Father to Son (Part A)

And so here's David saying, the historian right now, the days of David drew near that he should die and he charged Solomon his son. Now maybe you're a man, you're not fortunate enough to have a good father who could charge you, could teach you, that you could look up to.

But there are other men. It doesn't have to be your father. Now God can raise up a Paul to be over a Timothy. Paul was not Timothy's biological father, but he was his father in the faith. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 1 Kings chapter 2 as he begins his message, Father to Son. And this section, David is giving his last advice to his son Solomon. It is wise, it is heartfelt, these final instructions from King David to the son who is now King Solomon.

No question that David is investing himself, making sure as best he can that he's not leaving anything left undone for his son. He's trying to facilitate the transition until Solomon gets established. At one point he says Solomon's just a, he's a young man, he doesn't, he's inexperienced and he appeals to the leaders to support Solomon. That's more in Chronicles where we get that. In Chronicles 23 through 29 is where more information is recorded.

And it's not easy to line up the sequence of events in 1 Kings chapter 2 and 1 Chronicles 23 through 29. But we can get enough from it. What is lost are the tones, the inflections, the gestures, the responding gestures. You know when you say something and another person's eyes light up or frown. You know we miss these facial expressions and gestures that accompany an intimate moment like this because those expressions trigger other thoughts and statements. So it would have been a wonderful thing to be able to sit there and watch old King David talking to young King Solomon. And this is just, it flows as we start reading the story.

And even though we've lost that part, we have, what is preserved is plenty, it's plenty of information for us, enriching information, especially for the men. Chronicles, when it tells the story of David's last words, it makes no mention of Adonijah's coup and that Solomon succeeded, the people with Solomon succeeded in overthrowing Adonijah. However, that episode of Adonijah trying to take the throne appears, looking at Chronicles with kings, to have energized David.

He seems to have regained sufficient strength and he called for a national gathering. 1 Chronicles chapter 23. So when David was old and full of days, he made his son Solomon king over Israel and he gathered together all the leaders of Israel with the priest and the Levites, that he is David. And so again he, you know the expression, he was pretty hot with what Adonijah was doing because that's what David needed, he needed to get hot. Remember he was cold and he had to have Abishag, okay. Anyway, final days of David.

Various scenarios are possible. The most reasonable is that Solomon had his initial anointing to the throne as recorded in 1 Kings and then a national ceremony as recorded in 1 Chronicles shortly after, and I'll cover more of that at the end. Solomon was made king essentially twice, he was coronated twice. That quick one by David, when David said, get my mule, I'm not going with you guys, but take him down to Gihon, anoint him there, and then he's going to have the one where he calls the gathering.

Now we look at verse 1. There we read, Now the days of David drew near, that he should die. And he charged Solomon his son, saying, now we'll pause there. In all probability, the way this story reads in both these accounts, Kings and Chronicles, David had a personal influence over Solomon, a very positive way.

It was good for both of them. He apparently didn't have it with many of his sons, but he had it with Solomon. And there are several charges that he lays on Solomon.

Now he's not going to be able to enforce these because he's going to die. But he's going to say, Solomon, I charge you, do this. And it's going to be up to Solomon to either do it or not. Now many of the kings did not follow these warnings and teachings that their predecessors laid before them, but Solomon is going to do so in the early days of his ministry. And what David has to say, these charges that he gives to Solomon, they are wise, they are noble duties. Paul, of course, charged Timothy, his son in the faith. He charged him to preach the word. 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 1, I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead, at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season, convict, rebuke, resort with all longsuffering and teachings. And so here is David saying, the historian right now, the days of David drew near that he should die and he charged Solomon his son. Well, maybe you're a man, you're not fortunate enough to have a good father who could charge you, could teach you, that you could look up to. But there are other men. It doesn't have to be your father. God can raise up a Paul to be over a Timothy. Paul was not Timothy's biological father, but he was his father in the faith.

