Solomon's Just Judgement

Alright, if you got your Bible, 1 Kings chapter 2, 1 Kings chapter 2, we will finish it this evening by looking at Solomon's wise judgments, how he acts justly You know, to act justly, you must act righteously There must be righteousness that pervades your life It was a word that was spelled right-wise-edness, because to be right was to be wise, to be wise was to be right It's the Hebrew translation of the word straight, means you're not crooked And Solomon, acting righteously, acting justly, acting very, very straight, made some of the most incredible decisions as a king

And as he made those decisions, he made them for the glory and honor of the Lord Solomon is a type of Christ in the Old Testament He's a picture of God's greater Son that will come and rule and reign forever We told you on Sunday, and you need to understand this, that God gave prophets, judges, priests, and kings to Israel He gave prophets for revelation, because they would reveal the truth of God's law to the people He gave judges for retribution, because when you broke the law, there was a punishment

He gave priests for reconciliation, because man had to get to God, and the priests were the bridge builders But he gave kings for representation The kings were designed to represent the king, the ultimate king, that was one day going to come and rule and reign in Israel So as king over the people, I had to represent to them the king, Messiah, that would one day come Unfortunately, none of them did it very well Solomon and David did it the best, but outside of those men, it wasn't done very well at all But there would come a king He would be the priestly king

He would be prophet, judge, priest, and king, the Messiah of Israel And Solomon, he would rule justly He would rule righteously David made it very clear, we read this last week and the week before, just as a reminder, in 2 Samuel 23 He says, the God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me He who rules over men righteously You must rule righteously David understood that And he would pass that down to his son, helping him to understand that he must rule with straightness He must be very wise in the decisions that he makes

And the reason is because the king, Messiah, who would come, would be called the Lord of Righteousness And if he is the Lord of Righteousness, and you as a king are to be a picture of the ultimate king that will come, you must to some degree rule in a righteous fashion You must be righteous before God, and you must rule men with righteousness And so David, in Psalm 11, would say, the righteous Lord loves righteousness The righteous Lord loves righteousness

And so when David, at the end of his life, records 2 Samuel 23, 3 and 4, he says, the Lord God of Israel, the Rock, has said, you must rule righteously because the Lord of Righteousness loves righteousness So Solomon, having been trained by his father, would record in Proverbs 15, verse number 9, that God loves those who pursue righteousness If he's the Lord of Righteousness, if he's the God of Righteousness, he's going to love those who then pursue righteousness David would say, in Psalm 92, the righteous man will flourish like the palm tree He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon

In other words, he'll exude beauty and strength Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God They will still yield fruit in old age They shall be full of sap and very green to declare that the Lord is upright He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him So David would once again speak about the righteousness of God and the righteousness that a man is to live up to as a king, as a representative of that God

Now, is it any wonder that Solomon would say in Proverbs 21, verse number 21, he who pursues righteousness and loyalty finds life, righteousness, and honor Paul would tell Timothy that he is to flee the love of money and he is to pursue, hunt down, righteousness Hunt it down to live the life that God, the Lord of righteousness, wants you to live So Christ would say, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness He would say in Matthew 5, 6, hunger and thirst for righteousness The Bible says, the book of Proverbs, if you've got your Bible, turn me to Proverbs chapter 22

And let me show you a couple of things here that I think are very important David would teach his son, Bathsheba would teach her son He has already said, and we've quoted this to you before, in the fourth chapter of Proverbs, these words, Proverbs chapter 4, verse number 4 or 3, excuse me When I was a son to my father, tender and the only son in the sight of my mother, then he taught me and said to me, let your heart hold fast my words, keep my commandments and live Solomon would write about the teaching of the mother and the father in his life

Proverbs is a result of that, the impact it made upon his life But there's a familiar verse that most of us know, it's in Proverbs 22, verse number 6 And it says, these words, train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it Train up a child in the way he should go Now you can read a number of commentators on that verse You can read a lot of books about child rearing about that verse But most of them get it wrong They don't get it right Because they don't translate the verse in the context of the book of Proverbs You must understand what the way is

Train up a child in the way he should go What is the way that he should go? Well, the only way you can define that is define it by the way it is defined in the book of Proverbs Because Solomon is writing the book And so he's already covered a lot of ground by the time you get to the 22nd chapter of Proverbs. I'm not going to go through all the different variations of the translations that people give of this verse But you need to understand the contrast in Scripture And this contrast in the book of Proverbs about the way of righteousness and the way of unrighteousness

