Last Words

We have your Bibles with you today. I want you to turn with me, if you would, to 1 Kings chapter 2, and we're going to start off this morning just with a first verse. When David's time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon, his son, saying, I'm about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong.

Show yourself a man. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we've been studying the life of David for almost two years now. When we were children, we looked at David as our hero.

We marveled at his faith and we brushed over his sins and failures. We had Sunday School teachers and preachers and parents who said, David is your example. Now be a David. That works well when David is standing against Goliath, nothing but faith and a slingshot. It works well when we are touched by his inspired psalms. It works well when we listen to the godly counsel of Abigail and he refuses to take vengeance on her foolish husband Nabal. But there are other times when David gives himself completely over to the will of the flesh. He commits adultery.

He conspires to murder to cover his sin. This makes us realize that David is not our hero, but he's a signpost to point us to our true hero, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. Today as we look at David's death, may we focus on the death of David's Messiah. So as we close out this study, may we look past David and see Jesus. May we trust his gospel and may we honor his name, for it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon from 2 Samuel chapter 23 and verse 1 of that chapter says, and these were the last words of David. Now we saw in that message that David, these were not actually his last words, for David lived several months after that.

Several months after that. And we read about many conversations that David had after that. So how could these be the last words of David? Well, they were the last public words of David to his nation. They were not the last words of David, period. What we are looking at today are David's literal last words. David is on his deathbed. And as he's lying there on his deathbed, he's shivering with the cold. And so they bring in this beautiful young girl, probably 19 or 20 years old.

Her name is Abishag. And she gets in the bed with David. She's trying to cuddle up with him to get him warm. And David is so close to death he doesn't even respond to her. David is fading fast and then all of a sudden a problem pops up. Nathan, the prophet, and Bathsheba, David's wife, walk into David's bedchambers. And they walk in and they're filled with panic. And they say, David, we've got a problem.

And you cannot die until you deal with this problem and take care of it. And so very groggily, David lifts himself up on the bed and he says, what's the matter? And Nathan says to him, your oldest living son, Adonijah, has declared himself to be the king of Israel. He has thrown a coronation party. He has killed the fatted calf.

He has killed all of these sheep. He is proclaiming himself to be the king. And he will not talk to me. He will not talk to Bathsheba. He will not talk to Solomon. He will not talk to Benaiah. He will not talk to Zadok.

He will not talk to any of the men of valor, the mighty men of valor. And he has convinced Israel that you want him to be the king. And all of Israel has agreed with that. And they are shouting out, long live Adonijah. Well, it was like God shot a dose of Holy Ghost adrenaline into David's heart. And David sits up in bed and he says, no. He said, it is not the will of God for Adonijah to be the king of Israel.

God has not declared that to be so. God has declared that Solomon be the king and be my successor. David says, I remember back months and years before Solomon was even born where the Lord told me that this would be the king. Solomon would be the king.

He even gave me his name. And the name Solomon comes from the Hebrew word shalom, which means peace. David was saying, I am a man of war. Solomon will be a man of peace. And not only will he be the king, he will be more than that. He will be the man who will build the temple to God, the temple of Jehovah.

He will build that temple and I will not get to build it. So he said, you go get my royal mule. And you tell Israel that King David has declared under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God that Solomon is going to be the king. And said, then you get your mighty men of valor and get all the godly men of this kingdom and bring them out.

And I want you to escort David into the city as he is riding the royal mule. And as that's taking place, then the people of Israel will cry out, long live Solomon, the real king of Israel. And he will be anointed with oil and he will be the king.

1 Kings 1, verse 38 through 40 describes it. So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Carathites and the Pelethites went down and had Solomon ride on King David's mule and brought him to Gihon. There Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet and all the people said, long live King Solomon. And all the people went up after him playing on pipes and rejoicing with great joy so that the earth was split by their noise. So in a very short period of time, Adonijah was rebuked and essentially just put to the side and Solomon was anointed as the new king of Israel. Now that takes us to 1 Kings chapter 2 where we see the literal last words of David. Let me share with you two examples of last words.

The first one took place 35 years ago. I was pastoring Southside Church at that point in time and it was a Sunday night. I was getting ready to preach. I was at the church and there was a telephone call that came to the church and the man came to me and said, Doug, there's a lady on the telephone. She's panicky. She wants to talk to you. Says she's got to talk to you immediately. And so I went and I got the phone and the lady said, Doug, you don't know me.

I live in the community. She said, I'm a Christian and my father's an atheist. Said my father is in the process of dying.