And it shows. Charge, it's an insistence, it's a direction, it's an advice for duty. It's the father emphatically saying, in this case, the father and son, but as I mentioned, it doesn't have to be Paul with Timothy. It's that emphatic, son, I'm telling you, you've got to do this.

Trust me on this. And to back this up, the severity of these charges in the scripture, here's a couple of them, or three more than the one from Timothy. Three times in the Song of Solomon, Solomon writes, I charge you. Now it's in the character speaking, but Solomon is the author.

We know the Holy Spirit, of course. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases. He says it again three times. Do not stir up love until it is time. Don't force the event.

Great lessons in that. To read the word, we are charged by Paul, writing this time to the Thessalonians, I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren. There he is charging them to read the word in the assembly. Not home in their living rooms, you could do that too, but there at the church, Christians are to assemble.

It's not an option. It's a commandment. Also, Paul in 1 Timothy charges believers to follow the word. I charge you, 1 Timothy 5, verse 21, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels that you observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing with partiality. I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus and the elect angels.

He's borne it on. I charge you, Solomon. Son, I'm telling you. And that is God saying this to believers. Don't stir up love. I'm charging you with this until it pleases. Don't force it.

Don't rush it. And then the preaching of the word and the other charges that come with it. Verse 2, this is all part of the church. I go the way of all the earth.

Be strong therefore and prove yourself a man. Now this I go the way of all the earth is a euphemism for I'm dying. It was found in Joshua's farewell to the nation. I go the way of all the earth. This is the curse.

This is what happens to us. So David knows he's dying. And there is nothing, and we have, especially in Chronicles, a lot of his words facing death, and we don't register fear. He is a man just focused on what God wants for the living. So he says, therefore, since I'm not going to be here, that is, and you will be king, I won't be here to be king, you will then be king. He says, prove yourself a man.

Well, what should David have said? My son, be a conformist. Be an appeaser.

Be a puppet. I learned from one of my Bible teachers early on, he said, theologians are often like sheep. They all go astray. And what he was saying was, theologians can pick up an idea and just pass it from one generation to the other because they're not checking it for themselves. And you've got to break that, I mean, if it's true, you stay with it. But if you say, wait a minute, let me think this through, and we have an example of this where I disagree with most of the commentators that I read and men who I highly admire and adore, but on this topic, I disagree with them because of my teacher years ago saying to me, theologians go astray, all like sheep. Make sure you think it through. Find out what the answer is yourself. That's what the Bereans were doing.

We admire this. Well, what David says, prove yourself a man. He's saying, don't just be somebody's puppet. That's a little bit severe to the example I was giving to the theologians.

I'm not suggesting they were puppets, but there's a practice of that going on. Anyway, being wise and being rich and being king is not enough. It's not enough to properly rule the kingdom. Solomon needed to be strong enough to carry the blessing. Now, there's a lesson in that for all of us. It's not enough to have a gift.

You have to be strong enough to carry the gift. You have to be wise enough to know when to and when not to implement. If you're a good Bible teacher, you don't just get on a bus and start preaching to people. You know, just see the casting pro before the swine.

This is not good. You have to, you know, you still retain your wits about you. A lot of, you can be an A student with no sense. We have a whole administration in the White House like that.

A bunch of folks that can get A's on tests but really have no sense. They can't govern because their hearts are wrong. And this has often been the case throughout human history. Well, Zedekiah, the last king of the Jews, the last of Judah's kings, he will not prove himself a man.

And because of that, directly because he could not stand up to those around him as king, Jeremiah and the kingdom suffered greatly to the point where Nebuchadnezzar came and took them all the way to Babylon and killed the others and razed the temple and the city, destroyed everything. So this is primarily for men. It is what David is saying to Solomon is between he and his son, it is man to man. It is not man to boy, it is man to man. It is not for Bathsheba, it is not for Abishak, it is to his son. This is not to say that women cannot benefit in their roles from these lessons, but men are singled out. That is the emphasis on this particular part where he says, prove yourself a man. Now let's spend some time on this because we need this. The church needs this, not necessarily this church.

