Through the Bible - 1 Kings — Zac Poonen

Let's turn to the first book of Kings. First Kings, chapter 1. Here is a book which begins with a united, powerful nation of Israel under a godly king, David, a man after God's own heart and ends with the kingdom divided and with a lot of evil kings ruling particularly over Israel.

Ahab is the last one mentioned in this book. Imagine something that begins with David and ends with Ahab and how the people go astray. You see, this teaches us one thing, what we've been seeing consistently in all the other books as well.

Spiritual Leadership Determines the Direction of God's People

The condition of God's people depends greatly on the spirituality or lack of it in their leaders. You see that everywhere in Revelation 2 and 3, where the elders were spiritual, the church was spiritual, the elders were carnal, the church was carnal.

And whenever Israel had a godly leader, they moved in godly ways. When they had a carnal leader, they moved in carnal ways. A godly father will bring up his children in godly ways and a carnal father will bring up his children in carnal ways.

So leadership is so important. It's one of the things that we see throughout the Old Testament and a good thing for us to learn. So you see, God's great need is for leaders. We read once that Jesus looked out and saw the multitude like sheep without a shepherd.

It's the same today as he looks out over India. He looks out over Christendom in India. India's Christian population itself is perhaps 20 -25 million. And as God looks out over the Christian population of so many millions of people, you know what he sees a lack of?

Godly leaders. And that's the challenge that comes to each of us. Satisfy the heart of God in this generation. In every generation, God wants leaders. It's not enough to depend on the leaders of another generation.

In your generation, God wants leaders. David could not rule over Israel forever. He died, somebody else had to take over. And what type of person that's going to be? That's the great thing. Here is a godly man.

God raises up. He gets old and he dies. What about the next generation? Have they just got knowledge? Have they just got the doctrine? Have they just got the temple rituals? But no godliness, no personal knowledge of God?

Then the people go astray. That's the challenge that should come to each of your hearts. To be like David, to be like Deborah. As we look at David's end of his life, we see one or two sad things. When David was dying, we read that Adonijah verse 5, 1 Kings 1 .5 said to himself, he exalted himself and said, I'll be the next king.

He was one of the sons of David. So he prepared a charity. He was not like his father. His father waited for God to make him king. This man said, I'll make him the king. And why was he that type of person?

Because, here's the reason, verse 6. His father had never given him any pain. That's what the margin of my Bible says. Had never punished him. He had never used the rod on him once. And never asked him when he did something wrong, why did you do that?

Can you imagine what's going to happen to a child if he's never punished by his father and the father never asks him, why did you do that? And particularly if he's a nice, good-looking child. It says he was a handsome man.

David was a wonderful man, but he failed totally as a father. We can take warnings from that. You can be so busy on the battlefield that you have no time for your family, or you're so taken up with your ministry and the honor and things coming there that you don't see how your children are growing up.

It's a sad thing if a man loses his children, saying he's serving the Lord. When you have families, those of us who are married, let's take heed to these warnings from Scripture. And this man Adonijah schemed and planned, but Nathan the prophet went to Bathsheba, verse 11, and said, have you heard, haven't you heard that Adonijah wants to be king?

Doesn't, does David know about it? You know David is now lying in his deathbed and people are taking advantage of the fact that he is helpless now. So Nathan the prophet brings the mind of God into that situation.

What a wonderful man Nathan was. How wonderful it is when a nation has at least one prophet. Who can go and say something to the nation. And Nathan, how wonderful it is when churches can have a prophet.

Seek to be one like that yourself, in humility and brokenness, learning from the qualities of these prophets in the Old Testament. And he went to Bathsheba and said, go at once to King David and say, didn't your Lord swear to your maidservant, didn't my Lord swear to your maidservant that surely Solomon shall be the king?

While you're still there, I will also come and confirm your words. So Bathsheba went and then said that. And David realized while she was still speaking, verse 22, Nathan came and Nathan said, yes, Adonijah is wanting to be king.

