1st, 2nd KINGS

(1047)KINGS; INTRODUCTION- There is no greater Old Testament king and dynasty than that of David. While there are many other types and symbols that point to Jesus [Moses, Joseph, etc.] yet the rule of David and the promises of God to him [raising up a son from his lineage with an endless life who will sit on the throne forever!] are directly related to the purposes of God for his church and the messianic fulfillment of Jesus and his kingdom. Kings was originally one book [1st and 2nd kings]. It was divided when the Septuagint was written [the Greek version of the Old Testament] and stayed divided in Jerome’s Latin vulgate. We will see the division of Israel as a nation [northern tribes-10, southern tribes-2] take place in this book. More time will be spent on the history of the northern tribes, possibly because they needed more prophetic correction, so the recorded words of the prophets are more prevalent in Israel’s history than Judah’s [Paul said to the Corinthians that it was needful for heresies to rise up among them, this gave opportunity to deal with problems that would be beneficial centuries later to all who would read the story!] We also see some practical stuff that applies to the present moment [2009]. The division of the kingdom will be spurred on by the immature decisions of Rehoboam to listen to the bad advice of inexperienced advisers, should I say more? I can’t stress enough the role that David’s dynasty played in the national psyche of Israel and her future hopes of a restored theocracy. In essence their entire national hope was based upon a restored Davidic kingdom that would usher in the Messiah and bring deliverance to the nation from her oppressors [Rome]. Herod the great, Rome’s political leader who oversaw Israel and her land under Roman rule, built the restored temple in hopes of being seen as the leader who would fill the shoes of the promised Davidic restorer. Though Herod was not Jewish, yet he adopted Jewish custom and law in an effort to be seen as the legitimate savior of Israel. Saint Augustine [the bishop of Hippo, North Africa] would later say ‘I would rather have been Herod's pig than his sons’. He would not eat his swine, but yet he would murder his own sons! Herod was a madman at heart. Well let’s cut this intro short and keep our eyes open as we see Jesus and his messianic kingdom in this story. The church herself will become the fulfillment of this future kingdom under the reign of Jesus as king over all the earth. The New Testament writers will eventually portray Jesus as being the present fulfillment of the promises of God made to David centuries ago, they saw the promises of God as being a presently fulfilled reality thru the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the Son of God. And his being seated at God’s right hand as the ultimate fulfillment of ascending to the throne.

(1048) 1st KINGS 1- David’s son, Adonijah, plots to take the kingdom and become king in his fathers place [after he would die]. He chooses a team of talented men to become his inner circle, he prepares chariots and gets a force together. David does not discourage him, he seems to be willing to let it slide. One problem, David’s son Solomon was chosen by God himself to be the next king. David’s key men, who were left out of the celebration ceremony that Adonijah threw for himself, realized that if they didn’t act quickly they would be left out in the cold. So Nathan tells Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba, to go in to the king and tell him about the problem. Nathan then will go in after her and also confirm the bad news. Note, Nathan was a powerful prophet, he was the one who faced David head on about the sin he committed when sleeping with Bathsheba and killing her husband. But David is old and sick, even if Nathan took the risk to confront him again in a ‘thus saith the lord’ type thing, there was no assurance that David would listen. Or worse, tell him he has had enough of his ‘prophetic ministry’ and take his head off! Nathan chose influence and common sense to get his point across, he was even a little deceptive in the way he planned it out. David then tells his men ‘go, anoint Solomon as king’ David’s men prevail and they quickly form a new team around Solomon. Zadok, Nathan and Benaiah will be the Prophet, Priest and military commander. Now word gets back to Adonijah that Solomon has been anointed by David, their party ends abruptly and Adonijah flees for his life. These men [Adonijah and his team] had real hopes and dreams for their new administration, but God had other plans. A few things; was Adonijah in total rebellion in doing what he did? Not really, he was fourth in line to the throne, above Solomon. Remember, the Old Testament puts special weight on this seniority thing! And David never discouraged the boy. It’s very possible that Adonijah thought he had the green light in this thing. Solomon will take the throne and though he will become famous for his wisdom, he will also be  pretty brutal in his first days as king. He quickly warns Adonijah and in the next chapter we will see him take swift and decisive action to route out his adversaries. I see a little too much personal ambition in Adonijah and his men. One of them was Joab, a great military leader with much experience. If you remember when we studied Samuel he also had his run ins with David. These men were playing party politics and positioning themselves for a ‘wonderful future’. The only problem was God wasn’t in it! I remember many years ago when a friend of mine ‘started a church’. He was quite a few years older than me, but still new ‘to the game’. He made the statement ‘God has now made all my dreams come true’. He innocently fell into the trap of seeing ministry and ‘church’ as some type of structure/business that God allows people to engage in, in order for them to ‘fulfill their dreams’. Adonijah and his men were excited about the launching of their new ‘career’s’ the wind went out of their sails when Gods ordained plan took precedence over their dreams.   

