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[0:00] Open your Bibles to 1 Kings. And we'll go to chapter 2 and verse 12. We're going to start our journey now through the kings. Stephen said I sure did spend a long time in Samuel.

[0:11] And so I'll just say this. We're probably going to spend a long time in the kings too. So these are long books. Sorry, I didn't write them. I just read them. But we're going to try to cover two chapters tonight.

[0:23] Solomon gets established as the king of Israel in tonight's message. In this passage of scripture, we're going to see some mistakes that David made as he tried to raise his children.

[0:38] We're going to see some things he did right. And we're going to see him as he challenges his son Samson. So let's dig into 1 Kings chapter 2 verse 12. This is, I think, the theme of what's happening in these two chapters.

[0:53] Then sat Solomon upon the throne of David his father. And his kingdom was established greatly. You're going to align that in that verse. His kingdom was established greatly.

[1:04] Chapter 2 verse 45. And King Solomon shall be blessed. And the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever. You're going to align the word established.

[1:16] Then you're going to align the word forever. I know that you may not understand this or believe this or accept this. But it is a biblical truth that God has promised David his throne forever.

[1:30] He will have a descendant to sit on the throne of David throughout eternity. His name is Jesus. The son of David who will sit on the throne of Israel. The throne of David forever.

[1:43] Which is an honor and a privilege for the nation of Israel. Verse 46. So the king commanded Benaniah, the son of Jehoiathai. Which went out and fell upon him that he died.

[1:55] There's going to be a lot of killing tonight. So you better put your seatbelt on. And the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon. Father, help us tonight to learn from your word and apply it to our lives.

[2:08] So for your name to be glorified and I'll praise you for all you do. In Jesus' name. Amen. I couldn't read two chapters, almost four pages in my Bible. So I want to tell you the story and I want you to walk your way through the story.

[2:20] 1 Kings chapter 1 and verse 1. David, the king, is old. And the years have not been too kind to him. And he is covered up with a lot of clothes.

[2:31] He's in bed and there's no electric blankets and no central heat in there. And he can't get warm. And so they bring a young virgin girl in to be his bed warmer.

[2:44] And she comes in. She loves him. She's beautiful. She serves him. But they don't have any relations. When you're reading the Bible, you're trying to figure out how to preach things.

[2:54] This is one of those stories you read and you're like, Okay, let me see how I figure out what happens here. I think I have an idea. We'll look at that in a second. Then there's one of David's sons. You know, he's got a bunch of them because the guy made a major mistake.

[3:08] He married more than one woman. Say amen. God made Adam and Eve and not Eve 1, Eve 2 and Eve 3. So he meant for you to marry one and stay with her until you died.

[3:20] Could I get an amen right there? And so he married a bunch of women. And so look at verse 5. Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, exalted himself, saying, I will be king.

[3:30] And he prepared him chariots and horsemen and 50 men to run before him. So now that David's old and it's pretty obvious and his body's not getting heat any longer, so it's like, well, the old man's old and he's dying and he can't even stay warm anymore.

[3:43] And, hey, I'd like to be king. I think it would be a great idea for me to be king. I want to be king. So he begins to try to form a government. And in verse 7, he goes out and he gets Joab, David's right-hand man, his general, and he gets him on his side and he gets Abiathar.

[4:00] He needs him a priest. And they helped him try to become king. He needs a general with lots of influence. He needs a priest that's respected. Both of these guys have been associated with David.

[4:12] He chooses to very carefully not invite certain people. 1 Kings 1 and verse 8. I mean, when you're a cunning snake and you're doing wrong, you know who to invite and who not to invite.

[4:24] You know who wants to help split the church and who doesn't want to help split the church. You know who wants to do wrong and who doesn't want to do right. Who doesn't want to do wrong. And that's in 1 Kings 1 and verse 8. And he doesn't invite Sadoc and he doesn't invite the mighty man who will be taking Joab's place.