Then King David answered and said, call Bathsheba and certainly, verse 30, Solomon will be the next king. Bathsheba bowed and went out. Then King David called a priest, verse 32, and said, take the servants and take my son Solomon to ride on my mule and bring him down and blow the trumpet and say, long live King Solomon.

So Sadok did that, verse 38 onwards, and he anointed Solomon king. That was his struggle for succession. Now when we come to chapter 2, I want you to see here David charging Solomon with certain things.

David's Disappointing Final Words and the Need for True Forgiveness

He says, now I'm going to die and be strong therefore, verse 2, and show yourself a man. Now I want to show you David's last words, and they're a bit disappointing. The word of God is so honest when it tells us about the failures of its greatest servants.

He says here, Solomon, I want to tell you a few things, and instead of spending those last few moments telling Solomon how to be a godly leader, how to honor God, learn from my mistakes, and don't have too many wives, and be careful with women.

Those are the type of instructions he should have given his son when he's taking over king, and be fair, and all those things. Instead of that, he just gives a little introduction, and then he says, now the thing that's on my heart is, you know that Joab, verse 5, he, you know what he did.

He shed the blood of what he did to Abner, and what he did to Amasai. Kill them. Act according to your wisdom, and don't let that man's gray hair go down to the grave in peace. Kill him. He doesn't want to kill him himself.

It's like hiring somebody else to kill somebody you want to kill. And then, please show kindness to Barzillai, verse 7, because they assisted me. Be kind to those who were good to me. But then, there's another fellow, Shimei, verse 8.

He's the one who cursed me. You remember what he did when Shimei cursed him? David said, God has allowed him to curse me, let me accept it. And when David came back, we read Shimei said, please forgive me, and David said, I will not do anything to you.

And he says to Solomon, see, I swore to him that I will not, verse 8, kill you. But I did not say that I will not tell my son to kill you. See, he's being legalistic here in the court now. What I said was, I will not kill you, and I will not kill you.

But Solomon, don't let his gray hair go down, verse 9, to the grave without blood. Kill him. What are the next words? Verse 10, David died. Sad, no? That a man, his last word should be to take revenge on someone whom he had forgiven once, and legally scheming to kill him without breaking his promise.

What does this teach us? It teaches us that sometimes you think you have forgiven somebody. Your mind is strong and you can control yourself and keep that forgiveness, but as you get older, and your mind begins to weaken, what is really in your heart comes out.

You never really forgave him. You know, it's quite possible that a lot of people you think you have forgiven, you've never really forgiven. Think about it. You've possibly never forgiven those people.

You may think you have, but you haven't. You know, forgiving those who have harmed us is a very difficult thing, and it's got deep roots. The Bible speaks in Hebrews 12 about a root of bitterness. It develops roots very quickly.

Think of the people who have harmed you, and really radically pull out every root, otherwise you'll destroy yourself. A root of bitterness can defile you and defile many people. Get it out. Throw it away.

In the days when you're strong, not when you're on your deathbed, you'll be too weak to do anything then. This is the lesson we can learn from David's example here. So I thank God that the word of God is very honest.

It's very sad that David dies like that. And then we read further about Solomon. Very soon, verse chapter 3, one of the first things written about Solomon. So Solomon kills Shimei. First of all, he obeys David.

In fact, Solomon began his reign by first of all killing Adonijah, the other man who wanted to be king, verse 19 to 27. And next, killing Joab, who was the commander of David's army, verse 28 to 35, and he was also his own cousin.

Joab was his own first cousin. He killed him because David told him to do that. And then verse 36 onwards to 46, he kills Shimei. So he deals with all those things. He starts his reign with killing these poor people.

And then the next thing, the king said to Shimei, verse 44 to 244, you know all the evil which you did in your heart, it will return to your head, but I, King Solomon, will be blessed. Well, I don't know about that.

Anyway, chapter 3, the next thing we read is Solomon formed a marriage alliance. If only David had spent his time giving him some advice on marriage, instead of telling him to take revenge, the story may have been a little different.

