1 Kings 1, we'll read the first
four verses to start with. Now King David was old and stricken
in years, and they covered him with clothes, but he got no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto
him, let there be sought for my Lord the King, a young virgin,
and let her stand before the King, and let her cherish him,
and let her lie in thy bosom, that my Lord the King may get
heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts
of Israel and found Abishag, a Shunammite, and brought her
to the king. And the damsel was very fair
and cherished the king and ministered to him, but the king knew her
not. Now these first four verses on the surface is sort of a perplexing
story. You might be able to think of
various other ways this could have been handled. than the way
that they did. You might wonder why does this
happen this way? But the answer to every why in
the word of God is Christ. And I believe we'll see that
here. David was old and stricken in years, but he could get no
heat. He needed heat, but couldn't
get any no matter how much covers they put on him. They put clothes
or coverings on him. And he couldn't get any heat.
He had chills. He was chilled. And David's a
man after God's own heart. We know that from scripture.
And had lived a long life of service to the Lord. There's
just no question about that. He stood in the face of giants
for the glory of God and for no other reason. But no matter how long a believer
lives and serves, our clothes, which is a picture of our works
here, and clothing throughout the scriptures is that. Our standing
before God, it pictures our standing before God. In the garden, we
had no clothes to start with and we weren't ashamed because
there was no sin. Then when we fell, we wore fig
leaves, which were inadequate. We were still naked before God.
And then we were covered by God with the righteousness of Christ,
pictured by the animal skins when the Lord slew animals and
covered them. But no matter how long we live
in Christ and for Christ, like David, no doubt did, our clothes
will never give us any heat, never any satisfaction, never
any contentment. But why in the world would David
get heat the way that he did in this passage? That's the question
here. Because this is exactly why,
because a believer's only comfort and rest and satisfaction, everything
we need is a person. What David needed was a person
in the picture here. Naturally speaking, there's probably
other ways they could have dealt with this, but spiritually speaking,
If we're gonna get any heat, any comfort, any contentment,
no matter how long we've believed, it's gonna be a person. And that's
what happened here. That's the reason it's that way. The solution to David's problem
was a person, and mine too, mine too. And this person was very
beautiful, verse four. Why did it have to be a beautiful
girl? Because Christ is altogether
lovely. That's why. The person cherished the king
in verse four. Why? Because Christ has loved
us with an everlasting love. Loved us so that he gave himself
for us. This person, it says, ministered
unto David in verse four. Why? because our Lord Jesus Christ
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his
life a ransom for many, Matthew 20, 28. So then verse five in our text,
so you see a strange, strange story, but it's just, you break
it down to the essence of it, and it's pretty clear, isn't
it? The solution was a person. It had to be somebody with some
heat, with some body heat. It couldn't be another old person
that was in the same case. You see the clear picture there.
Verse five, then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, exalted himself,
saying, I will be king. And he prepared him chariots
and horsemen and 50 men to run before him. So he made a big
impressive show. I'm gonna be king and look at
me. I've got all these chariots and horsemen with me to back
me up. Now, obviously King David is
very weak. He says he's stricken in years
and he's in bed trying to get some heat most of the time. And
so this Adonijah saw this as an opportunity to usurp the throne.
And he's a son of David. but not the son that's chosen
for king. And we'll see that. But him saying,
I will be king, that's Satan. That's Satan saying, I will be
like the most high. I will ascend, Satan said in
Isaiah 14, 14. I will ascend, I will be like
the most high. I will be king. No, you won't. And Adonijah won't either. It's
whoever God chooses. is going to be his king on this
earth. And God ultimately is the king, Christ, the king of
kings. This is Simon saying, I will. I will be king. Simon said, I
will die with you. I will not deny you. I will not forsake you. But this
is every sinner that ever lived, that ever exercised and imagined
free will. That's a stench in the nostrils
of God. I will be king. I will decide
my destiny. It's all gonna be up to me. No,
it's not. That self-righteous, self-exalting
pride is an eternal death sentence to the soul of a sinner. God
has already put his king on the throne and it ain't you. It ain't
me either. It wasn't Adonijah and it ain't
you or me. Adonijah pictures the lost sinner
exalting himself above God. I don't care who God chose, I
choose. Here's my choice, here's what
I decided. Well, you just decided to go
to hell and you just don't know it. And not only did he lift himself
up above God's chosen king, but he despised God's king. That's us by nature, too. Adonijah
knew exactly what he was doing. David had already said Solomon
is gonna be king. It wasn't that Adonijah didn't
understand, and that's the truth of religion, too, and sinful
man without Christ. They can say all they want to,
well, I don't understand that. Yeah, you do, you just don't
like it. That's your problem. The gospel's not complicated.
