Clough Manhood Series Lesson 35

Solomon: Contrast to David – 1 Kings 3:36

Tonight we move from David to Solomon. We’ll pass over Solomon in one night because we have a number of other men that we want to look at in Scripture and we can’t look at them all without moving. As we go through Solomon we want to look at the three different kinds of men: Saul, David, Solomon. Three men, three believers. The first one was a man who never did get off the ground; he was anthropocentric from the very beginning. Though born again, he never got his sites straightened out in the light of the Word of God; he was never able to assume any kind of an orientation to grace. Saul was always man-centered. And because of this Saul eventually wound up in a condition that we would say was typical of the man in the funny farm. David was a man who was grace oriented. And therefore David, as far as God was concerned, was the greatest of all. He had more badges and more ribbons than all the other two combined.

And this may be has to be looked at from another point of view; maybe we ought to back up a minute before we go on to Solomon. Many of you have seen the film MacArthur this recently and I remember, that film brought back memories because I can remember when he was fired by Truman and I can remember the discussions that went on in my school when he was fired. And I can remember many people making all sorts of arguments against MacArthur by saying he was arrogant, he was a cold-blooded calculating man, he really didn’t care for the average soldier, he was a glory seeker, he was a dramatist, and so on and so on and so on. Of course, the point is that every great man is peccable, that’s the theological term for having a sin nature. There was only one impeccable great man and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ. So therefore we can’t expect great men to be impeccable; it’s a quality relegated only to Christ, and therefore all great men will have their weakness. It’s simple, they’re just sons of Adam.

But there’s a particular kind of criticism that develops and in a way it’s right, but in another sense it’s wrong. It’s typical of criticisms directed against MacArthur, directed against Patton, directed against other men in that particular mold, and the criticism always is that they are crude and they are callous, and that at times they can almost toy with men’s lives; they can make hasty decisions and thousands of men will die and they will move on, never batting an eye lash. How, people argue, and the critics argue, can these be really great men with that kind of attitude.

Let’s stop there and take a time machine and go backwards some thirty centuries to the time of David. And let’s with that same viewpoint analyze David’s structure. Let’s analyze David’s career as it might be seen through the eyes of CBS news. Here is David, who orders a massacre of one of his chief officers to cover up a scandal in his administration. In effect, David, as the Commander in Chief, ordered a group of soldiers into complete destruction for the deliberate murder of one of the great national leaders. Thank God that CBS news wasn’t around during the Uriah incident because people could have said the same criticism of David: David is a great man dearly beloved of God?

How could David be a great man …[tape blank for a few words] …with a dramatist, do you remember how he danced in front of the ark when it came into Jerusalem. Surely David was out in front of the people, wanting all the glory for himself. David had the flare for publicity and he was callous toward his men. Every criticism directed against men of that same mold today can be directed against David, and yet there’s something profoundly wrong with that kind of criticism. Why is it that God turns around and calls men like David excellent, “a man after my own heart,” when in fact he was an adulterer, a murderer and many times made some very hasty and bad decisions. Watch; why do men like this go on and make these kinds of things; it’s typical of men like David and the principle is found in 1 Kings 11:4 when David is contrasted with his son, Solomon.

We spend time on this for two reasons tonight; one reason is that you as believers must get off on a platform by yourselves to look at the whole spirit of how we critique greatness in our own generation. It’s all screwed up. And secondly, therefore, we’ve got to understand how we critique proper spirituality in our own personal life. Now David, in 1 Kings 11:4, is contrasted in example to Solomon. “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David, his father.”

What? David, the publicity seeker; David, the man who ordered soldier into battle deliberately to have them killed so he could get rid of a problem. Yes; the word “perfect” means to go on to completion and here the idea is that David focused on the grace orientation and kept on heading for his objective, even though he dropped the ball at point after point. He did not let his failures get him down; he kept on. Call him cold blooded if you want to; call him deliberately cunning and calculating if you want to, but David was then, therefore, coldly calculated; he knew there was an objective down the road, that objective was to attain a certain status, bring his country together under God’s law and he was going to do it and if on the side incidentally he had to wipe out a few thousand people to do it, too bad. Now that’s not justifying every crass decision David made. We before said that he is peccable. But it is to say that the greatness of David consists of his focusing on the long-term objective, to the complete almost detriment of getting fogged up with local mistakes and character idiosyncrasies. David didn’t let his critics get to him.

Now I have a theory of why David did this and why other men in similar positions seem to display, after they become great, a callousness toward individual people, to the point where people call them, begin to call them, arrogant, cold-blooded and so on. If you want an example in church history of this take Martin Luther. Toward the end of his career Martin Luther gave all the appearances of being an intensely hostile, bitter man, anti-Semitic at times. What was this? The great reformer into this kind of a character. What made him this way. Well, I think that all men who attain the greatness of a Luther, or a David, men who reach the objective, only reach it because they are callous. In other words, to be a leader to get to the objective they have had to overcome so much nitpicking criticism along the way and this is not to justify them, it is simply to say that in a fallen world they are liable to this kind of a sin, and the kind of a sin is that they simply disregard all criticism after a while. They don’t listen to criticism because they’ve heard so much stupid idiotic criticism that finally they turn their ears to even the good criticism and refuse to listen to that, and go on anyway, doing it because after all, as geniuses they usually are right anyway. And most of the critics usually are wrong, and therefore they go ahead and do what they want to do.

