In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the advice that David gives to his son Solomon on his deathbed. David urges Solomon to be strong and show himself as a man as he takes on the responsibility of ruling the kingdom. David emphasizes the importance of following the ways of the Lord and keeping His commandments, statutes, and judgments. He warns Solomon about the consequences of straying from God's law and the misery that comes from breaking it. Pastor Chuck highlights the ongoing conflict between the desires of the flesh and the spirit and encourages believers to choose to walk in the ways of the Lord, even though it may go against the current of the world.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that hold you And His Spirit, like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole David's Advice to Solomon As we pick up in 1 Kings 2, verse 1 And now, with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith Now the days drew nigh that David should die And he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth Be strong, therefore, and show thyself a man David summons his son Solomon to his deathbed The kingdom has been established now in the hand of Solomon People have acclaimed him as king, acknowledging David's desire And as David summons him to the bedside He acknowledges the fact that I'm dying I go the way of all the earth Unfortunately, in David's day, there was not any strong teaching in the Scriptures Concerning the resurrection They knew that death was inevitable I'm going the way of the earth Today, if we should talk about our death We usually talk about it as going to be with the Lord We have that glorious assurance of the Scripture That to be absent in this body or from this body Is to be present with the Lord And so David just declared, I'm going the way of all the earth Everybody dies I'm dying, son Now you be strong You be a man And keep the charge of the Lord thy God God has charged the kings with certain responsibilities God has charged the rulers with certain responsibilities And so Solomon, a ruler, a king Has a special charge from God for this office Keep that charge of the Lord thy God He is charged to walk in the ways of the Lord And to keep his statutes And his commandments And his judgments And his testimonies We can walk in our own ways Or we can walk in the ways of the Lord The natural man walks after the flesh Those who have been born again seek to walk after the Spirit But there is a conflict Between my flesh and my spirit And though I have chosen to walk after the Spirit I still have to fight against the desires of the flesh For as long as I am living in this body I am going to be faced with the desires of the physical needs Those drives that are built in But the Spirit of God also desires to master me And I must choose who is going to be my master I must choose which I will serve The Spirit of God as mastering over my life or my flesh Which way am I going to turn? In which way will I walk? David is exhorting Solomon his son To walk in the ways of God Great advice From any father to his son You could not give them any more sound instruction Than to encourage them to walk in the way of the Lord But to do that It is necessary that I be strong And that I be a man It takes real strength To walk in the way of the Lord Because I am walking Against the current of the world The whole world is wrapped in the way of darkness Men do not admire that is the natural man The worldly man does not admire the man Who seeks to walk after the Spirit Because that man really brings conviction upon him And thus he seeks to reproach him To make fun of him To ridicule him And if I am going to walk after the Spirit I have to realize that I am going to receive the ridicule of the world But Jesus said, Blessed are ye when men shall revile you Shall curse you, shall say all manner of evil against you falsely For my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad For so persecuted they the prophets that were before you For they that live godly in Christ Jesus Shall suffer persecution It takes a real man To stand up against the reproach of the world When you choose to walk in the ways of the Lord Keep his statutes Now the statutes had to do with the temple worship Those are called the statutes and the ordinances As God established the various statutes Those rules of conduct As we come to worship God The type of sacrifices that we are to bring How the sacrifices are to be offered Keep also his commandments This is a reference to the ten commandments Keep also his judgments Now in the law of Moses There are several chapters that are devoted to the rulers To those that would be judges over the people How they were to dispose of certain cases When you have a situation where a man has done this This is the judgment that you are to meet out Solomon as king Having to judge over the people He is exhorted to keep the judgments of God And finally the exhortation To keep his testimonies As God testified Of his blessings that he would bestow upon those that would keep the law As God testified of the curses that would come upon those That would forsake his law And you get the testimonies of God in Deuteronomy Chapters 31, 32, 30 In that area As God begins to testify to the people concerning the future If you will walk