Doug Batchelor - Solomon Part 2 - The Wisdom of Solomon

it's been 2,000 years since the glorious light of the cross illuminated a world veiled in darkness and confusion about the character of God and still today the greatest need of mankind is a revelation of God's love as revealed in the life of Christ amazing facts presents the everlasting gospel with Pastor Doug Batchelor coming to you each week from Sacramento Central Church in sunny California discover hidden treasures in God's Word today this is the second part in a multi-part series we're going to be doing on the character of Solomon in the Bible we introduced him last week and today we're going to be into part two dealing with Solomon more specifically the wisdom of Solomon and that's what people often think about when they they hear about Solomon is this wise king how many of you wouldn't mind sharing that you had your wisdom teeth removed look at that that just lowered the collective IQ in our whole audience here right where do wisdom teeth get the name well they're the last of your back molars to come in some actually never get them most do they have a tendency to crowd your mouth a little bit and can compress teeth and that's why we often have them removed I want to go on record I still got mine and that's why I'm the senior pastor but they somewhere between 17 and 21 you get your wisdom teeth and they they used to say when someone did something foolish or said something foolish they'd say well he hasn't cut his wisdom teeth yet meaning he hasn't lived long enough to have experience because usually in that range you start to get some experience you know they say your car insurance doesn't go down until you get to be about 25 and that's because they notice that there's a high incidence of accidents and problems little recklessness but you start to be a little more cautious a little more things stabilized a little bit a little more wisdom and responsibility at 25 and often the insurance rates go down about that time this is right about the age of Solomon when he begins to rain now as we return to our story you'll remember that just before Solomon died I'm sorry just before David died he did something very unusual often a king would die and then they would coronate the next king but Solomon sat down to rain while David was still alive so for a while there you had the father in the Sun you had King David alive and he still king and but then you've got the son reigning and it makes us think of when Jesus went to heaven and he was exalted at the right hand of the Father the two really Kings I mean of Jesus is the king of kings then what's the father you know what I'm saying and so you've got a little picture in the Bible of that happening but David was aged at this point his health was failing and but they they coronated Solomon as king the first time because out of Nigel was trying to kidnap the kingdom but they did it a second time it says in first Kings chapter 2 verse 46 that the kingdom was established in Solomon the kingdom was established now a few things happen for him to establish himself as king 1st chronicles 29 22 it says so they ate and they drank before the king with great gladness on that day and they made Solomon the son of David King the second time and anointed him before the Lord to be the leader and Zadok the priest anointed twice you know Jesus the son of David was anointed twice he was anointed at the beginning of his ministry and then he was anointed just before his death anointed by the Holy Spirit during his baptism he was anointed by Mary and Jesus said for his burial just anoint both by that fragrant Minh and anointed by her tears a baptism in sorrow you might say Santa Solomon was anointed a second time just before the death of David so it's interesting that there is those two anointings there and then you read in 1st chronicles 29 you know when you read the story of Solomon you got to hop around between kings and chronicles and even a few other verses to piece together the history 1st chronicles 29 23 then Solomon sat upon the throne of the Lord as King the throne of who says he sat on the throne of the Lord when a king over God's people reigns who owns the throne the throne of the Lord when you are given a position of responsibility in God's service who owns the position it's a big big step in the right direction if you can remember that everything that you have comes from God any gift of ministry any service that you have any responsibility in God's service it belongs to God it's not your position our position here is pastors they're God's positions and by the way you treated a lot more carefully when you realize it if you're a parent you've got children they're his children all things belong to God so here they identified it as the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his father and he prospered and all Israel obeyed him now that didn't come without a little struggle at the beginning shortly after David died and we read about the last words of David last week at a Naija his brother who had tried to take the kingdom while David was still alive he must have had a backroom meeting once again with a buyeth or in joe ab and he said David's dead now solomon's young you know if we're careful we can probably orchestrate things where we can have a coup and take over tell you what I'm gonna do I need to have some kind of recognized authority from David cuz David's died you know David really never slept with his wife Abishag and she's really pretty I'll ask Bathsheba if she'll go to Solomon he won't tell his mother no and see if I could marry Abhishek and if I've got King David's former wife it gives me more credibility that'll set the stage and then we'll have a coup Joab you can take care of Benin ayah and and and bye I thought you can get rid of Zadok the priest and will be the new leadership of the kingdom Solomon's too young he doesn't know what he's doing so they tested his strength and at night she went to myth that Sheba and she he said she a little worried about him because she almost had her son killed because of an idea he said I need to ask you a favor I know that Solomon has been chosen to be king but could you do me a favor and just go to the king and and see if it