Now it’s fortunate for us that basically when you have a great man like this they go ahead and do what they want to, independently of the little people around them. Thank God for this. David did that. So when we come to Solomon we’re going to watch what happens when a man doesn’t do this. In Solomon’s case he remains open to the criticism of his peers. Solomon is going to remain open all the way to the end of his life to those who had given advice and shape him, and now he sins in a far worse way. Son one of the lessons we’re going to learn comparing David and Solomon is which way do you want to make your mistake? Do you want to wind up with a somewhat callous David, somewhat hardnosed, a man who occasionally does murder and commit adultery but gets to the objective? Or do you want to wind up with a Solomon who wants to please everyone, who wants to listen to all the advice and never get to the objective? You have a choice and I think from 1 Kings 11:4 the choice of which one is preferable is obvious.

All right, so let’s look at some of the focal points in Solomon’s career and try to compare these with David and then we will conclude by going to a particular psalm that David wrote that we studied before and see if there’s a spiritual truth that David learned, Solomon never did, a spiritual truth that we, then, can turn around and use as a corrective in our souls, so that we, if we’re going to drift, we drift to the direction of David, not in the direction of Solomon.

The first incident we want to study is 1 Kings 3. In 1 Kings 3 we have the famous prayer of Solomon, the prayer for wisdom by itself excellent, but the Holy Spirit so arranged the text of the book of Kings that there’s a minor note that sounds even ahead of the prayer. The prayer, you remember, began in verse 5, “In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. [5] And Solomon said…” etc. etc. etc. give me wisdom. We’ll see that in a moment. But it’s interesting that the chapter doesn’t begin in verse 5. In what appears to be a totally discordant section of the Scriptures we have four verses prior to that. And one wonders why those four verses prior to his prayer for wisdom. Let’s look at those four verses.

1 Kings 3:1, “And Solomon made affinity [a marriage alliance] with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had finished building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about. [2] Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house built unto the name of the LORD, until those days. [3] And Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David, his father; only he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places. [4] “And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place: a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar.”

There’s something not exactly wrong with this, but there’s just a minor note sounded in a major cord, something’s wrong here, it just doesn’t sound right. Why, before you have this magnificent prayer, with God commending Solomon and rewarding Solomon, with great wisdom, do we have this business about somehow he’s with Pharaoh’s daughter, he’s made covenants and he sacrifices in high places. What’s that doing there? Obviously the Holy Spirit is calling our attention to why this precedes the wisdom prayer. It goes back to the Torah. The kings in the Old Testament were under Law, God’s Law. And that Law specified certain constraints upon the king. Turn to Deuteronomy 7.

Deuteronomy 7:3, an instruction is given to all males; we don’t have to say that the king was a woman and so therefore he falls under Deuteronomy 7:3 and this instruction holds for him too. It says: “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” That is biblical mixed marriage and it’s not talking about race as such; it is talking about particular members of the nation’s listed in verses 1-2. All of those people prohibited in marriage were people who were, corporately speaking, beyond redemption. They were the Canaanites, collectively known as Canaanites, and they were the people against whom holy war would be waged. They would be destroyed from the face of the earth. They are a degenerate group of people and the only way you can handle degenerate groups of people is either to evangelize them and have them respond to the Word of God or after a while you just have to physically destroy them and get rid of them, but you cannot perpetuate and repopulate the earth with degenerates. They have to be removed. And so these people are going to be removed. And the source of their degeneracy is spiritual or negative volition that has got wrapped up with Baalism and all its forms of human viewpoint cults. In order to purify Israel one cannot have these girls coming in and marrying, being married to the young men of Israel. And so the Scriptures prohibit all intermarriage between the people of the Canaanite nations and Jewish boys.

But, we know from history that this general principle, though general, is not an absolute. And we know it from the case of Rahab. In Rahab’s case she obviously does intermarry. Why does Rahab, who is a person in Jericho and therefore concluded in part and parcel with these people, why does Rahab qualify for marriage under Deuteronomy 7:3? Because Rahab confesses, she is born again; she believes and is converted, and because Rahab is converted, therefore Deuteronomy 7:3 does not apply. So the only way Deuteronomy 7:3 could not apply in the case of marriages to the Canaanite nations would be for the girl to personally declare her allegiance to the God of Israel.

Let’s look at another passage. Deuteronomy 23:3, again speaking of marriage. In Deuteronomy 23:3 it specifically says, “An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD forever.” By the way, there’s a good illustration of the word “forever” and why it doesn’t always mean in the Hebrew forever. Now in this situation, the Moabites, if there were a Moabite girl, could not marry a Jewish boy; that’s what the Law says. Yet we know, by Ruth, that Ruth was a Moabitess and intermarried with god’s blessing. Why? Does the Bible contradict itself? No, the Law, the Mosaic Law gives you generalities; books like Ruth and incidents like Rahab give you the spiritual tenant in which the Law was interpreted. And so in the case of Ruth, Ruth is acceptable as a Moabitess, because the moment that she declared herself, my God I will follow You, I’ll follow your God, your God will be my God and so on, you often hear this in a wedding service, the moment that Ruth declares her allegiance to the God of Naomi, to the God of Israel, at that moment in God’s sight she ceases to be a Moabitess, because the word Moabitess in God’s mind has been identified with degeneracy, and if this lone girl declares her faith she is out from under this provision.