You just don't like it. It wasn't that Adonijah didn't
understand what was going on, he just didn't like that arrangement.
Not a bit. And so he decided to be somebody. Verse six, and his father had
not displeased him at any time in saying, why hast thou done
so? And he also was a very goodly man, and his mother bare him
after Absalom. Now his father, David, never
disciplined this boy. He never questioned anything
that he did. He never stopped him from doing
just the wild ideas that came into his heart. He had always
gotten his way, never interrupted or questioned in it. And so he
thought now he was going to get his way. He could get away with
usurping the very throne because he had always gotten his way.
And David let him have it that way. In the life of the religious
yet Christless sinner, there are many that enable them. False
prophets and false churches will brag on you, encourage you in
your self-righteous pride. And so sinners will go all the
way to hell thinking that they're king, unless God reveals to them
that he's king. Verse seven, and he conferred
with Joab the son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest,
and they following Adonijah helped him. There are always again, somebody
that's going through this life and you probably know quite a
few of them. You may count some of them your friends. And I have
at times, but there are always be many now if you're just lost
but religious. They're gonna help you in that.
They're gonna encourage you in that. That's what this is talking
about here. There were those who conferred
with him and following, helped him, helped Adonijah, followed
him. And there are always those that will encourage you in your
religious rebellion against the true God, the sovereign Christ
of the Bible. So there were those who were
with, see that with, he conferred with these people and they followed
him, they were with him. But I'll tell you who wasn't
with them. Look at verse eight, but Zadok
the priest and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and Nathan the prophet
and Shimei, oh Shimei, you remember him, the one that ran out cursing
David and throwing things at him? And David, David's captain of his army wanted
to cut Shimei's head off. He said, just say the word. I'll
end this right now. And David said, no, the Lord
sent him. Let him curse me. And then David
had mercy on him later when he came back into favor with the
people. But oh, Shimei, there he still
is, and Ray, And the mighty men which belonged to David were
not with Adonijah. They didn't want anything to
do with him. And we see this too in our day, don't we? We've
experienced this. Those who belonged to David,
I like the way it says that. They belonged to him. These other
ones now, they conferred and all that, but these people belonged
to David. That's different, isn't it? That's
different. And these ones who belong to
David, which is Christ, in this part of the story, they weren't
buying it. They didn't want anything to
do with it. Adonijah made a good show of it, didn't he, with his
chariots and his horsemen, verse five, and he did his best to
look like a king, but those who were allegiant to God's anointed
king were not fooled, and they still aren't, and they never
can be. Now, they look impressive, don't they? They got lots of
numbers and lots of money and lots of beautiful buildings and
lots of famous and important people involved in false religion. The Lord's sheep aren't fooled.
By God's grace, many are, many were, but not God's sheep, not
for a second. By God's grace, we who know the
Lord Jesus are not fooled even by our own self-righteous pride. We may stumble for a while and
get to thinking that we're something for a while, but God knows how
to abase those that lift themselves up in pride. And that's a mercy,
isn't it? When it's his sheep that do it. He knows how to remind us that
Christ is all. and that he alone is worthy of
all of our allegiance and worship. And again, I like that word belonged.
It doesn't just say they were loyal to David, though they were.
