
still suffering. He is suffering in the
sense that He is not completely reigning in His full glory and power. He’s identified with the Church, the Church
is being persecuted, Jesus Christ is being persecuted, even though Jesus
Christ, like David, was anointed a long time ago.
So at this point in Christ’s life it is very, very parallel to
David’s. But there will come that time
when Jesus Christ, in His life, will parallel Solomon. Solomon takes over the kingdom and the first
thing he does, as we’re going to see in 1 Kings 2, is conduct a series of what
looks like gross executions. He is going
to slaughter people and his kingdom starts off with judgment. Jesus Christ’s kingdom starts off with
judgment, and then Jesus Christ takes over the throne of Israel and in glory
and power enlarges. Solomon did the same
thing, so keep these two in mind; David is the pre-advent picture of Christ;
Solomon is the advent and post-advent picture of Jesus Christ. You can’t press this too far, but these two
characters present these general sides of the life of Christ.
Now we’re ready for 1 Kings 2 so let’s turn back and see the series of
executions and explanations David that David gives to Solomon. The first 11
verses of this chapter deal with David’s charge to Solomon. They explain certain things; after David dies
he wants certain things done. Beginning
in verse 2, “I go the way of all the earth;” now this is a Hebrew idiom that
beautifully pictures death. In our
dispensation when someone dies we say they went to be with the Lord, which is
our idiom, borrowed from Pauline Scripture in 2 Corinthians and other
passages. But in the Old Testament they
would say “I go the way of all the earth” because resurrection had not yet
occurred; Jesus Christ hadn’t risen from the dead, and when a person died their
body literally laid in the earth, and in the Old Testament the picture is that
their souls went to hell, to a place called Sheol, except hell in that time
didn’t have the connotation it does to you in the New Testament era. Sheol was divided into two parts: one,
Abraham’s bosom and the other place the place of Torments. And there was a solid division between the
saved and the unsaved. So when they did
die Abraham’s bosom was there, it’s a potential paradise, they would later go
to heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ, but not yet, at least to this time, they
went into the earth. And so when David
says “I go the way of all the earth,” he’s simply saying I, in my own person,
eventually must submit to the curse upon the physical universe. God cursed it in Genesis 3, my body bears the
mark of physical suffering, I’m deteriorating and I go the way of all the
earth. This is the outworking of the
fall.
“I go the way of all the earth; be thou strong, therefore, and show
thyself a man.” What follows is a
Biblical definition of Christian manhood, and it’s very interesting that David,
he has to teach his son this because his son is a young boy and from the human
point of view doesn’t have it to take over as king. So he says, “show yourself as a man.” And here’s how. Verse 3, “And keep the charge of the LORD thy
God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, and His commandments, and His
judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Torah of Moses,” the
Law of Moses. By the way, please notice,
as against religious professors who teach in high school and college that Moses
wrote the Law and it was believed to be written by him by David himself. So David testifies to the Mosaic authorship
of the Pentateuch; Jesus testifies to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch,
and then we have self-appointed experts who deny this, they know more than
David and Jesus. But in this point we
hold to the Pentateuch’s origin in Moses.
What is the manhood? Simply
defined, verse 3 is Christian manhood, it means loyalty to God, it gets back to
the basic doctrine of sanctification.
Christian manhood, exemplified as loyalty to God. Now why, if you say doesn’t that apply to a
Christian woman? Yes, but the reason it is used of the man more than it is of
the woman is because if you got back, again if you get these events in your
mind you can think through, think of the first man, Adam, who is called ish in the Hebrew and isha, his wife, she was not called Eve
until after the fall and the only reason Eve was called Eve was because she was
potentially the mother of Jesus Christ.
But until she became the mother of Jesus Christ by the gospel promise in
Genesis 3 she was called isha; ish and isha. Under the original way
things were supposed to have worked before the fall, ish was supposed to be loyal to his calling; the male was to
receive the calling of God; the male was given the role of leadership.
It was his job to rule before the fall; so ladies it didn’t start with
the fall. Something else started with
the fall, frustration with the male, but that’s post-fall experience. Before the fall the man was still to
lead. When Adam sinned he couldn’t blame
it on his wife; Adam, not Eve, took the rap legally, even though it’s true Eve
sinned first, when God goes to curse throughout Scriptures it’s always Adamic, you
never see “because of Eve,” you never see that expression in Scripture. It’s always Adam, Adam, Adam; Adam bears the
blame; Adam wasn’t dominating his wife as he should in the Biblical sense of
the Word; that doesn’t mean beat her up, that means just lead her; he was not
leading his woman with the result that Eve got out of line.
