Through the Bible - 1 Kings

God, thank you. Thank you for giving us your Word, that we could be instructed by it and learn from it. I pray now that you, by your Holy Spirit, would teach us, guide us, and help us to understand the principles that we're seeing here, and to apply these things to our lives, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Now, the book of 1 Kings picks up right where 2 Samuel left off. 2 Samuel concludes with the end of King David's life, really coming towards the end of his life. As many of you know from your own reading of the Word, it is in 1 Kings that David's son Solomon takes over the leadership of the nation. He picks up where David had left off.

Probably one of the most important aspects of Solomon's life is what he did that David could not do. You remember, as we looked at in 1 Samuel, actually at the beginning of 2 Samuel last week, those of you that were here or those of you that read through 2 Samuel, that David had desired to build what for the Lord? The temple, right? He wanted to build this temple. He recognized, after he brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord back into Jerusalem and was seated in the house that he had for himself, that he looked out at the tent holding the Ark of the Covenant—the tent that God dwelt in, if you could even say God dwelt in. He desired to build a temple for the Lord, a house for God.

He told Nathan the prophet that this was his desire, and Nathan said, "Do all that's in your heart, king." However, when Nathan was leaving, God spoke to him and said, "No, you spoke too soon. You've got to go tell him that that's not what I want him to do." So, he went and told David, "I know you desire to build God a house, but the Lord says that you can't do it. You're a man of war; you can't build the house of the Lord." But God makes this beautiful promise to David and says, "You want to build me a house? I'm going to establish your house."

I'm going to build your kingdom. But God, somewhere along the line, had told David that he couldn't build the temple, but his son could—the one that would lead after him. As we come to 1 Kings, that's one of the prime things that we see about Solomon's life. Of course, Solomon's life encompassed so much more than the building of the temple. It is an interesting life, and I guess you could say the theme or the prime focus of 1 Kings is the idea of losing the kingdom—how to lose a kingdom.

David is the one who established the kingdom of Israel. Under King Saul, the king that the people wanted in 1 Samuel, the nation really wasn't established. God told King Saul that if he followed His word, then He would establish his kingdom. But Saul didn't do that; he didn't follow what God had told him to do. Remember there in 1 Samuel chapter 14, God says he is to go and utterly destroy the Amalekites. But Saul didn't do it. He didn't fulfill what God had called him to do. In 1 Samuel 15, God says, "Your kingdom has been ripped from your hands. It's been rent from you today, and it's been given to another—your neighbor, the one upon whom God would say is a man after God's own heart."

David is really the one who established the nation of Israel, and they took a foothold of their land during the time of David. But was David a perfect man? Absolutely not. The scripture says he is a man after God's own heart, and yet he was also a very sinful man—a man who had gotten involved, as we saw last week in 2 Samuel, in adultery. After committing adultery, he conspired to kill and murdered a man, then covered it up with lies. This man is no different than any of us. I'm thankful that the scriptures call this sinful man a man after God's own heart. If all we ever saw of King David in the scriptures was this perfect man, then how would any of us ever think that we could be those who are after God's own heart?

The scripture, the Bible, in a sense, is like a newspaper that just reports the information. It reports exactly what took place. That's one of the reasons why I see the hand of God in the writing of these books—the inspiration of God in the authoring of these books. If it was merely men who wrote it, and these were their heroes—David, Abraham, Isaac, and all these guys—they would have painted them in the most flawless and beautiful light. In fact, if you read the works of Josephus, how many of you know who Josephus is?

Josephus, the Jewish historian, provides an interesting perspective when you read his works alongside the Bible. He tends to exalt certain figures and gloss over their sins, particularly Abraham. Remember in Genesis when Abraham went down into Egypt and sinned? He told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister, not his wife. Ultimately, he was kicked out of Egypt. If you read Josephus's account, he claims that God instructed Abraham to go down there and do that. This portrayal lifts Abraham up as a hero who followed God, but he was just a sinner like we are. The same goes for David; he was a sinner as well.

I am thankful that Scripture reports these truths. God has come, and Jesus has come to save sinners, as Paul says. Paul even refers to himself as the chief of sinners. Many times, when we read that, we might feel inclined to debate with Paul and say, "No, you don't know me." However, the fact is that we are all wicked, aren't we? Jeremiah 17:9 states that the heart of man is desperately wicked. Our hearts are completely and totally wicked.

We see this in David. Although he was a man after God's own heart and wrote many psalms expressing his desire to follow God, he also had moments of passion and foolishness. He committed adultery and tried to cover up the child conceived from that relationship. In a tragic turn, he murdered Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba's husband.

As we come to this passage, we remember that in 2 Samuel 12, the child born from that sinful union died. However, the second child was a son named Solomon. When we turn to 1 Kings, we find that David is old and stricken in years, as verse 1 tells us. He is so old that it is hard for him to stay warm, and those around him are seeking to minister to him. In the midst of this, one of his sons, Adonijah, the brother of Absalom, decides that he is going to take the kingdom for himself. We examined Absalom extensively last week in 2 Samuel. He was the son who tried to take the kingdom from David and ultimately died by the hand of Joab. Now, Adonijah, Absalom's brother, is making his move.