[4:39] And he doesn't invite Nathan. He doesn't even invite Shimei, which is astounding to me. And he doesn't invite the mighty man to go in with him. Then he throws himself a party. Whenever you're going to have a rebellion, you're going to have to throw your own party.

[4:52] Because he can't get the king to do it. So he decides to throw a party. Chapter 1 and verse 9. And he slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle. And he called all the brethren of the king's sons and all the men of Judah.

[5:03] And the king's servants said, Y'all come. I'm having a party. I'm the king. I'm going to be anointed king. That's my plan. That's what I want to do. And I'm working on it. And Nathan heard about it.

[5:16] Nathan is the guy, if you recall, that when David sent to Bathsheba, Nathan's the guy that goes to him and said, You are the man. And so he goes to Bathsheba. That's an interesting thing to me.

[5:26] We don't have time to look into it. But if anybody would have hated Nathan, the man, it would seem to me that it would be Bathsheba. Because she's the lady committing adultery with David when Nathan comes and points his finger.

[5:38] But things have gotten right enough that she goes and says, Hey, they're trying to make your husband's other son with another woman trying to make him king.

[5:51] And we know David wanted Solomon to be the king. And we've got to work this out. So they make up a plan. And so the plan is, you know, Bathsheba's going to go in and she's going to say, Hey, Dave, didn't you promise me Solomon was going to be king?

[6:04] I think that's exactly what you told me. I'd just like to know it. He said, Of course he's going to be king. She said, So do you know anything about the guy that's setting up his own kingdom, your other son, Adonijah?

[6:15] Do you know about him? And David was like, I don't know about him. And then when she leaves the room, here comes Nathan in the room. And Nathan walks in the room and Nathan says, Hey, David, just wanted to check with you to see if you knew something. Have you heard the latest?

[6:27] So, I mean, this is like Twitter and Facebook working together. I mean, they have planned a social media campaign to get it all worked out. They want to save Bathsheba's life and Solomon's life.

[6:39] And so David sends and says, Y'all go ahead and get Bathsheba and tell her to come back here. And she comes back and he says, Hey, your boy's going to be the king. That ain't happening. Adonijah is not going to be king.

[6:50] You're going to, your boy's going to be king. You're not going to die. Solomon's going to sit on my throne. And as soon as that happens, again, I don't know how news travels so quickly. There are no telephones at all right now.

[7:01] But somebody runs and they tell everybody who's meeting with Adonijah in his party. And all the guests get really scared. Everybody starts sneaking out of the room.

[7:11] Everybody's like, I don't know this guy. I don't know why I was at this party. And Adonijah runs and he grabs the horns of the altar so he can get some help. And so David gets ready to die.

[7:22] And he teaches his son Solomon how to be king. That's 1 Kings 2 and verse 1. Look at it. Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die. And he charged Solomon his son.

[7:34] And Solomon then will carry out his instructions about what he's going to do. By the way, he's going to end up killing a bunch of people. He's going to end up killing a bunch of people. And he will be established as king.

[7:46] That's basically a real quick reading of those two chapters. So let me walk you through some things I think we can apply to our lives. Go with me to 1 Kings 1 and verse 6.

[7:58] Here's some mistakes. It seems to say the Bible says that David made raising his children. And we are parents or grandparents or going to be or hoping to be parents or grandparents.

[8:12] And here's some things that's bringing about this problem. Verse 6. And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why did you do that?

[8:24] Why hast thou done so? And he also was a very goodly man. And his mother bare him after Absalom. First thing, let me just say this. I'm not even going to mention this one as far as I don't have it written down here.

[8:37] But David ought not have been married to all them women. Amen. We're one man, one woman, one lifetime. That's the kind of people we are. Amen. One man, one woman, one lifetime.

[8:49] That means no porn either because that's a woman that you're looking at, you dingbat. You're not supposed to look at her. You're not supposed to think about her. You're supposed to have one woman. You're supposed to have one man and one lifetime.