The story of Adam and Eve is the story of every freak movement that has
ever occurred in Christianity. Every
kind of cult has come about because of some woman that hasn’t been led properly
by men. The charismatic movement is loaded with women who are not in
subordination to their husbands. Look at
the history of cults, of course the weirdo men are always around, but it’s the
women, apparently, that give the impetus to many of these movements. We shouldn’t think that strange if you take
Adam and Eve seriously; if you believe there was a literal Adam and a literal
Eve doesn’t it follow logically that the same kind of thing is going to repeat
itself because we’re all Adamic in nature, so whereas Adam had a calling to be
loyal to God’s commandments, a particular calling, one thing was to do
zoological work, that’s given in Genesis 2.
God said Adam, I want you to name the animals; that was one thing He
told him to do. So Adam started naming
the animals.
Adam, in other words, began to subdue the earth; subduing the earth in
the sense of getting a mental grasp over it.
Science and technology is a carrying out of that cultural mandate. That’s the man’s job; all right, the man is
to do this, and isha is his helper. Except the Bible says helper—(dash) meet for
him and it means to be suited for. The
woman is the absolute necessity for the man to finish his calling; Adam could
not have done the calling without Eve.
We don’t know what Eve did, maybe she kept the notes or something when
he was naming the animals; she did something that made her absolutely
necessary. And this is the Biblical
answer to women’s lib. The woman is
extremely important in Scripture and the proof of it is that Israel was the one
that gave the nation the dignity of the woman.
The woman had fantastic dignity in Israel if you compare the woman’s
place in the other nations. And the
reason she had was a theological one, it was the woman who would eventually
bear the Messiah. But you have ish, that’s the male, and isha, female, and they were to operate
together as a team, neither one could operate without the other; the man was to
provide the direction and the woman was to respond to him, and that’s the cycle
anyway, the man initiates and the woman responds. It always is that way; all the way from the
physical biological level on up to the spiritual level and it’s always the case
at every point. The man initiates and the
woman responds, and that’s the way it was designed; the fall came in and fouled
things up but manhood goes back to this model.
So when you see in 1 Kings 2:3, the reason that is not held up for the
woman, Solomon’s wife, he doesn’t say hey, when you marry this girl she’s
supposed to do this, the point is, if Solomon would be a man he wouldn’t have
to worry about his wife. If Solomon
would follow out these commands of Scripture then his wife would have to
respond and that’s ultimately the dynamics of
divine institution number two.
And yet all over this country we have a group of men who think that the
Bible is something for women, for children, their manhood might drop off if
they came in a church door or something.
What it amounts to is that they’ve probably had some bad exposure when
they were children, probably went to some place where women dominated the whole
picture and they got a very effeminate view.
Which by the way, parents, be sure the man of the house is identified
with the Word of God as far as your children go; don’t let them get some
effeminate picture of Christianity; it ruins them for life. You can head a lot of trouble off at the pass
and I know men who could care less and they’re just breeding trouble for
themselves. And 10-15 years from now
they’re going to be crying, look at my children. What went wrong was you; you didn’t exercise
your leadership as a man so now you’re suffering for it and your children are
suffering for it and will continue to suffer for it. And if they don’t get straightened out it
will go to the third and fourth generation before it gets ironed out. So men, admonition: if you will follow the
Lord in verse 3, apply the Word of God in areas of life, you won’t have to
worry about the woman.
Verse 3, “And keep the charge of the LORD thy God,” the charge mentioned
in verse 3 is what David tells him, so David is saying Solomon, I have told you
certain to things to do, I am going to tell you certain things to do, but this
is a charge that I am not giving you but God Himself and I want you to keep
it. Then generally speaking, after you
see the infinitive, “to walk” after that, from “to walk” all the way down to
“Moses” that’s just generally stay in the Word.
Now to stay in the Word it means that Solomon is going to have to study
the Word and to study the Word means he has to be exposed to the Word, which
means he himself probably had to attend Levite Bible classes. And he must have done it daily because in
Deuteronomy where the instructions are to the king, he had to take in the Word
over and over and over and over. You
cannot stray away from the Word of God more than 24-48 hours before you’re
going to be in trouble spiritually, that’s just the way it works; you can’t
afford not to take in the Word of God.