His dad was not able to rule. David was at a point where, in one sense, you could call it the lame duck time of his kingship. There was not much that he could do. So, Adonijah stepped up and declared, "I'm going to be king." However, that was not what God desired, nor was it what David had said. David had stated that Solomon was going to be king.

In chapter 1 of 1 Kings, the advisors to King David came to him. They first sent Bathsheba to him and asked, "Is it your desire that Adonijah is going to rule?" David replied, "No, that's not my desire." The advisors informed him that Adonijah was exalting himself as king, so he needed to take action. Consequently, they anointed Solomon to be the king of the nation, and he took over where David left off. God used Solomon to begin solidifying the nation. David was the one who founded the kingdom, and now Solomon came in to solidify it. God said, "I'm going to raise you up and I'm going to use you."

However, He gave Solomon several conditions in this passage. In chapter 2, God told him that if his children took heed to their way and walked before Him in truth, with all their heart and soul, then it would be that there would not fail, as He said unto David, a man upon the throne of Israel from David's line. God was going to establish Solomon, but He made it clear that it depended on Solomon's obedience: if he followed God and walked in His ways as his father David did.

I find that so interesting because how many of you read through 1 Kings this week? Some of you did, but you'll notice that many times it says, "This king did not walk after the Lord as his father David did." We know from 2 Samuel that David was not perfect and he sinned. Yet, there was something very clear about David: his heart was given to God. Sometimes his external actions did not reflect what his heart was truly devoted to. He was a man after God's own heart, but his outward life did not always exemplify that.

Can anybody else identify with that? I think we all can. We have a heart that desires to follow God. In fact, that's one of the primary changes that occurs in our lives when we receive Christ Jesus as Lord. In Ezekiel chapter 36, God says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit upon you." Jesus elaborates on this in the New Testament when He tells Nicodemus in John chapter 3 that you must be born again.

We must be born anew by the Spirit of God. When we are born again, we receive that new heart that the prophet Ezekiel spoke of. This new heart desires to obey God. But how many of you in this room, after having that new heart, fully and completely obey God? I think we would all agree with Romans chapter 7: "The good that I want to do, I don't do. The bad things I don't want to do, that I practice. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

In David, you see a man who desired to follow God. He had a heart after God, but his life didn't always measure up to that. Yet the Lord looked at him and said, "This is a man after my own heart," even though he was sinful. David is, in a sense, the standard for the other kings of Jerusalem, Judah, and the children of Israel. The rest of the kings in this book, as you go through 1st and 2nd Kings, are measured by the standard of King David and the way that his heart was.

As Solomon comes to the throne and begins to lead the nation, the rise of King Solomon starts in chapter 3. He begins to take over, in a sense, and builds for himself his own house. He writes to Hiram, the king of Syria up in the north, saying, "You're a friend of my father. Hiram loved King David." Solomon continues, "David wanted to build a temple for the Lord, and I would like to do what my father was not able to do because he commissioned me to do so."

Solomon begins on the right path, and that right path starts with the worship of the Lord at the center of everything. He begins by worshiping the Lord, as we see in chapter 7, for those of you who went through it. As he offers a thousand sacrifices to the Lord in one day, he seeks the Lord as he becomes king. God comes to him and speaks to him in a dream that night, asking him that great question: "What do you want? Anything you want, tell me."

Solomon does not ask for long life, riches, or the blood of his enemies. Instead, he says, "God, I would that I would have understanding how to go out and how to come in." He recognizes that he is a young man at that point in time and does not know how to lead the nation. Looking at the kingdom before him, he admits, "I don't know how to do this, how to fulfill what you've called me to do as king." He then says, "God, I need wisdom." God answers him, saying, "Because you have not asked for wealth, long life, or the heads of your enemies..."

I'm going to give you those things as well as the wisdom that you've asked of. God gives him wisdom. However, in one sense, I think you could say that Solomon's question to the Lord was a little out of sorts. He asks for wisdom on how to rule the people, wisdom and understanding on how to guide them. In one sense, it's almost like he should have asked for wisdom on how to rule his own heart.

When you watch the life of Solomon, he was very wise. His wisdom is exemplified in the story that we all probably know very well. Two women came to him; they had lived together and both had children at the same time. One of the ladies, while she was sleeping, rolled over onto her child, and the child died. In the middle of the night, she swapped children with the other lady and claimed, "No, that dead child is your child, not mine."

This case came before King Solomon after the Lord had given him wisdom. Solomon recognized the problem: one woman was saying it was her child, while the other insisted it was hers. He said, "All right, I know how to decide this. Bring me a sword." They brought him a sword, and he declared, "We're going to cut the child in half, and both of you can have half of the child."

