Solomon: The Wise King

Father, we thank you for the day, Lord, and we just thank you for this time that we can come together, Lord, and just spend some time in your word and spend some time lifting praise to you. God, you have just been so good to us. You're so kind and gracious and merciful, Lord God, and we just give you thanks and we give you praise. We ask your blessing upon this evening, Lord, and just be with those that are at home trying to stay warm, Lord, and just pray you take care of them and just minister to them as well, Lord.

We love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. One of these days, Lord, sooner rather than later, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that you guys can go and have a seat if you like.

God, we just give you praise.

God, we just thank you for all you do for us, Lord. Lord, this evening, as Pastor Ryan comes, Lord, I just pray that you'd speak mightily through him.

Lord, give us soft and tender hearts to receive that word, Lord God.

Father, we love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good evening. How's everyone doing? The frozen, the chosen. That's what we... That's what they called them a couple of weeks ago or a few weeks ago. All right, if you would open up in your Bibles to the book of 1 Kings chapter 2. 1 Kings chapter 2. We're actually starting kind of in the middle of chapter 2, maybe like the first fourth of chapter 2. And I've entitled the message tonight,

Solomon, the Wise King, because we really get into the rule and reign of Solomon tonight as he begins his reign. Just to catch us all up to speed, last week what we saw is we saw a power struggle over the throne. David was near the end of his life and they were trying to determine who was gonna take over for David. And one of David's sons, Adonijah, kind of made a power play, if you will, for the throne.

And it was told to David, hey, this is what's taking place. And so David said, no, that's not what's supposed to happen. Solomon's the one who's gonna take the throne. And so Solomon was anointed king as David was still alive. And then, of course, we saw David pass away last week, went home to be with the Lord last week. In our study, and he gave those kind of parting words

to his son, those instructions that he gave to him. And so we start to see some of the justice be meted out today. And then also Solomon requests wisdom in order to rule God's people. And so we pick up in verse 13 of chapter two, and this is what it says. Now Adonijah, the son of Hagith, had come to, came to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon. And she said, do you come peacefully?

And he said, peacefully. He said, I don't know. He said, I don't know. He said, I don't know. He said, I don't know. He said, I have something to say to you. And she said, speak. So he said, you know that the kingdom was mine and that all Israel expected me to be king. However, the kingdom has been turned about and become my brother's, for it was his from the Lord.

Now I am making one request of you. Do not refuse me. And she said, speak. He said, please speak to Solomon, the king, for he will not refuse you that he may give me Abishag, the Shunammite, as a wife. And Bathsheba said, very well. I will speak to the king for you. Now, if you remember, Abishag was the one who was given to David towards the end of his life

because he couldn't keep himself warm and it was a custom at that point in time to do that. She technically became his wife at that point in time. And so Adonijah, the guy who had made a power play for the throne, comes to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, and he makes this request. Now, you and I look at this request and it seems like a pretty innocent thing. He's like, hey, I thought she was a pretty attractive girl.

I wanna marry her. Only the thing is, this was a power play. This was a power play once again because anyone who would take the wife of the previous king, any of the wives of the previous king in this era was trying to show his authority and trying to usurp authority over the current king. And so this was really another power move on the part of Adonijah. So I want you to notice how Solomon responds.

It says in verse 19, so Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king arose to meet her and bowed before her and sat on his throne. And then he had a throne set for the king, and the king's mother, and she sat on his right. And she said, I am making one small request of you. Do not refuse me. And the king said to her, ask my mother for,

ask my mother for I will not refuse. And she said, let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah, your brother, as a wife. And King Solomon answered and said to his mother, why are you asking for Abishag for Adonijah? Ask him also for the kingdom, for he is my older brother, even for him, for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab, the son of Zeruiah. And King Solomon swore by the Lord, saying,

may God do so to me and more also, if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life. Now therefore, as the Lord lives, who has established me and set me on the throne of David, my father, and who has made me a house, as he promised, surely Adonijah shall be put to death today. So King Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and he fell upon him so that he died. Now, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, if you remember in the last chapter when Adonijah had made that power play to become the king and Solomon was ultimately anointed king, Adonijah cried out for mercy, and that's exactly what Solomon gave him.

He said, okay, I'll show you mercy, but you need to show yourself wise, and you need to show yourself righteous. And so as long as you do that, there'll be mercy for you. Well, this is a moment where he did not show himself to be righteous, and Solomon saw through it. This is one of these moments where we see that God knew exactly what he was doing in making Solomon king.