(1049) 1st KINGS 2-The best way to describe this chapter would be ‘Solomon practices shock and awe’. The young king is given the charge by his father David to settle some old scores. Was David being vindictive? No, he realized that there were experienced ‘politicos’ who knew how to manipulate things to their own advantage, and they would do it at the expense of ethics [note- after all I have seen and learned these last few months, I believe president Obama, though a good man himself, is surrounded by men like this. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is a political insider from Chicago, he has already been involved with all types of insider political intrigue that is corrupt at heart]. So David advises Solomon to eliminate these threats and Solomon surprises the opposing team by acting decisively. He even kills Joab while clinging to the ‘horns of the altar’. His brother, Adonijah, who tried to claim the kingdom first, Solomon kills him because he requested to have King David’s maid servant after his death. Basically Solomon cleaned house and knew he would make some enemies in the process. Leadership can be tough at times, you might deal with people who are problematic, everyone knows they need to be dealt with! Yet after you deal with them, you become the bad guy! I get a kick out of people who absolutely hate and oppose me, they sincerely believe our challenges in certain areas are wrong. Then a few years go by, they read and listen to our stuff, and walla! They now think we are on the cutting edge, maybe [to them] even at the top of the list of teaching and understanding. Why do I not get excited about stuff like this? If someone can go from thinking we are a cult to thinking we are one of the best teaching ministries around, who in the heck knows where they will be in another year or two? Now don’t get me wrong, I am glad they came around, but I can’t put a whole lotta stock in this. Now, I have had friends who have been with us for years. To be honest, some of the stuff I teach is over their heads. But they were fruit from the basic years of outreach and evangelism. They identify me with the time in their lives where they were reached with the gospel. Times when I spent many hours helping them on their journey. These brothers are faithful and stick with us out of brotherhood. Solomon knew the difference, he was willing to sacrifice talent [Joab] and stick with those who would be loyal. [Note- sometimes you choose talent over loyalty. That is people do need to be able to handle the job, the point is if you can’t trust people, it doesn’t matter how talented they are, things won’t go well for you or the team that is depending on them]