So, we can say that Solomon, when he marries an Egyptian is not either under any of these gods in the book of Deuteronomy, none of them strictly apply to Solomon’s marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh; so we can’t absolutely say it’s wrong. But from watching these two restrictions in the Law at least we can say this; that God expected foreign girls to declare their allegiance to the God of Israel; at least we can expect that.

All right, let’s turn back to 1 Kings 3 and see what Solomon didn’t do and what he was trying to do. In ancient times there was no such thing as international law, and therefore the way they bridged one country to another was to go back, out of the fourth divine institution, which had been fractured because divine institution five; divine institution five is the fracturing of history at the tower of Babel, it prevents them from being one-world government; basically Nimrod at the tower of Babel tried the first United Nations and failed, and all other United Nations schemes will fail for the same reason. It’s nothing that we have against the building, it’s a pretty building on the east side of Manhattan; it has a little apostasy when you walk in the door, one can’t bring a Bible in or talk about the Bible on its premises, yet on the side of the building there is Isaiah 2 about beating swords into plow shears. So with that little misappropriation of Scripture the U.N. today tries to do its thing and it isn’t really successful.

Well, divine institution four is never a successful unity system, and so in the ancient world divine institution two and three were used to bridge nations together; it is the intermarriage of the royal families. This has been followed all the way up into modern history in Europe where you have the intermarriage of the great royal families of Europe, leading, incidentally to hemophilia, leading to all sorts of genetic weaknesses because the royal families of Europe had so interbred among themselves.

Well, then we have this almost basic instinct among men to unify on the basis of marriage. Solomon, in verse 1, is entering into a unity pact with Egypt, so obviously he’s not doing this out of the fact that he loves Pharaoh’s daughter particularly; out of the fact that Pharaoh’s daughter may be a very attractive brilliant girl, good queen material, but nevertheless hasn’t really submitted to the Scriptures. Solomon isn’t basically interested in that; he’s interested in a treaty. Now why would Solomon be interested in a treaty? We can think of several reasons. Solomon knew the dangers and costs of war. So in place of war like his father had, Solomon wanted peace. Now everybody’s for peace, motherhood, etc. You can’t talk against those things, but one can debate how to get there. And Solomon makes this flaw in his career and he never gets over this. He tries to secure peace independently of trusting the Lord. David’s peace was secured by a proper appropriation of the basic promises of Scripture. If God wants this nation to rest in peace, God will provide it but God is not going to give us peace by some Mickey Mouse arrangement.

And this is the same thin that you saw beautifully portrayed in the film, MacArthur. MacArthur was the last man in our foreign policy that operated on the very strange assumption that government’s wars were to eradicate evil, uncompromisingly, that (quote) “there was to be no substitute for victory.” But on the other side his detractors insisted upon pragmatism; oh, what about the Russians, what about the Chinese. And when MacArthur wanted to bomb the Chinese bases because his poor boys… they didn’t show that scene in the MacArthur’s career, when the poor B-29 pilots were flying parallel to the Yalu River trying to bomb the south half of the bridges without spattering the north half of the bridge and all the while the slow flying B-29s were coming along parallel to the Yalu the Chinese from the other side were firing at them. And in the Tokyo hospital Doug MacArthur walked into a ward where there was some boys dying who had been shot and their bodies filled with shrapnel trying to fly B-29s down the Yalu bombing the southern half of the bridges. And one of the boys who was dying looked up to MacArthur and he said, “Who’s side is Washington on?” And Mac Arthur relates that he was almost ready to rip his stars off and quit in that situation. And later on that’s why he wanted to bomb Manchuria; that’s why he wanted to go.

It’s unfair and immoral to send boys into battle with bombing the southern half of bridges, like we sent

F-4 pilots into North Vietnam to bomb the yard in front of the hospital but one must not spray the hospital with machine gun fire because it has a big red cross painted on the top. Of course, when the F-4s made their passes and came in they noticed there were flashing muzzle, muzzle flashes coming out of the windows of this so-called hospital here. But one can’t attack the hospital; McGovern and Jane Fonda say no. And so therefore we lost many pilots because immorally they were sent into war trying to drop a target here while they’re being fired upon over here. The same thing. Now you don’t fight wars that way. You go in and you destroy the enemy, and that’s the way it is; that’s always the way it is. David understood that. Today we don’t.