It doesn't say that, though. It says they belong to him. They
were his. I like that. Verse nine, in Adonijah,
slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zoloth. which is by Enrogel, and called
all his brethren, the king's sons, and all the men of Judah,
the king's servants. But Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah,
and the mighty men, and Solomon his brother, he called not."
Everybody's invited to false religions party, aren't they?
Everybody, come on in. We want the numbers, we want
your money, we want your fellowship, we want to hug you in the parking
lot and give you a card to fill out. And we want you to be one
of us, except, and God's people. Isn't that amazing? The one thing
that all of the different religions and denominations have in common
is they hate Christ and anybody who will have anything to do
with Christ. Everyone who belongs to Christ. Adonijah bribed these
people with these things as religion is constantly bribing its followers
and for the same reason. They have no true authority from
God, and so they have to do that. It's the only way to get people
to come. So threaten them and bribe them. Threaten with hell
and bribe with rewards in heaven. No true authority from God. Deceived
religious people don't follow false preachers because they
love God and because God has called these preachers and they
speak for God. They do so for what's in it for
them. And preachers are constantly
telling them what's in it for them. It's no different than
false religion. They promise these wild things.
I can't even say what they promise because it's so crude to those
who die in their faith. But Baptist preachers are no
better. They're bribing people with delusions
just like Muslims did. No difference at all. It's all
about what's in it for them, not the glory of God. Here on
earth, it's about Entertainment and being bragged on, being pumped
up. That's what encourages the false
religionist is to tell him how good he is and how good he's
doing and how important he is and how God's waiting on him
and it's all up to you. That's not much encouragement
to a sinner. A sinner don't want it to be all up to him. That's
the last thing I want. By God's grace now. and then heaven when they die. And all of that is an express
ticket to hell. Adonijah didn't want those who
belonged to David around. You see how it says at the end
of verse 10 there, he didn't call them to the party when he
slew all these beasts and had a big old party. He didn't want
the ones that belonged to David around because they would have
broken up the party. They would have spoiled everything.
They would have said, wait a minute, David is still king. What do
you think you're doing? Party over. So he didn't want
them anywhere around. What you're doing is treason
against God. They don't want anybody saying
that. They don't want anybody calling them on that. And as
soon as you express it, you're an outsider. As soon as you,
I've experienced this personally. It's the same exact thing in
false churches. I spoke to a so-called preacher one time about the successful
atonement of Christ, how that Christ died for his people, all
of his elect, and redeemed all of them and only them. I've told
you this before. He said, if I preach that, it
would split this church. Nevermind whether it's true or
not, he wasn't concerned about that. He was just concerned about
his numbers and his support. And that was it, very revealing.
And what a terrible position to be in. Think about this. What a horrible place to be when
the worst thing that can happen in your church is for somebody
to tell the truth. What a terrible thing. Verse 11. Wherefore Nathan spake
unto Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, saying, Hast thou not
heard that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, doth reign, and David
our Lord knoweth it not? Now therefore come, let me, come,
let me, I pray thee, give thee counsel that thou mayest save
thine own life and the life of thy son Solomon. Now this is
what God's people need and want and get by God's grace. Wise
counsel from God's true spokesman. This is the prophet that belonged
to David here. And he said, come, let me give
you some counsel. This picture's Christ the prophet,
no question about that. He's the mighty counselor, the
everlasting father, the prince of peace. But also this concerns
those whom he sends to speak for him because they speak for
him, ambassadors for Christ. And we say, come, let me give
you some counsel. Let me tell you what God said
to me and what he's taught me. and notice that thou mayest save
thine own life. It's a matter of life and death.