(1050)1st KINGS 3:1-15 this is a prophetic chapter, Solomon goes to Gibeon to offer on ‘the great altar’. What is the great altar? There is a remote verse [somewhere in the Old Testament- I didn’t look it up] that says Moses tabernacle is located at Gibeon. How it got there we don’t know, but the picture is important. The tabernacle of Moses represents the Old Covenant [law], during David’s rule the Ark of the covenant that was stolen, David retrieves it and places it at Jerusalem [the tent that he puts it under is called the Tabernacle of David- a type of the new covenant people who have free access to God, no more veil!] So Solomon more than likely sacrificed at Gibeon [picturing the Old Covenant] and then has the famous dream where God appears to him and he asks for wisdom. This ‘dream’ can be a type of death. Jesus referred to death as ‘sleeping’ Paul too. So after ‘the dream’ [death] he goes to Jerusalem and is at the place of the Ark [a type of Gods presence, it was not in Moses tabernacle, but under the tent that David set up] and eventually the remnants of Moses tabernacle [at Gibeon] will be joined to the Ark [at Jerusalem] and there will be ‘one new temple’ [Ephesians speaks of the 2 becoming one in Christ, both Jew and Gentile]. So under Solomon’s rule [a type of Christ] we have the joining of the Old Covenant people of God along with the Gentile church. Jesus did not forsake his ‘people that he foreknew’ [Romans] but thru his death he took away the ‘law of commandments contained in ordinances and nailed them to his Cross’ [Colossians, Ephesians] thus removing the enmity and making in himself ‘one new man’. Solomon was definitely prophetic! [see 2nd Samuel study, chapter 7- entry 923]

(1051) 1st KINGS 3: 16-28 Now to the famous story. Two women [harlots] come to Solomon with a problem. They both had children within a few days of each other, and one night one of the babies died. The other woman woke up and had the dead baby with her, but after she looked at it she realized it wasn’t hers. The real mother of the dead child did a swap at night. So as they are pleading their case to the king, they both claim that the living child is theirs. So Solomon calls for a sword, they bring him the sword and he tells his men ‘take the baby and divide it in two, give half to each mom’ sounds fair enough. Of course the real mom says ‘no, don’t divide it. Give the baby to her’ and the fake mom says ‘no, divide it!’ Ahh! Got ya. Solomon says ‘give the child to the one who did not want to divide it, the child belongs to her’. A few things, it just so happened that the last book we studied was Ecclesiastes, I didn’t plan it like that, it just ‘happened’. Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon. One of the verses I didn’t cover says Solomon wrote on all types of subjects and put together three thousand proverbs. Proverbs are short, concise bits/nuggets of wisdom that get the point across in a nutshell. While there are times when you need to read large volumes and stuff, yet wisdom allows you to cover a lot of content in a little space. In this case Solomon used his wisdom to quickly come to a conclusion that could not be refuted; Jesus did stuff like this with his parables. Notice also that after the judgment was made, there really was no ‘if, ands or buts’ about it. He was right and that settled it. I still have old preacher friends who can’t discern the most basic stuff. Now, I don't want to be mean or condescending, but there comes a time where things are right or wrong. Many years ago I taught how leaders were making a serious mistake when they grasped on to the prosperity interpretation of Jesus parable of the sower [read the chapter ‘twisting the parable of the sower’ in the book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ on this site]. Basically many preachers, good men, were going around and teaching that Jesus was speaking about getting a huge harvest of cash. In the parable Jesus says one of the things that hinders the full harvest is ‘the deceitfulness of riches’, so I taught how Jesus was not saying ‘the deceitfulness of riches is holding back the cash’. Now, this is really elementary stuff, but some preachers still can’t discern this, after 20years! There comes a time when Solomon [Jesus] sends a judgment forth, and we ultimately become responsible for what we do with it. In this case, one of the ladies was right the other wrong. Solomon plainly told us who was telling the truth. [note- the other day as I was flipping channels, I stopped at a ‘prophetic’ brother who I haven’t watched in a while. In the past he has had some good words that were right on. But I felt that too many ‘prophecies’ were going forth on a yearly basis that were not really accomplishing anything ‘this year is the year of increase, Rebuke the demon of poverty’ stuff that was being repeated over and over hundreds of times, and yet the word of God was not being taught. Well on the program I tuned in on, the brother was saying how all the media complaints about Sarah Palin's expensive wardrobe were ridiculous [I agree] but then he said that it was nothing but a ‘spirit of poverty’ that needed to be rebuked. Are there ‘spirits/demons of poverty’ no. At least we see no cases of Jesus casting out spirits of poverty in scripture. There comes a time when preachers/media outlets need to return to a sober message of the Cross. I believe in prophecy and miracles and have experienced many of these types of things over the years, but we need to stop being silly with some of this stuff.

