Participants: Pr. Doug Batchelor
Series Code: EG
Program Code: EG002847
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00:09 It's been 2000 years since the glorious light of the cross
00:12 illuminated a world veiled in darkness and confusion about the 00:16 character of God and still today the greatest need of mankind is 00:20 a revelation of God's love as revealed in the life of Christ. 00:24 Amazing Facts presents the Everlasting Gospel with Pastor 00:27 Doug Batchelor coming to you each week from Sacramento 00:31 Central Church in Sunny California. Discover hidden 00:34 treasures in God's word today. 00:36 This is the second part in a multi-part series we're going 00:43 to be doing on the character of Solomon in the Bible. 00:46 We introduced him last week and today we're going to be into 00:51 Part II dealing with Solomon. More specifically the wisdom of 00:56 Solomon and that's what people often think about when they hear 01:01 about Solomon is this wise king. How many of you wouldn't mind 01:07 sharing that you had your wisdom teeth removed? 01:10 Look at that. That just lowered the collective IQ in our whole 01:18 audience here, right? Where do wisdom teeth get the name? 01:23 Well they're the last of your back molars to come in. Some 01:27 actually never get them. Most do. They have a tendency to 01:31 crowd your mouth a little bit and can compress teeth and 01:34 that's why we often have them removed. I want to go on record. 01:37 I've still got mine and that's why I'm the senior pastor. 01:43 But somewhere between 17 and 21 you get your wisdom teeth and 01:48 they used to say when someone did something foolish, 01:50 or said something foolish, they'd 01:52 say well he hasn't cut his wisdom teeth yet meaning he 01:55 hasn't lived long enough to have experience because usually in 01:59 that range you start to get some experience. You know they say 02:03 your car insurance doesn't go down until you get to be about 02:07 25 and that's because they notice that there's a high 02:11 incidence of accidents and problems, a little recklessness 02:16 but you start to be a little more cautious, a little more 02:20 mellow. Things stabilize a little bit. A little more wisdom 02:23 and responsibility at 25 and often the insurance rates go 02:28 down about that time. This is right about the age of Solomon 02:33 when he begins to reign. Now as we return to our story you'll 02:38 remember that just before David died he did something very 02:42 unusual. Often a king would die and then they would coronate 02:47 the next king. But Solomon sat down to reign while David was 02:53 still alive. So for a while there you had the father and the 02:58 son. You had King David alive and he's still king but then 03:02 you've got the son reigning and it makes us think of when Jesus 03:06 went to heaven and he was exalted at the right hand of 03:09 the Father, the two really Kings I mean if Jesus is the King of 03:13 Kings, then what's the Father? You know what I'm saying? 03:16 And so you've got a little picture in the Bible of that 03:20 happening. But David was aged at this point, his health was 03:24 failing. But they coronated Solomon as king, the first time 03:28 because Adonijah was trying to kidnap the kingdom. But they 03:32 did it a second time. It says in I Kings chapter 2 verse 46 that 03:38 the kingdom was established in Solomon. The kingdom was 03:42 established. Now a few things happened for him to establish 03:48 himself as king. I Chronicles 29:22: It says so they ate and 03:53 they drank before the king with great gladness on that day and 03:58 they made Solomon the son of David king the second time and 04:03 anointed him before the Lord to be the leader and Zadok the 04:08 priest anointed twice. You know Jesus the Son of David was 04:13 anointed twice. He was anointed at the beginning of his ministry 04:19 and then he was anointed just before his death, anointed by 04:24 the Holy Spirit during his baptism. He was anointed by Mary 04:29 and Jesus said for his burial. Just anointed both by that 04:34 fragrant ointment and anointed by her tears. A baptism in 04:40 sorrow you might say. Solomon was anointed a second time just 04:44 before the death of David. So it's interesting that there were 04:49 those two anointings there. And then you read in I Chronicles 29 04:53 You know when you read the story of Solomon you've got to hop 04:56 around between Kings and Chronicles and even a few other 05:00 verses to piece together the history. I Chronicles 29:23: 05:04 Then Solomon sat upon the throne of the Lord as king. The throne 05:11 of who? It says he sat on the throne of the Lord. When a king 05:17 over God's people reigns, who owns the throne? The throne of 05:22 the Lord. When you are given a position of responsibility in 05:28 God's service, who owns the position? It's a big, big step 05:33 in the right direction if you can remember that everything 05:36 that you have comes from God; any gift of ministry, any 05:40 service that you have, any responsibility in God's service, 05:45 it belongs to God. It's not your position. Our position here as 05:51 pastors, they are God's positions. And by the way, you 05:53 treat it a lot more carefully when you realize that. If you're 05:56 a parent and you've got children they're his children. All things 05:59 belong to God. So here they identified it as the throne of 06:03 the Lord as King instead of as David his father. And he 06:08 prospered and all Israel obeyed him. Now that didn't come 06:13 without a little struggle at the beginning. Shortly after David 06:17 died, and we read about the last words of David last week, 06:21 Adonijah his brother who had tried to take the kingdom while 06:25 David was still alive, he must have had a back-room meeting 06:29 once again with Abiathar and Joab, and they said David's dead 06:33 now. Solomon's young. You know if we're careful, we can 06:36 probably orchestrate things where we can have a coup and 06:39 and take over. Tell you what I'm going to do. I need to have some 06:44 kind of recognized authority from David because David has 06:46 died now. You know David never really slept with his wife 06:49 Abishag and she's really pretty. I'll ask Bathsheba if she'll go 06:54 to Solomon, he won't tell his mother no, and see if I can 06:58 marry Abishag. And if I've got King David's former wife, it 07:02 gives me more credibility. That will set the stage and then we 07:05 will have a coup. Joab you can take care of Benaiah and 07:09 Abiathar you can get rid of Zadok the priest and we'll be 07:13 the new leadership of the kingdom. Solomon's too young. 07:16 He doesn't know what he's doing. So they tested his strength. 