Bad things are going on. People are, you know, false religion
and all that in the world and voice. Everything's terrible. You need some counsel. You've never worshiped God yet
either until you come to the place where hearing from God
is life. He said, so you can live. You
need some counsel so you can live. Hearing the counsel of
God through his spokesman is life. Christ is the bread of
life and we partake of him through the word of life. And look at
the wise counsel that Nathan gives in verse 13. Boy, we could
just stop right here tonight. This is so beautiful. Look at
this verse 13. What is the wise counsel? that
he's going to give. Verse 13, go and get thee in
unto King David. You need to go and talk to the
king. My counsel to you is to counsel
with him, to hear from him, to go to him. And saying to him,
didst not thou, my Lord, O King, swear unto thine handmaid, saying
assuredly, Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall
sit upon thy throne, my throne? Why then doth thou deny to reign?"
What's going on here? Of course, David wasn't aware
of it at the time, but we'll see that. But Nathan's counsel
boils down to this, go see David. Go to Christ, like John the Baptist. There's God's lamb. There's the
lamb, the only lamb that takes away sin. Right there, go see
him, go to him, go to Christ. Our counsel in the preaching
of the gospel is the same, go to Christ. You need Christ. And that's what you've got to
hear. If you're hearing from God's man now, our counsel is
you need the counselor. And it ain't me. I'm just telling
you about him. Go and reason with the Lord.
What about, on what basis? Look at the text. She said this,
oh king, didn't you swear under your handmaid? Didn't you make
a promise? That's what we counsel with him
about. His promises to sinners in the word of God. That's what
we're looking into now. on the basis of his promise concerning
his son, we come to him and reason together. What is God's promise
to sinners? All of that is contained in this
one verse right here. Coming to him, counseling with
him, having a word with him, having a communion with him. What about, listen, Isaiah 118,
come now. 30 years and never saw that word
now in that verse. It just kind of slips by, doesn't
it? Come now, come right now and
let us reason together. Sayeth the Lord. There's just
one time to come. Let us reason together. That's
what she was doing in our text, reasoning with the king. "'Though
your sins be as scarlet, "'they shall be as white as snow.'"
That's God's promise. You come talk to me, you come
deal with me, you come do business with me, your sins, though scarlet,
will be white as snow. So what are we gonna do? We're
gonna say, Lord, didn't you make a promise that if I came to you,
you'd wash my sins away? Oh my, that's how you come to
God. on the basis of the covenant.
The covenant promises that are yay and amen in Christ Jesus. Oh, may we do that every day
and every night. Come to Him on that basis. They shall be
as white as snow, though they be red like crimson. They shall
be as white as snow. What a glorious promise. Verse
14 in our text, behold, while thou yet talkest there with the
king, I also will come in after thee and confirm thy words. Now, when we pray unto the Lord,
we know that even our prayers have got to be more than just
the words that come out of our heart and sometimes out of our
mouth, or we just say them in our heart. The word confirm here
in this verse, I will confirm what you said. I'll come in after
you've talked to the king about this and made him aware of it.
I'll come in and confirm what you said. Oh, that's the Holy
Spirit here, isn't it? To confirm here in this verse
means to fill, to be full, to accomplish, to complete. I need my prayers completed.
God can't even hear what I say, unless I come in the name of
Christ, by the Spirit of Christ. Listen to Romans 8, 26. Paul
said, likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. What
infirmities, Paul? We know not what we should pray
for as we are. We don't even know what to pray,
much less are we capable of praying it right. We know that, surely. That doesn't discourage us from
praying. Because look, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. We don't even have
to be able to say what's on our heart. And often we can't even try.
But God hears it anyway because of His Spirit. He knows us. He knows us all the way deep
down on the inside. And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the spirit because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. People that talk about if prayer
doesn't change God's mind, then what's the use in prayer? You
don't know what prayer is. How in the world, why in the
world would anybody want to change God's mind? Somebody that's perfect
and perfectly good and all wise. That's the most self-destructive
thing I've ever heard in my life. The presumption of changing God's
mind. Verse 15, back in our text, and Bathsheba went in unto the
king into the chamber, and the king was very old, and Abishag
the Shunammite ministered unto the king, And Bathsheba bowed
and did obeisance unto the king. And the king said, what wouldest
thou? What do you need? What do you
want? Now Bathsheba was able to come into the very presence
of God's king. How does she just be up in there
where the king is? Well, because she's the bride.