Now Solomon doesn’t, and this is why Solomon has the idea that you get peace by talking about it. You never get peace by talking about it. Let’s observe some of the places in the world that are at peace. Canada and the United States have one of the longest unguarded boundaries in the world. Why are we at peace with Canada? Because we have fantastic treaties with them? Not at all. We have common interests with them. Our value systems are moving in the same direction and so there’s peace between the U.S. and Canada. We had all sorts of treaties before World War II involving Germany and Japan, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 being a key example. Did the Kellogg-Briand Pact stop war? No. War is never stopped by treaties; war is stopped only when an aggressor is halted by force. Now we are about to learn that in Europe; within about a year you will watch the Russians try to take eastern Europe; they’re gearing up for it, General Haig has told us that the latest exercises in Eastern Europe, the Russians are now using chemicals, studying the use of gases and so on. It’s just the 1930s all over again and here we go, off to the races. Why? Because nincompoops in high places do not understand the lessons of David. The Christian system has been kissed off and distorted.

Well, Solomon tried the same thing; he “made affinity with Pharaoh, king of Egypt,” and you know who his enemy was? For over 500 years, from 1440 until about 940, there’s five hundred years, for 500 years the state of Israel had peace with Egypt; not one trouble, not one. But then the moment Solomon goes to make a treaty with them, in 940-930 Pharaoh Shishak comes up and wipes them out. Now what did the treaty do? Absolutely nothing. But what else did the treaty do? Completely screwed up Israel. Now let’s watch what happens.

1 Kings 3:3, it says, “Solomon loved the LORD,” so he was a believer, he studied the Scriptures, like a lot of evangelicals do, but then Solomon had this attitude that some evangelicals have, oh, but one mustn’t let one’s faith spill over into the area of politics; after all, the Bible is neither left nor right, the Bible has nothing to say in the area of politics, which translated means the Bible is irrelevant because all of our life is involved with politics. And so Solomon insists upon loving the Lord, but then he sacrifices in high places, and that is a summary statement in verse 3. Verse 4 is a narrative statement. Verse 3 is a summary statement; in other words, even after the temple was built Solomon continued to serve in these high places. They were unauthorized places of worship. The high place in the Ancient Near East was the place where all the religions got together; it was the place for the first church, and you went there, you had the best of all possible worlds because if you didn’t like this grove and the orgies that they were having there you could go over to the next grove and they’d be having another different kind of orgy. Baalism, the worship of Molech, if you didn’t like your baby and you wanted to fry it you could come up to Molech and hold your baby over the fire while it sizzled, and beating of drums so you couldn’t hear the baby scream its heart out as it was burning to death, and you could worship that way if you pleased. But in the high places that was the place of X-rated religion in the ancient world.

So Solomon enjoyed going there for the rest of his career; fundamental disrespect for the bigotry and the narrowness of the Word of God that says you will worship where I tell you to worship. But Solomon couldn’t stand that. The place where he finally came, in Gibeon, in verse 5, prior to his prayer for wisdom was a place very famous in biblical history. If we had a quiz those of you who studied 2 Samuel with me ought to be able to tell something that happened at Gibeon. Remember when David was taking over the throne he sent twelve warriors to Gibeon at the pool, and he met the warriors from Ish-bosheth, and they killed each other at the pool, and it was a bloody milieu until finally David pulled it out of the fire. For years one wondered about that pool at Gibeon. Then archeologists began to do some work with the [sounds like: L Geeb] site six miles north of Jerusalem, and here’s what they found. I show this not so much because it’s Solomon but because I want you to see that when the Scripture say something happened generally you can trust the fact that it happened just the way the Bible says.

This is the general lay of the land just north of Jerusalem, it gives you some idea of the terrain; these are high places; these would be places where they would worship in the ancient world, sort of small hills. We are on a high place here looking over the valley and this is one of the famous roads in Israel, Beth Horon road. Now if you were standing looking this way, this is looking toward the northeast, and you were to do 180 degree turn you would see this and there is the pool of Gibeon. Of course, skeptics said it couldn’t be there but the pool didn’t know it so it went on being there all the time. So we have this section and this is the place where Solomon made his famous prayer. After the fight at Gibeon probably they had to have the pool to wash away the blood from the account that you get in 2 Samuel 2. J

1 Kings 3:5, “In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.” Now from this point on you have to interpret Solomon’s good points as being limited by his prior bad points. So let’s look at Solomon this way; his career is limited by an almost human viewpoint pragmatism that he has in his soul, that he hasn’t got rid of. God is going to bless him because God is a God of grace, God doesn’t expect perfection from us before he blesses us and God is going to bless Solomon with wisdom, and a great gift of wisdom at that. So the wisdom is a plus for Solomon but it has to be interpreted as being weakened and limited by his prior human viewpoint. He’s responsible to get rid of his own pragmatism. God will give him the spirit of wisdom, which he does, but God’s gift does not erase these weaknesses in his soul. Those are matters for sanctification.

Now a similar thing holds for you as a Christian. If you are born again and have trusted Christ God has invested something in you; He’s invested at least one spiritual gift. That isn’t related to your sanctification, directly. God could have given you the gift of helps; God could have given you a capacity to exhort other Christians. God could have given you the gift of teaching other believers. God could have given some of you men the gift of management. Whatever the gift may be, you can be out of fellowship or in fellowship and still use your gift. Being out of fellowship or in fellowship has nothing to do with your spiritual gift. Being sanctified has nothing to do with your spiritual gift. You can exercise your gift in a total unsanctified way; no problem, because the gift is an investment of capability. It is not the moral direction of your life. And so with Solomon, from verse 5 forward we have a gift of wisdom, but the gift can’t be interpreted as a sanctification leap for Solomon.

