Would you turn to 1 Kings 3. I just turned it down some. 1 Kings
3, beginning in verse five. In Gibeon, the Lord appeared
to Solomon in a dream by night. Now, two times in the life of
Solomon, we read where the Lord appeared to him. And this is
the first time where the Lord actually appeared to him. And God said, ask what I shall
give thee. And Solomon said, thou has showed
unto thy servant, David, my father, great mercy, according as he
walked before thee in truth and in righteousness and in uprightness
of heart with thee. And thou has kept for him this
great kindness that thou has given him a son to sit on his
throne as it is this day. And now, O Lord, my God, thou
has made thy servant king instead of David, my father, And I'm
but a little child. I know not how to go out or come
in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people, which thou
has chosen, a great people that cannot be numbered nor counted
for multitude. Give therefore thy servant an
understanding heart. And my marginal reading says
a hearing heart. to judge thy people that I may
discern between good and bad, for who is able to judge this
thy so great a people? And the speech pleased the Lord
that Solomon had asked this thing, and God said unto him, because
thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long
life, neither hast thou asked riches for thyself, nor hast
thou asked the life of thine enemies, but you've asked for
thyself understanding to discern judgment. Behold, I have done
according to thy words. Lo, I have given thee a wise
and understanding heart, so that there was none like thee before
thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And
I have also given thee that which thou has not asked, both riches
and honor, so that there shall not be any among the kings like
unto thee all thy days. And if thou will walk in my ways
to keep my statutes and my commandments as thy father David did walk,
then I will lengthen thy 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 up burnt
offerings and offered peace offerings and made a feast to all his servants.
Now here's the demonstration of his wisdom. Then came there
two women that were harlots unto the king. and stood before him. And the one woman said, Oh my
Lord, I am this woman dwell in one house and I was delivered
of a child with her in the house. And it came to pass the third
day after I was delivered that this woman was delivered and
we were together. There was no stranger with us
in the house and we too were in the house. And this woman's
child died in the night because she overlaid it. And she arose
at midnight and took my son from beside me while thine handmaid
slept and laid it in her bosom and laid her dead child in my
bosom. And when I arose in the morning
to give my child suck, behold, it was dead. But when I'd considered
in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear."
You know, a mother would know, wouldn't she? She would recognize
this. And the other woman said, nay,
but the living is my son and the dead is thy son. And this
said, no, but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son.
Thus they spake before the king. Then said the king, the one saith,
this is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead. And the
other saith, nay, but thy son is the dead, and my son is the
living. And the king said, bring me a sword. And they brought
a sword before the king, and the king said, divide the living
child in two, and give half to one and half to the other. Then
spake the woman, whose the living child was under the king for
her bowels yearned upon her son. And she said, oh my Lord, give
her the living child and in no wise slay it. But the other said,
let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. Then the king
answered and said, give her the living child and in no wise slay
it. She is the mother thereof. And all Israel heard of the judgment
which the king had judged. And they feared the king for
they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do judgment. Let's pray. Lord, we come into your presence
in Christ's name and we ask that in his name you would be pleased
to meet with us and to speak in power to our hearts from your
word that your son might be glorified, that we might be enabled to trust
him only as everything in our salvation. Lord, we confess our
sins. We pray for forgiveness and cleansing
that we might be found in Christ. We pray for your blessing on
all your people wherever they meet together. Now bless us for
Christ's sake. In his name we pray. Amen. Now this story to me confirms
the answers to a lot of questions. I think this is one of the most
significant stories in the Bible, and I hope by the end of this,
you will feel the same way. Now, the Lord said to Solomon,
ask what you will, and it's yours. Whatever you want, I'm gonna
give to you. What if the Lord said that to
you? What would your response be? What would you ask for? Well, Solomon asked for wisdom
to discern the difference between good and evil. I love the way
he says in verse six, Solomon said, thou showed into thy servant,
David, my father, great mercy, according as he walked before
thee in truth and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart with
thee. Thou has kept for him this kindness
that thou has given him a man, a son to sit on the throne as
it is this day. Now he says, with regard to David. You've
given him great mercy to give him the grace to walk before
you like you did. He didn't credit Solomon. I mean, David, he said,
you've given him great mercy to enable him to walk as he is
before you. And he says, I'm just a child.
I don't have understanding. And I'm before, you set me as
the king over this great people. And what I need you to do for
me is give me understanding, a hearing heart. I love that,
an understanding heart, a hearing heart, so I actually hear what
you're saying. So I can know the difference between good and
evil, and I can judge this great people. And that saying pleased
the Lord. He didn't ask for riches. He
didn't ask for vengeance upon his enemies. He didn't ask for
a long life. All he asked for was a discerning
heart to know the difference between good and evil so he could
judge this people. And the Lord said, because you've
asked for this, I'm going to give it to you. And I'm also
going to give you riches. And you're going to be the greatest
king in the world. Nobody's going to be able to
stand before you. And everybody's going to come to hear your wisdom.