Christianity needs this. Scripture agrees it is not for women to try to be one of the boys. I don't know about you, it always bothers me. Just as when a boy is trying to be one of the girls. It's not right.

And in some cases it's mild and just a nuisance, but it can lead to other things. This culture is so satanically charged they hate what I'm saying. They disagree with this. God, in his subtle yet thorough way, brings it up in Deuteronomy. He says, a woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment. For all who do so are an abomination to Yahweh your God.

You're not supposed to cross over. There's no transgender with God. That is something that comes from the sulfur of hell. And unfortunately, people whom we would love to preach to don't want to hear it. But God's word is true. And just one biblical basis for men to recognize, men, people to recognize the gender distinction is as in Deuteronomy 22. Now for the politically liberal and progressive agenda to succeed, men must be either removed or feminized. In some way they have to be marginalized. In some way they cannot prove themselves to be men if their agenda is going to succeed.

This was the case in ancient Egypt. The pharaoh said, we've got a problem here. We feel threatened. We have got to get rid of the men. But we can't.

There's too many of them. So let's try to nip this problem in the bud. Exodus chapter 1 verse 16. When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and you see them on their birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, then she shall live. See, Satan knows that there is a great distinction between a man and a woman. I said many times, the Bible says that men and women are equal in value to God and should be equal in value to us, but they are distinct in their roles. Satan, as I said, knows this. And for Satan to succeed, he's got to take out the men. That's why he went through Eve to get to Adam. Adam would have clocked him upside his head if he'd gone there first. Well, maybe not, but I would like to think that.

He would have more than likely said no. But Satan, of course, more cunning than any creature in the garden, of course, went to Eve first. This was the same story with King Balaam telling Balak, look, you know, send the women in, not the troops if you're going to win. For homosexuality, for the homosexual agenda of intimidation to succeed, men must be corrupted in their thinking. And that's what we're watching. We're watching this happen.

Men have been corrupted in their thinking to suppose, okay, well, you know, you see it years ago, well, hey, I don't judge. Well, you should. There's just some things you should judge. Hey, there's a cannibal family moving in.

I'm judging them right away. What happened to Baxter? He didn't judge him. So they cooked him. I guess. I don't even know if they do. They cook him?

I mean, you know, you got to heat the meat up. I don't know. Anyway, for Islam to carry out its imperialistic conquest, and it is imperialism, a form of the men must be converted. Islam will not succeed. If the men don't give in, then it's going to be a fight. So it does matter.

It's very serious stuff. The one element that God must have to successfully stop evil movements are men. If the men don't rise up, it ain't stopping. Now, granted, God can get the women to stir the men to rise up against evil. This does not diminish the role of the woman.

It heightens it. What if Eve said, why are you talking to me? You talking to me?

Why are you talking to me? What if Eve was from Brooklyn, right? It would have been a different story.

Satan would have walked away saying, where's my wallet? Well, a man can be every bit of man and not skilled in martial arts. He doesn't have to be able to shoot a weapon well to be a man. A woman can be every bit of a woman, even if she is childless. There's no way you got to have a child before you could really be a woman.

That's Satan talking. This is why, again, ancient Egypt tried to exterminate all of the male babies that were born to the Jewish women. David knew that being a male and being a man were two different things. Just because you're a male doesn't mean you're going to be a man. Otherwise, he'd never have to say to Solomon, I charge you to be a man.

He's already a male. The implication is explicit. That's not a contradiction.

That's a paradox. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul, in laying out what unrighteousness is, he goes on to say, do you not know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, nor the effeminate, nor Sodomites. Now, he lists other sins too. But the translators usually translate that word that means effeminate.

They usually translated homosexuals, when it is really men behaving like women. It matters with God. A man does not need others to agree with him to believe what is right and to act on it. Could you imagine if your pastor went on, I want to say this today, but let me take a poll.

