(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Alright, we're starting out a brand new book of the Bible, 1 Kings chapter 1. I mentioned before I think this is a really exciting book. I love going through 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings and the Chronicles. There's a lot of historical fact, but there's also a lot of great teaching that we're still going to be able to glean from this and learn from these passages. The style if you're used to, you've been coming through Proverbs and stuff, it's going to be a little bit different. Proverbs has a real lot of just dense content to deal with, you know, so much that you can't even focus too much on any one of them it seems like. But this isn't going to be the case with Kings. I'm probably not going to go through like word by word over this entire chapter again, 53 verses, kind of long. But we are going to be going through and I'm going to be explaining some of the concepts and we're going to be going through most of it, but I want to go a little bit deeper than just what's on the surface. So just to bring you up to speed, just in context of the entire Bible, maybe for anyone who might not be very familiar and know the Bible really, really well, we're going to get up to speed to where we are right now in God's Word, in the Bible. Because up to this point it basically just follows chronologically with all the books up to this point. So of course we've got the first book of Genesis which starts off with creation and Adam and Eve, right, and goes through the lives of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and you end off basically where you're going to end up fast forwarding to Moses in the Exodus, right? So Genesis, Exodus is Moses bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt after all the bondage and stuff and then we get into the law that's given to Moses in Exodus and in Leviticus. Leviticus goes through the Levitical priesthood and all the ceremonial laws and things like that and just all the law. Leviticus, Numbers, going through just accounting for all the different tribes and families and Deuteronomy, giving the law again. And then you get into the book of Joshua because Moses dies. Joshua leads the children of Israel into the promised land and from there he has all those battles and they're conquering and everything like that. At the end of the book of Joshua, Joshua dies and then you head into the book of Judges. And this is the time frame now in the book of Judges where Israel pretty much has the land that they've been promised. They've inherited their land. They've defeated most of their enemies. They never ended up destroying all of them like God told them to and they end up being a thorn in the flesh. They end up being a thorn in the side of Israel and, you know, plague them for the rest of their existence with their false gods and everything else. But nonetheless, they had this system set up where basically it's a theocracy and God was the ruler and there would be judges that would judge according to God's law. They had God's laws on the books as the laws of the land. That's the laws they followed and it was a very free society. A lot of freedom. I mean, if we had a society where all we went by was God's word and literally like the first five books of the Bible, I mean, that's what they went on. That's what they based their everything on. You know, we've got volumes of laws on the book today. All these things you can and can't do and all the other stuff. God's law is not very restrictive. Now it has some serious punishment for serious sins, which we don't seem to have anymore today, but it was a very free society, a very good society. I think it's what God has intended for humans to live by when Jesus Christ himself is not here to rule and reign. When he doesn't have the actual kingdom set up, when it's just left up to man, he's still the head. He's still recognized as the ruler. So there's all these judges. You go through the book of Judges and at various times children of Israel kind of turn away from God and then they get their enemies come in and they kind of take over them and they oppress them and then they cry unto God and it's this back and forth thing. They go back into sin and then they cry unto God and every time they cry unto God, God, he's faithful and he hears them and then he raises up a judge, he raises up a deliverer, someone mighty to help free them and get them out of their bondage again because they've returned unto the Lord. That's all through the book of Judges. Then you've got the book of Ruth, kind of tucked away in there. It's a real interesting story, but it still fits in with the timeline because you have Obed and Ruth at the end of there. They get married and of course they're like the grandparents of David or the great-grandparents, I don't remember exactly which it is, but it's not very long before you get to where they're the progenitors of David. And then you've got first and second Samuel. So you're introduced to Samuel. Samuel is actually the last judge under the whole reign of the judges of Israel. Samuel is the last judge. His children were wicked and Eli's children were wicked. Samuel's children weren't that good either. We're going to get into that a little bit later in the sermon, but Samuel becomes the last judge. The people said, we want a king, and they get King Saul. First and second Samuel goes through the life of King Saul and then King David. And here we're picking up in first Kings with David's son, Solomon. Now he's ascending to the throne. He's the one who's got that power. So he's the third king of Israel. And Israel at this time is still completely one nation. It's not until after, excuse me, the reign of Solomon where it's divided into two nations of Israel and Judah. So I just wanted to kind of give you that outline just so you know where we're at in biblical history and history of mankind, you know, where all these things taking place. That's where we're at in first Kings chapter one. So basically what happens here, David's really old. He's actually old and dealing with poor