In all Solomon’s wisdom, among the list of provisions, possessions, and advisors, one statement stands out to me. In verse 6b, “Adoniram son of Abda—in charge of forced labor.”
Even amid all the peace that God provided, all the prosperity that He blessed Solomon with, and all the wisdom He granted, Solomon still had slaves.
That’s hard to understand.
We can say that it was a cultural norm of the time, but God breaks through those norms frequently in the Bible. He directed Moses to give an inheritance to the daughters of Zelophehad. He urged Joseph to take Mary as his wife, when the culture would demand he either have her stoned or divorce her. Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman and dined with tax collectors and sinners. God proves many times His willingness and ability to overturn our human notions of right and wrong.
So why is this use of forced labor not denounced? Does it suggest that God approves of slavery and oppression? The whole counsel of scripture screams, “NO!”
Just as God allowed Satan to tempt Job, but limited just how far he could go, so God allows His people at times to follow their own selfish, greedy, rebellious heart. God remains sovereign, and there are always consequences when our free will takes us far from God’s will.
In Solomon’s case, his use of forced labor included the tribes Israel had displaced when they conquered the Land, and Israelites, which God had expressly forbidden. This enslavement of the people of Israel would lead to the eventual revolt of the Northern tribes and the division of Israel and Judah.
This division and war didn’t occur in Solomon’s time though. Like many of our choices to sin, the next generation paid the price.

Solomon’s request for God to give him wisdom is one of the most familiar stories in the Old Testament. It’s important to note that God invited Solomon to ask for anything. God delights to bless His children by answering their bold prayers!

So often my prayer life is anemic and tentative. My faith is weak. I hesitate to ask for God-sized answers to prayer because I’m not confident my faith can survive if God doesn’t respond the way I want. And, of course, my prayers often fall into that caveat in James, “When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” But I’m reminded by Solomon’s request that if I’m uncertain about whether a prayer is wrongly motivated, I can ask the Lord, and He will certainly grant me the wisdom to know the difference!

This chapter, our message from this past weekend, and the prayers of my small group, which God answered in a huge way, have converged to remind me that I serve a God who spoke our universe into existence. Instead of asking for the mundane, temporal, things that rust and decay and spoil, God calls us to recognize things of eternal value and divine scope and to seek those things first. While God is able and willing to answer our man-sized prayers, He delights to answer prayers that turn all eyes to Him in awe.

When Solomon prayed an enormous, God-sized prayer, God generously gave even more. When we ask God for something which honors Him, something that only God can do, we can ask with confidence. There are only three possible answers to these prayers:
1. God provides exactly what we prayed for.
2. God provides what we asked for plus even more.
3. God provides something that is even better than what we prayed for.

This last one is tricky because often our definition of “better” may not align with God’s. But, when in doubt, we must trust the God who speaks galaxies into being, who raised Jesus from the dead, and who declares His great love for us also knows what is best for us.
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This is the faith that inspired Solomon to ask boldly for wisdom and this same faith compels us to ask for great things for the kingdom of God.

God had made a promise to David that as long as his sons served God and obeyed His commands, they would maintain the throne of Israel. On his deathbed, David reminds Solomon of this promise and of the importance of his son holding people accountable for their behavior, something David had failed too often to do.

Can you imagine the magnitude of this promise? “Follow God and the kingdom is yours!”

I hope so! Because we as Christians have this same promise from Jesus: “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you!”


Jesus has promised, (John 14: 13-14), “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

In Matthew 17:20, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

I was reminded last night that “God honors bold prayers because bold prayers honor God.” God delights to pour out His power in answering the impossible so that ALL who see it will stand in awe of his amazing power, love, and kindness.

I’m convinced that some of the prayers we pray are not being answered because if they were, no one would praise God over it! All who see it would say, “That turned out well.” Or “See? It all worked out in the end.” Or “How nice of that person to have helped out.”

God desires for His people to be dumb-founded, awestruck, tears pouring down our faces as we recognize the holy, righteous, generous, and powerful hand of God. As we proclaim that only an act of almighty God could have orchestrated such a miracle!
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What are you praying for that requires a miracle of God? What is your “Mission Impossible” that you are asking God to show up and show out so that you might give HIM all the glory? I would love the opportunity to join you in praying BOLDLY for God to do what only He can.