Not with the average business man facing the pressures that he must face
to make any kind of a profit with socialistic government eating out of his
hands and with all the taxes and everything else, there’s no way he can make it
and survive in the business world unless he constantly takes in the Word, day
after day after day. It’s a struggle;
the business world has such great pressure in it it will pull you down to its
own level and the only way you can tolerate that kind of pressure is to fortify
your soul with the Word, always the Word, over and over. That’s what he’s telling Solomon here, that’s
where manhood begins, taking in Bible doctrine.
“And keep the charge of the LORD thy God, to walk in His ways, to keep
His statutes and His commandments, and His ordinances, and His testimonies, as
it is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do…”
And this should be the natural result of properly functioning manhood. What was the mandate given to the man? It was to produce; what was he tilling the
garden for? Not to feed God, God didn’t
need any food. What was the food for?
Humanity, produce, man is to produce, that’s the first divine
institution, responsible labor. And so
the result of oriented manhood will be bona
fide production. In other words, the
man can die and know that in his lifetime he had produced something. Sometimes go years in their life without ever
thinking of one simple thing; when you die what have you got to be proud
of. When you go before the Lord, and you
think that your life is going to be evaluated, what have you got? Have you got anything that’s going to last,
that satisfies. It’s a horrible
awakening that some men go through, it’s a major crisis experience. Every day you live is time gone, you can’t
recover it; grace won’t even recover it.
But the real satisfaction of being a man comes from producing something
in your own area, maybe it’s in art, business, academics, some place, but
that’s why you’re here. And always remember the first divine institution is the
one, it’s number one, that’s why it’s numbered that way, to emphasize that your
fundamental reason for existence is production before the face of God. That’s
fundamentally what the game’s all about.
And if that’s not there, your life has no purpose. And this why a lot of people go to the funny
farm, they realize this, they haven’t got any basis for living; they wake up
and what have I got; nothing, absolutely nothing. I have been a failure in everything I have
done. It’s a tragic moment.
So this is what he’s saying, now Solomon, you take in the Word and start
applying it and you will prosper. Now
this doesn’t mean the effects of the fall are going to be suddenly removed by a
magic wand, it’s not that at all. In the
fallen world you will be able to prosper somewhat, you will be able to bring
into existence and create something.
Then he says, “and whithersoever thou turnest thyself,” this refers to
divine guidance in his life. In other
words, Solomon is going to make decision after decision after decision after
decision as every man must, where he’s going to live, what he’s going to do,
whether he should do his job this way, that way, where he’s going to
specialize, what kind of training is he going to get, etc. These are the decisions. Again, David says Solomon, you have many,
many decisions before you, I am not going to be around to come say, now
Solomon, you’ve got to do it this way.
But I’m going to give you a basic platform, take in the Word of God
first, then you’ll prosper and that’ll act as a framework to make these decisions. If you don’t have the framework you don’t
have anything.
Verse 4, “That the LORD may continue His word,” now verse 4 gives
another purpose of this manhood of Solomon, and that is to provide the
fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. We
have to explain something here, and this gets into the doctrine of
election. The Davidic Covenant is just
another point in history where election is coming out. Think of it that way. The Abrahamic Covenant
and the Davidic Covenant are simply another occasion when you see God saying I
choose this person. God says I choose
Abraham; God said I choose David; so you have election, that’s what election
means, it’s choice. God chooses. We have developed the doctrine of election
but let’s review the five points.
The doctrine of election first of all depends on the divine viewpoint
foundation plus verbal revelation. Let’s
explain that; it means that you cannot understand election until you have first
mastered the whole doctrine of creation.
Election won’t make any sense to you, don’t worry about it if it doesn’t
make any sense to you, just put it on a shelf some place and get the foundation
down. You need to know at least two
things in the foundation; you’ve got to know creation, why was man created and
you’ve got to know the doctrine of the fall, why did man fall. After you know that, then you’re prepared to
go on and discuss election. The divine
viewpoint framework plus verbal revelation; now what do we mean by that plus
verbal revelation? That means if you think
of it for a moment, when God said to Abraham, hey Abraham, I choose you, God
also gave Abraham a promise, get thee out of Ur and then I will give you
something. And then when He says David,
I have chosen you to be the dynasty over Israel, and he gave David a promise,
your son will build a temple. So every
time God elects He always gives a promise.
So we say that election depends on two things, divine viewpoint
framework and verbal revelation.
How does that work out in your personal experience. When you trusted in Jesus Christ it was like
you were pulled out of Ur; it was like God said hey, here’s My promise, the
gospel of Jesus Christ. I have revealed My saving work on your behalf
through the person of Christ, and you responded to it. That’s verbal revelation, the first point in
the doctrine of election.
