Man, all right, we're there in 1 Kings chapter number 14. Let's go ahead and get started in verse one. We're gonna be looking at the story at the beginning of this chapter this evening. 1 Kings chapter 14, we'll start reading in verse one where the Bible says this, at that time a byje the son of Jeroboam fell sick and Jeroboam said to his wife, arise I pray that you in disguise thyself that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam and get thee to Shiloh, behold there is a hyge of the prophet which told me that I should be king over this people and take with thee 10 loaves and crackenles and a cruise of honey and go to him, he shall tell thee what shall become of the child. So if you read this story and you don't understand the context, it seems a little strange. Why is he disguising himself? Why is he sending his wife? Who is a hyge? Who are these people? Basically where we are at right now is we are in the beginning of the time of the kings. If you remember the nation of Israel used to be ruled by the judges, but eventually they wanted a king and God gave them Saul. Saul was king until God killed him. Then David took over and then Solomon was David's son and Solomon was told by God. Solomon made some mistakes towards the end of his life and God told Solomon. That is a punishment for the things he had done and for turning from God. Even though Solomon did a lot of good things and we'll look at that later, God told them that he would take the kingdom out of the hand of his son. So Solomon dies and Rayoboam takes over his king and sure enough, God basically splits the nation into two. You have the northern tribe of the kingdom of Israel that was 10 tribes and the two southern tribes was were called Judah in the south. And of course Rayoboam continued to be king over Judah in the south. But God appointed them a man by the name of Jeroboam to lead the northern nation of Israel. This profit that we are reading of a hygea, a hygea years before, this is years later in this story, but back when this happened, a hygea was the profit that God used to anoint Jeroboam and tell him that he was going to be the king. Later of course, if you're familiar with Jeroboam, he fell into sin also and he built the two golden calves that stayed there for many hundreds of years by the way, the one in Dan and the one in Bethel. And at this point he has been warned by God, he is not on good terms with God. And at this point we see, which is funny, a lot of people do this, but now Jeroboam actually needs help. And of course when he needs help, he doesn't turn to his false gods and he doesn't turn to the gods that he turned to, he realizes that he actually needs help. So he goes to the prophet of hygea. He says, I know who can help me. So his son is sick, but Jeroboam knows that he is not on good terms with God. So he doesn't want to go to a hygea himself, so he sends his wife. And he is so careful not to be recognized that he even tells his wife to disguise herself just to make sure that this prophet of hygea has no idea who they are. He does not want to be recognized as who he really is. And of course they go and they even bring these bribes with them. He says, bring tent loaves and crackles and a cruise of honey and go to him. He shall tell thee what shall become of the child. The title of the sermon this evening is manipulating God, manipulating God. What does manipulate mean? To manipulate is defined as this, to control something or someone to your advantage, often unfairly or dishonestly.  You read this story, this kind of seems what they're doing. They're being real sneaky. They're bringing bribes. They're disguising themselves. They're being completely dishonest just to get what they want out of this situation. This evening I'd like to give you three warnings. Here as they go in, as these people try to manipulate God, I want to give us three warnings that we can take key to this evening on manipulating God and on trying to pull tricks if you will on God in three ways that we can all tend to do this without even realizing it. We'll start back at verse two. Verse two, the first thing this evening, the first warning from this story is this. You can't fool God. You can't fool God. Let's start reading in verse two. We'll reread over it real quickly. Jeroboam said to his wife, rise I pray thee and disguise thyself that they'll be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam and get thee to Shiloh. Behold, there's a hyge of the prophet which told me that I should be king. Over this people, skip to verse four. And Jeroboam's wife did so and rose and went to Shiloh and came to the house of a hygea but a hygea could not see for his eyes were set by reason of age.  He's older, of course this is years later and he can't even see. And I think they know this personally. I mean, there's no way, the Bible does not clarify but I think they were aware of this. A hygea can't even see and here they're going to this old man, this prophet, this servant of God and they're trying to deceive him. But of course God has a hyge's back. If you look at verse five and the Lord said to a hygea, behold the wife of Jeroboam come in to ask thee a thing, ask a thing of thee for her son, for he is sick. The last and the self will say unto her for it shall be when she cometh in that she shall feign herself to be another woman. And it was so when a hygea heard the sound of her feet as she came in the door that he said, come in thou wife of Jeroboam, why feignest thou thyself to be another? For I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. So she comes in and right away he says, come on in thou wife of Jeroboam. I know exactly who you are and I have some bad news for you. So right away here their plan is foiled, it does not work. It turned to Matthew 15. Now we read this and this is obviously pretty terrible and even it's silly to think, oh how could they think that they can get away with doing this to God and to this prophet? Well people today do the same thing. It all I'll explain here. Matthew chapter 15, look at verse seven. Matthew 15, seven. This is of course the words of Christ. He's talking to the Pharisees, preaching to the Pharisees, preaching against the Pharisees.  You see with the Pharisees, the Pharisees were out to get the praise of man and they were trying to convince man and I think that they did have a lot of men convinced of this, that they were something great. Their heart deep down inside, their heart was not towards God, but you see man is not as good as seeing that. You can still, especially in a church where you know people and you're around people, you can eventually kind of figure out what people are all about, but in general, man we can't see your hearts. We can't see what's deep down inside of you, but people take advantage of this fact that man can be tricked. The Pharisees, they had man fooled but they did not have God fooled.  You know at the turn of the word Matthew 23, 25 says this, also Jesus preaching against the Pharisees. He says, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within, they're full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse that which is within the cup and platter that the outside of them may be clean also.   See, the Pharisees deep down in the side, they were very bad people, many of them were reprobates. They obviously conspired to kill the Lord Jesus Christ, but outside, they were very good at having men fooled. They were very good at appearing beautiful outward despite of who they really were inside. Benjamin Franklin once said this, well done is better than well said. You see a lot of people, they're just going out to get that well said from men, but what they're not realizing is, you know people, you see this point and you're saying, oh well, you can't fool God, but I'm not trying to fool God. Well you see, God sees it as an attack on him. When you're going and you're taking advantage of people and you're trying to fool other people, you're really trying to fool God by just thinking that you can get away with that. You're really fooling God. You see, I don't, well done is better than well said. Think about that. You see, here's why that does not matter, because when I die and I stand before Jesus Christ, I don't want Jesus Christ to say to me, well said. I want him to say to me, well done. Thou good and faithful servant, thou has been faithful. And of course, what about the Pharisees? Well, you don't have to turn there, but John 12.43 says, for they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. See, there are people who they take advantage, especially as, like I said, as people, we cannot see, we're limited in how well we can see people's hearts, but there are people who they take advantage of that. They take advantage of the fact that people don't know the mistakes they've made, because obviously no one here knows all the mistakes that we've all made, and that's a good thing in a way. But Jesus, he's saying, God can see through that. And there's people, they take advantage of the fact that man is not as good as seeing that. Turn to Ezekiel 28. Ezekiel 28, you see, God wants transparency. God is not pleased when people come to each other and they try to act, and people do it in churches too. They do it a lot, where they'll try to act like there's something great, and they try to act like they're so spiritual and they've done so many great things, but inside they're not who they say they are. What people are doing is they're trying to fool God just by thinking that they can get away with that. Just by Jared Bowman's wife going to a prophet and thinking that they can fool the prophet, they're really fooling God, because you know what God did? He stepped in and he was on the side of a hygiene. He told the hygiene what they were trying to do. While you're turning to Ezekiel 28, Proverbs 20, 17 says this.  Here's what this is saying. Bread of deceit, saying it tastes good, so to speak. It tastes good to, it's very easy to say deceit. It's very easy to say things on who you are. It's very easy to make yourself seem like you're someone you're not.   Because especially in a church like this, people will realize, when you're around people this much, people will realize who you are.  And there in Ezekiel 28, this is another dangerous aspect of this. Here in Ezekiel 28, God is preaching to the king of Tyrus. And if you're familiar with the passage, it's a dual meaning here. He's both talking about the physical king of Tyrus and also about Satan. He's talking about Satan here. Now he's going to be destroyed. And he's also speaking of the actual king of Tyrus at this time. Verse one, the word of the Lord came again unto me saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up. And thou hast said, I am God. I sit in the seed of God in the midst of the seas. Yet thou art a man and not God, though thou set thine heart is the heart of God. So this is an extreme example here. This is someone referring to the physical man who actually thought he was God. He was claiming to be God. He was claiming to be someone he's not. But notice the phrase that says, though thou set thine heart is the heart of God. Not many people, especially not Christians, are claiming to be God. But what people do do quite often is they set their heart to be someone they're not. In the same way as the king of Tyrus was setting his heart and thinking, convincing himself that he was this great thing that he was not. God says, he says you're not. Just setting your heart to be that does not make it. So let's keep reading, skipped to verse six. So God goes on to explain the judgments that he's going to give to this king. Verse six, he says this, therefore thus saith the Lord God, because thou hast set thine heart is the heart of God. Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee the terrible of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shall die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. And then verse nine, I always thought verse nine was such an ironic verse. He says, wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee I am God? But thou shalt be a man and no God in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Here's what he's saying.  Are you going to be telling that person, don't you know who I am, I'm God? He says, you're not going to be saying that.  And here's the dangerous aspect about this. You see, I don't want this to be me. I don't want to go setting my heart because my heart is lifted up, thinking I'm someone I'm not and not realize I'm not that great until God sends someone, so to speak, above me with a sword and until I am being judged and realize maybe I'm not that great. Maybe I'm not who I set my heart to be. You don't have to turn there but turn to Psalm 15 while you're turning there. I'll read to you Psalm 94, 11 that says the Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity. See, we can get very good at acting like we're someone we're not and playing off the fact that man cannot see our heart like God can but God will step in because God knows the thoughts of man. And God will not let people be fooled either.  God was not going to let a hijab be fooled like this. You're there in Proverbs 15, look at verse 11. Proverbs 15, 11 says this, hell and destruction are before the Lord. How much more than the hearts of the children of men? Look at verse three of the same chapter. The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good. And you say I'm not trying to fool God. I'm not trying to fool God. I'm just, I just want to appear beautiful outward. I just want to appear righteous outward. I just want to appear like I'm better than everyone else outward. God sees as an attack on him because God knows your hearts. You know what you see this many times because when someone comes in and someone tries to act like they're someone they're not God reveals that and God makes that evident and God reveals that because people who do this they are trying to manipulate God. They are trying to fool God. So first this evening, the first warning when it comes to trying to manipulate God you say you cannot fool God. Second this evening is this. You can't bribe God. You cannot bribe God. Look, turn back to 1 Kings 14. 1 Kings chapter 14. We'll be coming back to it of course so make sure you keep a ribbon or a bookmark there. So of course we see in verse six he says come in the life Jeroboam why faintest allow thyself to be another for I am sent unto thee with heavy tidings. Go tell Jeroboam thus saith the Lord God of Israel for as much as I exalted thee from among the people and made thee prince over my people Israel and rented the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it thee. And yet thou has not been as my servant David who have kept my commandments who followed me with all of his hearts to do that which is right to mine eyes but thou has done evil above all that were before thee for thou has gone and made the other gods and molten images to provoke me to anger and has cast me behind thy back. God tells us talking to Jeroboam here and he says I gave you a chance. I exalted you above everybody else. I saw something in you that was valuable and I chose you to lead the nation of Israel and you have completely turned from me. He says I took it, I took 10 tribes from the house of David and gave it to you and you're not acting like David did. You're not serving me like David did. He said you have cast me behind your back. Like when you get a credit card application in the mail and you crumpled it up and cast it behind your back that's what he did to God. He totally forgot God which exalted him and gave him the position that he had. Well, the verse 10. Therefore behold I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam and will cut off from Jeroboam him that paced it against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and they will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam is a man taken away dung till it be all gone and the dieth of Jeroboam and the city shall the dogs eat and the dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat for the Lord has spoken it. We're talking about manipulating God here in a ways that people try to do that. When people try to do that not only will they try to fool God by trying to act to both God and others that they're someone they're not but people will also try to bribe God. What I mean by that is thinking that God will treat you different because of something that you have to offer something like your earthly status or your previous spirituality or your current spirituality. The definition of a bribe, a bribe is this something offered to induce another to do something. So of course, typically when you hear the word bribe you think of like a judge and someone who's maybe offering a bribe is someone coming to a judge offering them something that they have thinking that that judge will treat them differently because of that bribe. People do the same thing with God, turn to 1 Kings 9. 1 Kings 9, a couple chapters earlier. People go to God with something that they have and they think that because of that God will treat them different or God will take it easier on them or somehow they don't have to worry about their sin and their fault or that God won't judge them for their sin and their fault because of filling the blank. You're there in 1 Kings 9. So Solomon here, we're talking about Solomon who has just finished building the temple. He has just finished doing an amazing, great work for God building this massive temple that took enormous amount of time and energy and money. Verse one, and it came to pass when Solomon finished the building of the house of the Lord in the king's house and all Solomon's desire, which he was pleased to do that the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as he appeared unto him at Gibeon. The first time being when he appeared to him and he asked for wisdom and this being the second time. And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer in thy supplication that thou hast made before me. I have hallowed this house which thou hast built to put my name there forever. My eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. Verse four, and if that will walk before me. See, God's coming to Solomon and he's saying good job, Solomon, good job. This is a good thing you've done. I've answered your prayer. This is a great thing you've done. But now he's talking about the future. Now God's talking to Solomon about the future. And if that will walk before me, as David thy father walked in an integrity of heart and an uprightness to do according to all that I've commanded thee and will keep my statutes, my judgments, then why establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel forever? As I promised to David thy father saying there should not fail the amen upon the throne of Israel. But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I've set before you but go and serve other gods and worship them. Verse seven, then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I've given them and this house which I hallowed for thy name will I cast out of my sight and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people. God goes to Solomon here who had just finished doing an amazing thing for God who so far has been doing greats from the start of when he started reigning all the way up to this point. Solomon has just been on fire doing great things, righteous things. He's doing very well. God has blessed him. Why is this man on earth? He has a lot of wealth that God has given him. And God comes to him and he reminds him good job for what you've done and I'll bless thee if you keep doing it but it's no different for you Solomon.  See, well, Solomon did a great, I mean, all the kings after Solomon, you could argue didn't do such a great work for God like this. That doesn't matter. And again, just like the sermon this morning if you think about it, the closer you are to God, the more you know his will, the harder he will be on you. What I'm talking about here is a certain attitude towards your sin. You see, I don't have it in my notes but if you think about the story Jesus told of the Pharisee and the publican, the Pharisee goes before God and says God, I thank thee that I am not as other man are or even as this publican. He goes to God and he says God, thank you for making me so great and thank you for making me so spiritual and righteous. And the publican goes to God and he says God be merciful unto me as sinner. You see, we may be doing the right things and we may be going to church and soul winning and doing all the things that we're supposed to be doing but we are still sinners and we still have sin, we still have fault, we all have mistakes that we need to actively be working on because we will always have this flesh. In our mentality, no matter how great we think we are, we need to go before God and say, you know what, God be merciful unto me as sinner. Especially as Christians who are judged more straight based on how close we are to God and how much him that knew his Lord's will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes, right? Eva, as those people, we need God's mercy even more, not less.  I don't need to worry about improving or getting better in my Christian life. I've arrived. I was just talking to Brother Frank about this out so long and how you'd see this at Verity and Sacramento a lot, how certain people, they get in church and they maybe get saved and they're growing spiritually and then they kind of get to a point, some people, where they just kind of, that's good enough, that's as far as I want to go. They don't try to pursue it and people do it at all sorts of levels. Some people will do it where they'll go to maybe church once a week and they say, I'm good, I don't need to push past that or people will be, no matter how far we are spiritually, we always need to be pressing forward. We always need to be pressing towards the mark and we need to be very, very, very cautious that we don't develop this mentality that says, well, as long as I'm doing more right than I am wrong, I'm fine, right? God will still judge us for our mistakes even if we turn from Him. Turn to Deuteronomy 10. But the reason I think of this as bribing God is because, you see, in the same way as unsay people, take someone who believes works by a salvation. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin isn't a good life. The wages of sin isn't going to church or giving money to church. The wages of sin is death. The only way to pay for your sin is by going to hell or allowing Jesus Christ to pay it for you.  Well, as long as I give God this good life and I provide Him with this relationship with Jesus, He'll let me off the hook. Christians can do the same thing. We contend to do the same thing. See, here's how God does not judge you.  How much money you have, your previous righteousness, your current righteousness, or your earthly status. Those are not things that God takes into account when He judges you. Here's how God does judge you, though, by your current character and actions. We need to keep that in mind. Because you know what, before God, we're still all miserable sinners that deserve help. You haven't stopped, you haven't gotten past the point. You may be saved and you may not be going to hell. You still deserve it. We all do. The thing about how the Bible says that, you know, even if we do everything we're supposed to be doing and we serve God with our whole life, we're still unprofitable of servants because we have done that, which is our duty to do. Like, good job. You did what you were supposed to do. We are still all sinners and we still all have things that we need to be working on. We should always have the mentality of God be merciful to me, a sinner. There in Deuteronomy 10, 17, the Bible says this, for the Lord, your God is a God of gods, a Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, which regardless not persons nor take a reward. God's saying you can't bribe me with anything. In other places in the Bible, God, you see this thing where He talks a lot about how I don't need your sacrifices. I don't need your fancy temple. I own the whole earth. What are you gonna bribe me with? There's a passage in Isaiah. I was just reading the other day about that where you can't come before God and there's nothing you can offer Him to bribe God with. There's nothing you have that God doesn't have that He needs from you. God in regardless, not persons. You see, God cares about you. Don't get what I'm about to say wrong, okay? God cares about you. He loves you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.  