would be okay if if I could have Abishag his wife now this point Solomon doesn't even have a wife yet and so Solomon already was pretty bright in his own right Bathsheba went to him and he said why do you ask for Abishag for at an idea why don't you ask for the kingdom he said to his mother because I see what he's really up to and right then he had a little housecleaning you know it's often true when someone comes into power you need to establish who is loyal and you need to get rid of those who are not loyal because you'll never get rooted in your position and so out of Nigel was slain by Benin I of a general Joab fled to the temple you remember and Solomon said you better slay him there Joab that general who would follow David from beginning to end he had also killed a couple of innocent men along the way he was slain and a buyeth are the priests Solomon remembered that a curse came on King Saul because he killed the priests of the Lord he said I'm not going to kill you but you're gonna be banished you got to go to your country home and you better live out your days there and so he got rid of that little trilogy of one of the sons of David and another false religious leader and a false military leader and you know those are the three elements of government you've got the political you get the military you got the spiritual you ever play chess you got all those pieces don't you and so when he then had loyalty in that area and the people saw that he was willing to kill his own brother and the old in general in order to have loyalty to David's choice everybody sat up and paid attention said Solomon is King and you notice you read here I'm continuing in first chronicles 29 all Israel obeyed him all the leaders in the mighty man also all King of the king's sons all the other sons of David he had a lot of other sons besides out of Niger they all said you might be our brother but you're our King by the way Jesus is our brother isn't he but don't forget he's your friend but don't forget he's your king and that relationship is one that we don't want to make subservient to the others and be disrespectful well then you read on go with me now to first Kings we're gonna spend some time here first Kings chapter 3 verse 1 now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh of Egypt Anna Mara married Pharaoh's daughter this is one of the first things Solomon does begins to raise a flag he gets a wife from Egypt but there's even a spiritual lesson in this now I don't think that Solomon went down to the Pharaoh and said you know you've got a really pretty daughter can I marry her what happened is they correspond did they said what kind of treaty can we have between our kingdoms it'll be better for our people will be better for trade in the economy and it was very common back then to effect the treaty that the King would give either the daughter of the priest that's what happened with Joseph the daughter of the priest was given with the daughter of the king of he had won and the King had I guess beautiful qualified daughter but one reason they did this is because Solomon knew that if he's married to Pharaoh's daughter Solomon's children are pharaoh's grandchildren it's really hard to attack and kill your own grandchildren and so it just preserves a little bit of family and peace in the kingdom through those those similarities now there's something else here that's a spiritual and by the way probably the ferrule offered his daughter I don't think that Solomon came up with the idea and Solomon saw it would be a good strategic thing to do showing signs of political wisdom already so he brings his wife out of Egypt into the Promised Land does that sound familiar did Abraham have a wife that came out of Egypt what was her name Hagar did Joseph have a wife that came from Egypt yeah and what about God did God bring a wife out of Egypt where it was Israel really born as a nation where did they multiply into a national status when they went down to Egypt then they were exceeding fruitful and they multiplied greatly and God brought his bride his church out of Egypt to the promised land so here you've got Solomon the son of David bringing his wife out of Egypt into the Promised Land you got that a lot of similarities I've been sharing between Solomon and Christ that I wanted you to consider did Jesus come out of Egypt into the Promised Land when he was young Bible says I've called my son out of Egypt now you go on here in 1st Kings chapter 3 you read in verse 2 it says meanwhile the people sacrifice at the high places now I've got to talk about this when Solomon first came into power they didn't have a temple yet and we're probably in our next study focused more on Solomon building the temple it's a fascinating study and when they came into the Land of Israel the countryside was littered with shrines in hills and groves where they worshipped their pagan deities and some of these were beautiful gardens there on top of the hill they had big flat marble platforms where they would offer to their pagan gods sometimes even human sacrifice and they were surrounded with groves and evergreen trees and and God had told them to destroy these places of worship because he did not want their worship confused or polluted by pagan worship you know we do that in our culture sometimes it's real easy there's all kinds of false things that are done in a pagan culture of worship you got to be careful not to co-mingle the worship of the true God with cultural traditional pagan worship and I won't use any specifics of that right now but I think you'll be able to figure out how to apply that and so it says Solomon love the Lord walking in the commandments of David his father except no don't forget that matt forgot it highlighted in my Bible Solomon loved the Lord when he started out he loved the Lord except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places saying he loved the Lord but they had no temple yet the tabernacle was still parked in one of the high places in Gibeon where they moved it during the time of King David and this is that old tattered Tabernacle that had been through the wilderness wandering 40 years and now through the time of judges and the time of Saul and the time of David it's starting