Even though he is called a man after God’s own heart, clearly David was far from perfect. His marital and parental roles were particularly full of examples of what not to do.

1 Kings 1:6 tells us that David never rebuked his son or asked, “Why have you done this?” He was the original “cool parent” who let his offspring follow their hearts. Then, just as now, their hearts led them to tragedy over and over.
I’ve heard it said that when it comes to raising our children in the faith, it is more likely “caught than taught.” The idea is that regardless of what you tell your children, how often you have them in church, or how many years they spend in Christian school, what will most likely determine the course of their faith is what they see in you. Not what they see when you are in church on Sunday, even if you’re behind the pulpit, but what they see at home, when no one but they and God are watching.

That is a terrifying thought for most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, because we recognize that we make mistakes every day. The key is not that you live perfectly before them, but that you acknowledge the times you fall short. I don’t mean the kind of acknowledgment which says, “That’s just me doing me. I am who I am,” and then continues in the same sin day after day. We must acknowledge that it is wrong, and repent of it. We must model for our children the truth that we all fall short, but God is gracious to forgive, and His Grace and Holy Spirit enable us to break the chain of sin in our life.
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Most of us don’t have to worry about political intrigue within the family, one son plotting the destruction of others for the sake of the throne, but we must consider whether we are falling into David’s error of failing to offer loving rebuke, failing to set a positive example and to demonstrate repentance before our children.

This final chapter of the prophet Samuel challenges our faith in two ways. The first sentence suggests that God tells David to do something, and then punishes him and all of Israel with a terrible judgment when he does. The second challenge is that the numbers provided for the census in this chapter are substantially different than the numbers for the same census recorded in 1 Chronicles 21:5.

Let’s start with our understanding of God’s character. Some references suggest that the “he” in this sentence who incites David is Satan, based on 1 Chronicles 21:1. God’s anger burned against Israel because of their idolatry and rebellion. God allowed Satan to whisper in David’s ear, inciting him to not only take a census, which was not sinful in itself, but to do so without regard for God’s instructions in Exodus 30:12. David’s motivation, as inspired by the adversary, may have been pride over his accomplishments as king, determining the strength of is army to consider invading other lands, to compare the strength of Judah with that of Israel, or to ensure taxes were being fully collected.

Regardless, he had nearly ten months to repent and turn back, and he didn’t. He didn’t listen to his counselors who advised against it and he didn’t repent because it was God’s purpose to judge Israel. Repentance is a gift from God. Without the Holy Spirit granting the gift of conviction and repentance, we will gladly remain embroiled in sin, never recognizing that we are destroying our life and the lives of those around us. God finally granted David repentance at the threshing floor of Araunah, and so David built an altar and gave thanks to God for His mercy. The reality is that the sin of Israel warranted judgment. Our own sin today deserves God’s judgment! It is only because of God’s grace that we are not utterly destroyed!

The second challenge in this chapter is in comparing the census numbers found here to those in 1 Chronicles. Several sources provided explanations. First, the two books have two different human authors and are written from two different perspectives. This makes a point which modern survey takers and statisticians still grapple with - the importance of defining your terms in order to ensure accuracy and consistency. Were they counting all soldiers? Just those trained in battle or battle-tested (“men of valor”)? Were they counting all those over a certain age? What about those who were not native Israelites? How did they ensure they didn’t double count anyone?
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When we read through the rest of 1 and 2 Chronicles, we see that the count in 2 Samuel did not include the standing army of 288,000 or the private guard of 12,000 for Israel, which when added to the 800,000 reported would result in 1.1 million as recorded in 1 Chronicles. In Judah, the 470,000 also did not include the standing army of 30,000 mentioned in 2 Samuel 6:1. Chronicles even tells us that Joab did not report to the king the full number because he knew David was in sin. Our understanding of God’s Word sometimes leaves us thinking we see inconsistency, but the deeper we investigate, the more those questions are answered. Even when we cannot reconcile a seeming inconsistency, we can rest assured that our finite minds are less than qualified to critique an infinite God.

This chapter ends on a dramatic note as it describes some of the valiant deeds of the men who were part of David’s inner circle. These were the ones who were by his side, running from Saul and hiding in caves, protecting David and battling the Philistines. They were a band of brothers, a small group of thirty-seven in all, who had fought together, had each other’s back, trusted one another with their lives.