circulation, so he's cold all the time. So they decide, okay, what are we going to do about this? Let's find a young virgin to be with the king, to provide him body heat, to cuddle up with him, to keep him warm, to stay close by him, to serve him, to be this nice young beautiful virgin, you know, to basically be his wife. But the Bible says that he didn't know her. He didn't have relations with her. So she was there to keep him warm and everything else and to serve him. And the Bible says here in verse four, it says, and the damsel was very fair and cherished the king and ministered to him, but the king knew her not. So she was good to him. She loved him. She cared for him and everything else. And then in verse five it says, then Adonijah, the son of Hagath, exalted himself saying, I will be king. And he prepared him chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. So Adonijah is one of David's children. It's one of his sons. He decided, you know, King David's getting really really old. Someone's going to need to run the kingdom now. Someone's going to need to step into place and become the king. And he decided, who better than me? Right? I'm going to step into this place. So he starts basically throwing a party as he's the next king. And he's got some people, some of David's loyal followers that have been with him for a really long time, to start endorsing him and supporting him as if he is going to be the next king. So he's got an after him, Joab, which was the captain of the host during the reign of King David. He was basically the general. He's the one in charge of the armed forces. And he is the priest. And these men have been with David for a very long time, very supportive. And they kind of fall to the side of Adonijah. Now the problem with Adonijah assuming the king, the kingdom, is that the kingdom wasn't supposed to go to him. And it was public knowledge, actually. It was very well known that Solomon was the next in line to become the king over the realm. That this was what was ordained by God. This is what God wanted. And Solomon was going to become the next king. Now keep your finger here in 1 Kings. Turn, if you would, to 1 Chronicles. So go forward. 1 Chronicles chapter number 3. We're going to see just the children that David had. And 1 Chronicles kind of outlines all the children David had and where he had them and when he had them. Verse number 1, 1 Chronicles chapter 3, the Bible reads, Now these were the sons of David, which were born unto him in Hebron, the firstborn Amnon of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, the second Daniel of Abigail the Carmelitess, the third Absalom the son of Maacah the daughter of Telmai king of Geshur, the fourth Adonijah the son of Haggith, the fifth Shephatiah and Abital the sixth, Ithraim by Igla his wife. These six were born unto him in Hebron and there he reigned 7 years and 6 months. And in Jerusalem he reigned 30 and 3 years. So the beginning of David's reign, he was in Hebron. And then after 7 years, then he moved to Jerusalem, to the capital city, and actually finished his reign in Jerusalem. So David had multiple wives. David had many wives. And that's a whole other sermon in and of itself. I'm not going to get too deep into that. But it explains here, these are all the children. If you notice that Adonijah is older than Solomon. Solomon hasn't even been mentioned yet up to this point. He was born unto David while David was reigning in Hebron in the first part of his reign. We're going to keep reading here. Look at verse number 5. And these were born unto him in Jerusalem, Shimea and Shobab and Nathan and Solomon four, of Bathsheba the daughter of Ammiel, Ibhar also and Elishama and Eliphalet and Nogah and Nepheg and Jephiah and Elishama and Eliada and Eliphalet 9. These were all the sons of David beside the sons of the concubines and Tamar their sister. Now, I want to just point out first of all, there's always problems when you have multiple wives. The Bible does not teach that it's right for men to have multiple wives. A lot of people will falsely assume that because they'll see certain people in the Bible who have had multiple wives or they'll see where there's aspects of God's law that will tell you what to do in a scenario where a man has multiple wives, how you deal with that. But the Bible is very clear that in the beginning God made them male and female that they too shall be one flesh. The two becoming one and having one man for one woman. When God created Adam, He didn't create Eve and Eve's, you know, another Eve and another, you know, like multiple women. Say, here Adam, here are your helpers meet for you. He gave them one. And all throughout the Bible, you can see, and I've taught this already when we went through the book of Genesis because you'll see like Jacob had multiple wives. Abraham even ended up having another wife. And just because great men of God did something doesn't always mean that it's right. And you go through my Genesis series, I preached that a few years ago, but we went through all of the problem. I mean, Jacob had a lot of problems in his family life having the four wives that he had. Because he not only had Rachel and Leah, but he had the concubines also. And that's where all the children of Israel descended from all of those various wives. But it was constantly things going on. Not a good situation at all. And here we're seeing with David, David had multiple wives also. And David had a lot of problems with his children then. And you know, some of it as it was a role of just David's own sin when he committed adultery and murder with Bathsheba. But then also, I believe also as a result of just having all these various wives and the relationships that they had amongst each other. I mean, he had Amnon, his firstborn here, was the one who laid with, he forced, he raped Tamar, his half-sister. I mean, right off the bat you've got problems going on there in these weird multiple marriages that David's having all these different children. And yeah, I'll get into that in a little bit. But we see here something, a problem that David has