And you're going to be the greatest man to ever live. You're going
to have a peaceable kingdom. That was the promise. And there was no war in Solomon's
time. Because God made him the greatest king, the wisest king
to ever live. And then we have the story of
his wisdom. Two women who were harlots, sleeping
in the same room, in the same house. One had a baby. Three days later, another had
a baby. So these infants were about the
same age. And one night, one of the mothers
rolled over on her baby and smothered it. And it died. And so she sees
her dead child. She takes that dead child and
puts it by the sleeping mother with her living child. And she
takes the living child and says, this child is mine. In the morning,
the other woman wakes up and begins to feed her child and
finds out it's dead. Or he's dead. You're never supposed
to refer to a baby as an it. I've been told that many times.
He's dead. And the mother looks. This is
not my child. You'd know, mothers, wouldn't
you? You'd know whether or not this was your child. And she
knew this was not her child. And the other woman says, no,
that is your child. So we have this issue going on
between these two women, so they take the issue to Solomon, who
has all this wisdom. And this one woman says, I was
asleep at night. Um, and the other lady was asleep. She rolled over her child, smothered
it. She took the dead child and gave
it to me. And she took my living child
and kept it for herself. And this went on, went on one
defending themselves, the other defending themselves, trying
to make their case to Solomon. And Solomon says, now, let me
see if I understand what's being said. You say the living child
is yours. You say the living child is yours.
And he went back over the scenario. He said, this is what we'll do.
This is how to handle this situation. Somebody bring me a sword. I
bet that they were a little bit amazed by that. Why a sword? And so somebody brings in the
sword, and he said, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna cut the child
in half, and we're gonna divide it in two, and that way it'll
be fair for everybody. And did he intend on killing
the child? Of course not. But he, in his
wisdom, knew what would take place. As soon as he said that,
the woman who was the true mother said, give her the child. I cannot
suffer the living child to be put to death. You give her the
child. And Solomon knew from that whose the child really was. The
one who loved the child would not suffer the child to be divided. The one who had no true love
for the child would allow the child to be divided. Now what a significant statement
regarding the gospel. The gospel is one gospel, a living
gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is one gospel. And
in the one gospel, there are many truths, aren't there? The
truth of election, the truth of justification, the truth of
redemption, the truth of calling, the truth of faith, the truth
of hearing the gospel, just go on and on. The gospel is made
of many truths, many truths, which make the one truth. And if you divide it and leave
out any aspect of the truth, you no longer have the living
gospel. You have a dead gospel. If you
divide the truth, well, this part we're going to keep, this
part we're going to kind of hold back on, and we're not going
to say anything about that in order to keep from offending people
and try to, we'll deal with this truth, but we won't deal with
that truth. What you have is a divided gospel, and there is
no life in a divided gospel. I love the way Paul called the
gospel when he was giving a summary of his preaching. He said, I've
not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. The gospel is the whole counsel
of God. He said, I've kept back nothing
that was profitable to you. The gospel is the whole counsel
of God. Now, if you or I love the gospel,
we won't let it be divided. It's love for the truth. It's
love for Christ. You can't separate love for the
truth and love for the person of Christ. It's love to Christ,
it's love to his gospel, it's love to his truth that won't
suffer it to be divided. If you love the truth, you will
not suffer it to be divided. If you have no love for the truth,
you're okay with it being divided. Now it is that simple. And what a glorious illustration
we have of this in this passage of scripture. A divided gospel
is a lifeless gospel like the divided child. Turn with me to
2 Thessalonians 2 for just a moment. 2 Thessalonians 2. Beginning
in verse 9. Well, let's begin in verse eight.
And then show that wicked be revealed. This man who tries
to take the place of Christ, whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth and should destroy with the brightness of
his coming. Even him who's coming is after the working of Satan.
With all power and signs and lying wonders, this man's going
to do in our sight miraculous things. And with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish. Because they received
not the love of the truth. Not just simply giving a scent.
I, well, I see the Bible teaches this. This is talking about receiving
the love of the truth. that they might be saved. There's
no salvation apart from the love of the truth. And for this cause,
because they received not the love of the truth, God shall
send them Strong delusion that they should believe a lie that
they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had
pleasure in unrighteousness. But we're bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. The gospel is a whole. How much of the gospel do you
have to believe? All of it. What part is okay to not believe?
None of it. The gospel is a whole, and if
I will suffer it to be divided, it's because I do not love the
truth. Now, here's another aspect of
this same thing that we're considering. The gospel's a whole. You think
of every aspect of salvation. It's a hole, isn't it? It's a
hole. What if the scripture said, by
98% grace are you saved, but the other 2% you need to come
up with? Where would that leave you? What
hope would you have? What if it said you are 94% complete
in Him, but the other 6% you need to do in order to make it
work? It's divided, isn't it? What
if election was according to, well, it's not according to free
grace, but God elects those who he sees will repent of their
sins and believe. Then he elects them. Well, you
have a divided message. It's not whole. What if we're
98% accepted in the beloved? What good would that do you?