What sort of advice do you give your children? What are the things which are most important? Solomon formed a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her to the city of David, and he finished building his own house on the wall around Jerusalem, and the people were still sacrificing in the high places.

But Solomon loved the Lord. This is a contradiction. It says here, Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father, verse 3, except that he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

Solomon's Divided Heart and the Danger of Private Compromise

This is how some people love the Lord. There is a lot of external love for the Lord, but in their private life, they are doing certain things which are not righteous, certain things which are wrong, and those are the things that finally destroy them.

And that's what finally destroyed Solomon. He was not transparent through and through. There are a lot of Christian workers like that. Outwardly, they are very zealous, they are doing this, that, and the other for the Lord, but in their private life, somewhere, some little area, some financial transaction, they are not straightforward, they are not righteous, finally that becomes like a big bomb and explodes and destroys them.

Learn warnings from all these examples. But God was good to Solomon, and God is good to many of us, even though he sees these little things, hoping that we will change. And the Lord appeared to Solomon one night in verse 5, chapter 3, verse 5.

And the Lord asked him, what do you want? Whatever you want, I'll give it to you. And Solomon said, verse 9, give me an understanding heart, give me largeness of heart to take in all of God's people. That's what God gave him finally.

Give me a heart to judge your people, to discern between good and evil, because it's so difficult to judge. And the Lord was so happy when he asked for that and said, because you didn't ask, verse 11, for long life or for riches or for the life of your enemies, I have given you a wise and a discerning heart, so that, verse 12, no one will be like you before you and no one will arise after you like you.

I have also given you riches and honor, and there will be no king like you. Now, that teaches us one thing. You know the great need for us today in leadership is, as I said the other day, discernment.

And only God can give it to us. Lord, give me discernment. What is the true state of these brothers in my church? What is the true state of the people in my church? Is this man whom I'm appointing as a deputy leader in the church, is he a godly person?

Give me discernment. It's because of lack of discernment that a lot of Christian leaders appoint wrong people as their assistants. The great need is for discernment, and here we read that only God can give it, and God does give it.

A wise and a discerning heart is the great need of our time. And Solomon got it for asking, for the asking. Why can't you and I get it for the asking? Doesn't God love us in the new covenant and see, doesn't he have a burden for us, our building the church, more than he had for Solomon ruling Israel?

He certainly does. We see this wonderful example of his judgment in verses 16 to 28. There was these two women who were prostitutes standing before him for judgment one day. And this one woman says, you know, both of us were in the same house and we both had children born.

And the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth, verse 18. Only two of us were there. And at night this woman rolled over her child and it died and she arose in the middle of the night, verse 20, and took my child and put it there and put her child there in front of me.

And when I rose in the morning, I found my child was dead. And the other woman said, no, my son is living, yours the dead one, you're telling a lie. Now how do you decide in a situation like this? And there's where God gave Solomon wisdom.

He said, what do you say? You're both laying claim to the child. Okay. The king said, get me a big sword. We will divide the child into two, this living child. Each of you can have half. And the woman whose child it really was, she loved that child.

She said, no, please don't kill it. Give it to her. But the other woman said, no, kill it. You'll have half, I'll have half. And immediately, you know who is the true mother, right? What wisdom. The king said, give the child to the first woman.

And all Israel heard of that judgment, verse 28, and they feared the king because they saw God had given him wisdom. Now, how do we apply this today to a situation? Maybe you're working in a church and somebody wants to split it into two.

And you say, yes, split it. You have half, I'll have half. Are you the true mother? You're not. The true mother would say, no, please don't divide the church. Let me pull out. You have the church to yourself.

That's the one God sees. Don't go into a church to split it. Pull out. Even if it's your child. People are blessed through your ministry. It's your child. Somebody lays claim to it. No, don't fight. If God wants you to have it, he will kill the other woman and give you the child.