(1052) 1st KINGS 4- ‘And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness [generous] of heart…and his wisdom was greater than all the children of the east and Egypt…and all the people and the kings of the earth [gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising] came to hear the wisdom of Solomon’- In this chapter we read of the tremendous storehouse of goods and resources that God gave to Solomon. His wisdom was in many areas, not just ‘theology’! He was a true Renaissance man. Before the reformation and the ‘enlightenment’ you had the Renaissance period. For many years the wisdom and knowledge that prevailed in early Greco-Roman society was lost/hidden from the public. Through process of time and events [like the crusades] some of these hidden resources of knowledge were re-discovered and the world went thru a renewal period in wisdom and philosophy. It was thanks to the catholic churches preserving of these early works [Monks and monasteries] that would later lead to them being recovered. Now, even though these works were recovered, they weren’t readily available to the general public on a wide scale. You simply did not have the tools [internet/public libraries in abundance] to disseminate the information at large, but you did have men who became educated in these areas and they were the ‘renaissance men’. Sort of like walking libraries of wisdom, ‘Solomon’s’ if you will. Solomon wrote and studied on all sorts of subjects, he did not limit himself to one field only. Often times in the area of ‘full time preaching’ we send kids off to college [okay] and they get an education that only applies to one field [full time ministry]. I think it would be better if all the ‘preachers’ became well rounded in many practical areas of learning, getting skills in various areas [Paul-tent making] that would enable them to  transition when reformation happens [like the current challenge on church practices and the full time pastoral office. Many sincere men are too dependant on their jobs as full time ministers to seriously reconsider the scriptural grounds for their  office]. So Solomon was the type of brother who could converse with you in all types of fields. Many of the world’s greatest  scientists/mathematicians were Christians, a common mistake is to think the scientific revolution was launched by anti religious men, this is simply not true. A careful study of history would show you that the majority of the great scientific minds were products of the church. It was common to major in theology and use that field of study as the foundation for all the other fields of learning. Jesus said of Solomon that kings and queens went out of their way to hear the wisdom of Solomon [the Warren Buffet of his day] but yet a greater than Solomon was here! [speaking of himself]

(1053)1ST KINGS 5-Solomon contracts with Hiram, king of Tyre, to supply Cedar wood and trees for the construction of the temple. He also raises up a mighty labor force who will work in 3 shifts, one month in the forest and two months back home. They helped cut down and deliver the logs on rafts back to Solomon. He has a massive labor force of stone cutters as well, they are cutting stone for the foundation of the temple. Like I said in a previous chapter, the temple is a picture of both the Old Covenant [law] and the new gentile church uniting as ‘one new man’ in Christ. Though the temple is basically a large scale replica of the Mosaic tabernacle, yet the only actual piece of furniture that makes in into the temple is the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark represents Gods presence, in the New Testament we see that Gods Spirit and presence left the Old law system [as typified by the temple- Hebrews] and ‘entered’ into the new temple, made up of both Jew and Gentile believers! [Ephesians]. Solomon was wise enough to realize that he personally did not possess all the skills to accomplish the mission, he knew how to hire other skilled people to help with the completion of the task. In ministry we often try and accomplish too much through the personal attributes/gifts of the leader. One of the plagues on the Body of Christ today is the American system of entrepreneurial church, we seem to exalt the personalities and gifts of the main leader at the expense of the functioning of the people of God. Though many good men are involved with this system, yet we need to transition to a place where we understand that in Christ’s church he uses many gifted people in various ways to build his temple [the people of God].This chapter says God gave Solomon ‘peace on every side, he had no adversaries nor evil occurrence’. Scripture says when a mans ways please the Lord he makes even his adversaries to be at peace with him. God gave Solomon a season of peace and rest, not for the purpose of sitting back and resting on his laurels, but for the purpose of building his kingdom. Solomon walked ‘while he had the light’ [he took advantage of the window of opportunity that God put before him].

