The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 143: Solomon Asks for Wisdom (2023)

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Fr. Mike starts to unpack the character of Solomon and explains how we can see the beginning of his downfall in today's readings. Although Solomon has been blessed with wisdom, he lacks obedience, which is much more important in maintaining a relationship with God. Today's readings are 1 Kings 1, 2 Chronicles 1, and Psalm 43. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation. Discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today, we are on day 143, and we are reading from 1 Kings 1, 2 Chronicles 1, and we're praying Psalm 43, as always. The Bible translation that I am reading from is the Revised Standard Version, the Second Catholic Edition, and I am using the Great

Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year, and if you did, you would realize that we are on a new sheet of paper, which apparently I get very excited about, but I am getting very excited about it because it means that we are trekking through the scriptures. And that is a gift. If you want to subscribe to this podcast, you can click on subscribe and you will be subscribed. And that's subscriptions abound. As I said, today is day 143. We're reading from the first chapter of Kings, first Kings, and the first chapter of second Chron3. We're reading from the first chapter of Kings, 1 Kings, and the first chapter of 2 Chronicles. We're praying Psalm 43.

The first book of the Kings, chapter 1. The struggle for succession to the throne. Now King David was old and advanced in years, and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. Therefore his servants said to him, Let a young maiden be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait upon the king and be his nurse, and let her lie in your bosom, that my lord the king may be warm. So they sought for a beautiful maiden throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The maiden was very beautiful, and she became the king's nurse and ministered to him, but the king knew her not. Now Adonijah, the son of Haggith, exalted himself saying, I will be king. And he prepared for

himself chariots and horsemen and 50 men to run before him. His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, why have you done thus? And so he was also a very handsome man. And he was born next after Absalom. He conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest, and they followed Adonijah and helped him. But Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei, and Rehi, and David's mighty men were not with Adonijah. Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fatlings by the serpent's stone, which is beside En-Rogel. And he invited all his brothers, the king's sons, and all the royal

officials of Judah. But he did not invite Nathan the prophet, or Benaiah, or the mighty men, or Solomon his brother. Then Nathan said to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, Have you not heard that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, has become king, and David our lord does not know it? Now therefore come, let me give you counsel, that you may save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. Go in at once to king David, and say to him, Did you not, my lord the king, swear to your maidservant, saying, Solomon, your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? Why then is Adonijah king? Then, while you are still speaking with the king, I also will come in after you and confirm your words. So Bathsheba went to the king into his chamber. Now the king was very old,

and Abishai the Shunammite was ministering to the king. Bathsheba bowed and did obeisance to the king, and the king said, What do you desire? She said to him, My lord, you swore to your maidservant by the Lord your God, saying, Solomon, your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne. And now, behold, Adonijah is king, although you, my lord the king, do not know it. He has sacrificed oxen, fatlings, and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the sons of the king, Abiathar the priest and has invited all the sons of the king, Abiathar the priest, and Joab the commander of the army. But Solomon, your servant, he has not invited.

And now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are upon you to tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. Otherwise, it will come to pass when my lord the king sleeps with his fathers that I and my son Solomon will be counted offenders. While she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet came in.

And they told the king, Here is Nathan the prophet. And when he came in before the king, he bowed before the king with his face to the ground. And Nathan said, My lord the king, have you said Adonijah shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? For he has gone down this day, and has sacrificed oxen, fatlings, and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the king's sons, Joab the commander of the army, and Abiathar the priest. And behold, they are eating and drinking before him, and saying, Long live king Adonijah. But me, your servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon, he has not invited.

Has this thing been brought about by my lord the king, and you have not told your servants who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him? Solomon is made king. Then King David said, Call Bathsheba to me. So she came into the king's presence and stood before the king. And the king swore, saying, As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my soul out of every adversity, as I swore to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, saying, Solomon, your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead. Even so I will do this day. Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the ground and did obeisance to the king and said,

May my lord King David live forever. King David said, Call to me Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. So they came before the king, and the king said to them, Take with you the servants of your lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride on my own mule and bring him down to Gihon, and let Solomon my son to ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon. And let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet there anoint him king over Israel.

Then blow the trumpet and say, Long live King Solomon. You shall then come up after him, and he shall come and sit upon my throne, for he shall be king in my stead. And I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah. And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, answered the king, Amen. May the Lord, the God of my Lord, the king, say so. As the Lord has been with my Lord, the king, even so may he be with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my Lord, King David. So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiahaiah the son of jehoiada and the cherithites and the pelethites went down and caused solomon to ride on king david's mule and

brought him to gihon there zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed solomon then they blew the trumpet and all the people said long live king solomon and all the people went up after him, playing on pipes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth was split by their noise. Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they finished feasting. And when Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, What does this uproar in the city mean? While he was still speaking, behold, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest, came, and Adonijah said, Come in, for you are a worthy man, and bring good news. Jonathan answered Adonijah, No, for our lord,