We know that he's not saying train up a child in the way of unrighteousness He's saying train him up in the way of righteousness Because that's the way in the book of Proverbs Let me show it to you Because you need to understand this Look what it says in Proverbs chapter 15 Proverbs chapter 15, verse number 8 It says, The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the uprightest is the light The way of the wicked So there is a way of the wicked And what is that way? There is a way which seemeth right in the eyes of a man But the ends thereof are the ways of death

Not life Right? He talks about that in the 24th chapter of Proverbs There is a way which seemeth right unto a man But that's not the way he's talking about in Proverbs 22, 6 And so it says in verse number 9, The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but he loves one who pursues righteousness Grievous punishment is for him who forsakes the way What's the way? Train up a child in the way he should go Grievous punishment comes to those who forsake the way What's the way? It's the opposite of the way of the wicked Right? We need to understand that

Then it goes on to say, he who hates reproof will die Look what it says over in Proverbs 8, verse number 20 Proverbs chapter 8, verse number 20 It says, I, that is wisdom, walk in the way of righteousness In the midst of the paths or the ways of justice Justice and righteousness are two Hebrew words that are used interchangeably all throughout the Old Testament So what is just is right, what is right is just The righteousness of God is what causes him to act justly in every decision that he makes Because every decision he makes is absolutely right, absolutely straight

There is no crookedness in any decision that he makes Wisdom is the way of righteousness Look what it says over in Proverbs chapter 2 Proverbs chapter 2, it says, for the Lord gives wisdom, verse 6 From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding, verse 11 Discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you, to deliver you from the way of evil There is an evil way And wisdom, understanding, knowledge, deliver you from that way So you don't walk the way of unrighteousness, but that you walk the way of righteousness So he says this

To deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths or the ways of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness Who delight in doing evil and rejoice in the perversity of evil Whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways Verse 20 So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the ways of the righteous What are the ways of good men? They're the ways of the righteous Then over in chapter 4 Chapter 4, verse number 10

Hear, my son, and accept my sayings, and the years of your life will be many. I have directed you in the way of wisdom So there is a way which seemeth right unto a man But the ends thereof are the ways of death, not life And the ways of man are the ways of unrighteousness, the ways of evil, the ways of wickedness And so Solomon says. I have directed you in the way of wisdom. I have led you in the upright paths or the righteous ways When you walk, your steps will not be impeded And if you run, you will not stumble Take hold of instruction, do not let go Guard her, for she is your life

Do not enter into the path of the wicked or the way of the wicked And do not proceed in the way of evil men Avoid it, do not pass by it Turn away from it, pass on For they cannot sleep unless they do evil And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence But the path or the way of the righteous is like the light of dawn That shines brighter and brighter until the full day The way of the wicked is like darkness They do not know over what they stumble

You see, it's imperative to understand that as parents we have a responsibility The same one David and Bathsheba had with young Solomon And that was train up a child in the way that he should go What is the way that he should go? It is the way of righteousness It's the way of uprightness It's the path of truth It's the way of wisdom It's the way of understanding It's the way of knowledge It's the way as God has ordained the way for man to walk So Solomon, understanding that from his mother and father, says, Look, you need to train up a child in that way that he should go

And in the context of the book of Proverbs, it's the way of righteousness The way of wisdom The way of knowledge The way of understanding It is God's way That's the way we are to raise our children And all throughout the book of Proverbs, Solomon would accentuate this Why? Well, he tells you in the book of Proverbs He says, very simply, these words Proverbs 12, verse number 5 The thoughts of the righteous are just Train up a child in the way he should go Which is the way of righteousness So that the thoughts of your child will be just Straight Not crooked Proverbs 11, verse 23

The desire of the righteous is only good Train up a child in the way he should go The way of righteousness The way of wisdom The way of truth So that the desire of the child will be that which is good Because the desire of the righteous is good Proverbs 15, verse 28 The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer Train up a child in the way he should go The way of righteousness So that the heart of that child will be able to ponder how to answer when someone asks them a question Proverbs 13, verse number 5. A righteous man hates falsehood

Train up a child in the way of righteousness so that as a righteous man he hates falsehood Proverbs 20, verse number 7 The righteous man who walks in integrity, how blessed are his children after him Train up a child in the way of righteousness so that he'll walk in integrity so his children will be blessed after him Proverbs 24, verse number 16. A righteous man falls seven times and rises again But the wicked stumble in times of calamity Train up a child in the way of righteousness, justice, holiness And there'll be a righteous man who will fall but will rise again

