So, I'm going to ask you tonight to turn to the book of 1 Kings chapter 2. 1 Kings chapter 2. And we are going to look at verses 13 through 46. First Kings chapter 2 verses 13 through 46. And in your pew Bibles that will be found on page 386. Starting at verse 13. Now Adonijah the son of Haggath came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. So she said, do you come peaceably? And he said, peaceably. Moreover, he said, I have something to say to you. And she said, say it. Then he said, you know that the kingdom was mine, and all Israel set their expectations on me that I should reign. However, the kingdom has been turned over and has become my brother's, for it was his from the Lord. Now I ask one petition of you. Do not deny me. And she said to him, say it. Then he said, please speak to King Solomon for he will not refuse you that he may give me Abishag the Shunammite as wife. So Bathsheba said, very well, I will speak for you to the king. Bathsheba therefore went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her and bowed down to her and sat down on his throne and had a throne set for the king's mother. So she sat at his right hand. Then she said, I desire one small petition of you. Do not refuse me. And the king said to her, ask it, my mother, for I will not refuse you. So she said, let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah, your brother, as wife. And King Solomon answered and said to his mother, now why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also? For he is my older brother. for him and for Abitur the priest and for Joab the son of Zeruah. Then King Solomon swore by the Lord saying, may God do so to me and more also if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life. Now therefore, as the Lord lives, who has confirmed me and set me on the throne of David my father, and who has established a house for me as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death today. So King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and he struck him down, and he died. And to Abiatar the priest, the king said, go to Anathoth, to your own fields, for you are deserving of death, but I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and because you were afflicted every time my father was afflicted. So Solomon removed Abiatar from being priest to the Lord that he might fulfill the word of the Lord which he spoke concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh. Then news came to Joab, for Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom. So Joab fled to the tabernacle of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the altar. And King Solomon was told, Joab has fled to the tabernacle of the Lord. There he is by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, saying, go strike him down. So Benaiah went to the tabernacle of the Lord and said to him, thus says the king, come out. And he said, no, but I will die here. And Benaiah brought back word to the king saying, thus said Joab, and thus he answered me. Then the king said to him, Do as he has said, and strike him down, and bury him, that you may take away from me and from the house of my father the innocent blood which Joab shed. So the Lord will return his blood on his head, because he struck down two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, Abner the son of Ner, the commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jethart, the commander of the army of Judah. though my father David did not know it. Their blood therefore shall return unto the head of Joab and upon the head of his descendants forever. But upon David and his descendants, upon his house and his throne, there shall be peace forever from the Lord. So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and struck and killed him, and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness. The king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in his place over the army and the king put Zadok the priest in the place of Abitur. Then the king sent and called for Shammai and said to him, build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there and do not go out from there anywhere. For it shall be on the day you go out and cross the brook Kidron, know for certain you shall surely die. your blood shall be on your own head. And Shammai said to the king, the saying is good. As my lord the king has said, so your servant shall do. So Shammai dwelt in Jerusalem many days. Now it happened at the end of three years that two slaves of Shammai ran away to Achish, the son of Mekhi, king of Gath. And they told Shammai saying, look, your slaves are in Gath. So Shammai arose, saddled his donkey, and went to Achish at Gath to seek his slaves. And Shammai went and brought his slaves from Gath. And Solomon was told that Shammai had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had come back. Then the king sent and called for Shammai and said to him, did I not make you swear by the Lord and warn you, saying, know for certain that on the day you go out and travel anywhere, you shall surely die? And you said to me, the word I have heard is good. Why then have you not kept the oath of the Lord and the commandment I gave you? The king said moreover to Shammai, you know as your heart acknowledges all the wickedness that you did to my father David, therefore the Lord will return your wickedness on your own head. But King Solomon shall be blessed and the throne of David shall be established forever before the Lord forever. So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and he went out and struck him down and he died. Thus the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon. Apologies for the long scripture reading. In terms of this evening's message, just a quick reminder, the last two times I spoke we have been in the book of 1 Kings and we have been covering sort of the end of King David's life as the kingdom was transferred to his son Solomon. And we saw that even though it was successful ultimately, it was messy at times. There was an attempt to