King David, has made Solomon king, and the king has sent with him Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, and they have caused him to ride on the king's mule. And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at Gihon. And they have gone up from there rejoicing so that the city is in an uproar. This is the noise that you have heard. Solomon sits upon the royal throne. Moreover, the king's servants came to congratulate our Lord King David saying, your God make the name of Solomon more famous than yours and make his throne greater than your Our Lord King David saying, all the guests of Adonijah trembled and rose and each went his own way. And Adonijah feared Solomon and he arose and went and caught hold of the horns of the altar. And it was told Solomon, behold, Adonijah fears King Solomon for behold, he has laid hold of the horns of the altar saying,

let King Solomon swear to me first that he will not slay his servant with the sword. And Solomon said, if he proved to be a worthy man, not one of his hairs shall fall to the earth. But if wickedness is found in him, he shall die. So King Solomon sent, and they brought him down from the altar. And he came and did obeisance to King Solomon. And Solomon said to him, Go to your house. The second book of Chronicles, chapter one, Solomon requests wisdom. Solomon, the son of David, established himself in his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him, and made him exceedingly great. Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, and to all the leaders in all Israel, the heads of fathers' houses. And Solomon and all the assembly with him went to the

high place that was at Gibeon, for the tent of the meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness, was there. But David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath Jerem to the place that David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem. Moreover, the bronze altar that Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the Lord. And Solomon and the assembly sought the Lord, and Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the Lord, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings upon it. In that night, God appeared to Solomon and said to him, Ask what I shall give you. And Solomon said to God,

You have shown great and merciful love to David my father, and have made me king in his stead. O Lord God, let your promise to David my father be now fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as many as the dust of the earth. Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and to come in before this people, God answered Solomon, and have not even asked long life, but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may rule my people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like. So Solomon came from the high place at Gibeon, from before the tent of meeting to Jerusalem, and he reigned over Israel.

Solomon's Acquisitions Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. And the king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah. And Solomon's import of horses was from Egypt and Cu, and the king's traders received them from Cu for a price. They imported a chariot from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150. Likewise, through them these were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria. Psalm 43. Prayer to God in time of trouble.

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people. From deceitful and unjust men deliver me. For you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you cast me off? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? O send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God my God. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my Savior and my God. Father in heaven, we give you praise. We do give you glory and honor. And there is no reason when you are with us, when you are near us, for our souls to be cast down. Yes, Lord God, we experienced grief. We experienced suffering. We experienced loss in this life and in this world. And so our hearts can be broken. But in all things, we can still have joy.

We can still have this abiding and pervasive sense of well-being because we know who you are. We know your character. We know your character. We know your heart. We know your steadfast love for us. Because of that, Lord God, we can have that abiding and pervasive sense of well-being. We can have joy in all circumstances that even when our hearts are broken, even when our souls are tormented, even when our bodies are wracked with pain and grief.

That we do not have to be cast down because you are with us and you are for us. And if you are for us, who can be against us? We give you praise, Lord God. So thank you. Thank you. Help us. Bolster us up. I mean, strengthen us, Lord God.

Especially when the grief gets too big, when the suffering gets to become too much, when this day is overwhelming. Strengthen us and help us take one step forward. Help us take the next good step. In Jesus' name we pray, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay, so here we are taking this turn, right? We're going 1 Kings chapter 1 and 2 Chronicles chapter 2. Now keep this in mind is that originally Kings and Chronicles were one book. We already mentioned this, I think, at the beginning of Samuel and talking about Chronicles is that Samuel was all one book. Chronicles is all one book. Kings is all one book, but they're very long books. It would be impractical apparently to have that one massively long scroll. And so they divided them into first and second Kings and to first and second Chronicles. And so here we are

starting in first Kings, which indicates a transition. As we mentioned, the last couple days at the end of 2 Samuel, we're getting to the end of David's life. Remember, he had to be taken off of the field of battle because not only was he being targeted as the king, he was also weak as the aged king. And so he had to be brought off of the field of battle. And now here we have David, who is as old as he's going to get so he had to be brought off of the field of battle. And now here we have David, who is as old as he's going to get and is unable to stay warm. And so what do they do? They

bring in this young maiden, Abishag the Shunammite. Now, she's going to be very important, not only because here she is with David, but also how they even note Abishag the Shunammite. She's beautiful. She's a young maiden. And David does not know her, essentially. So she becomes essentially the king's concubine, but a, let's say, a platonic concubine, if that's such a thing. But he did not know her in a sexual way. And that's going to be important because that's going to factor into the next piece. Now, this story is going to continue, right? Because we have another character in 1 Kings chapter 1 called Adonijah, who's another one of David's sons. And Adonijah is saying, I will be king. And he not only prepared for himself chariots and horsemen with 50 men to run before him, but he also was born after Absalom. Remember Absalom, handsome. Here's

Adonijah, handsome. And he gets Joab on his side and Abiathar, the priest on his side. He has a bunch of people on his side and basically, again, has them all acclaim him as the king. Now, this is going to be really important for the rest of this book of kings. We're going to hear stories of king after king, and almost every one of them is going to be worse than the one who came before him. Not exactly. There are a couple decent kings who show up, but they are few and far between. Solomon himself is the one who's going to be exalted to be the king. Actually, in chapter one here of first Kings, he's exalted. What happens?