And Solomon had watched his father, and he had watched what took place when those that would rise up to try to take over the kingdom from David rose up. And this is a similar move to what Absalom did after he took over the kingdom from his father. And Solomon knew if he did not deal with this rebellion, if he didn't deal with it harshly, he would be dealing with it for the rest of his reign. And so that's exactly what he did.

He dealt with it harshly by putting Adonijah to death. And there is always a good reminder for us here that when rebellion happens, when rebellion arises in our life, we have two choices. We can either put up with it, or we can put it to death. If we allow rebellion to remain in our lives in any way, then it will ultimately become our end. It will ultimately become our downfall.

But when we see rebellion arise in our lives, any sort of rebellion against the authority that God has placed there, which is himself ultimately, then it has to be put to death. And that's what Solomon does. He deals with Adonijah in this way. Now, there's another individual he's going to have to deal with. It says in verse 26, Then to Abiathar the priest, the king said,

Go to Anathoth to your own field, for you deserve to die. But I will not put you to death at this time, because you carry the ark of the Lord before my father David, and you were afflicted in everything with which my father was afflicted. So Solomon dismissed Abiathar being the priest to the Lord in order to fulfill the word of the Lord, which he had spoken concerning the house of Egypt, Eli and Shiloh. If you remember, one of those that had joined Adonijah was this Abiathar, who had been a very faithful priest to David, had really followed him faithfully, no matter what had taken place.

But when an opportunity arose, he followed the wrong guy. And again, he shows him mercy, because this Abiathar could have ultimately been put to death. But because of his body of work, he said, I'm not going to put you to death. Instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to remove you as the priest. And you go live on your own, but you're not going to be, the priest any longer.

And so it's a merciful move, but it was also a move that was ordained by God. Because as you took note, it says that it fulfilled the word of the Lord concerning the house of Eli and Shiloh. If we were to go all the way back to the very beginning of 1 Samuel, before David was ever anointed king, before Samuel even became a prophet, there was a high priest whose name was Eli, and Eli did not keep his sons under control. And because of that, evil had begun to spring up, within the kingdom.

And so God had made a prophecy, or God had told Samuel, the very first prophecy that Samuel gave, was that Eli's sons would no longer be allowed to be not only in the high priesthood, but that he would remove everyone from Eli's family as priest. And this is the last of God keeping that promise. So the next one that we deal with, that Solomon deals with in meeting out justice, is Joab. It says, Now news came to Joab, for Joab had followed, followed Adonijah, although he had not followed Absalom.

And Joab fled to the tent of the Lord, and he took hold of the horns of the altar. And it was told King Solomon, that Joab had fled to the tent of the Lord, and behold, he is beside the altar. And then Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go and fall upon him. So Benaiah came to the tent of the Lord, and he said to him, Thus the king has said, Come out.

But he said, No, for I will die here. And Benaiah brought the king, the word, saying, Thus spoke Joab, and thus he answered me. And the king said, 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 Nerah, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa, the son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah. So their blood shall 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. And so Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, went and fell upon him and put him to death, and he was buried at his own house in the wilderness.

And the king appointed Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, over the army in his place. And the king anointed Zadok, the priest in the place of Abiathar. Joab had been that trusted commander of David's up to the point in time when Adonijah made that power play. But Joab had a problem. As a man of war, he seemed to have very little interest in spiritual things and was absolutely willing to do whatever it took

to hold on to his power, including killing men who were ultimately innocent in the things that they did. The first one, of course, was the commander of Saul's army, who was surrendering to David, and Joab killed him in cold blood. And then the other one was the one who David had made ruler over his army, Amasa. And he had put him to death as well. And if there was one of the big weaknesses that David had,

it was always Joab. I think he was actually scared of Joab, and yet he put it on his son to be the one who would deal with it. It's kind of interesting because most believe that Solomon was around the age of 20 when he took over as king. So this young man who has to do something so difficult says, go deal with Joab. And so, of course, Joab does what Adonijah had done.

He went to the tent of meeting and he grabbed hold of the horns of the altar because he was seeking for mercy. And he said, if that's where he wants to die, then that's where he can die. Now, I personally kind of had a little bit of trouble with this for a little while because I was going, now, wait a second. It doesn't seem like the right thing to do to put somebody to death that's grabbed hold of the horns of an altar where mercy is what's supposed to be taking place.