07:22 And Adonijah went to Bathsheba and he said... she was a little 07:27 worried about him because she almost had her son killed 07:30 because of Adonijah. He said, I need to ask you a favor. I know 07:33 that Solomon has been chosen to be king but could you do me a 07:36 favor and just go to the king and see if it would be okay if 07:39 I could have Abishag as wife. Now at this point Solomon 07:44 doesn't even have a wife yet. And so Solomon already was 07:49 pretty bright in his own right. Bathsheba went to him and he 07:54 said why do you ask for Abishag for Adonijah. Why don't you ask 07:58 for the kingdom, he said to his mother, because I see what he's 08:02 really up to. And right then he had a little house cleaning. 08:06 You know it's often true when someone comes into power you 08:10 need to establish who is loyal and you need to get rid of those 08:13 who are not loyal because you'll never get rooted in your 08:19 position. So Adonijah was slain by Benaiah the general. Joab 08:24 fled to the temple, you remember and Solomon said you better slay 08:29 him there. Joab, that general who had followed David from 08:32 beginning to end. He had also killed a couple of innocent men 08:37 along the way. He was slain and Abiathar the priest... Solomon 08:40 remember that a curse came on King Saul because he killed the 08:43 priests of the Lord. He said, I'm not going to kill you but 08:46 you're going to be banished. You've got to go to your country 08:49 home and you'd better live out your days there. So he got rid 08:52 of that little trilogy of one of the sons of David and another 08:56 false religious leader and a false military leader. You know 08:59 those are the three elements of strong government. You've got 09:02 the political, you've got the military, you've got the 09:04 spiritual. Have you ever played chess? You've got all those 09:08 pieces don't you? And so when he then had loyalty in that area 09:12 and the people saw that he was willing to kill his own brother 09:16 and the old general in order to have loyalty to David's choice, 09:20 everybody sat up and paid attention and said Solomon is 09:25 king. I'm continuing in I Chronicles 29, you notice, all 09:30 Israel obeyed him. All the leaders and the mighty men, also 09:35 all of the kings sons. All the other sons of David. He had a 09:40 lot of other sons besides Adonijah. They all said, you 09:44 might be our brother but you're our king. By the way, Jesus is 09:48 our brother isn't he? But don't forget, he's your friend, but 09:52 don't forget, he's your King. And that relationship is one 09:55 that we don't want to make subservient to the others and be 09:59 disrespectful. Well then you read on. Go with me to I Kings. 10:03 We're going to spend some time here. I Kings chapter 3 verse 1: 10:09 Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh of Egypt and he married 10:14 Pharaoh's daughter. Now this is one of the first things Solomon 10:20 does that begins to raise a flag He gets a wife from Egypt. But 10:24 there's even a spiritual lesson in this. Now I don't think that 10:27 Solomon went down to the Pharaoh and said you know you've got a 10:30 really pretty daughter. Can I marry her? What happened is they 10:33 corresponded. They said what kind of treaty can we have 10:36 between our kingdoms that it will be better for our people, 10:38 it will better for trade and the economy and it was very common 10:42 back then to affect the treaty that the king would give either 10:46 the daughter of the priest, that's what happened with 10:49 Joseph, the daughter of the priest was given, or the 10:52 the daughter of the king if he had one. And the king had, I 10:55 guess, a beautiful, qualified daughter. But one reason they 10:59 did this was because Solomon knew that he was married to 11:02 Pharaoh's daughter, Solomon's children are Pharaoh's 11:06 grandchildren. It's really hard to attack and kill your own 11:10 grandchildren. And so it just preserves a little bit of family 11:14 at piece in the kingdom through those similarities. Now there's 11:18 something else here that's a spiritual... And by the way, 11:22 Probably the Pharaoh offered his daughter. I don't think that 11:25 Solomon came up with the idea. And Solomon saw it would be a 11:28 good strategic thing to do. Showing signs of political 11:33 wisdom already. So he brings his wife out of Egypt into the 11:37 promised land. Does that sound familiar. Did Abraham have a 11:42 wife that came out of Egypt? What was her name? Hagar. 11:49 Did Joseph have a wife that came from Egypt? Yeah. And what about 11:56 God? Did God bring a wife out of Egypt? Where was Israel really 12:02 born as a nation? Where did they multiply into national status? 12:09 When they went down to Egypt then they were exceeding 12:13 fruitful and they multiplied greatly. And God brought his 12:16 bride and his church out of Egypt to the Promised Land. 12:20 So here you've got Solomon the son of David bringing his wife 12:24 out of Egypt into the Promised Land. You got that? A lot of 12:27 similarities I've been sharing between Solomon and Christ 12:29 that I wanted you to consider. Did Jesus come out of Egypt into 12:34 the Promised Land when he was young. The Bible says, I have 12:39 called my Son out of Egypt. Now you go on here in I Kings 12:43 chapter 3, you read in verse 2: It says, Meanwhile the people 12:48 sacrificed at the high places. Now I've got to talk about this. 12:52 When Solomon first came into power they didn't have a temple 12:56 yet. We'll probably in our next study focus more on Solomon 13:01 building the temple. It's a fascinating study. When they 13:05 came into the land of Israel the countryside was littered 13:09 with shrines in hills and groves where they worshiped their pagan 13:13 deities. And some of these were beautiful gardens. They were on 13:17 top of the hill, they had big flat marble platforms where 13:20 they would offer to their pagan Gods, sometimes even human 13:23 sacrifice, and they were surrounded with groves and 13:25 evergreen trees. God had told them to destroy these places of 13:30 worship because he did not want their worship confused or 13:34 polluted by pagan worship. You know we do that in our culture 13:38 sometimes. It's real easy. There are all kinds of false things 13:42 that are done in a pagan culture of worship. You've got to be 13:46 careful not to comingle the worship of the true God with 13:51 cultural, traditional pagan worship. And I won't use any 13:55 specifics of that right now but I think you'll be able to figure 13:58 out how to apply that. And so it says Solomon loved the Lord 14:02 walking in the commandments of David his father, except... now 14:05 don't forget that. Matter of fact, I've got it highlighted in 14:08 my Bible. Solomon loved the Lord. When he started out he 14:14 loved the Lord except that he sacrificed and burnt incense at 14:18 the high places. See he loved the Lord but they had no temple 14:21 yet. The tabernacle was still parked on one of the high places 14:26 in Gibeon where they'd moved it during the time of King David 14:30 and this is that old tattered tabernacle that had been 14:33 through the wilderness wandering 40 years and now through the 14:36 time of judges and the time of Saul and the time of David. 