All right, 1 Kings chapter 1.
I hope you read this. It's a long chapter. This is 1 Kings. So, speaking
of Kings, it must surely be speaking first. of Him who is first and
last, the first King, Christ. The story begins in verse 5. A son of the Father, a son of
David, named Adonijah, exalted himself. And he said, I will
be king. I will reign. I will be king. And what a picture
this is of man. Man who exalts himself. Our Lord said in Isaiah 1, I
brought up children and they have rebelled against me. It
didn't start with man, it started with Lucifer. son of the morning
who said, I will be king. I will reign. And he exalted
himself. Free will is not just bad doctrine. It is the highest treason of mankind. It's the highest
rebellion. It's not just being wrong in
your doctrine. It's a man saying, I will be like God. And that's
what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. Well, verse 6 says the father
had not displeased Adonijah, his son, at any time. Not at
any time. The father was good to this son,
Adonijah. He was good to him. And the scripture
says of our God that the Lord is good to all. His tender mercies
are over all his work. The Lord is good to all mankind. Jeremiah, the Lord said through
Jeremiah, what iniquity have your fathers found in me that
they should turn against me? Mankind is like this rebel, Adonijah,
rebelling against a good God. And if God is pleased, then give
repentance. That's what's going to lead us
to repent. The goodness of God. I've sinned against my good God.
And I've been a rebel. Well, Adonijah, this son, conferred,
verse 7, he conferred with Joab, a Biatharist priest, and they
followed Adonijah. Okay? They had a They had a meeting,
they had a conference, they were confederates together. Confederates
and their rebellion against the true king, which was Solomon. Now, if you read in 1 Chronicles,
it says that the Lord plainly told David that Solomon, before
he was born, He announced that the son born to David, his name
would be Solomon, rest. And the Lord loved Solomon when
he was born. And the Lord said, Solomon will
reign. He's the one that's going to
reign. He's the one that's going to build my house. He's the king.
Okay, so everyone heard this. They knew this. Doesn't scripture
say, didn't Paul say, haven't they not all heard? They barely,
the sound has gone throughout the earth, who reigns, who rules. But nevertheless, they had their
little meeting, they had their little conference, they all gathered
together. Turn to Acts chapter 4, Acts
4. I won't have you turn to many
scriptures, but this is a combination of Psalm 2, And when the church
got together, Acts chapter 4, look at this. I like this. They pleaded with God. The church
was calling on God the Father, pleading with Him who reigns
and who rules. All right? And this is what we're
going to see in this story. Acts chapter 4, verse 25. See,
they threatened Peter and John and the apostles not to preach,
not to say that this Jesus of Nazareth reigns and rules. And
remember, Peter said, we cannot but speak the things we've seen
and heard. So they went back to the church and they prayed,
and the church prayed to God the Father. Verse 24, they lifted
up their voices with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God,
which made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them
is. And Christ is God. And you, by the mouth of thy
servant David, Psalm 2, has said, why did the heathen rage and
the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth stood
up, rulers gathered together against the Lord and against
his anointed, for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus
whom thou hast anointed. Both Herod, Pontius Pilate, with
the Gentiles and people of Israel were gathered together to do
whatsoever thy hand counsel determined for to be done. Lord, behold
their threatenings. Behold. Remind us, tell us who
reigns and rules. So back to our text. So they
had this gathering together, all these false Jews. Now, they gathered together to
crown a man, to crown a rebel king. And they all were gathered
together except, look at verse 8, Zadok the priest, Maniah the
son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, Shimei and Rehi. This is not Shimei that cursed
David, this is another man. And the mighty men, those men
which belonged to David, they were not with that adjunct. They
weren't in on this rebellion. They weren't. And God's people
are not confederate. He said in Acts chapter 8, don't
fear their fear. Don't join together with them.
Those who say confederacy, don't get together with them. And God's
people cannot get together with all of the free will, man-worshipping
religious people of our day. We can't do it. who exalts man,
who exalts his will, his choice, and his works, and all that.