That's us. We can come into the very presence
of God before the very throne. Paul said, boldly, come boldly
to the throne of grace. for mercy and grace to help in
time of need. She's the bride, she's married
to the king. And so she has full access. And so we come boldly
to the throne of grace because we're the bride of Christ. But
what else do we do? She did obeisance. That means
to bow. She bowed. Obeisance means to bow down,
but it says Bathsheba bowed, and did bow. I'm telling you,
you look them up, it's just two different words for bow. It means,
bowed there means bowed. And obeisance means to bow. So
what's that talking about? Well, we bow. Why does it say
bow twice? Because we bow in our hearts.
Whether we bow physically or not, and I don't think that's
a bad idea, Paul said, I bow my knees unto the Father, that
he would give you grace and reveal his love to you. But we bow in
our hearts, that's most important. Wherever we're praying, in whatever
position, we bow before God in our hearts, in spirit, as well
as bowing our heads. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he
prayed his great high priestly prayer in John chapter 17, he
lifted up his eyes unto heaven. and pray to the Father. I wouldn't
recommend that for you. He's the only one that should
pray like that, I'm pretty sure. We bow. We bow before him, especially
in heart. And look what King David says.
This is Christ saying to us, as in the case of Barnabas, what
wilt thou, how did he say it? He said, what wilt thou that
I should do unto thee? I guarantee you, every time he
has said that in the scriptures and somebody answered it, he
did it. Every time. So what he's saying is, name
it. What do you need me to do for you today? That's what he said to her. And
remember, the Lord doesn't ever ask questions for information.
What would you have me do? He says that What do you need? What do you need right now? He
says that because he loves her. And again, a terrible story in
a sense of David and Bathsheba. But however terrible that is,
a beautiful picture nonetheless. David was stricken by Bathsheba
the minute he saw her. And he's loved her ever since. And what a beautiful picture
this is. Christ loves us so. He says, what do you need from
me? What do you need? Verse 17. And she said unto him, My Lord,
thou swearest by the Lord thy God unto thine handmaid, saying,
Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me. and he shall
sit upon my throne, and now behold, Adonijah reigneth, and now my
lord the king, thou knowest it not, and he hath slain oxen and
fat cattle, and sheep in abundance, and hath called all the sons
of the king, and Abiathar the priest, and Joab the captain
of the host, but Solomon thy servant hath he not called? And
thou, my lord, O king, the eyes of all Israel are upon thee.
Isn't that the truth? The eyes of all of God's true
people are fixed on him. What's he going to do? What's
he going to do? We're waiting on the Lord. You know, in everything we do,
you know what we're really doing? We're just waiting to find out
what he's going to do. Because we may say tomorrow, I'm going
to go into this city and buy and sell and get gain. James
said, what are you talking about? You don't have any idea what's
gonna happen tomorrow. What you ought to be saying is,
if the Lord will, where our eyes are fixed on him, Lord, what
are you gonna do? What are you gonna do with me? And boy, that's just clear, isn't
it? Eyes of all Israel are fixed
on you, that thou shouldest tell them who shall sit on the throne
of my Lord the King after him. Otherwise it shall come to pass
when my Lord the King shall sleep with his fathers, that I and
my son Solomon shall be counter defenders." We will be killed. We will be counted as enemy,
as the enemy. Just two thoughts on this, though
it's a lot of verses here. I just want to make a couple
of points here. because what Bathsheba says is
pretty much what we've already seen happened. And that in itself
is a point, isn't it? She just came before David and
laid out before David all that was in her heart. And she just
told the truth. She told it like it was. We can't
hide anything from God. Why would we want to? That's
how we come. Just bear your heart before him.