14:41 It's starting to look like a very old place of worship and 14:46 so... By the way, the ark was not in the tabernacle at that 14:51 time. David had pitched a tent for the ark in Jerusalem. So the 14:55 tabernacle had the altar of incense and that's why he was so 14:59 anxious that they build a temple in Jerusalem to be the home of 15:04 the ark. Solomon loved the Lord except he sacrificed and burnt 15:08 incense on the high places. Now you read in Deuteronomy 12 15:13 verse 2: You shall utterly destroy all the places where the 15:17 nations which you dispossess serve their Gods on the high 15:21 mountains and on the hills. So you see that's why it's saying 15:25 except he still was on the high places. Moses had said they 15:29 should not do that... Under every green tree but you will 15:34 seek the place... where were the children of Israel supposed to 15:37 sacrifice? Moses said, you will seek the place where the Lord 15:41 your God chooses out of all your tribes to put his name as a 15:44 dwelling place and there you shall go. Well God had chosen 15:47 Jerusalem. That's why David had made a provision to build the 15:51 temple, but it wasn't built yet so Solomon went to Gibeon and 15:54 he was praying and worshipping God there. Now go with me to 15:59 I Kings. We're going to read quite a bit here. Verse 4: He 16:03 went to Gibeon to sacrifice there for that was the great 16:06 high place. And Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on 16:11 the altar. It's the altar of the Lord. Except at the old location 16:16 where some pagan deity had been honored. A thousand burnt 16:22 offerings. Was that required? Why a thousand? Is that wasteful 16:29 That's sort of like Mary pouring her lavish gift on Jesus and 16:35 Judas criticized her; that's too much, it's wasteful. Now Jesus 16:40 said, No any sacrifice you give to God is not too much. God 16:45 honored him. He loved the Lord. That's why he did it. Why do we 16:49 give, why do we sacrifice? Because we love the Lord. 16:52 And after he makes his sacrifice he returns. He's there at 16:58 Gibeon and it says he's sleeping and the Lord appeared to Solomon 17:02 in a dream by night. Now this is not a normal dream. This is 17:05 one of those dreams that is a vision from God. It's the three 17:10 dimensional dream. Maybe you've never had one. And God said, Ask 17:14 what I shall give you. Now that's a pretty tall order. 17:20 What do you ask for if God said what do you want? What do 17:25 you really want? What would you ask for? Well people, you know, 17:31 if you ask someone that question they usually automatically like 17:36 a compass needle they go to whatever the most pressing need 17:39 is. If you've got a terrible back ache and someone says 17:42 what do you want, you say pain reliever, a healed back. 17:45 If you've got a child that's in jail and someone says what do 17:50 you want, I want my child to be free. Wherever the itch is, 17:54 that's where you scratch. Where was the itch for Solomon right 17:59 then? He was this young man, had several older brothers, 18:03 you've got to follow David as king. Talk about being a hard 18:10 act to follow. I mean, can you imagine how Elisha felt when he 18:16 was going to follow Elijah. I mean here you've got this 18:19 prophet who talks to God, he prays and fire comes down, he 18:23 prays and it pours rain after a famine. Birds feed him from 18:27 heaven and you're supposed to step into his shoes. So what did 18:32 Elisha ask for? He said I want a double portion of your spirit. 18:36 How else can I step into your shoes. So God says what do you 18:43 want? What did he want? He wanted the Holy Spirit. Wisdom 18:48 is one of the gifts of the Spirit. Now listen here. And 18:53 Solomon said, notice this, take a pencil or pen if you mark in 18:59 your Bible and circle how often it says you. And Solomon said, 19:04 here's his answer when God says what do you want. You have 19:09 shown great mercy to your servant, David, my father. 19:13 Because he walked before you in truth and righteousness and 19:16 uprightness of heart, with you, you, he's speaking to the Lord, 19:20 have continued this great kindness for him. You have given 19:23 him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day. He doesn't 19:27 even mention his name, he just says a son. Now, O Lord my God, 19:30 you have made your servant... how does he refer to himself? 19:36 Servant... King instead of my father David, but I am just a 19:42 little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. You know, 19:47 one of the first things in obtaining real wisdom is knowing 19:51 what you don't know. You can't teach somebody that knows 19:55 everything. And one reason God could bestow so much wisdom on 20:00 Solomon is because you can't fill a full vessel. He was 20:05 humble. He realized he was just a little child. He realized he 20:09 was inadequate. He realized without God he could do nothing. 20:14 We believe he was probably under 30, somewhere around 25 is a 20:20 guess. I am just a little child. I do not know how to go out or 20:25 come in. When William McKinley was inaugurated as President 20:31 part of his presidential address was he cited this statement from 20:34 Solomon. He said, Oh Lord give me wisdom for I am just a child 20:38 and I don't know how to go out and come in. It takes humility 20:42 to admit that... Over this your people. And your servant is in 20:46 the midst of your people who you have chosen, a great people, too 20:50 numerous to be counted. Had God fulfilled his promise to Abraham 20:54 that the people would be like the sand of the sea? Therefore 20:59 give your servant an understanding heart 21:02 to judge your people that I might discern between good and 21:07 evil for who is able to judge this great people of yours. Who 21:12 is worthy of this? He said, I can't do it, so give me an 21:17 understanding heart. Now in I Kings here, chapter 3, he 21:21 never really said wisdom. But in Chronicles, you read in 21:25 II Chronicles 1 verse 10, it's a parallel passage, he says now 21:30 give me wisdom and knowledge that I might go out and come in 21:35 before this people for who can judge this great people of yours 21:39 He had humility in his heart. Why could God answer his prayer? 21:43 Because he was humble. How many of you would like more wisdom? 21:47 We're going to talk about that today. What's one of the first 21:51 criteria to having the wisdom of God? It comes from Solomon. 