with dealing with his children also. And that comes up in, it's one of the main themes here in 1 Kings. I'm getting ahead of myself though. You have Amnon, you also have Absalom. If you remember, Absalom was the one that tried to overthrow the kingdom. He tried to basically usurp David's authority and steal the kingdom from David. He basically ousted David his father and he wanted to set up the kingdom. And it's no surprise. Turn back if you went to 1 Kings chapter 1. I showed you everything we wanted to see from here in 1 Chronicles. I wanted to point out that Adonijah is older. He was born to David in Hebron. Solomon came later. And what's also interesting too is that Solomon was born, he was one of four children that was born just under Bathsheba. Now, what I believe from everything I've studied about David and his wives, David probably loved Bathsheba more than any of his other wives. Solomon was probably one of his favorite children. He was one of those favorites. And just when you go back and you remember the story of Jacob and Joseph, who was Jacob's favorite? Joseph. And then what happened with Joseph with all of his brothers, right? They hated him because he was the favorite. He's the one that had the coat of many colors. He's the one that dad loved the best and everything else. And his brothers hated him for it. They despised him for it. And I think Solomon is probably in a similar situation. I'm sure he was loved by David his father. And everyone else can see that he had multiple children with Bathsheba. He probably spent the majority of his time with her. And as a result, and naturally as a man, you can't be spending all of your time if you have multiple wives with all of your wives. I mean, you're going to be ending up spending more time somewhere else and that's where you just end up having all these hurt relationships and screwed up family life and everything else, where you've got these kids feeling neglected and everything, all kinds of problems as a result. But I don't want to get into that too much. But look in 1 Kings chapter 1, look at verse number 6. It says, And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so? And he also was a very goodly man, and his mother bare him after Absalom. Now, it's not a surprise, or it's not a coincidence to mention Absalom in this verse. They're explaining who Adonijah is. They're saying, you know, that he was also a very goodly man, which means he was handsome, right? He was looked appealing. And Absalom was described in a very similar way. He was someone that everyone looked to. You know, he had his long flowing hair and stuff that he pulled once a year and it was real thick and everything else. And he was someone that was a smooth talker with the people and won the hearts of the people over. We get a feeling here, a sense that Adonijah is very similar to Absalom. And we also see here that Adonijah has the same goals as Absalom, too, because Absalom wanted that kingdom, except Absalom didn't want to wait for it. He just wanted to take it over. Adonijah at least has waited until his father was about to die, but we see another of David's sons in Adonijah just claiming it. Just, I'm going to take over the kingdom right now. And that's why I don't think it's a coincidence when he says, you know, he also was a very goodly man and his mother bare him after Absalom, which he was basically the next born. Now, Absalom and Adonijah had different mothers, and we saw that in 1 Chronicles 3, but he was basically, Adonijah was the next born after Absalom. And you consider Amnon was already dead because Absalom killed him for forcing his sister Tamar. We don't know that much about Daniel, the son of Abigail, which was the second born. And then Absalom, we know that he was dead also. And then the next was Adonijah. So it kind of makes sense if you're going just by the age of the children. Again, I don't know exactly what happened with Daniel, where he is. The Bible doesn't give us any real information about that. Maybe he was already dead, too, and Adonijah's just like, well, I'm next in line, right? I'm the fourth born, so the kingdom belongs to me. But turn, if you would, to 1 Chronicles chapter 22, because I already mentioned this, that what Adonijah was doing was claiming the throne, but it was already known that Solomon was supposed to be king. So we're going to be going, when you get done with the books of 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles are like parallel books to 1 and 2 Kings. So you're going to be kind of, as far as the chronology goes, you go through 1 and 2 Kings, through history, and then you kind of jump back with 1 and 2 Chronicles, going through a lot of the same stories, just from different perspectives and more information added, stuff like that. So when we go back to 1 Chronicles chapter 22, verse number 5, the Bible reads, and David said, Solomon my son is young and tender. So Solomon isn't that old yet when he's making his name. Solomon's son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnifico of fame and of glory throughout all countries. I will therefore now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death. Then he called for Solomon, his son, and charged him to build a house for the Lord God of Israel. David said to Solomon, my son, as for me, it was in my mind to build a house for the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars. Thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. He shall build an house for my name, and he shall be my son, and I will be his father, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever. So here we see David revealing the conversation, or the word of the Lord that he received, that when it was in his heart to build a temple for the Lord, he was saying, you know what? Why do we have this tabernacle? Why do we have this tent? I live in a house. All of Israel lives in houses. Why don't we make something nicer for God? And God told him that, you know, it's a good, basically it was a good thing that it was in his heart to do that, but he's not going to let David construct the building, because he's been too bloody. He's had too many wars, and he said, but your son Solomon is, and he went as far as to say, you know what? I'm going to be his father. He's going to be my son. He's going to be reigning in your stead, and he'll build the temple. So it was obvious who God wants to be the king. Flip over, if you're in chapter 22, just go over to chapter 28 real quick. 