(1054) 1st KINGS 6 ‘CONCERNING THIS HOUSE WHICH THOU ART IN BUILDING, IF THOU WILT WALK IN MY STATUTES, AND EXECUTE MY JUDGMENTS, AND KEEP ALL MY COMMANDMENTS TO WALK IN THEM; THEN WILL I PERORM MY WORD WITH THEE, WHICH I SPAKE UNTO DAVID THY FATHER’ [verse 12] Part of the promise of God to David was he would set up a son, from his natural heritage, that would take an everlasting throne. God would be faithful to his part of the bargain as long as his son walked in obedience, ultimately these promises would be fulfilled thru Christ. We can also apply them to our lives as well, we are all ‘building a house’ in a sense. Jesus said those who heard his words and did them were like those building on a sure foundation, those who ‘heard only’ were building on sand. I find it interesting that many of us seem to think that gathering one day a week to ‘hear words’ is what God requires, in a sense we have become professional hearers! [and speakers] As you relate to the house you are building, seek the Lord for wisdom and insight into how you should build. God gave Moses specific directions in the building of the tabernacle; these are the same blueprints Solomon used, only on a larger scale. Solomon did not have to get ‘another blueprint’ he simply needed to be faithful to what the Lord already revealed. Recently in the ‘church world’ we had the passing of two good men; Avery Dulles and John Neuhouse [spelling?] If I remember right, Avery Dulles said that he was no innovator, he would not be known for his new ideas, but he was just a faithful servant in Christ’s church. I liked that, we too often want to find ‘new blueprints’ sometimes the Lord is simply looking for those who will hear and obey. [Both Avery and John were Catholic’s involved in the evangelical/catholic alliance]

(1055) 1ST KINGS 7- We have more details of what went into the building of the temple. The ‘foundation stones’ were large and costly. Remember, Solomon was said to have ‘largeness of heart’. In the New Testament the Apostles are called the foundation stones of Gods spiritual temple. Peter calls us living stones. Let’s do a little house cleaning; in all areas of church renewal/reformation, we need to be careful when handling the foundation stones. In some efforts to reform [Emergent] there is an attempt to return to the teachings of Jesus, as opposed to Paul. The problem with this effort is the historic church [and scripture!] teach us that Jesus appeared to Paul [Acts 9] and told him he would be a witness of the things that Jesus would reveal to him. So if the revelation/teaching from Paul on the atonement and the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, if these teachings are things that were shown to Paul from Jesus himself [which I believe they were] then to ignore them would be like removing the ‘foundation stones’ of the temple. These are ‘large stones’ [doctrines accepted across the broad stream of Christian churches; Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Radical Reformers, etc...] large stones that form the foundation of all Christian truth, C.S. Lewis’s ‘common hall’ if you will [though Lewis himself said some shaky stuff on the atonement]. I want to restate that we sometimes confuse the foundational doctrines of Christianity with the limited practices of Christianity that have developed over the centuries. We need to understand/embrace the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’ while at the same time being flexible in the various structures that Christians have developed over the centuries to express their faith. As we challenge ‘high church’ [liturgical] structures, we need to be careful that we are not also challenging the heart of the gospel as well. I have heard/read too many statements from certain reformers that are way too pluralistic in their expression of the gospel. Denials of the Cross being the key mechanism that God chose to use to redeem man [foundation stones!] Or the mistake of thinking that the Cross was simply a display of the injustices of man, a challenge to unjust governments oppressing men. While the apostle Peter does teach us that the Cross was a display/example left to us on how we should react to suffering and oppression, yet it wasn’t ONLY that. It was also a redemptive sacrifice made on the behalf of sinful men; ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ [Corinthians]. Well, lets just keep in mind that as God’s ‘living temple’ we are being built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets [Ephesians] Jesus himself being the ‘chief corner stone’, be careful when messing with the stones!