He doesn't care your status. He doesn't care. You are still someone in the desperate need of God's mercy. We all are. So we can't develop this mentality. God can't be bribed with anything. You know what the term there, I'll read you a couple of verses. This one was actually read this morning. Ezekiel 18, 24, but when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness. You say, oh, I've done a lot of righteous things in the past. Good for you. But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and commiteth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? So God is asking, or a question here, he's gonna answer. He's saying, if you have someone who's righteous and they've done a lot of good things, they have a lot of, on the record, they've done a lot of good things, but they've turned from God. He says, shall he live? He's saying, will they get away with it? He goes on to say all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned. In his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, and them shall he die. Say you were arrested for committing a crime.  That doesn't come into account when you're being judged for a crime.  You don't get by with it. It's not like some people get by with it, and some other people don't because of the previous things they've done or some bribe they have with God. Another good verse in Ezekiel 33, which has a lot of the same language as Ezekiel 18. God says this in the first part of the verse, Ezekiel 33, 12. Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression.  It will not get you anywhere with me. Again, even though we're saved, we are still far beyond the glory of God. We are still miserable sinners and we need to keep that in mind. Turn to Romans 2. Romans chapter 2. Romans chapter 2, we'll start reading in verse one. Romans 2, one, the Bible says this, therefore thou were inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou are the judges, for wherein thou judges another, thou can dimest thyself, for thou the judges do the same thing. For we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things, and thing is thou this, O man, that judges them which do such things and do us the same, that thou shall escape the judgment of God. You know, you read these verses and sometimes you read it and maybe at first you think, well, who does this? Who judges somebody else for something that they do and they do the same thing and they think that God will treat them different? A lot of people do it. A lot of people do it. And here's what it's saying. It's saying when you're judging others, you're really just condemning yourself because you will be judged for your sins as well. You will be judged for the same thing as well. And obviously we understand that the Bible says judge not that ye be not judged. So don't judge him critically is what it's saying. It doesn't mean that you can't point out right and wrong is not what that's saying. Verse four, or despises thou the riches of his goodness and reverence along suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance, but after that hardness and notice this word, impenitent heart, thou treasures up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds. So this word impenitent, it's defined as this, not feeling regret about one's sins or sins, obdurate.  They don't feel regret about their sin. They don't think it's a big deal. When God's saying, don't forget that every man will be judged according to his sin. There's nothing that you, you can't bribe God with something that you have that will make him treat you different. Keep reading verse seven. He gives some practical examples here of how God will judge everybody if they do this and God will do this if they do this.  Verse seven, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing for glory and honor immortality, eternal life, but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath. Tribulation to anguish upon every soul that doeth evil, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. You see in this, at the time this was written, this is people who thought that God, people Christians is with Zionism, right? People think that some people get a certain past based off something they have and other people do not. This is still going on today with Zionism, right? People think that people just do it with different things. And in the case of Zionism, they're basing it off like nationality in religion.   This verse is saying it does not matter who you are. God will judge you and treat you the same. You know, praise God for that. Praise God that God doesn't just let certain people, that God isn't hard on certain people, let other people slide and everything. God is a just God. God is a just God.  He must punish sin appropriately. Verse 10, glory, honor, peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Look at verse 11, for there is no respect of persons with God.  God does not respect you anymore because of who you are. Everybody in the eyes of God were someone who was at his mercy, who had sinned against him and who is in need of salvation and who he had died for their sins and simply believed on it and who got a free pass into heaven.  There's no one who can come before God and bribe him or offer him anything to make him treat us any different. So, first this evening we saw you can't fool God. We're talking about ways people try to manipulate God, manipulating God. The first is you can't fool God. The second is you can't bribe God. The third this evening is this, you can't ignore God. Turn back to 1 Kings 14. You cannot ignore God. So here we have this judgment. The God gave to Jeroboam. We're just gonna read it in its entirety and notice what he says towards about the middle of it. He says, go tell Jeroboam, the state, the Lord God of Israel, for as much as I exalted thee from among the people, made thee prince over my people Israel and ran the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it thee.  But that was done evil above all that were before thee for that was gone and made the other gods and molten images to provoke me to anger and has cast me behind the back. Therefore, behold, I'll bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam. In this curse here, note that this curse is a special curse. God only gave this curse three times to the kings. This curse where he basically vowed to wipe out their whole family and end their dynasty in the nation of Israel. He did it three times. He did it with Jeroboam here. He did it with Basha later and he did it with Ahab. And here we go, Jeroboam, who is the very first king of Israel. You could say he's the only one that God actually chose, except for maybe Jihu later, God actually chose him specifically to lead this nation.   And another thing that speaks to Bram and God. You know, Jeroboam was chosen by God at some point. Obviously he was a good enough person to where God said, you know, I'm gonna pick this man to lead my nation. But that did not get him very far when he sinned, right? Verse 10, therefore behold, I'll bring evil. We already read that. Verse 11, in the dieth of Jeroboam, the city shall the dogs eat and in the dieth and the fields shall the fowls of the air eat, for the Lord has spoken it.  Verse 12, arise thou therefore and get thee to thine own house. And when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. It's pretty harsh.  Verse 13, and all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there's found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. Verse 14, moreover the Lord shall raise him up a king over Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day, but what? Even now, for the Lord shall smite Israel as a reed is shaken in the water and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers and shall scatter them beyond the river because they have made groves, provoking the Lord to anger, and he shall give Israel up. And then you see this phrase that repeats itself throughout the kings and chronicles because of the sins of Jeroboam who did sin and made Israel to sin. You see Jeroboam, he started out obviously good enough to where God even said here, he saw some good thing in him to where he chose him, but Jeroboam ended up turning from God and he was wiped out by God immediately for his sins. Jeroboam obviously who by the way said a horrible precedent for the nation of Israel. We're gonna read about it later, but throughout the whole, you see Jeroboam, you read this and you say, why did God, why was God so harsh? There were kings of Judah later in his time went on that were worse than Jeroboam. Jeroboam was not the worst king. He did a lot of bad things, but there were worse kings than Jeroboam. He say, why was God so hard on him? Because he's the one who set the precedent of evil. You'll notice when you're reading, see David for example, take David, David said a good precedent. When you're reading through the kings and chronicles, it's kind of telling stories back to back, just jumping from Israel to Judah, from Israel to Judah. Typically, and there's a couple of exceptions, like with Manuset and things like this, but typically what you'll notice is that when a king of Judah is described when he died, and it's just talking about whether he was a good king or a bad king, it compares him to David. Like he was not as good as David or he didn't follow God like David or he was good like David. He didn't follow God like David. When it's a king of Israel, the example is that they're compared to his Jeroboam, which is just on a side note, what kind of precedent do you want to set, right? Do you want to be looked at as a bad example or do you want to be looked at as a good example? But either way, look at verse 17.  And Jeroboam's wife arose and departed and came to Tiersa. And when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died. Notice how she seemingly ignored God's prophecy of her child. I mean, he says when you go home, I mean, obviously he's going to happen either way.  And she just goes and, you know, blatantly home and the child dies. And that's obviously an example of ignoring God, but there's a much bigger example here. The example of Jeroboam in his sentence. Turn to 1 Kings 13. You see, Jeroboam, yeah, he turned from God, but Jeroboam was warned.  