So the Lord asks him what he wants. And now Solomon makes the prayer, the famous one, [6] “And Solomon said, Thou hast showed unto thy servant David, my father, great mercy, according as he walked before Thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with Thee,” and so on. And in verse 7 he admits, “[And now, O LORD my God, Thou hast made Thy servant king instead of David, my father; and I but a little child,] I know not how to go out and come in. [8] And thy servant is in the midst of Thy people whom Thou hast chosen, a great people, who cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. [9] Give, therefore, Thy servant an understanding heart to judge Thy people [that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this Thy great people?]” Now God is going to answer that prayer but it’s going to be a limited answer.

Turn back to Deuteronomy 17, Solomon had his answer to part of that prayer and he didn’t have to pray the gift of wisdom. Keep in mind this prayer request is “Lord, I’m but a child, I don’t know how to come in or to go out. Now in Deuteronomy 17:18 it says, “And it shall be when he,” the king, “sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he will write himself a copy of this law in a book out of which is before the priests, the Levites; [19] And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them, [20] That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left; to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of the kingdom [Israel].”

So you see, his success as a king had already been declared back here in Deuteronomy 17. The issue was Solomon, if you want to know how to come in and go out, in the basic overall sense, study the Torah. So when God gives the gift of wisdom, that gift of wisdom is not equal to Deuteronomy 17; Deuteronomy 17 would be the divine viewpoint framework in his soul; the wisdom that is given to Solomon in 1 Kings 3 is not the divine viewpoint framework in his soul. What it is, is a cleverness as a manager. Now he can use that cleverness in evil directions, he can use that cleverness in godly directions but the cleverness itself isn’t moral; it’s amoral, it can be used in any direction. The moral training that Solomon ought to have married to his cleverness was the divine viewpoint framework in his soul and he didn’t get that because apparently he bailed out on a study of Scripture at some point in his career. Just how far he did can be found by reading the book of Ecclesiastes. So we find that Solomon was a brilliant person and if the book of Ecclesiastes, which he wrote as an introduction to human viewpoint, if that book is an example of his brilliance, brilliant is that man indeed, and he used his cleverness to completely unwind the structure of human viewpoint. But still he failed, because cleverness by itself can’t make a godly ruler.

And this is why in the famous judgment, 1 Kings 3:16 and following, “There came there two women who were whores,” one had a baby and the other one’s baby died and you remember the famous story, how he did this. That’s put in there to give you an illustration of his cleverness; it doesn’t involve a moral judgment, it involved insight into the women and their soul and their motherhood. But that, you won’t say is really moral wisdom, it’s just wisdom as to how women think about babies, and that can be used to manipulate the women or it can be used to edify the women, either way, it’s just cleverness. So you want to understand, in spite of all the hullabaloo of 1 Kings 3 and the fact that God is pleased that at least he asked for that, don’t interpret 1 Kings 3 absolutely; God is not absolutely pleased with Solomon. He is giving what Solomon asks within the constraints of Solomon’s position, spiritually in life.

All right, now the second incident occurs 1 Kings 3:10, back before the harlot incident. “And the speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing.” It pleases God because a ruler needs cleverness. Now true, he needs something besides it but at least he needs it. And God says, [11] “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for thyself long life; neither have asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but you have asked for understanding to discern judgment, [12] I have done according to thy words; lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, so that” and this is an historic point, “so that there was none like before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.”

Solomon was the universal man of his day. There never has been a man in history like Solomon. We don’t know all of Solomon’s achievements because man of them have disappeared with the dust of time, but if we had access to all of what Solomon had done we would be amazed. We think of Leonardo DaVinci, of the Renaissance, as probably Mr. Universal Man. Listen, Leonardo never held a candle to Solomon. Do you want to see what Solomon did, just as a quick summary. Turn to 1 Kings 4:29. Keep in mind, this is magnificent, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s just that by itself it’s incomplete.

In 1 Kings 4:29, “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding and exceeding much largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore. [30] And Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt.” And it describes certain men of the ancient world, men whose names have long since disappeared from the pages of known history. And verse 32, there’s his creativity. “And he spoke three thousand proverbs,” now a proverb is a very tight saying; if you study the book of Proverbs you can concentrate on one or two verses and you can read that three or four ways and every way is true. So it takes great skill to make a pithy statement into a proverb. Proverbs last; this is why you’ll find yourself, we have proverbial sayings in our English language and we use these again and again and again. The reason is because they are pithy; they are a very economic use of words to display ideas, kill two birds with one stone, these kind of sayings that we have. Why? Because it gets a great vast idea across.

Can you imagine trying to explain to someone who doesn’t know English, what does it mean to “kill two birds with one stone?” And here the guy belongs to the humane society, and immediately you’ve got a problem because you aren’t literally going out killing two birds with one stone. Well, the point is that it’s taken metaphorically and that’s the way these proverbs were. But to come up with a proverb is tough; maybe only proverb that is going to last is ever generated by, say, over a decade of time.

