So we're in 1 Kings chapter 1
and reading from verse 1. and they covered him with clothes,
but he gat 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. Then Adonijah, the son of Hagrath,
exalted himself, saying, I will be king, and he prepared him
chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. 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. And he conferred
with Joab the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest,
and they following Adonijah helped him. But Zadok the priest, and
Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei,
and Rei, and the mighty men which belonged to David were not with
Adonijah. And Adonijah slew sheep and oxen
and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, 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. 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, I pray thee, give thee counsel, that thou mayst save thine own
life and the life of thy son Solomon. Go and get thee in unto
the king, and say unto 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 my throne? Why then
doth Adonijah reign? Behold, while thou yet talkest
there with the king, I also will come in after thee, and confirm
thy words. 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 wouldst
thou? 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 Abiatha 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, that thou shouldst 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 counted offenders. Then David, he speaks also to
Nathan, and then after a little while David says again to Bathsheba
in verse 30, And then we hear how that promise
works out in verse 38. So Zadok the priest and Nathan
the prophet and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and the Cherethites
and the Pelethites went down and caused Solomon to ride upon
King David's mule and brought him to Gihon. And Zadok the priest
took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet, and
all the people said, God save 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.
And Adonijah and all the guests that were with him heard it as
they had made an end of eating. And when Joab heard the sound
of the trumpet, he said, Wherefore is this noise of the city being
in an uproar? And while he yet spake, behold,
Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest, came, and Adonijah
said unto him, Come in, for thou art a valiant man, and bring
us good tidings. And Jonathan answered and said
to Adonijah, Verily our Lord King David hath made Solomon
king. Verse 49 says, And all the guests
that were with Adonijah were afraid, and rose up and went
every man his way. And Adonijah feared because of
Solomon, and arose and went and caught hold on the horns of the
altar. And it was told Solomon, saying, Behold Adonijah, feareth
King Solomon. For lo, he hath caught hold on
the horns of the altar, saying, Let King Solomon swear unto me
today that he will not slay his servant with the sword. And Solomon
said, If he will show himself a worthy man, there shall not
a hair of him fall to the earth. But if wickedness shall be found
in him, he shall die. So King Solomon sent, and they
brought him down from the altar. And he came and bowed himself
to King Solomon. And Solomon said unto him, Go
to thine house. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. As I say, quite a long chapter,
we've read a fair proportion of it, missed out a few verses,
but I am grateful that you followed along with me. We're fast approaching
the death of David, but not quite yet. The king is old, frail and
weakened body and he appears in our verses today to be bedridden
and he can't get warm. It's just a matter of time until
he dies and Israel knows it and yet there is still time for a
glimpse of our sinfulness by the wicked hearts that we have. And here is another sad account,
I think, of man's carnal thinking and man's fleshy passions. A beautiful young girl called
Abishag is brought to the chambers of David, brought to the bed
of David to lie beside the old man in order to stir his passions
and to keep him warm. And such is the level of thinking
of David's servants that they felt that this would be an appropriate
thing to do for the king. Well, I say shame upon them. If we cannot directly blame David
for this act, although he was certainly complicit, then certainly
shame must fall on those around him. And it is perhaps possible
that his servants knew David and they knew his own compromised
history and they were familiar with the way in which he had
lived his life with all of his concubines and his wives. And
here we see that David, in the way that he had acted, had allowed
such abusive attitudes to prevail and exist in the thinking of
his close aides. And if I say shame upon these
men, then I say also pity Abishag, taken from her home and her family
and simply upon the basis of her good looks thrust into such
a role. It's distasteful and it is shameful. The weak have always been exploited
by the powerful and by the rich. And many a sin has been visited
on those who have no power and no say in the matter. And yet
how faithful and honest is the word of God to record these shameful
events and reveal the true sinful nature of our hearts. I am grateful to believe that
there will be a great day of reckoning and judgment. We read
about it in Revelation 20, that great white throne judgment.
I am grateful to believe that there will be such a judgment
when the righteous judge shall hold all men accountable for
their wicked, selfish, and abusive actions. shall not the judge
of all the earth do right. Now whether Abishag was officially
a concubine of David's or not is by the way. There is some
comfort, perhaps, in verse four, where we are told that the damsel
was very fair, that she cherished the king and ministered to him.
She fulfilled her duty, but the king knew her not. Thank God
for his preserving and protecting grace, not just to Abishag, but
to David also. So having set, having thus set
the scene regarding David's frailty, his inability any longer to rule,
his weakness of body, his senility, the people of Israel are left
wondering what is going to happen when that vacuum of power arises
at the moment of David's death. And here the writer turns us
to the implications for the nation. David's conduct is again sadly
questionable. He had promised Bathsheba that
Solomon would be king after him, which Nathan the prophet knew
and was likely known throughout the court. And yet he had done
nothing to curtail Adonijah's ambitions to be ruler after his
father. Indeed, Adonijah was likely the
oldest surviving son of David and had a claim to the throne.