The doctors are only giving him hours to live. And she said, I wonder, could you possibly come and witness to my father? I was just getting ready to preach.

I said, no, I can't come right at this minute but I'll tell you what I can do. I said, my associate pastor is here, Jim Kelly, and Jim will come. And so I went to Jim. I shared the situation with him. He said, yes, I will gladly go.

I gave him the address. He went to the house. As the service was ending at our church, I looked at the back of the church and Jim was coming back in.

His face was just as white as a sheet. And I said, Jim, what happened? He said, that young lady met me at the door.

She told me the situation, that her dad was an atheist. And then she took me upstairs to his bedroom. So we walked into his bedroom and said, I had my Bible in my hand. And said, the man looked over and he saw my Bible. And said, he cursed me out. And he started screaming and yelling, get that Bible out of my house. He said, I shared with the man who I was.

I said, I'm Jim Kelly and I've come here to share the gospel with you and I know that you're dying and your only hope is Christ. And he said, that man sat up in bed and his face turned as red as a sheet. And he said, he screamed out one word, GD, as loud as he could. He said, he fell back in bed and before his head hit that pillow, he was dead. And Jim looked at me, his hands were trembling. He said, Doug, that man entered into eternity cursing God's name. And Jim burst out in tears. Folks, that man's last words were scary, they were blasphemous, and they were damning.

Let me share with you a much, much better example. Kim Beacham, last January, gave me a telephone call from Northeast Hospital. And she told me that her dad, Bob, was there at the hospital. The doctors were not giving him long to live. She said, he's off the BIPAP machine, he won't go back on it. And she said, is there any way that you could come?

She'd also called Eugene. At that point in time, they weren't letting anybody up in the ICU because of the COVID mess. And so, I didn't know if we could get up there or not, but we went. And there was a wonderful male nurse there who was a Christian, and he let us in, me and Eugene, and their family.

It was a miracle of God that we got to do that. But we went into the ICU room, and Bob was lying there in the bed. We all gathered around his bed.

We tried to encourage him to get back on that BIPAP machine so that he could extend his life. And Bob looked at us and smiled, and he said, no. He said, I'm tired.

He said, I don't want to do this anymore. He said, I'm ready to see Jesus. And there was no panic. There was no fear.

There was just godly peace. Bob said, I want to speak to you all. But he said, I want to wait till Robbie gets here.

Robbie's his son. And so we waited for a little bit, and Robbie showed up. We all gathered around his bed. And then he went from one person to the next and spoke to all of us personally. He started with Jan. And he looked at each one of us, and he told each one of us how much he loved us. He said, I love you. And he said, I want you to know how much I appreciate the ways that you've benefited my life. And then he encouraged every single one of us to love Jesus with all of our hearts. And then he said to us, don't worry about me.

Jesus is going to take care of me. He shut his eyes at that point in time, and we stayed for a little bit longer. Then finally, Eugene and I left.

It was about two o'clock in the morning. A couple of hours later, Bob Beecham was in heaven. Bob had been my friend and a wonderful encourager to me for 32 years. I've missed him, and so has Grace Church. He taught me a lot through his kindness and through his simple faith, but most of all, he taught me how to die. I will never forget Bob Beecham's last words. Four points that I want to share with you today as we look at the last words of David.

Number one is death awareness. Look with me if you would at verses 1 through 2a. When David's time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon and his son, saying, I'm about to go the way of all the earth.

The emergency or the crisis is now over. David stepped up and he said no to Adonijah. He would not allow this overambitious son of his to steal away the throne of God's chosen heir to the throne. Adonijah has conceded. He's not happy about it.

There's nothing he can do about it, and so he concedes. David moved quickly. He moved decisively, and now King Solomon is the new king.

He has been anointed by oil, anointed by God, and he is seated upon the throne at this point in time. So all that adrenaline begins to flow away from David, and all of a sudden his heart begins to slow down. His breathing begins to get a little more shallow. Folks, he knows that things are coming to an end very quickly. Now I have never been at death's door like that, so I don't know exactly what that feels like, but I have been with many people who were at death's door and who have looked me right in the eye and said, this is it. I know that I'm getting ready to go home.

I know that I'm getting ready to go see Jesus, and they knew it down in their heart that they were dying and everything was getting ready to shut down. So what does David say? He said, I'm going the way of all the earth. Some translations say I'm going the way of all the flesh.

