The Birth of Solomon

Once again, we had the opportunity to study one of the great characters of the Bible, King Solomon And every time we have the opportunity to do so, we realize how enlightening and how pract the study truly is It talks to us about the timelessness of God's Word, the practicality of God's Word, how God's Word goes against all Cultures and time, because what happens in Solomon's life and David's life and all the Old Testament characters' lives are the same kinds of things that happen in our life And God's word speaks to us about how we deal with the issues that they themselves deal with

And so, as we embark on another journey, Of yet another character in the Bible, we had the grand opportunity to be able to understand some of the timeless truths that God has for us Solomon's reign over Israel was unparalleled Forty years of peace in Israel Nothing like it Until the Messiah comes when there will be true peace in Israel and literally in the world because of the King of kings and Lord of Lords But this man of wisdom, this man of great wealth, who came from the family that he came from, By just a cursory look at his life, you would think that all would go well with Solomon

But it doesn't You would think that this man and where he came from would truly revolutionize the way he lived his life, the way he looked at life, and the way he dealt with life But it didn't Things changed in Solomon's life And as you begin to understand more and more about this man, you're going to see a great spiritual Deficiency in his life In fact, you can say it this way: those who are descend of royalty Or descendants of any kind of prosperity, if they are deficient spiritually, they'll be destined to a life of futility Everything about your life stems from the inner man

Everything about who you are and where you go stems from your heart's condition and where it is And so it's imperative that you understand that as you look at the Old Testament characters as well as New Testament characters, everything about their lives Stems from what is happening on the ins of them The question comes for us: how is it that this man Solomon, raised by King David, Raised in the palace in Jerusalem, would end up a beggar spiritually

How is it that this man, full of wealth and wisdom? Who wrote the book of Proverbs, who wrote several Psalms, who wrote the Song of Solomon, who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes How is it that this man With all the knowledge he had, end up the way he did And that's simply because he did not apply the things that he wrote He did not heed the things that he heard He did not live out the truths that were given to him And the same goes for you and me We could end up just like Solomon The question is, will you or will you not? And that depends on how you learn the lessons of this man's life

Un some of the other Old Testament characters that we have studied, this man Solomon has a record of his birth When we study David, there was no record of his birth We picked his life up as a teenage boy We studied Elijah and Elish, there was no record of their birth either When we study Gideon, no record of his birth But with Solomon, there is And in two verses in 2 Samuel chapter 12, We're going to see a lot about what took place before his birth, at his birth, and after His birth So if you got your Bible, 2 Samuel chapter 12, we're going to look at two verses this evening

Next week, we're going look at 50 verses But tonight, we're just going to look at two verses, which I'm a lot more comfortable with covering two than I am covering 50 But when you cover the Old Testament narrative, you take it in chunks But let's look at 2 Samuel 12, verses 24 and 25 Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba and went into her and lay with her She gave birth to a son And he named him Solomon Now the Lord loved him, and sent word through Nathan the prophet, and he named him Jedediah For the Lord's sake

Those two verses open up to us a whole lot of information about the birth of Solomon We're going to begin by looking at just three points this evening as we understand the journey that we're going to embark in over the next several weeks And that's number one: the situation surrounding his birth Then we're going look at the constellation that covers his birth And then we're going to look at some lessons that we will learn from his birth Okay? First of all, the situation surrounding his birth

Now, I don't know about you, but you know, I'm not sure I can remember a lot about the birth of our children. I know that they were all born, okay? I was there for their births, but I can't remember necessarily all the situations surrounding their birth And I'm sure, for your own sake, you can't either If you're a mother, you're more apt to remember than if you were the father But there is so much that surrounds the birth of a child In fact, you probably don't even know what happened during your birth in the situation surrounding your birth And if you do, that's something that you know

But with Solomon, it's recorded in scripture So for centuries, people know the situation surrounding the birth of Solomon For you, we don't know But for Solomon, we do And it all begins with David coming in and comforting his wife, Bathsheba That's the situation surrounding the birth of Solomon Why would David comfort his wife? Well, simply because their first child, David and Bathsheba's first child, had just died And you know, because you have been with us and know the story of David, about the situation surrounding David and Bathsheba And the events of that are recorded in Scripture

Aren't you glad that your sin is not recorded in Scripture? But David's is, and Bathsheba's is And we know the story It's recorded in 2 Samuel Or, yeah, 2 Samuel chapter 11, when it says, Then it happened in the spring at the time when kings go out to battle That David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah But David stayed At Jerusalem That little phrase, but David stayed at Jerusalem is huge Absolutely huge It speaks to David's delinquency The one thing about David