[9:02] But I wish you'd take the Bible right quick and look if you would at verse 6 and just underline some words that I think you could meditate on and probably do as good or better than I could. Would you underline he didn't displease him?

[9:13] Underline that. He did not displease him. And the interesting word that's used there, at any time, he never displeased his son.

[9:23] He never asked him, underline this, why'd you do that? He never even said to his boy when he knocked his sister down, when he beat somebody up, when he ate a cookie he wasn't supposed to eat, he never said, son, what are you doing?

[9:36] He never even said that to him. And then there's some hints in the verse, I think, he was a goodly man. That means he was good looking. Underline that. You know, the curse of being a good looking kid, I never had that problem.

[9:48] When I was born, my daddy and mothers told me later after they were grown, they said, you know, they said some people are beautiful babies. You weren't. They told me that my daddy said when he saw me that I was the ugliest baby he'd ever seen.

[10:03] I love my dad. And then underline this, he was born after Absalom. Would you underline that? After Absalom. Now think your way through it, and we're going to look at some Bible verses about child rearing.

[10:18] Because as we work our way through the Bible, we're not just trying to find Bible facts, we're trying to make an application to our life. So look at this, if you would. But his father had never disciplined his son. He'd never caused him to be sad.

[10:31] He spoiled his son. I don't even know if y'all use that term anymore. I know I'm one of the oldest people in the room. But you know, the Spanish word for it is to malcriar. It is to poorly raise.

[10:42] But what's happened is he's let this kid have anything he wants. It's a generation. And by the way, you know, the millennials are famous for being whiny kids. And Trent sent me a thing today to let me know why they're all like that.

[10:54] And that's because they had bad parents. There's a lot of truth to that. You can say amen right there. If they'd had a parent and told them no every now and then, they probably wouldn't have turned out to be a millennial. Amen. A whiny millennial anyway.

[11:06] He gave his son whatever he wanted to make him happy. He was more worried about his son's happiness than developing him as a man and developing his character.

[11:17] The boy always had gotten what he wanted, and now he wants the crown. Let's just stop there a second. You're a dad. There's nothing so sweet.

[11:29] My son is as big as I am, bigger than I am, and he's 41 years old. And so, I mean, when I look at him now, it's hard to even believe he was once a little baby. But I'll never forget the day I brought him home.

[11:40] I'll never forget the day I could put his little head here and his little backside here, and I walked all over the place and showed him off. I'll never. He went with me almost everywhere I preached. He went with me. He traveled me in the car when he was too low.

[11:50] There were no car seats. He sat in the floorboard, and we rode along there. He messed his diaper in. I just threw it away and took him home with nothing on the backside. I just told Betty, I said, he messed up, so I just brought him home to you.

[12:01] I didn't throw him away. I just threw the diaper away. Say amen. That was my kid. I was in love with that boy. I was so happy to have him, and you can be too, but you can mark this down.

[12:13] God expects your child to hear you done wrong. He gave you some stories. This is a horrible story. David's kids have all messed up.

[12:24] I mean, we've had a bunch of mess going, and now this boy is going to end up dead before the story's over tonight. He never questioned his son about why he was doing something.

[12:36] He indulged him. He never made him see that he'd made a mistake. He never caused him to feel guilt or responsibility for what he did. He never embarrassed him.

[12:47] It will soon be too late to do almost anything with your kid. And I'll just say this to you as an old man with grown kids, but if you wait till they're six, you've waited a long time, and you've wasted a lot of years.

[13:02] If you wait till they're ten, and you think, I'll get them under control by ten, no, every day you don't talk to those kids. You're going to make a mistake.

[13:13] He just enjoyed the fact that his son was so good looking, so special. His picture was on Facebook. They probably made pictures of him putting on the Gerber's baby bottle all over the city.

[13:27] I mean, he's proud of the way the boy looked. Our children are a gift from God, and they're wonderful, but they're not your children. They're only on loan to you from the God of heaven, and you are responsible to raise those children for Jesus.