The second thing about the doctrine of election, it is God’s basic
eternal promise; the promise behind all other promises. You can’t have any promise unless you have
this one. For example, let’s take Romans
8:28, “All things work together for good.”
Now isn’t that a sweet little promise, you can hypnotize yourself with
that promise, you could go through the whole day repeating “all things work
together for good,” that’s hypnosis but not Christianity. That verse goes on to link up with election
when it says “all things work together for good to them that are the called
according to His purpose,” it is definitely tied to election, that is, the
position “in Christ.” It is good only
“in Christ.”
Third point in the doctrine of election; election means that when God
says something that He will do to you, this is 100% certain. We have seen this with David. God says your
son will certainly build the temple; now we have spent months going through the
fine details, show how it’s almost frustrated, at point after point you wonder
is God’s promise ever going to make it; it looks like somebody’s going to get
assassinated that’s going to blow the whole plan; looks somebody isn’t going to
make it, looks like David is going to get thrown off the throne, all these
things. God’s Word is going to come to
pass, no matter what it looks like, no matter how bad the situation. Election should produce in your soul a sense
of inevitable victory. I have often used
this as a modern 20th century illustration of election. The only people in the 20th
century that have anything that approximates Biblical election are the
communists; a real dedicated communist has deeply embedded in his heart a sense
of inevitable victory. This what enabled
the Viet Cong to tolerate the great bombings by the B-52’s in Vietnam. Over and over they’d get bombed and over and
over they’d come out of their gopher holes and go on. What made them keep on was the sense that
history has ordained communist victory.
Now it may be a false hope, but I’m not talking about the basis, I’m
talking about the psychological effect.
Election, properly understood, will produce a sense of historic
inevitability, which you need to face the big trials in your life. You can’t go on unless you have this sense in
your soul. It’s that that gives you the
cushion to take all the hard knocks of life, and the idea and the peace that
you will inevitably be victorious, you will inevitably be conformed to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and no matter how bad it is at the moment, you’re going to make
it. That’s the doctrine of election.
The fourth point is that election is God’s free choice. [tape turns] …involves the plan of salvation,
I’m not denying volition in this, He set up the plan that way. Why did God set
up the plan the way He did? I don’t
know, the Bible doesn’t tell you. God
set up the plan because He set up the plan and that’s where the questions stop,
we go back to our ultimate reference point.
Finally, the fifth thing, and that’s the one that’s detailed in this
verse, verse 4, “That the LORD may continue His word which He spoke concerning
me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth
with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee a man
on the throne of Israel.” Now it looks
like all of a sudden the Davidic Covenant becomes highly conditional. Not at all; election is always revealed by
faith or I should say by faithful obedience.
How do you know that Abraham was elect?
Let’s get right down to our key illustration of election. How do you know he was elect? The only way you know he was elect is because
he responded. Suppose Abraham said no
God, I’m not going to do it. I call you
out of Ur of the Chaldeas—Nope! I call
you out of Ur of the Chaldeas the second time—Nope! Suppose that went on all
his life. You’d have every reason to
doubt that Abraham was ever elected or called or anything else. The only evidence empirically we have of
election is volition, the positive volition; that is the empirical evidence in
history that so and so is elect. That’s
the argument of Hebrews; the author of Hebrews, what does he say over and
over? Look you people, if you haven’t
responded to the Messiah, and you have rejected, after clearly hearing the Word
of God, you’ve rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected,
you are in very great danger, great danger.
And ultimately those who go to the grave not having believed on Jesus
Christ obviously are not of the elect.
Now you have to be careful here; election doesn’t mean God reaches down
and twist somebody’s arm to believe. It
doesn’t work that way. There is an
actual choice made, and what election says is the elect are the ones that have
made that choice, and the non-elect are the ones who never make it; it’s that
simple. Election doesn’t tell you how it happens, it only tells you that it happens.
So in verse 4 we have positive volition, and David says that though God
has sovereignly promised a dynasty which will go from Solomon to Rehoboam on
down to Jesus Christ, that is sovereignly certain, 100% certain, history can’t
reverse it, it is inevitable that that’s what’s going to happen, but it is
going to happen by means of the first divine institution. These men are personally going to respond to
God’s Word. And so that part of the
condition of the Davidic Covenant is given in verse 4. It’s simply testifying that these men have
volition; this shorts out any hyper Calvinist interpretation.
