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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Well, here we are, lo and behold, First Kings chapter 2. We’re talking about a young feller named Solomon. Solomon. Solomon is the second son of David and Bathsheba. What happened to the first one? The child died. And so So Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah, the hit tight. So anyway, things move on. David took her and had another son by the name of Solomon and he was going to be the king of Israel. Now before he was to be the king of Israel, there were a couple others that were in line to be the king.

But Ammon and Absalom, well, they already were dead. By the time David’s getting ready to depart from this earth. So another one was going to be in line, but they convinced him not to have him be the king. So Adonaija was supposed to be the next one in line, the parent heir to the throne. But Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet went to see David and told him says, bad choice. So anyway, he settled upon using Solomon. Well, of course, that made at a notch of very angry because he wanted to be…

So after David was dead, he wanted to marry one of his wives. So Solomon had him killed because his dad told him, you better kill him because he’s going to try to take the throne from you. And Solomon listened to his daddy and did just that. But And here in 1 Kings and chapter 2, you’ll notice where he says here, David’s charge to Solomon, chapter 2, verse 1. Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die, and he charged Solomon his son, say him, I go the way of all the earth, be thou strong therefore and show thyself a man.”

Now this is a good little lesson for Father’s day, wouldn’t you say? Here’s a daddy. He’s not going to live forever. But he’s telling his son Solomon what to expect. What he should do, telling him how he should live, giving him some warnings in advance. And I think it’s some very good scripture for everyone to notice because it’s so important here. And down in verse two, he says, I go the way of all the earth, be thou strong therefore and show thyself a man.

Keep the charge of the Lord thy God to walk in his ways to keep his statutes and his commandments and his judgments and his testimonies as it is written in the law of Moses that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest and whether so ever thou turn thyself.” Now you’ll see this also was quoted in the book of Joshua in chapter 1, where God tells Joshua the very same thing. And as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

Here’s David and still using the Word of God to help his son Solomon. To be a wise man. He says, so that you can prosper. In verse four, that the Lord may continue his word, which he spake concerning me saying, if thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul. There shall not fail thee, said he, a man on the throne of Israel. So God made a promise that they did not have to be In verse 4, that the Lord may continue His word which He spake concerning me saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee, said he, a man on the throne of Israel.

So God made a promise that there will never there will never fail to be a man on the throne of Israel. Well, we know that years and years later, a man by the name of Jack and Ia, rebelled against the Lord and God had to deal with him and put a curse upon his seed, saying that none of your seed will ever set upon the throne of Israel. Well, that just happens to be the right line through which the king was supposed to come through.

So how can the king down the road, whoever was going to be, ever be able to claim the throne of Israel if a curse was put upon the line? Well God did it in a miraculous way. That’s why Jesus had to have a mother who was of the line, the royal line, but it wasn’t through Solomon, it was through Nathan, on back to David. he had a father, but his father did not have the, well he had to curse upon him, but he was not the real father of Jesus.

So Jesus could claim the throne because he was not of the seed of Joseph. And so it’s a wonder and story how God puts together all these things. And some things he doesn’t tell us, he just puts it in the Word and you have to find it. So it’s a wonderful thing. So God told them all of this. So now we know the time is coming on and just look down here verse 10. In verse 10 where he says, So David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David.

And verse 11 and the days that David reign over Israel were 40 years. So 40 years for David and guess how long Solomon got to reign? 40 years. Just something about the number 40. You know it’s not 41 or 43 or 37, it’s 40. Like somebody’s in charge of this thing. Something’s going on behind the scenes. But anyway, look verse 12, then set Solomon upon the throne of David his father and his kingdom was established greatly. So this is what God had set up for him.

Now we know that he was used by the Lord to build the temple of the Lord. So he built the first temple and he reigned from about 970, before Christ. And so he rained for 40 years. So that would take you down to about 930. So he had all these years that he served the Lord. Well, I should say he knew the Lord. God did greatly use them. We often hear of Solomon’s temple. If you ever go to Israel, there is a part of the wall that they say this is part of Solomon’s temple.