It's not a whole, is it? There's a division going on,
something for him to do, something for you to do. What if it said,
but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us, he made salvation available to us if we do our
part. Salvation's offered to you. Grace
is offered to you if you will just repent of your sins, turn
around your life, and accept Jesus Christ as your personal
Savior. That's a divided message. It doesn't even make sense, but
I'm justified 100% by his righteousness. I never will forget, I heard
this with my own ears. A preacher preaching, it was in Louisville,
Kentucky, and he said the Christian life, and that's something I've
thought about. You know a phrase we never read in the scripture
is the Christian life, how to live the Christian life. It's
not in there. And how many times when you hear
preachers say, here's how to live the Christian life. What
they mean by that is here's how you act if you act like a Christian.
Well, that's just an act. That's all it is. This thing
of living the Christian life. And I remember I heard this preacher.
He said, living the Christian life is like being on a tightrope. And you have to have a proper
balance of the righteousness of Christ and your own righteousness.
And if you don't have that proper balance, you will fall off the
precipice and be killed. And that's a divided child. your
righteousness and Christ's righteousness, that is a divided child. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save something sinners who have a
free will or sinners who believe, or sinners who have the ability
to repent, or sinners who persevere, or sinners who grow in grace. What if something like that was
added to that? You've got a divided child. And if you love the truth,
if you love the Christ who the truth proclaims, here's an example. Just a little bit unto us, just
a little bit unto us, give glory. But you get most of it. What
is that? It's divided. It's wrong. It's evil. The gospel is one
whole gospel. And if you love the truth, here's
two things that are involved here. One is who gets all the
glory? Who gets all the glory? The psalmist
said, not unto us. Oh Lord, not unto us. We don't
want any. Unto thy name give glory, for
thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Not unto us. Now, the issue
is, does he really get all the glory? And here's the rest of
the issue. The only hope that this sinner
has is that every aspect of salvation is complete by him. Whatever
you're talking about, whatever part of salvation, if you're
talking about election, justification, redemption, regeneration, it's
all His work wholly. There's nothing I do to make
it work. It's what He does. You know what?
We talk about unconditional election and that's a good term, but you
know, regeneration is unconditional, isn't it? It's not conditioned
on you doing something in order to make it work. Redemption is
unconditional. It's not conditioned upon you
doing something to make it work. The gospel is one undivided hope. Aren't you thankful for that?
It gives Christ all the glory and it gives me a complete salvation
that he did. And if I, like this one prostitute,
and willing to let it be divided. What do I prove by that? I have
no love for the truth. No love for the living child.
I will allow that child to be divided because I have no love. Not a little bit of love, but
no love. What if the Lord said, most that
the father giveth me shall come to me. What if he said, this is the
will of him that sent me that most which he has given me, I
won't lose any of them, I'll recover most of them. Where would there be good news
in that? Most of those who come to me,
I will in no wise cast out. But if you don't reach this level,
I'll have to cast you out. Wherefore, he is able to save
them up to a certain point that come to God by him. But if they
cross this line, he'll have to cast them away. What if scriptures
read that way? We wouldn't have any hope, would
we? And Christ would not get all the glory and salvation.
Man would get the glory and salvation ultimately because it was what
he did rather than what Christ did. So this is the importance
of this No, it's an actual event. It's
not a parable. The Lord teaches us two things in this story. One is that he gets all the glory. Salvation is a completed, it's
an undivided child. It's life. This is life. It's
undivided. It can't be split up. It's complete. And that way he gets all the
glory. And that way salvation is certain
for everyone he saves. It's not dependent on me or you
to make what he did complete. It's an undivided child. And
when I am willing to let some aspect of the gospel be divided,
well, I'll give up there. I mean, I'll let that go. I mean,
I'll compromise there. All I have is a lifeless child. There's no truth. There's no
saving power. There's no reality in it. Behold, I have blotted out most
of your transgressions as a thick cloud. What good would that do
you? It wouldn't do you any good. So here's the point. The gospel
is one gospel. It's made of many truths. Redemption,
justification, calling, regeneration, faith, repentance. I mean, whatever,
it's made of many truths and you can't leave one of them out.
And if you leave one of them out, there is no life. It becomes a divided child. And that child that's divided,
what'd you do? You killed it. No life in it. I would turn to Acts chapter
24. I would end this with this statement. Verse 14, this is Paul speaking
before Felix. He says, But this I confess unto
thee, that after the way, the way of Christ, the way of grace,
after the way which they call heresy, so worship I, the God
of my fathers, believing, what's the next word? All things, all things, not most things,
all things, which are written in the law of Moses and in the
law and in the prophets believing all things. Now, how much of
the gospel do I have to believe? All of it. And if there's any
part of the gospel that I don't believe or that I will hold out
on for whatever reason, I don't have spiritual life. Spiritual
life receives the whole gospel. How much do I have to believe?
Everything. I've said this before, if you
were interviewing somebody for a job, And they came up with
this question, well, how much do I have to do in order to keep
this job? What can I get by with not doing
and still get the job? Would you hire that person? No,
you wouldn't hire that person. There's a fundamental problem
in the character of that kind of thing. Well, I come in and,
well, tell me the minimum amount I have to do in order to get
this job. See ya, buddy. You don't get this job. And that
is the same attitude. May the Lord deliver us from
anything but a love for the truth, a love for his person that will
not suffer the gospel to be divided.