1 Chronicles chapter 28, we'll just see this basically reiterated on how well known this was. Verse number 5, 1 Chronicles 28, excuse me, verse number 3. But God said unto me, thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood. Howbeit the Lord God of Israel chose me before all the house of my father to be king over Israel forever. For he hath chosen Judah to be the ruler, and the house of Judah, the house of my father, and among the sons of my father he liked me to make me king over all Israel. And of all my sons, for the Lord hath given me many sons. He hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. And he said unto me, Solomon my son, he shall build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. Moreover, I will establish his kingdom forever, if he be constant to do my commandments and my judgments as at this day. And then in chapter 29, verse number 1, the Bible reads, furthermore David the king said unto all the congregation, Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen is yet young and tender, and the work is great for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God. And then all the people ended up offering up money and resources and everything else to prepare for the building of the temple. Let's go back if we went to 1 Kings chapter number 1. So we see how established it is that Solomon was supposed to be king. And up to this point, you know, really it was when the children of Israel decided they wanted a king, what they started off doing was deciding, well, who does God want to be king? Because King Saul was God's choice. He was the one that he had appointed to be the king. When Saul fell away, when Saul started doing wickedly and wasn't able to take correction, wasn't able to take the rebuke from the Lord and start doing his own thing, then God finally said that's enough, okay? The king is taken away from you. And David was the next selection. And again, David was literally appointed by the Lord. He was the one to follow as king after Saul. And then we see here, after King David, God's choice was Solomon. Now as we're going to read through this book, you're going to see, especially you read through the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel, they're not all appointed by God. They're not all the ones that God has chosen to be their king. And we need to get over this idea that just because someone is a ruler, it just means automatically that that's who God wants to be the ruler. No, God, the one who's going to be righteous, the one that God would want to lead, isn't always the one. Sometimes we get a ruler that we deserve as a result of our own sins, but it's not necessarily the one that God would want to have being in charge if we're doing right and everything else. So it's clear. And what happens, and I'll kind of summarize the rest of the book before I just get into some of the lessons I want to learn from this. Adonijah exalts himself. He says, I'm going to be the king. He gets some followers after him. He starts throwing this party. Well, Nathan the prophet and Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, they catch wind of this and they're like, what's going on here? Does the king even know that Adonijah is just making himself the next king? Is he aware of this? So they both kind of plan together to go in and tell the king. So Bathsheba goes in first to tell King David, hey, you know, I thought that you told me that Solomon was going to be the next king. And then Nathan comes in and just backs up what she had just said and just reinforces it saying, yeah, what's going on, David? You know, we thought that Solomon was going to be, is this who you want to be? Did you want Adonijah to be the king? And they were being real humble and respectful. But, you know, is this what you wanted, David? And you see, there's a fear here among, especially with like Solomon and Bathsheba because, and we're getting this more in chapter two. But when there is people vying for the throne, it's bloody. Okay, you don't want to have anyone else to have any type of legitimate claim to a throne when you're the one that's going to be reigning. So in Adonijah's case, if he would have been able to assume as the king, just be on that throne, have that power, Solomon is a huge threat to the people even recognizing him because it's a lot easier for the nation just to be split and saying, well, no, we know that Solomon was supposed to be appointed king, so we're not going to listen to you Adonijah, we're going to listen to Solomon. So the way that they would solve that problem is just, well, I'm just going to kill Solomon and he's gone. Now you have to follow me because who else are you going to follow? And that's the way it is. I mean, that's the way it is. It's not just the Bible, man, it's just the way it is. I mean, that's the way the people that it's always been when you have kings reigning and ruling and you have these various people that have some form of a claim to the throne is that they just get rid of their competition. So Bathsheba's concern, Solomon's concern, Nathan's concern, and they go to King David and basically after, you know, they go to him and they're treating him and then David finally says, you know what, yeah, you're right. Solomon is going to be the king. And he makes a proclamation, you know, they anoint him, they have the priest, Zadok comes, the priest, and anoints him with the oil and David bows himself on his bed because he's basically on his deathbed, but he bows himself down and he praises God and he blesses Solomon and it's this whole public, I mean, there is no doubt. And then Solomon actually sits on the throne of David to rule the kingdom. And there's this great party thrown. See, Adonai