And this way down, you can see a full shaft all the way down and a beautiful light marble and just gorgeous stonework. But everything else looks terrible. But way down under the ground, they have a part that you can seize part of the wall there. I don’t know if it’s the wall or the part of the temple was totally destroyed, we know, but the wall there was just gorgeous, really, really beautiful. Now, you’ll notice there in chapter 3, first Kings in chapter 3.

Come over to talk about the King. This is the third King in the land of Israel. And so first of all there was Saul and then there was David and now David’s son. Not, not on Egypt but Solomon. In verse 5 I want you to notice this. This is a wonderful story that you often hear about the wisdom of Solomon. Well, how did it come about? And it would help us if we knew these stories and scriptures because isn’t it true that sometimes we ask the Lord for wisdom?

I want you to hold your place right here, but just look with me over there in the book of James chapter 1. James in chapter 1. Right after the book of Hebrews and you know, sir, in James chapter 1. And the Bible tells us that as we go through life, there’s times we need, we need a little wisdom. So he says you’re in verse 2, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall in the divers temptations or different testings because when you have all these testings of every kind, as always something that you’re not going to be able to do.

you don’t know. Something you can’t solve. Some things you don’t understand. So you’re always wondering because they become a problem to us. And so all of us have problems. And all of our problems force us to make decisions. So these decisions that we make are called choices. And so we get to enjoy the results of our wise decisions and suffer consequences of our foolish decisions. But life is made up of choices. So when you have problems, it forces you to make choices.

How are you going to solve it? How are you going to get out of it? How much do you know? How much do you understand? So he makes a statement here in verse 3, knowing this, that the trying of your faith work with patience because you have to wait a while to get the answer. That’s what makes it a problem. You don’t have the immediate answer to solve everything. So you’ve got to have to find out. Search, knock, ask.

So he says in verse 4, but let patience have her perfect word that you may be perfectly complete, entire, wanting, or lacking nothing. If any of you lack wisdom in that word, if means you do, lack wisdom, let him ask of God which give to all men liberally and up braid if not, and it shall be given him. In other words, God is not for you staying down all your life. God really wants you to be wise. So he gives you wisdom as you go and you’re supposed to ask the Lord and study his word and seek and knock and ask and he says you’ll find, you’ll get it.

But because we don’t have the patience. Now the thing about Solomon is he didn’t have to get the patience and the tribulations to get the wisdom. But you don’t know if a man is wise until you have decisions to make. Now your decisions reveals your wisdom and sometimes We think we’re so smart and we make so many dumb decisions and we wish we could do it over again. Well, that’s the story of life. Now go back here to the book of 1 Kings and chapter 3.

1 Kings chapter 3, look in verse 5, In Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night. And God says, ask what I shall give thee. Now I’ve had some dreams, but I haven’t had all my dreams fulfilled. But oh, I’ve had dreams. And Solomon says, Thou have showed unto thy servant David, my Father, great mercy. According as he walked before the in truth and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart with thee and Thou have kept for him this great kindness, that Thou have given him a son to set on his throne as it is in this day.

So here’s a wonderful Father’s Day message about the Father telling the Son and the Son showing appreciation for His Dad. You see, God wanted the temple to be built, but David, well, He had too much blood on His hands. So David used His remaining years to gather everything together, and so when Solomon got to be king, God had everything ready for him. And so that’s why it’s called Solomon’s temple, not David’s, because God used Solomon to do it. But now look what he says here in verse 7, and now, oh Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father, and I am but a little child.

I know not how to go out or come in. In other words, I have a responsibility that appears to be too great for my wisdom. It’s too much for me. So what is he asking for? This is what is really great about this situation. Remember… God is going to give to this man, this young man, wisdom because of all the things he could have asked for. This is what he asked for. So he says, I’m like a little child.