Was Solomon right in doing that? Well, there's a really interesting passage of scripture, and I think I even had her put it up here. It's in Exodus chapter 21, verse 14. You might, in the margin of your Bible or somewhere, just write down Exodus 21, 14, and I'm gonna read you what it says. It says, if, however, a man acts presumptuously towards his neighbor

so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from my altar that he may die. You see, God takes life very seriously. And when a life is taken, and a cold-blooded fashion, then the one who has taken that life has to be dealt with because the blood of those who have been murdered cries out from the ground, we're told in scripture. And God says, even if that individual has grabbed hold of the horns of the altar, take him from the altar and deal with it.

And that's exactly what he does with Joab. And so he deals with Joab and ultimately atones for all of those sins that Joab had committed. And then we come to one last individual. His name is Shimei. Now, just a reminder of who Shimei was. When David was fleeing from Absalom, when Absalom had tried to take over the kingdom from him, Shimei was one of the descendants of Saul.

And as David was fleeing, he comes out and he starts making fun of David and cursing David and sort of, you know, it's the Tommy Lasorda moment that we've talked about before, kicking some dirt on him and things like that. And David ultimately shows him mercy, but he tells Solomon, you know what needs to be done. And Solomon handles this in such a wise way. Take note of what he does.

It says, Now the king sent and called for Shimei. And he said to him, build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there. Do not go out from there to any place. For on the day that 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. And Shimei 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 the servants of Shimei ran away to Achish, son of Maaca, king of Gath. And they told Shimei saying, behold, your servants are in Gath. And Shimei arose, saddled his donkey and went to Gath to Achish to look for his servants.

Dope. And Shimei went and brought his servants from Gath. And 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 solemnly warn you saying, you will know for certain that on the day that 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 which I laid on you? The king said to Shimei, you know all the evil which you acknowledge in your heart, which you did to my father Daniel. 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, and he went out and fell upon him so that he died. Thus the kingdom was established in the hands of Solomon. It's kind of interesting how those things work out, isn't it? Solomon was seeking to show mercy to Shimei. And he made every opportunity for that to take place. He said, here's your one rule.

You're essentially gonna live on house arrest in Jerusalem. Now, it's not like it was inside of this church. I mean, it was a decent sized town. He's got room to move around. He said, but if you leave Jerusalem, if you leave the city, if you cross the brook Kidron, you're gonna die. And Shimei, I said, that sounds like a great idea. I'll stay here. Well, lo and behold, his servants run away.

Outside of the bounds that Solomon told him, he had to stay. Outside of the bounds that Solomon told him, he had to stay. Outside of the bounds that Solomon told him, he had to stay. Outside of the bounds that Solomon told him, he had to stay. Outside of the bounds that Solomon told him, he had to stay. And he presumptuously went out and brought back those servants.

And it was told Solomon, and Solomon goes, I told you what the rules were. You agreed to the rules. You know what the punishment is gonna have to be. Now, there's an interesting lesson in here for us. And that's that our sins have a tendency to find us out, don't they? Our sins have a tendency to tell on us, whether we intend for them to or not. You see, Shimei was deserving of death

because of the way he was treated. The way that he spoke to the king. Because of cursing the king, the law actually said he should be put to death. But they were seeking to show mercy. And trying every which way they could to show this guy mercy. But eventually his sin revealed itself. And it's amazing how that has a tendency to happen. And it revealed itself

in the most abnormal of ways possible. And yet, ultimately, his sin found him out. Reminds me of a story from my own personal life with a roommate that I had in Bible college. I was the dorm dork for a little while in Bible college. I was the guy who had to enforce all the rules in my room. They call us dorm stewards, but everybody knows what that means. I was the dorm dork, right?

And so I had a roommate at that point in time. And I started receiving some reports about this roommate. Hey, we think we saw this guy smoking pot. And I was like, whoa. So I asked him about it. Hey, listen, this is the report that's being given to me. And he said, it's absolutely not true. Absolutely not true at all. And so I didn't know who to believe, all these other people that I trusted.

Or my roommate that sleeps in the bunk below me that I know pretty well, who do I trust? So I went and talked to the dean of men at that point in time, Mark Schwartz, coolest guy you'll ever meet. I said, Mark, what do I do in this situation? And he said, Ryan, here's what you need to know. If he's doing things he's not supposed to do, his sin will find him out.