The mother of the living child cried out, "No, just let her have it." The other lady said, "All right, sounds good to me. Let's cut it in half, and we'll both divide the child." Solomon knew right then, using the wisdom that God had given him, that the woman who was willing to say, "No, you can take the child alive," was obviously the true mother. They gave the child to her and executed the other woman.

All the people recognized that Solomon had the wisdom of the Lord. He knew how to guide the people in the kingdom and how to rule over the nation. Because of his wisdom, it brought great wealth and power to the nation. Under King Solomon, the nation of Israel experienced its grandest time. It was the largest and most beautiful under his reign. The house of King Solomon was huge, and the temple he built for the Lord was immaculate and beautiful, overlaid with gold.

This all came about because he was wise and knew how to lead the nation. So wise was he that people from all over the world came to hear his wisdom. When they came, they brought gifts and presents of silver, gold, spices, and all sorts of treasures to King Solomon. His fame spread throughout the whole world, and everyone wanted to hear him answer the riddles of life and the questions they brought to him.

And so the nation became strong. The nation became beautiful and powerful. Solomon had armies because he didn't have to worry about servants in his nation; they took servants from all these other nations. When people came to visit Solomon, they would bring servants to take care of all the menial work of the nation. The men in Israel could focus completely on battle. If they had to go out to war, Solomon had an army because of his wisdom and the things that God had given to him.

Yet, as you go through this book, you find that there were some problems. It begins in chapter 3. Notice this in 1 Kings chapter 3, verse 1: "And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David." When he had finished building his own house, the house of the Lord, and the wall around Jerusalem, he began to do something significant.

Only the people sacrificed in the high places because there was no house built unto the name of the Lord until those days. In verse 3, it says that Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David, his father. However, there is a parenthetical note: "Only he sacrificed burnt incense in the high places."

This first observation reveals that his exterior actions were great. I mean, this is the king that everybody would love to have. But there was something wrong with his heart. He had an affinity for strange things and for many women, as you see throughout his life in 1 Kings. He started to sacrifice on all these high places. He had asked the Lord to give him wisdom and understanding on how to rule the people, but perhaps he did not know how to govern his own heart.

It is very clear that he was wise. The Scriptures tell us that he wrote something like a thousand Proverbs and 150 Psalms. We have the book of Proverbs, with 31 chapters that we can go through to see the different wise things that Solomon said. However, we could claim, and probably be very certain about this, that most of the Proverbs were written early in King Solomon's life, immediately after God had given him this great wisdom.

As you follow his life and start to see the decline, beginning in chapter 9, you notice that the decline came because he didn't know how to rule his own heart with wisdom.

The heart is the issue. The heart of the problem of man is the heart of man, and we need to deal with it. Jeremiah chapter 17 tells us that the heart of man is desperately wicked. Who can know it? The scripture tells us in 1 Kings that God is the one who tests the hearts of men, and He knows how to wisely govern them. Solomon even discusses this in the Proverbs. Yet, he himself did not know how to govern his own heart, and that would lead to the decline of the nation.

Solomon was the one who established the nation and solidified it, giving them the great temple in Jerusalem that everyone in Israel looked to for power and strength. However, he was also the one who began to lead the nation into decline. God said, "If you walk in my ways, keep my statutes, and do the things I have called you to, then you will be established. But if you don't, I will cause your nation to be divided." This is evident in the life of King Solomon. At the beginning of his reign, he had the wisdom of God to rule the nation, and because of this, the nation became strong.

As time went by, Solomon started to multiply the very things that God said kings should not multiply. It began with his marriage to the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt. When he brought her into his household, he also brought with her the strange gods of Egypt. Following this, he began to multiply wives to himself, just as Moses stated in Deuteronomy. When you have a king, he is not to multiply two things: wives and horses. God did not want the king's strength to be in the power of his army; He wanted him to recognize that his strength comes from God. God also wanted him to understand that the things of this world, including the wives of this world, would not ultimately satisfy his desire for pleasure.

However, King Solomon, when he began to be great, multiplied wives and horses. How many wives did he have? A lot—1,000 in total. He had 300 wives and 700 concubines. Some people joke that the judgment Solomon faced in his life was not only due to having all these wives and concubines but also because he ended up with a thousand mother-in-laws. In one sense, this was a judgment from the Lord upon him, but of course, we know that this is just a joke.

But all joking aside, as he started to multiply these things to himself, turn over to 1 Kings chapter 11, because it's very interesting what we find there.

Well, actually, start in chapter 9. In chapter 8, when Solomon consecrates the temple, he has this great prayer to the Lord. He cries out to God that whenever God hears the cry of His people there in Jerusalem towards the temple, God would hear and forgive. It's a beautiful chapter, and it's a beautiful prayer that he gives.