steal the kingdom out from the hand of Solomon, from Adonijah, and from a few of the other officers in the court. And what we see here is ultimately that we are reaching a point where Solomon is now on the throne, King David has passed, as of verse 12, in this chapter, and now Solomon begins his reign. And this portion of scripture, as I have dug into it, could very well be known, in many cases, as the people versus Solomon. Now, for all of you who have ever watched daytime court TV, first of all, Hopefully that's not your regular routine. But you know that in terms of cases, when we say the people versus Solomon, as some people read this text that I just read, people will read through it and they will judge Solomon based upon the actions and what we have heard or what we read. And we're going to cover that tonight. And we're going to see whether that is reasonable and whether that is rational. But to begin, what I would say is first impressions are important, especially for new kings and new leaders. You know, in this day and age, even in this, in our current modern day landscape, if you think about it, whenever there is a new political leader come in, whatever level, whatever it may be, one of the questions or one of the things that many people ask, what are you going to do on day one? Or what are you going to do in your first 100 days? Or what are you going to do in the first X amount of time? Basically, what will your first impressions be? Because at that point in time, you can basically set the tone for what is to come. And as we approach today's reading, as I said, David has now passed. Solomon must establish his authority. And for those who were here last time, many of the names that I said would be familiar. But just as a reminder for those who may not be completely up to date on all things First Kings, All the names that we've read through here basically were set out by David to his son Solomon to take care of. It was essentially work that had been undone by David and David told Solomon this is what you need to look after when you become king. So Solomon, we see, starts to establish his authority by working on this list that had been undone. And he's gonna start the process of cleaning up. And the list of the four characters, or the four people that need to be dealt with, as we went through the reading, is Adonijah, Abiatar, Joab, and Shammai. So we're going to read through these or run through these and we'll see how Solomon's first acts measure up against what is reasonable and whether the people have a case to say that Solomon might have done wrong. So we'll start first with Adonijah. Adonijah is a good place to start. As a reminder, his crime primarily is in chapter one, he attempted to steal the throne from his brother Solomon. He tried to take the throne from David while David was old, and he tried to establish himself as king, even though he knew that he was not to be king. And at the end of chapter one, what we read was ultimately a reprieve from Solomon. If we just turn back, well, either turn back a page or at the start of chapter two there, we just read the end of chapter one. And we look at verses 50 to 53, what we read there, now Adonijah was afraid of Solomon. So he arose and went to and took hold of the horns of the altar. And it was told Solomon saying, Indeed, Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon, for look, he has taken hold of the horns of the altar, saying, let King Solomon swear to me today that he will not put his servant to death with the sword. Then Solomon said, if he proves himself a worthy man, not one hair of him shall fall to the earth, but if wickedness is found in him, he shall die. So King Solomon sent them to bring him down from the altar and he came and fell down before King Solomon and Solomon said to him, go to your house. In most cases, Solomon would not have been judged too harshly by dealing with Adonijah at the end of chapter one. But He says to him, if you prove yourself a worthy man, you will live. So, what has changed? Well, let's look at how Adonijah acts in chapter two. First of all, what we see is Adonijah acts first. He goes to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, and he requests for Abishag to become his wife. Which on the surface, in and of itself, doesn't seem to be such a major request. But if we dig deep enough, the request is not so innocent. First of all, We must ask ourselves, why did he go to Bathsheba? Why did he not go to Solomon himself? And we see, Adonijah basically gives the answer to this as he's speaking to Bathsheba, where he basically acknowledges, well, if I ask him, I probably won't get it. But if you ask him, I will get it. He wants to somehow use the fact that Solomon's mother is going to make the request to somehow make it better. Well, what I would say to that is any parent here, if their child wants something and then they have to go to somebody else to make the request, that suddenly makes that request seem a little fishy. If it's that important to him, he can go and talk to Solomon directly himself. So if we see that, first and foremost. And then we look at the request itself. Why would he ask for Abishag as wife? Well, it could be something innocent. It could be that he desired to have Abishag as his wife. But, what we can also say in those times, Abishag was noted in chapter one. Abishag was the woman that they chose to help King David in his later years. She was never a wife directly or a concubine with David, but she was connected to King David and in his final days because she was the one who helped keep him warm. So she had prominence in this respect. And in those days, if one would, could claim to marry one who was formerly linked to the throne, they could themselves start to lead to a claim to the throne on their own. So in this case, by giving Abishag his wife to Dodonijah, it might be giving Adonijah credit and credence to the people of Israel that he had a standard, he had a stature in the land. So there is that. But we can also consider his