God's Faithfulness: Our Faith-Rest. 1
Kings 1 – 11
Review
What happens in 1 Kings chapters 1-11 covers a forty-year period. There are three
basic divisions contextually. The first two chapters cover the establishment of
Solomon’s throne as the kingship passes from David—God’s chosen kings, the one
to whom God gave an unconditional covenant—to Solomon. That talks about Solomon’s
accession to the throne, the various executions that take place, following his
accession to the throne of David his marriage to the daughter of Pharaoh.
In 3:1-29 we have the rise of
Solomon. His first love is God. (That bears a hint of foreboding at the
beginning of the third chapter but we don’t see its fruition until we get to
chapter eleven) He loves the Lord with all his heart, soul, mind and strength,
he is obedient to God. When God comes to him and says he will give him all that
he asks Solomon demonstrates tremendous humility and rather than asking for power
or riches or the defeat of his enemies he asks for wisdom because he is grace
oriented. He is humble and because he loves the Lord God is going to favour him
and bless him with everything he didn’t ask for along with wisdom. He is the
most blessed of all the kings of
Then he blesses Solomon in
chapter nine with a conditional covenant, not unconditional like David’s.
Because Solomon fails to live up to those conditions by being obedient like his
father David he is going to come under divine discipline. The eleventh chapter
describes the divine discipline and the decline of Solomon because of his
second love, his love for his wives. Chapter three starts off with his love for
God; chapter eleven starts of with his loves for his wives. His polygamy is
politically motivated and leads to idolatry, multiculturalism, internationalism,
and as a result of that God indicts him for those sins and outlines his
punishment. But because of God’s grace and love for David (stated twice) God
does not bring about the extremities of the discipline in Solomon’s time, but
postpones it until after his death. He had led the nation into idolatry and as
the king of
So when we think through this
section we have in the first two chapters the establishment of Solomon’s
throne; chapters 3-10, the rise and the glory of Solomon’s kingdom and how God blesses
him; and in chapter eleven the disloyalty of Solomon, his decline, and God’s
discipline on Solomon for his idolatry.
At the beginning of the book
we see that David is old, bordering on senility, physically weak and disengaged.
What happened in the first chapter what we see is that God secures Solomon on
the throne of David in fulfilment of his promise to David in the Davidic covenant. It is not just a story about inheritance, about
transitions or revenge; it is a story about how God is fulfilling His promise
to David. God had forbidden David to build the temple but according to 1
Chronicles 22:9ff he would allow his son to build the temple, and that would be
Solomon. In 1 Kings 1 David’s son Adonijah is attempting
a coup. He is going to conspire with Joab, David’s
general, and Abiathar the high priest. Abiathar convinces Adonijah that
he would make a better king than Solomon and so they involve themselves in this
coup that Adonijah is planning.
But God works behind the scenes
and we see how the information leaks out. The prophet Nathan finds out about it, and Zadok the priest, and a
plan is worked out to foil the lot. As Adonijah s
preparing an incredible ceremony word gets back to David. Nathan and Bathsheba
make a plan to alert David. David immediately takes charge and generates a plan
to have Solomon anointed before Adonijah can be
anointed. Solomon is anointed king and when word of this gets to Adonijah and those who are supporting him the co-conspirators
flee in terror. Adonijah himself flees to the altar
on the temple mount, the worship site where the temple will be built, to grab
hold of the horns of the altar in order to seek sanctuary and protection from Solomon’s
vengeance.
What we see in this chapter
are two basic doctrines. We have the faithfulness of God to His covenants and
to His promises. He is faithful. Even though we don’t have the overt expression
or description of God here God is the one who is making sure that the
information gets to David and that the attempt to usurp the throne from Solomon
is shut down. And David operates on the faith-rest drill. That is what gives
David the strength and the courage to do the right thing, because he knows that
God promised to give the throne to Solomon. So David acts firmly and with
direction and shows fantastic leadership at this point because he trusts in God’s
promise. That is what happens when we are operating on the faith-rest drill. The
foundation is trusting His Word, and when we grab hold
of the promises of God it changes our mental attitude. We are not grabbing hold
of God’s promises if it is not changing our mental attitude. When we grab hold
of the promises of God and have that confidence in Him then we are going to
change the whole dynamic of our mental attitude.
In chapter two we have the
establishment, the securing of Solomon’s throne at the time of David’s death.
We summarise it by saying that God secures Solomon on the throne through the
wise decisions of David and Solomon in dealing with their enemies. Where did
they get this wisdom? They got this wisdom from the Word of God. As we take in
the Word of God and as the Holy Spirit makes it usable in our souls [epignosis/e)pignwsij] then when we use it and as we develop skill in practicing
and applying it we develop what the Old Testament refers to as wisdom—that skill
at living. So as we practice the Word of God that wisdom develops. That is what
we see here, they make wise decisions. We have a repeated statement, a thread
that runs through these two chapters, that indicates God will bless Solomon and
establish the throne of David forever. See
In the rest of the chapter,
following the death of David, Solomon has to deal with the left-over problems
from his father’s administration which were not only
David’s enemies but also his own enemies. He knows from divine viewpoint that
they represent the enemies of God who would seek to destroy the lineage that
God has promised to David for the line of the Messiah. This isn’t just a
political problem, it is a plan of God/spiritual
problem. God has promised that the descendants’ seed will go from David and
Solomon is the designated heir, and if there is a successful coup against
Solomon then this violates the promise that God has revealed. So it is up to
them to do something about it. We learn later on that this is a conditional
promise to Solomon and because of disobedience he is going to miss that path of
blessing, but for now they don’t know that. Solomon has to deal with the
problems raised by Adonijah, Abiathar,
Joab and Shimei. Each of
these have played into the hands of the enemy of God,
which of course is Satan, and so Solomon must deal with them on the basis of
the Mosaic Law. First of all he deals with them in grace but they each show
that they aren’t to be trusted. They continue to reveal their inner character
flaws and their betrayal of Solomon and it is for this reason that they are
executed.