Don't worry. God can do that. But don't divide the child and cut it into two and say, you have half, I have half. Go somewhere else. That's what I've done. I've disagreed sometimes with different churches.

I don't sit there and split it. I go somewhere else and I say, Lord, let me start from the beginning. Let me have another child. Instead of fighting over that one. That's the application of that story for us today.

And we read in chapter 4 in verse 29 that God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment. Oh, I wish that could be said about all of us. And remember, Solomon was a very young man. And you young people can ask God to give you wisdom and discernment.

Not just knowledge. Wisdom. And breadth of mind or largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore. Which means a large heart that could take in all of God's people. I believe that's the great need in our time.

Here is a brother who belongs to another denomination who disagrees with me on the form of baptism or disagrees with me on speaking in tongues. Never mind. God has accepted him. Lord, give me the largeness of heart to accept that brother as my brother.

Even though he doesn't work with me, even though he doesn't agree with me in certain doctrines. I want largeness of heart to accept all of God's people. In other words, I want to accept those whom God accepts.

Sometimes you can reject a person because they have a certain conviction on something which is different from yours. Can you accept that person? I remember once when a sister came to me for baptism and she was wearing ornaments.

I have a conviction that ornaments should not be worn. That's God's teaching in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Peter 3. But here was this sister with ornaments. And the Lord said one word to my heart. Have I accepted her?

And I said, yes, Lord, you've accepted her. I know that she's really born again because I had spoken to her. And the Lord said to me, how can you reject one whom I accepted? I will not reject her. I baptized her with ornaments and everything.

And she still wears it today. And I said, that's not my business to judge. I will accept people whom God has accepted even if their convictions are different from mine on small things or big things. Are they born again?

Has God accepted them? If God has not accepted them, it's different. Then I still love them as a neighbor, as a friend. But I cannot accept them into the fellowship of the church. But once God has accepted them, I cannot cut them off just because in some area they don't have light where I may have light.

I remember once in one matter the Lord said to me, How long did you take to come to this understanding? So many years. Why can't you be patient with that person? Give him also a little time to come to that understanding.

We all need largeness of heart. When we are young, we are narrow-minded, narrow-hearted. We accept only people who agree with us in every little detail. I was like that when I was young. I'm ashamed to say that, but I was like that.

It's one of the many foolish things I did. But as I've grown older and gone to know the Lord better, I've discovered that I need to have largeness of heart to accept everyone. I want you to see here in chapter 6 and chapter 7 how he built the temple.

Building God's House Before Our Own

I don't want to go into all the details of that. There are a lot of details given there about how he built the temple. I just want to point out one thing. Chapter 6 verse 38, the last part, it says he took seven years to build the temple.

Chapter 6 verse 38, the last sentence. And the next sentence, chapter 7 verse 1 says he took 13 years to build his own house. So you know which direction he's going. Seven years to build the temple and 13 years to build his own house.

But that's a pretty good description of how it is with a lot of people who serve the Lord today. Seven years for the Lord to build his house and 13 years to build my house. In other words, it's not that they don't do the Lord's work.

They do the Lord's work. But their primary interest is their own house and their own work. And God is secondary. Thirteen to seven. That's about the proportion. Two-thirds for myself and one-third for the Lord.

In terms of my interest. And these are little indications how he quickly joined up with Maridoff, Pharaoh's daughter, and started his ministry by killing people. He could have disagreed with his father.

He could have said, well my father told me to kill Shimei and Joab, but I don't feel free about doing that. And I don't do it. It would have been alright. But he did it. He went and married Pharaoh's daughter.

He spent 13 years building his house. Even though God had given him wisdom. The drifting had already started. Very right at the beginning. Sometimes I've seen in a servant of God, the drift towards the world is there almost at the beginning.

They are seeking their own right from the time they start serving the Lord. And then you see them years later, it's all developed in that way. But once the temple was built, we read that the glory of the Lord filled that house in chapter 8 verse 10.