words. Look at how he makes the request. Not only does he request it from Bathsheba, He basically comes to her and twice Bathsheba has to say, say it. What is your request? And we see in verse 15 as he starts to make his request. You know that the kingdom was mine and that all Israel had set their expectations on me that I should reign. However, the kingdom has been turned over and has become my brother's for it was from the Lord. It shows here that he still seems to have some ambition. He is basically saying that kingdom that Solomon sits on right there, that was mine. I had it. Now he ultimately says it was from the Lord, but why does he have to say that? Why does he have to note that? It almost as if like, well, I had it and I gave it to Solomon because I was a nice guy. So now please give me this request. What we see here is that the request on the surface can appear very innocent enough, but as we dig deeper into what the meaning of the request was, who he requested it of, the words he used to how he requested it, it all starts to add up that it's not so innocent. That maybe here he did not have the best of intentions. So it's here where readers in the past, or some readers as they read this account, become critical of Solomon. Because they will simply say, well, he just made a simple request, it was innocent. He says that he refers to the Lord. He means, well, why would you be mad? Why would you do bad to him? And one could read it that way, but based upon the information presented, we can also say Solomon would not be wrong to be suspicious. He would not be wrong based upon how the request was made. He would not be wrong with the words of how the request was made. He would not be wrong to be suspicious for the request itself. And additionally, as we look at here, scripture does not necessarily seem to tell us who the good guy and the bad guy is based upon this request. It just tells us what the request was. But what we do know is when kings do wrong, God generally does act and brings people to light to challenge the king on those decisions. And ultimately here, Solomon is not indicted as we continue through the scripture for his actions. So either way one views this, Solomon ultimately sees this as an act of aggression against his throne. And he is angered. And he recalls, he remembers what he said to Adonijah. And Adonijah has basically gone against the command of showing that he is there for good. And he ultimately sends Benaiah out and Adonijah is killed. But what I would basically, before we move on, just sort of point out here is the order of events. Adonijah acted first. Much like when he tried to steal the kingdom, Adonijah acted first. Solomon reacted to what was perceived as an attack on him. And ultimately, he took his actions. Now, as we move forward, we see the case of Abiatar. Abiatar was the priest, and he was also part of the conspiracy to make Adonijah king. And in this case, if we were to look at the order of events, we read that Solomon went to Abiatar directly. Abiatar had done nothing since he acted in the conspiracy, and Solomon went to him. So Solomon reaches out first. And what we see here is his judgment is pronounced in verse 26. where it says, and to Abiathar the priest, the king said, go to Anahoth to your own fields for you are deserving of death, but I will not put you to death at this time because you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father, David, because you were afflicted every time my father was afflicted. So ultimately what we see here is he is told to leave his position, to go to the fields of his father's, He is told that he is deserving of death, but he is spared that death. And ultimately his punishment was he was banished from the priesthood. And as far as we can, for the most part that I can see, this is the last word we ever read of a biotar. He's essentially retired as a priest and he does not return. And we see that he lives. Solomon initiates this event and he allows him to live, but he removes him from service. He has disqualified himself from being a priest. And we can see in other portions of scripture what happens when priests disqualify themselves from service. They need to be taken away from that service. And that's what Solomon does. So that is the case of Abiatar. Next we see the case of Joab. Joab can start to see the writing on the wall. It says, if we look at the transition from verse 27 to 28, 27 being where it sort of closes off the book from a biotar, it says, then news came to Joab for Joab had defected to Adonijah. Essentially, Joab can start to read the news. He knows Adonijah has met his end. He knows Abiatar has been banished. He's not a dumb man. He can start to see the trend. He participated in the crime that conspired with Adonijah. He was part of David's list of people to cover and to look at. He had been guilty of the deaths of Abner and Amasa in his service to David. And he senses what is to come. So he acts first. And in verse 28 we read that he fled to the tabernacle of the Lord and took hold of the horn to the altar, similar to what Adonijah did in chapter one. Joab's guilt and his actions are clear. The Bible makes it clear that there's no adjudication necessary or required. Joab has got guilty blood on his hands. He had served David mostly well, but he had never answered for the deaths of Abner and Amasa. And if we go back to 2 Samuel 3, we see a little bit of this just as a, just to sort of put in perspective of his crimes. in 2 Samuel 3 39 where David speaks, and I am weak today though anointed king and these men the sons of Zeruah are too harsh for me the Lord shall repay the evildoer according to his wickedness. So even going back to this point we see that Joab was going to be ultimately held responsible for his actions. And we see that he flees to the tabernacle and he seeks assurances that he'll be spared. In verses 29 to 31, basically he says, he clings to the horns of the tabernacle or the altar and he basically says, I will not come out, but I will die here. And it's