21:55 Listen to what he says in Proverbs 15:33: The fear of the 21:59 Lord is the instruction of wisdom, here you go, and before 22:03 honor is humility. If you want to be honored with the wisdom of 22:09 God, first you've got to know how much you don't know. 22:11 And you know, the older I get the more I know I don't know. 22:18 Now that works a couple of ways. Part of the reason is the older 22:21 I get the less I can remember. But also the more you learn, 22:26 your understanding of how big the universe is and how vast 22:30 knowledge is becomes more profound. You know when your 22:33 kid especially as you start going through the teenage years, 22:36 it's just inevitable that you start becoming a little more 22:39 self-confident, you start getting a handle on things and 22:42 you can get overconfident and have a pretty high estimate of 22:46 how much you know. My dad used to quote Mark Twain who would 22:51 say, the older I got the more amazed I was at how many 22:55 institutions of higher learning my mother had attended, meaning 22:59 he developed more and more respect for his mother as he got 23:04 older, some of the simple wisdom When you're young sometimes you 23:08 don't have that. The first thing you need to have before you're 23:12 blessed with the gift of wisdom is to realize what you don't 23:16 know. So he asked for wisdom. What is wisdom. I've got a 23:20 definition we can put up here on the screen. Wisdom is, first of 23:26 all, understanding right or lasting or true. Insight. 23:34 2. Common sense; good judgment. For instance Henry David Thoreau 23:39 said it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate 23:44 things. To think and to be patient. 3. The sum of scholarly 23:48 learning through the ages. The wisdom of the ages, for instance 23:54 or b. Wise teaching of the sages 4. A wise outlook, a plan, a 23:59 course of action. God is offering us wisdom. Now you can 24:02 have knowledge and not have wisdom. You notice the Bible 24:06 says in Daniel chapter 12 that in the last days knowledge will 24:10 increase. Does it say wisdom will increase? No, they are 24:13 different, aren't they? You can have people that know how to 24:16 build a nuclear weapon and they've got a lot of knowledge. 24:19 It's called technology. But then they blow up their fellow man 24:24 with this knowledge. That's not wise. So wisdom is different 24:28 from knowledge. You've can have someone who's a technical genius 24:32 you can have a person who's a computer nerd and they spend all 24:35 their time and you know they can understand everything about 24:39 a computer, but they don't have wisdom to like get a job. 24:44 You know there's a difference. I hope I didn't insult anybody 24:48 in saying that. There's an ability that you want to have 24:54 to do practical things with knowledge. That's what wisdom 24:58 is. So Solomon asked for this. There's something else I want 25:03 you to notice. Verse 10: The speech that Solomon made pleased 25:08 the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. So God was very 25:14 happy that he'd asked this. Now when I read the story of Solomon 25:17 I told you to underline the words you. Hezekiah, King 25:21 Hezekiah, was he a good king or bad king? Good king. But you 25:25 remember when ambassadors came from Babylon to find out about 25:29 the miracle when the sun went backwards and they came to 25:32 Hezekiah to find out about God and Hezekiah entertained them, 25:36 What did Hezekiah say. Isaiah said what did they see in your 25:43 house? I'm in Isaiah chapter 39 verse 4: Hezekiah answered and 25:48 said they've seen all that is in my house. There is nothing among 25:52 my treasures I've not shown them It says he showed them all that 25:57 was in his treasure, his armory, his spices, his house, his 26:03 dominion. Now look at the difference. Solomon when he 26:06 comes into the kingdom he says Lord you, you, you, you, you, 26:11 you, you. It's your kingdom. Solomon after being on the 26:14 throne for a while started thinking, me, me, me, me, me, me 26:18 it's my kingdom, or Hezekiah rather. King Saul started out 26:23 it's the Lord's kingdom. At the end he said it's mine. Babylon, 26:28 when did King Nebuchadnezzar lose the kingdom? Is not this 26:31 great Babylon that I have built for my majesty, my glory, my 26:35 kingdom, my, my, my, me, me, me. God could do great things with 26:38 Solomon because he had an attitude of humility. He was 26:41 humble. Now this ought to also bring you and me courage. What 26:47 kind of family did Solomon grow up in? Talk about dysfunction. 26:52 Can you imagine living in a house where you've got nine 26:58 other step mothers at the same time. A bunch of other brothers 27:03 and at least a couple of sisters We know of one named Tamar. 27:07 And they're all vying for gifts and the father's time and 27:12 David's off busy fighting wars. You can't get your father's 27:15 attention. And the mothers. I mean look at the struggle 27:19 between... Hannah and Paninah, that's two wives. Look at all 27:23 struggles between Rachel and Leah and Zilpah and Bilhah. 27:28 Four wives. You read about that. It's like a soap opera going on. 27:32 Can you imagine being in the house of Solomon growing up? 27:34 And all of this talk that was going on about the way David and 27:40 Bathsheba got together among the other wives. And probably the 27:46 verbal abuse and the teasing. Now you think that having a 27:51 house of privilege makes you a well rounded person. Benjamin 27:56 Franklin said more people are destroyed by plenty than want. 28:00 You know, we often hear about people who come to greatness 28:05 from poverty and those are always inspiring stories, but 28:09 I'll tell you it's just as inspiring when someone survives 28:13 prosperity and becomes great. We don't think about it. Jesus 28:17 said poor people can get into the kingdom, it's almost 28:20 impossible for a rich man to get into the kingdom of God. 28:24 Now I tell you this, especially those of you who are parents 28:28 take heart. If Solomon could grow up with all of that bizarre 28:33 baggage in his family, that stuff going on every day, and 28:37 he could say I want to build up the house of God, I want to 28:41 serve God first, I want to seek first God and he could have his 28:45 head screwed on straight, there is hope for everybody isn't 28:49 there? Yeah, I mean, he had some brothers that went... There was 28:53 was incest in the family. Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar and 28:56 then Absalom killed his brother. There was murder in the family. 29:00 He grew up with all that swirling and just a cesspool 29:04 of nonsense going on in the household there. And David was 29:08 sort of aloof to everything that was happening because he's 29:12 so involved in conquering and the politics and the judging. 29:17 And yet in spite of that... You know I think one key is 29:22 remember he had Nathan the prophet as his tutor. How is it 29:27 that Josiah could grow up when Athaliah was on the throne and 29:33 be such a faithful king or Joash rather. As long as Jehoiada the 29:38 priest was alive and gave him spiritual guidance, he was 29:41 faithful to God. Do you have good spiritual counselors? 