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#NoDespair2020
Well, I said it yesterday, and I'll say it again today, I'm just a regular guy.
You know what I mean? Perhaps you'll join me today. I don't have a Bud Light today, but I do have an apple cider vinegar beverage.
I've heard it's good for digestion. But anyway, I'm trying to work my way through, you know,
Jonathan Lehman's example of King Solomon. So he had this thing that he said about King Solomon being wise, and how a king rules through wisdom.
And this is the kind of wisdom that they can sort of, you know, make up laws and rules that, you know,
God's law doesn't really address. But I'm trying to work my way through this. It doesn't really seem to match up.
Maybe you could help me. Pull up a chair and mix yourself a nice apple cider vinegar drink. I've heard it's also good for blood sugar.
Anyway, but you know the story. I mean, Solomon, you know, Solomon is
David's son. It says in verse 3 of 1 Kings 3 that Solomon loved the
Lord by walking in the statutes of his father David. But he wasn't perfect. He also was offering sacrifices at the high places and stuff like that.
So it wasn't, he wasn't perfect, but he was loving the Lord. That's what it said.
And so, you know, God comes to Solomon and says, you know, what do you want? What do you want, Solomon? And Solomon says, look,
I'm, I'm just a young man, you know what I mean? But I don't have experience, so I need wisdom.
I need to know how to rule. I need to know how to, how to do this thing, how to discern between good and evil.
That's what he's looking for. How do I do this? And God is very pleased with that request.
In fact, he says that, this is what he says in verse 11, he says, you ask for discernment for yourself to administer justice.
And so I will therefore do what you've asked. And then in 14, verse 14, a few sentences later, he says, if you walk in my ways and keep my statutes and commands, just as your father did,
I will give you a long life. And so this whole idea is that like the statutes and the rules and the commands, that's, those are
God's. God establishes those. That's what he's saying. And so if you do them, you'll live a long time, you know,
I'll bless you, all that kind of stuff. It's, but it's, but it's, but it's God's commands, God's statutes,
God's rules. And if you notice, he's looking for wisdom, not to, not to decide what justice is, but rather to administer justice and whose justice is it?
Well, God says, it's my statutes, my commands, my justice. And so the two women come to him and listen to the story.
It says, one woman says, this woman and I live in the same house. They were prostitutes. I had a baby when she was in the house.
And then, and then, and then she gave birth and we were alone. There was no one in the house except for us.
We were the only ones there. And then during the night, this woman laid on top of her son and killed him, accidentally.
Like it was just like, you know, I didn't say that she was drunk or anything, but it looks like a terrible accident.
But then what she does is because she's so sad, she steals the other woman's baby. These two people come to, these two prostitutes come to King Solomon for judgment.
And so what is Solomon doing here? He decided, we know the story. He's examining each one to see whose baby it is.
Like this is not a matter of like, like establishing what justice is.
Like this is an accidental death. But one of the women is now saying that the baby's hers.
Maybe it's, I guess it could be a kidnapping, but, but the point is like the, a lot of the details aren't there, but like Lehman was trying to say that this is like an example of like a law that God didn't give that I don't really even know.
Like, is, what would this law be? Like, should, should Kings be doing, should, should rulers and judges be doing this today?
Like, is it like, was it just for like, if Solomon did cut the baby in half, right? Like, is that, was that wisdom?
No, it wasn't like a new justice. It was just like, he was cross -examining the person. So it was the, it was wise cross -examination to administer
God's justice, right? So God's justice is that you shouldn't be stealing other people's babies.
And God's justice would say that the baby should go with its real mother, right? I guess.
And then, and it doesn't say what happened to the, it doesn't say what, what had happened to the other lady, but like,
I don't know, this just seems like a really weird place to go. Like, yeah, he was wise in administering justice, but he wasn't deciding like what is just and what is unjust because in this exact passage,
God is commending him and then reminding him, this is my justice.
You walk in my ways. You keep my statutes, my commands, just like your father,
David did. And it even says of Solomon, he loved the Lord by walking in the statutes of his father,
David, the statutes of his father, David. If you ever read Psalm 119, it's the law of God, my friends.
Like, I don't know, it just is a very strange, very strange thing. Like, and even, and even in the text, it says they were in awe that they saw
God's wisdom was in him to carry out justice, to administer it, to cross -examine, to find out who's who, to find out what happened, to find out what's what.
Like, like a good lawyer does this kind of stuff all day long, but a good lawyer doesn't write laws, right?