Versus the wicked man who in the day of calamity stumbles badly and cannot get back up And I could read you many more Proverbs to help you understand the contrast between the way of the wicked, the way of the evil, the way of unrighteousness, and contrast it with the way of wisdom, the way of righteousness, the way of holiness, God's way versus Satan's way, and how you could train your child and the repercussions of that as it plays itself out in their lives What a great principle to follow So here's Solomon

When he was tender and young, being raised by his father and mother, he is reiterating the things that were taught him so that he could pass that on to his children so they in turn could pass it on to their children so that the kingdom of God would permeate with people who walk in the way of righteousness Righteousness is a huge emphasis in the book of Proverbs because it was a huge emphasis in David's life that he wanted to pass on down to Solomon

So when you come to 1 Kings 2, what you have is the king representing one day the king of kings, the Messiah who will come, the Lord of righteousness, acting righteously, acting justly, passing judgment in a straight way, not a crooked way Because that's how he was raised That's how he was taught from his early childhood And it was ingrained in him And that's why Solomon's kingship began with such great success So he says these words, the book of Proverbs, the 24th chapter, 23rd verse, these also are sayings of the wise to show partiality in judgment is not good

And he who says to the wicked, you are righteous, people will curse him and nations will abhor him But to those who rebuke the wicked will be delight and good blessing will come up on them He is saying that looking back, knowing that when he rebuked the wicked, he found great blessing from the Lord When he did not tolerate evil in the land, there was great blessing that came to him Solomon knew that if he ever tolerated evil, it would affect the kingdom He knew that So he deals with it And that's what 1 Kings 2 is all about So go back there with me if you would Some of you are still there

You never bothered to turn to Proverbs That's okay But anyway, 1 Kings 2, we're going to look at verses 28 down to the end of the chapter We're going to look at the just judgment on Joab And then the sympathetic sentence on Shimei Okay, those are the two points We'll take one at a time That's always a good thing to do. 1 Kings 2 verse number 28 Now the news came to Joab, for Joab had followed Adonijah, although he had not followed Absalom And Joab fled to the tent of the Lord, and took hold of the horns of the altar

It was told King Solomon that Joab had fled to the tent of the Lord, and behold, he is beside the altar Then Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go fall upon him So Benaiah came to the tent of the Lord, and said to him, Thus the king has said, Come out But he said, No, for I will die here And Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, Thus spoke Joab And thus he answered me The king said to him, Do as he has spoken, and fall upon him and bury him, that you may remove from me and from my father's house the blood which Joab shed without cause

The Lord will return his blood on his own head, because he fell upon two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, while my father David did not know it, Abner, the son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa, the son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah So shall their blood return on the head of Joab and on the head of his descendants forever But to David and his descendants and his house and his throne may there be peace from the Lord forever Then Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, went up and fell upon him and put him to death

He was buried at his own house in the wilderness The king appointed Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, over the army in his place And the king appointed Zadok, the priest in the place of Abiathar Solomon's just judgment on Joab We have been looking at some of the qualities that are seen in the life of Solomon That make him the kind of leader that he was The qualities that were spelled out for us in the book of Proverbs, demonstrated for us in 1 Kings 2 The quality of certainty The quality of sagacity The quality of tenacity The quality of mercy The quality of integrity The quality of authority

The quality of loyalty The quality of purity And purity is uppermost in the king's mind He's concerned about the land He's concerned about the effect of one man's sin Joab flees because he thinks it's because of his association with Adonijah He thinks because he sided against Solomon with Adonijah He knows what's happened to Abiathar He's been deposed of the priesthood He knows that Adonijah is dead He thinks he'll be next But he thinks it for the wrong reason Not the right reason Because the death of Abner and Amasa were years ago And it was under his father's rule

You can go back to 2 Samuel 3 and 2 Samuel chapter 20 and read about them Joab killed those men out of a jealous rage He was afraid that they would take his place And so in order for them not to take his place, he just decides to murder them So he sheds what the Bible calls innocent blood Blood not shed during warfare Blood shed during warfare is not innocent blood Blood shed outside of warfare was innocent blood That is, you would murder somebody Maybe it was premeditated, but you murdered them And that's exactly what Joab did