Jeroboam was warned by men of God. Of course, Jeroboam, he became king. Later, he built the false gods. He built the golden calf down in Bethel. In 1 Kings 13, in this story, he's actually at the altar, offering incense to this false God that he built. Verse one, and behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he, talking about the man of God, cried against the altar in the word of the Lord and said, oh, altar, altar, let's say, the Lord, behold, the child shall be born into the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. So here he prophesies of what happened in 1 Kings chapter 23, where Josiah comes years and years and years and years later and goes to this same altar and burns the bones of the dead false prophets on this altar, something that came to pass later. But then he also gives a more immediate prophecy. Verse three, and he gave a sign the same day, saying, this is the sign which the Lord has spoken, behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. And it came to pass that when King Jeroboam, nice guy, heard the sayings in the man of God, which he cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, lay hold on him, and his hand which he put forth against him dried up so that he could not pull it against to him. And the altar was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar according to the sign which the man of God had given him by the word of the Lord. See, by the time of reading about this curse that God gives Jeroboam and his family in 1 Kings 14, he had already been warned. He already knew what God thought about what he was doing. He just chose to ignore God. He chose to block it out. He knew the judgment of God, he knew what God's word was, what the man of God had told him, but he chose to ignore it. Turn to 2 Kings 17. So I wanna look at two different ways. Two different ways we ignore God. Two different ways that it is possible to ignore God. The first one is by doing what he said not to do. And the second is by not doing what he told us to do. We're gonna look at an example here of an example of someone, or in this case a nation, doing what he said not to. Here we're talking about Israel. Of course, Jeroboam, he set that dangerous precedent, right? And as time goes on, he set this bad precedent and there were many evil kings in Israel and God sent many prophets, many who died to warn Israel. I mean, think about that. Men's, the lives of good men were spent trying to warn this nation of their sin. And eventually it gets to the point in where God wipes them out. Of course, they were taken to captivity by the Assyrian Empire a little before Judah was taken into captivity by Babylon. But I really like how God does this here because both in kings and in chronicles, where he tells the story of when the Assyrian Empire took them over, God sort of writes this little disclaimer in there kind of saying, you know, this didn't just happen overnight. I warned them. I told them, I sent them my prophets and they didn't listen. We're gonna look at the one in Second Kings. Second Kings 17, verse 13. The Bible says this, yet the Lord, again, this is right after the Assyrian Empire wiped out Israel off the face of the earth for good. Verse 13, yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all the prophets and by all the seers saying, turn ye from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers in which I sent you by my servants, the prophets. Verse 14, not withstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks like to the neck of their fathers that did not believe in the Lord their God.  It went after the heathen that were round about them concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them. See, we contend if we're not careful to do the same thing. We know what God says about a certain thing. And a lot of it comes with the things we talked about. It comes with already having an attitude where we're fooling God or we're trying to bribe God or we think that we're above being judged by God because we're good enough. We can get to a point where we know what God thinks about something but we kinda just block it out. God, we know what God says, we know what the prophets are saying, what the seers are saying and it could be said of us that we would not hear. We won't listen. We've already made up our mind. This is like the person who goes to you asking for advice and you give them advice and then they just go do what they're doing anyway. That person already had their mind made up. It's just like same thing with God and us. We can come to church if we're not careful and here it's like we're asking for advice.  You say, why do they do that? They already had their mind made up.  So God tells them and they ignore it. God tells them what they should not be doing and they do it anyway. But that's just one example. What about the other way? What about not doing something that God has told you to do? There's a lot of that, right? God, you know there's something God wants you to do whether it's going to church or going to soul winning or any commandment in the Bible and you choose not to do it anyway. Let's turn to Jonah, Jonah chapter one. Jonah chapter number one, we'll start reading verse one. The Bible says this, now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amitya saying, arise, go to Nineveh. That great city, cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me. So Jonah, this is before the captivity in Jonah is told to preach to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the evil wicked nation that would judge Israel for their sin and he goes and God tells him to preach against Nineveh, go to Nineveh and preach against it. Verse three, but Jonah rose up to flee into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Seems like he's trying to manipulate God. It seems like he thinks he can pull a fast one on God and went down to Joppa and he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship was like to be broken. Because guess what? You can't fool God. You can't bribe God either. So I'm a prophet, Jonah may have said, I'm a prophet, I've preached to tons of places. I preached here and there and there and there. What is it if I just don't preach to one? God didn't even let him get away with that. Well, he can't fool God.  When God tells you don't do this and you do it anyway, God says do this and you don't. It doesn't matter your previous righteousness.  You cannot ignore God and God will not let you get away with it. God didn't let Jeroboam get away with it or his wife and God does not let us get away with it. Let's look at verse five. I want to look at one more thought before we finish this evening. First five, so we read a lot of times in the Bible and I think like Jonah, we've already Jonah, we've all heard the story of Jonah. I think sometimes it's important to picture and imagine what was this like? Can you imagine being in a ship that was so bad that the ship was gonna break? That the ship was gonna be destroyed? I mean you think you'd be feared for your life, you'd be scared, I mean look at verse five. Then the mariners, these guys do this for a living. Then the mariners were afraid. When people who do it for a living are afraid, you know you're in trouble and cried to every man and do his God and cast forth the wares that were in the ship of the sea to lighten it up of them. So even these people, they're not even saved but they realize this is from God. They realize this is from God. They're praying to God, obviously a false God, they're not even saved but they realize they have enough common sense to realize this is something to do, something sent from God. They're throwing things out of the ship, they think they're going to die, the ship's gonna break. Where's the Christian? Where's the servant of God? Surely, since he's the one being judged and he knows the Word of God, he's a prophet, he'd be aware of what's going on, right? Where's the prophet? Where's the Christian? But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep. If you read this and you're like, how is that possible? I mean, I'm sure he was loud, I'm sure he was shaking back and forth. We'll go out ocean fishing and there's no storm in sight and it feels like it's a rough ride. I can't imagine, can you imagine if there's a storm that is threatening your life and Jonah's fast asleep? You say, how was that possible? That's crazy. We did the same thing. Turn to Galatians 6, Galatians chapter 6. While you're turning there, I'm gonna read to you Jeremiah 49, turn to myself, Jeremiah 49. You're turning to Galatians chapter 6. So you're there, Jeremiah 49. And God's talking to a nation here, he's going to judge and he says this, Thy terribleness hath deceived thee in the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwells in the clutches of the rock and holdest the height of the hill, though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from that, sayeth the Lord. See, a lot of people, we're talking about manipulating God this evening. Now, is it possible to manipulate God? No. It's sort of a sarcastic tongue-and-cheek title, right? Because obviously no one can manipulate God. In reality, you know who are really manipulating when we do these things? We're manipulating ourselves. The joke you could say is on us. We think we're getting away with pulling things on God and we think we can go and we can do these things to, you know, the hyges in our lives, but we're really just deceiving ourselves. God says to this nation, your terribleness has just deceived you. If they're in Galatians 6, just look at who are really manipulating. Galatians 6, verse 3 says this, for if a man thinks himself to be something, is everyone thinks himself to be something, right? There's nothing wrong with that. We all have an opinion on where we are spiritually or in different areas of our life, but here's the thing, for if a man thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives God. He deceives those around him. No, here's who gets deceived. He deceives himself. Verse four, but let every man prove his own work and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him the teacheth and all good things. Verse seven, so on that idea of being deceived by ourselves because we think we're something we're not, look at verse seven, it says be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. You see, when we do these things, when we're trying to fool God and we're trying to bribe God and we build these different mentalities, you know, we take the approach that, oh, I get a pass because of what I've done, instead of God be merciful to me a sinner and we think we're getting away with ignoring God. Guess what? The joke's on us. The joke's on us. Because guess what? God's not the one mocked. And you know what? Even in a, especially in a church like this, the people here aren't mocked either. Especially since God's on their side and out of the abundance of the heart that I'll speak of, we're the ones who are fooling ourselves. And here's the unfortunate thing. And I got at this a little bit with the king of Tyre. The unfortunate thing is that most people will not, if they take it too far, if we take this idea too far and we deceive ourselves too much, the unfortunate thing is we will not realize the joke's on us until they're already reading. Until you're like Israel, where you've been taken into captivity and everyone's killed and the nation has been besieged and you're like, oops, I guess we should've listened. Maybe we weren't that great. Most people will not realize until they're like the king of Tyre. Most people will not realize who they really were and where they were at with God until there's a man above them with a sword about to kill them. And they say, maybe I'm not God. Maybe I'm not who I set my heart to be. Or they're like Jonah, where they're being judged by God for their actions and they don't realize, they haven't come to terms yet with it until someone shakes them up and says, wake up, what are you doing? Look around you. We don't wanna be this. We don't wanna let our pride get lift us up so much that we go through our life kind of building this idea. Here's verse three, everyone thinks of themselves to be something and there's nothing wrong with that. But we don't wanna go through our life building up who we think we are and going and trying to treat everyone else like we're above them and make people think like we're something great and going and trying to fooling God and bribing God and ignoring God and being so blinded. I mean how many verses have I read that talked about blindness, the blindness of our heart? And not realize how not great we really are until God has already come down on us. So we need to be aware of this because again, God is not manipulated but we very easily are and often by our own selves. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.