to look like a very old place of worship and so by the way the ark was not in the tabernacle at that time David had pitched a tent for the ark in Jerusalem so the tabernacle had the altar of incense and that's why he was so anxious that they build a temple in Jerusalem to be the home of the Ark Solomon loved the Lord accept his sacrifice and burnt ends on the high places now you read in Deuteronomy 12 verse 2 you shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you dispossessed serve their gods on the high mountains and on the hills so you see that's why it's saying except he still was on the high places Moses had said they should not do that under every Green Tree but you will seek the place where were the children of Israel supposed to sacrifice Moses said you will seek the place where the Lord your God chooses out of all your tribes to put his name as a dwelling place and there you shall go well God had chosen Jerusalem that's why David had made a provision to build the temple but it wasn't built yet so Solomon went to Gibeon and he was praying and worshiping God there now go with me to first Kings we're gonna read quite a bit here now the king verse 4 he went to Gibeon to sacrifice therefore that was the great high place and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on the altar it's the altar of the Lord it's just at the old location where there was some pagan deity had been honored a thousand burnt offerings was that required why a thousand is that wasteful that's sort of like married pouring her lavish gift on Jesus and Judas criticized her that's too much it's wasteful jesus said no any sacrifice you give to God is not too much God honored him he loved the Lord that's why he did it why do we give why do we sacrifice because we love the Lord and after he makes his sacrifice he returns he's there at Gibeon it says he's sleeping and the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night now this is not a normal dream this is one of those dreams that is a vision from God it's the three-dimensional dream maybe you've never had one and God said ask what I shall give you now that's a pretty tall order what do you ask for if God said what do you want what do you really want what would you ask for well people you know if you ask someone that question they usually automatically like a compass needle they go to whatever the most pressing need is if you've got a terrible backache and someone says what do you want you say pain reliever healed back if you've got a child that's in jail and someone says what do you want I want my child to be free well wherever the that's where you scratch where was the itch for Salomon right then he was this young man had several older brothers you've got to follow David as king talk about being a hard act to follow I mean can you imagine how Elijah felt when he was going to follow Elijah I mean here you've got this prophet who talks to God he prays and fire comes down he prays and it pours rain after a famine Birds feed him from heaven and you're supposed to step into his shoes so what did he lie I asked for said I want a double portion of your spirit how else can I step into your shoes so God says what do you want what did he want he wanted the Holy Spirit wisdom is one of the gifts of the Spirit now listen here and Solomon said notice this take a pencil or pen if you mark in your Bible and circle how often it says you and Solomon said here's his answer when God says what do you want you have shown great mercy to your servant David my father because he walked before you in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart with you you he's speaking to the Lord have continued this great kindness for him you have given him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day he doesn't even mention his name he just as a son now Oh Lord my God you have made your servant how does he refer to himself a servant King instead of my father David but I am just a little child I do not know how to go out or come in you know one of the first things in obtaining real wisdom is knowing what you don't know you can't teach somebody that knows everything and one reason God could bestow so much wisdom on saw a Solomon is because you can't fill a full vessel he was humble he realized he was just a little child he realized he was inadequate he realized without God he could do nothing we believed he was probably under 30 somewhere around 25 is the guess I am just a little child I do not know how to go out or come in when William McKinley was inaugurated as president part of his presidential address was he cited this statement from Solomon he said oh lord give me wisdom for I'm just a child and I don't know how to go out and come in takes humility to admit that over this your people and your servant is in the midst of your people who you have chosen a great people too numerous to be counted had God fulfilled his promise to Abraham that the people would be like the sand of the sea therefore give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people that I might discern between good and evil for who is able to judge this great people of yours who is worthy of this he said I can't do it so give me an understanding art now in first Kings here chapter three he never really says wisdom but in Chronicles you read in 2nd chronicles 1 verse 10 it's a parallel passage he says now give me wisdom and knowledge that I might go out and come in before this people for who can judge this great people of yours he had humility in his heart why could God answer his prayer because he was humble how many of you would like more wisdom we're gonna talk about that today what's one of the first criteria to having the wisdom of God comes from Solomon listen to what he said in Proverbs 1533 the fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom here you go and before honor is humility if you want to be honored with the wisdom of God first you got to know how much you don't know and you know yeah the older I get the more I know I don't know now that works a couple of ways part of the reason is the older I get the less I can remember but also the more you learn your understanding of how big the universe is and how vast knowledge is becomes more profound