Then in chapter 9, it says in verse 1 that the first time God had appeared to Solomon was when he first became king, and he asked the Lord to give him wisdom to be able to lead the people. The second time he is visited by the Lord, he sees and speaks with the Lord about 11 years later, when the nation is established with a temple and the king's palace. God appears to him the second time, as He had appeared unto him at Gibeon.

The Lord said unto him in verse 3, "I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me, and I have hallowed this house, or I have made this temple holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually."

But notice this: God gives him a condition in verse 4. "If you will walk before me as David your father walked, in the integrity of his heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom upon Israel forever, as I promised to David your father."

So, He says, if you will keep the statutes and walk before me as your father did, with a heart that is given to me, then I will establish you. What we see throughout the entire Bible is that God is not really looking at our outward life. As God spoke to Samuel when he went to anoint the son of Jesse, God said, "Listen, Samuel, God does not look on the outward of the man, but He looks at the heart."

God is not interested in all the good things that we do on the outside; He is interested in the heart.

It's interesting because God, obviously, as we see in the life of David, was not interested in the horrible things that David did on the outside. He was interested in his heart, which is revealed in Psalm 51. After he had sinned, he came before God with confession and repentance.

God says to Solomon, "This is what I'm looking for: for you to be like your father, that you would have a heart of integrity, a heart given to the Lord. If you do, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I promised to David, saying, 'There shall not fail a man upon the throne of Israel.'"

But look at this in verse 6: "But if you shall at all turn from following me, you and your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes, which I have set before you, but you go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them. This house, which I have hallowed or made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight. Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people.

At this house, which is high, everyone that passes by shall be astonished and shall hiss. They shall say, 'Why has the Lord done thus unto this land and unto this house?' They shall answer, 'Because they, the people, the children of Israel, forsook the Lord their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, who have worshipped them and served them. Therefore, because of this, has the Lord brought upon them all this evil.'

So God says, "Solomon, if you want this nation to be established, if you want this nation to be strong and you want the kingdom to remain, then you have to make sure that the integrity of your heart is given to the Lord, that your heart is dedicated to God. If not, if you turn away from the Lord and follow after other gods, then God says the punishment of that, or the result of that really, is going to be that you're going to be removed from this land, and I'm not going to look upon this land any longer."

Well, those were the marching orders. The question is, did Solomon follow what the Lord had said?

In 1 Kings chapter 11, verse 1, we read: "But King Solomon loved many strange women." Together with the daughter of Pharaoh, he loved women of the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Zidonians, and the Hittites. These were the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, back in the book of Exodus, "You shall not go into them."

Neither shall they come into you, for surely they will turn away your heart. Notice that. The exterior, the actions of worship of God on the outside might remain, but these women will turn away your heart. God is interested in the heart. He already spoke to the children of Israel back in Exodus chapter 34, saying, "Follow me." But surely they will turn away your heart if you do not follow me in these ways, and they will turn away your heart after their gods.

Solomon clave unto these in love. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. What did his wives do? They turned away his heart. Just as God had said, they turned away his heart. It came to pass when Solomon was old—notice that; underline that in your Bibles—because this is as his life is going on, as he is progressing as the king of the nation. When he came to that point where he was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.

Solomon went after Ashereth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord, as David his father did. Remember, David is the standard bearer for the people and for the kings. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. Likewise, he did for all his strange wives, who burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.

Every single one of the wives he married from these other nations brought their false gods into the house of Solomon. He began building incense altars and high places for each one of these, because they would come and say, "Oh, but we worship this god. We worship Chemosh, or we worship Molech. You really need to see this worship of Molech. We've got some great temples."

We have some really neat things that we do in worshiping Molech. You have to let me have this high place, or this valley, or this area over here, this grove. As time went by, Solomon began to do just the very same things that his wives did.

In verse 9, it says, "And the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice." He commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods, but Solomon did not keep that which the Lord had commanded. Therefore, in verse 11, the Lord said unto Solomon, "For as much as this is done, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded thee, I will surely do what? I will surely rend the kingdom from thee and give it to thy servant."

Notwithstanding, in thy days, I will not do it for David, thy father's sake, but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. However, I will not completely remove the kingdom, but will give one tribe to your son for David, my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, which I have chosen.

God says the result of your heart being turned away to follow after these other false gods and to worship them is that your kingdom is going to be torn from your hand. Although God is a merciful God, He says, "I'm not going to do it in your day, Solomon, but in your son's day when he comes to be king." I will not completely remove it because I have made a promise to David—the promise that there would not fail a king to sit upon the throne of David, which ultimately speaks of Jesus.

So, God says, "I'm going to remove the kingdom from your hand because you have turned away from me and followed after these other gods." The kingdom was really established under Solomon's reign and expanded during his time. But now, the kingdom declines because of his very actions. His heart was not given completely to the Lord; it was not a heart of integrity.