29:45 Do you have spiritual friends? Y'all need that. That kept 29:49 Solomon on the right track and that had a lot to do with his 29:53 priorities and his wisdom, not only what he got from his father 29:57 So he prays for wisdom and God is pleased. Does God hear his 30:01 prayer? He does and he becomes the wisest man who ever lived. 30:05 I was getting an amazing fact ready for one of the radio 30:10 programs and I ran into this. I thought it was pretty amazing. 30:13 The Grand Vizier. Have you ever heard of the Grand Vizier? 30:18 You've heard of the Sultan. The leader of the Ottoman empire 30:22 was the Sultan. His number two man was the Grand Vizier. During 30:26 the 10th century the Grand Vizier kept all of the official 30:31 documents in the kingdom. He was prime minister. And as he 30:35 traveled around the Ottoman empire on various meetings, back 30:39 before they had airplanes obviously, he traveled by 30:42 caravan. He took the library with him wherever he traveled. 30:46 That library consisted of 177,000 volumes of books or 30:54 scrolls. They were carried wherever he went on 400 camels. 31:00 And the camels were trained to walk in alphabetical order so 31:05 that he could know which camel to go to to find a book if they 31:10 needed some official document. I thought that was pretty 31:14 amazing. Solomon had all the knowledge of alpha to omega 31:19 in his head. God was giving him this incredible wisdom and it 31:24 wasn't just knowledge. I think he probably had almost a 31:27 photographic memory and most of all he had the Holy Spirit. 31:31 Because even as Solomon got older we'll talk about when 31:36 Solomon backslid big time. He still had wisdom but there's 31:40 different kinds of wisdom. There is good wisdom and there's bad 31:47 wisdom. How many of you could use more wisdom? James 1 verse 5 31:53 If any of you, I like this. That applies to me doesn't it. That 31:58 applies to you, any of you. If any of you lack wisdom let him 32:03 ask of God, this is what Solomon did, who gives to all liberally. 32:08 How did he give it to Solomon? Liberally. Without reproach and 32:13 it will be given him. Now that's a wonderful promise. You ought 32:16 to have that underlined. There's a promise. You don't know what 32:19 to do? You underline that verse and you mark that in your Bible, 32:22 put the ribbon down there and almost on a daily basis you can 32:25 turn to that and say Lord you said if I lack wisdom, I lack 32:28 wisdom. Please help me. I've got to make this decision, I've got 32:32 to make that decision. I need divine wisdom. You know that's 32:36 one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Have you read there in 32:41 Isaiah chapter 11 in verse 2 speaking of the Messiah, it says 32:46 the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom 32:50 understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, fear of the Lord. 32:55 You've read about the seven spirits of God there in 32:57 Revelation, it talks about the seven spirits a couple of times. 33:01 One of those seven spirits is wisdom. And so when you pray for 33:05 the Holy Spirit, when you pray for wisdom, I should say, you're 33:08 really asking for the Holy Spirit. But there is true wisdom 33:12 and there's false wisdom. Continuing with the book of 33:16 James. James 3 verse 13: Who then is wise and has 33:20 understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his 33:24 works are done in the meekness of wisdom. Real wisdom is meek. 33:27 But if you've got bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts 33:31 do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not 33:35 descend from above but it is earthly. There's another kind of 33:38 wisdom not from above. Does the devil have a certain kind of 33:42 diabolical wisdom? Does he have a shrewdness and a cunning? Does 33:47 the Lord talk about being harmless as a dove and what as a 33:51 serpent? Wise as a serpent. Do you really want that kind of 33:55 wisdom? What the Lord means by that is you need to be 33:59 intelligent. You need to understand what the devil's up 34:03 to. You don't use his wisdom. You just understand what his 34:07 tactics are. The devil is shrewd and he's cunning. 34:11 That's the wisdom of the world. This wisdom does not descend 34:15 from above, but it is earthly, sensual, demonic, for where 34:19 there is envy and self-seeking, where any self-seeking exists, 34:23 confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that 34:27 is from above is first pure, it is peaceable, it is gentle, 34:31 willing to yield, full of mercy, good fruits without partiality 34:35 and without hypocrisy. You know what it seems like James is 34:39 describing? The wisdom that is from above; you take this list 34:42 and you go over to the fruits of the Spirit and there are a 34:45 lot of connections there. The wisdom that is from above will 34:49 make you Christ like. It doesn't make you arrogant and say I have 34:52 all knowledge swirling around in my head. I am wiser than you. 34:57 Real wisdom is humble and it makes you Christ like. Gives you 35:02 patience. I Corinthians 3 verse For the wisdom of the world 35:06 is foolishness with God. There is a wisdom in the world and 35:11 you know... You know, I love nature programs. I like good 35:15 ones, high definition, good quality. I tell you one of the 35:20 things that really inspires me with the reality of God is when 35:25 I see God in nature. We'll learn about Solomon in a little bit 35:29 that he wrote about God in nature. But it is so 35:34 exasperating to me. You'll see one of these programs from PBS 35:38 or BBC and they'll put out and they'll show this beautiful 35:41 nature footage of these incredible miracles of nature 35:44 and then they'll say something really dumb like 50 million 35:49 years ago this butterfly realized it needed to develop 35:54 eyeballs on its wings to scare away predators. What are the 35:58 odds that a butterfly is going to try to evolve something on 36:02 it's wings that look like eyeballs to scare away 36:04 predators? These guys are so smart, these nature experts. 