Immanuel Sermon Audio
1 Kings (11:66)
There are outlines at the front or the back, if you did not get one, grab a Bible, find first kings, first kings. Next week we won't meet because of the Thanksgiving holiday. I believe we meet three times in December before we take a couple of weeks off for Christmas and New Year, so off next week then back and we'll do second kings, first chronicles and second chronicles. First kings in your Bible, we're going to do a little bit of digging around, reading different passages. First kings is a tough book in some senses because there's a lot of characters in first kings, and you could really get sort of lost in the weeds, I don't know that that's the best way to put it, but if you're trying to cover the entire book, there's just no way you can cover all the kings mentioned in first kings. And so we're not going to try to do that, but we are going to try to hit the high points. I want to talk to you first about greeting cards. Greeting cards. If you're bored this week, go to www.greetingcard.org. There's an organization that promotes the sale of greeting cards, and they have a really interesting website, and on that website, I found out this week Americans purchased six and a half billion cards a year, and that's an eight billion dollar industry selling cards. This is strange to me because my family growing up did not do cards. If you got a present, maybe your name was written on the wrapping paper somewhere, but we didn't do cards. Some people do cards, we didn't do cards. So if you had to guess what category of greeting card would you say is the best-selling greeting card? Okay, some said birthday, some said Mother's Day, some said sympathy, say it again, Valentine's, Christmas. Number one, far and away is birthday, not even close. Birthday cards are number one. Here's the seasonal cards, we'll just put them up there in order. Christmas is far and away the top one, Christmas, sales, you ready for this? 1.6 billion Christmas cards every year. The next closest, Valentine's Day, somebody through Valentine's Day out there, 1.6 for Christmas, billion with a B, Valentine's, 145 million, not even close. So lots of Christmas cards going out, Valentine's Day, 145, Mother's Day, 133 million, Father's Day, 90 million, graduation, 67 million, Easter, I've never got an Easter card. I didn't know there was such a thing, 57 million, Halloween, somebody's buying 21 million Halloween greeting cards a year. Thanksgiving cards, 15 million, and this one just is a small number compared to the rest, but St. Patrick's Day, 7 million people buy St. Patrick's Day greeting cards. If you have ever bought a St. Patrick's Day greeting card, I want you to raise your hand and you have bought St. Patrick's Day greeting cards. St. Patrick's and birthday combo, born on St. Patrick's, so that's kind of a dual category. St. Patrick's Day, 7 million cards. Don't put the next slide up, Catherine, let's just take a guess. Who buys more cards, men or women? Anybody think men buy more cards? Not even close. Women buy way more cards, and I think the percentage, there it is, 80% to 20%. So yeah, the 20% are the guys who feel bad or they're in trouble or they go in and they buy the wrong category of card on accident. They see the top fourth of it and they say, "That looks like a nice card. Pick it up, wrong occasion," but 80% bought by women. I'll be honest with you, I am not a big fan of cards personally. I told you just my family, we just didn't do it, and you may think greeting cards are the greatest and that's perfectly fine. Here's one thing I do like, this is the best thing that ever happened to the greeting card industry is the cards that play music, right? I love the cards that play music. You open it up and it's got the little thing that pulls and it plays some kind of song, and maybe it's a romantic song, maybe it's a Christmas song, maybe it's a zany wacky crazy song, but I like those cards. And here's what I'm thinking about doing. I'm thinking about taking my Bible to the hallmark warehouse and asking them to put a little device right in here between 2 Samuel and 1 Kings, so that when I open my Bible like this, this is what you hear. Ready? Yes. Yes. Every time you open it, that's what you hear. Open up, there it is. Yeah, now it's going to be stuck in your head all night long. So last week I told you, we looked at 2 Samuel, we talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly, right? We talked about David, and here's some good things in David's life, here's some bad things in David's life, and here's some ugly things in David's life. And so you could put your little device at the beginning of 2 Samuel 2, but you could also put it at 1 Kings, because you can chop up this book and you can look at all these individual people in here, there's a whole bunch of them, or you can kind of step back and look at some of the major players and say, okay, there's the good, there's the bad, and here's the ugly. So this is the outline that we're going to work off of tonight. The good, chapter 1 to 11, that's Solomon, okay? These are on your outline. If you want to follow along, fill that out, that's fine. 1 to 11 is the good, that's Solomon. 