[13:44] That will require your thinking about more than your happiness and the happiness of your child and the will of God for his life. And I'll just say this to you. You know, not disciplining a child is a lot easier than disciplining one.

[13:57] It's a lot easier to let them get away with it until they're older and you pay the price for it. Maybe a little guilt caused him not to want to see him hurt. I think that's why it says here, you know, this is after Absalom.

[14:11] He loved Absalom. Absalom's dead. Now I've got to be really kind to this boy. I don't know. Maybe he felt like he hadn't handled Absalom right and would do better now. But you can never let your mistakes make you not do right by your children.

[14:24] I just want to show you a couple of more things about this before I move on from it. 1 Samuel 3.13. Would you make a note of that in the margin and look it up in your Bible right now maybe? See, this is the same mistake that Eli made when he didn't correct his sons.

[14:39] The Bible shows us that these men of God didn't fix their children. Eli's boys are grown men. And the Bible says in 1 Samuel 3.13, For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows.

[14:55] Because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not. That is like one of the most horrible verses in the Bible to me as a dad.

[15:09] Eli had been the man of God. If anybody knows God, it's Eli. If anybody knows how to do what's right, it's Eli. If anybody knows the Bible, it's Eli. But Eli was so happy with his kids.

[15:19] He never disciplined. He never told them, bro. Now they're full grown men and it's too late. He never restrained them. This really hurt his sons more in the long run. If he just said no, it would have helped.

[15:31] They lose their future ministry. They lose their lives. They lose their reputation. I need to say this to you. He did talk to his sons. Open your bottle to 1 Samuel 2.22.

[15:46] Because I think you might think, you know, the fact is they have a saying in Spanish. They say speaking, they understand. Hablando se entiende. They say that if you talk to people, they'll understand.

[15:58] But then they have another saying that says, with blood, the letter enters. Give them a little, and they might learn much more than they would with a good talking to. I find it amazing.

[16:09] You're going to get mad at me tonight. But I find it amazing that you're reasoning with a two-year-old. I find it amazing that a 50-year-old, 40-year-old, 35-year-old, 30-year-old man is sitting down with a two-year-old and trying to discuss stuff.

[16:23] He don't need discussion. He needs a whooping. Fire me. I'm old anyway. 1 Samuel 2.22. The Bible says, Eli was very old.

[16:35] And he heard all that his sons did unto Israel. They're laying with the women in the assembly at the door of the tabernacle, door of the congregation. They're having sex at church.

[16:45] And he said, why do you do such things? I hear of your evil dealings by all those people. Everybody's talking about this. Everybody's talking about what wicked bums you are.

[16:57] How humiliating must that be to be the daddy? How humiliating must it be that everybody's talking. You walk down the street, everybody stops talking. But if you listen, you're going to talk about how your kid's a brat.

[17:09] But they're grown men now. Then he says to his sons in chapter 2 and verse 24, nay, my sons. No, boys. It's not a good report that I hear.

[17:20] You're making God's people do wrong. You make the Lord's people to transgress. Then he said, now, boys, listen to me. Let me reason with you. If one man sinned against another, the judge will judge him.

[17:36] But if a man sinned against the Lord, who do you think can pray for him now? Boys, you mess up. You're sinning against God. But they didn't listen to the voice of their father because the Lord would slay them.

[17:48] God's going to kill them. These guys have gone too far, and there's no mercy for them anymore. But they wouldn't listen to their father. They hearken not unto the voice of their father. There comes a time when it's too late to correct your children.

[18:07] And I would just say to you, there are some godly families in this church that you ought to watch. If you're the one of these softy softies, you might ought to listen and learn to some of the people that are disciplined in their children.

[18:18] If we love our children, we will correct them. Solomon said in Proverbs 22, 15, Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.

[18:37] All kids are foolish. All kids need to be corrected. Whoop him. Spank him. Solomon said, A spanking won't kill him, and it just might save him.