You need to understand that he was delinquent in several areas of his life And when you are delinquent in your God-given duty, It will always lead to something b It just will In David's case, his delinquency led To his adultery That adultery led to hypocrisy That hypocrisy led to a felony And that felony led to bl David not going out to war, David was a warrior That's what separated David from all the other kings: he was God's warrior That's why he couldn't build the house of God because he was a man of bloodshed And he was a great warrior

But on this occasion, David was delinquent in his responsibility And that would allow for verse 2 to take place in 2 Samuel 11 And now when evening came, David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing And the woman was very beautiful in appearance Now, if you have been with me to the land of Israel and stood on the top of The arena in which the palace was built You're able to understand exactly how it is that David would stand in his palace and look down on his city And be able to see a woman bathing

And that's exactly what happened And some would say, well, you, Bathsheba knew the king was going to be out there Did she? It didn't say that in the Bible You know And we can do a lot of things to blame Bathsheba here, but it was David who went out and was delinquent in his responsibility and saw this woman That delinquency led to his adultery And of course, Bathsheba became pregnant Well, that led to a whole lot of deceit and hypocrisy on David's part, trying to bring Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, back home from the battlefield, that he might sleep with his wife

But Uri was a man of integrity, a man of loyalty He wasn't going to engage in the finest aspects of life when his men were on the battlefield, so he would sleep outside and not go in and sleep with his wife Bathsheba That foiled David's plans So that hypocrisy led to a felony Make sure that Uriah was on the front lines and was murdered And that felony led to blasphemy because it caused all the other nations to blaspheme God Because they all knew what had taken place in Nathan's prophecy He talks about how the nations would speak against their God because of David's sin

See what happens when you delinquent your responsibility? It's a killer For David, it was a major killer So David would go in to comfort his wife because Nathan the prophet would come and he would give a parable and David would know that he was the man That had sinned, and he confessed his sin, and he went to prayer, which is a great thing He would not eat, and for seven days he laid face down on the dirt and prayed, confessed his sin, asking God to do something great, thinking that God might be gracious to him in sparing his son And his son died exactly as God said

But David forgot that God was gracious to him Because you see, the penalty for adultery was stoning The wage of sin is death David should have died for his sin So God was gracious to him And God was also gracious to him in being faithful to his word because God gave his word to Nathan the prophet and said, The son will die, the child is going to die So, God was very faithful to His Word God is not going to answer yes to a prayer and be unfaithful to His Word He will always answer in conjunction with what His Word states, and God did that

But God was still gracious to David, for God allowed him to live And why is this important? Because this is the situation surrounding the birth of Solomon So the baby dies, and David goes in to comfort his wife, Bathsheba Because she was in need of comforting Maybe she needed comforting because of the guilt You know, as men, we compart everything But women, they don't Men can have an affair on one night and go off to work the next day and that affair not affect their work At all But a woman's not that way

So here's Bathsheba realizing that the son that she had, the child that she had, Got sick and died exactly as Nathan the prophet said So whether she was having feel of guilt, maybe she was up, angry We don't know But David would go in to comfort Bathsheba Which is really, really important because David could have blamed Bathsheba Did you ever think about that? We as men tend to do that All you have to do is go back to the Garden of Eden We love to shift blame Well, if you wouldn't have been on the roof, this probably would have never happen

If you'd have said no and not come to my chamber, well, this probably would never have happened See, Bathsheba, you could have done something different You could have bathed Someplace else or another night David could have blamed Bathsheba, but he didn't Because he had to take responsibility for his own choice, his own sin And he did Read Psalm 32, read Psalm 51 He was truly repentant When the baby died, very important to understand this: that when the baby died, the Bible says in 2 Samuel chapter 12 that he got up, he washed himself

He changed his clothes and he went in and he worshipped the Lord He worship the Lord Very important because this allowed him to do what he needed to do as a husband And that was in the midst of the crises, minister to his wife who was in need You see, your leadership and my leadership as a man always rises or falls on what happens in the midst of a crisis Because that's where true leadership is seen, right? Anybody can lead when things are going good