12 to 16, the bad, Rehoboam and Jeroboam, Solomon's kiddos, they're the bad. And then 17 to 22, the ugly, with Ahab. So these are the main guys that we're going to focus on tonight, the good, the bad, the ugly. Lots more people in this book that we're just totally skipping over, stories in here we're skipping over. A major character not mentioned in that outline anywhere is Elijah. I didn't put Elijah in there anyway, anywhere, but he's in there. He's in there kind of with Ahab, 17 and 18 especially, but this sort of gives you some hooks to hang ideas on as we go through first Kings. Here's where it falls in the history of Israel. I show you this each week, just so you remember, this is not an individual standalone book. It's part of a larger story. And when we're talking about Israel, it begins with the conquest, right? Joshua leads the people into the Promised Land and by Israel, I don't mean the people of Israel, but I mean the nation of Israel, right? Joshua leads them in in the conquest and they take possession of the land. The period of the judges, some decent ones and some rotten ones and the last one is Samuel. And first Samuel goes from the judges to the monarchy and the first king is Saul. And so first Samuel is Samuel transition up to Saul. And then last week we looked at second Samuel, that's firmly in the monarchy. He talks about David, the great king. And then tonight, we're still in the monarchy. And then we split with Rehoboam and Jeroboam into division. It's not very long before these guys get taken into exile after they've completely rebelled against God and then eventually God's going to bring a small remnant back into the land. So that's where it fits in the overall story. Let's talk about Solomon, the good. Take your Bible. First Kings 1, chapter 1 and chapter 2 talk mostly about Solomon as he takes over for David and David is advising Solomon and giving him some instruction and David dies and Solomon is enthroned as the king. And so look at 1 Kings 3, Solomon's now the king. There's a little bit of foreshadowing in this verse, first couple verses. 1 Kings 3 starting in verse 1, Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the Lord. Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David, his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places. And so that's a good sort of foreshadowing of everything you see in Solomon's life to come. You see some good things in there mentioned and you see some things that ought to make you uneasy and you say, "Why is he doing that? I don't understand that." It talks about his marriages, right? That's going to be an issue later on, talks about the temple. That's going to be a good thing later on, a positive thing in his life. It talks about that he did love God. That's a positive thing. But then it comes back and says, "Ah, they're still going to the high places." And you back up and you say, "What are the high places?" We go through the history of Israel, they're bringing this tabernacle. Remember Moses built this big tent and they're carrying the thing around over the Jordan River, into the Promised Land, and they set the thing up and there's sacrifices going on there and offerings and all sorts of things. But people didn't all have equal access to this one tabernacle. And so some of the people would say, "Look, we're going to kind of go up into the mountains, into the high places where some of these other people worship. We're not going to worship with them, but we're going to go up like they do and we're going to worship Yahweh, the Lord, at these high places." And that's how it starts. They go up to these high places on the mountains, beautiful scenery. You get a good view. You sort of get away from everyday life and you worship. But there's other people worshiping and they're worshiping Baal and they're worshiping Asherah and they're worshiping Molech and these other gods at these high places and the people over time kind of start to sneak over and say, "Well, we're not getting rid of Yahweh, but why couldn't we participate with the Baal worship or the Asherah worship?" And so there's this ominous note that he did sacrifice and he did make offerings at the high places. There's four, five, six, seven and eight. Just talk about Solomon and how great he is. They build the temple after they make all these preparations. Chapter eight, they bring the ark into the temple. Solomon blesses the Lord. In chapter eight, he prays an amazing prayer. There's a prayer in 1 Kings 8. If you want to learn how to pray, you ought to read how Solomon prayed. It's a phenomenal prayer where he talks about God's promises and God's character and God's grace and he confesses sin and he asks for God's help and he's looking for God's glory. All these great things in chapter eight. And then you come to chapter nine and we're going to read a few verses here. First Kings 9. "As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord in the King's house and all that Solomon desired to build, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as he had appeared to him at Gibbian and the Lord said to him, "I have heard your prayer." I just told you, he prayed in chapter eight, so God heard that in your plea, which you have made before me. I've consecrated this house that you have built by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. As for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I've commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever. As I promise David your father, saying, "You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel." But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, you do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I've set before you, but you go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them. The house that I have consecrated for my name, I'll cast out of my sight. Israel will become a proverb and a by word among the peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss and they will say, "Why is the Lord done this to the land unto this house?" Then they will say, because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them. There's a warning in there and there's a promise in there, right? If you follow me, I'm going to take care of you and things are going to go great. If you or the people or your kids turn away, it's going to go bad. And you're going to have to leave this place I brought you into. And this great house that you've built for me is going to be a heap of ruins and everyone's going to be astonished at what's happened to you. There's promise and there's a warning. Keep reading about Solomon, there's a few good things there in chapter 10. Queen of Sheba and his great wealth. Look at