[18:52] It's Proverbs 23, 13. Withhold not correction from the child. For if you beat him with a rod, he shall not die. Just read that word beat.

[19:04] It's a little different. Everything changes the way we look at it. That just means if you spank him with a rod, it ain't going to kill him. That's just what, that's all it means. It doesn't mean they're trying to kill him.

[19:15] It said you beat him with a rod, you spank the boy, he ain't going to die. But if you beat him with a rod, he'll deliver his soul from hell. A spanking might help you with your children.

[19:28] If you do not discipline, you might get embarrassed. Proverbs 29, 15. The Bible said, The rod and reproof give wisdom. Look at that.

[19:39] The rod, discipline, and reproof give wisdom. Make you smart. Make you learn. Make you understand. Make you know what you're doing. But if you leave a child alone, he'll embarrass his mama.

[19:50] Read the verse. But a child left to himself brings his mother to shame. I know that there's been a lot of child abuse, and people have been too hard on kids, and that ought not ever happen.

[20:07] But a loving spanking is a wonderful thing. And a loving discipline to a child is a great thing. And you can get mad at me if you want, but the book of Proverbs is still the word of God.

[20:19] And God didn't write it just so we'd have filler. He didn't need a few extra pages, so he just put some blank pages in the Bible. He thinks, I know Solomon's one that used it.

[20:30] I show him to guys today. In fact, there's one of the guys that said, we're just meeting around a table talking about the Bible. One of them said, these words are in red in my Bible. I said, yeah, they always put the words of Jesus in red. But I don't use one in Bibles because if I did, all the words would be red.

[20:44] And the reason I said that is because I believe all these words are his words. See, I don't think he just spoke the ones he spoke. I think he even spoke the ones he didn't speak, and I proved that to them today, too. I think they liked it. It's a good book.

[20:57] Are you raising your children for the Lord Jesus or for yourself? And I'll just say this before I leave this up. I'm leaving this subject. But if you don't raise your children right, you may enjoy them now, but you won't enjoy them in the long run.

[21:13] Third thing I want to show you. David makes some wise decisions in preparing Solomon to reign. I love this part. It's like, Adonijah, you're dead meat, buddy. Before the end of the story, you'll be dead.

[21:24] He's going to be dead. Solomon is going to kill him. Solomon is going to have him killed. That's terrible. That's terrible. Solomon's going to have to kill his own half-brother. That's terrible.

[21:35] But David has learned a lot of things about the ministry and leadership and how sin can hurt you and your people. And so David talks to his son. But look at 1 Kings 2.11. He's been in the ministry as king 40 years.

[21:49] That's 1 Kings 2.11. In 1 Kings 2.1, he speaks directly, honestly, frankly with his son about life and ministry that's to follow. So in chapter 1, we've got Adonijah trying to take over.

[22:01] In chapter 2, David's telling Solomon how to rule. And by the end of the chapter, a lot of people are going to be dead and the kingdom is going to be established. But can I just say a few things to you? Our children need direct, frank talks with us about the Lord Jesus Christ.

[22:16] I love this story. I wish you could imagine it with me. In chapter 1, he's so dead that he gets no heat. In chapter 1, he's so dead that they put a beautiful virgin girl in bed with him and he doesn't do anything.

[22:30] He is so dead. And then they find out that Adonijah is trying to take over the kingdom. And they tell David. And so David said, well, bring my boy in here. And they said, I don't know how they did it.

[22:40] Prop him up in bed. I don't know what they did. Had one of them buttons they could push, lift the bed up. But he says, sit down, son. We need to talk. I'm dying. You're dying, by the way.

[22:51] You may have 10 more years, 100 more years, but you're dying. And you have children that will listen to you for a while. And so he draws, chapter 2, verse 1, the days of David draw nigh that he should die.

[23:04] And he charged Solomon. Would you underline that? He charged him. He preached to him a little bit. We need to warn them to obey God and be saved and live holy and separate lives.