and you know when your kid especially as you start going through the teenage years it's just inevitable that you start becoming a little more self-confident you start getting a handle on things and you can get overconfident and have a pretty high estimate of how much you know my dad used to quote Mark Twain who would say the older I got the more amazed I was and how many institutions of higher learning my mother had attended meaning he developed more and more respect for his mother as he got older some of the simple wisdom when you're you're young sometimes you don't have it first thing you need to have before you're blessed with a gift of wisdom is to realize what you don't know so he asked for wisdom what is wisdom I got a definition we can put up here on the screen wisdom is first of all understanding what is right or lasting or true insight to common sense good judgment for instance Henry David Thoreau said it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things to think and to be patient 3 the sum of scholarly learning through the ages the wisdom of the ages for instance or be wise teaching of the sages for a wise outlook a plan a course of action God is offering us wisdom now you can have knowledge and not have wisdom you notice the Bible says in Daniel chapter 12 that in the last days knowledge will increase does it say wisdom will increase no they're different aren't they you can have people to know how to build a nuclear weapon weapon and they've got a lot of knowledge it's called technology but then they blow up their fellow man with this knowledge that's not wise and so wisdom is different from knowledge you can have someone who's a technical genius you can have a person who's a computer nerd and they spend all their time and then you know they can understand everything about a computer but they don't have wisdom to like get a job you know there's a difference it's so you yeah I hope I didn't insult anybody in saying that there's a an ability that you want to have to do practical things with knowledge that's what wisdom is so Solomon asked for this and there's something else I want you to notice verse 10 the speech that Solomon made pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing and so God was very happy that he had asked this now when I read the story of Solomon I told you to underline the words you Hezekiah king Hezekiah was he a good King or bad King good King but you remember when ambassadors came from Babylon to find out about the miracle when the Sun went backwards and they came to his akai to find out about God and Hezekiah entertained them what did Hezekiah say I they said what did they see in your house and Hezekiah said I'm in Isaiah chapter 39 verse 4 Hezekiah answered and said they've seen all that is in my house there's nothing among my treasures I've not shown them it says he showed them all that was in his treasure his armoury his spices his house his Dominion now look at the difference solomon when he comes into the kingdom he says lord you you you you you you you it's your kingdom solomon after being on the throne for a while started thinking me me me me me it's my kingdom or Hezekiah rather King Saul started out so Lord's Kingdom at the end he said it's mine Babylon when did King Nebuchadnezzar lose the kingdom is not this great Babylon that I have built for my majesty my glory my kingdom my my my me me me God could do great things with Solomon because he had an attitude of humility he was humble now this ought to also bring you and I courage what kind of family did Solomon grow up in talk about dysfunction can you imagine living in a house where you've got nine other stepmothers at the same time a bunch of other brothers and at least a couple of sisters we know one named Tamar and they're all vying for gifts and the father's time and the Davidoff busy fighting words you can't get your father's attention and the mothers I mean look at the struggle between hannah and peninnah that's two wives look at all the struggles between Rachel and Leah and Zilpha and Bilhah four wives you read about that's like a soap opera going on can you imagine being in the house of solomon growing up and all of this talk that was going on about the way that david and bathsheba got together among the other wives and the the probably the verbal abuse and the teasing and now you think that having a house of privilege makes you a well-rounded person Benjamin Franklin said more people are destroyed by plenty than once you know we often hear about people who come to greatness from poverty and those are always inspiring stories but I'll tell you it's just as inspiring when someone survives prosperity and becomes great we don't think about it Jesus said people or people can get into the kingdom it's almost impossible for a rich man to get into the kingdom of God now I tell you this especially those of you who are parents take heart if Solomon could grow up with all of that bizarre baggage in his family that stuff going on every day and he could say I want to build up the house of God I want to serve God first I want to seek first God and he could have his head screwed on straight there's hope for everybody isn't there I mean you had some brothers that when you know yeah there was incest in the family Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar and and then Absalom killed his brother there was murder in the family he grew up with all that swirl that just cesspool of nonsense going on in the household there and David was sort of aloof of everything was happening because he's so involved in conquering in the politics and the judging and yet in spite of that you know I I think one key is remember he had Nathan the Prophet as his tutor how is it that Josiah could grow up when atholea was on the throne and be such a faithful king or joash rather joash as long as jehoiada the priest was alive and gave him spiritual guidance he was faithful to God do you have good spiritual counselors do you have spiritual friends you all need that that kept Solomon on the right track and that had a lot to do with his priorities and his wisdom not only what he got from his father so he prays for wisdom and God is pleased does God hear his prayer he does and he becomes