chapter 11. King Solomon loved many foreign women. Remember the foreshadowing we read earlier. He marries this Egyptian princess and brings her in. He loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people, "You shall not enter into marriage with them. Neither shall they with you." Why? For they will surely turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love, 700 wives, princesses, 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord's God as was the heart of David's father. Solomon went after Ashtereth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Millcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not wholly follow the Lord as David's father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for kimosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites on the mountain east of Jerusalem. So he did for all his foreign wives who made offerings and sacrifice to their gods. God's angry at this. He doesn't like it. And if you keep reading there, it begins in verse 9, it just says, "The Lord was angry with Solomon." There you go. And God raises up these adversaries, and that's just sort of the downhill end of Solomon. Section 1, that's the good, okay? You just look at how that ended. That's as good as it gets, the rest of the book. That's the good. Here's the bad. Rehoboam and Jeroboam, chapters 12 to 16. So Solomon dies. His kids take over, they can't get along, they can't agree, so they split the kingdom. Rehoboam takes Judah, Jeroboam takes Israel, and both of them almost immediately prove how foolish they are, right? The new king of Israel, Jeroboam, makes idols. He flagrantly breaks the first and the second commandments. And he says, "Look, we're too far away from Jerusalem down in the south. We've split the kingdom up. We don't want to come down and visit in your kingdom. We're still going to worship the Lord, but we're going to do it here and here, and we're going to have these idols and these statues, and it's going to be great. He's an idiot, right? He sets Israel immediately on this downhill slide. Then you've got his brother, Rehoboam, and he's in Judah. He's in Jerusalem, and you think, "Okay, this is the temples there and the capital. Maybe this is going to go better." He's an idiot, too, because instead of listening to the wise people in the kingdom who give him good advice, he listens to all his knucklehead buddies who basically say, "Look, you need to show that you're just as tough as your dad, if not tougher, so you need to put your thumb on these people and you need to impose your will on these people," and he follows their advice. He doesn't listen to wisdom. The whole thing, chapter 13, there's civil war, there's fighting, chapter 14, you get into chapter 15 and 16, and there's this long line of kings, Abijah, Asa, Nadab, Bashah, Elah, Zimri, Amri, then you end up with the Ahab. And all these guys, in chapters 15 and 16, there's one good one, and all the rest of it is sin, assassination, suicide, coup, rebellion, over and over and over again. Total chaos, idolatry in the north, chaos in the south, everything is gone haywire. That's the bad. Here's the ugly Ahab, and you start with an introduction to Ahab. Now I know this says chapter 17, but we actually meet him in the last verses of 16, so look at 1 Kings 16, here's the summary of Mr. Ahab, the ugly. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab the son of Amri began to reign over Israel, so Ahab is in the north, northern kingdom. Ahab the son of Amri reigned over Israel and Samaria 22 years, and Ahab the son of Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jerobo and the son of Nabat, he took for his wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and he, we're talking about Ahab, he went and served Baal and worshipped him, and he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he built in Samaria, that's his capital, and Ahab made an Asher. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. In his days, Haile of Bethel built Jericho, he laid his foundation at the cost of Abraham his firstborn, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua, son of none. All those verses go together, okay? We describe Ahab, he doesn't love the Lord, he worships Baal, he worships Asherah, he builds temples for false gods and idols, he's a spiritual loser, he's leading the people astray, and you know that his actions impact the people because it mentions someone other than Ahab, it talks about Haile, and it's this man that has built Jericho after God placed the curse on this city, and this guy Haile says basically, "Curse from Yahweh? Who cares?" Don't believe in him, don't think he's going to come through with it, I'm going to rebuild the city anyways. Why would somebody do that in Israel is because the king has influence over all these people and idolatry is out of control, and so there's Ahab, you meet him in chapter 16, look at chapter 17, Elijah comes on the scene, and there's this great story about Elijah in the drought, he prays and it stops raining, and there's this great story of Elijah in the widow's oil and God supplying what she needs, and there's this story of Elijah raising the widow's son, you remember, if you were here Sunday we talked about, I don't remember if it was the last week or the week before, but Jesus raises the widow's son in Nain, and they say this is a prophet, and they said he was a prophet because they're saying Elijah did that in Nain, he raised the boy in Nain, and Jesus just did the same thing, so Elijah was a prophet, Jesus must be a prophet, so a great story there, and then there's a great story, chapter 18, it's one of the greatest chapters, one of the greatest stories in the Bible when Ahab faces off with the prophets of Baal and the fire from heaven on the altar and a phenomenal story, a great read, and then you come to chapter 19, and Elijah we read in verse 3 is afraid, and he's afraid because he is running for his life, and