Outwardly, it looked good. They had a temple that was overlaid with gold in every square inch. It was beautiful. If ever there was a nation that looked religious on the outside, it was the nation of Israel under the rule and reign of Solomon. They had the temple, they had this grand palace, and they had a king who was wiser than anybody else.

In the entire world, he knew how to govern the affairs of the people, but he did not know how to govern his own heart. Because of this, he lost the kingdom. It is very much the same in every single one of our lives as well. You and I have been brought into the new kingdom, the kingdom of our Lord. He has given us the ability to submit our lives to Him as King or to rule them ourselves. It all has to do with the heart.

If our hearts are given over to the Lord, if we allow Him to be the one who directs the heart of the king of our lives, then He will establish us. He will raise us up. However, if we desire to be the leader of our own heart, we find that we lose the kingdom in many ways. It is interesting to see what happened immediately after this point in time when God said, "I’m going to remove the kingdom from you."

What does it say in verse 14 of 1 Kings chapter 11? The Lord stirred up an adversary. Immediately at this point, the kingdom of Solomon began to encounter adversaries. The first one was Hadad the Edomite, who came against the children of Israel and King Solomon. Then, down in verse 23, God stirred up another adversary, Rezon, the son of Eliada, who rose up against the children of Israel. The Lord also raised up a third adversary, a man named Jeroboam, an adversary from within the nation, from within Israel.

As Jeroboam was raised up, Solomon recognized that he was a mighty man of valor. In verse 28, seeing the industrious young man, Solomon made him ruler over the charge of his house. Still, Solomon's heart continued to drift away from the Lord; it went after the things of this world.

God spoke through a man of God, a prophet, to Jeroboam, saying that the kingdom of Israel was going to be divided. Jeroboam was to rule over ten of the tribes, while only Solomon's family, only David's household, would rule over Judah and a small tribe of Benjamin. After the death of Solomon, at the end of chapter 12, we see that Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, took over the leadership of the nation. As Rehoboam ruled, the people of Israel came to him.

They say, "Listen, are you going to be hard on us, like your father Solomon was?" Solomon had great taxes upon the people. To build a kingdom the way he did, to build a temple, to build the palace he had, and to build all the grand stables up in Megiddo, involved great taxes on the people. They had to pay for everything.

After Solomon died, the people came to King Rehoboam, Solomon's son, and asked him, "Are you going to be tough on us like your father? Are you going to ease up? Are you going to lessen the taxes upon us?" He replied, "Well, give me a few days; I'll let you know." He then consulted with his advisors, speaking with the old men who had been counselors to King Solomon.

In verse 6 of chapter 12, Rehoboam consulted with the old men who stood before Solomon while he was still alive. He asked them, "How do you advise that I answer the people?" They advised him to lessen the taxes, saying, "Drop the taxes, and the people's hearts will be with you." However, he forsook their counsel. In verse 8, he consulted with the young men he had grown up with. The young men advised him, "No man, you have to come in there and establish your dominance, your authority."

When all the people came to him, he declared, "I've made my decision. You think my dad was hard? My kingdom will be like a thumb in comparison to what I'm going to put upon you. You think he was hard? He will look like he was easy after I get through with you." At that point, the people said, "What do we have with the house of David? What do we have with the tribe of Judah? We're not going to sit under this. We're going to rule ourselves." They departed from the nation of Judah, stating they would no longer be with him. They went up north and decided to have their own king, setting Jeroboam to be their king.

Rehoboam then said, "Let's gather an army and go fight against them." But the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "This is from my hand because your father did not follow me; his heart drifted from me." Thus, God's kingdom was divided. This marks the beginning of what many people view as a very difficult passage of Scripture, the end of First Kings and the beginning of Second Kings. As you read about the kings of the north and the kings of the south, it is easy to get those kings mixed up. You might be reading about one king, Jehoshaphat, and then suddenly switch to Ahab, and so on.

About this guy, it's back and forth, and you're going, what is going on? But what we see here is a nation that was not as God intended. In one sense, that's kind of why it's confusing. This was not the way that the Lord intended it.

Remember, under Joshua, God desired that he would be the leader of the nation. He would be the king of the nation. But the people said, "We want a king like all the other nations." So God gave them the king that they desired, King Saul, and he led them astray. He brought them further away from the Lord. They cried out against their king, King Saul, and God gave them King David, a man after God's own heart. He was a man who brought the people to worship the Lord. His whole focus was on the worship of the Lord. He wanted to make the worship of the Lord the center of the nation. That's why God would say, "This is a man after my own heart."

When King Solomon came, he only focused on the external works of religion. That's why he built this beautiful temple, which was one of the seven wonders of the world at that time. He was only focused on the outside. The gold of the temple and the silver during the time of Solomon were so abundant that silver was like rocks. Nobody cared about it; it was no big deal because there was so much gold in Solomon's kingdom. It was a nation that was only focused on external righteousness.

