Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Who Will Be King? | The Life of Solomon | 1 Kings 1

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

It's time for a new series! Today we start our biographical study of King Solomon's life. As with all political transitions, his rise to power begs the question: who will be king. In this episode, Keith introduces us to 1 Kings and Solomon. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Today we're beginning a new series here at TMBT. We're going to go through the life of King Solomon. King Solomon had an incredibly interesting life. His highs were high and his lows were low. He faced the temptations of money, sex, power, all the same temptations that we face today.

And all these stories about King Solomon, well, they're found in the Bible. So these stories are inspired by God, given to us, to teach us, and to encourage us to follow Jesus. If you've been looking for the right time to invite others to join you and listening to Thin Minute Bible Talks, maybe to talk about the Bible as you listen to these podcasts together, this might be the perfect time to do it, to send them a link, and they can take it from there. I always find that I learn more when I talk through what I'm learning with other people. Solomon is a fascinating person to study.

He was Israel's third king. You might remember Israel's first king was King Saul. He looked the part of a king, which we'll come back to in a bit. But King Saul was rejected because he rebelled against God. And then the second king of Israel was King David. He was Israel's most famous kings. A while back, we did a whole series on King David. And so you can go back through the archives and find those if you want to learn more about his life.

And then King Solomon is the third king. He was David's son. So Solomon's dad is King David. His mother is Bethsheba. Now, that's a pretty well-known name. If you remember that name, it's probably because you remember the difficult story of David and Bethsheba. In the best case, it was adultery, but it might have been far worse than that. Solomon was the product of the union of David and Best Shiba.

Best Shiba went on to become one of David's wives. She went on to play a prominent role in the kingdom of Israel. Now, if I asked you, what's one thing you know about Solomon? You would probably say the word wisdom, because King Solomon was known for being incredibly wise. He wrote many of the proverbs, and many scholars think he had a hand in writing the book of Ecclesiastes. But as King Solomon gets older, his heart gets divided, and as a consequence, Israel is divided.

It has something akin to a civil war. So King Solomon, remember, his highs are high and his lows are low. He's a complex guy, which I think makes him an interesting person to learn from. I love learning from other people's lives, and so I love to read biographies. I think I enjoy it so much because when you read a biography, when you find out about another person's life, what you have the opportunity to do is to learn their life lessons when there's still time to apply them to your life. So I think we should treat Solomon's life in a similar way. What did Solomon learn as he went through life? And then how can we take those lessons and

apply them to our life? The book of the Bible that contains the story of King Solomon's life is First Kings. And so that's going to be the basis of this series. And when we open up, up First Kings to chapter one, we learn that Solomon's rise to kingship isn't going to be smooth or easy. First Kings opens when King David, remember that Solomon's dad, is about 70 years old and he's nearing death. Physically, everything is going downhill. David's at that stage where he can't stay warm. And so they pile covers on top of him, but even that doesn't work. So they go get a human hot water bottle, or at least that's how it sounds. They search the the land for a beautiful young woman to lay in bed with King David and bring him meals.

The story says that they never had a sexual relationship. So what's up with this human hot water bottle? It sounds weird. You know why it sounds weird? Because it is weird. At least it's weird to us. But it was a pretty common practice in the ancient Near East. We've got to be careful not to confuse what is with what ought to be. You got to remember that the Bible is written in a historical context, real people, a real part of the world at a real time in history. And therefore, it's not at all surprising to see the people in the Bible reflect the practices of the culture and the other people who live around them. The people we read about in the Bible were people from a certain

time and a certain place, same as every single person who's ever lived. You see, every century looks back and judges the people who came before them. And I'm sure that future generations will look back at us and judge us, just like we judge those who came before us. But remember, we have to separate what is with what ought to be. Just because something happened doesn't mean that's what God wanted to happen. It doesn't mean we should emulate it. Let's just take an example here, real quick, polygamy. Polygamy was common in the ancient world, and we even see it in the Bible. We see it in King David's life, in Solomon's life, and other people's lives. But that doesn't mean that polygamy was God's design. It doesn't mean that's what should have happened. Polygamy was a real thing,

but it's not what God wanted. It was never God's design, not then, and not now. But in the context of the story, there's a reason we're told that this young, beautiful woman was brought to keep David warm, but they never had a sexual relationship. It's included in the story to just show how old and feeble the king is. His days are nearly over. Now, that's a little warning to us. If mighty King David eventually his body wears out and dies, if wealthy King David's wealth, his money, his financial fortune, can't protect him from death, well, I think we're going to die too.

We're all headed in that direction. No one gets out of this life alive. So plan accordingly. The key verse in this opening section of chapter one is verse. Verse five. Here's how it reads. Now, Adonijah, whose mother was Hegith, put himself forward and said, I will be king. Okay, look, let's just acknowledge that pronouncing all these Hebrew names is really difficult. And I'm probably going to get them wrong. Remember, Patrick went to a private school. And so if he pronounces it differently than me, he's probably right. But you get the point of verse five, right?