All right, ladies and gents, we're here in the post office in Grigianniano, and one of the most important things to maintain morale in the services of the United States of America is our mail. Mail to sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines all over the world. And I'm here to tell you today that continuity of mail operations is continuing to become rain or snow or sleep or shine. We will deliver the mail. I'm here with this young Marine who's going to tell you how things are going here in the post office. What do you think, sir? The mail is going good, sir. All mail is flowing as it always has. Package delivery and finance boats are moving as you say, right? Okay, so the planes, trains and automobiles are running. The auto routes are open. Do you envision any slowdowns? Do you see any problems as a function of this red zone declaration in Italy? No, sir. Do we have alternative courses of action if we need to bring mail in through alternative routes? Yes, currently we're looking at options through the trend as well as friendship. All right. Fleet, got any comments, sir? No, I just want to commend the team, the collective team of everything that they're doing and just thank you so much. Thank you very much for what you do. Thanks a lot. Appreciate everything.


Okay, we've gotten most of the walls off now and allowed those to dry out and now we're looking at getting the flooring out. There may be a question or a minus to whether that's necessary, but as we pull out the floorboards, I'll show you why that's important, you can see here the moisture on the bottom of these floorboards, this is hardwood floor, as we pull those out. See, there's quite a bit of moisture on those and even as you look closely some mold growth as well, and if we left this floor without pulling it out, we could have not only potential for mold and rotting on the hardwood floor, but on the subfloor as well. If you look here closely, there's actually a layer of paper, as I peel that back you can see, and that holds moisture as well. And so that's one of the main reasons here why we need to pull the floor up, so we can get to the subfloor, pull the paper off, and allow that to dry. The other thing you'll see here, and you want to be careful as you pull up the flooring, sometimes there's some gaps in the subfloor, in this case this board isn't even attached, and that could be a potential hazard there, that's a pretty good hole there. And so just be careful that the subflooring is stable, and you have solid footing on it as you start taking up the floor. All right, you can see here we've got the hardwood flooring up, and the subflooring is exposed. This was done yesterday, here you can see this area that's dry. This was done just recently, so it doesn't take a long time if you properly ventilate it, get fans going, get air moving through to dry out this subfloor, but if you leave it alone, again it's going to mold, it's going to cause problems and damage your subflooring, which can be a major issue in a house.


Okay. Yeah. Thanks Oliver for pointing out that there was no audio. So sorry. Yeah, okay. I'll begin again. We'll start. Yeah. So before the break, we saw that the house, that the Ark of the Covenant has been placed in the house of Obed Edom. And Obed Edom and his entire household, they conduct themselves in a very honourable way, fearing God, you know, giving glory to God and everything that they do in their conduct and their choices in their everyday lifestyle. And because of the way they are living in such a God fearing manner, the Lord begins to bless Obed Edom's household. The Lord, in fact, blesses his household to such an extent that David gets to hear about it. And that is how we should be living today, you and I, who are containing the Holy Spirit inside us. We literally have the living God living in us and we should be living the way Obed Edom and his household lived for those three months where everything that they are doing, they are asking themselves, will this please the Lord or not? Is this the righteous thing to do or is it not? What action would God want us to take regarding this particular decision? In every single thing they did, they placed the Lord first. This is the fear of the Lord. This is the kind of honourable fear that we should be having towards God. Do we have it? If we do, just as Obed Edom was blessed, the Lord will be able to bless us as well. So when David hears that Obed Edom's household is being blessed, now he stops being afraid. He says, oh look, they are benefiting from all the blessings. If we bring the Ark into Jerusalem, then Jerusalem will be blessed. So now he decides, he says, no, no, we're going to bring the Ark. But this time we'll do it correctly. So in 1 Chronicles chapter 15 verses 12 to 15 is where you have the details. And now in 1 Chronicles 15, 12 to 15, David is so careful. He goes to the Levites. He says to them in verse 12, he says, sanctify yourselves. He says, the Levites are going to be carrying the Ark. He says, sanctify yourselves, prepare yourselves. And in verse 13 he says, because you did not do it the first time, the Lord our God broke out against us. Because we did not consult him about the proper order. So he says, the mistake we made the first time, let us not repeat that now. So he tells the Levites, prepare yourselves in the correct manner and correctly find out what the Lord's instructions are. And so the Levites would have consulted the earlier passage which we looked at Exodus chapter 25. They would have found out exactly how the Ark should be moved. So they would have learned all of that, prepared themselves spiritually. And now the Ark is finally brought into Jerusalem in the correct manner. Maybe we can have one person read out 1 Chronicles chapter 15 verse 15. 1 Chronicles 15, 15. And the Levites carried the Ark of God on their shoulders with their paws as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord. It says here that now this time, the children of the Levites, they carry the Ark on their shoulders as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord. They are very careful now to follow the instructions of God. Do we have that attitude today? Because we have the Holy Spirit living in us. All that we do, it should be as has been commanded according to the word of the Lord. If we are living pleasing lives like that, then the Lord will be able to release His blessings into our lives. So those were just some of the things that we could look at from the two books of Samuel. Now due to lack of time, we will move into 1 Kings and 2 Kings. So we will start off by looking at the outline structure of Kings. So the 1 Kings, we can say that the first 11 chapters can be the first section. So chapters 1 to 11 of 1 Kings, the focus is mainly on Solomon. How did Solomon become king? What were all the events and conspiracies involved in his becoming king? And then after he becomes king, how he built the temple, details about that. All the other building projects which he took up, that's also explained. And then of course we also have details about how he falls into sin and he starts worshipping other idols and all of that. So all the details of Solomon's life are given in chapters 1 to 11. And then chapters 12 to 22 is basically where you have details about how the kingdom of Israel got divided into northern Israel and southern Judah. So you have the kingdom being split into northern and southern Israel. So that is discussed in chapters 12 to 22. In the second section, you have a lot of details about Ahab, the evil king. There's also much detail about Elijah, how Elijah goes constantly again and again to Ahab, warns him, corrects him. So some details about the divided kingdom and a lot of details about Ahab's rule and also Elijah's role. These things are described in chapters 12 to 22. Coming to the structure of 2 Kings, the first 17 chapters, we have some details about the divided kingdom. Who are the kings ruling in the north? The kings who were ruling in the south, just some details, not much. But you have a lot of detail about Elijah and the ministry that he did, the miracles that he did. All those things are given in your first 17 chapters. We also see how finally the northern Israel comes under God's judgment. So most of us will already be familiar with these details. But for the small handful who may not be familiar, once the kingdom gets divided into the northern Israel and southern Israel, northern Israel declares Samaria as their capital. And southern Israel is basically where you have Jerusalem. So Jerusalem becomes the capital of southern Israel and it's usually known as the nation of Judah. So while the term Israel is generally used for northern Israel, the term Judah is used for the southern kingdom. So what we learn is that most of the kings of the northern Israel don't bother to follow the Lord. They don't honor God. On the other hand, in southern Israel, at least some of the kings choose to stay loyal to the Lord. And so God declares judgment against northern Israel. He says to the people, if you do not repent, if you don't change your ways, I will bring a powerful army against you and you will be defeated. You will be taken away as slaves from this land and you will have to end up in some foreign country somewhere else. So that is the judgment which is declared against the northern kingdom. And so in this first 17 chapters, we see how the kings continue to sin against God in northern Israel. The people also, the priests also do not follow the instructions of the Lord. Until finally, we see the last king of the northern kingdom Hoshia, a man named Hoshia.  So that is the end of the northern kingdom. So now only the southern kingdom is left. So in chapters 18 to 25, you have details being given about the southern kingdom. So that would be the structure of your second kings. So let's look at some of the main events which we find in the two books of the kings. How did Solomon come to the throne? In the same way, David's ascension to the throne was not easy. In the same way, there are many complications involved in Solomon coming to the throne. In Solomon's case, the main opposition is from one of his older brothers. You know, David had many wives. So all these wives would have had many sons. But one of the more important sons was somebody named Adonija. So Adonija has this desire to be king. So in the very first chapter, we see that Adonija tries to hatch a small conspiracy. He takes the support of David's commander Joab. So along with the support of Joab, the commander of David. And along with the support of Abiathar the priest, Adonija establishes himself. Announces himself as king. So however, we learn in chapter one, first king's chapter one that some people choose to remain loyal to David. Because David had declared that the actual king should be Solomon. Because God himself said that Solomon should be the one to come to the throne. So while you have Joab and Abiathar conspiring along with Adonija to put him on the throne. We have some faithful people who are mentioned in first king's chapter one, verse six or verse eight, I think. Where it says, you know, Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and David's small army unit, his special guard. They remain faithful to David. So Nathan comes to Bathsheba and gives a warning saying, see Adonija has hatched a conspiracy. He's now going to establish himself as king. Once he establishes himself as king, he's going to kill Solomon obviously. Because you can't allow your competition to stay alive. So Nathan comes and warns Bathsheba and he says, you know, the king David is probably not even aware that all this is going on. Because by that time King David is very old. He cannot even get up from his bed is basically bedridden. So Nathan gives advice to Bathsheba and says, go to the king, tell him what has happened. Tell him what Adonija is planning to do.  