Who agrees with me? You know, Paul never asked permission to do anything. And Paul said, you know what, I'm going to Corinth. He'd gone to Corinth. There was not, hey, what do you think, Apollos? Now, he was not a tyrant. He said he wanted Apollos to visit. And he actually mocks him a little bit. He says, Apollos will visit you when he has a convenient time.

Because he felt Apollos should be in the fight more. Anyway, as I mentioned, a man does not need others to agree with him to know what is right when he can see it. I mean, at times we're not sure.

That's another story. Being a man does not mean that man should be a great fist fighter or a tough guy. Be able to do all the manly things that maybe we want him to do.

Not necessarily. Daniel the prophet was no mixed martial arts practitioner. Probably could, you know, take him out pretty good by the time he got to the lions, Dan. He wasn't, you know, a young man anymore. Yet he could stand in the midst of the lions by faith and prevail.

Quite manly, if you ask me. Daniel, are you there? Has your God protected you? I'm here, King. He could still, you know, he was, he didn't lose it.

Huddled up in a corner shivering. He could look into the face of his prosecutors and say, you don't tell me how to worship or who to worship. That's pretty manly if you ask me. That is being a man. Mordecai, Mordecai refused to bow down to such a fool as Haman. I'm not doing it. I don't care what happens.

I'm not doing it. And if it gets us in trouble, God will get us out. Mordecai didn't count on the backlash. He didn't count on the people being, you know, wiped out, genocide.

But that's what the move that Haman played. And Mordecai went to God and they won. Jeremiah and Paul's persecutions and beatings were very manly. I mean, Jeremiah suffered so much because of that male king, Zedekiah, who could not stand up to the people that hated Jeremiah because Jeremiah preached the truth. And again, Paul, Paul was not this brawny guy.

He was just a regular guy who would preach the gospel no matter what. I will add that women who are in competition with their husbands are under the influence of Satan. It's one thing to do the best you can do. It's another thing when your motivation is to try to outdo the other one. You're not rowing together at that point. And that goes for the man too. If you're competing with your wife, you don't know who you are. Your compass is broken. You can't find the right direction. This kind of attitude has caused in-laws to be very problematic when they have this attitude.

You know, your grandparents over here are better than those grandparents. I mean, it's just stuff that Satan gets in there and does. This is none of what I'm saying is anti-woman. It is anti-corruption of men. That's what I am preaching right now. Men don't ask women how to be men.

You go to the Bible, you go to another man. I'm not saying that women cannot give good input. I'm not saying that. But if I want to learn how to be a man, I'm not going to say, maybe when I'm a little boy, yeah, but as I get older, I'm going to not say, Mom, what do I need to do to be a man? Again, not that my mother would say things.

For instance, she would say when I was a boy, a man that beats a woman is a coward. Well, to this day, I've not forgotten that because it's right. It is true.

It is accurate. So I'm not at all saying that moms and sisters and daughters and women in general cannot contribute. But how we go about it, it does matter.

It matters a lot. And here is David being the father and saying, Son, I'm charging you to prove yourself a man. Verse three, and keep the charge of the Lord your God to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his judgments, and his testimonies as it is written in the law of Moses that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn. David is now, in verses three and four, echoing Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 4.29, for example.

There are several verses in Deuteronomy that he is echoing, as well as the Davidic covenant between God and David given by Nathan in Second Samuel 7. He is saying, a king can only prosper by faithful respect and pursuit of God's word. Well, that would be true of us all, especially of the leaders.

You have less space. Well, there's more consequences in the lives of others if you fail in the position of leadership. And a leader can be anywhere from an individual to a head of a home. Joshua 1.8, this book of the law, God said to Joshua, shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the book of 1 Kings has had a lasting imprint on your life. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series or share it with someone you know, please visit crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just visit crossreferenceradio.com and follow the links under radio. Again, that's crossreferenceradio.com. Our time with you today is about up, but we hope you'll tune in next time to continue studying the Word of God. Join us again as Pastor Rick covers more in the book of 1 Kings on Cross Reference Radio.