in my statutes If you will keep my ways Then I will bless thee And in blessing I will bless thee And I will multiply your supplies And your nation and all And yet if you do not keep my ordinances If you forsake my statutes Then God said I will forsake you And these judgments will come upon you So God sort of testifies as to What the future will hold for you If you will walk in his way And what it will hold for you If you walk contrary to his way David, a loving wise father Knowing the law of God Having meditated in the law of God day and night The scriptures were dear to David He honored and respected the scriptures And wanting the best for his son Encourages him to walk in the ways of the Lord To keep his statutes His commandments, his judgments And his testimonies And the result of that kind of life Is that God will prosper you In everything you do In the first psalm David spoke of The man who meditated in the law of God day and night As a tree planted by the rivers of living water Bringing forth his fruit in his season His leaf also shall not wither And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper People have a false concept of the law of God Somehow they think that it is restrictive That God is trying to restrain them From pleasurable experiences Or from a fulfilling, satisfying life The opposite is true God has given to us the rules Of a happy, successful, prosperous life But sometimes we don't agree with the rules that God has set Sometimes we try to say, well that rule doesn't apply to me Mine is a special case And we want God to make special exceptions for us And we think that we can go against the law of God And find prosperity, find success Or find happiness, not so You might find temporary success Prosperity and happiness But the long term effect will be absolute misery If you could only sit Where we as pastors often have to sit And listen to the tales of woe that are poured out Because a person thought that they could violate the law of God And get by with it They thought that they could go their own way Choose their own path and find happiness But they found the tragic bitterness That comes from breaking the law of God The misery, the suffering And what they thought would bring them such pleasure and joy and fulfillment Led them to a horrible emptiness And to awful misery, to a hell on earth The law of the Lord is perfect Converting the soul The testimonies of the Lord are true and righteous altogether More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb How important that we keep the law of the Lord Not only will it bring prosperity And happiness, success But it brings us that glorious fulfillment of God's promises and testimonies To those that would walk in His way God gave to David a special promise That if his children would walk in the ways of the Lord In truth, with all their heart, with all their soul There would not fail of thee a man on the throne of Israel And so David's encouragement to Solomon to keep the laws of God Because I want to see the succession on the throne If you are obedient, you keep the ways of the Lord With all your heart and all your soul Notice that God's promise to David was conditional Conditional upon his children walking in truth With all their heart and soul His children unfortunately did not As testifies the prophets Jeremiah, who was there at the time of Zedekiah And these descendants of David Who turned away from God, turned their backs on God And suffered that horrible calamity of captivity in Babylon Bound, their eyes put out, carried away captive to the enemy's country King Zedekiah And thus the descendants of David ceased from the throne Because they did not keep the covenant that God had made Or God's testimony And as God testified, if you will not walk in my ways Then I'm going to bring your enemies upon you And they shall overthrow you They will carry you away captive And God tells of all of the things that has happened to those people Because they turned their back upon the ways of the Lord Now David turns his attention to Joab Joab was a cousin to David He was the head over David's army He was an extremely powerful man A valiant warrior A man of wisdom But Joab was guilty of premeditated murder Joab had killed both Abner and Amasa Killed them in cold blood He had killed many in war, that was excusable But the cold-blooded killings of Abner and Amasa Should, under the law, be punished with death In fact, when a person committed first-degree murder under the law He could not offer any sacrifice for expiation of his guilt Now because of the tremendous power of Joab David was reluctant to bring to bear the law upon him Now David, having just said to Solomon Keep the law of God Probably realized, yikes, I haven't And he realized that in the case of Joab and Shimei That he had failed to keep the law of God Shimei was a blasphemer And the blasphemer also was to be put to death But David, in a moment of generosity Excused the guy, his blasphemy But now he's telling Solomon, now you keep the judgments David had not kept the judgments And so he is encouraging Solomon now To take care of his unfinished business In keeping the judgments And thus bringing these two men to justice Who had violated the law and the commandments of the Lord Some people look upon this as a personal vendetta I