No, no. We're not with them. We can't
join with them. They're man-glorifying meetings and gatherings. And
it says, verse 9, And I just slew sheep, and oxen, and fat
cattle by the stone, which is of Zoheleth, which is by En-Rogu,
and called all these brethren to the king's sons, all the men
of Judah, the king's servants. They had this so-called worship
service, and they slew some animals, I guess, for a sacrifice. But
our Lord said in Isaiah 1, He said, I'm sick of all of your
gatherings and all that, idolatrous. And one time he said, you might
as well cut a dog's head off as to slay a lamb, because I'm
not there, I'm not in it. And look at who was not called
to this meeting, Nathan the prophet. Maniac, who was David's true
captain, and the mighty man, and Solomon, he wasn't called
to this meeting. He wasn't invited. He wasn't
there. So those that belonged to David
were not there. And the true prophet, and the
true priest, Zadok, the priest, was not there. And the son, the
king, was not there. And what a type, what a picture
that is of religion today. Ichabod, right Ichabod across
the door. It says, the glory at the parlor. Why? Because they're glorifying
man. Now you know it's so. Our Lord
said, let a man come in his own name. This Adonijah came in his
own name, for his own glory, his own honor, and lots of people
were following him. And they had a worship servant.
But God wasn't in it. Because there's one that was
king, the son of David. So, here's what happened. The prophet, verse 11, the prophet
spake to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, that is, the bride.
The prophet called the bride and said to her, you go to the
king. You go to the king and plead
with him. Tell him what he said, what he
promised. Plead with him the sure promises,
the mercies of David, what he said concerning the son, David's
son. Go to him and plead that and
ask him again for your help, for your comfort, for our life.
He said, who reigns? Who rules? Get Him to tell us
again who it is that's reigning and ruling in this world. You remember when John was in
prison? Now, John was a forerunner of Christ, and John bore witness
of Christ, and John knew Christ, didn't he? And he told all his
disciples to follow Christ. He knew that. When he was put
in prison, he's a man like any other man at times. and for his
own comfort and the comfort of his disciples who were ministering
to him while he was in prison. And maybe he couldn't understand
why he was in prison. He was telling the truth. He
was preaching the truth. He was sent by God. And maybe
he couldn't fully understand why he was in prison at that
time. But he said, you go to Our Lord Jesus Christ. You go
to Him, He said to two disciples, you go to Him and you ask Him
one more time, are you the Christ or do we look
for another? For my comfort, for my peace,
for yours, for our assurance, get Him to tell you one more
time, Are you the one who reigns and rules? Are you the Christ
sent by God? So they did. They came to our
Lord. He said, You go show John again who I am, why I came, and what
I have done. The dead, the blind receive their
sight. The deaf, they're hearing. The
dead are raised, and the poor have their gospel preached. You
go tell John again. You want to hear this again,
John? Our Lord reigns and rules among the armies of heaven and
the inhabitants of the earth. And no matter what man may say,
Christ reigns and rules. He does. So that's what the prophet
told the bride. And that's what all the prophets
bear witness to us, the Church, the Bride, and tells us to go
ask Him again. Go ask Him again. Now remember,
like I said, and this was 1 Chronicles 22, before Solomon was born,
God declared the decree. He said, Thou art my Son. This is my Son, the Son of David. He's going to reign and rule
over all. And all heard this, they all heard this, but they
didn't like it. This man, Adonijah, thought,
I want to be king. Well, you might want to be king,
but you're not going to be king. You're going to be put down.
So the bride, so he tells the bride, the prophet tells the
bride to go to the king, to the father. Look at verse 15. So
Bathsheba, this is the bride. She went into the chamber of
the king. The king was very old. Abishag was there. Do you remember
that story? Abishag, how she represents a true worshipper
of the king and our Lord Jesus Christ as David. And it says,
verse 16, Bathsheba bowed to. He was her husband. And yet she
bowed to Him. He's her King. He's her Lord.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is our God and our King, and we bow
to Him. We fear Him. And yet thy maker
is thy husband, Isaiah said. It's a mystery, isn't it? Nevertheless,
we bow to Him. We bow. And He said, What wouldest
thou? And she said the same thing.
She repeated what the prophet told her to do. She said, did
you not say that Solomon reigns and rules? That your son Solomon
is the one that you put on the throne to reign and rule over
all? Did you not promise that? Did
you not? Did not God say that, prophesy
that, and tell you to anoint your son Lord over all? Did he not? And then the prophet
said, you say that, and I'm right behind you. And then the prophet
comes in right after her. Look at verse 22. While she yet
talked with the king, Nathan the prophet came in, and he told
the king the same thing. Did you not say that your son, Solomon, reigns
and rules? Did you not promise this? Did
not God decree this? Did he not? At the mouth of two witnesses,
this thing's established. You know, someone said that prayer
is merely repeating back to God the promises that He has made
unto them. And faith is believing God. We don't tell God anything. We
don't claim anything. We don't make demands of God.