When you and I become focused only on external righteousness, our hearts will be led away. This is what we are constantly going to see with the children of Israel as we continue through the rest of the Old Testament. We will see a people who are tossed to and fro between the service of God and their own pleasures and desires. A people that serve the Lord only with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him, as Isaiah speaks of. These are a people that God desired to be in the midst of them, but when their hearts departed from Him, He removes His presence, and they are attacked by the Assyrians or the Babylonians until they cry out to the Lord.

But this all started with a fixation upon just the external and not considering the heart. Not thinking about the heart is so important. In the book of 1 Kings, we also establish or start the prophetic ministry of the Bible. This is when the prophets begin to come and speak. As you read through 1 Kings, you notice that time after time, it says a man of God came and spoke unto the king. Elijah is the one who rises to prominence at the end of the book. Then in 2 Kings...

We're going to see Elisha that is raised up. During the time of 2 Kings, we will see many different prophets who are raised up, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, who is at the end of the time of 2 Kings. All these prophets are raised up to speak to the people, and the primary message of the prophets was to repent and turn your heart back to the Lord. If they would turn their hearts back to the Lord, then what would God do?

Let's flip over to chapter 8, and I want to show you this in 1 Kings real quick because I think it's important. Solomon, when he is dedicating the temple, cries out to the Lord and prays to God. In verse 22, Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel. In 1 Kings chapter 8, verse 22, he spread forth his hands toward heaven and said, "Lord God of Israel, there is no God like Thee, in heaven above or on earth beneath, who keeps covenant and mercy with His servants that walk before Thee with all their heart."

Notice that. He has kept with Thy servant David, my father, that Thou promised him. Thou spakest also with Thy mouth and hast fulfilled it with Thy hand, as it is this day. Therefore, now, Lord God of Israel, keep with Thy servant David, my father, in the same way that You promised him, saying, "There shall not fail Thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, so that Thy children take heed to their way, that they walk before me as Thou hast walked before me."

And now, God of Israel, let Thy word, I pray Thee, be verified, which Thou speakest unto Thy servant David, my father. But will God indeed dwell on earth? Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have built for Thee. Yet have Thou respect unto the prayer of Thy servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry of the prayer which Thy servant prays before Thee this day.

Then Solomon begins to pray to the Lord this wonderful prayer. He says that Your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward this place which Thou hast said, "My name shall be there." That You may hearken unto the prayer which Thy servant shall make toward this place, and hearken Thou to the supplication of the servant and of the people of Israel when they shall pray toward this place. Hear Thou in heaven, O God, and in Your dwelling place, and when You hear...

Forgive. He says, if any man, verse 31, trespasses against his neighbor, and an oath is laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath comes before your altar in this house, then hear in heaven and do judge thy servants, condemning the wicked and bringing his way upon his head, and justifying the righteous to give him according to his righteousness.

When your people, verse 33 of Israel, are smitten down by their enemies because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house, then hear you in heaven and forgive their sin. He goes over and over again, saying that if your people sin, fall away, and cry out to you for forgiveness, then hear them and forgive. In chapter 9, God says, "I will do even as you said."

The prophets are the ones we see come about in 1 Kings and on into 2 Kings, who speak to the children of Israel and say, "Turn back to the Lord." Sadly, the people largely rejected the prophets, just as Jesus would say in the Gospels. The remainder of 1 Kings, from chapter 12 to chapter 22, shows us the division of this kingdom and how these kings start to lead the people astray.

The first king, Jeroboam, in the northern ten tribes of Israel, receives the same message that God had given to David and Solomon. God speaks to Jeroboam, saying, "If you follow me, I will establish your kingdom." However, Jeroboam thinks it is not a good idea for the people he is leading to go down to Judah and Jerusalem to worship the Lord. He fears that if they go to the temple of the Lord, they will want to return and follow King Solomon's son, Rehoboam.

To prevent this, Jeroboam decides to build two new altars in the northern part of the nation of Israel and establishes the worship of the golden calf. Remember that back in Exodus? Jeroboam, the first king of the northern ten tribes, says they will start worshiping the golden calf again so that they do not have to travel to Jerusalem. He makes it easy for them by establishing two golden calf worship sites in the cities of Dan and Bethel.

The children of Israel in the north begin to worship these false gods, and God becomes angry with them. We see the judgments of God upon these kings in the north. The same thing happens in the south, where the kings also depart from following the Lord.

Even though they have the temple, God begins to judge them. Their enemies come, and they cause them trouble. What you see through the remainder of this book is this back-and-forth battle, as the people may serve the Lord for a little while, but then they depart from the Lord and serve all the other false gods, whether it be Asherah, Molech, or all the different gods that they had.

Ultimately, at the end of the book, we read of King Ahaz, who marries the wicked queen Jezebel from the north in Syria. She brings with her the worship of Baal, and the worship of Baal would be the worship that Israel stumbles in for the rest of their history, until the time of the Babylonian captivity. At that point in time, God brings forth a great character, a man by the name of Elijah. We are going to finish tonight's study by looking at just a few things about Elijah, because he is definitely an interesting character.