So if David had been living maybe a thousand years down the road, he might have had the book of Hebrews. If he had, he could have quoted Hebrews chapter 9 verse 27 that says, for theirs appointed unto men wants to die and after that the judgment. I've had people to tell me to stop witnessing to them because they didn't like talking or thinking about death. They said to me, death makes me feel icky. I don't like to talk about death. Death makes me feel uncomfortable.

And so I've replied to them, I said, do you think that avoiding the subject will change the situation? I said, listen, I said, man has been living on this earth for over six thousand years and you need to understand that no man has ever cheated death. The death rate in every generation is always the same. It's a hundred percent everyone dies. David had faced the possibility of dying many times when he stood on the valley with Goliath and Goliath looked over at David said, I'm going to kill you.

I'm going to rip you apart. David said, no, I'm going to kill you because this battle is the Lord's. David was surely standing in faith at that point in time but he would not have been human if he didn't think about the possibility of death.

I'll guarantee you he did. And then there was the time where David is being chased around by King Saul and Jonathan, King Saul's son, takes David and hides him. Jonathan does not believe that Saul is actually going to kill David. David definitely believes that he's going to kill him and so David says this to Jonathan, truly as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there's but a step between me and death. David knew that his death could easily happen and quickly.

When Absalom waged war against Israel, David knew that his life could be taken just like that. My dad fought in World War II. He was flying in a plane.

They were flying over Italy and they were headed toward Germany and as the plane was flying, a German fighter plane came up behind them and started shooting at them. It was a piece of shrapnel that went through the side of the plane where my dad was and it went right by his ear and stuck in the other wall of the plane. And dad said it was about two inches from his ear. He said he could hear it just whizz right by his ear. He said if that piece of shrapnel had been two inches closer, it would hit him right in the head and it would have killed him instantly. He said when he realized that death was that close, he broke out in a cold sweat. So many of us have had close calls and we know what that feels like, but this is different. David said it's here.

I am fading fast and very soon it will be all over. David was fortunate in that his death was not sudden. It was not surprising.

It was not unexpected what was taking place. He had several days or maybe even weeks to prepare for what he was going to say. He needed to talk to Solomon. He needed to share some things with Solomon that were going to be very, very important. So David was thinking out these things ahead of time that he was going to say to his son.

Let me ask you something. Have you ever thought about what your last words might be? You ever thought about what kind of witness you want to leave to your family when you die?

What kind of witness do you want to leave to your friends and to your church? What are you going to say? I shared with you a few weeks ago that I will never forget Martin Ephard's last words to me. Martin was in the hospital. He was suffering with COVID. Very, very sick. Could hardly talk and he called me up and we were talking.

They put him on a ventilator not long after that and he wasn't able to talk at all after that. But he talked to me and he said, Doug, I want you to know that I belong to the Lord and God is sovereign. And he said, I know that the situation that I am in is not in my hands. It's not in the doctor's hands.

It's not in the devil's hands. It is in God's hands and I know that if this is his time for me to go then praise God so be it I'm ready to see Jesus. I thought to myself Kim Ephard ought to praise God every single day for her husband's testimony. I can't tell you how many people since that since that funeral service have come up to me and have said to me, Doug, I want to die with a testimony like Martin's. So do I.

So do I. You ever thought about what your last words might be? I've thought about it. I think I might like my last words to be this. Jesus wins. Jesus wins.

Then I close my eyes. I breathe my last breath and there's no waiting period to be absent from the bodies to be present with the Lord. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 8. So a split second later I open my eyes in glory and there is King Jesus in all of his glory and all of his majesty and all of his holiness shining radiating like a million suns and I hope to God that my last words on earth will be my first words in heaven. Jesus wins. Praise God. Jesus wins.

Let me throw this in also. If you are in the hospital on your deathbed or if you have loved ones in the hospital on their deathbed, leave the television off. Don't turn the TV on.

Spend that time reading scripture to them, praying with them, ministering to them, loving on them. Leave the TV off. They don't need to die here in a Budweiser commercial. They don't need to die here and have to kill ticks and fleas from your dog. They don't need to die hearing about the virtue of marital infidelity from some stupid soap opera.

Folks, clear the air. Turn the TV off. Let your loved ones die in fellowship with you and with the Lord. Those times are too precious to play with.

Some of the times when I have been with a dying believer have been some of the closest times I've ever had with God. Folks, don't waste that time. Don't waste your dying hours nor the dying hours of your loved ones. Alright, point two is the Father's godly counsel to His Son. And I've got two sub-points here. My first sub-point is be a man. Look with me at verse two. I'm about to go the way of all the earth.