just having his own little party with his friends and, you know, the people he called and some of the higher ups, mind you, but this party, it says the earth rent, which means it broke. There's like an earthquake over the mount of people that were out and rejoicing and the music that was playing and stuff to the point to where they could hear this off wherever they were having their little party and Joab's like, because Joab was, you know, the cabinet host, he's thinking, what's going on? You know, what's this uproar? What's the uprising in the city? Thinking there's a problem. They catch word. No, there's not a problem. That's rejoicing. This is what happened. And they explained to everybody who was at Adonai's little party, Solomon was just anointed the king. He's sitting on the throne right now. And David said, blessed be Solomon and God make his kingdom twice as great as his and all this other stuff. When they hear that, now they're the ones that are afraid because now it looks like, I mean, think about anyone who is supporting Adonai at that point, had Adonai assumed the kingdom, they would have probably all been appointed various positions as counselors and everything else within the realm. But now they're going to be the ones in Solomon's eyes looking like, you're a traitor. You betrayed me. So they all scurry away and don't want to have anything to do with that anymore. They all fear and they leave. And it gets to the point where Adonai, he's just like, he grabs on the horns of the altar saying like, you know, basically you're not going to kill me here. Let Solomon say he's not going to come and kill me. And he's trying to seek his refuge there at the altar where it would be like blasphemous or something against God for him to actually slay him there. And that's why they did that. And you see that Joab is going to end up doing the same thing and these guys just, they get real afraid. So that's what we see in 1 Kings chapter, and Solomon says, you know what, if you show yourself to be a worthy man, you've got nothing to worry about. And we're going to find out in chapter 2 how that ends up playing out. So that's a summary. I'm not going to go through verse by verse. You get the surface meaning if you have English comprehension, you get it. But let's look now at some of the things that we could learn from this. Some lessons to be learned. First of all, I just want to point out in verse number 5 here, it says, And Adonai to the son of Hagath exalted himself, saying, I will be king. And he prepared him chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. We went through this quite a bit in the book of Proverbs, but you're supposed to be exalted by somebody else. The Bible teaches that to have the humility, when you lift yourself up, you will be abased. God will bring you low. God's going to make sure that you are not lifted up for very long. You may get it for a little while, but it happens every single time. And we see here, Adonai, what does he do? He exalts himself. Well, I'm going to be the king, even though he wasn't appointed. He's not receiving honor from anyone. He's usurping that and just taking it for himself. And when you take honor for yourself, you're not honored. That's not true honor. That's not true respect. Respect has to be given. You can't just claim it. People just, you just respect me because I'm going to be king. And this is, you know, and just lifting yourself up. You have to earn that. It has to be given to you. No honor is true. It's not true honor unless someone gives that, bestows that upon you. And that's what Jesus taught when he said, you know, when you come to a feast, he was talking to the proud Pharisees, you know, don't take that highest route. Don't take the best place. Don't sit down in the most honorable seat because you know what's going to happen when someone more honorable than you comes along? They're going to say, uh, yeah, this seat's not for you, buddy. You got to go on lower and you're going to be ashamed in front of everybody because basically it's just public knowledge now. Uh, yeah, this guy's better than you. So get up and move on down. And that's a shame. It's embarrassing to have to do something like that. Jesus said, you know what? No, when you come in, take the lowest seat, take the worst seat, you know, take the standing room only. And then when the host comes and says, Hey, I don't want you back here. Come sit over here. I've got a great place prepared for you. That's the right way. That's, that's when you actually receive some honor. That's, that's the proper way of things the way they ought to be done. And within the case here of Adonijah, he didn't, he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to wait for, to be anointed king through the proper means through people are going to say, yes, this is the new godly king who's going to rule our nation. He just wanted to take it for himself. And as you see, he gets, he gets brought down low real fast. And actually he gets brought down low real fast because he goes from having this great party and having people starting to follow him to holding onto the horns of the altar saying, please don't kill me, Solomon. So that's, that's one point. Look at verse number six. And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, why has thou done so? And he also was a very goodly man, his mother bare him after Absalom. And this was another problem that David had with his children specifically. His father had not displeased him at any time. That means that he knew about this. King David knew what Adonijah was doing, but he just chose to do nothing. There is a huge problem when you see something that's not right, when you know that things are going down and that's not the way it's supposed to be. That's not the way that God wants it to be. And you just keep silent. You don't stand up. You don't say anything. I'm just going to let this all play out and you know, for whatever reason, you could have all kinds of different reasons why you don't want, I don't like conflict. I don't like fights. I don't want someone to get mad at me. I don't