He decided to kill his rivals because he did not want to lose his place in the kingdom Thus, the land had become polluted It's already been polluted by jealousy, treachery, lies, deceit, murder, bloodshed Solomon knows that In fact, the Bible makes it very clear Book of Numbers Book of Numbers, the 35th chapter Listen to what Moses says He says, verse 33, number 35, So you shall not pollute the land in which you are For blood pollutes the land, and no expiation, no forgiveness can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it

You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell For I, the Lord, am dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel So God makes it very clear that this is the land in which I dwell That's why it's called the holy land Because a holy God dwells there, it's a holy land And so he wants to make it very clear that you cannot pollute the land, my land, your land, the land I'm giving to you, by shedding innocent blood

He says earlier in the book of Exodus, the 21st chapter, the 14th verse, however a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from my altar, that he may die In other words, Solomon knows that Solomon knows that if a man flees to the altar, a place of mercy, that's what Adonijah did, because he wanted to pretend repentance So he went to the altar, the place of mercy, to beg for mercy, even though he was not sorry for what he did Well, Joab does the same thing that Adonijah did, thinking that he'll obtain mercy from the king

He's not going to leave that place Because you see, the king is not going to kill him for his actions of siding with Adonijah Because if he does, he will bring a reproach upon the people But he doesn't know that Solomon is not going to execute him for that He's going to execute him for the murders of Abner and Amozah So he knows that That is, Solomon knows that But Joab does not So he says, I'm not leaving He defies the king's orders But then he says, you've got to come out You've got to come out And maybe it's a way of even Solomon showing mercy, if he repents

If he's truly contrite and broken But if you remember King David's charge to his son, in 1 Kings 2, verses 1 to 9, one of the things he said to him is, you've got to deal with Joab, and you've got to deal with Shimei Alright? Joab should have died Now here's a little tidbit for you Joab is the nephew of King David And David, having found out what Joab did, should have killed him But he didn't And it could be because he was his nephew It could be because he had made sure of the death of Uriah the Hittite, with the sin with Bathsheba

And Joab was a part of that, because he was the commander of his army And Joab knew exactly what he did All that to say is that, have you ever noticed that when you live in sin, you're soft on sin? Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed that when you have a close relative who sins, sometimes you're soft on sin? Because you value the relationship more than you value the truth

Could it be that David valued the relationship with Joab when it came to this situation more than he valued the truth of God in this situation? Could it be that because Joab knew of David's sin, and David knew that Joab was part and parcel to his sin, that he was soft on sin? Baba doesn't necessarily come out and say that, but when you look at David's life, his family, with Absalom, with Tamar, with Amnon, Adonijah, he was soft on sin in his family because he was guilt-ridden over his sin with Bathsheba So he couldn't come out hard against his family David was a great king

He just wasn't a very good father And Solomon is trying to rewrite the books on child-rearing, rewrite the books on what it means to be a father And so as he writes the book of Proverbs, he writes from a perspective of the things that he learned Yes, it's all, remember, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, but you can see the things that he says now played a major role in his family And so Joab flees to the altar, thinking that he can get away with what he has done, not knowing that he is there, or Solomon plans to execute him based on the murders that he committed

He had shed innocent blood, and the blood had polluted the land And the only way to rectify that was for the person who committed the murder to die God is the one who orchestrated capital punishment There's an illustration of this in 2 Samuel 21. 2 Samuel 21, verse number 1 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years David's king of Israel, okay? There was a famine in the land for three years, year after year And David sought the presence of the Lord, and the Lord said, It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death Saul had shed innocent blood

And know what happened to the land? There was a famine in the land See, God has a principle If you don't deal with those who commit murder and murder them or kill them for their murder, it's going to affect your land And when it affects the land, it affects the people in that land Can you just think of the millions of babies that have been murdered over the years in America? And people ask questions about why the effect on the land with hurricanes, tornadoes, disasters in the land The land has been polluted by the sins of those who murder, shed innocent blood And God says, You will pay

There is a price to pay when you break the commands of God And the story goes on in 2 Samuel 21, that David knew the only way to rectify it was that somebody had to die And sure enough, seven in Saul's family would be slain because they had to pay the price for their father's murder Of innocent blood, innocent people So all that being said, God has set forth the principle Solomon knows that the land is polluted because Joab still runs free David says to his son in 1 Kings 2, verses 1 to 9, You got to deal with Joab