and tell him everything exactly how it is. That's how to come
to the Lord in prayer. Notice first, she came because
of a promise concerning God's King, and we come before God
because of a covenant having to do with God's King, the Lord
Jesus Christ. All of God's promises to sinners
are yea and amen in Christ, 2 Corinthians 1.20. And notice verse 21 again. If Christ is not who God said
he is, otherwise, if Solomon's not gonna reign, if he's not
who he claimed to be, if he's not the sovereign, if Christ
is not on the throne, if he's not God's victorious captain
of our salvation, then we're goners. You see what she said? That's the gist of it right there. If it's not this way, If your
promise is null and void, and Christ is not on the throne,
we're goners. But we come with full confidence in God's promise
that Christ is all of these things and more. We have no doubt. And so we rest in Him. And in verse 20 again, why are
all the eyes of God's people on him? Because we need him to
tell us something. What is it that we need him to
tell us? That Christ is all. That Solomon is the man. That he's everything. That he's
our hope. He's the one that's gonna fight
for us. He's the one that's gonna provide for us. He's our king. That's what we need God. That's
why our eyes are fixed on him tonight. We need him to tell
us that Christ is all. Verse 22, And lo, while she yet
talked with the king, Nathan the prophet also came in, and
they told the king, saying, Behold, Nathan the prophet. And when
he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king
with his face to the ground. And Nathan said, My lord, O king,
hast thou said, I deny thee, shall reign after me? and he
shall sit upon my throne? For he is gone down this day,
and hath slain oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance, and hath
called all the king's sons and the captains of the host, and
Abiathar the high priest. And behold, they eat and drink
before him, and say, God save King Adonijah. But me, even me
thy servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada,
and thy servant Solomon, hath he not called? Is this thing
done by my Lord, the King, and thou hast not showed it unto
thy servant, who should sit on the throne of my Lord, the King,
after him? Have you changed your mind and
didn't tell me about it? The prophet bows to the King
just as the bride does. Just as all of the bride do.
We all bow to the same sovereign. And he says the same thing the
bride did. We agree together that Solomon ought to be on the
throne. We're happy about that. That's
what we want. We want Christ as our King. But notice he asks
it as a question. He begins his, when he entered
in, he started with a question and he ended it with a question.
It's a little different than the way Bathsheba presented herself.
She came in confident and said, Lord, you promised. But sometimes
we're not like that, are we? Sometimes we don't come that
way. This pictures us coming to the Lord. We're not always
that confident, but sometimes we're confused and don't understand
God's will. And that's the way that he presented
this. The prophet presented it that
way, although he knew what was going on. But the way he presented
it, that's the spiritual picture. Sometimes we come before God
to find out his will, don't we? The prophet here pretended that
he didn't know, he knew that David's intention was for Solomon
to reign, but he asked it that way as a question. Did you want
Adonijah to reign? Because that seems to be what's
happening. And sometimes we're confused like that. We've come
to find out what God's will is. That's what Nathan did here.
We may be confident at times and wavering the next time and
not know what to think. but God never changes. David
never changed his mind. And his answer to Nathan was
in no uncertain terms. He never changed his mind and
God don't change his mind. David's answer is definite and
authoritative. Look at verse 28. Then King David
answered and said, call me Bathsheba. And she came into the king's
presence and stood before the king and the king swear and said,
as the Lord liveth that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress."
That's a pretty good way to speak of God, isn't it? As the Lord
lives, the one that redeemed my soul. out of all of my distress,
even as I swear unto thee by the Lord God of Israel." He refers
to the covenant too, the promise, just as God does. He's the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And it's said that way because
he made covenants with them. The same covenant with all of
them, the covenant of grace. Even as I swear unto thee by
the Lord God of Israel saying assuredly Solomon, thy son shall
reign after me, assuredly. Don't be thinking I've changed
my mind. I don't change my mind. The King of glory doesn't change
his mind. And you shouldn't be thinking
that when you pray that you want to change, you know, something
that you, you know, God's going to do something one way. Well,
I sure need you to do this instead. I'd rather you just shut up.