You just trust him. You love him. You show him grace and let God deal with the rest. And so that's what I did. I just kept working with him, kept talking with him, kept praying with him. And deep down, and deep down, I knew something wasn't right with him. And one day, I was on campus and one of the security guys came up and found me and said, hey, we caught him smoking cigarettes

up on the north end of the campus. And so we got to kick him out because that was one of the rules. You weren't allowed to smoke on the campus. Plus he was under 18 and that wasn't allowed. And I remember going to Mark Schwartz and he looked at me and he said, see what I mean? All you can do is show love and grace and God will take care of the rest because your sin will have a tendency.

It's a tendency to find you out. And that's exactly what happened in that situation. And from that point on, I had learned, I don't need to try to prove everybody else's story right. I just got to trust God because God has a really good way of bringing these things about and bringing about justice when need be, right? And that's exactly what we see in the life of Shimei.

And so Solomon at a very young age had to show justice to those who needed it, made it out to them. And now we come to chapter three. One of the more famous chapters in the Old Testament, at least as far as Solomon is concerned, where Solomon requests wisdom. So we start in chapter three, verse one. It says, then Solomon formed a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

And he took Pharaoh's daughter and he brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. Now, before we get to one of the great stories of all of the Old Testament, we have to deal with, Solomon's problem that's gonna continue to become a problem in an even greater way for him. Solomon forms an alliance with the king of Egypt by marrying his daughter. Now, a completely normal custom at that point in time, as far as the culture was concerned, but not what God wanted.

God still used Solomon, God still blessed Solomon, but he did have a weakness that we start to see crop its ugly head in his life. And it's interesting because it's the same weakness that his dad had, women, right? He just had a tendency to marry a lot of them. He's like, if one's good, 25's better, right? And so, as he starts doing it, he starts amassing wives for himself.

And it wasn't a wise thing that he did, and it's fascinating because Solomon, in just a minute, is gonna ask for wisdom, and he's gonna become one of the wisest men that has ever lived, writing more proverbs, knowing more about science and culture and art, one of the smartest guys that ever lived, and yet he had a major blind spot in his life. And the major blind spot that he had in his life, had to do with this particular area of his life. And isn't it amazing that someone can be blessed with so much wisdom from God, and yet still have a blind spot in his life? And a lot of us look at Solomon, especially, because this is only the beginning for Solomon, with amassing wives.

Most of us look at Solomon and go, how can you be so stupid, right? Like, how could you give into that? How could you end up doing that? Well, it's because it was okay in the culture, and it was a blind spot in his life. It is so important that we realize that we all have these, that we all have these areas in our lives that are acceptable to the culture, but they're still areas of sin,

and sometimes we're completely blind to them. This is why the most important thing that we can do is do what David said when he cried out to the Lord, search me and know me, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. We have to go to God continually with our hearts completely open and surrender to the Lord and say, you have to show me the blind spots. You have to show me where I'm not seeing the weaknesses in my life, where I'm not seeing the sin in my life, where I have excused it because it's so much a part of who I am, and it's okay with the culture that I've completely stopped seeing that area of sin.

Lord, you have to show me because I wanna follow you. But listen, we have to be willing to be corrected by God. And listen, sometimes we have to be willing to be corrected by other people. That's the only way we can deal with those blind spots, is by being completely transparent before the Lord, and sometimes completely transparent before other people, and be willing to hear what they have to say to us.

And while Solomon's gonna become one of the wisest men that's ever lived, this blind spot is gonna be his biggest issue and his ultimate downfall in his life. That being said, let's look at a happy moment in the life of Solomon, shall we? Now, the people, verse two, were still sacrificing on the high places because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father, David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered 1,000 burnt offerings on that altar. I feel it necessary to take just a moment to explain what these high places are, because this is gonna become a real issue for the nation of Israel, throughout both first and second Kings, is these high places. God had told the children of Israel, when you come into the land, I will choose a place for my name to be, and that's where you're to offer sacrifices.

That's the only place where you're to offer sacrifices. God had chosen that place, it was Jerusalem, but the temple had not yet been built in Jerusalem, and while there was a tabernacle in Jerusalem, the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the Covenant, was still in the city of Gibeon. So a lot of times what they would do is they would choose what's called a high place, and it's exactly like it sounds. It would usually be up on top of a hill, and they were former idolatrous places that they turned into places where they would offer to the Lord.

There will come a time where God will tell them, stop sacrificing on the high places and go to the temple where I have chosen for my name to be. But at this point in time, there's still no sin involved in this because there's still no temple yet. There's still no place, no central location where they're supposed to go to offer these. Does that kind of make sense to everybody?