36:09 Forgive me, I'm sorry friends. I don't mean to be disrespectful 36:12 to these scientists but that's the wisdom of the world which 36:18 is foolishness with God. So I probably went far enough with 36:23 that. Let's find out an example about Solomon's wisdom. We all 36:28 know this story. In I Kings chapter 3 verse 16. Go back to 36:32 I Kings. And I think you remember this experience 36:36 of the two women and the baby. Two women who were harlots 36:41 came in to the king and stood before him and one woman said 36:45 O my Lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house and I 36:49 gave birth while she was in the house. Then it happened the 36:52 third day... That always is an interesting word when you see 36:56 that, the third day... after I had given birth that this woman 37:00 also gave birth. And we were together. There was no one with 37:04 us in the house except the two of us. No witnesses. And this 37:08 woman's son died in the night because she lay on it. Maybe she 37:12 was careless and may have been a combination of that and SIDS. 37:17 She woke up in the morning and the baby wasn't breathing. She 37:21 arose in the middle of the night and she took my son from my 37:25 side while your maidservant slept and she laid him in her 37:29 bosom and she laid her dead child in my bosom. And when I 37:34 arose in the morning to nurse my son there he was dead. But 37:38 when I examined him in the morning, indeed he was not my 37:42 son which I had born. You know when babies are first born they 37:47 all look a little bit like raisins, don't they? 37:49 You know, they're a little wrinkled mass with cone heads 37:53 when they're first born and then they start to take on more 37:58 human characteristics. And so these are two newborns and she 38:02 first gets up to nurse it but she examines it. Does a mother 38:05 know her baby. I mean it's amazing to me, these penguins 38:08 come back from four months of feeding and there's 10,000 of 38:12 them gathered on this white plain and they all look exactly 38:15 the same to me and those mothers come wandering honking 38:19 into the camp and they all find their babies. You know it's just 38:24 a miracle how they do that. But that mother said this is not my 38:28 baby and she looked over at her friend who was suspiciously 38:32 nursing her baby and she said that's my baby. No this is my 38:35 baby. That's your baby. Oh it would have been a very 38:38 interesting conversation what went on between these women 38:41 before they ever got to the king but I bet there were some pretty 38:45 heated words that were spoken. You hate to picture the two of 38:49 them doing a tug-of-war with this baby. There's a spiritual 38:54 lesson there. So the king, young king now, he's got his first 38:58 really difficult supreme court case. They used to bring the 39:01 very difficult... You know the local constable would take care 39:05 of some of the disagreements but the difficult cases were brought 39:08 to the king. And so the other woman said, verse 22, No, but 39:14 the living one is my son. The dead one is your son. And the 39:19 first woman said no but the dead one is your son, the living one 39:23 is my son. What's she going to do? Thus they both spoke before 39:26 the king. When the king issued judgment he had his counselors 39:30 around him and there were soldiers around him and 39:32 sometimes there was an audience that was watching like a court 39:35 room, learning from the court cases. So everyone's wondering 39:39 what is the king going to do about this. This is a conundrum. 39:42 How do you solve something like this? There are no cameras, 39:46 there are no birth certificates. What are you going to do. And 39:51 the king said, verse 23, one says this one is my son, the one 39:55 who lives and your son is the dead one. The other one says 39:58 no, but your son is the dead one, my son is the living one. 40:02 and the king said bring me a sword. And he was probably 40:06 looking very carefully at the faces of those women when he 40:10 said that studying them for how they're going to react. Bring me 40:17 a sword. So they brought the sword before the king and the 40:21 king said, probably to one of his guards that was standing by, 40:25 divide the living child in two, give half to one and half to 40:30 the other. Now he's new on the throne. I mean they haven't 40:34 figured out when he's kidding and when he's serious and he's 40:38 the king. And when the king says something I imagine the guard 40:43 pulled the sword out of its scabbard. You know he's going. 40:49 He grabs the baby and really I don't want to do this but you're 40:54 the king, you know. Probably Solomon nodded to the soldier 41:00 like you keep going. And he took the baby and he unsheathed the 41:05 sword and right at that time the real mother threw herself down 41:10 at King Solomon's feet. The woman whose son was living 41:15 spoke to the king for she yearned with compassion for her 41:20 son. And she said, O my Lord, give her the living child. By no 41:23 means kill him. But the other one said let it be. That's the 41:27 only fair thing to do, cut him in two. Boy she really was hard 41:32 hearted wasn't she? She probably did smother her baby. Let him be 41:37 neither mine nor yours, you know but divide him. So the king 41:42 answered and said, Give the first woman the living child and 41:46 by no means kill him for she is the mother. So the king uses 41:50 this near execution as a test. I wonder if he got that from 41:54 what God did with Abraham? Did Abraham almost bring down the 41:58 knife on his son? But you could tell where his heart was at that 42:03 point. His heart was with God. So the king answered, said this 42:07 is the real mother and look at verse 28. And all Israel heard 42:11 of the judgment of the king what he had rendered and they feared 42:15 the king for they saw the wisdom of God was in him to administer 42:20 judgment. Nobody would have thought of that. And you know 42:23 you read about Jesus. One of the things that amazes me about the 42:27 life of Christ, and keep in mind when I first was reading the 42:32 gospels, I was already 17, 18 years old. I had never really 42:36 read anything Jesus said and I was going through the Bible. 42:40 I would come across these stories where a woman is caught 42:43 in adultery and brought to Jesus What will you do? Moses' law 42:47 says she should be stoned. The Roman law says if you stone her 42:50 then you're executed. What do you do? And you know you think 42:53 oh boy, he's stuck now, what's he going to do? And Jesus with 42:57 one statement would demonstrate the wisdom of Solomon and say he 43:01 that is without sin cast the first stone. So he accomplished 43:03 both things. Well you bring the tax money and the people hate 43:07 the Romans, they hate the Roman taxes. But the Romans are 43:10 listening also. If you say don't pay taxes you going to cause an 43:13 insurrection, you're going to jail. And so they say, what do 43:16 you think, should we pay tribute to Caesar or not. 43:18 That's something you didn't ask in public. If you're going to 43:21 complain about taxes you had to do that under your breath in 43:24 front of the Romans. Right there with the Romans watching they 43:28 asked Jesus that question. What is he going to say. He says 43:31 render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God 43:34 the things that are God's. I mean he just blew them away. 43:39 One line, his wisdom. I mean that's divine wisdom. Don't you 43:43 wish you had that kind of insight. You can't think those 43:47 things up, God gives it to you. Usually at the moment when you 43:50 need it. Have you ever been in one of those situations where 43:54 you've got this very awkward moment? You've got to say 43:57 something and you're thinking about everybody around and you 44:00 don't know what to say so you're not going to offend somebody. 