kind of interesting that Benaiah sends word back to Solomon, this is what he said. And Solomon answers, do as he has said. And he is struck down and he is buried. But what we also see here in verse 32 and 33 is also sort of a further explanation of the crimes of Joab and why he needed to be killed. In verses 32 and 33 of chapter 2 we read, So the Lord will return his blood on his head, because he struck down two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, Abner the son of Ner, the commander of the army of Israel, and Amasah the son of Jether, the commander of the army of Judah, though my father David did not know it. Their blood shall therefore return upon the head of Joab and upon the head of his descendants forever. But upon David and his descendants, upon his house and his throne, there shall be peace forever from the Lord." So once again we see that Joab initiates an action and Solomon reacts and Joab is killed. Finally we see the case of Shammai. Shammai was not part of the army. Shammai was not part of the priesthood. Shammai is in many ways sort of outside of the kingdom, but he was noted because as David was fleeing from Absalom, when Absalom had conspired against the kingdom, he had cursed David. And just as a reminder of that, we will also turn back to 2 Samuel 16, 2 Samuel 16 and in verses 5 to 10 we read there, Now when King David came to Beharim, there was a man from the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shammai, the son of Gerah, coming from there. He came out, cursing continuously as he came. And he threw stones at David and all the servants of King David. And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and also on his left. And Shammai said thus when he cursed, come out, come out, you bloodthirsty man, you rogue. The Lord has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul in whose place you have reigned. And the Lord has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son. So now you are caught in your own evil because you are a bloodthirsty man." That was the crime of Shammai. He had cursed David. And in this case, once again, we see that Solomon initiates the interaction. And in verses 36 to 38, Shammai is given a deal. Go to your house, stay there, do not go beyond your own lands, and you will be okay. But if you cross over, Lebruchedron, know for certain you shall surely die." So, essentially, stay in this place and I will leave you alone. If you go beyond this, you will die. And we even see Shammai says, the saying is good, as my Lord the King has said, so your servant will do. And at this point in time, Chapter 2 should end. All Shammai had to do was stay in his land. But it doesn't end. Because what we read is Shammai a few years later seems to forget the deal. He has two servants escape and to get them back he must cross over into the territory he's banned from. And he gets the servants back. And Solomon hears and ultimately holds him accountable. In verses 43 and 44 he pronounces judgment. Why then have you not kept the oath of the Lord and the commandment that I gave you? The king said moreover to Shammai, you know as your heart acknowledges all the wickedness that you did to my father David, therefore the Lord will return your wickedness on your own head. And ultimately Shammai is killed. That is the case that people have against Solomon. The deaths of Adonijah, Joab, and Shammai. Well, what can we learn from this? And how do we judge? Well, as we learned in the first part of chapter two, actions have consequences. And in three of the four cases, In the cases of Adonijah, in the cases of Joab, in the case of Shammai, what we read is Solomon either was pushed to action or he made the deal and essentially the deal was broken. The deaths of Adonijah and Joab were initiated by Adonijah and Joab. The death of Shammai was only necessary because he broke the very treaty he made. So in three of the four cases where there was a death, we can say that ultimately Solomon was not the aggressor. And the other case where we see that Solomon initiated it, Abiatar, he's fine. He was retired. Nothing happened to him other than that he was banished. So, as we consider the case of the people versus Solomon, some, as I said at the start, have read this as an account and indicted David and Solomon for basically abusing their power, or going too far, or essentially taking it out on their enemies when it wasn't deserved. And at first reading it, what I would say is reading it, if we read it that way, we are reading it way too generously to the conspirators. And we are misreading the Bible as it is presented. And then considering the four individuals judged, three are killed and each made an action to cause basically their own fate. If we consider the full context, Solomon ultimately was pushed to make an action that would be right and good for his kingdom. What we also see is through these actions, Solomon's kingdom is established. As Pastor Jesse has stated many times, repetition is a pattern in the Bible that we need to follow, or that we need to make note of. If the writers of the Bible have given us a fact, it is notable for us to see it. If it is repeated, it is all the more notable. Well, in verses 12, 24, and 45 to 46 of chapter two, we basically have reference to the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever, or the throne is established to King Solomon. The kingdom is established to Solomon through these actions. Now, would it have been established if he had spared one of these men? Possibly, maybe. But what we see is the pests or the leftover work from David are now eliminated. And what we can see is Solomon can work on building his kingdom, building the kingdom of God. And as we will see in the next few chapters, Solomon is established by God. Further, what I would say here to you is this, if Solomon was wrong in any of his actions, God would have called him out for it. We saw what happened when Saul erred as king. The kingdom was ripped from him. Prophets were sent to him and judgment was made. Even