It is also our first glimpse, our only glimpse really, of David and Uriah the Hittite’s relationship apart from the events related to Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.

It reveals that Uriah was not simply some soldier in the ranks of David’s army. He was a close friend. How many times had Uriah protected David, fought for David or side-by-side with him? How many nights had this band of warriors sat around a campfire with no other company but one another? Had Uriah spoken of his wife? Had he mentioned her unsurpassed beauty? Had he talked about their love?

It makes David’s betrayal all the more bitter to realize it was not simply a matter of stealing another man’s wife and having him killed, but betraying a brother-in-arms, killing a close friend, and repaying loyalty and devotion with adultery and murder.

Yet David is called a man after God’s own heart. It is so difficult for us to imagine the depths of God’s forgiveness. No matter how I strive to offer grace to those who’ve wrong me and to believe that God has truly forgiven me, I find myself regularly needing to forgive for the same offense. The enemy dredges up memories and taunts me with others’ and my own past mistakes.
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But when God forgives us, He sees us as if it never happened. There is no shadow lingering of our past, there is only God’s love. Seeing the depths of David's betrayal, and reflecting on God's forgiveness and grace toward him, helps us better conceive of how God views us through the lens of Christ's sacrifice.

When God had granted David victory over his enemies and peace, David penned this beautiful psalm, one from which songwriters still borrow lyrics and themes today. As he is singing of God’s faithfulness, David makes a statement that caught me off-guard. He says:
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“The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
    according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. 
For I have kept the ways of the Lord;
    I am not guilty of turning from my God.
All his laws are before me;
    I have not turned away from his decrees.
I have been blameless before him
    and have kept myself from sin.
The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
    according to my cleanness in his sight.”

I want to say, “Ahem, pardon me, David, I don’t mean to bring up a sore subject, but what about the whole thing with Bathsheba and Uriah? And don’t forget about how you failed to uphold God’s standards when Amnon raped your daughter. According to the cleanness of YOUR hands? Yeah, not so much.”

But God reminds me that because of His great love for us, He keeps no record of our wrongs. When we turn to Him in faith, He doesn’t throw our sins in our face (as we are apt to do to one another). He doesn't tell us how much we don’t deserve His grace and blessings! NO! Instead, we are cleansed from sin until it is as if we had never turned from Him in the first place.

God’s faithfulness is, thankfully, not based on our merit, but is based on His. But once He has washed us clean, we can sing, like David, that "The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in His sight" because, IN HIS SIGHT, we are made perfectly clean, without spot or blemish, just like His Son.

This story is so out of context for us that we must consider the historical background in order to understand the lessons it provides. When the Israelites came into the Promised Land, they were instructed to drive out or destroy all the inhabitants. The Gibeonites tricked the leaders of Israel into swearing an oath that they would live at peace with them by pretending to be from a distant land. Four hundred years later, Saul had apparently violated that oath by seeking to annihilate the Gibeonites.

There are a few concepts of God’s law that must be understood. First, God takes our oaths very seriously. James 5:12 tells us, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” We are so prone to failure when it comes to keeping a promise that God wisely counsels us not to make them at all. But when we do, we must know God then holds us accountable for keeping them.

God’s Word also teaches that when blood is shed unjustly, it must be repaid. We see this in the justice system, where the avenger of blood might take a life for a life. Numbers 35:33 instructed the Israelites that the shedding of innocent blood would defile the land and remove God’s blessing. After three years of famine, David realized that God had done just that. The remedy was for justice to be done. It had been years since Saul shed the blood of the Gibeonites, yet the time came when God held the nation accountable for this injustice.

Imagine if God were to hold our nation accountable for all the innocent blood shed in her lifetime. From the native people of the land, to the slaves brought here in chains, to the unborn children slaughtered in the womb, to those falsely accused and executed or served up a mob's misguided notion of vigilante justice. If God demanded a life for a life, it could amount to almost half of the current population of our country.
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Yet that is only a small fraction of the weight of the sin-debt that Christ took on the cross. Christ took our guilt as individuals, but while there is forgiveness through the blood of Christ, there remain consequences for our actions. In David's time, the notion of justice required a number of Saul's sons to pay the price for their father's betrayal. We experience similar repercussions for our sin today -- our unfaithfulness results in a dissolved marriage, with children suffering the loss of stability and security. Our greed leads to foolish financial decisions that cost a family their home or their financial well-being.