And so Solomon, I love this. It says he loved the Lord, and this is why I know that that blind spot is exactly what I called it, because he loved the Lord, and he wanted to walk in his statutes. He just still had some weaknesses in his life. He loved the Lord, wanted to walk in his statutes, and he had offered sacrifices at this place in Gibeon, one of the great high places where he continued to offer to the Lord.

It says, In Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream. And God said, Ask me what you wish. Ask me whatever you wish me to give to you. And Solomon said, You have shown great kindness to your servant David, my father, according as he has walked before you in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart towards you. And you have reserved for him this great loving kindness,

that you have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is to this day. Now, O Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. Yet I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or how to come in. Your servant is in the midst of your people, which you have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. So give your servant an understanding heart

to judge your people, to discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours? And what a fantastic moment in the life of Solomon, right? So Solomon is in this place of Gibeon. He's offering sacrifices to the Lord. It's a great moment, perhaps a very spiritual moment for him. He's kind of dealt with a lot of the things that were weighing on him, perhaps,

at the beginning of his reign. He's still a pretty young guy, 20, 21 years old at this point in time, 25 max, still a pretty young fella. And he's a great man. And he's a great man. And he's a great man. And he's a great man. And he's a great man. And he's a great man. And he's a great man. And he's a great man. And he's a great man. And God appears to him in a dream.

I don't know if you've ever thought about any of your dreams before. If any of mine can be interpreted in any sort of way, then wow, that's really sad, right? Because I have weird dreams. But at this point in time, God's using dreams in a really positive way. He shows up to Solomon. He says, ask me anything you want. I want you to think about something for a minute.

If you could ask God for anything that you would want, anything in the world, what would it be? If you could ask God for anything in the world, anything in the world, what would it be? Because whatever your gut reaction would be, that's a really good revelation of what's in your heart, right? I remember being in my early to mid-20s and sitting around with a group of guys at work and the lottery would be really, really big, right?

It'd be like $11 billion or something like that. And we'd always have the conversation, what are you going to do if you win $11 billion? And of course, as a spiritual man, I always started off saying, well, I would tithe first, right? But then you think about it, what would I buy with all of this money? And if we've learned anything over the years, it's that all of the money in the world,

it won't buy you happiness. It won't buy you any real peace. It won't buy you anything worthwhile. As a matter of fact, there was an entire show on TV dedicated to the people who won the lottery and then went broke because they just wanted everything in the world. And yet it's always kind of an interesting revelation in our heart. To see, if I could ask God for anything,

what would it be? And so Solomon, in the wisdom that God had given him, and remember, we were given this little description of Solomon, he loved the Lord with all of his heart and he walked in his ways as his father David had done. We're given that little revelation about Solomon and Solomon says, oh Lord, you've done so much already. You've done so much for my father.

You've put me on the throne to be in the throne. You've put me on the throne to be in the throne. You've put me on the throne to be in this place. He says, I just know one thing. When it comes to being king, I just feel like a little kid. And I love this because we see the humility of Solomon's heart. We see that he's still in a place where he's very humble

because he realizes that the task in front of him is huge, that the job he's been given is great, and he needs some help. And so there's a great deal of humility, but it's not false humility. You see, false humility would be, oh Lord, I don't want to bother you. I don't want to bother you with the things that I need. No, he's willing to make a request of God,

but it's a truly humble request of God. He says, this people is great. I don't know how to judge them. I don't know how to go out. I don't know how to come in. In other words, I don't know how to handle myself as a king. So Lord, would you give me understanding that I would know how to govern these people? First thing I would tell you is this, is we are reminded that if we want wisdom

and you should want wisdom, you know, knowledge is what you know. Wisdom is how to apply knowledge, right? And so if we want wisdom, we have to ask God. In James chapter one, verse five, it says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God and know that he will give it liberally to all who ask, right? And so he knows where wisdom comes from, and he goes to God to seek that wisdom.

But there's an interesting word that's used here in the Hebrew. He uses the word understanding, but in the ancient Hebrew, the word understanding literally means to listen. Now, I thought that was kind of an interesting truth about that word understanding is it means to listen. And I think it's important for two reasons, because he knows that if he is gonna govern God's people and do it wisely, he has to be someone who listens.