the wisest man who ever lived I was married getting an amazing fact ready for one of the radio programs that I ran into this I thought it was pretty amazing the Grand Vizier you ever heard of the Grand Vizier you've heard of the Sultan the the leader of the Ottoman Empire was the Sultan his number-two man was the Grand Vizier during the 10th century the Grand Vizier kept all of the official documents in the kingdom he was Prime Minister and as he traveled around the Ottoman Empire on various meetings back before they had airplanes obviously he travelled by Caravan he took the library with him wherever he traveled that library consisted of one hundred and seventy seven thousand volumes of books or Scrolls they were carried wherever he went on four hundred camels and the camels were trained to walk in alphabetical order so that he could know which camel to go to to find a book if they needed some official document I thought that's pretty amazing Solomon had all the knowledge of alpha to Omega in his head God was giving him this incredible wisdom it wasn't just knowledge I think he probably had almost a photographic memory and most of all he had the Holy Spirit because even as Solomon got older we'll talk about when Solomon back slid big time he still had wisdom but there's different kinds of wisdom there is good wisdom and there's bad wisdom how many of you could use more wisdom James 1 verse 5 if any of you I like this that applies to me doesn't it that applies to you any of you if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God this is what Solomon did who gives to all liberally how did he give it to Solomon liberally without reproach and it will be given him now that's a wonderful promise you ought to have that underline there's a promise you don't know what to do you underline that verse and you tab mark that in your Bible put the ribbon down there and almost on a daily basis you can turn to that say Lord you said if I lack wisdom I lack wisdom please help me I got to make this decision I got to make that decision I'm I need divine wisdom you know that's one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit have you read there in Isaiah chapter 11 in verse 2 speaking of the Messiah it says the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him the spirit of wisdom understanding counsel might knowledge fear of the Lord you've read about the seven spirits of God there in Revelation talks about the seven spirits a couple of times one of those seven spirits is wisdom and so when you pray for the Holy Spirit when you pray for wisdom I should say you're really asking for the Holy Spirit but there's true wisdom and there's false wisdom continuing with the book of James James 3 verse 13 who then is wise and has understanding among you let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom real wisdom is meek but if you've got bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts do not boast and lie against the truth this wisdom does not descend from above but it is earthly there's another kind of wisdom not from above does the devil have a certain kind of diabolical wisdom does he have a shrewdness and a cunning does the Lord talk about mean harmless as a dove and what is a serpent wise as a serpent do you really want that kind of wisdom what the Lord means by that is you need to be intelligent you need to understand what the devil is up to but you don't use his wisdom you just understand what his tactics are the devil is shrewd and he's cunning that's the wisdom of the world this wisdom does not descend from above but it is earthly sensual demonic for where there is envy and self-seeking where envy and self seeking exist confusion and every evil thing are there but the wisdom that is from above is first pure it's peaceable its gentle willing to yield full of mercy good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy you know what it seems like James is describing the wisdom that is from above you take this list and you go over to the fruits of the Spirit and there's a lot of connections there the wisdom that is from above will make you christ-like it doesn't make you arrogant and say I have all knowledge swirling around in my head I'm wiser than you real wisdom is humble and it makes you christ-like gives you patience 1st Corinthians 3 verse 19 for the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God there is a wisdom in the world and you know yeah I love nature programs not like good ones high definition good-quality I tell you one of the things that really inspires me with a reality of God is when I see God in nature will learn about Solomon a little bit that he wrote about God in nature but it it is so exasperated to me you'll see one of these programs from PBS or BBC or and they put out and I'll show this beautiful nature footage of these incredible miracles in nature and then they'll say something really dumb like 50 million years ago this butterfly realized it needed to develop eyeballs on its wings to scare away predators what are the odds that a butterfly is gonna try to evolve something on its wings that look like eyeballs to scare away predators these guys are so smart these nature experts forgive me I'm sorry friends I don't mean to be disrespectful to these scientists but that's the wisdom of the world which is foolishness with God so I probably went far enough with that let's find out an example about Solomon's wisdom we all know this story in first Kings chapter 3 verse 16 go back to first Kings and I think you remember this experience of the two women and the baby two women who were harlots came into the King and stood before him and one woman said oh my lord this woman and I dwell in the same house and I gave birth while she was in the house then it happened the third day that always is an interesting word when you see that the third day after I had given birth that this woman also gave birth and we were together there was no one with us in the house except the two of us no witnesses and this woman's son died in the night because she lay on it maybe there she was careless and may have been a combination of that or an SI D she woke up in the morning and the baby wasn't breathing she arose in the middle of the night and she