In 1 Kings chapter 17, Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, "As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years according to my word." God raises up this prophet to the king of the northern ten tribes of Israel. He goes to him and says that God's judgment is going to be on the land, and this is the way that the judgment is going to come. He is not going to bring rain; there is going to be a drought until I say so. King Ahab wasn't too happy about this.

Immediately after this, it says that Elijah goes out into the wilderness, and God feeds him for a period of time by bringing him food through the ravens. There is a creek nearby that gives him water, and the ravens bring him food every single day. Then the creek dries up, and he goes to the Lord, asking, "What am I going to do?" God responds, "All right, go over to this town, and this woman, this widow that lives there, she is going to feed you."

He goes into the town and meets this widow. She says, "Listen, I'm about ready to die. I don't have anything, just one little cruise of oil and a little bit of meal. I have nothing. I'm going to go home and make some food for my son and me, and then we're going to die." Elijah says, "No, the Lord has commanded that you're going to feed me, and as long as I'm here, you're going to have enough food." Sure enough, he stays with her for a period of time, and God blesses him. After the course of three and a half years, God says to him...

All right, Elijah, now's the time. There's been a drought over the nation, and the northern ten tribes under the leadership of King Ahab are at a point where they're saying, "We're going to die. We have nothing to eat. There's pestilence. There's famine in the land."

So God sends Elijah, and he calls all the people together, including the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of all the other false gods at Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. There, in 1 Kings 18, Elijah asks the people a great question in verse 21. He says, "How long are you going to be split between two opinions?" This is the question that every single one of us needs to come to as well. How long are you going to falter between two opinions? How long are you going to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine?

He continues in verse 21, "If God be God, then follow Him. If Baal be God, then follow him." The people answered him not a word. They didn't say a word; they just sat there staring at him, kind of like, "Where is he going with this?" If God be God, then follow Him. But if Baal be God, then follow him.

Then Elijah said to the people, "I, even I, only remain as a prophet of the Lord. But Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks. Let them choose one bullock for themselves, cut it into pieces, lay it on the wood, and put no fire under it. I will dress the other bullock, lay it upon the wood, and put no fire under it. Call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord God. The God that answers by fire, let Him be God."

Elijah comes and says, "Listen, we're going to put your gods to the test and our God to the test, and we're going to find out who is the one that brings fire." If you look at all the secular historians and anthropologists, they all talk about how man really began to take off when he had what? Fire. Fire brought life.

Of course, they don't understand the Bible and they don't know the truth of what the Scriptures say, but they recognize that there's something important about fire and life. There's something important in our lives as well about fire and life because Jesus tells us in John chapter 10, "I have come to give you life and that more abundantly." John the Baptist would say of Jesus, "I baptize you with water, but there comes one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire."

So Jesus comes, and when He brings fire, He brings life. These people are split between two opinions. They're back and forth.

Between who they're going to serve, are they going to serve the one true God, or are they going to serve all these other things in the world? God says we are going to decide today who the real God is, who is the one who can bring fire and life. There is only one.

So they have this test. The prophets of Baal, all 450 of them, set up their altar. They cut up a bullock and placed it on the altar. They cried out to Baal from nine o'clock until noon, jumping up and down, calling out, "Come bring fire, Baal!" Finally, at noon, I love this story because Elijah starts to mock them. He says, "Maybe your God is on vacation. Maybe he's asleep. Perhaps he's going to the bathroom." He encourages them to cry louder, suggesting that Baal is not listening to them.

The prophets of Baal then start cutting themselves with little lances, pouring out blood everywhere, crying out to their god. Consider the devotion that these people gave to false gods that could not answer, and yet the lack of devotion given to the one true God who brings the fire.

At the end of the day, when evening was coming, and after Elijah had probably grown tired of watching this whole spectacle, all the people of the northern ten tribes were sitting there, watching. In verse 30, Elijah said to all the people, "Come near to me." All the people came near to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. I believe that this is an important work that many of us need to do as well: to repair the altar of the Lord that is broken down.

Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, "Israel shall be your name." With the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord. He made a trench around the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed. He put the wood in order, cut the bullock into pieces, and laid it on the wood.

He then said, "Fill four barrels of water and pour it over the burnt sacrifice and on the wood." He instructed them to do it a second time and then a third time. They did so a third time, and the water ran about the altar, filling the trench also with water.

It is interesting because we have this picture of water overflowing the sacrifice and ultimately fire coming to consume it. This is intriguing when we consider what the New Testament has to say. In verse 36, it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet, now at sundown, came near.

And he said, "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of all Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know and recognize that You are the Lord God and that You have turned their heart back again."

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, "The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God."

Elijah came to them and said, "You need to choose who you're going to serve. If God be God, then serve Him. If Baal be God, serve him." They all just looked at him blankly, not knowing what to say. But at the end of the day, when the fire of God fell upon the water-drenched sacrifice, consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licked up all the water, the people fell on their faces and said, "God is God."