when David sinned, God would send Nathan or other messengers to make sure that it was noted. That is not done here. We can read from that that Solomon's acts are just. We can also see from this that the kingdom's work requires a proactive approach. In one of the aids that Pastor Jesse gave me for the book of First Kings, they tell the story of Officer Reinhold. Officer Reinhold, it was reported in the Washington Times, he was abducted. The Washington Times reported on the abduction of a police officer. He served in a patrol car. He served in various locations in the area of Maryland, and his job was to deter speeding motorists. So basically, you know, For any of you who have the GPS systems of today, he was the one that essentially when you get that little warning that there is a police coming up. And to do his job effectively, he had to move and shift his location on a regular basis. Once he was in a location for two days, and the people started to notice. and the people started to figure it out. And what happened is ultimately someone smashed his car window and captured him. Now, at this point, we should all be, this is the point in the story where we're all kind of shocked and awed that a police officer was captured. Well, the truth was Officer Reinhold was a mannequin dressed as a patrolman that was placed in a car And ultimately, the people, once he was in the location for too long, they just got rid of him. But what I see in this is, you know, Officer Reinhold could not serve in that function long term in a passive role. And as a mannequin, unfortunately, that's all he could do. To actually serve in that role long-term, the police would have to take active and proactive measures. They couldn't just sit back and let, essentially, the job be done. The kingdom's work here requires a proactive approach. Solomon needed to take a proactive approach. He couldn't just let these people who had shown themselves to conspire against him in the past to come to power or to be seen to be given to essentially no judgment for their actions. And what we can see here is As we look at ourselves, we can look at how we work in the church. The gospel's work requires us to be proactive. We are commanded to be proactive. As a people, we are commanded to study. We are commanded to pray. We are commanded to grow closer with Christ. We are commanded to become better versions of ourselves on a daily, regular basis, and in doing so we can serve better. As a church, we are called to be proactive. Churches are not just successful just by simply opening the doors. If a church cries, you know, woe is me because no one is there, And all they can basically say is, well, I opened the door. It was open by 11 o'clock. You know, it was open by 6.30 tonight. We even opened it at six. You had 30 minutes to come here. We did our job. Well, that's not what God has commanded us to do. We are commanded to go out to the people. We are commanded to be proactive. And we can even see this in Ennerdale as we have looked over the last 12 years, this being the last message of the year. As we look at ourselves, as we look at where we were 12 months ago, compared to where we were now. Pastor Jesse and Pastor Ryan and I were talking about that earlier this afternoon. One thing I think we can say is we are more proactive as a church now than we were 12 months ago. And if I were to go back and look at the attendance sheet, because we keep the attendance, and I was to go back and look at the attendance for the last service of 2024, and I were to look at the count, and I would compare that to today, I think it's fair to say our number tonight is much higher. Now, that doesn't mean we reach a point, it's like, okay, I've done enough work, I'm done. It's now someone else's turn, I'm tired. We are entitled to our breaks, but we are supposed to be proactive in our work in the Kingdom. And ultimately, as we look to our purpose, our purpose in the Kingdom is to glorify God. The Kingdom is only secured with action. We can't glorify God passively, we must be active in doing so. As we look at individual churches today, churches can be judged upon their success in many ways. Some could look at it based on money. You can say, well that church got more donations than anybody else, they must be really successful. But that's really not an accurate measure. Some can look at it based on attendance. They can basically say, well, you know, like this church over here has to have three services and they pack them out and it fills the auditorium of a thousand people and, you know, it's all great. So something must be really good happening there. Once again, that's not really the measure that God has. The churches that are and will be successful are the churches that will go out there and are proactive and are seeking to win people to the kingdom, that are seeking to win people to Christ. And as we go forward, I think what we can learn from this year is first, we were not always proactive enough. We sat back, we opened the door. Sometimes we were even late opening the door. But as we can see the difference in some simple actions, such as the ministry on Sunday afternoon of handing out tracts, preaching, carol singing, all the packages that were created and passed out, what we can see is that these types of actions are what wins people. And that is what we need to remember. And that is what we need to continue to do. So ultimately what I would say is, in the people versus Solomon, if I am the judge, Solomon is innocent. And what we can see there further is that we must be proactive in the Kingdom. As we go into the New Year, we must be proactive to win people to the Lord in 2025. We must do so in our interactions with our family, with our friends, and everything in between. And if we do that, it does not mean that this time next year the Church will be packed out But it does mean that the kingdom will be stronger. And as long as we do our work to establish the kingdom, we are doing our job. And with that, I will close and call Pastor Jesse back.