Verse 5, “Moreover, thou knowest also what Joab,” now he’s going to
order a series of executions. You say
how cruel of David; keep in mind the typology.
When Solomon takes his throne he begins peace with judgment. You see, David was the man of war, just like right
now Jesus Christ is the man of war.
Jesus Christ has blood on His garments when He comes back in Revelation
19; then when Jesus Christ sets up the millennium He’s the man of peace. Now what separates the period of war from the
period of peace? Judgment; evil has to
be eliminated or you can’t have peace.
So why do we see on a small, small scale David and Solomon doing the
same thing? Because David is the bloody
man, the man who is known for his battles and his wars; Solomon’s name, slm and you plug in the vowels, the word for peace is related to Solomon’s
name, he is going to be the man of peace, but to be the man of peace what is he
going to have to do? He’s going to have
to get rid of the obstructionists, so that’s why it logically appears here. All this theologically fits and prepares you
and sets you up, it gives you the categories to understand what’s going to
happen in the New Testament.
So he says in verse 5, verses 5-6 concern Joab, “Moreover thou knowest
also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two
captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the
son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the
blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that
were on his feet.” notice the phrase, “shed the blood of war in peace,” so his
point is Joab’s soul is unfit for your reign, you have got a man in your
administration and his soul is out of it, get him out of here or you’re going
to ruin your administration unless you get rid of this crowd. So verse 6, “Do therefore according to thy
wisdom, and let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace.” In other words, get rid of him nicely,
arrange his removal Solomon, if you know what I mean; just like Jesus Christ is
going to remove from the face of this earth everyone who can be the source of
trouble in the millennial kingdom.
Verse 7, this is the positive side, “But show kindness unto the sons of
Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be of those that eat at thy table: for so
they came to me when I fled because of Absalom thy brother” remember Barzillai,
the old man that gave David bread and water and food when he was fleeing from
Absalom, but notice Barzillai doesn’t get it, his sons get it, and there you
have the principle of group blessing under the third divine institution. You may, in your life, some of you have often
remarked it seems like everything goes it my way, that percent is getting very
small these days but occasionally we have people that it seems like no matter
what they do they lived a charmed life.
This may be caused by something your parents or your grandparents did in
your family. You may actually be getting
the fallout of a blessing on your family unit by previous generations, so don’t
get too cocky about it; the point is somebody above you in your family got with
it along the line and maybe because of their prayers or maybe because of God’s
blessing on them you’re getting blessed.
So the sons of Barzillai get blessed.
Now verse 8, here’s another one, Shimei, actually there are probably
hundreds of people like this but these are the only three the Holy Spirit
picked out. Shimei was the guy that
cursed him, remember the day when they were marching out in column and as they
were marching along this guy was throwing rocks at them from their right flank,
and one of the generals said hey, do you want me to go over and lift his head
off, and David said no, just keep on, we’ll take care of it later. And this is the later. “And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the
son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in
the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I
swore to him by the LORD, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword.
[9] Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest
what thou ought to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave
with blood.” Take care of him in other
words, get him out of here, he’s going to cause you trouble.
And you know why Shimei; it’s a good lesson, a lesson that our
generation needs; Shimei is one of these bums who can’t stand authority, he
can’t submit to authority; any man who is going to throw rocks at the king,
David, is also going to potentially throw rocks at Solomon. He has in his soul –R learned behavior
patterns of disobedience and rebellion against instituted authority, and that
kind of a person has to be removed. They
either get straightened out or get out.
That used to be the objective of basic training in the service. Why do you have these ridiculous things in
the service of a sergeant coming in at 4:00 o’clock and make you brush the
floor with your toothbrush or something, this kind of stuff. Why do you have all these idiot things? To find out the guys who can submit to
authority and the ones who can’t, and once you’ve isolated the guys who can’t
take it, ride them until they quit.
That’s the objective in basic training in the service, find out the wise
guys and get them out. So David is
simply doing the same thing, he’s just sweeping away this human debris.
Verse 10-11, “So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the
city of David.” The exact place is
located… Acts 2:19 tells us the exact place, it was available in Peter’s day,
so when the early Christians went out to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ they
could say David is buried over there.
That was one of the reasons they said that David had not yet raised from
the dead. [11, “And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years:
seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in
Jerusalem.”
Verse 12, this is how Solomon does it, verse 12 is a summary statement,
as often in Hebrew literature, always remember you have the general before the
specific in a text; this is what Genesis 1-2 controversy is all about, Genesis
1 is general, Genesis 2 is specific.