Solomon becomes king, so what does he do? He knows he must rule in righteousness He knows he must rule with purity To do that, he must rid the kingdom of its evil He must deal with those who have sinned against God and not repented of their sin Someone's going to say, wait a minute, time out, time out David murdered Uriah He did He did But remember, remember we told you on Sunday, any sin of presumption becomes a sin of innocence when you repent of your sin And David was called the man after God's own heart, not because he never sinned, okay, because he did

It's in the pages of Scripture to read about, right? He was a man after God's own heart because he repented of his sin He repented of his sin He was a man who symbolizes a contrite, a broken spirit God never despises a broken and contrite heart, does he? He always embraces the broken heart And not only did he repent of his sin, he never sought revenge That's a man after God's own heart because God's place is to that vengeance, not man's That's why David was a man after God's own heart So, here is Solomon, and Solomon now knows the land's polluted

He needs to follow through on his dad's commands And so he's going to do that Joab must die Joab's not going to leave But Ahab comes back and says, hey, he's not leaving He's staying on the altar He says, okay, kill him there then Kill him there There is no way out of this He's going to die He tells Benaiah why he's going to die He says, verse 33, So shall their blood return to the head of Joab, and on the head of his descendants forever But to David and his descendants, and his house, and his throne, may there be peace from the Lord forever

You see, he knows that if he deals with sin properly, if he deals with sin in a biblical manner, there will be peace If you are leaning on sin, there is no peace If you don't deal with sin, there will be no peace Because Psalm 85, 10 says, Righteousness and peace have kissed one another Without righteousness, there can be no peace With righteousness, there is peace And so the Bible says in Proverbs 25, verse number 25, these words Proverbs 25, verse number 25 Sorry, verse number 5 Take away the wicked before the king, and his throne will be established in what? Righteousness

Take away the wicked from before the king Joab was a wicked man Take him away He's got to go And the throne of that king will be established in righteousness Because one sinner, Solomon wrote this, Ecclesiastes 9, 18, destroys much good So Benaiah goes back to the altar in Gibeon and runs in through and kills him And buries him in his house Which, by the way, was an act of honor To be buried in your house Samuel was buried in his house Solomon honored the position of the commander, not the person who was the commander

And Solomon, even in the slaying of Joab, demonstrated he was an honorable person Because he would honor the position of Joab the commander of David's army Which leads us to the sympathetic sentencing of Shimei Verse 36, Now the king sent and called for Shimei and said to him, Build for yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, and do not go out from there to any place For on the day you go out and cross over the brook Kidron, you will know for certain that you shall surely die Your blood shall be on your own head Shimei then said to the king, The word is good

As my lord the king has said, So your servant will do So Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days But it came about at the end of three years that two of his servants, two of the servants of Shimei, ran away to Achish, the son of Meaca, king of Gath And they told Shimei, saying, Behold, your servants are in Gath Then Shimei rose and saddled his donkey and went to Gath, to Achish, to look for his servants Shimei went and brought his servants from Gath It was told Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned

So the king sent and called for Shimei and said to him, Did I not make you swear by the Lord? And Solomon warned you, saying, You will know for certain that on the day you depart and go anywhere, you shall surely die And you said to me, The word which I have heard is good Why then have you not kept the oath of the Lord and the command or the orders which I have laid for you? The king also said to Shimei, You know all the evil which you acknowledge in your heart, which you did to my father David Therefore the Lord shall return your evil on your own head

But King Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever So the king commanded Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada He went out, fell upon him, so that he died Thus the kingdom was established in the hands of Solomon It was a sympathetic sentencing, because he allowed him to live The story in 2 Samuel 16 deals with Shimei who cast stones at David and cursed David, which in all reality should have caused him to lose his life, but David spared him

And David said to Joab the commander, Well, if the Lord has told him to say those things, then he's going to say those things and let it be And David did nothing, because David never sought revenge That's the kind of man that he was But he told Solomon in 1 Kings 2, verses 1-9 that he needed to deal with Shimei wisely, in wisdom And he affirmed the fact that Solomon had wisdom

So Solomon, instead of slaying Shimei, which he had every right to do, because of what he did to his father David, how he was treacherous toward the king, how he had cursed the king, he deserved to die, but he allows him to live in Jerusalem, the city of peace So he says, build for yourself a house Not, here's the house you're going to live in, but build your own house Build it anywhere you want in Jerusalem Build it any way you want in Jerusalem And you can even have servants Wow! What kind of lifestyle is that? You can build the house anywhere, any way you want You have your own servants