Well now look what Solomon did. He spoke three thousand proverbs; think of the creativity, the genius of condensing truth down. [32] “…and his songs were a thousand and five,” now that shows you his musical abilities and as music he could have it used for evil or he could use it for good. [33] He spoke of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of beasts…]” so there he’s studied trees and landscape. In fact, Ecclesiastes says he had his own landscape business. “…he spoke of the beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fish.” Here is zoology; he conducted a tremendous investigation of zoology and rated the animals. And guess what? He did it without the help of Charles D. [34] “And there came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth, who had heard his wisdom.” And it goes on to describe all the things that he did, the administration that he did. 1 Kings 5 describes how he organized the state.

So all of these are Solomon’s cleverness, but please notice, they are only cleverness; they’re nothing more than cleverness. Let’s watch his prayer of dedication in 1 Kings 8, we’ll see the same theme come up again. Here he prays this marvelous prayer to God dedicating the temple. He has made one of the great wonders of the ancient world. That temple, the stones of which you can go into Jerusalem today and look down in a big hole on the western side of what is now the modern temple complex in Israel, and they have lights all the way down this shaft, and you can look all the way down there and on the left side of that shaft there are those stones that Solomon carved, the very root of the temple of Solomon stands to this day, down buried under debris, but the stones stand. And as we stayed over that pit looking down there I just thought to myself as I thought so often, think of what those stones could tell us if they could talk. Those stones that you can reach down, if you could get down into the hole, it’s very deep, but if you could get down there those stones actually saw the Shekinah glory. Now think of what a story those stones could tell you; they saw Solomon, they saw the incidents happen that we read about in the Scriptures, and one day maybe we’ll see repeated for us in heaven. Those stones could tell a tremendous story.

Well, in this prayer of dedication of 1 Kings 8 he begins to pray this prayer and thank God for all the blessings and wants to dedicate the temple, but like the other passage we saw, before the passage begins there’s a minor note sounded in it all by the Holy Spirit; something’s off tune here. Look at 1 Kings 6:38 and 1 Kings 7:1. “And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts of it, and according to all the fashion of it. So was he seven years in building it.” And then the Holy Spirit adds a little note in 7:1, “But Solomon was building his own house thirteen years….” And so again there’s a minor key injected into this thing; all is not well with Solomon; clever yes, a heart for God like his father—huh-un, something’s different with Solomon.

Notice his prayer over in 1 Kings 8:23. [22] “And Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and he spread forth his hands toward heaven. [23] And he said, LORD God of Israel, no Go like Thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath, who keeps covenant and mercy with Thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart. [24] Who hast kept with Thy servant David, my father, that which You have promised him; You did speak with him with Thy mouth, and has fulfilled it with Your hand, as it is this day. [25] Therefore now, LORD God of Israel, keep with thy servant David, my father, that Thou promised him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel,” notice verse 26, “Now, O God of Israel, let Thy word, I pray thee, be verified, [which Thou did speak unto thy servant, David, my father.]”

And he goes on to describe, verse 31, he makes several prayer petitions, “If any man trespass against his neighbor, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house, [32] Then You hear in heaven, and do, and judge Thy servants…” Verse 33, another petition, “When Thy people in Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against Thee, and have shall turn again to Thee, and confess Thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto Thee in this house, [34] Then You hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy people….” Verse 35, “When the heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against Thee,” these are all, by the way, the five degrees of discipline mentioned in Leviticus 26. [36] “Then hear Thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy servants, and of Thy people, Israel, that Thou teach them the good way [in which they should walk, and give rain upon Thy land, which Thou hast given to Thy people for an inheritance.]” Verse 37, “If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blighting …. [39] Then hear in heaven… and so on.”

And finally, Verse 44, “If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, where You have sent them, and shall pray unto the LORD toward the city which Thou hast chosen… [45] “Hear in heaven…. [46] “If they sin against Thee (for there is no man that sinneth not), incidentally there’s a good verse when someone says that total depravity is a teaching of Paul; remember that one right here, “that Thou be angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives,” and this is talking about the exile, that they might be returned.”

Now this is a very tender soft spot here in criticism and I don’t want to be unduly harsh with Solomon, but if you compare this prayer, we just looked at it very spottily in the time that we’ve had, but if you look at this prayer carefully, and compare it with the prayers of his father you will see a subtle difference. In this prayer Solomon prays all things he ought to pray for as a ruler; he prays for this, that and the other thing for his country. He prays for the blessings of God, but lacking in this prayer and not lacking in the prayers of his father is simply the heart of the most simple believer who loves the Lord, the believer who is excited about God because He’s God; the simple faith of a Christian who is just two minutes old in the Lord; who knows God is there and God loves him. And there’s a wonder, and an interest in God because He’s God, not because He blesses, but just because He’s God; that element is missing in Solomon’s prayer.

Now we want to contrast that with his dad to make sure we see it. What is this thing that David had and his son never did have? Let’s turn to Psalm 63; that’s the Psalm we looked at a few Sunday nights ago when we began to study David. We only want to look at two verses in this Psalm; we’re going to use this as a device to define what we started with tonight. What is this mysterious quality that Solomon had that David didn’t, this focusing on the objective; this spiritual quality in his soul. What was that? Can we pin it down more?