Verse 12, the general statement, “Then sat Solomon upon the throne of
David his father; and his kingdom was established greatly.” Now what does the word “greatly” mean? It means firmly, and it was established
firmly because he got rid of the hoi polloi, he got rid of the people who
couldn’t stand authority. See, that’s
the whole point of this chapter, he got rid of these people. That’s why his kingdom was established
greatly.
Verse 13 describes how he does it; from verses 13-25 we have the removal
of Adonijah. Now this is a case in
itself, “And Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of
Solomon.” Now Bathsheba is not his
mother, this shows you something interesting.
Here’s David, David marries Bathsheba and he marries this other woman,
Haggith, she has two sons, she may have had more, Adonijah and Absalom, both
very handsome young men from the human point of view, fantastic leaders. And Bathsheba has this little kid,
Solomon. And Bathsheba is never is a
very brilliant woman and here’s one of those portraits of Bathsheba that shows
you that she just really was kind of thick when it came to thinking things
through. So Adonijah comes up to here
with a little plot, “And she said, Comest thou peaceably? And he said,
Peaceably. [14] He said moreover, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And she
said, Say on. [15] And he said, Thou knowest that the kingdom was mine, and
that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign,” you bet she did,
and she didn’t do anything about it until the prophet Nathan came to her;
remember, Nathan said hey, Bathsheba, you know if this guy gets to be king you
and your son are going to die, so come on, do something, David’s your husband,
go in there and straighten him out, so Bathsheba is apparently is just asleep
at the switch. Every case you see
Bathsheba in the Scripture she’s this kind of a person, very, very slow
individual, to put it politely. “…
howbeit the kingdom is turned about, and is become my brother's: for it was his
from the LORD.”
Verse 16, “And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And she said
unto him, Say on. [17] And he said, Speak,
I pray thee, unto Solomon the king, (for he will not say thee nay,) that he
give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife.”
Now she was a doll, remember she won the Miss Israel contest, and she
was apparently quite an attractive female, obviously she was picked of all the
virgins in Israel to service David, and David didn’t respond so Adonijah said
hmmm, she’s a pretty good looking chic so let’s move in here. So he’s going to arrange this little thing,
except it’s a little more complicated that you think. In our day we just think oh, he’s getting a
hot little romance going. It’s more than
a romance; when you lay claim to any woman that has been in any association
with the king and his harem, that is tantamount to declaring you want the
throne. That is the custom. Now Bathsheba, obviously, this doesn’t dawn
on her what this guy is really doing.
She reacts emotionally, oh, isn’t that sweet, I’ll go talk to him and so
forth, they’d make such a beautiful couple, see, and that’s all she’s thinking
of, when as a matter of fact he probably could care less for Abishag, he wants
the throne, and this is his second attempt.
Remember in chapter 1 he was headed off at the pass once and now he’s
coming in at the back door on this thing.
Verse 18, “And Bathsheba said, Well; I will speak for thee unto the
king.” So she very innocently trips into
the throne room and she’s going to talk to Solomon about this, except Solomon
knows more than his mother, thank God, and he is going to straighten her
out. [19, “Bathsheba therefore went unto
king Solomon, to speak unto him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her,
and bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be
set for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand. [20] Then she said, I
desire one small petition of thee; I pray thee, say me not nay. And the king
said unto her, Ask on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay. [21] And she
said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah thy brother to wife.”
Verse 22, “And king Solomon answered and said unto his mother, And why
dost thou ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? ask for him the kingdom
also” he catches on what the deal is, this isn’t just a courtly romance, this
is a usurping of his throne, “for he is mine elder brother even for him, and
for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah. [23] Then king
Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah
have not spoken this word against his own life.” In other words, I’ll take care of him. [24, “Now therefore, as the LORD liveth,
which hath established me, and set me on the throne of David my father, and who
hath made me an house, as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death this
day.”] And verse 25 is the execution of
Adonijah, “And king Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada;
and he fell upon him that he died.” And
with the end of verse 25 as a gong would sound, you have the fulfillment of a
prophecy, and the prophecy was given many, many chapters ago, when Nathan
walked into David, David, you kill Bathsheba’s husband, she lost a sheep, now
David, you’re going to lose four, and so this is the fourth son to die. And isn’t it ironic, poetic and a sign of
God’s sovereignty; how did this last man die?
By the very woman who David brought in when that prophecy was made.