We don't want God changed. He's perfect. He's altogether
lovely. He's omniscient. He's perfectly
good and you're not. You don't even know what to pray
for. He shall sit upon my throne in
my stead. Even so will I certainly, you
see all those words? Assuredly, shall, certainly. That's how God talks. There ain't
no contingency plans. There ain't no, if you will,
I will. This is how it is. This is how it's always been.
And this is how it's always gonna be. Christ is sovereign. He saves
who he wants to. And you'd better come to him
and find out if he'll save you. There's no contingency, there's
no ifs, ands, or buts. Assuredly, shall, certainly. I will do it. You see that at
the end of verse 30? Boy, this is good. This was such
a blessing to me looking into this. God tells his bride in
no uncertain terms what will happen. And what will happen
is exactly what he promised. Isn't that glorious? He said,
you come to me and I'll give you rest. Come to him and find
out. It's gonna be just like he promised. Faith is not believing that God
will always do what we want him to do. Faith is believing he'll
do what he said he would do. And boy, we come by faith, don't
we? We believe. All of his promises
are yay and amen. They're certain, they're assuredly
in Christ. This is what we come for, to
hear a message from the sovereign throne of God. This is the one
who speaks with authority. It's a message of reassurance,
isn't it? I know you're worried about this.
Adonijah's up to these things and you're all upset about it.
Don't worry about it. My promise was not unclear, and
yet what do we do? We worry. We doubt. We're full of unbelief. But then
we come and hear from the throne again. We hear from the king
again. What about Adonijah? and what he's up to. What about
what your enemies are plotting against you? What about all this
and that? What about the terrible state of affairs in this world?
Your enemies look like they're running things down here. Look
at the treachery and evil that's taken place in this world. That's how we think, aren't we?
And so we need reassurance from the Lord that everything is gonna
happen according to his promise, which he purposed from the beginning.
That's kind of what this is, isn't it? And how's that gonna happen?
How's it gonna assuredly come to pass? Verse 30, he said, I
will do it. Boy, I like that, don't you?
It's not up to us. He may use us. He may use us
in great ways. He's used people in great ways
before, but that's not us doing something for him. You know what
that is. Not because men are going to
come to their senses or cooperate with God. He said, I'm going
to do it. I've purposed it and I will also
do it. Isaiah 46, 11. That's what we come to hear in
it. He's purposed to save the most wretched worms in this world. I just happened to be one of
them. Boy, it's going to be exactly as he promised. You come to me
and I'll give you, Whosoever believeth on me shall not perish
but have everlasting life. Lord, here I come by your grace.
Here I come. Christ is king and because he
is and he's the lamb on the throne and we're saved by his righteousness
and shed blood. What else do we come for? What's
in verse 31? Then Bathsheba bowed with her
face to the earth First, we just want reassurance that his promises
never change. There's no wavering. There's
no uncertainty. He's good for it in me. Oh boy, and then what do we do?
We bow down and say, Lord, oh, by your grace, we adore you.
We do reverence to you. She bowed with her face to the
earth and did reverence to the king and said, let my Lord, the
King David live forever. May you always rule and reign
over me. Just give me grace, give me the
privilege of being your servant. Verse 32, and King David said,
call me Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah
the son of Jehoiada. And they came before the king,
and the king also said unto them, take with you the servants of
your lord, and call Solomon my son to ride upon my own mule,
and bring him down to Gihon. David said to those that served
him, all these ones that belong to him, let everybody know, make
it absolutely undeniable who the true king is. You put him
on my mule and you accompany him and you blow the trumpets.
So there's no doubt whatsoever in anybody's mind who's on the
throne. No doubt. And that's what God
did. He sent his spokesman to declare
with great plainness of speech that Christ is Lord to the glory
of God the Father. And may we ever do that. And
think about what they're really saying here now too. When he
says that, you've got insurrection going on in the land. You've
got treachery going on, you've got an attempted coup going on,
and he's saying, look here, we're blowing the trumpet, look whose
wheel he's on. Look who's with him. They're
saying if you worship this usurper, you're guilty of treason now.