[23:16] If you're a dying and you couldn't say more, what would you say? You know, one of the beautiful pictures in the Bible to me is when a man of God is dying in the Bible.

[23:26] And there's more than one of them. And he sits up on the edge of the bed. And he talks to his family and tells them, I'm dying. Y'all need to listen to me. And he blesses them and corrects them and says whatever he needs to say to them.

[23:37] And then he puts his feet in the bed, pulls the cover up, and dies. I always think to myself, boy, if the Lord lets me do that, I will. Sam Jones, a Methodist evangelist in Cartersville, Georgia, was a drunkard and a scumbag.

[23:49] And he came to his daddy's deathbed and his daddy's dining. And his daddy said, you're going to hell, boy. You need to be saved. You better face up to it. And that day he said he couldn't take it anymore.

[24:00] And that's when he got saved and became the famous preacher. David told his boy, you need to man up. Man up. Look at 1 Kings 2.2. Be strong.

[24:11] Show yourself a man. Serving God's not easy. Living a holy life in a wicked world isn't for the faint of heart. It's not for the sissy. You're going to need to stand up like a man.

[24:22] He told him in 1 Kings 2.3, keep the charge. Do what God says do. Walk in his ways. Keep his statutes. Keep his judgments. Keep his commandments. Keep his testimonies.

[24:33] And I got them all out of the Bible. He said that we should have learned that verse 3. They were men of the book all the way back then. He said as it's written in the law of Moses. I got a copy of the Bible and I told you to do it. And if you do that, God will prosper you, son.

[24:46] He said if you'll follow the word of God, God will prosper you. If you'll honor him, he'll prosper you. He said if you'll follow the word of God, God's got big promises. 1 Kings 2.4.

[24:57] For the Lord may continue his word. Because he said if I'd raise my boy to do right, if thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in the truth of all their heart, with all their soul, there shall not fail of thee.

[25:08] He said son, if we'll just do right, God's got big plans for our family. You can tell your kids that, can't you? Don't you believe God has big plans? God would give Solomon's children the throne if he would just listen.

[25:20] David tells Solomon then how to deal with different people in his kingdom. He says, Joab's got to die. Don't let his gray head go down to the grave. Kill him. He says, you need to be kind to the sons of Barcella.

[25:34] They were good to me when I was running from Absalom. You need to make sure Shimei dies. What David tells Solomon to do is going to be hard and cost a great deal personally.

[25:47] How are you preparing your children for the life they have ahead of them? It won't be long until your children are on their own. Now if I could just real quickly show you. I've got three minutes and 11 pages.

[25:59] But I'll do it quick. You ready? Pride. In the chapter it's pride that destroys people. Adonijah chapter 1 and verse 5. Underline this.

[26:10] He exalted himself and he said, I will be king. Then he got 50 guys to run in front of him. He's scrambling for power. He's trying to get people to help him. He throws his own party. And when he finally gets in trouble, he grabs the horn of the altar and says, Man, I've always gotten what I've wanted and now I've done wrong.

[26:27] And Solomon's going to be after me. But I'll grab the horns of the altar and pray to God he don't kill me. So Solomon told him, he said, look buddy. If you'll just do right. If you'll just be worthy. If you'll just live like you ought to, I won't kill you.

[26:40] And Adonijah said, that'd be fine. And then Adonijah goes home. I've got to do this quickly. I can't even tell you the verses. But Adonijah goes home and he begins to think, you know, I'm kind of embarrassed. It came out on Facebook.

[26:50] I tried to run the kingdom. It came out in Twitter that I was trying to be the big shot. Everybody in town was talking about it. They reported it on the front page of the paper. I'm kind of looking like a fool here. And so I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

[27:01] I'm going to get Bathsheba to ask her son if I can have daddy's ex-wife. Now that's a way to say you're going to have the power. You see, when you sleep with the king's wife, you're claiming to have his position.