It's when things are going bad, can they lead, right? And so, David, in the midst of a crisis, In the midst of the death of his son, because he was grieving the death of his son, like his wife was, but I'm sure his wife grieved in a different kind of way than David grieved Remember, David had other wives Remember? 2 Samuel chapter 7, verse 6 Here are the wives and other concubines Bathsheba was one among many And so I'm sure that David would grieve in a different way than Bathsheba would grieve, but nonetheless, both would grieve Both were in pain, both had heartache Okay? So here's the point

In the lesson, you understand, yes, there are consequences for sin, but here's the point: David goes in and comforts his wife, Bathsheba, in the midst of a crisis And turns his ministry or his misery into a ministry Whenever you turn your misery into a ministry, you're doing what you need to do He took his heartache And he helped his wife in need He took this opportunity to supremely minister to Bathsheba For that, David needs to be commended because he did the right thing

So many times when we're in pain or When we're going through a lonely time or we're in crisis, what do we do? We're going to curl up in a ball We want to go off into a corner We're going to go up and have a pity party for ourselves And I'm sure David would have liked to have done that. I mean, after all, he was praying for seven days, beseeching the Lord God of Israel To save his son, thinking that God would be gracious to him, but God answered and said no, and the child died So, what did David do? It was over Got up, cleansed himself

The Bible says in 2 Samuel 11, he anointed himself, changed his clothes Came to the house to worship Why? Because when you worship with a repentant heart, now you can truly minister How you worship dictates how you ser other people The reason we have a hard time as husbands ministering to our wives is because we don't worship God pro You worship God with a pure heart You worship God with a repentant heart You worship God because you've come to Him on His terms You see the value of ministering to those closest to you That's what David does That is extremely important

In the situation surrounding the birth of Solomon And David goes in and he cares for his wife You know, I don't know the situation surrounding the birth of your children. I don't know if there are those among us who conceived children out of wedlock. I don't know that. I don't know if any situation surrounding the birth of your child was in sin or not But I do know this: that God does a mighty work with those who truly repent of their sin and seek to honor his name God does do that And David would rise up and he would min to his wife

You know, as a king, he could have demanded that his wife minister to him amidst his pain. I mean, after all, he's the king, right? He could demand that Bathsheba do what is right for his sake But he doesn't do that He realizes the need of Bathsheba. I would tend to think that she was probably morally weak at the outset She couldn't say no to David She could have, he was the king Chance of losing her life, but she could have stood up and feared God more than she feared the king, but she didn't do that Maybe she wanted to be with the king, be a part of his harem, I don't know

But she was a married woman It was involved in adultery, immorality But it all began with David's delinquency Because he wasn't responsible in doing what God had called him to do as king over Israel He wasn't responsible in doing the things that he'd done Months, in weeks, in years previously on a continual basis That was his calling That's what he was to do But, in spite of all that, book of Matthew, first chapter, verse 6 It says, David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba, who had been the wife of Uri

Isn 't it great how the Lord puts that in the genealogy of Christ? She had been the wife of Uriah Just to let you know that there was sin involved Because in the genealogy of the Messiah, the people in the genealogy are not on display, the grace of God is on display To show you that grace overcomes the magnitude of our sin And that's why Bathsheba is named the way she is in the genealogy of the Messiah She had been the wife of Uri the Hittite Now, having said that, Solomon was conceived in the midst of a sinful situation

Not that David Lying with Bathsheba was sinful after they were married, because by this point they were married But the fact of the matter is that in the midst of their sin, in the consequences of that sin, Was the conception of Samuel, I mean, excuse me, of Solomon between David and Bathsheba And you know, it's important to realize that all this was extremely important to the plan of Almighty God God was at work David had prayed, hoping that God would be gracious to him Through the giving his Son back to Him that He would not die But God's grace would extend that and go way beyond that

Because if you go back to Second Samuel chapter 7, In the covenant that God makes with David, God says this: When your days are complete, verse 12, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you Who will come forth from you? In other words, he hasn't come forth yet This is Second Samuel 7 And David has a multitude of wives and concubines David already has sons

And God is saying that you will have a descendant that will come forth from you, and I will establish his Kingdom, and he shall build the house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever Bathsheba wasn't even on the scene in 2 Samuel 7 because God had a plan That even though your sin might be huge, God's grace and God's sovereignty can override all of that And sure enough, through Bathsheba would come Solomon, who would build the house of the Lord, who would be in line with the coming Messiah, whose kingdom would be forever