Be strong and show yourself a man. Now it goes without saying that David needs to give Solomon some instruction. He's going to be the new king. David's the king. He knows how to the the all the ins and outs of what a king is supposed to do. And so he needs to share with him those things.

But this is more than that. Solomon's not just a king. He's also David's son and David loves him with all his heart. And what does David want for him? He wants him to be a man of God. This reminds me of the encouragement that Paul gives to the church at Corinth in 1st Corinthians chapter 16 verse 13 where Paul said to the church, he said this, Be watchful.

Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. So what were David and Paul, what were they saying to Solomon and to the church in Corinth?

What were they saying? Were they saying, Go to the gym. Hit the weight room. Work on your biceps. Every Christian man ought to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You need to really get working now, guys. You ought to be able to dunk a basketball. You ought to be able to run over a defensive back.

You ought to be able to knock out Mike Tyson in the first round of a boxing match. Is that what he's saying? No, that's not what he's saying. He's not talking about just physical strength here. He's talking about spiritual strength. He's talking about godly character and personal holiness and spiritual guts.

David was saying, Solomon, follow the Lord. Refuse to be a compromiser. Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Stand against the enemy. Solomon, be a man of God. Or as Paul said it, be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men.

My subpoint two is this. Obedience to God's Word. Look at verses three and four. And keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn, that the Lord may establish his Word that he spoke concerning me, saying, if your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.

In these famous last words of David, he tells Solomon to be a man. Then he tells him how to accomplish that. He said, you accomplish being a man by obeying the Word of God. That's how you do it.

And then it's very interesting. He uses seven different terms to describe what the Word of God is. He calls it a charge, a law, God's ways, statutes, commandments, rules, and testimonies. Folks, when the church gets in trouble, when the church starts backsliding, it is always the result of compromising with the Word of God.

Always. The problem in America today is not just a woke, liberal, Marxist-leaning culture. The problem in America today is a spineless church that will not be faithful to the Word of God. Folks, if we loved the abortionists and the transgender people and the LGBTQT group, if we love them, then we would love them enough to share the gospel with them. We would love them enough to tell them the truth about the agenda that they have, that it is damning their very souls. The most loving thing a church can do is to say the Word of God is true.

The Word of God has all our answers. The Word of God is more loving than you and I could ever be. And the Word of God tells us that Jesus Christ is our only hope. If the church in America had a spiritual backbone, then America's thinking would not be turned upside down. Is America's thinking turned upside down today?

You better believe it is. It's a situation where we're in a culture that caused good evil and evil good, who puts light for darkness and darkness for light, who puts sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet, and the church has not shined the light of God's Word on that kind of thinking and let them just die in that kind of delusion. Brothers and sisters, that needs to change. Philip Ryken said this so well, I've just got to share it with you. He said it is not just this part or that part of the Bible that we should obey, but every last word. There is not one situation Solomon would face in his life as a man or the rule of his kingdom that the Bible does not address. Even when Solomon rewarded his friends and punished his enemies, as David told him to do in the second part of his farewell discourse, this needed to be done according to biblical principles.

And one scholar puts it, the exercise of royal power is not to be arbitrary, for the king is not a law unto himself. It is rather to be in accordance with the law of Moses. What was true for Solomon is also true for us. There is not one situation we face in life that the Bible does not address in some practical way. God's Word teaches us how to think, how to speak, and how to live. It tells us what to love and what to hate.

It shows us how to glorify God forever. This is why the ministry of the church must be built squarely and unashamedly on the Word of God. As Jane Boyce once said, we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. And it is practical because we believe the Bible must be the treasure most valued and attended to in the church's life. We read the Word, pray the Word, sing the Word, preach the Word so that we can believe its saving promises and obey its righteous commands.

When David told Solomon to walk in God's ways, he was telling him to live a biblical lifestyle. The Bible should have a predominant of influence upon our thinking and our manner of life. This is what will make us real men or real women, as the case may be, based in our lives on the Word of God. When it comes to godly manliness, God's Word puts everything to proper perspective. The Bible teaches a man to join his physical strength to patience and gentleness, so that rather than striking out in selfish anger, he uses his power to protect the weak. The Bible teaches a man to bring his sexual desire under the control of the Holy Spirit, rather than satisfying his own lust. He gives his whole body and his whole heart to one woman for a lifetime, so that God can make a family. In short, the Bible teaches a man to serve God in his daily calling, so that his work brings honor to Jesus Christ instead of to himself, and so that his wealth can advance the kingdom of God rather than being used for his own foolish pleasures. The best and the only way to avoid wasting your life is to base everything you do on the Word of God.