want, you know, whatever the case, it's not right. And we see here a lot of extra problems end up as a result because David was the one, he was the responsible one. He was the king. He was their dad. He was the one who should be saying, no Adonijah, you're not going to be the king because God told me that Solomon was going to be the king. And he shouldn't have had to wait for his wife to come along and ask him to do that. He shouldn't have had to wait for anybody to come along and say, are you sure you want to do this? He should have been like, no, I know this is right. You're not doing this Adonijah. Sit down. Shut up. Solomon's the king. But he didn't deal with his children that way. He didn't deal with Absalom that way. When Absalom tried to usurp the authority, what did he do? He just left. He left quietly. He kind of let things just happen. When, before, prior to that, when Amnon raped Tamar. Mind you, this is David's son raping David's daughter, Tamar. Amnon should have been put to death. That is so wicked. But what did David do? Nothing. Nothing. Which is why Absalom, because Absalom waited a while and he plotted and planned and got it to where he got Amnon there in order to kill him. To just get revenge. To right the wrong that was done to his own sister, Tamar. But that wasn't even, that wasn't Absalom's responsibility to do that. That was the king. That was David's job. He should have taken care of that. But all throughout here we see this history of events of David not doing the right thing when it's an unpleasant thing with his children. Of not stepping in and just taking the reins and saying, nope, this is the way it is. Here's the righteous judgment. He was being a respecter of persons to his own children. And not judging righteously. We can't be idle in a spiritual battle. The wicked will always be trying to advance. We can't just be sitting around and doing nothing. Because you know what happens when you sit around and do nothing? The wicked just goes farther and farther and farther and farther with their agenda until it's out of control and then you're not going to have any power to do anything about it. You need to be standing up and making the voice known and making what's right according to the word of the Lord known and holding your ground and advancing and moving forward if anything. And not just letting everything happen around you and saying, well, we'll just see what happens here. I don't really feel like getting involved in this. But this problem that David had, because that's one thing, and spiritually we all need to be doing this. David is not exempt from that. But further, he had the further responsibility because he was their father. He was Adonijah's dad. He was their father. He should be looking at this. And this is something that we see as a common theme also in parents or soon to be parents or whatever. You know, pay attention to this because this is really, really important. Raising your children and how to raise them. We have a lot of bad examples in the Bible of things that you could learn from. David is one example right here with his children. I'm not saying that overall David was just horrible. But this is definitely a failure of David where he was not doing the right judgment and holding his children accountable for some of the things that they ought to be held accountable for. And just giving too much leeway under the kids, which basically turns them into monsters and the things that they shouldn't be. It didn't just start with David though. It's interesting enough. This is also a problem that Eli and Samuel had, which I alluded to earlier. Eli was the one who raised Samuel. So in 1 Samuel, you have the story of this woman who really wanted to have a child. She was barren and she was praying unto God and she was kind of sobbing and praying and praying in her heart. And Eli comes across her and he thinks she's just drunk because her mouth is kind of quivering. But she says, you know, don't count me for a child of Belial. I'm not a daughter of Belial. I'm not of the devil. I'm not drunk. I'm just trying to make my petition unto the Lord. I'm praying unto God and I have a heavy heart and she was praying in her heart and her lips kind of moved a little bit. So Eli basically says, well, let God grant your request. Basically, well bless you. That's great that you're not a drunk and I hope God hears your prayer. And then she ends up receiving her prayer answered. She has a child and her son is Samuel. And as a result of that, her promise to God was, well, if you give me a child, I'll dedicate them to you. So just as a result of having that child, she gave him back and she lent him to the Lord is the term that's used. She goes and gives him to be a servant then to the priest, to Eli. So he's learning all the ways and doing his work in the tabernacle and doing the work of the Lord. He hears God's voice and God's basically calling him to be the next judge ultimately. But Eli had other sons and actually I have the references in my notes. Let's see here. Yeah, turn if you want to 1 Samuel chapter 2 because it's important that we see this. This is one of the themes I think of all the facts that we saw laid out in 1 Kings chapter 1 of everything that happened with Adonijah. How did it even get to that point? It got to that point as a result of David not doing his job as a father and as a king. 1 Samuel chapter 2, we're going to see a couple more examples here. Because Samuel turned out to be a great man of God, a great judge, a really good guy and he was in a way raised by Eli. But Eli's own physical sons were not good at all. 1 Samuel chapter 2, look at verse 12. The Bible reads, Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial, they knew not the Lord. And the priest's custom with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came while the flesh was in seething with a flesh hook of three teeth in his hand. And he struck it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. All that the flesh hook brought up, the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came to