And Shimei even said, your word is good. I'll do that Solomon said, if you leave, I'm going to have to kill you So don't leave Jerusalem You are imprisoned in Jerusalem You can go and come in the streets of Jerusalem You can build your own house in Jerusalem, wherever you want to build it You can have your own servants That's good But you cannot leave Jerusalem You cannot cross the Kidron You cannot leave the city If you do, I'm going to kill you So Shimei agrees Until one of his servants leave, or two of his servants leave

And then, and then, the consequences of sin are really irrelevant to him Because you ever notice that whenever you sin, you sin stupid? You ever notice that? Nobody ever sins wisely You always sin stupid Sin never thinks logically Sin never counts the consequences Or sin never cares about the consequences, right? So, Shimei's like, man, I'm just going to go get my servants, because they ran away, and shame on them for running away How dare they run away? How dare they leave me? Well, how dare you defy the king's orders? But you see, when you sin, submission is not a part of your lifestyle

Because sin is saying, I am my own authority, and nobody tells me what to do. I can do whatever I want to do And here's Shimei thinking, you know what? David, Solomon's dad, spared my life Ah, Solomon He's going to be as soft as his dad He's going to spare my life too So off he goes Some 30 miles away, gets his servants, brings them back, thinking nothing of it, thinking, you know what? He'll understand Because sin always says, you know what? Those I sinned against will always understand There's always a reason why I did it And you have to understand, this is me This is why I did it It's okay

It's not that big a deal But he defied the king's orders And so Solomon hears about it He's the king Of course he's going to hear about it Solomon, did you hear about Shimei? Guess where he went today? He left the streets of Jerusalem He went 30 miles away to grab his servants and bring them back Here's the problem King made an order, right? King made a rule He's informed that someone broke the rule What's he going to do? How's he going to handle that? Because now all the eyes are watching, right? All the ears are listening

It's like in your family, right? You got a couple of kids running around One breaks the rule, they're punished Another breaks the rule, not so much Wait a minute, what happened here? Where's the justice? Where's the righteousness? How come they got off scot-free and I get punished? See? So all the eyes are watching Solomon Solomon goes to Shimei Modern day vernacular, dude, what are you doing? I told you, you leave, you're dying You left Guess what? You're dying You're dying Look how he says it He says, King Solomon shall be blessed What? That's right

He says, the king said to Shimei, verse 44, You know all the evil which you acknowledge in your heart, which you did to my father David Remember how you treated my dad? Remember how you cursed my father? Remember how you cast stones at my father? Remember that, Shimei? The Lord shall return your evil on your head, but King Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever That's a prophecy That's prophetic in nature David's greater son, the king, shall be established forever and ever

Solomon wasn't going to live forever, right? But the Messiah who would come, he would live and reign forever So, I like how Solomon says this in verse 43, When you have not kept the oath of the Lord and the orders which I have laid for you The order is very important, right? You didn't keep your word to God and you didn't do what I told you to do because Solomon is into honoring the Lord Solomon wants to make sure the Lord's put on display

And you defied your word to God and I gave you an order, a command, and you disobeyed. I showed you mercy. I gave you a chance to live. I demonstrated grace. I was kind. I was generous My Father told me to deal wisely with you so I'm dealing wisely with you And what you've done is you've thrown that back as if it doesn't matter. I have to keep my word You're going to die Benaiah ran him through with a sword That's going to be a tough way to die No matter how you cut it, right? No pun intended That's a tough way to go But he did The Bible says the kingdom was established in the hands of Solomon

Now he begins The man of peace begins with three executions because unless you're righteous, there can be no peace And so he rids the land of its pollution and he begins his reign in peace Evil? Evil has been extracted Evil's been extracted Those who contended for the crown are gone Now peace will reign supreme in the land And this is how Solomon begins In the very next chapter, he knows he needs wisdom He's already exercised wisdom But he knows he needs wisdom from God And when God says you can have anything you want, just ask for it Because God has already seen

The Lord of Righteousness has already seen the king's son acting righteously So the Lord goes to him and says, You can have anything you want Ask me, what do you want? Solomon, very wise, he says, I just need wisdom on how to govern this people that you've given to me And God was so pleased with that This is how he begins Great success May God grant us that as we seek to honor him Let's pray together Father, we thank you, Lord, for tonight All that you do, truly you are great and greatly to be praised We are a blessed people Thank you for the study of Solomon

Thank you for the lessons that we learned May we learn them well May we follow them fully For the glory of your kingdom, in Jesus' name, amen.