You worship this one, or you're in big trouble. If you wanna
live, you need to rethink this plot that you're cooking up.
That's what they're effectively saying here. when Solomon rides
out in glory like that. And remember what Paul said to
Agrippa, this thing wasn't done in a quarter, they're blowing
trumpets here. Nobody could plead ignorance
after this now. Adonijah and these other ones,
they might plead, you might say before this, well, I thought
that since Adonijah was claimed to the throne that David had
authorized this, you know, so I was, of course I supported
him. You can't say that anymore. God has made it real clear who
the king is. He's made it real clear who's
worthy of your allegiance, your service, your honor. Now, since the gospel has gone
forth of God's anointed, anyone who now defies his authority,
they can't plead ignorance. This wasn't done in a quarter.
They're not rebelling because they don't know Solomon as king
anymore. They can't claim that. They're rebelling because they
hate him. Verse 34. And let Zadok the priest
and Nathan the prophet anoint him their king over Israel and
blow ye with the trumpet and say, God save King Solomon. Is
there any doubt now? Then you shall come up after
him that he may come and sit upon my throne for he shall be
king in my stead. And I have appointed him to be
ruler over Israel and over Judah. appointed shall be on the throne,
trumpets blaring, God save King Solomon. Boy, the gospel's clear,
isn't it? Christ is all, and you will worship
Him, you will bow to Him, you will serve Him, you will honor
Him, even as you honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son
honoreth not the Father. Let everybody hear the sound
of God's word. Remember in Revelation, the trumpet
is the voice of God himself. Boy, that's pictured here, isn't
it? Christ is king. God said to Christ, come and
sit down on my throne until I make your enemies your footstool.
Hebrews 1.13, but to which of the angels said he at any time,
sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
He didn't say that to an angel or a man, but to the God man.
Verse 36, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, answered the king
and said, Amen. The Lord God of my Lord the king
say so too, as the Lord has been with my Lord the king, even so
be he with Solomon and make his throne greater than the throne
of my Lord King David. God has given Christ a name that
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee
should bow, things in heaven and things in earth and things
under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Are you glad
Christ is on the throne? Do you know what that even means?
Do I know what that even means? He runs everything and everybody, everything. Does that make you happy or mad? This is the thing this world
hates the most, is the sovereignty of Christ. Remember in the parable
that the Lord told, what did they say? We will not have this
man to reign over us. By God's grace, we will, won't
we? We wouldn't have it any other way. This is our comfort and
hope that the one who loves us and always has and always will
reign supreme. It don't get better than that.
We know by grace the reason that all authority is given unto him.
Remember what he said in John 17 too? As thou hast given your
son all authority, that he may give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given him. Oh boy, the end to which he reigns
is a glorious one, isn't it? For us, verse 38 through 40. So Zadok the priest and Nathan
the prophet and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and the Cherithites
and the Pelethites went down and called Solomon to ride upon
King David's mule and brought him to Gahan and Zadok the priest
took a horn of oil out of the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. That word anointed, you know
what that is? Christ. The word Christ means anointed,
anointed of God. And they blew the trumpet and
all the people said, God saved King Solomon. And all the people
came up after him and the people piped with pipes and rejoiced
with great joy so that the earth rent with the sound of them. We don't just agree by saying
amen to God's true anointed reigning over us. We rejoice with joy
unspeakable. and full of glory. This is a
great celebration, isn't it? That's part of what worship is.
It's a celebration of Christ and all that he's accomplished,
all that he's done for us in his life and in his sin atoning
death. I was gonna read a passage of scripture,
but I think I'll just have you read it. For some reason I didn't
put the text here, but it was what I just quoted. You're kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time wherein you greatly rejoice. That's what was going on in our
text. You greatly rejoice. Though now for a season, if need
be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptations, trials,
that the trial of your faith being much more precious than
of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might
be found unto the praise and honor and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, ye love, in whom though
now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith even. the
salvation of your soul.