Bathsheba, Solomon's mom, one of David's wives, comes in and she does obeisance to David and says, you know, you promised that Solomon, my son, would be king, but Adonijah has made himself the king. Now, did you not know about this? And this is the 100% key for what's happening now in Kings. Here is David, an incredible warrior. Here is David, an incredible leader in battle. Here's David, who amasses this insane fortune to be able to build the temple. Here's

David who also writes incredible Psalms and writes incredible songs. David is massively talented. He's anointed, he's gifted by God, and yet he doesn't know what's happening in his own family. We mentioned this in 2 Samuel, but this is going to play out in 1 Kings and 2 Kings in this horrible, horrible way. David is a success in almost every area of his life, except when it comes to his own family, when it comes to being a dad. How do we see this in chapter 1? How we see this is he doesn't even know what his kids are doing. Remember back when Absalom, David didn't even call him my son. He called him the young man Absalom until after Absalom had died. You would think, one would think, or even that horrible story of Absalom's sister Tamar being raped by

her brother and David doing nothing about this. What we have here is Adonijah making himself king and David, he knows nothing about this. What has to happen here then is that Bathsheba and Nathan have to kind of basically plot to get David to do the right thing, to announce Solomon as the king. Now, again, if he was paying attention to his family, David would have seen this coming. So what happens? What happens is he announces he does the right thing, but he has to be brought to that place because for as gifted as David is, as anointed as David is, when it comes to being a dad, when it comes to being a father, he in many ways is a failure. He doesn't know what's happening in his own home. And this is going to play out in the next number of chapters as we see Solomon.

Now, here we have Solomon in 1 Kings 1, and he's just beginning. He's just going to start in this whole thing. But in 2 Chronicles 1, we have this big moment. We're not going to get to in 1 Kings until chapter 3. But here we have 2 Chronicles 1, where God asks, Solomon, what do you want me to do for you? And Solomon asks for wisdom and God gives him wisdom. Now, people will ask oftentimes, how is it that Solomon could be one of the wisest people at the beginning and is a great fool at the

end? Well, what we see is he doesn't even start out incredibly wise, at least when it comes to 2 Chronicles. What does he do immediately? In 2 Chronicles, Solomon gets wisdom, and then he begins to amass treasures. He begins to amass, even this, it's a small point, but it's a pretty critical point. At the end of chapter 1, it says that Solomon had horses imported from Egypt and Coup. Now, remember that this is in direct disobedience to Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 16, where it said about the king of Israel, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the Lord has said to you, you shall not return that way again. And yet, here is Solomon, who right after he has been prayed for the gift of wisdom and been given the gift of wisdom, is not good.

You can be wise and disobedient. It's one of the reasons why wisdom is a great gift. Wisdom is a great virtue. But obedience is even more powerful. And this is what's going to happen. This is going to be the undoing of Solomon. He will have great wisdom. And there will be a number of times when he can demonstrate that wisdom on the stage, but he is wise and not obedient. He can be wise and not good.

We realize this, like even think of Satan. Here's Lucifer. Lucifer, who is one of the most powerful, most beautiful, most intelligent of all of the angels. And what does he do? He turns away from the Lord. It's possible to be wise, but not good. It's possible to be beautiful, but not good. It's possible to be strong and courageous, but not good. And here is Solomon, who at the very beginning of 2 Chronicles reveals himself.

Thus, he's been blessed by the Lord with wisdom, but he already shows a streak of disobedience. And this is what's going to play out for the rest of his life. Yes, there are moments of wisdom. That is a gift. So good. But also there is a streak of disobedience and a streak where Solomon does not do the right. And so one of the things we always have to say is, okay, Lord, we've all been given gifts. We've all been given these opportunities to exercise the gifts that God has given to us. And yet we all also have to recognize that in the midst of all the gifts you've given me, Lord, they don't mean anything unless I exercise them in accordance with your will. That all the power I might have,

all the wealth I might have, the health or beauty or strength or wisdom that I might have, they can all lead me somewhere to a dark place if I don't use them to accomplish your will. This is one of the keys of scripture is that God says, I desire obedience, not sacrifice. So in all things, we've been gifted. You've been gifted. You've been gifted. we've been gifted you've been gifted you've been gifted you've been blessed by the lord and now we say okay god how do you want me to use your blessings to serve you and to help the people around me we got to pray for that because without god's grace we can't do it and so please pray for each other i am praying for you please pray for me my name is father mike i cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.