Now verse 26, some more unfinished business, “And unto Abiathar the
priest said the king, Get thee to Anathoth, unto thine own fields; for thou art
worthy of death: but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou
barest the ark of the Lord GOD before David my father, and because thou hast
been afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted.” Remember Abiathar is the Levite who turned
traitor to Solomon in chapter 1, so verse 27, “So Solomon thrust out Abiathar
from being priest unto the LORD; that he might fulfill the word of the LORD,
which he spoke concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.”
Turn back to 1 Samuel 2:31, there was a prophecy made then, and as a
second gong would sound we have the fulfillment of another prophecy, way, way
back, two generations. This is a
prophecy against Eli; Eli’s great descendent is Abiathar; Abiathar stands in a
cursed home, he stands in a family that is doomed for removal; God has
sovereignly promised this family will be removed, but the promise comes to pass
by this man’s own negative volition. He
has chosen in 1 Kings 1 to rebel and this prophecy is that prophecy given two
generations before, “Behold, the days come, that I will cut off your arm,” that’s
Eli and his house, “and the arm of your father’s house, that there shall not be
an old man in the house. [32] And you shall see an enemy in my habitation, in
all the wealth which God shall give Israel, and there shall not be an old man
in thine house forever. [33] And the man of thine, whom I shall not cut off
from mine altar, shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine
heart….”
Verse 34, “And this shall be a sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy
two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall die, both of them,”
that happened just 2 or 3 chapters later.
But the prophecy is not finished in just verse 34. Verse 35, “I will raise up for Myself a
faithful priest, who shall do according to that which is in Mine heart and in
My mind; and I will build him a sure house, and he will walk before mine
anointed forever.” That man is the man
you know by the name Zadok. You now see
the fulfillment of that prophecy.
By the way, we want to pause for a moment because verse 34-35 teach you
something valuable about how prophecy is fulfilled, and this is something when
we get in the Daniel series we’ll have to go through this time and time
again. Prophecy has multiple
fulfillments, not just one. There’s a
whole series of prophecies here in this chapter. But all of them are out of range, out of the
empirical range of sensory observation of the generation to which it was
given. So obviously God, if He’s going
to prophecy something, to confirm it to the generations is going to do
what? He’s going to have part of the
prophecy, just part of it, but part of the prophecy verified in the present
hour so you can see, ho, well that part verifies and I see that fulfillment
with my own eyes, therefore I’ll believe the other prophecy that hasn’t yet been
fulfilled. So verse 34 is the near sign,
that was fulfilled back here when it was given.
And that prophecy was fulfilled so they’d believe verse 35; verse 35
wasn’t fulfilled until, say 950 BC, the other prophecy had been given, say in
about 1100 BC; we’re talking about a hundred years or so. Eli would never live to see verse 35
fulfilled, but he would live to see verse 34 fulfilled. And notice that the prophecy, when it’s given
in its original context flows, see there’s no break between verse 34 and 35;
you wouldn’t guess that centuries separate verse 34 and 35 would you? If you just read it normally,
straightforwardly, yet we have Scripture that clearly shows this is a gap of
time in there.
So when we interpret prophecy, particularly when we get in the book of
Daniel, you’re going to see time gaps all over the place. Don’t let it throw you; that is typical for
prophecy. Part of prophecy will verify
here, part down here and so on. Isn’t
that what the prophecies of Christ’s First and Second Advent, to the generation
to which it was given it looked like this, here’s the First Advent of Christ,
here’s the Second Advent of Christ, they were telescoped together and the
generation could see there were two kind of themes, Christ’s suffering and
Christ glorified, but they were all compressed together, and you couldn’t sort
out which came first or anything, until history sorted it out for you. And first we have this prophecy all fulfilled
[First Advent] and that just leaves the rest to be fulfilled. So history operates on this prophecy the same
way. Verse 34 was fulfilled immediately,
verse 35 was left hanging for a generation or two.
Back to 1 Kings, In verse 28, “Then tidings came to Joab,” this is a
rather tragic end to one of the great heroes of Israel, for a man who in his
later years succumbed to nationalism over the word, “for Joab had turned after
Adonijah,” that means he’s apostacized, “though he turned not after
Absalom.” So you see somewhere Joab
neglected the Word of God, a warning to men particularly, here was a man who
was fantastic; back in his early days he was David’s right hand man, he was a
man that saved David’s live on occasion after occasion after occasion. He saved David in the Absalom revolt and the
last years of his life, boom, negative volition. What does this tell you? No matter how old you are as a Christian, you
never have it made; this doesn’t mean loss of salvation, this means you never
have it made as far as God disciplining you and disciplining you hard. Don’t think because you have been successful
in the past in your life you can go ahh, the race is over; no it isn’t, not
until you hit that grave, that’s when the race is over. So as long as you’re breathing the race is
not over and don’t ever make the disastrous mistake of assuming so. So Joab in his later days apostacized. “And Joab fled unto the tabernacle of the
LORD, and caught hold on the horns of the altar.”