So Bathsheba goes to the king. She tells him what is happening and the king says, no, the Lord wanted Solomon to be on the throne. So Solomon should be made king. And so you have this faithful people Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and some of the other faithful followers of David. They all take Solomon to a place called Gaihorn and over there Solomon is anointed as the new king. And this is the details that we have in 1 Kings chapter 1 verses 39 and 40. If someone can read out 1 Kings chapter 1 verses 39 and 40. Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the dead and anointed Solomon. Then they blow the trumpet and all the people said, Long live King Solomon. And all the people went off after him playing on pipes and rejoicing with great joy. So that was split by dead noise. Okay, so it says over here that these faithful followers of David, they take Solomon to Gaihorn. They anoint him as king and then there is a celebration. The trumpets are blown. You know the people start playing music and it says that the celebration was so loud that the ground shook is what it says. And while this celebration is going on, there's another celebration going on by Adonija and his party. Adonija has declared himself as king. So he's having his celebration party in another place. And so he hears the noise which is coming from Gaihorn and he says, What is that noise? What's going on over there? And so then somebody comes to him and says, You know what Solomon has been anointed as king. And David now knows about the conspiracy. So David has given orders for Solomon to be anointed as king. Now you're in big trouble. And what does Adonija do? He's terrified. He goes running to the tabernacle and in the courtyard you have the altar. He goes and he clutches hold of the horns of the altar. Now the altar had, I don't know, maybe we can call it poles. You know what, on the four corners of the altar, the four corners of the altar, you would have four poles. Here they're called the horns, the horns of the altar because they're shaped like a horn. So if anyone holds on to that, it's like symbolically saying, I'm crying out to the Lord for mercy. May my life be spared. So Adonija goes running into the courtyard and he clutches hold of the horns. And then because he's crying out for mercy, Solomon chooses to show mercy. And this is what Solomon says in, yeah, we're still in chapter one. And then if you were to look at verse 40, 49, 50, there onwards. And then when you come to verse 52 is where Solomon says, if he shows himself to be worthy, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground.  So Solomon behaves honorably.  Solomon says, all right, if he continues to behave himself, if he does not, you know, try to create any problem for my throne, let him live. I will allow him to live. But if he tries to do any conspiracy once again, he will be killed. And we see Adonija showing his true colors. He's not grateful for the mercy which Solomon has shown. And so he comes up with another tactic and we see that in chapter two. So a lot of details were involved in David becoming king, Solomon becoming king. It's not just a simple procedure where the person just went and sat on the throne. A lot of events were involved. So in chapter two, we see Adonija going to Bathsheba. And he says, you know, I'm one of the older sons. I am the one who should have been on the throne. But then it's okay.  So fine, I lost the throne. But you know, one small favor at least can I have. You know, the concubine whom David married in his old age, Abhisag the Shunamite. Can I have her as my wife is what is the request that Adonija goes and makes to Bathsheba.  He's asking for one request. He's saying, you know, can we have give the concubine? You know, who used to be the concubine of David. Can we give him to, can we give her to Adonija? And King Solomon says to his mother in verse 22, he says, if we give the concubine to him, it's like a declaration saying, fine, you take over the kingship.  So that's exactly what he says. He says, why do you request Abhisag the Shunamite for Adonija? You might as well request the kingdom for him. After all, he's my older brother. And so, you know, King Solomon is very upset with this tactic which Adonija has come up with. And so now what does Adonija do this time? Last time he went running into the courtyard and he caught hold of the altar. Now what does he do? He actually goes into the holy place. You know, the tabernacle has got two sections. You have the holy place and the most holy place. So we see him this time. He goes into the holy place and the altar which is over there. He goes and flutters on to that. And again, he's hoping that there will be mercy shown to him. But now, there's no mercy shown to him. In fact, you know, Benaiah the priest is given instruction. Go inside. Go inside the holy place. Kill the man exactly, you know, right where he is. Kill him because he has again and again tried to conspire against God's appointed king. And so we see that, you know, Adonija is killed. So we see the treachery of this Adonija. And Solomon is very honorable in his first few years. So we see that. I mean, we are very familiar with that story. You know, if that would be in your first Kings chapter three, when Solomon is appointed as king is so grateful to the Lord for giving such a great responsibility to somebody who is so small and ordinary like him. You know, he understands the magnitude of the privilege which is being given to him. And so he uses all these words. In fact, it says in verse four, you know, first Kings chapter three, verse four, it says that he was so grateful that he offers a thousand burnt offerings, you know, on the altar at Gibeon. He is that humbled by what the Lord has done for him.  And so he says in verse nine, he asks the Lord and he says, Lord, you give me a discerning heart so that I will be able to govern your people in the right way. You know, this is the wording that he uses over there in verse nine. First Kings chapter three, verse nine, he says, for who is able to govern this great people of yours? He doesn't say they are my people. He says, Lord, I know that these Israelites are your people and I have to govern them. Lord, I want to do it in a proper way, in an honorable way. You give me discernment of heart or Lord so that I will be able to lead these people in the correct manner. Now that should be the attitude of Christian leaders today. You know, we have mega pastors, mega preachers and they say, my people they'll say, you know, but actually the congregation is not their people. The congregation is the Lord's people. Their responsibility is just to govern these people, lead them, you know, mentor them, teach them the ways of God, show them how to disciple others. That's all. They are meant to be more like a supervisor and a teacher, not really a king. So a Christian leader must always be aware that the people whom they are ministering to, they are God's people, not their people, not their personal property to be controlled and ruled. So that should be the correct attitude. So the Lord is very pleased with Solomon's humble attitude. And so the Lord says in verse 12, yes, I will give you a wise and discerning heart. And then in the next verse, the Lord also says, even though you did not ask me for wealth and honour, I will give you those things as well. And this is how Solomon starts off his kingship. But then later after his death and Rehoboam is getting ready to climb on the throne. What do the people come and say to Rehoboam? They say your father Solomon put so many taxes on us that we could not even bear the weight of it. Will you show more mercy? Will you reduce the taxes that we will be able to support our households? So what happened to this man who said, Lord, I have to govern your people. Give me a discerning heart so that I know I'm able to lead them in the correct manner. What happened to him? Somewhere along the way, he began to put such heavy taxes on them that the people could not even bear it. What happened? It was a slow, gradual backsliding. He takes seven years to build the temple of the Lord. And then how many years does he take to build his own palace? Anybody remembers? He spends 13 years, almost double what he spent on building the temple of the Lord. He takes seven years to build the temple of the Lord. He takes 13 years to build himself a grand palace and he builds one palace for the Pharaoh's daughter because he has gone and married the Pharaoh's daughter. What did the Lord say? The Lord said, when you marry, you should marry from the people of Israel, not outsiders, not idol worshipers. What has this man done? He's already gone and married a pagan princess. Why does he do that? Because that's basically what all the kings are doing around him. The nations, the kings, they establish a political partnership, a political alliance with the other nation by marrying into their families. So, in this way, Solomon marries a series of different princesses from different nations. Basically, he's forging partnerships with them. Nowadays, when we have international treaties, we just have signing of papers, no marriages, thankfully. But in those days, if you wanted to establish an international relation with another nation, there would be a marriage alliance involved. So, this man is doing it for political reasons. Where is the need for him to do this? The Lord has said that throne is yours, your kingdom is safe, nobody will even attack. He's given that promise that his will be a reign of peace. There will be no war during his lifetime. This is in 1st Chronicles, chapter 22, verse 9. The Lord promises him that he will have peace on every side. He doesn't have to worry about being attacked by any of the enemies. So, where is the need for him to go and establish his international alliances? Somewhere along the way, he stopped trusting the Lord. He thought, if I can build up my position, if I can make myself secure, if I can have partnership with all these people, then nobody will fight against me. From a man who trusted the Lord, now he's fallen into this mode of making one political alliance after another to get the favor of humans. So, instead of building these international relations, if he had instead built his relationship with the Lord and made that strong and secure, that would have benefited both him and the nation. And the same lesson can even apply to us. Are we so desperate to win the favor of people? Are we so eager to get the contact of the influential people in ministry