took my son from my side while your maidservant slept and she laid him in her bosom and she laid her dead child in my bosom and when I arose in the morning to nurse my son there he was dead but when I examined him in the morning indeed he was not my son which I had born now you know when babies are first born they all look a little bit like raisins don't they they're just you know they're little kind of a little wrinkled mass with Coneheads when they're first born and then they start to take on more human characteristics and so these are two newborns and she first gets up to nurse it in but she examines it doesn't mother know her baby I mean it's amazing to me these penguins come back from four months of feeding and there's 10,000 of them gathered on this white plane and they all look exactly the same to me and those mothers come wandering honking into the camp and they all find their babies I you know it's just a miracle how they do that but that mother said this is not my baby and she looked over at her friend who is suspiciously nursing her baby and she said that's my baby no this is my baby back to you baby uh-oh I there would have been a very interesting conversation what went on between these women before they ever got to the king but I bet there was some pretty heated words that were spoke and you hate to picture the two of them doing a tug-of-war with this baby there's a spiritual lesson here so the king young king now he's got his first really difficult Supreme Court case they used to bring the very difficult you know the local constable would take care of some of the disagreements but the difficult cases were brought to the king and so the other woman said verse 22 no but the living one is my son the dead one is your son and the first woman said no but the dead one is your son the living one is my son what's she gonna do thus they both spoke before the king and all when the King issued judgment he had his counselors around him and there were soldiers around him and sometimes there was an audience that was watching like a courtroom learning from the the court cases so everyone's wondering what is the king gonna do about this is a conundrum how do you solve something like this there's no cameras there's no birth certificates what are you gonna do and the King said verse 23 one says this one is my son the one who lives and your son is a dead one the other one says no but your son is the dead one my son is the Living one and the King said bring me a sword and he was probably looking very carefully at the faces of those women when he said that studying them for how they're gonna react bring me a sword so they brought the sword before the king and the King said probably to one of his guards that were standing by divided the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other now he's new on the throne I mean they haven't figured out when he's kidding and when he's serious and he's the king and when the King says something I imagine the guard pulled the sword out of its scabbard and he's looking at the money you know he's going over and he grabs the baby and he's you know this is really I don't want to do this but you're the king you know and and when the mother saw I probably saw him and nodded to the soldier like you keep going and he took the baby and he unsheathed the sword and right at that time the real mother threw herself down at King Solomon's feet the woman whose son was living spoke to the King for she yearned with compassion for her son and she said oh my lord give her the living child by no means kill him but the other one said let him meet bina that's the only fair thing to do cut him into boy she really was hard-hearted wasn't she she she probably did smother her baby let him be neither mine nor yours you know but divided him so the King answered and said give the first woman the living child and by no means kill him for she is the mother so the King uses this near execution as a test I wonder if he got that from what God did with Abraham did Abraham almost bring down the knife on his son but you could tell where his heart was at that point his heart was with God so the King answered said this is a real mother and look verse 28 and all Israel are heard of the judgment of the King what he had rendered and they feared the King for they saw the wisdom of God was in him to administer judgment nobody would have thought of that and you know you read about Jesus I one of the things that amazes me about the life of Christ and keep in mind when I first was reading the Gospels I was already 1718 years old I had never really read anything jesus said and I was going through the Bible I would come across these stories where a woman is caught in adultery and brought to Jesus what will you do Moses law says she should be stoned the Romans the law says if you stone her then you're executed what do you do and you know you think oh boy he's stuck now what's he gonna do and Jesus with one statement would demonstrate the wisdom of Solomon say he that is without sin cast the first stone so he accomplished both things or you bring the tax money and the people hate the Romans they hate the Roman taxes but the Romans are listening also if usually don't pay taxes you're gonna be in causing insurrection you're going to jail and so they say what do you think should we pay tribute to Caesar not that's something you didn't ask in public if you're gonna complain about taxes you had to do that under your breath in front of the Romans right there with the Romans watching they asked Jesus that question what's he gonna say he says render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are gods I mean he just blew him away one line his wisdom I mean that's divine wisdom don't you wish you had that kind of insight you can't think those things up God gives it to you usually at the moment when you need it you ever been in one of those situations where you've got this very awkward moment you've got to say something and you're thinking about everybody around and you don't know what to say so you're not gonna offend somebody I've had a lot of moments like that I still don't know what to say but every now and then Ollis in the Holy Spirit will tell you just the right thing to say Solomon