God truly is absolutely in charge of everything And so, when you go back and you begin to understand the grace of God and the sovereignty of God amidst all that has happened in their lives, this is crucial And Solomon, he was born in Jerusalem, the city of God Yerushal, the city of peace, it's called Okay? And this is where David, where Solomon was born In fact, if you go back to Psalm 87, The Bible says this about Jerusalem See, where you were born was very important And Solomon was born in Jerusalem It says in Psalm 87: His foundation is in the holy mountains

The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all The other dwelling places of Jacob In other words, God loves Zion Zion is Jerusalem Zion means sunny The sun shall shine forth from Jerusalem And the LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the other dwelling places of Jacob Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. I shall mention Rah, or Egypt, and Babylon among those who know me Behold, Philistia, and Tyre, With Ethiopia, this one was born there In other words, there are major cities that people have been born in

And I say, well, I'm from Babylon, or I'm from Egypt, or I'm from Tyre, or I am from This location, that location, but the location you need to be from is the city of God, the city of Jerusalem For it says, but of Zion It shall be said, This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High Himself will establish her The Lord will count when he registers the peoples This one was born there Then those who sing, as well as those who play the flute, shall say, All my springs of joy are in you In who? The city of Jerusalem, the city of the great king And this is where Stalin was born

You say, yeah, but Jesus wasn't born in Jerusalem He was born in Bethlehem Oh, yes, it's true But that's because he came in lowliness and humility But when he comes again, he won't reign from Bethlehem Who reigned from Mount Zion, who reigned from Jerusalem, the city of peace And the situation surrounding the birth also includes The siblings of Solomon They're very important Because listen to what it says in First Chronicles chapter three These were born to him, that is David, in Jerusalem Okay? So David was in Jerusalem Sham, Shob, Nathan, and Solomon Now they're not in order

Because Solomon would have been the second born of Bathsheba and David The first one died, right? So we know that Solomon was the second born So they're not in order But the very fact that he had a brother named Nathan is important You know why, don't you? Do you know why? Well, you need to know why because in the genealogy Of Jesus In the record in Luke's account and Matthew's account, there's a huge difference In fact, in Matthew chapter 1, in the gen of Christ, it says in verse number 11, Josiah became the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at that time of the deportation to Babylon

Why is that important? You need to know why that's important Because the book of Jeremiah, the 22nd chapter, tells us why it's important Jeconiah had another name, Koniah It says in verse number 28 of Jeremiah 22 Is this man Kon or Jeconiah a despised shattered jar? Or is he an undesirable vessel? Why have he and his descendants been hurled out? And cast into a land that they had not known. O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord Thus says the Lord, write this man down

What man? Conia, Jeconiah, in the line of the Messiah, write this man down as child. A man who will not prosper in his days For no man of his descendants will prosper, sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah Did you get that? From this man Konia, he will be rendered childless Did Koniah have sons? Answer: yes, he had seven sons But none of them reigned as king over J Why? Because he was cursed In other words, the line of the Messiah through Solomon from David was cursed

There would never again be a descendant of David through Solomon, through Jeconiah, who would sit on the throne of David and rule in Jerusalem ever again So, how can Jesus? Because Jesus is this descendant of David But J, physically, was a descendant of David through Nathan, Solomon's brother, from Bathsheba That's why Nathan is mentioned in Luke's Gospel, the third chapter Because Jes could not be a physical descendant of David through Solomon because the line had been cursed He had to be a physical descendant

From David through Solomon's brother Nathan, because Mary is the descendant of David through Nathan See that? That's why there is never a rec of the Pharisees or the scribes Or the Sadducees ever accusing Jesus of not being the descendant of David because he was How does the Lord God of Israel bypass the curse of Jeconiah inst of David? Through Solomon He answers the virgin birth That's how See how important that is? Jesus

Is a legal descendant of David through Solomon So therefore, he claims the right to the throne because he is a royal descendant of David through the adoption of Joseph of Jesus But he's a physical descendant The bloodline comes through Mary, who's a descendant of David through Solomon's brother Nathan, who was from Bathsheba Make sense? You understand that? Very important to grasp that This is the whole situation surrounding the birth of Solomon You think what you see is the cons that covers the birth This is amazing That's the what it says

Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, went into her, lay with her She gave birth to a son, and he named him Solomon Man of peace Why did David name his son Solomon? Because David was now at peace with God He had been reconciled to God He had been restored in his relationship and fellowship with God because of his repentant spirit Psalm 3, Psalm 51 He was now had the joy of his salvation restored, and he was the peace And Solomon was born in Jerusalem, the city of peace