circles and make friends with them? Because if you have good connections, then you can rise up and do more things for the Lord. Is that the attitude? Rather than building our relationship with people, with the idea of promoting ourselves, if we can just confine ourselves to strengthening the vertical relationship with the Lord, he will take care of the ministry. You don't need powerful contacts. You don't need powerful contributors who can pour a lot of money into your ministry. You don't need the horizontal partnerships. What you actually need is that vertical partnership. If that is strong and secure, the funds will come and the funds have to come. When you need a new opening into a new place, you will get the opening irrespective of whether people are backing you up or not. Because that partnership is strong and secure. So we see Solomon has fallen away. He's gotten into all these political alliances. And gradually, obviously, to please them, he would have also started participating in their pujas. And that is how he ends up in complete idol worship. Now, another thing that we learn is that he builds all kinds of expensive gardens in Jerusalem, which would have cost a lot of money. And then it says that he purchased many, many expensive Arabian horses. Now, what has God told him? There is not going to be any warfare during his reign. So why is he buying those expensive Arabian horses? Not because there's going to be any war, just status symbol. Like people nowadays, they collect cars, right? So he wanted to collect horses just for status. He's not even going to have to fight any battles. God is going to take care of him, but this man is making a collection of horses. And who's paying for all of these fancy things? The people. They are being taxed very, very heavily so that he can collect the funds to do all these things to promote himself. And this is the man who said in the beginning, Lord, they are your people. I want to govern them in a way which is correct. You help me. How far he has fallen. How very far he has fallen. Now, he's no longer leading those people, not shepherding them. In fact, those poor people, they say your father was so harsh. Will you at least show us some kindness is what they ask. So Solomon is a complete disgrace to the name of the Lord. He's not the kind of king that the Lord had wanted him to be originally. So we see the insecurity of Solomon. And then we see that same insecurity also in Jeroboam. So after Solomon's death, Rehoboam, his son is supposed to come to the throne. But the Lord is very displeased with the behavior of Solomon. And so the Lord says only Judah and Benjamin will remain under the Davidic lineage. The other 10 tribes will be given to somebody else. And so in first things chapter 11 is where you have the story about the rise of Jeroboam. Jeroboam was basically an official working for Solomon. When Solomon sees how talented Jeroboam is, he decides to appoint him as the in-charge of one of his labor forces. Solomon had a lot of labor forces because he had all these fancy building projects. So he had a lot of labor forces. And so one of the officers in charge of one of the labor forces was Jeroboam. And God decides to choose that official to be the king of the 10 tribes. It's a great honor that the Lord is planning on bestowing upon this man. And so one day when Jeroboam is going someplace, you know, is going out of Jerusalem to another place. On the way in chapter 11, we see this first in chapter 11. Ahija the prophet of Shiloh comes to him and Ahija the prophet tells him, God is going to take away 10 tribes from the Davidic lineage and he will be giving it to you. And God makes very, very lavish promises to Jeroboam. This is what the Lord says to him in 1 Kings chapter 11 verses 37, 38, 39. So if we can have someone read out for us, 1 Kings chapter 11, 37, 38, 39. And I will take, take a decision and you shall be king of all Israel. And if you will listen to all that I command you and will work in my ways and do what is right in my eyes by keeping my status and my commandments as David my servant that did I will be with you and will build you a student house as I build for David and I will give his right to you. And I will afflate the offspring of David because of this but not forever. All right, so here the Lord is promising Jeroboam and saying, you know I'm going to give you 10 tribes, you're going to become the ruler of those under your Rehoboam, only two tribes will be there. And this is what God says to him in verse 37 he says, you will rule over all that your heart desires. How much of a territory you want, I will help you to conquer it. You will, I will bless you. And the Lord says to him in verse 38, I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David. In no way will you be inferior. Whatever privileges the Davidic lineage has, the same privileges will be given even to you. This is the beautiful promise that the Lord makes to Jeroboam. But then when Jeroboam comes to the throne, what does he think in his foolish, foolish heart? He tells himself, oh okay, 10 tribes have now come to me, but all these people every year they'll be going for a number of festivals to Jerusalem. Every time they go to Jerusalem, what does somebody brainwashes them? What did they decide to go back and make the Davidic king, their ruler, what did they go away from me? Insecurity, in spite of the lavish promises that God makes to him. And so he decides, oh no, no, no, let me build to make two golden calves and let them consider these two golden calves as the symbols of Yahweh. So instead of going over there and worshipping Yahweh in Jerusalem, they will just worship these two calves because these two calves are symbolizing Yahweh. Now this again is a cultural kind of a thing. Something easier for us in India to understand. We have all these gods and goddesses belonging to the other religions. And if you notice all these gods and goddesses, they'll have a transport. You have one demon goddess which sits on a tiger and then you have another god which sits on another animal. So like that, so the tiger is a symbol of that particular demon goddess. So in the same way, this Jeroboam, he makes two golden calves. He's not telling them to worship the calves. Basically he's saying, they are like a symbol of Yahweh. So when you're worshipping them, it's like as if you're worshipping Yahweh. And because none of the actual Levite priests will support something like this, he actually goes ahead and he appoints priests from other tribes because the Levites will definitely not participate in something rotten like this. So we see in which chapter would that be? Chapter 12. First in chapter 12, we see in verse 31, he appoints priests for this new temple which he has constructed. So he puts one calf in Bethel. The other calf he puts it in Dan. So those two places become places of heathen worship and he appoints priests who will be able to do the ceremonies over there. And in fact, he makes a similar kind of festival so that the people will not go to Jerusalem for the actual festival. They will celebrate the alternate festival over here. He gets into all this idolatry simply because he doesn't believe that God will give him the dynasty which God promised. He doesn't trust in the living God. So we see Solomon displaying great insecurity, getting into political alliances, getting into greed. And we see Jeroboam doing the same mistake. He's so scared that the people will go away from him that he starts idol worship. I mean, imagine idol worship was not there. He introduced it. What a terrible thing to do. What an evil thing to do when God so lovingly told him the same kind of dynasty that Davidic lineage has, I will give you the same kind of dynasty. And the man doesn't even trust God. And then, coming to Rehoboam, again, same story. The friends and companions of Rehoboam tell him, no, no, no, don't show kindness to the people. If you start reducing the taxes, they may take you lightly. On the other hand, tell them, I'll be even more harsh than my father. Again, insecurity, out of insecurity, Rehoboam, takes the advice of his friends. And he says, I will be harsh over you. I will rule over you. And the people say, we're not interested in you being our king. We'll go find a different king. And which is basically how they end up under Jeroboam. Another thing that we see, Solomon actually tries to murder Jeroboam.  And now we see this Solomon doing the same thing to Jeroboam. He tries to kill him and Jeroboam runs away, hides in Egypt and only after the death of Solomon, he comes back so that he can become king of the 12 tribes. So, where is the faith? Where is the trust in God? We don't see it happening in these chapters. So we need to ask ourselves, am I walking differently from these people? Am I so insecure? Am I so afraid of whether, my ministry will grow or not? Whether the Lord will lift me up and glorify me or not? Are these our concerns? If we are like that, then we will end up taking wrong steps just like Rehoboam, Solomon, Jeroboam. Let us not be one of those arms. Let us be different. Let us be people who will take a stand and say what the Lord has spoken he will do. I choose to trust him. I will not compromise. I will not fall into sin. I will stand on the word of the Lord and choose to obey him. In his time, in his way, he will give me whatever position he wants me to have. So that should be our attitude. We must not have the kind of insecurity which we see in the lives of these rotten kings. So, we don't really have much time. Maybe we can very briefly look at Elisha and Elijah because they too are a very important part of the Book of Kings. So, Elijah, of course, is mentioned in First Kings and Elisha is mainly mentioned in Second Kings. And it's basically because of Elijah that at least some level of holiness continues in northern Israel during the days of Ahab. Ahab, if you remember that man, he completely goes into idolatry and sin and he in fact encourages all the people of his land to get into idolatry. So during that time, Elijah plays a very important role. He's the one who goes from town to town teaching about the things of God. So because of Elijah's efforts, we see that the true worship of Yahweh continues only because of the work which is being done by this great prophet. And, of course, one of the important events that we see regarding Elijah is the contest which happens between the prophets of Baal and the living God on Mount Kamal. So during that incident he clearly proves and establishes but all these idols which these kings are encouraging the people to worship, those are nothing compared to the living God and the living God establishes his superiority. So we see those details about Elijah. Elijah, one of the important miracles that I remembered about Elijah is the healing of Naaman. So we see that in the case of both Elijah and Elisha, you have one miracle of multiplication. In Elijah's case, it is basically with the widow of Zarefath. You know, if someone could please give me some water because throat is getting really dry. Thanks a lot. Now, most of us are familiar with the story of the widow of Zarefath. So we will not really get into the details of it but then we see that