In verse 8, and thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou have chosen, a great people. Thou cannot be numbered nor accounted for multitude. Give, therefore, thy servant an understanding 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. Isn’t that a wonderful request? Lord, and I think it’s good for every man that know they get married, ought to pray something law and the law and the law and the law and the law help me to be the husband that I should be, that I can discern right from wrong, that I can guide my life and lovers I should and be faithful and all the things that God wants.

And when you first get married, you may have the idea in your mind, it’s going to be, you know, just roses from here on out. And it don’t take long for those thorns to appear. And you wonder, usually right after you get married, there’s a time of, I think I made a mistake. Have you ever gone to a car lot and bought a used vehicle? And it says, as is, and as soon as you drive off the lot, you say, that’s funny.

I didn’t, I didn’t hear that noise before. I didn’t feel that shake. I didn’t notice that before, and I didn’t notice that before, and I didn’t notice that before, and there’s so many things you didn’t notice, you didn’t say, man, I got a limb, and I’m in, I really messed up. Well, sometimes that’s the way it is in marriage. So what do you wanna do? Well, chunk that one, go get you a new one. No, no, no. Sometimes you have to have maintenance, and you gotta maintain things, and you go through life and doing a lot of, that’s why in an automobile, there’s a motor, and there’s the back wheels, but you’ve got to have a transmission.

It takes the power from here and transfers it to here. So in marriage, you’re always shifting gears. You’re adjusting. So you’ve got to learn how to shift gears without grinding gears. Remember the old manual type? Now we want everything automatic because it’s a lot easier. And so there you go. Now we have automatic marriages. Everything is wonderful. Well, maybe not exactly. But notice what he says here. What he asked for pleased the Lord. In verse 10, and the speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing.

And God said unto him, because thou has asked this thing and has not asked for thyself long life. You didn’t ask for long life. Neither has thou asked for riches for thyself, Nor asked the life of thine enemies, Thou hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment. Behold, I have done according to thy words, though I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shalt any arise like unto thee.

is no sense trying to pray that you’ll be as wise as Solomon, because he said it’s not going to happen. But you see, that was a long time ago. But we can still be wise today and get the wisdom that comes from God. And that’s what we have. We have the Word of God. So we pray for guidance and wisdom as we go. The thing is, is he got his wisdom without having maybe due to much study and I don’t know.

But God gave him wisdom and an understanding heart. Sometimes I think, then I wish I was a little bit like that. Understand, I mean I wish I could understand everything. I still make so many dumb things, you know. And sometimes you hurt people and you don’t want to, don’t intend to, but does it happen? Say things maybe a little sharp, didn’t have to say that. So we often do things that That hurts. I got nice little letter today believe it or not last night My wife says Yankee get the phone That’s all right.

So I got the phone. She says put it beside your bed. I Always leave my phone in the other room She says put it beside your bed She says you know your daughter’s gonna call you tonight After 12 o’clock and you’re going to answer the phone because she knows if it stays in the other room, I won’t hear it. And she’ll have to answer the phone. So anyway, she said it beside the bed, 12 o’clock, my alarm goes off, clock goes off.

And my daughter’s on the phone and she has to say, that be Father’s Day to you. Hello, Trina. And so she just got off work at 11.30. She’s wide awake. She won’t go to work. I mean, the bed till 1.30 in the morning. Well, God bless my daughter. And so anyway, she set up a few nice things. So I was glad to hear from my daughter. And I imagine that my son and my grandkids will call later this afternoon.

They always do it in the afternoon. But my daughter, I can count on 12.01, she’s calling. But in spite of all of that, I’m glad she did. I’d rather be remembered than forgotten. But anyway, he says, I’m going to give you this wisdom and stuff. So look in verse 12, behold, I have done according to thy words, lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding heart and so forth. Verse 13, and I have also given thee that which thou have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all by days.

So I’m not only going to give you wisdom, I’m going to give you all this honor and all this wealth to be one of the richest kings there ever was.” And Solomon was. He says here in verse 14, “…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. Now I’ll give you a long life. Now I don’t know how long long life is, but I know that David didn’t live much longer than 70 years.