calls it they're like apples of gold in pictures of silver or apples of gold in settings of silver a word fitly spoken I mean this is what God was doing for Solomon on a daily basis everything he said was like Wow Hevy I've got Reader's Digest sometimes take that on the airplane they got a section in the book where they got great quotes and they try and say you know in the last month these are some of the most profound things that were said and they could be new they could be old but they take highlights of great quotes and I've often wondered what do I got to say to get in Reader's Digest what great quote what profound utterance everything Solomon said was a Reader's Digest quote all day long they were all profound I mean that's the wisdom of God that only he can give now I don't want to leave this story of the two women in the baby because there's a very strong spiritual application in this first of all what does a woman represent in the Bible church are their true churches and false churches in Revelation in Revelation do we have a couple of women you've got God's bride clothed with light the Church of God is a woman in Revelation 12 then you've got another woman in revelation 17 she got daughters and that represents babbling and harlot daughters and by the way these women were harlots weren't they and you got the true in the false you know God's church used to be a harlot but she's cleansed Mary Magdalene is a type of the church who is sanctified don't forget in the family tree of Jesus where there's some harlots did you have Rahab was she cleansed from her ways when she married Salman did you have Tamar who dressed up like a harlot and slept with her father-in-law in Jesus family tree and so that's telling us that you know God's bride used to be out there but he cleanses her so you got these two harlots and there's two babies one's alive and one's dead are there a lot of churches out there that claim to have Christ but their christ is not alive are there counterfeit Christ's out there did Jesus say there would be and so you got to understand which is true which woman has the real baby and there's this contest in this story how does Solomon ultimately decide what does he use to divine between the true and the false a sword what does the sword represent it's a Word of God so how do we determine between the true church and the false church how do we find where the real living child goes you see the spiritual application of this story and it happens it's the son of David who calls for the sword Jesus as the son of David tells us to use the sword to find the truth so that's just one of those spiritual historicals there but there's more get your credit card out and we'll we'll add to your order right now for the same price you'll look through the Bible and you see there's a lot of stories where you've got these baby boys at risk there's some kind of contest some kind of battle some kind of struggle over the baby boys had never baby girls because they were types of Christ there was a woman named jock Abed had a baby boy and that baby boy was going to be killed she had to do something remember the Pharaoh said if it's a boy kill him there's a girl you can let him live then a woman conceived a son Exodus 2 2 she saw you as a beautiful child she hid him three months Solomon as a baby there's an effort to I rather Moses is a baby there was an effort to destroy him you go to 2nd Kings chapter 6 very troubling story but it's there and I need to tell you two women are fighting over their baby boys they were starving to death they agreed to kill and eat one boy one day and the next day they would kill and eat the other boy and they appealed to the king because the one woman says you know we agreed and we killed my baby and now this woman is hidden her baby I bet she's glad she did too cuz the next day there was plenty of food the baby that was hidden now that sounds like a pattern moses was hidden this baby is hidden he's kept alive second Kent Kings chapter 11 when atholea the mother of Ahaz I saw that her son was dead she arose and she destroyed all the royal heirs all the children of David the heirs that were living then but to hashiba the daughter of King John sister of Ahaziah she took joash the son of Ahaz aya and stole him away from among the king's sons he is a year old who were being murdered and she hid him and his nurse in the bedroom from a lie hidden in the house of the Lord so they was not killed baby boy Matthew chapter 2 this sound familiar King Herod when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men he was exceeding exceedingly angry and he sent forth and he put to death all of the male children who were in Bethlehem except Joseph was warned in a dream and they took the baby and hid him in Egypt hidden away then you read in Revelation a woman is great with child she brings forth this man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron and the dragon wants to devour the child as soon as it's born all these stories about these baby boys that are being hidden it's because someone's trying to take them there someone's trying to harm them and they're they're somehow hidden or saved or delivered and of course they're types of Christ you see it all through the Bible this content there's more I could share with you but time won't permit well I want to talk a little bit about wisdom here go back to Solomon first Kings chapter 4 and God gave Solomon wisdom an exceeding great understanding and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore thus Solomon's wisdom excelled all the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt Wow you know we think about the great ancient wisdom the engineers that built the pyramids and those great colossal structures that was a lot of wisdom it says here the wisdom of Solomon exceeded all of the wisdom of Egypt for he was wiser than all men then Ethan the Ezra height no I don't know who that was but evidently he had a reputation back then and they used to sing his praises for his wisdom and Haman don't know who he Minh was but he's been forgotten Solomon still remembered and shall call and Darda the sons of may whole now these were all the wisest people in the world back then or even their history of wisdom