And so in the city of peace, David would name his son Solomon the man of peace because David was now at peace with the living God But the text goes on and says this: Now the Lord loved him Do you think David and Bathsheba loved Solomon? They did Absolutely But it says the Lord loves Solomon and sent word to Nathan So they would know that the Lord loved Solomon And the prophet named him something different The prophet named him Jedediah, which means bel of Jehovah So in his name, through prophet, from the prophet Nathan, you have a type of Christ

Because it would be of Christ that the Lord said, This is my bel Son in whom I am well pleased And God loved Solomon and told Nathan to name him Jedediah That he is beloved of Jehovah He is my beloved son He is my gift to David That David might understand that I had been more than gracious to him by giving him a son that shall sit on his throne And rule the land in peace from this day for God is good God does great and might things And when we look at this, we realize that the character of God, you know, Solomon wasn't loved by God because Solomon was lovable

Just like you're not loved by God because you're lovable We tend to think that My parents love me because I'm so cute and adorable and lovable No That's not why they love you You might be cute, adorable, and lovable, but that's not why they love you They love you because you are the incarnation of their love, and they love you because you are their offspring But God chose to love this one, this great gift he gave to David and Bathsheba and the love of God Would be the motivating factor in his life But unfortunately, things didn't work out The way maybe Solomon thought

Because Solomon would follow in the footsteps of his father, like all sons tend to do They just do And what, I've said so many times, what your fathers do in moderation, your children do in excess David had multiple wives and concubines Solomon had hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines And they would turn his heart away from the Lord Exactly as God said they would That's why you're not to marry foreign w So, what are some lessons that we can learn at the outset of our journey? In studying the life of Solomon The first one deals with motivation And that's this

The supreme motive in serving God is his love for us The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse number 14, that the love of Christ compels me, Paul says It constrains me It moves me What motivated Paul? The love of Christ The great love of God motivates us. A proper understanding of God and His love for us moves us like nothing else Because God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, He died for us, right? The Bible tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son

And that love, we love him because he first loved us, right? The only way we can love God truly is because we know he first loves us That becomes the supreme motive for all that we do Supreme motive That we are to love the Lord God of Israel Sol, on the outset, you'd think that a man raised by royalty In prosperity, with popularity and nobility, that things would be great But we forget, we forget that because of David's delinquency Because of David's adultery, because of David's hypocrisy and David's felony, and the cause of blasphemy, there was a mutiny in his home

For his first Emon would rape his half-sister Tamar And then he would have nothing to do with her and cast her from his presence But we would see once again David's delinquency Because David did not To Emmon If you learn anything about David, you learn that he wasn't a very good father Just wasn't Because when Ammon sinned and raped his half-sister, David should have stepped in, brought the hammer down, but he did not And Absalom, next in line for the throne, so he would think, because he was a second-born son, he then would want, he raged and boiled on the inside Because his dad did nothing

Listen, when your son or daughter sins and you do nothing as a father, guess who's watching? The other sons and other daughters, they're watching They're taking notes And when David did nothing to Ammon, Absalom began to boil and rage on the inside And for two years he was angry, and for two years he was infuriated So he would Banish himself, he would go off into exile, he would come back, and a mutiny would occur because he would try to take the throne from his father David Because his dad did nothing when Am sinned So Absalom comes back and Absalom dies in battle

Because Joab, the commander of the army, would not follow King David's orders because David said to spare his son Absalom But Joab killed him anyway And thus the mutiny would cont with the third son And that's next week's story But you see how the delinquency of David just led to more and more iniquity throughout his family? Nathan the prophet said, The sword will never depart from your house There will always be bloodshed in your home And sure enough, it happened that way And so, in all reality, this was the home that Solomon was raised in

Sol was raised amidst much dysfunction in the family. I don't think there's anybody in the room who has a father who is a king. I don't think there's anybody in the room Whose father is a king, whose son raped their half-sister. I don't think there's anybody in the room who had another son murder another son because the father did not deal with the older son's sin And that's the realm in which Solomon was raised Think Solomon didn't see all that, know all that? In spite of all that, David had many wives and many concubines

He was king over Israel, so I'm sure he didn't spend very much quality time with Solomon He had other sons and other daughters And who was it who wrote Psalm 12? Solomon Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it Right? He was one who writes about children are a gift from the Lord They're like arrows in the hand of a warrior, and bless men whose quivers are full of them Solomon wrote Psalm 127 Solomon also wrote Proverbs 24, 3 and 4 How is the house built? How is it established? It's built on wisdom, established on knowledge Understand, all those things