Well, I’ve already reached that, but I’m not worried. Dr. Pulsen’s way ahead of me. And I think if Dr. Posen can make it, maybe I can hang in there and get a couple more years out of this whole body. So anyway, Solomon woke and behold, it was a dream, but it wasn’t just a dream. He began to act upon it and God gave him great wisdom. And then there’s a story that everybody likes to tell, a how that there was these two women, and they both had a little baby, and they evidently were together and one of them rolled over and killed, smothered her little baby.

So the woman says, this is my baby, and the other woman says, no, no, no, that’s my baby. So there arose an argument. So they went to Solomon and of course everybody wants to know how is Solomon going to solve this problem. How does he know which one is the baby? So he decided let’s just take the baby that’s alive and cut it in two. Give half of it to one and half to the other. And so when he raised the knife and got ready to the real mother jumped in and says no, give her the baby.

Well then Solomon knew that’s the real mom. So, so wise and evidently it affected a lot of people all over the world because people came from everywhere to see and to hear of the wisdom of Solomon and to see what great wealth that he had. And so look there in chapter 4. In chapter 4 you’ll notice what he says in verse 29. He says, and God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding, exceeding much and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore.

Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East country and all the wisdom of Egypt. And all these people, his fame was all over the nations, of all the world. Pretty great fellow. And then Solomon is used by the Lord to build the temple of God. And he builds this temple and that’s what you see in chapter 5 and chapter 6. And he built his own house, 13 years. Imagine what kind of a house that looked like.

And so when you go through here, you hear all of these things about what he did and he brought the ark into it and Chaconic glory comes down and takes up residence in that place. But look over there in chapter 11. Looking at chapter 11. Chapter 11, you find also that there was a problem with Solomon. He didn’t just love the Lord. He didn’t just love wisdom. And he probably loved the wealth, the fame. He also loved women. When you said it to Bible, you’ll find out a lot of great men were brought down because of the lust of the flesh.

And God gave it to everybody, but it has to be controlled. There has to be restraint. And some people don’t restrain themselves at all. So here in 1 Kings and Chapter 11, he says in verse 1, but King Solomon loved many strange women. Together with the daughters of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites and the Zittanites, he said, and a hit-tite and of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, ye shall not go into them.

Neither shall they come in unto you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon clave unto these in love.” Now is this with the Lord’s blessings? No. He violating the scriptures. And he’s recorded here that it was not the will of God. But because he had such wisdom and power, you think sometimes power can go to your head and you think you can be excused from. I think we have politicians that day to think, well, the law applies to everybody but me.

Well, it applies to everybody. And so He says in verse three, and he had 700 wives. These are the ones that considered to be married to, maybe because of their prestige and their position in the land. Conquibines were people that he would have intimate relations with, but their kids could not inherit anything, and they were not considered to be a wife in a sense because of several reasons, mainly because of their social status. But maybe they were just beautiful and he didn’t care anything about where they came from or anything like that.

He had 300 of them. This is why some people think that this is maybe why he’s so wise. He had all these advisors. He had a thousand advisors. Well, the Bible says that God don’t want a man to do that and to take wives from these other nations because there’s the tendency of them pulling you away into a different religion. Or now you’ve got to humor these women who don’t believe like you believe. So he broke the law and there was problems with this.

Hello friends. Thank you for listening to Bibleline. And thank you to those who write in and tell us how Bibleline is making such a big impact in your lives. It’s such an encouragement when we receive your letters and emails. Can I ask, how is your prayer life? Does it need some help? Most Christians think of prayer as a secondary or last resort. Do you realize that Jesus spent hours upon hours in prayer to His Heavenly Father? And yet we so often fail to practice prayer as a priority in our lives.

Well during this month for a gift in any amount we’re going to send you Dr. Arnold’s four sermon series on The Power of Prayer. Perhaps prayer is a shortcoming in your life and this teaching is surely able to help. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634 and don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. God bless you and thank you again for supporting Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us.

The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, Just keep looking up.