44:03 I've had a lot of moments like that and I still don't know what 44:08 to say. But every now and then all of a sudden the Holy Spirit 44:12 will tell you just the right thing to say. Solomon calls it 44:16 they're like apples of gold in pictures of silver or apples of 44:21 gold in settings of silver. A word fitly spoken. I mean this 44:26 is what God was doing for Solomon on a daily basis. 44:29 Everything he said was like wow that's heavy. I've got Reader's 44:33 Digest, sometimes take that on the airplane. They've got a 44:38 section in the book where they've got great quotes. 44:41 And they try and say you know in the last month these are some 44:44 of the most profound things that were said. They could be new, 44:48 they could be old but they take highlights of great quotes. I've 44:51 often wondered what do I have to say to get in Reader's Digest 44:55 What great quote, what profound utterance? Everything Solomon 45:00 said was a Reader's Digest quote all day long. They were all 45:05 profound. I mean that's the wisdom of God that only he can 45:09 give. Now I don't want to leave this story of the two women and 45:13 the baby because there's a very strong spiritual application in 45:18 this. First of all, what does a woman represent in the Bible? 45:22 Church. Are there true churches and false churches. 45:26 In Revelation do we have a couple of women. You've got 45:30 God's bride clothed with light. The church of God is a woman in 45:35 Revelation 12. Then you've got another woman in Revelation 17. 45:41 She's got daughters and that represents Babylon and her 45:43 harlot daughters. And by the way these women were harlots weren't 45:46 they? And you've got the true and the false. You know God's 45:51 church used to be a harlot but she's cleansed. Mary Magdalene 45:56 is a type of the church who is sanctified. Don't forget in the 46:01 family tree of Jesus were there some harlots? Did you have Rahab 46:06 Was she cleansed from her ways when she married Salmon? Did you 46:11 have Tamar who dressed up like a harlot and slept with her 46:16 father-in-law in Jesus family tree? And so that's telling us 46:21 that God's bride used to be out there but he cleanses her. He's 46:26 got these two harlots and there are two babies, one's alive and 46:30 one's dead. Are there a lot of churches out there that claim to 46:35 have Christ but their Christ is not alive? Are there counterfeit 46:40 Christs out there? Did Jesus say there would be? And so you've 46:45 got to understand which is true. Which woman has the real baby? 46:50 And there's this contest in this story. How does Solomon 46:54 ultimately decide, what does he use to divine between the true 46:59 and the false? A sword. What does a sword represent? The word 47:03 of God. So how do we determine between the true church and the 47:07 false church? How do we find where the real living child 47:12 goes? You see the spiritual application of this story and 47:16 it's the son of David who calls for the sword. Jesus the Son of 47:20 David tells us to use the sword to find the truth. So that's 47:23 just one of the spiritual historicals here. But there's 47:26 more. Get your credit card out and we'll add to your order 47:31 right now for the same price. You look through the Bible and 47:35 you see there are a lot of stories where you've got these 47:39 baby boys at risk. There's some kind of contest, some kind of 47:43 battle, some kind of struggle over the baby boys. Never baby 47:47 girls. Because they were types of Christ. There was a woman 47:51 names Jocabed who had a baby boy and that baby boy was going 47:55 to be killed. She had to do something. Remember the Pharaoh 48:00 said if it's a boy kill him. If it's a girl you can let her live 48:04 And a woman conceived a son, Exodus 2:2, she saw he was a 48:09 beautiful child. She hid him for three months. Moses as a baby 48:15 there was an effort to destroy him. You go to II Kings chapter 48:20 6, very troubling story but it's there and I need to tell you. 48:24 Two women are fighting over their baby boys. They were 48:28 starving to death. They agreed to kill and eat one boy one day 48:32 and the next day they would kill and eat the other boy. And they 48:36 appealed to the king because one woman said you know we agreed 48:40 and we killed and ate my baby and now this woman has hidden 48:44 her baby. I bet she was glad she did too because the next day 48:48 there was plenty of food. The baby that was hidden. Now that 48:52 sounds like a pattern. Moses was hidden. This baby was hidden. 48:56 He was kept alive. II Kings chapter 11, when Athaliah the 49:00 mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead she arose and she 49:04 destroyed all the royal heirs, all the children of David, the 49:07 heirs that were living them. But Jehoshabah, the daughter of 49:11 King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, she took Joash the son of 49:15 Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king's sons, he was a 49:20 year old, who were being murdered and she hid him and 49:23 his nurse in the bedroom from 49:24 Athaliah, hidden in the house of the Lord so that he was not 49:28 killed. Baby boy. Matthew chapter 2. This sound familiar? 49:32 King Herod when he 49:34 saw that he was deceived by the wise men, he was exceedingly 49:37 angry and he sent forth and he put to death all the male 49:41 children who were in Bethlehem. Except Joseph was warned in a 49:45 dream and they took the baby and hid him in Egypt, hidden away. 49:50 Then you read in Revelation. A woman is great with child and 49:54 she brings forth this man child who is to rule all nations with 49:57 a rod of iron and the dragon wants to devour the child as 50:01 soon as it's born. All these storied about these baby boys 50:05 that are being hidden are because someone's trying to take 50:08 them or someone's trying to harm them and they're somehow hidden 50:13 or saved or delivered. Of course they're types of Christ. You see 50:16 it all through the Bible. There are more I could share with you 50:21 but time won't permit. Well I want to talk a little bit about 50:27 wisdom here. Go back to Solomon. I Kings chapter 4 verse 29: And 50:34 God gave Solomon wisdom and exceeding great understanding 50:39 and largeness of heart like the sand on the sea shore. Thus 50:44 Solomon's wisdom excelled all the wisdom of all the people of 50:48 the East and all the wisdom of Egypt. Wow! You know we think 50:52 about the great ancient wisdom, the engineers that built the 50:56 pyramids and those great colossal structures. That was a 51:00 lot of wisdom. It says here the wisdom of Solomon exceeded all 51:04 of the wisdom of Egypt for he was wiser than all men, than 51:09 Ethan the Ezrahite, now I don't know who that was but evidently 51:12 he had a reputation back then. They used to sing his praises 51:18 for his wisdom, and Heman, don't know who Heman was, but he's 51:23 been forgotten, Solomon's still remembered, and Chalcol and 51:26 Darda, the sons of Mahol. These were all the wisest people in 51:30 the world back then or even the history of wisdom. And his fame, 51:34 Solomon's fame, was in all the surrounding nations. He spoke 51:39 3000 proverbs and his psalms were 1,005, that's an 51:43 interesting number. And he spoke of trees from the cedar of 51:46 Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall. 51:50 Now this must be some proverbs that Solomon spoke about that 51:53 are not in the book of Proverbs. We may not have all of them 51:56 because there are some things referred to here that there is 52:00 no record of. And he spoke of the animals and the birds and 52:04 the creeping things. Quite a bit of that in Proverbs. 