Psalm 63:1, “O God, Thou art my God,” this is his father now, “early will I seek Thee;; my soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh longs for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” I said when we studied that verse that one has to remember it was this terrain [shows slides] that David was walking in all the time he prays this prayer. “…a dry and thirsty land,” these are just select shots of the wilderness area of Judea. Think of trudging across that with no canteen, with enemies, perhaps, in those hills. You never can get too close to the passes because you don’t know whether you’re going to be ambushed or not. But you have to keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, because they’re after you. Here’s on the road out from Jerusalem to Jericho; notice the great vegetation. Here is the wilderness of Judea.

So here we have the dry and thirsty land. What did it mean? It meant there were no resources there that sustained him. David knew that even in his wealth in Jerusalem, remember I said when we hit Psalm 63 before, when David got into Jerusalem he would still see Jerusalem as a dry and thirsty land; there wasn’t any water or food for his soul there. And he knew that the only thing that sustained his innermost soul wasn’t even a culture that he’d generated the divine viewpoint believer. Even cultists that David designed, with all the beautiful music, which we want; we want that culture, but the culture is a result of life, it doesn’t sustain life. It is a by-product of life. David, you see, in this focusing knew I have to see God in the depth of my soul. There has to be a union in my soul with Christ and I have to have that personal relationship or I dry up like that land.

Solomon dried up and never reached the objective of his father. Why did Solomon dry up? The genius and clever man that he was, the super Leonardo, why did he dry up? Because the simple truths of Psalm 63:1 had been bypassed in his soul. He cut the umbilical cord. David, in verse 1, demands a face to face fellowship with God independently of his professional accomplishments. Even if David wasn’t king he would still be saying verse 1. Verse 1 is independent of his state in life; verse 1 can be said and ought to be said by every single believer in Jesus Christ. You may think of yourself and visualize yourself as way down on the social ladder or way down on the intellectual ladder or way down on some other ladder of human manufacture. That doesn’t make any difference; Psalm 63:1 ought to be your slogan; I must seek God, I can’t build, even if I’m a Solomon, I can’t build unless this is right in my soul first.

The Puritans had this quality, statement I read by McCauley had within it this sub-statement, when he described the Puritan heart for God McCauley said this: “Those Puritans were not content with acknowledging in general terms an overriding providence; they habitually ascribed every events of the will of God for whose power nothing was too vast.” And then he concluded with this sentence, and I’ll read it very slowly. This is the same quality I’m getting at with Psalm 63:1; the same thing David had his son failed in. “Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the deity through an obscuring veil, the Puritans aspired to gaze full on His intolerable brightness, to commune with Him face to face.” The hunger for fellowship with God personally. Those of you who have been reading the Narnia series [can’t understand word]. The desire to go and look at God, see Aslan face to face, nothing else can compare with it.

There was a result in David’s life; it had some very interesting repercussions. You know Solomon, clever man though he was, if you look, as I have this week, at some of the things he states, read over his writings, even the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes and these other writings, Proverbs, it’s interesting that there’s a remarkable lack of joy. Now look at how Psalm 63 ends; verse 11, David, at the very basic most point of his spiritual life, “the king shall rejoice in God,” yes, he says the rest of verse 11 but his rejoicing is in God; he rejoices in God. Why? Because in the depths of his heart he has a personal relationship. There is subjectivity here and it’s good.

Now let’s apply this to ourselves here at Lubbock Bible Church. Let’s go back to certain basic things. We are, as a congregation, at the point where we’re beginning to see some results as far as Christian culture is concerned, that’s a mature expression. We’re seeing this in many, many different areas; we’ve having people speak out in various fields, various areas, we’re having young men gradually ascend through the business ladder and become productive, really productive and later on very influential men. And this is good. But we run a danger and this is a danger that the old fashioned fundamentalists always used to look at, and that’s what turned him to hate culture, because he would look at the Solomon’s and he would say yeah, there’s what your culture gets you, look at Solomon. Solomon doesn’t have to be… if Solomon had had his father, David’s heart, he would have had his culture and his spiritual life. But we are in danger of drifting in the same way Solomon is if we’re not careful, of going back to the basics and cultivating the personal relationship with Christ. And then letting the culture be the by-product of that personal relationship.

To make sure we understand this let’s turn to Psalm 37; we want to just look at some basic verses; verses which if you are a new Christian you ought to list these; list these as basic memory verses, verses that sometime very soon in your Christian career you ought to memorize. I don’t care what translation it is, maybe it can be your own translation but just get the verse memorized. These are key fundamental verses. And it’s come to my attention that we have people here in this congregation who can state doctrine and still haven’t mastered these simple things, and probably I’ve slipped as a teacher not to go back to these more often than I have.

Psalm 37:4-5, many of you older Christians have seen this again and again. Read it anyway. “Delight thyself also in the LORD, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” That’s talking about prayer petitions. The word “delight” means that which you ask; it’s the Hebrew word to ask and it means the petitions. If you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires; that’s not talking, as it is often interpreted, well, if God wants something He’ll put the desire in my heart. I’m not going to comment whether He does or not but verse 4 isn’t teaching that. Desires here means petitions.