It was like the old days of the tabernacle when Moses built the tabernacle exactly according to the pattern. It says the glory of the Lord filled the house. Now the temple which is built in the same pattern as the tabernacle, with the altar and the laver and the holy place and the most holy place, much bigger, much more grand.

And the glory of the Lord filled it again. And Solomon prayed a wonderful prayer there in chapter 8 verse 22 onwards. Yeah, there were a lot of good things in Solomon. But it was mixed. Here he was a very spiritual man out in front.

And in private he had many wives and and so on. I think it says somewhere that he had 300 wives and 700 concubines. I don't know how he managed with all of those. But those are the things. They led his heart away from the Lord.

God's Warning to Solomon About Integrity and Apostasy

And finally he finished building his house and and his fame spread all over. And the Lord spoke to him again. We read in chapter 9 verse 3. And the Lord said to him, appeared to him a second time in chapter 9 verse 2 and said to him, I've heard your prayer and I've consecrated this house.

And verse 4, again the Lord speaks to him after seeing all this. If you will walk before me as your father David walked in integrity of heart and uprightness, I will establish your throne and your kingdom forever.

But if you, verse 6, or your sons turn away, I will cut off Israel, verse 7, from the land I've given them. And this house which you have built will be ruins, verse 8. And everyone who passes by will hiss, verse 8, and say, why has the Lord done this?

And they will say because they forsook the Lord their God. And that's what happened in the days of Jeremiah when King of Babylon came and destroyed that house. But God warned him, don't think that you can live as you like and I'll just keep on blessing you.

And the Lord warns us when he sees us going astray. We have already started going astray. He warns us, he warns us, he warns us. He warns us through his servants. He warns us through a message. Take heed to the warnings of the Lord.

But Solomon did not. In chapter 10, we read of the queen of Sheba coming and meeting Solomon because she heard of his wonderful wisdom. In chapter 11, we read in verse 1, Solomon loved many foreign women.

The daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, Hittite women. And he had, here it is. Sorry, I got it wrong. Verse 3, he had not 300 wives, 700 wives. Verse 3. And 300 concubines. It was the other way around.

And his wife turned his heart away from the Lord. His heart was turned away after other gods. And his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord. And Solomon went after the goddess, verse 5, of the Sidonians.

And Milcom did detestable idol. And Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And Solomon built a high place for this idol, verse 7. And he did for his foreign wives. He burnt incense and sacrificed to their gods.

How a woman can lead a man completely astray from God. It's not only Samson and Delilah. It is Solomon and all his foreign wives. That's why when you get married, don't just look for a pretty face and marry her.

See whether she's got a godly heart. It's far more important in the long run. That pretty face can run your life and destroy it. A godly heart, a godly woman will do you good all the days of your life.

Warnings in scripture, I don't know whether you will take heed to them. There are lot of people who listen to such messages. And when it comes to the time of their marriage, they still go and plump for some worldly type of girl.

Don't ever do that. And sisters, look for a godly man. To be your husband. Don't just yield to your parents, when they suggest some unconverted person. Your husband can lead you astray. You worship idols, maybe not physical idols, but the idols of money and power and pleasure in this world.

And when he went away like that, God warned, told him, well, the Lord was angry with Solomon, verse 9. And he said to Solomon, because you have done this, I'm going to split your kingdom. But because of your father David, he was a godly man.

Verse 12, I will not do it in your lifetime. You see, because of the godliness of the father, how much the children are blessed. And God raised up enemies against Solomon, verse 14, to trouble him. But Solomon did not repent.

When Jeroboam was, he feared that Jeroboam was going to rebel against the king. Verse 26 of chapter 11, Solomon tried to put Jeroboam to death, verse 40. And Jeroboam ran away. He later on became the king of the divided kingdom.

And Solomon died, verse 43. But before he died, he wrote three books. Scripture, Proverbs, one of the finest books in the Old Testament. It's a new covenant book in the Old Covenant. Amazing book. I would advise all young people to read Proverbs regularly frequently.