After David dies Adonijah is going to make an underhanded claim to the
throne. He is going to send Bathsheba in to make a request that Abishag should be given him as a wife. In that culture when
any woman who was in the harem of the king who became the wife of another it
was a sign that that other man was trying to usurp the authority and power of
kingship. So this is clearly a statement on Adonijah’s
part that he was still trying to make a claim to the kingship. Therefore he is
going to be executed for treason. Abiathar is treated
in grace, he is the high priest; he is banished for his treason but is not
executed. Joab is executed for, as it is stated in
Chapters
three and four. Solomon made a treaty
with Pharaoh, married his daughter and brought her to the city of
In chapter three we see that
God deals with Solomon in grace and personally appears to him in a dream,
offering to give him whatever he desired. Solomon requests wisdom. He shows
tremendous humility here. Rather than requesting that God destroy his enemies
or give him power or wealth he requests wisdom. In response God blesses Solomon
by not only giving him wisdom but saying that because he asked for wisdom and
not these other things He would also give him these other things in abundance
more than anybody else. So the remainder of Solomon’s story really emphasises
and illustrates the greatness of God’s blessing upon him, all the way up
through chapter ten. The last half of chapter three, starting at v. 16, gives
the illustration of Solomon’s wisdom in solving the problem between the two
harlots who both laid claim to one child, and how he dealt with that shows his
wisdom. Chapter four is another illustration of his wisdom for there we see it
displayed in his organisation and administration of the kingdom. The empire is
going to run smoothly and well. Major doctrines that we see in chapters 3 &
4 have to do with humility and grace orientation. They go together. When we are
oriented to God’s grace we know that nothing is from who
and what we are, it is all based on who God is and what Jesus Christ has done
for us. Everything that we have comes from God; it doesn’t come because of our
talent. Chapter 4 describes all of this blessing that God gave to Solomon and
begins to hint at his worldwide fame. It closes with an emphasis on Solomon’s
love and devotion to God. He writes over three thousand proverbs and over one
thousand psalms extolling the greatness of God’s character. He is a man
oriented to God—oriented to grace and to doctrine.
Chapters 5-9 focus on the
building of the temple. His preparations in chapter 5 are developed, his
organisation is evident. He goes to Hiram king of
1 Chr
22:6-9 Then he called for his son Solomon, and charged him to build
a house for the LORD God of
Chapter seven gives the
detailed descriptions of the temple and its furniture. Chapter eight gets into
the great dedication of the temple. It covers the initial bringing of the ark
into the temple an how Solomon honoured God in terms of the correct approach
and circumstance, obeying the Law making sure that all of the protocol was
correct, and as the ark is brought into the temple then the dwelling glory of God
fills the house of the Lord—v. 11. God makes His dwelling on earth in
When we
get into the next part of the chapter from 8:22ff we have Solomon’s great prayer
of dedication, the longest prayer in the Bible. It has been seen that all of the requests that
Solomon makes are based upon the cursing judgments in Leviticus 26, the cycles
of discipline. Again and again and again Solomon pleads with God to be faithful
to His Word—reference to God’s promise that if Israel turns to Him He will
restore her to the land.
In chapter nine God again
appears to Solomon and gives him a conditional promise of a dynasty. 1 Kin 9:4,
5 NASB “As for you, if you will walk before Me as your father David
walked, in integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I
have commanded you {and} will keep My statutes and My ordinances,
From
Then we have chapter
eleven where God indicts Solomon for covenant unfaithfulness. The description
of his violation of the covenant and the Law and the indictment is given in the
first eight verses. 1 Kings 11:1 NASB “Now King Solomon loved many
foreign women …” That stands in contrast
to what we saw in 1 Kings 3:3 where Solomon loved the Lord. He becomes
distracted, he loses focus, and he loses his priorities. He has shifted his
focus from trusting God to trusting in human alliances. When he brings in these
foreign women they bring with them their national gods and he begins to
compromise, setting up altars and worship centres for these false gods, and
this is a violation of the first commandment. It is an act of political treason
against God who is the true King of Israel. [11:4] “For when Solomon was old,
his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly
devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father {had been.}”
So God announces the judgment that the kingdom would be torn from him and then
we see how God raises up these adversaries during the last 10-15 years of
Solomon’s reign. It is through Jeroboam that God is going to bring this
discipline on the nation.
What is the lesson? It is
that we can really trust God. God is true to His Word no matter what is going
on in the human realm. When we step out and try to solve problems on our own
without trusting in His Word then the consequences are divine judgment and
divine discipline, and then there is a whole realm of unintended consequences
that flow as a result of that which we can’t imagine. Solomon’s defection from
God in the last years of his reign arguably can be seen in a big part of the
problems that we see in the
The only solution to life’s
problems is God’s solution, and that begins with trusting Him to be faithful to
His Word.