My point three is practical counsel. Look with me at verses five through nine. Moreover, you also know what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, how he dealt with the two commanders of the armies of Israel, Abner the son of Nur and Amasa the son of Jethur, whom he killed, avenging in time of peace for blood that had been shed in war, putting the blood of war on the belt around his waist and on the sandals of his feet. Act therefore according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace. But deal loyally with the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let him be among those who eat at your table. For with such loyalty they met me when I fled from Absalom your brother.

And there's also with Eushemiah the son of Gerah the Benjamite from Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse on the day when I went to Manaam. And when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put you to death with a sword. Now therefore do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man.

You will know what you ought to do, and you shall bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol." I read some commentators who felt that David was being hateful and vindictive here, and he was trying to get Solomon to do his dirty work for him. That he wanted these men to suffer and to experience pain for what they did to him, and he wanted it to be taken care of. He wanted Solomon to take care of it, and then he could just smile in heaven.

I don't think that's what happened at all. I think David was a man who knew Israel better than anybody else knew Israel. And David was a man who knew that there were some wicked, very powerful men in Israel who could do great damage to Solomon and also to Israel itself.

So he tells Solomon about two of these wicked men that needed to be dealt with, and he tells them about one very godly man. The first wicked man he told him about was Joab, and David did not trust Joab at all. David had told Joab, do not kill my son Absalom. Joab killed him anyway. Do not kill Abner, and Joab killed him anyway. Do not kill on my son. Joab killed him anyway. Joab was a hard-headed, belligerent military man, and he was power hungry. And so David tells Solomon, this man deserves to die. He deserves to die because if you allow him to live, he is going to do much damage to you, Solomon, as the king, and he will also do much damage to the entire nation of Israel.

His life needs to be taken. Secondly, he brings up Shimei. You remember him? Shimei's the Ernest T. Bass of the Old Testament. He's the guy that was throwing rocks at David. He's the guy that was cursing David. He's the guy that was falsely accusing David of stealing the throne away from Solomon, and David says he's a thorn in Israel's flesh, Solomon. You need to stop his foolishness by taking his life. Was David being vindictive and hateful?

I don't think so at all. I think David was protecting his son, and I think he was protecting Israel. Then he turns to a godly man. This man's name was Barzillai. He was the Gileadite. He's a man who had been extremely loyal to David. He's a man who was very loyal to God. David used him as a prayer warrior.

He used him as a counselor. He would go to Barzillai, and Barzillai knew what was going on in Israel, and he would share things with David that David had no idea were going on, and David knew that he could trust him implicitly. And this man Barzillai never did it to get something from it. He never wanted reward.

He never expected rewards. He just did it because he loved David, he loved God, and he loved Israel. So what did David say? David said, be sure that this man's taken care of. He said, be sure that his sons and his family are taken care of.

Show them godly kindness. My dad was a godly man. My dad loved my mother. My mother could be extremely difficult. My dad knew her personality, and he knew her ways, and he was able just to put up with her, and he took care of her.

He treated her like a queen until the day that he died. In his last days on earth, he asked me for a favor. He said, I know that your mother can be difficult. He says, I'm going to be gone.

He said, it would be very easy to just walk away. He said, I'm asking you to do me a favor. He said, for my sake and for Christ's sake, honor your mother. Ten years mom lived from the time dad died till 2016, and during those times my mother did some things that were extremely difficult for her three kids to have to deal with, and there were times that we wanted just to throw up our hands and walk away from that situation, and we didn't, and one of the reasons we didn't is because we remembered my dad's words. Honor your mother.

Honor your mother. Folks, dying words are not dead words. Dying words are words that stick. My last point ends our study of David, and the last point is David's death. Look with me at 1 Kings chapter 2 verses 10 through 11. Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David, and the time that David reigned over Israel is 40 years.

He reigned seven years in Hebron and 33 years in Jerusalem. David's in heaven now. He knows Jesus on a first-name basis, and if David could speak words to us today, what would be his words to Grace Church? I think they would be this, look to Jesus, love Jesus, worship Jesus, serve Jesus, follow Jesus. I think David would say to us, it has never been about David.

It has always been about Jesus. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, this passage today forces us to deal with that which is important. We're forced to acknowledge that life is short, death is certain, and eternity is forever. Father, I have challenged our congregation today to prepare for their last words, not so that we could be showy and self-righteous, not that we should point the world to our goodness and our wisdom so we could finish well and glorify Christ even in our last moments. Father, our prayer is this, help us to die well. We ask this prayer in the precious and holy name of Jesus. Amen.