It's got 31 chapters. You read one chapter a day, it will preserve you every month. Try and read it. It's a very very good book, written by Solomon. Ecclesiastes, warns us of the dangers of worldly wisdom.

Song of Solomon, a wonderful picture of our devotion to Jesus Christ. A man who wrote three books of the Bible, finally went to hell. Isn't that amazing? Do you think that every preacher who stands up and preaches wonderful anointed messages is going to heaven?

A man who wrote scripture went to hell. I've said that in many places and people have come and asked me, how do you know Solomon went to hell? I say, let me take a biography of any godly man in the world.

And if there are two biographies written of that man, like of Solomon, in Kings and in Chronicles. And it tells about how that man started off well and he backslid terribly in his life. And if both those biographies, I'm talking about a secular biography in the world, concludes without mentioning anything about his repentance, I would conclude that that man died unrepentant.

If Solomon had repented, the Holy Spirit would have written it, that towards the end of his life he repented and he turned to the Lord. It's not mentioned there at all. Manasseh was a worse king than Solomon.

He did terrible evil in the sight of the Lord for many many years. He reigned even longer than Solomon. But in the end of his life he repented and the Holy Spirit records it. But towards the end of his life he repented.

Why is it we are so keen on sending Solomon to heaven? It's because we think that if we serve the Lord, he will definitely take us to heaven. Many will come to Jesus in the last day and say, Lord, we cast out demons in your name, we prophesied in your name, we healed the sick.

Jesus will say, depart from me. They will say, I wrote scripture in your name. The Lord will say, depart from me. See, I preached in your name, so what? I prophesied in your name. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

Let that be a warning to you that like Paul said, I can preach to others and be disqualified myself. 1 Corinthians 9 .28. Solomon wrote books and he went to hell. Let that be a warning to you. And then we read in chapter 12 onwards, till the end of 1 Kings about the divided kingdom.

I just want to show you one thing about Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, who after Solomon died, he became the king. And some of the people came to Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12 and said in 12 .4, your father has made our yoke very hard.

Now please lighten our yoke. That means Solomon was a very hard king. He was not like David. He was a hard king. And the king said, OK, come back after three days and I'll tell you what to do. And after three days, during those three days, verse 6, King Rehoboam consulted with the elders in the church, in the kingdom.

And the elders said, be kind to them and they will serve you happily forever. And then he consulted with the young people. You know, we have two options. We consult with the older people and we consult with the younger people.

And he consulted with the younger people and the younger people said, tell them, did my father, was he heavy on you? I'm going to be heavier. My little finger is going to be thicker than my father's loins.

Verse 10, if my father disciplined you, verse 11, with whips, I will discipline you with scorpions. And who do you think he listened to? Like all stupid young people, they listen to the young people instead of the older people.

They don't listen to the wisdom of elders. They listen to the younger people with their zeal. And so when the people came back on the third day, the king answered according to the advice of the younger people.

We read in verse 13 and 14. What was the result? When all Israel saw, verse 16, the king didn't listen to them. They said, we've got nothing to do with you, Solomon. You can go and run your kingdom as you like.

And ten tribes broke away. What a fool Rehoboam was. He split the kingdom by his own folly. And Jeroboam became the king and he moved to the northern end. The kingdom got divided with ten tribes in the north, two tribes Judah and Benjamin in the south.

And Jeroboam, he realized that these people will now go to Jerusalem for their feasts. So he made Bill Sheehan, verse 25, so that people could go there. And he put up an idol there and led people to worship idols.

The Young Prophet and Testing Claims of Divine Authority

There's one more thing I want to show you here in chapter 13. And that's the story of a young prophet whom the Lord gave a message saying, go to Jeroboam and give this message. I don't want to go into the details there.

But don't eat or drink anything anywhere on the way. Go like that and come back. Now in the same area, there was an older retired prophet who was a bit disturbed that God was now picking up this younger fellow to prophesy and he was a bit jealous.