52:06 For instance, you read Proverbs 6 verse 6: Go to the ant you 52:11 sluggard. Solomon must have spent some time watching the 52:13 ants. Go to the ant you sluggard consider her ways and be wise 52:19 that having no captain or overseer or ruler provides 52:22 supplies in summer and gathers her food in the harvest. 52:25 It's interesting that he said gathers her food because I think 52:29 most of them are sisters. He spoke of creeping things and 52:36 fish and of men of all nations from all kings of the earth who 52:41 had heard of his wisdom came to hear of the wisdom of Solomon. 52:46 A short life with wisdom is better than a long life without 52:52 it. Solomon says in all of your getting get wisdom. Someone 52:56 else said a single conversation across the table with a wise 53:02 man is worth a month of study with books. He who would be wise 53:07 needs to find wise friends and be friends with them. So how 53:12 did God honor Solomon because he asked for wisdom? He had the 53:17 right priorities. He had these words of wisdom. 53:22 II Chronicles chapter 1 verses 11 and 12: And God said to 53:26 Solomon, because this was in your heart and you have not 53:30 asked for riches, notice this. How many of you would like to 53:34 have riches? Come on, nothing wrong with that. How many of you 53:38 would rather have poverty? See you don't want to admit 53:42 wanting riches, but you won't say... How many just want to 53:46 be comfortable? Because it was in your heart and you did not 53:51 ask for riches or wealth or honor, not your pride or fame, 53:55 or the life of your enemies, nor have you asked for long life 54:00 but you have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you 54:04 might judge my people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and 54:08 knowledge are granted to you. Your wish is fulfilled. And I 54:12 will give you what you did not ask for. Listen to this. Because 54:17 you have sought... listen, listen, listen, listen. I meant 54:21 to tell you at the beginning of the sermon all the kids to count 54:24 how many times I say wisdom. Is it too late? (Laughter) 54:29 I forgot. Just play that tape backwards and see if you can 54:34 remember. And God says, I am giving you what you didn't ask 54:39 for. He says, I'm going to give you riches, and wealth and honor 54:45 such as none of the kings who were before you nor shall any 54:48 after you have the same. Now when the Bible says Solomon was 54:52 the richest man who ever lived or wisest man who ever lived 54:55 there is one exception there. Who would that be? Obviously 54:59 Jesus is God the Son. And when he said that no one will have 55:03 the glory of the kingdom and the riches that you have, of course 55:06 there's one exception and that would be the other Son of David 55:10 which is Jesus, in his kingdom will have greater wisdom and 55:14 greater riches. You know what this makes me think of? What was 55:19 Jesus thinking in Matthew 6:33 when he said, Seek ye first the 55:24 kingdom of God and his righteousness? What did Solomon 55:28 ask for? Lord give me a wise and understanding heart so I can 55:33 know how to discern between right and wrong. He sought first 55:37 the kingdom of God. The people of God were his concern and the 55:41 righteousness of God that he might do what's right. He sought 55:44 first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and so what did 55:47 God do for him? It says because you were seeking first my 55:51 righteousness and my people, my kingdom, I'm going to give you 55:56 everything else that you didn't ask for. We always turn the 55:59 equation upside down. We say Lord, give me the riches and 56:03 give me long life and give me health and give me this and then 56:05 also I'd like some wisdom and I'd like to be righteous. 56:09 Solomon got it right to start with. He sought first the 56:12 kingdom of God and his righteous ness and then everything else he 56:15 needed... By the way, even to get riches what do you need? 56:19 Wisdom, right? It takes a certain amount of wisdom 56:23 to take care of your body and live a long time. A lot of 56:26 people are not very wise in how they take care of their bodies 56:29 and they die young. So if you've got wisdom everything else seems 56:32 to follow in its path and that begins by seeking first his 56:36 kingdom and his righteousness. The priority for Solomon was the 56:40 kingdom of God. Is that the priority in your life? He did 56:45 have a long life. He was wise. He was very rich and we're going 56:47 to get into that. We've got some exciting things coming in this 56:50 series, but I didn't want you to miss the most important point 56:53 that he sought first the kingdom of God and his righteousness 56:56 and that's why he prospered all through his reign. If you want 56:59 to prosper in your life make that your priority. That's the 57:02 most wise thing you can do. Let's pray. 57:05 Dear Father in heaven, Lord we are just like little children. 57:10 We don't know what's coming from one moment to the next. We often 57:14 don't know whether to turn to the right hand or the left. 57:18 That's why we need your word, that sword, to help us to 57:22 discern. Lord we pray for wisdom we pray for it every day. You've 57:27 promised to give it liberally as we continue to ask and I pray 57:31 that we can keep the priority of seeking first your kingdom to 57:34 model this part of Solomon's life, of coming before you in 57:38 earnestness, of giving our hearts and our lives 57:41 sacrificially, of loving you and then trusting that you will 57:45 guide us and give us wisdom day by day. Bless these who have 57:48 come forward with some special need and give them the wisdom 57:52 of Solomon so they can know how to grapple with some of the 57:56 challenges they may be facing. And Lord we pray that we will 57:59 represent you as we go from this place, your people, with that 58:02 humility and that love, that wisdom that comes from above. 58:06 Thank you again for your goodness and the riches of that 58:09 kingdom we will someday enjoy. It's in Jesus' name we pray Amen |
Revised 2014-12-17