them. Also, before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came and said to the man that sacrificed, gave flesh to roast for the priest. For he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as I sold as Iareth, then he would answer him, Nay, but thou shalt give it me now, and if not, I will take it by force. Wherefore the sin of the young man was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord. These guys were wicked. I mean, they're taking the sacrifice that belonged to God. Now, as priests and as Levites, they would get food. I mean, they would eat some of the sacrifices. They would get to partake in this stuff anyways, but they wanted more. You know, the fat was supposed to be burned as a sweet-smelling savor unto the Lord. God gets that. And they said, We want that. And just taking God's sacrifice. And they would go, and it got so bad, they're just like, and because the people were like, No, we want to do this right. We're trying to give this to God. We want to follow the way that God told us to do it. Don't do this. Wait until we can at least offer up the fat, and then you can take whatever you want. And they said, No, and if you don't give it to me, we're going to take it by force. We're going to take it no matter what. That's some serious wickedness. And those are the sons of Eli. And Eli was also, the Bible says, a real fat man. He was a great man. He was real big. You know, he ends up dying when his chair breaks on him. He falls over and cracks his neck. He was just, I mean, he had his own issues with gluttony apparently because of how big it was. And his children then, as a result, grew up to be these real covetous people and just coveted all this meat and this flesh and everything else. Jump down to verse number 22 there. The Bible reads now, Eli was very old and heard, listen, look at this, because this is important, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the Tabernacle congregation. So not only were they stealing the sacrifices, they're also fornicating with the women too. Verse 23, and he said unto them, Why do ye such things? For I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my sons, for it is no good report that I hear. Ye make the Lord's people to transgress. If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him. But if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him? Notwithstanding, they hearken not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them. So, and I want to point this out, Turner, if you would, or we're going to keep reading here in just a minute. So he's telling them, you know, he hears what they're doing. He's telling them, this isn't good. Why are you doing this? But one, he doesn't really do anything about it. He just says, what are you doing? Why are you fornicating with the women? Why are you making so everybody despises even bringing their offering because you're bullying them into giving them what doesn't belong to them. Look at verse 27. And there came a man of God unto Eli and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar to burn incense to wear an ephod before me? And did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation. Look, this is this is the man of God from the Word of God. Let's keep reading here, verse 29. And honor is thy sons above me to make yourselves fat with the cheapest of all the offerings of Israel, my people. So who is God holding responsible for the action of his son? Eli. He's saying you honor your sons over me by not judging them, by not dealing with them, by not taking care of them the way that you ought to be taken care of, and just saying, Oh, what are you doing? You are showing them more honor than the Lord in what they're doing. And don't, you know, don't use this use, Well, I just love my kids too much. You don't love them at all. Because when they're going to be receiving the wrath of God, because of what they're doing, you didn't warn them from it. You didn't love them enough to discipline them and punish them when they needed to be punished and dealing with them. When they start getting into this wickedness, you don't take that for a second and you make sure that you don't take it. If they're going to say, Hey, we're going to you don't like this, we're going to take it by force. Dad, you better step right in there and say, Yeah, come and try and take it by force. If it comes to that. You do what you need to do as a father. And you look when they become adults, you know, it's too late after that anyways, which means he screwed up early on. Verse number 30, Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me forever. But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me, for them that honor me I will honor and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days come that I will cut off thine arm and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house, and thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation in all the wealth which God shall give Israel, and there shall not be an old man in thine house forever. So God ends up cursing him and his whole family. They're not going to live out their days. They're not going to be an old man at all in your entire house because of this. Later on, turn if you would to chapter eight, first Samuel, we're almost done here. That's why I'm pointing this out. Later on, the sons of Samuel didn't follow the ways of Samuel. So we see Eli had his wicked sons here and the result was a really bad thing. And what ends up happening is that Eli, his sons, and his entire house just end up dying off as a result of the curse of God. They don't have anybody else left to be priests in God's office. They completely destroyed that. His line got destroyed. How? As a result of not being a good father. Not being a good father. The important role of being a father, Eli did not do his job and as a result his entire line just was destroyed. Later on, the sons of Samuel did not follow in the ways of Samuel, which is one of the reasons that people even wanted a king. Look at first Samuel chapter eight, verse number one. And it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel. So they're going to be taking his place, right, and judging Israel. See, Samuel was a righteous man. He wasn't a respecter of persons. He listened to God. He did what he was supposed to be doing as far as being able to judge, as far as performing a service of the Lord. He was a good man in that regard. But look at verse number two here. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel. The name of his second, Abiah. They were judges in Beersheba and his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after Lucre and took bribes and perverted judgment. So his sons turn out to be wicked. They're getting bribed. They're being led astray. Now, honestly, they don't seem quite as wicked as Eli's sons were. But still, there was a problem going on here with Samuel raising his children. And he probably learned the ways of raising a child from Eli because Eli raised Samuel. And I doubt Eli raised Samuel that much different than his own children. I mean, I could only speculate on that. But Samuel turned out good though. And Samuel wasn't only raised by Eli. I mean, his mother would come every year and she'd make clothing for him and they had an influence on his life still. He wasn't just left off to himself. But, you know, even Samuel's own sons turn out. They're just going after money. They just care about being bribed. They don't care about actual judgment. And this is widely known. I mean, this isn't like something secret. I mean, the people see this and know this and they're like, we don't want these guys to be judges over us. So in verse four it says, then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel and to Rehman and said unto them, behold, thou art old and thy sons walk not in thy ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. So they make a foolish mistake here and I'm not going to get into all the whole thing with the king, you know, and not having a king and why that was wrong for them to want to have a king at all. But their solution, the problem was we've got judges that pervert judgment. We've got bad judges. So their solution was, well, let's just have a king. It's a bad solution and they should have just asked for different judges. Like, can we just make someone else the judge instead of your children? I wonder what Samuel would have done. I mean, he gave him a king, but see, he went to the Lord for that too, you know, and went to God and got counsel of the Lord. But I wonder if he would have wanted to even do that if Samuel was a good enough father to be able to take away something from his own children because it was right. Because it was the right thing to do. David had a hard time with that. Eli had a hard time with that. And we see Samuel apparently had a hard time with that too. Being a father is extremely important. Being able to have a spine and have a backbone and to do things that are uncomfortable and to do things that aren't pleasant to deal with is necessary and it's needful. And if you're going to do what's right, look, you may not have to experience the confrontation for the moment, but the end result is going to be way worse than just dealing with it right off the bat. I mean, if Eli would have dealt with his kids way earlier on, I mean, he wouldn't have lost his whole lineage and like they wouldn't have been destroyed in battle and all of them dying the way that they did. David's children would have turned out way better had he dealt with Amnon. I mean, all the lives that were impacted after that one event with Absalom, with Tamar, and then I think ultimately with Adonijah. A lot of that could have been dealt with right away. And hey, maybe Adonijah would have had a little bit more fear of his own dad if he thought that dad was actually going to do something about it. But I think he tried to assume the power because what's dad going to do about it? He didn't even do anything when Amnon raped Tamar. You think he's going to do something when I decide to take over the kingdom? It's important, important roles. And if you're not a father, keep it in mind if you ever become a father, you're going to have to do things that are unpleasant. You're going to have to do things that are right. Whether they're pleasant or not, do things that are right. And if you're not a man and you're never going to be a father or whatever, spiritually speaking, it's still important to not just take the sideline and back down and when things get tough and when people say all this wickedness is abounding and you just kind of close your mouth and don't say anything, they're going to keep pushing more and more and more. There needs to be resistance. We need to be that resistance. The people who are standing firmly on the truth, on the Word of God, to say no. We're not going to allow this world to get any, if it's our watch, as long as I'm alive, I'm going to try to stem this tide of wickedness to the best of my ability. It's not always fun, it's not always easy, but I care about my kids, I care about your kids, I care about you. That's about right as I have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father and Lord, we thank you so much for this great chapter and this whole book, dear Lord, I'm excited to dig into this and I pray that you would please just lead me and guide me and help me to be able to teach throughout every chapter of this book, dear Lord, all of the things that we need to hear, that we can learn from, that we can be edified from, dear Lord, that we can get good doctrine from. God, I pray for your guidance in this endeavor and Lord, I pray that you would please bless us all tonight. Help us to be bold, help us to have courage, to have the strength to do what's right when it comes to dealing with our family, with our loved ones, with those that are close to us, dear Lord. Help us to have the courage to be righteous and to do right, dear Lord, and to be the example and to set the example, especially if we're a father, if we're someone in authority, dear Lord, to be able to set the example that people will be more minded to do what's right, dear Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.