David's old, his health is declining, so everybody's wondering who's going to be the next king. And this guy, Adaniya, he sees an opening for career advancement. Adonijah is David's oldest living son. He was the fourth in birth order, but his three older brothers had died. It's a really sad story. The oldest son, Amman, was killed by his brother, Absalom, who was then killed in a rebellion against his father. There's a lot of dysfunction in. this family. But all this to say that there's a sense that Adonijah had reason to believe that he would be

the next king. In that culture, being the oldest son, came with certain privileges and expectations. But Adonijah should have known that wasn't always the case. In Deuteronomy, God had said he would be the one who would choose the king. And Adonijah's own father, David, very famously, was the youngest in his family when he was chosen king to replace Saul. as readers were already aware that God has told David that Solomon will succeed him as king, even though Solomon was David's 10th son. But here comes Adonijah, trying to assert his right. Not only was he the oldest living son, but we're also told he was very handsome. King Saul was described in a similar way. The people chose Saul because he looked the part of the king,

and maybe Adonijah is hoping that the same kind of thing, will work for him. But when the prophet Samuel declared that God had chosen David to replace Saul, Samuel said that man looks at outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Adonijah is trying to take a page from Saul's playbook. First, he has the right image, the right look, and then he gathers the right people around him. And in the process, he's very careful to avoid what he thinks of as the wrong people. See, Israel had leaders. And, Adonijah was very careful about which leaders he consulted with. He did not consult with the prophet, priest, or king that God had appointed to lead his people

because Adonijah knew that they were going to say things that he didn't want to hear. So Adonijah recruited what's commonly referred to as yes men, but of course it's not gender specific. We can all look for yes people in our life, people who will tell us what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear. Do we have people who will say hard things to us, who will speak hard truth, even when it's not what we want to hear? And how open are we to receiving that kind of hard truth? Adonijah was not open.

He didn't want to hear what he didn't want to hear. And so he recruited, yes people, to be around him. I was raised by my mom and her parents, my grandfather and grandmother. And my grandfather, when he was young, used to play checkers with me. Now, I wasn't very good, and he loved to torment me. He would keep all of his pieces on the back row. He would never move them, so I could never get a king. But every once in a while, I could figure out how to get a king.

And I loved saying to him, king me. I love getting kings for obvious reasons. I mean, they're the most powerful piece in the game of checkers. A king has power and can move any direction that he wants to move. I say king me in my own life too, because I love the power to do what I want to do. I want to be king of my life. I want to be king of my world. I want to be king of my kingdom. The problem is, is that when I'm my own king, my kingdom is really, really small. It's the kingdom of one, the kingdom of me. And in the kingdom of me, I live for myself. In the kingdom of me, I ask, what do I want to do?

with my time, my talent, and my treasure. Adonijah wants to be king. He's saying, king, me. That's why he rushes ahead with his plan to seize the crown and ascend the throne. But Isaiah 64 says, Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no I has seen any God besides you who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. Adonijah refused to wait on God.

But I'm not concerned with Adonijah's sin. I'm concerned about your sin and my sin. Am I content to wait on God's timing? Or do I rush out and take things into my own hands? Try to make things happen in my power instead of waiting and depending on God? Adonijah also sought to exalt himself as king. But 1st Peter 5.6 says, humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time.

Adonijah was unwilling to humble himself. Am I willing to take the humble road? If God wants to use me for a big thing, then great, he can exalt me. But if not, that's fine too. My life is God's and how he wants to use me? Well, that's up to him. King Solomon, just like King David before him, points us to a greater king, a coming king. But kings make people like you and me nervous. Our whole national history is built on overthrowing an English king. When we think of a king that way, we have the wrong kind of king in mind. We're thinking of a selfish king, a power-hungry king.

But Solomon points us forward to a different kind of king. king. And that, of course, is King Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate descendant of David. He is the one who sits on David's throne forever, making him Jesus the forever king. Jesus is everything Adonijah wasn't. Adonijah, he announced his own kingship. But Jesus, he left that to his father. Philippians too tells us that Jesus did not think equality with God was something to be grasped. He didn't try to use his rights and privileges for his own advantage. Adonijah asserted his rights, but Jesus laid aside his rights. Jesus did not come to do his own will, but the will of the Father who sent him.

Adonijah exalted himself. Jesus, he humbled himself, and he became obedient to death, even death on a cross. And then he waited for his father to raise him. He waited for his father to exalt him. He waited for his father to give him the name that is above every name. So in my life, do I imitate Adinijah or Jesus? Which one am I following? Am I trying to assert my rights and be the king in my life exalting myself?

Or do I submit to King Jesus? Do I become a servant for his sake? Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, Please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually.

If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.