Verse 29, “And it was told king Solomon that Joab was fled unto the
tabernacle of the LORD; and, behold, he is by the altar. Then Solomon sent
Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go, fall upon him,” assassinate him. And Benaiah finds out he can’t because he’s
holding on to the altar, verse 30, “And Benaiah came to the tabernacle of the
LORD, and said unto him, Thus saith the king, Come forth. And he said, Nay; but
I will die here. And Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, Thus said
Joab, and thus he answered me.”
So verse 31-32 he orders his execution, he goes back and checks with
Solomon to make sure he can do it, “And the king said unto him, Do as he hath
said, and fall upon him, and bury him; that thou mayest take away the innocent
blood, which Joab shed, from me, and from the house of my father. [32] And the
LORD shall return his blood upon his own head, who fell upon two men more
righteous and better than he, and slew them with the sword, my father David not
knowing thereof, to wit, Abner the son of Ner, captain of the host of Israel,
and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the host of Judah. [33] Their blood
shall therefore return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed for
ever: but upon David, and upon his seed, and upon his house, and upon his
throne, shall there be peace for ever from the LORD.”]
Verse 34, “So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up, and fell upon him,
and slew him: and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness.” And then the reinstatement of Benaiah as the
commander in chief, verse 35, “And the king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in
his room over the host: and Zadok the priest did the king put in the room of
Abiathar.”
Verse 36, the interesting way Shimei met his end, it provides you a neat
way of handling these cases. Some of you
people in management positions, you might borrow some things from Solomon. “And the king sent and called for Shimei, and
said unto him, Build thee an house in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and go not
forth thence any whither. [37] For it shall be, that on the day thou goest out,
and passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt
surely die: thy blood shall be upon thine own head. [38] And Shimei said unto the king, The
saying is good: as my lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do. And
Shimei dwelt in Jerusalem many days. [39] And it came to pass at the end of
three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away unto Achish son of
Maachah king of Gath. And they told Shimei, saying, Behold, thy servants be in
Gath. [40] And Shimei arose, and saddled his ass, and went to Gath to Achish to
seek his servants: and Shimei went, and brought his servants from Gath.”
Now he forgot something, he forgot an oath that he had made, remember he
had consigned by oath, he has made an oath to Solomon in the name of Yahweh
that he will stay there, and he has taken his oath lightly. And what Solomon
did, a very clever man, what he did, he realizes that Shimei is so spiritually
out of it, all I have to do is set him up with a trap and he’s going to trip
it, because I know this guy is such a flunky he’s going to goof somewhere along
the line and I’ll just let him cut his own throat, that’s all. So he made the guy take an oath and he says
of course I know Shimei and the way he handles the Word, he could care less
about the Word, he’ll forget. Well,
Shimei forgot, he forgot the oath. And
so that was a good excuse and Solomon took care of him. [41, “And it was told Solomon that Shimei had
gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and was come again. [42] And the king sent and
called for Shimei, and said unto him, Did I not make thee to swear by the LORD,
and protested unto thee, saying, Know for a certain, on the day thou goest out,
and walked abroad any wither, that thou shalt surely die? and thou said unto
me, The word that I have heard is good.”]
Verse 43, “Why then hast thou not kept the oath of the LORD, and the
commandment that I have charged thee with? [44] The king said moreover to
Shimei, Thou knowest all the wickedness which thine heart is privy to,” in
other words, your heart is schooled in wickedness and I’m not going to have you
around my kingdom, “that thou didst to David my father: therefore the LORD
shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head; [45] And king Solomon shall be
blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the LORD for
ever.” And so assassination, verse 46,
“So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; which went out, and fell
upon him, that he died. And the kingdom was established in the hand of
Solomon.”
We’ve come the full circle now and you’ve seen that Solomon, the man who
was prophesied way, way back in Samuel, has now attained the throne, all secure
for about fifty more years and then after that we have another problem that
arises, which is another story for another day.
Those of you who have questions on David’s life, write them on a card or
we can talk about it later.