Verse 5, “Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” It’s a very simple verse, a child can memorize that. But I tell you, those are very strengthening verses. You can add, if you wish turn to Proverbs 3, another classic verse, all you older Christians have known these, but anyway, just read them for one more time to remember. Proverbs 3:5-6, classic verse. Write these down so later on you can go back and memorize them; put them on a 3x5 card, carry them with you; just driving the car, you stop at enough stop lights in this city to memorize all of the first time you go out for a drive. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; lean not unto thine own understanding. [6] In all thy ways acknowledge Him,” or know Him, it’s not confess, the word acknowledge in verse 6 isn’t the word confess, it means to be sensitive to Him, “and He will direct thy paths.” See, there’s a key verse on diving guidance.

Let’s come on down to the New Testament, just simple basic verses. Matthew 6:33 this is the 2+2=4 of the Christian life. But you’re not going to go too far in calculus if you’re not sure that 2+2 is 4. Matthew 6:33, a classic reference. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” and then “all these things shall be added unto you.” Notice the priority, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” and then, “all these things shall be added unto you. Have a problem with idolatry in your life; memorize Matthew 6:33. Details of life very important to you to the point where you’re worrying, to the point where they have crowded out the Word of God? Relax in this promise.

Turn to Romans 8:28, yes, you’ve heard this a million times, look at it again. “We know all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose,” but notice the “all things,” in context; let your eye drift up to verse 27, verse 26, verse 25, verse 24, verse 23, what are the “all things” in the context? Suffering, adversities; so in particular Romans 8:28 is saying we know that all adversities work together for good; faced with a trial that seems to be getting you down; pressure seems insurmountable. What about memorizing and using Romans 8:28?

1 Corinthians 10:13, we’ve been over that, we made you read it responsively one night. But 1 Corinthians 10:13 is another one. This is most useful in the problem of sorting out responsibilities in your life. When something isn’t right and your conscience tells you something isn’t right, this is a useful verse. It’s also a useful verse when you get to the point where you’re just about ready to give up and begin to blame God for giving you a just completely unfair trial. Of course, I know that has never happened to any of you. “There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will with the temptation” or testing, you can read that either way, “will with the testing make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.”

Finally turn to 1 Peter 5:7, another verse when you’re fatigued, fatigued by mental concerns and worries. “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” You notice right after that verse there’s a warning. If you don’t do that, and if we fail to cast our care upon Him notice who’s waiting for us: “Be sober and be vigilant, because your adversary, Satan, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour.” Now the “care” of verse 7, the care of primarily the personal cares of the believer; yes, they are the cares about the nation, the cares about the city and so on, but they’re primarily cares about your personal life. And that’s the center of focus of this whole thing.

So David had focus, he got back always to the basics, the simple heart for God. Solomon didn’t. This should mean that in our areas in LBC we should get these promises down and use them. There should be a time when at least you can have some quiet time with God. Take a check, a temperature check, spiritually on your schedule. Is your schedule so crowded from morning till evening that there’s at least not even fifteen minutes when you can have some peace and quiet away from telephone, away from people, away from children, away from someone else, anybody that’s going to interfere with you? Do you have fifteen minutes of peace? If you don’t, you’d better. That is necessary for you just simply to be there to talk to God, just simple basic stuff.

And then the neglect of joint prayer; this is always the problem in every Christian group, but no matter when you have prayer meetings you will always have absenteeism. And you can even be sneaky, you can put the prayer meeting at the end of the Wednesday night service and people will leave early; you can put the prayer meeting at the beginning of the Wednesday night service and people come late. And then, as one person handed in a feedback card: would you please announce when the Wednesday night service begins; does it begin at 7:30, if it does then begin it at 7:30 or is it going to begin at 7:45 the way it has been, then we’d appreciate changing the schedule. My answer to you is that the Wednesday night service begins at 7:00 o’clock.

Let’s finally turn to a concluding passage in Philippians 4:4-7. Here is the result in your subjective soul life of going back to the basics, when you feel like okay, I’ve battled with the Word of God against human viewpoint here, I’ve battled with the Word of God versus human viewpoint there, and you come in as kind of naaanaah, casualty, because you’ve just been through the wars literally. There’s a place where you can kind of retreat and these verses describe it. “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say Rejoice.” Now that’s not talking about the joy, joy, joy kind of stuff; that’s talking about the basic mental attitude of happiness. “Rejoice in the Lord always; and I say, Rejoice.” No non-Christian can have this, go ahead and envy the non-Christian for all his accomplishments, but you’ve got something he can’t have; he can’t have this. He can’t rejoice in the Lord, he’s afraid of the Lord, he’s not going to even talk about Christ, it makes him uncomfortable to talk about Christ. But you cannot only talk about Christ, you can talk to Christ and you can not only talk to Christ you can rejoice in Him.

Philippians 4:5, “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. [6] Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. [7] “And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep” and the word “keep” is the Greek word to mean guard or protect, “the peace of God… shall protect your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” That’s what David had and that’s what Solomon didn’t have and the two stories of the two men show you the results in their careers.