and his fame Solomon's fame was in all the surrounding nations he spoke 3,000 proverbs in his songs were 1005 it's an interesting number and he spoke of trees from the cedar of Lebanon even to the hyssop that Springs out of the wall now this must be some proverbs that Solomon spoke about that are not in the book of Proverbs we may not have all of them because there's some things referred to here that there's no record of and he spoke of the animals and the birds and of creeping things quite a bit of that in Proverbs for instance you read proverbs 6 verse 6 go to the ant you sluggard Solomon must have spent some time watching ants go to the ant you sluggard consider her ways and be wise that having no captain or overseer or ruler provides supplies and summer and gathers her food in the harvest it's interesting that he said gathers her food because I think most of them are sisters he spoke of creeping things in fish and of men of all nations from all kings of the earth who had heard of her wisdom heard of his wisdom came to hear of the wisdom of Solomon a short life with wisdom is better than a long life without it Solomon says in all of your getting get wisdom someone else said a single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month of study with books he who would be wise you need to find wise friends and be friends with him so how did God honor Solomon because he asked for wisdom he had the right priorities he had these words of wisdom second chronicles chapter 1 verse 11 and 12 and God said to Solomon because this was in your heart and you've not asked for riches notice this how many of you would like to have riches come on nothing wrong with that huh how many of you rather have poverty so you don't want to admit you wanting riches but you won't say one you just how many you just want to be comfortable because it was in your heart and you not ask for riches or wealth or honor it's not your pride or fame or the life of your enemies nor have you asked for a long life but you've asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you might judge my people over whom I have made you King wisdom and knowledge are granted to you your wish is fulfilled and I will give you what you didn't ask for listen to this because you have sought listen listen listen isn't I meant to tell you at the beginning of the sermon all the kids to count how many times I say wisdom is it too late I forgot just play that tape back but see if you can remember and God says I'm giving you what you didn't ask for he says I'm gonna give you riches and wealth in honors such as none of the kings who were before you nor shall any after you have the same now when the Bible says Solomon is a richest man who ever lived or wisest man who ever lived there's one exception there who would that be obviously Jesus is God the Son and when he says that no one will have the glory of the kingdom and the riches that you have of course there's one exception that would be the other son of David which is Jesus in his kingdom will have greater wisdom and greater riches you know what this makes me think of what was Jesus thinking in Matthew 6:33 when he said seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness what did what did Solomon asked for Lord give me a white arise and understanding heart so I can know how to discern between right and wrong he sought first the kingdom of God the people of God was his concern and the righteousness of God that he might do what's right he sought first the kingdom of God in his righteousness and so why did God do for him since because you are seeking first my righteousness and my people my kingdom I am gonna give you everything else that you didn't ask for we always turn the equation upside down we say Lord give me the riches and give me a long life and give me the help and give me this and then also I'd like some wisdom and I'd like to be righteous Solomon got it right to start with he sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and then everything else he needed by the way even the to get riches what do you need wisdom right it takes a certain amount of wisdom to take care of your body and live a long time a lot of people are not very wise in how they take care of their bodies and they die young so if you got wisdom everything else seems to follow in its path and that begins by seeking first his kingdom and his right the priority for Solomon was the kingdom of God is that the priority in your life he did have a long life he was why he was very rich and we're gonna get into that Scott some exciting things coming in this series but I didn't want you to miss the most important point that he sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and that's why he prospered all through his reign if you want to prosper in your life make that your priority that's the most wise thing you can do let's pray dear father in heaven Lord we are just like little children we don't know what's coming from one moment to the next we often don't know whether to turn to the right hand to the left that's why we need your word that's sword to help us to discern Lord we pray for wisdom we pray for it every day you've promised to give it liberally as we continue to ask and I pray that we can keep the priority of seeking first your kingdom to model this part of Solomon's life of coming before you an earnestness of giving our hearts and our lives sacrificially of loving you and then trusting that you will guide us and give us wisdom day by day bless these who have come forward with some special need and give them the wisdom of Solomon so they can know how to grapple with some of the challenges they may be facing and Lord we pray that we'll represent you as we go from this place your people with that humility and that love that wisdom that comes from above thank you again for your goodness and the riches of that Kingdom we will someday enjoy it's in Jesus name we pray amen

Channel: Amazing Mission

Views: 17,110

Rating: 4.7225432 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, Lord, God, Holy, Spirit, Gospel, Salvation, Word, Prophecy, Study, Preaching, Truth, Pastor, Grace, Messiah, Ministry, Bible

Id: 7hpSvChOo60

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 05 2012