What else did Solomon write? Stoloman wrote these words Very interesting Book of Proverbs He said, She and Abaddon are never satisfied, nor are the eyes of man ever satisfied. I wonder if he was thinking about his father David when he wrote that It's under the inspiration of Scripture So these are the God-breathed words But I wonder if in the mind of Of Solomon He wondered if his dad's eyes were ever satisfied Interesting that Solomon would follow the same path That his eyes would never be satisfied either Because he would continue to take more and more women into his palace

So the motivation for serving God is simply the fact that He loves us And we, because we love him, should keep his commandments, right? This is where Solomon failed Because he wrote He wrote Proverbs 6 He wrote these words He wrote, Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Or can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is the one who goes into his neighbor's wife, whoever touches her, will not go unpunished Was he thinking about his father David when he wrote that? Or about this? The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense

Wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out He wrote those words He also wrote the words, My son, guard your heart Watch over your heart with all diligence But yet, he did not apply those words later in life He wrote the book of Proverbs, and if you read the book of Proverbs and read them through Solomon's eyes, You wonder, how did he stray so far away from the Lord? How does a man who builds the house of God, the great Solomon temple on Mount Moriah, Fall so far from that God

You know, people They not build a house of God, but they go to a house of God, they go to a church Just because they go to a church doesn't mean they're going to be spiritually nourished or spiritually fed He would also write in Proverbs 12, 27, that man's most precious possession is his diligence The ability to keep on keeping on, the ability to stick to the task and to complete the task He would write that And yet he was not diligent in keeping the commands of God He was not diligent in following what God's word said He wasn't He would hear the word of God

He would know what God's word said, but he would not apply the word of God And that's where you and I, just like Solomon, fall short We hear it, we know it, we just don't do it Just don't do it That's where the second Lesson is, and that is not only is the lesson of motivation, which centers around the love for God, but there's the lesson of cultivation And that is the inner man, cultivating the inner man, making sure that my heart is right Watch over your heart with all diligence Guard your heart, for from it flow all the issues of life Solomon wrote that

He knew he needed to cultivate the inner man, but somewhere down the line, there were these women Who would sway him another way that would turn him away from the Lord? And even though he wrote about it in the book of Proverbs, he did exactly the opposite of what he said And what it did was cause God to bring judgment upon him and the kingdom, and the kingdom would be divided and never the same again until the Messiah comes The tragic consequence of not applying God's Word to your life is horrendous Horrendous

And that's why when we study the life of Solomon, we're going to see how he begins great It begins on fire in spite of all the dysfunction in his family and all that was happening with his brothers and half-brothers and half-sisters and sisters and all that took place in his home, seeing all that he saw Amidst all the royalty of the palace and all the great things that were there under Lie deceit, hypocrisy, murder, lies, decept was all there So, because of the power of God, you can rise above all those things Because the third lesson is not just a motivation and a cultivation, but a transform

The ability for God and His power to transform the life Don't think for one moment that your situation and your home environment Was worse than Solomon's Because it probably isn't And yet, Solomon would rise above that And he would begin to heed the call of God He did it for quite a while. U years down the road, he faltered He became deficient spiritually He stopped cultivating the inner man He stopped doing, following through with what was said in the Word of God and followed his heart's desire And it led him away from the Lord into all kinds of sin And that's unfortunate We can't go there

We can't afford to go there. I hope that you don't even want to go there And so, as we go through this man's life, we'll look at the motivation, the love of God, because he was beloved of the Lord He was the man of peace to bring peace to Israel And we'll look at the cultivation of the inner man and how it is we are to continually stir up the inside and cultivate the ground to grow deep Because there's a transformation that has to take place And it comes through the power of God, through the Spirit of God in the inner man to mold us into the image of God that we might glorify His name

That's where we're going We hope you'll go with us each and every week Let's pray together Father, we thank you for the word of the Lord We are so grateful for the opportunity you give us. to study We thank you, Lord, for Solomon's life When we begin to unwrap it, we will see so much of us in Him We will see what we should do and what we shouldn't do We will see how to correct the wrongs, make them right, how to repent We'll know how to follow what the Word of the Lord says, how to stay away from sin And our prayer, Lord, is that you would guide us and lead us each and every day

And I pray that those who are here tonight, that Lord, they would take the things that they learned and heard and apply them to their lives That they might truly provide an example for those around them for the glory of your kingdom We pray in Jesus' name Amen.