And he needs to listen to three different things. Number one, he needs to be willing to listen to the people, right? Like if you're gonna be in charge of people, then you need to be willing to listen to the people so that you know what their needs are. And so he needs to be someone who doesn't always necessarily just want to speak all the time, but he's willing to hear what the people need.

And somebody that cares about people, because if you care about people, you'll listen to what they have to say. And you'll listen to not only what they have to say, but what they don't have to say. Because sometimes what people don't say is as loud as the words that come out of their mouth, right? So first, he's gotta learn to listen to people. Second, he's gotta learn to listen to wise advisors, right?

If you wanna try to listen to wise advisors, right? If you wanna truly have wisdom, you need to be willing to listen to the wise people that are around you. Because those wise people that are around you, especially as a young guy like he is at that point in time, he needed to learn to listen to them, to listen to what people have to say. But ultimately, at the end of the day, he really needed to learn to listen to one thing and one thing only, and that's the Lord.

He needed to learn to discern and listen to what God's voice has to say, because that's where wisdom comes from. Wisdom comes directly from God. I believe that when Solomon started writing the Proverbs, he often personified wisdom. Did you ever notice that? You ever notice in reading the Proverbs that wisdom is personified in that way? He almost treats wisdom like it's a person.

And I think it's because what he had gained from God was the ability to listen, because that's what understanding is, is listening. He started listening to God, and he started realizing wisdom, wisdom is a person. He started realizing wisdom is a person. He started realizing wisdom is a person. And that person was the creator of the heavens and the earth. And so he had to learn to listen to what God had to say.

And I want us to know something here tonight. We are in a world that's filled with an incredible amount of knowledge, right? We live in the Google world, where you can look anything up at any point in time that you want to, right? I'm trying to think of who I Googled the other, oh, I know, I was watching the Super Bowl the other night. Tear. I was watching the Super Bowl the other night,

and I saw, and I saw, and I saw, somebody standing next to Rob Gronkowski, and I was like, oh dear God, how tall is Rob Gronkowski? Like that guy is flipping huge, right? Six foot seven, by the way. You know how I know that? Because I Googled it. How tall is Rob Gronkowski? And we're in a generation right now where you can look any information up that you want to at any point in time,

and you can have all of the information in the world. And because of that, we are flooded with information all the time, but we don't have any wisdom. And the reason why we don't have any wisdom is because we're listening to all of the information of the world, and we're not listening to God. I actually think one of the greatest tools that the enemy uses right now is the noise of the world.

Because the noise of the world is so loud. You notice that we can't do anything without something being played, right? Like we have to have a headphone in to listen to music. We have to be listening to a book, or a podcast, or something all the time. And listen, there's not anything wrong with any of that stuff. But there comes a point in time, But there comes a point in time,

where you have to listen. Remember Elijah, we'll get to him. We'll get to this story again, actually in second, I think it's second Kings. Elijah goes up on top of the mountain to hear from God. At first there's the wind, and then the fire, and then the thunder, and God wasn't in any of those things. God was in a still, and if Solomon is gonna rule God's people,

then he needs to listen to the God of his people. And I'm here to tell us tonight, if you want wisdom in your life, you need to listen to the God of wisdom. Sometimes we gotta turn off the noise. Sometimes we gotta turn off the distractions, and just listen. I was reading a guy the other day, a little article that he wrote about the importance of his quiet time.

And he said, my quiet time is less about the amount that I read, and it's more about the presence of God. And he said, my quiet time is less about the amount that I read, and it's more about the presence of God. And I thought, man, that is so important for us to pay attention to, because that's what we wanna do. When we get into this word, when we get into what God has to say to us, remember, it's what God has to say to us.

That's why when I really stop and think and pray and seek, it's not the knowledge that I'm looking for, it's the presence that I'm looking for. Or, I really just really wanna focus on the fact that I just wanna know the truth. I didn't wanna know the truth. It's all about the presence of God. So I'm gonna look in faith and my heart, I'm gonna look at this word,

I'm just gonna look at this. I want it to be a different word for you. I'm gonna look at yourself. It's gonna be a different word for you. I want it to be a different word for me. It's not gonna be about me. I want it to be about God. It has to be more about me. And why you think that's so important, because he was up there for the presence. He was up there to listen.

And he says, I want an understanding heart. I want to be able to listen to you so that I can know how to lead your people. So give me understanding. I love God's answer. And it was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said to him, because you asked this thing and have not asked for yourself long life, or riches, nor have you asked for the life

of your enemies, but you have asked for discernment to understand justice, behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise and discerning heart so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you. I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the king. Behold, I have given you things like you all of your days.