[27:17] And so Bathsheba goes in and she says to, by the way, that's what Absalom did. He slept with ten of the wives. You remember? And she goes in, Bathsheba, I think she was just telling David. She goes in, David, Adonijah came and he asked me if it was any way possible you'd let him marry the young virgin girl.

[27:37] And Solomon told her, he said, I'll do anything you ask me, Mama. Whoa, not that. He's dead. He will be dead before the sun goes down today. That's it. I'm taking him out of here. Next person, for the sake of time, for the sake of time, Joab showed his pride.

[27:55] Joab has been kind of wrestling with David and trying to get to the position. Joab's kind of, God had David for the job and Joab's kind of been trying to run the show, manipulate David.

[28:06] And so God's told David, you tell him he needs to die. He had killed Abner and Amasa in a deceptive manner against David's wishes. And so when they try to put Adonijah in the kingdom, Joab knows he better run.

[28:20] He grabs the horns of the altar and his blood was required. And he had to die because he killed innocent people. And there's pride. Instead of doing what God said to him.

[28:31] Shimei is going to die in the book. Shimei is the guy that kicked dirt on David. And David was willing to forgive him. But David said, Solomon, buddy, if you're not careful, that guy will do you the same way. And so Solomon goes to him and he says, look, why don't you stay in town?

[28:45] I'll let you build a house here in Jerusalem. As long as you stay in town and don't cross the river, you're okay. I won't take your life. And about three years later, one day one of his servants runs away. And he runs after his servant.

[28:56] When he comes back, Solomon just goes out and said, did we make a deal? Did we agree? I don't know if his pride thought he'd get away with it. I don't know if he thought he wouldn't get in trouble. He said, yeah, we agreed.

[29:07] He said, okay, well, you agreed. You're dead. But Abiathar is the priest. And evidently he wants to be the guy. And so he stands with the man who's raising himself up against the king and up against David.

[29:21] And he is thrown out of his job in 1 Kings 2.27. I'll just end it with this. Two things I wish I could get you to go home with.

[29:34] Raising kids is a big deal. The story is about a bunch of stuff happening with the kids. The story is about Adonijah messing up and Solomon doing right.

[29:45] And whether you realize this or not, it's not a genetic thing. It's not a lack of drugs. It's not the school they went to. Are you training your kids? That ought to be paramount in your mind.

[29:57] You ought to be thinking to yourself all the time, am I raising my children to seek and serve God? And if you're not, you're the one that's going to be sad. Being a daddy and a mom is a whole lot more than getting diapers and food.

[30:11] It's a lot more than providing them with electronics and devices to play with. It's raising them and teaching them to be who they ought to be when they grow up. Last thing.

[30:23] In the story, pride is everywhere. The very next chapter, by the way, this coming Thursday night, you'll hear it. The very next thing, Solomon's going to say, I just want wisdom because I'm going to be humble now.

[30:37] But in this story, everybody's seeking a position. Shimei, the big shot, likes to kick on people and kick on the man of God. And Joab, who wants to be the big general and help another man be king, he could probably manipulate more.

[30:51] And the priest who's trying to get in that, and every one of them are going to end up dead or deposed. I need to be real careful. I have pride issues.

[31:05] I like to think about me. I want to be king, and I want to be exalted, and I'd like to get 50 men to run ahead of me. And I'd like to throw myself a party. And we live in a day and time.

[31:16] That's about what Facebook and Twitter does for us a lot of times. Look at me. Ain't I something? And we've got to be really careful. Because that pride will take us down.

[31:28] I didn't say you. I said us. Let's honor God. End of the story. Everybody's dead. Abiathar's just out of the ministry. Joab's dead.

[31:43] Shimei's dead. Adonijah's dead. Solomon's reigning. And we're into a whole new story of the Bible about how Solomon's going to lead.

[31:54] I think when I read the whole two chapters, and I read them over and over and over, here's what it struck out to me. Austin, you have the privilege of raising children and grandchildren for Jesus, how you teach them.

[32:05]  This is not a game.