We must never discount or minimize the price of sin. Both individually and corporately, the cost of violating God's commands is steep. And while we may not pay the ultimate price in eternity because of Christ's mercy and grace, we will eventually reap the temporal product of our choices in one way or another.

There’s an interesting contrast between the women whose stories are included in this chapter, and it relates to us today. First, there are the ten concubines whom Absalom raped in an attempt to legitimize and solidify his hold on the throne. When David returns, he essentially places them under a sort of “house arrest.” They are taken care of, but are not free, and he no longer has any relationship with them. There are historical, cultural explanations for why Absalom publicly violated them and why David then condemned them to live out their lives as if they were widows, but the bottom line is that they were victims. First of David and his sin in violating the covenant of marriage, which then set them up to be abused by Absalom, and then they were victimized again when David imprisoned them.

In light of current events, it’s difficult not to compare these survivors to the women who have come forward to tell their own stories of abuse over the past year. From the board room to the casting couch to the sports medicine exam room, women have brought the light of day to the assaults they’ve suffered for decades.

These 21st century women also have something in common with the wise woman of Abel Beth Maakah. Instead of allowing themselves to continue to be victimized, they call out to the people and offer up the head of one man. Perhaps the slaughter of one man will bring peace.

Just as Sheba was not alone in his sin of rebellion, the individual men being offered up today are representatives of a far more widespread infection. Our culture has celebrated women as sex objects for nearly a century; our entertainment industry is built largely on this foundation. But suddenly we are drawing back a thinly-veiled curtain and recognizing the result of a constant diet of sexualization and objectification is the historic and ongoing victimization of women.

Just as Sheba represented a culture of rebellion against God and His anointed King, the men who are being fired, charged, and vilified for abuses dating back decades are the visible symptom of a more widespread disease. Punishing them will allow us to claim a moral victory, to pat ourselves on the back and believe we’ve made a difference. We’ve made the world a safer place for women, we think, by locking up these perpetrators. But pointing to individual culprits fails to recognize our own participation in a culture that devalues women and fails to stab at the heart of victimization and abuse.
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Tossing the head of Sheba over the wall only delayed the battle that was coming, a battle between Northern Israel and Judah, but at its heart, a battle between submission to God and rebellion against God. Bringing justice to the various men who are finally paying the price for their behavior today will not resolve the larger issue, the society-wide issue. Only repentance, turning from sin and submitting to a holy God, to His standards and His Word, will bring healing.

One of David’s greatest strengths was in keeping sight of God’s sovereignty in his most difficult circumstances. Throughout the time he was fleeing Saul before he became king, even in the midst of the loss of his infant son, he remained aware of and submitted to God’s sovereign plan.

But the death of his son Absalom makes him lose sight of God’s sovereignty. His grief blinds him to the fact that God has given him victory and returned him to the throne. God has never left him nor forsaken him. His cry, “If only I had died instead of you!” reveals his doubt of God’s wisdom and overarching plan for David’s life and for Israel.


We all go through circumstances which can cause us to doubt. We see young children suffer. Families are ripped apart. Women are abused by the one who promised to love and cherish. Natural disasters kill scores of people and destroy everything others have spent their lives building. In the midst of such tragedy, we wonder if God really sees. If He really loves. If He really does command the wind and the waves.

Our pastor has recently shared this wisdom for times when doubts assail us: “Measure God’s love for you by the cross and His power by the resurrection.” God’s love for us is demonstrated not by the tragedies in our lives, but by his willingness to endure tragedy for us. His power is seen best not in the devastation and destruction, but in creation and resurrection. Resurrection power is not only that which brought Jesus back to life, but that which brings us back to life after circumstances have stolen virtually everything but our final breath. Resurrection power carried Job through the loss of his family, his wealth, and his health and saw him restored in every way--and even if our own restoration awaits eternity, we can be sure that God restores everything that sin destroys. Resurrection power enables the captive to become the victor, the disabled to be empowered, and the oppressed to overcome evil with good.
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David needed Joab to remind him of God’s plan for him, to turn his eyes back on the Lord instead of on his circumstances. Where have I set my eyes in the midst of whatever loss I'm facing today?