But surely it's pleasing to the Father for us to take Him at
His Word. Didn't you say? You said. And that's what the church that
was persecuted said. God, thou hast said. Now behold,
they're threatening. Behold all that's going on. Confirm
to us again for our peace and our comfort who it is that reigns
over you. All right, now look at verse 28. So now the king
speaks. King David answered and said,
Call my bride. Call her in a minute. And she
came into the king's presence and stood before the king. You
know, all who bow are going to stand. All who stand up in pride are
going to fall before the king. All who fear, He's going to say,
fear not. All who have no fear are going to tremble with fear
in His presence sometime. And now she comes, and she stands
in the presence of the King. And the King swears, verse 29,
the King swears and said, As the Lord liveth, and hath redeemed
my soul out of all distress, Even as I swear unto thee by
the Lord God of Israel, say, and assuredly Solomon thy son
shall reign after me, he shall. He shall sit upon my throne in
my stead. Even so will I certainly do this
day." And Bathsheba bowed with her face to the earth, did reverence
to the king, and said, let my Lord King David live forever.
She's smiling. She's happy now. Then David said, call the priests.
Call the bride and call the priests. I'm going to tell him the same
thing. He's going to declare the decree.
The father's going to declare the decree to the bride first
and then to the priest. And he said, call the prophet.
So the prophet, the priest, and the bride came in. And the king,
verse 33, said, take with you the servants of your Lord and
call Solomon my son to ride upon my mule, put him on my mule and
parade him through town. Does this sound familiar? And let Zadok the priest and
Nathan the prophet anoint him their king over Israel and blow
the trumpet and let everybody But here's this decree say, God
save King Solomon, or that is, God saves by his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And our Lord, as you know, rode
into Jerusalem and all the people said, Hosanna unto the King. It's coming in the name of the
Lord. And God hath declared the decrees, that this is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased. And God hath sworn, when he could
swear by no greater, he swore that my Son, every knee will
bow and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father. That's what the prophet said,
that's what the priest said. And listen to this, you know
these verses well. Over in Acts chapter 4, we read
that. It said that the Lord declared the decree, tell us who reigns
and rules. And then in Philippians 2, because
Christ said he took him, took upon the form of a servant. What
was Solomon doing? You know, he was living in, mysteriously,
there's no mention of him for all those years until now. What was he doing? Faithfully
serving his father, you know that. Faithfully serving his
brother, just like our Lord Jesus Christ. For 30 years he was living
seemingly in obscurity, but no, he's keeping the sheep. He's
taking care of God's people. But then when he was brought
forth, and our Lord was brought forth, and God declared the decree
and said it out loud, this is my son. And because he made himself
of no reputation, found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore
God also hath highly exalted him, given him a name which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow." Every knee should and every knee will. Things in heaven,
things under the earth. in earth and things under the
earth. And every tongue confess, Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory
of God the Father. All right, look at our text here.
And it says down in verse, let's see if I can find this, down
in verse 47, look at verse 47. He said, the kings came to bless
our Lord King David, and they said, God make the name of your
son better than your name, and make his throne greater than
thy name. And the father bowed to the son. Wait a minute. God the father bowed to Christ
the son? Did He not say in Hebrews 1,
Thy throne, O God, is forever? They attributed to Solomon greatness
as great or greater even than the Father. And the Father didn't
mind. In fact, God has said, Let all
honor the Son as they honor the Father. If you don't, You want me on this. You want
me to go with that. Well, so, they paraded Solomon into town. And verse 39, Zadok the priest
took a horn of oil and anointed Solomon. They blew the trumpet
and all the people said, God save King Solomon. Verse 40,
and all the people came after him. The people piped with pipe
and rejoiced with great joy. And the earth rent with the sound
of it. Everybody on earth, it seemed
like, heard this ground shaking. trumpet sound. And so shall all men someday. And all have heard the decree
that God has said, though men don't like it. Well, this would-be
king, this so-called son of the father, now he's a fake. He's a phony. Adonijah was a
bad man. It said down in verse, well,
back in the beginning, it says he was a good man. And to say
that, he was goodly, verse 6. He looked good. He sounded good. He seemed like a good man to
everybody. And that's why so many people
followed him, because he was sweet, he was kind, he was good-looking,
he had a good voice, good words and fair speeches deceived the
hearts of the simple, Scripture said. And he had a big following. It seemed like everybody was
following him at that time. He may have seemed good. He was
a bad man. Any man who comes in his own
name, men like Billy Grail, all these other fellas, Joel Osteen,
seemed like a sweet man. He's evil. Solomon had Adonijah killed. Solomon had the false priest
killed. Solomon saw through them all. And here's the story about Adonijah.