in 1 Kings chapter 17. So in 1 Kings chapter 17 the the flower with which this lady was supposed to make the last bit of bread that continues to multiply. The supply of the bread does not run out. So that is the miracle of multiplication that we see in the case of Elijah. Elisha also has something similar that would be in your 2 Kings chapter 4. So in 2 Kings chapter 4 we have one of the prophets who dies and is so now financially that family is in a bad state and so because they are unable to repay their debts the debtors come and take away the debtors want to come and take away the 2 sons as slaves. So this lady comes to Elisha and she says I am part of the my husband was one of the prophets and now he is dead. Please help us financially so that my sons will not be taken away as slaves. So this is in 2 Kings chapter 4 where we see Elisha telling collect empty jars from all the other houses start pouring whatever oil you have left into these jars and we see that the oil multiplies. So we have a multiplication miracle done by Elijah. We also see a miracle of multiplication being done by Elisha. In the same way Elijah brings a child back to life Elisha also brings a child back to life in the case of Elijah that's basically the family which was providing him bread that widow's son dies and when the widow's son dies we have Elijah all that will be in chapter 17 Elijah he stretches himself out on the dead boy three times and then the boy comes back to life in the case of Elisha it has to do with the lady from Shunem that lady from Shunem they construct a room on top of their house where he can come and stay and so in return he blesses them and says you will have a child and then that little boy when he dies you have Elisha doing something similar he spreads himself out he stretches himself out on the child two times in yeah the first time when he stretches himself on the child that would be in your chapter 2 Kings chapter 4 itself somewhere around the end of the chapter verse 36 37 somewhere over there so the first time he stretches himself out on the dead boy the boy's body begins to grow warm and then the second time when he stretches himself out on that boy the child comes back to life so the ministry and the miracles of Elisha and Elijah are very similar we see a lot of similarities between these two prophets the yeah there is a lot to be said about Ahab and all the conspiracies nowadays we see this TV series of dynasties these large families all kinds of conspiracies happen in these families and somebody wants to take power and all that they could actually make a TV series out of Ahab's dynasty really I mean the number of conspiracies and sub-conspiracies which take place Ahab his wife the things which he does and then the things which are done through the descendants a lot of conspiracies take place during this Ahab's thing you can actually make a TV series out of it and people will watch because the story is quite interesting all kinds of things happen and Elijah is the one who plays the main role again and again he goes to the king he wants him he gives words of judgment to him and so there is absolutely no time to get into all of that but you know we were able to look at at least some of the main details about David and Solomon so no one has posted any questions in the chat if anyone has any questions over here you can you can raise a hand otherwise we'll close with the word of prayer any questions there are no questions but people were you know paying attention and listening so I'm quite happy yeah so let's close with the word of prayer Lord we just thank you so much for all the life lessons that we could learn Lord from your word today Lord we want to learn from the positive examples and we want to avoid the wrong conduct of Lord of the negative examples that were presented today please Lord help us to become people who will honor you who will trust you who will trust you enough to hold on to you instead of running after position of power oh Lord make us into that kind of a people help us a lot to be like David who did not go running and sit on the throne the minute he got a chance instead he waited for you he waited to hear from you he wanted to be guided by you for him righteousness was more important than getting the throne so Lord help us to have that kind of an attitude where our hearts desire is to please you rather than get position Lord you do that Lord that work inside us if we have anything of any rottenness inside us the kind of rottenness that Solomon did that Jeroboam had that Rehoboam displayed Lord if that kind of a rottenness is inside us so Lord pluck it out from the roots oh Lord Lord do a work of discipline and correction in us because now oh Lord our hearts are still at their study stage tomorrow oh Lord they are going to be in leadership positions and ministry positions so oh Lord do a work of great deep sanctification inside them right now Lord if there is any rottenness inside pluck it out now oh Lord any greed and lust for power pluck it out now oh Lord help us oh Lord to sanctify ourselves and refine ourselves now so that tomorrow when responsibility is placed on our shoulders we will be like David oh Lord and not like Jeroboam oh Lord help us oh Lord to live lives that honor you help us oh Lord to be like Obed Edom and his household so that when you live inside us oh Lord we will honor you and glorify you in all that we do oh Lord so we pray that you would help us to develop that kind of an attitude to permit ourselves Lord into your hands thank you Lord in Jesus name Amen


So next time something bad happens, even to me, I just ask myself, will this possibly kill me? No. Will this matter? Five years from now? No. Will this put me in jail? No.  What do you think about that?  I know, I always know that as long as I maintain these habits, as long as I maintain growth in all areas of my life, every day, no matter what, it means that wherever I am right now, it doesn't matter because a month from now I'll be making more money, I'll be healthier, I'll be smarter, I'll be more balanced, everything will be better, a year from now will be 10 times better, and a decade from now will be 100 times better, and that gives you a different perspective on life.  The reason desperation comes in is when you don't have anything to look forward to, but as long as you have these habits, as long as you're growing, especially during tough times, especially during depression, especially during stress, the more you're consistent and the longer you grow, the more hope you get for the future, because you know, you know it has to be better, you're forcing a better future, and that's my message, and that's what I do. That's why I do what I do. I hope you get that, and that's what I want to help you accomplish as well. Thanks for watching.


Stories from Parliament. The Fire of 1834. I keep coming back to this dreadful spot. It's so horrible to see it like this. But you want to hear about the fire, don't you? Not listen to me rabbiting on? So, first things first. I'm Mrs. Wright, Deputy Housekeeper at the Palace of Westminster. That is, sorry, was the home of Parliament. Right here next to the River Thames in London. Way back in history, kings and queens lived here. Henry VIII was the last of them, and he thought the place was getting a bit run down. So he gave the building to Parliament. And why shouldn't the people have a palace to make their laws in? So, come the awful day, October 16th 1834, and two workmen arrived to speak to the Clark of Works. Come on, Matthew, look sharp! I knew what they were about. The Clark of Works had hired them to burn a pile of old tally sticks. They were an old way of remembering if someone owed money with a mark made on a stick. Parliament didn't use the system any more, and there was a huge pile of these old sticks cluttering up the basement. So they all had to be burned, as the Clark of Works explained. So, is that clear? Two of you, two furnaces, get this pile of old wood out of the way once and for all. Burn a lot? Exactly, burn the whole wretched lot! And so they did. They worked all morning and into the afternoon. And when I took some visitors into the House of Lords... My word! Yes, I am dreadfully sorry. Well, perhaps we'd better move on. I was rather worried and told the Clark of Works about the smoke. Fire makes smoke, Mrs Wright. But don't fret, it will soon be over. I retired to my room with no idea what was going on beneath the House of Lords. You see, the fire had become so hot that it had set the floor alight. I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew... Oh! Fire! The doorkeeper's wife raised the alarm and now the Clark of Works had changed his tune. Out! Out! Everybody out of the building! Oh, my Lord! I hurried out along with everyone else and stood a safe distance away. Boats began to stop along the river as a great crowd gathered to watch on land and on the water. By seven that evening, the whole of the House of Lords was ablaze. You men! Fetch water! Form a chain! Fetch water! Mr Braidwood, chief of the London Fire Engine establishment, arrived on the scene. Man the pumps! Get that engine closer! Closer, I say! But it was no use. Look out! At 7.30, the roof caved in. Back!  Then, at eight o'clock, the House of Commons caught fire and suddenly it seemed like the whole of Parliament was burning. Oh, no! For a moment, all the frantic activity stopped as everyone looked up in horror. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. Then James Braidwood rallied his men. I want every able-bodied man here now! You get to the engine! You free! Over to the pump! I want six Mr Braidwood! Everyone worked as if there was no tomorrow. And for the old Palace of Westminster, there was no tomorrow. Just one part of the ancient Palace remained, the great, magnificent Westminster Hall. It was nearly 800 years old and it had the most splendid, huge wooden beamed roof. Surely it would survive. But then, at 10 o'clock... We can't stop it, sir! Westminster Hall has caught fire! Don't give up, man! Point your hoses at the roof. And you care what it takes? Deluge that roof with water. Save Westminster Hall and all castles. That was Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister himself. You heard the Prime Minister! Bring ladders, water! Steer that engine round quickly! This is the fight of your life there! Save Westminster Hall! Do you hear me? Do not let the whole of Parliament be destroyed! Then, maybe the Lord heard our prayers because the wind shifted just a little. And maybe the thick old walls of the hall played their part. And there were ladders and scaffolding already in the hall from some repair work.  God be praised! When the sun came up the next day, it looked down on a charred landscape.  Sticking out of the ground like it was mocking me for not complaining more the day before. But Westminster Hall was saved. That magnificent medieval masterpiece with its stunning wooden roof survived. And now, there is to be a competition amongst architects to design a new Palace of Westminster. There is talk of an enormous clock tower so that people will be able to see their Parliament for miles around. I wonder if I will live to hear that giant clock chime.