And if you walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and commandments as David did, then I will prolong your days. And Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord and offered burnt offerings and made peace offerings and made a feast for all of his servants. I love this. I can't say this is how God reacted,

other than I'm putting a little bit of words in God's mouth here, but God was like, now that's what I'm talking about. God says God was well pleased with him, but in my brain, God said, that's what I'm talking about. That's good stuff right there. He said, and since you asked for that, since you didn't ask for all the other things, all the material things, I'm not only gonna give you wisdom, I'm gonna give you everything that you didn't ask for.

Again, in the margin of your Bible, you might write Matthew chapter six, verse 33. Matthew 6, 33. Because Matthew 6, 33 says this. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and everything else is gonna be added unto you. Now listen, that doesn't mean that if you seek God first, you're gonna have all the wealth in the world, but it does mean everything else that you're not seeking,

God's gonna totally take care of for you. Because that's what he does. If you will just seek God first, he'll take care of everything else. And that's what he does for Solomon. And it says he made Solomon the wisest man that ever lived. Now listen, he made Solomon the wisest man that ever lived. Now listen, he made Solomon the wisest man that ever lived. No one would be like him before.

No one would be like him after. And I love the way that Solomon reacts. How does Solomon react? Solomon goes back to Jerusalem, and he offers offerings. He offers two different kinds of offerings, a burnt offering and a peace offering. The burnt offering is a whole offering, and that's an offering of consecration. It's as if he's saying, I am completely and totally yours.

The peace offering was something that he would eat as well. It's called a fellowship offering. So he offers him consecration and fellowship. Listen, what we call that is response. When he realized what God was doing for him, he responded with wholehearted consecration and with wholehearted fellowship. And that's what he does with God. So Solomon responds. Well, the end of chapter three,

we're given a story that shows us the wisdom of Solomon. It says, then two women who were harlots came to the king and stood before him. And one woman said, oh my Lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. And it happened on the third day after I gave birth that this woman also gave birth to a child.

And there we were in the house together. There was no stranger with us in the house, only the two of us. And the woman's son died in the night because she laid on it. So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your maidservant slept and laid him in her bosom and laid her dead son in mine. And when I arose in the morning to nurse my son,

behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him carefully in the morning, behold, he was not my son whom I had born. The other woman said, no, for the living one is my son and the dead one is yours. The first woman said, no, it's the other way around. Thus they spoke before the king. And then the king said, the one says this is my son who is living and your son is the dead one.

The other says, no, for your son is the dead one and mine is the living one. And the king said, get me a sword. So they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other. And the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king for she was deeply stirred over her son and said, oh my Lord, give her the living child

and by no means kill him. The other said, then he can neither be mine nor yours, divide him. The king said, give the first woman the living child and by no means kill him. She is his mother. It's pretty amazing that the king would have taken time to hear the argument of a couple of harlots, truly. Like this really shows not only a discerning heart on the part of Solomon,

but really a compassionate heart on the part of Solomon. And so he hears them out and they explain the situation. Of course, the situation is pretty clear before us. Most of us heard this story before. And they're like, well, how do you determine who's telling the truth at this point in time? He has no way to run a DNA test. He can't, he can't run a DNA test.

He can't run some sort of a test to figure out who it belongs to. And he was probably fresh out of truth serum, right? And so he's like, let's see if we can figure this out. No one gets the baby. Bring me a sword. And you can imagine the look on the face of the mother of that living child and just fell. And she's like, no, no, no, no, no. Please just give him to her.

Because at that point in time, she cared more about her child than she did herself and being right. He said, oh, we see who this child really belongs to. And he was able to discern, he was able to discern that based upon the way he acted because God had given him such great wisdom. It says in verse 28, and when all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had handed down, they feared the king for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.

So God had kept his word and had made Solomon the wisest man on earth at that point in time. Pretty cool how God does those sorts of things. Would you guys bow with me? Father, we come before you and again, thank you that you have given us these stories in the Old Testament. I thank you for this story of Solomon. And Lord, I pray for all of us here that you would give us listening ears.

Father, that we would be those who too would seek that understanding from you, that ability to hear from you, that we would cut out the noise, that we would cut out the junk, and that we would truly hear the wisdom that is first peaceable and then righteous. And so Father, move in our hearts, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.