However, it was David that would make the decision. And David
was expected to appoint his successor with the agreement of the people. and yet he had been lax to do
so. Adonijah, in the absence of any
direction from his father, had already begun to scheme and to
prepare his own attempt to inherit the crown on David's death. He
paraded himself through the streets of Jerusalem on chariots with
50 runners that ran before him. It's reminiscent of Absalom.
Absalom did the same before he began to form his rebellion against
David. Adonijah was also quite smart
about this. He enlisted Joab, the head of
the army. He enlisted Abiathar, the high
priest. He made a feast for all his brothers
except Solomon. Doubtless because he knew that
Solomon was the competition. And everything was in place to
announce his own succession as soon as news of David's death
broke. However, there were some who
remained loyal to David and who knew David's wish for Solomon
to be king. Nathan and Bathsheba informed
David of what Adonijah was doing, and Zadok, Benaiah, and David's
personal bodyguards, following David's wishes, at once took
Solomon, who likely was still just a teenager, to a place called
Gihon, which was where there was a spring of water, It seems
to have been a religious location as well. And there they anointed
him king, publicly, out in the open for all to see. A trumpet
was blown to announce the accession and the people of the city of
Jerusalem shouted, God save King Solomon. The young man was brought
back and he was allowed to sit on David's throne. David's wishes
were followed. Solomon was crowned king to great
excitement in the city. When news reached Adonijah, he
and his supporters panicked. They fled to their own homes
and Adonijah went and laid hold on the horns of the altar, the
tabernacle, symbolic of seeking mercy. So Solomon began his reign
by showing mercy to Adonijah and the conspiracy was stopped
and Solomon was settled on David's throne while the old king was
yet alive. Now this has all been a bit of
a hurried summary of the account, but I think there are a few lessons
that can be drawn from it for our benefit today. I've already
made some comments about Abishag and how I feel about that situation,
the way that she was treated by David and his servants. And
one of the things I find sad about this whole incident is
that a sufficient number of David's servants thought it was a good
idea thus to deal with the old king and this young girl. The truth is that we cannot change
men's sinful hearts or withhold the flow of sin in this world. But we can maintain a personal
witness of things that we find acceptable and unacceptable. The Lord Jesus speaks about our
testimony in the world and how we should live and how we should
treat one another and deal with one another. He says, therefore,
all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do
ye even so to them. Let me say that again. Therefore,
all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do
ye even so to them. Today, we would say, do unto
others as you would have them do unto you, which is good advice. Or we might say, to make it a
little bit more intrusive into the potential
for wickedness, we might say this, do unto others' sons and
daughters as you would have them do to your sons and daughters. You see, what was happening with
this girl had to do with lust, it had to do with sex, and these
are very powerful desires, and they are a constant temptation
to sin. Outside of God's ordered pattern
of marriage, they are very damaging and destructive. So let us uphold
a personal morality and a personal witness. Let us endeavour to
keep ourselves clean and not to hurt others by our evil passions. Let us endeavour to honour our
holy God in the way that we live and our loving Saviour who died
to save us from our sin. and not to give us freedom to
indulge and pursue it. Here's another lesson that we
can learn. The attempt by Adonijah to smooth
his own way to taking the crown and claiming the throne of Israel
reminds us it is always Satan's desire to frustrate the will
of God and the purpose of grace in the life of the church. Solomon
was the Lord's choice. He was the one who was to be
king because it was through him that the line of promise would
be maintained until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let
it always be a source of praise that the Lord so loved his church
that at every attempt to thwart his will, he raises up a man
here and a woman there to stand for truth and alter the course
of history. But Sheba had herself been misused
by David. And here she intervened and by
her wisdom and the wisdom of Nathan secured the coronation
for her son in a timely fashion. God uses means. He uses people
to accomplish his will in the world. And our desire by way
of thanks to our Saviour, and by way of praise to our Lord,
ought to be that we are useful in his kingdom, supportive of
his cause, and kind to one another, and kind and gracious to his
people. And then finally, just a point
I want to make about the anointing of Solomon. Zadok the priest
and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king. But a greater than
Solomon is here and we can look beyond the anointing of Solomon
and see in this a picture and a type of the anointing of the
Lord Jesus Christ in the covenant of grace to be king over his
kingdom. the church and to rule over the
chosen people of God. Our Saviour was appointed by
Jehovah to this service of dying on the cross to save his people. And Christ fulfills both the
priestly office and the prophetic office, as well as being King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is king of heaven and earth. He is king in his church. He
is king and creator of the universe. Paul says of him, Christ, who
is over all, God blessed forever. However, while we rightly note
that Christ is king over all, The question for you and for
me is whether he is King and Lord in our lives. We were born
rebels. We must be made subjects. Christ wears the crown of victory. He was victor on the cross when
he defeated death, hell, Satan, and the grave. and those who
populate his kingdom share his victory with him as we confess
our sin, bow our knee and serve our Lord in spirit and truth
according to his great grace and mercy. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us today. Amen.