When Adonijah came later on, David said, I'm not going to
kill you. I'm not going to kill you. But he had. But Solomon did. Because Solomon
saw through him. Adonijah later on came and wanted
this Abishag, this pure virgin who was just ministering to David. Okay? She was a servant of David. Her life consisted in serving
David, which is God's people. Chase virgins under the Lord.
And their lives consist in serving the Lord Jesus Christ. This man
wanted to defile that virgin. He wanted to take her for himself. He was an evil man, Adonijah.
And Solomon said to his mother Bathsheba, the bride, Solomon
revealed to the bride what he wants really is my kingdom. And he killed him. Our Lord sees
through. He sees and He called all these
people that come in Jesus' name and do all that they do, though
they seem like good people to most people. He said they're
workers of iniquity. And God looks on the heart. He
said. And God had Adonijah killed.
He had Joab killed. Solomon. Joab, who seemed loyal
to David. Joab rebuked David one time. Hmm. A Biathar, a false priest. Zadok was a true priest. A Biathar
was a false priest. Nobody knew it but God. And Solomon. Solomon had him killed. Well,
so they got together and look at verse 41. Adonijah and all
his guests were together. And it reminds me, they were
having a big old time. And it reminds me of all these
meetings Pentecostals and all that have them together. And
they said, they heard something much greater than their little
meeting. They said, what is this city
of uproar? What's going on here? And Jonathan, the son of Abiathar,
the priest, came in. And Jonathan said, he said, come
in. You're a valiant man. You bring
good tidings. And Jonathan said to Adonijah, the father had made
his son Solomon king. The king sent the priest to anoint
him, and Nathan the prophet is with him. And they put him on
a mule, and he's riding into town, and the whole world is
saying, let God save King Solomon. So the father hath anointed the
son Solomon as king. And that's what's going on. And Adonijah. Verse 49, all the
guests at Adonijah were afraid and rose up, and they were scared
to death. Scared to death. Over in Luke 21, our Lord said
this, let me quote it, I've quoted it to you many times. He said,
when you see all these things happening, and I was talking
to somebody, about, oh, I know what it was. One of the sisters was driving
home and saw one of these signs on a church, these blasphemous
signs, you know, that talk about our Lord in such a flippant and
blasphemous and careless way. You've read them all, and they
sicken you, don't you? They make you sick. But just, you read them, and
they don't, but you've got to see how blasphemous this world
really is, though they appear to be good people. I went to
Exchange Milling, okay, and it's run by a German Baptist Synod.
On a wall is a picture of a little pink pig, and it says, This Little
Piggy Loves Jesus. Now the world thinks that's cute.
I'm telling you, God is angry with me. Christ came down here
to suffer, and the next message, to suffer and die for worthless,
filthy creatures. And because he did that, God
gave him a name above every name. The Lord, Jesus Christ. And every knee is going to bow.
And the fear of the Lord. Nobody fears Jesus. Nobody. Everybody loves Jesus. It's the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of it. I'm telling you, from God's Word,
this story, that's what this is about. Solomon saw through
this man who looked like he was a good man, moral and all that
to everybody else. Solomon said, he wants my throne. And he killed him. And that's what our Lord Jesus
Christ is coming the next time to do. But He's going to take His people,
true worshippers, those that truly fear Him and worship Him,
home to glory. Well, here's what He said. Here's
what our Lord said. Well, you're going to see this.
When you see this, when you see all this, men's hearts failing
them for fear, looking after those things that are coming.
Powers of heaven shall be shaken. They're going to see the Son
of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to
come to pass, you look up. You lift up your head. Your redemption
draweth nigh. So here's the moral of this story. He that exalteth himself shall
be abased. And every one that exalts man
and his will and his works and all that rather than the Lord
Jesus Christ. shall be brought down. The pride
of man, especially religion, shall be brought down. But all
those who worship the Son shall live forever with the Son and
reign with Him, no cap.