Elijah then said to the people, "Round up all the prophets of Baal." They took them down the hill from Mount Carmel into the Valley of Jezreel and killed all the prophets of Baal, these false prophets, as was the commandment of the Lord. A miniature revival started right there.

When Jezebel, the queen of King Ahab, heard about this, she said, "You tell that Elijah, I'm going to kill him by morning." You would think, because Elijah is an interesting character, that after he just saw the power of God fall in the fire, he would be walking around as if nobody could do anything to him. But here, this testimony, this word from Jezebel comes to him: "By morning, you're dead."

What does he do? He runs away. He runs to the southernmost port of the nation, down through Judah, and hides out underneath a juniper tree in chapter 19. It’s interesting because he goes down there and cries out to the Lord in the prayer of Elijah. He says, "Lord, just kill me." Now, obviously, he didn't want to die. If he did, he should have just stayed up there where Jezebel was, right?

God says, "No, I want you to take a nap." So he sleeps there at the juniper tree, and then God comes and wakes him up by the angel of the Lord.

And says, "Here, you need to eat something." He gives him this cake that was burning on the coals and some water. Then Elijah falls asleep again. He's at the point of despair, really in depression. God comes to him and shakes him a second time, saying, "Here, eat and drink this water."

Elijah then goes on a 40-day journey down to the Rock of Horeb, which was the mountain of God where God gave the law to Moses, Mount Sinai. The food he ate, the cake that the Lord gave him along with the water, sustained him for 40 days. Talk about a power bar! He hides out in a cave at Mount Sinai, still in despair and depression. He thinks that he is the only one who serves the Lord, saying that to God three times: "I am the only one that remains who serves you."

God comes to him and says, "I want you to come out here. I want to show you something." He brings Elijah outside of the cave, and God passes by in a fire, but God wasn't in the fire. Then God brings a mighty wind, but the scripture says God was not in the wind. Next, there is a great earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. Finally, God speaks to Elijah through a still, small voice.

So many times in our lives, we look for the fire, the earthquake, or the great wind to come. Yet, God often speaks through just a still, small voice. If we quiet our hearts and be still, knowing that He is God, He will speak to us the revelation that is needed.

In that still, small voice, God tells Elijah, "I want you to go and anoint this king to be the king of Syria. Anoint this person to be the king of Israel. Then anoint Elisha to be the prophet in your stead, the one who stands in your place." The book really ends as Elijah goes and anoints Elisha, who will be at the forefront of Second Kings when we get there next week.

God anoints this next guy, Elisha, to be the prophet to the nation, who will speak to the kings. God always sends His prophet to speak to the king. In fact, in Amos chapter 3, God says, "Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants, the prophets." Throughout the Old Testament, God would not move one bit until He spoke through a prophet and brought it to the people of the nation, saying, "This is what I’m going to do."

Many of us, when we consider that, think, "Oh, wouldn't it be great to have a prophet today who would speak to us?" However, many cults have been built upon that idea. The scripture tells us in Hebrews chapter 1 that God, who in former times...

God spoke to us by the prophets and has, in these last days, spoken to us by His Son. We have the Word of God here; Jesus is the Word. We're going to be talking about that tomorrow as we start the Gospel of John on Sunday mornings. In the beginning was the Word. This communicates to you and me the heart, the mind, and the nature of our God. He desires that we would know and understand what His heart, mind, and nature are so that we could walk in His ways and not have a divided kingdom—a confusing, divided kingdom like we see here in this place. Would to God that we would recognize what it is that He is speaking to us, just as we've considered every single week.

1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 11 says, "All these things were written for our instruction, that we would learn from these things upon whom the ends of the age have come." We are living in those last days. Just as I mentioned, Hebrews chapter 1 states that in these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son. He desires that we recognize that it has everything to do with the heart. Jesus would say in the Sermon on the Mount, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." If our treasure is in the things of this world, then our heart will be focused here. But if our treasure is the Lord God seated upon the throne in heaven, then our heart will be with Him.

We saw this in King David. Although he was a sinful man, he was a man after God's own heart. His heart was with the Lord. The problem with King Solomon, which brought about the destruction and decline of the nation, was that his heart was given to all these other things—his wives, these horses. They led his heart away from serving God. The exterior looked beautiful; it was covered with gold. But it was the heart that was the problem. May we learn the lesson of 1 Kings. Amen?

Let's stand and pray. God, I do thank You for the truth of Your Word. I pray that You would help us to apply it and take it to heart tonight. Help us to be those who are willing to lay aside these earthly things that we so often treasure, that our hearts might be with You. I pray that my life would not be just a good-looking temple covered with gold, but that my heart would be given to You. Lord, the Holy of Holies.

The inward part that nobody ever sees would be a place that's indwelt by you. We do ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.