don't, I think that David was gripped in his heart As he was charging Solomon Suddenly the Spirit spoke to him and said Hey David, what about you? As so often when we are talking to people about certain issues The Spirit will say, hey wait a minute, what about you? And we have to look at ourselves and we see that sometimes We are advocating to others something that we haven't done ourselves And I believe that David felt the guilt And thus he is commanding now his son Solomon to take care Of these two men who had violated the law of God And according to the law of God Should have been put to death Now David also Had seen the judgment of God Brought against the house of Saul Long after Saul's death Because of Saul's Treatment of the Gibeonites And you remember it was just a few weeks ago that We studied how the men of Gibeon Demanded that there would be Seven of Saul's descendants hung For the crime that Saul had done The plague had come in the land and David sought the Lord And the Lord said the plague is because of the Bad treatment that Saul gave the Gibeonites So David realized that if he didn't Keep God's judgments That this guilty Joab who had the blood of these men upon his hands Could then come upon David's house And David's family for his failure And so he orders Solomon in order that David's house might be Guiltless from the blood shed of these innocent men That Joab be punished for the crime So that the blood would come upon the house of Joab For the things that he had done And so we find David saying You know what Joab the son of Zariah did to me What he did to the two captains of the host of Israel Unto Abner the son of Ner and unto Amasa the son of Jether Whom he slew and shed the blood of war in peace There wasn't any war these guys had come peaceably And he put the blood of war upon his girdle That was about his loins And on his shoes that were at his feet when he Stuck them with the Spear the blood came out and covered Joab his girdle and on down to his shoes Do therefore according to thy wisdom But don't let his gray head go down to the grave in peace But show kindness Unto the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite Let them be of those that eat at your table Because they came to my aid when I was Fleeing from Absalom your brother And now there's this other guy Shimei The son of Gerah a Benjamai de Barhurim Which cursed me with a grievous curse In the day when I went to Mahanaim But he came down to meet me at Jordan And I swear to him by the Lord saying I'll not put you to death with the sword When David was fleeing from Absalom This is the guy you remember that came out and cursed David Threw dirt in the air threw rocks at David and David's general Wanted to go up and take his head off He said let me go up David I'll take that guy's head off For cursing you like that and David said no let him curse Maybe God said go out and curse David And so David let him go Now when David was coming back People were coming down to bring David back Absalom was put to death And so Shimei was down there and said oh David I'm sorry I didn't mean it David said it's okay it's alright forget it But in reality this man had cursed the anointing of God and thus There was that penalty of the law Which David had not meted out And so he is telling Solomon To take care of him Now therefore hold him not guiltless For you're a wise man you know what you ought to do unto him But his gray head bring it down to the grave with blood So Last words David slept then with his fathers And was buried in the city of David We'll return with more of our verse by verse study Through the book of 1st Kings in our next lesson And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now I'd like to remind you that if you missed Any part of today's message or perhaps you'd like to order A copy for that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting one of our Customer service representatives at And they'd be more than happy to assist you with the ordering details Simply call And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time Once again our toll free number And for your added convenience You can order online anytime When you go to And while you're there be sure to browse through the 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In following after him In Jesus' name I'd like to invite you to listen and watch This year's Senior Pastors Conference on DVD Now available to the public Join guest speakers like Pastor Chuck Smith The Bible is the final authority For our faith and our practice And not part of it but the whole of it Pastor Brian Brodersen And as we look at all of this today we realize as good as our arguments might be We better have something beyond that Pastor Damian Kyle But every Christian is going to need the fullness of what is ours in Christ To be able to stand and be a witness for the Lord And Pastor Greg Glory Ultimately in heaven we will look back and say all things indeed did work together for good May each of us experience that special touch from the Lord And may he give us ears to hear To order your copy on DVD with a bonus MP3 Please call The Word for Today at 800-272-9673 Or visit us online at thewordfortoday.org This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, 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