he's running for his life because up in verse 2 Jezebel said, "I will make your life as one of those by this time this morning," talking about the people who just died by the sword, Jezebel, who's married to Ahab, threatens to kill him, he's prayed and it stopped raining, he prayed again and it rained, he's seen the miracle of the widow's oil, and God providing, he's raised a dead kid back to life, he's had this showdown, this face off with the prophets of Baal and the fire from heaven blows the thing up and it burns it all up, and Jezebel says, "I'm going to kill you," and he's terrified. Why is he terrified? Why is he so concerned? If you keep reading, it makes a little bit of sense, and for the sake of time we're not going to read it, but you can read the rest of chapter 19. God speaks to him, verse 9 down to 18, and it goes like this, he takes him to this mountain, and God sends, let's see, first it's a big wind, it's a big giant wind, a tornado comes through, and it says God wasn't in the tornado, and so he's sitting there and he's waiting and then there's an earthquake, everything's rumbling and shaking, it says God wasn't in the earthquake, and then this fire roars through, big blaze of fire comes through, it says God's not in the fire, and then what comes last, quiet whisper, he's saying, I'm with you, God's in the whisper, and God is saying to Elijah, listen, I am with you, but don't presume to control me and to expect a miracle every time. You've seen some amazing things, you've seen the drought in the rain at your word, and you've seen the miracle of the oil, and you saw the boy come back to life, and you saw fire, you called fire down from heaven and blew the thing up, and in my mind what I think happened is, Jezebel says, I'm going to kill you, and Elijah's thinking God's going to do something great, we've got four great miracles in a row, it's going to be lightning, he's going to lightning bolt her, zap, or maybe the ground's going to open up like it did in the book of Numbers and just swallow Jezebel up, that would be fantastic, or maybe she's going to get worms that eat her up from the inside out and she dies this horrible, God's going to do something great, and God doesn't do anything, and Elijah says, no miracle, I'm terrified, she's going to kill me, and God says, listen, you don't worry about the tornado, you don't worry about the earthquake, you don't worry about the wind, I'm with you, even when there's no miraculous evidence that I am with you, and so Elijah, he learns this lesson, 1 Kings 20, 21, 22, basically just saying, Ahab is a really rotten guy, and he does a lot of really rotten things, and in the end he dies, so there you go, the good, the bad, and the ugly, here's the lessons to take away, five of them, two of them are about God, and three of them are about these kings that we've looked at, so the first lesson is this, it's about God, God is concerned about His glory, that's really an understatement, but it's true, God is concerned about His glory, about His reputation, about what people think about Him, about how people perceive Him, from our perspective we look at that and we say, well that seems a little egotistical, that seems a little bit self-focused. The reason it's wrong for us to be concerned about our glory is that we're not God, it is perfectly right for God to be concerned about His glory, and really you could say to be supremely concerned for His glory, because if God were to be supremely concerned about anything other than His glory, He would be an idolater, He would be putting something that's not God in God's place, and so you see this in this book, God is concerned about His glory. One example, 1 Kings 20, look at verse 28, Ahab is the king, and there's an army camping against the people, and the army is huge, and it says in verse 27 that the people of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of goats, but the Syrians filled the country, got this massive Syrian army, and got these two little flocks of God's people, verse 28, a man of God came and said to the king of Israel, thus says the Lord, now who is the king of Israel, Ahab, right, the ugly, the worst guy in the book, the man of God comes and he says to Ahab, thus says the Lord, because the Syrians have said, Yahweh the Lord is a God of the hills, but He is not a God of the valleys, therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand and you shall know, there it is, you will know that I am the Lord. So basically they're getting ready to fight, big Syrian army, little bitty army of Israel, and in some previous battle, Israel whipped them in the hills, and the Syrians say look, we can explain this, we got whooped in that battle, but the thing is their God has power in the hills, our God has power in the plains. This time we're going to fight in the plain and God comes to this wicked, wicked, wicked king and he says, I'm going to save you, you're an idiot, it has nothing to do with you, I just don't want them to think I'm weak, I want them to know that I have power in the hills and the plain and the ocean and the mountains and the valleys and the rivers and all of it, and so this is what happens. They encamped opposite one another seven days, then on the seventh day the battle was joined and the people of Israel struck down the Syrians 100,000 foot soldiers in one day and the rest fled into the city of Afek and the wall fell upon 27,000 men who were left, God wins. And God proves to all of those people, I have power and I want you to know it, I want the Syrians to know it and Ahab, your idol worshiping, wicked king, I want you to know it, he's concerned about his glory. Secondly, closely related, God will not be mocked, he will not be mocked. You should read 1 Kings 13, for the sake of time we're not going to read it, but basically it goes kind of like this, there's a prophet who does something really great for God, bold, courageous fearless, it's awesome, man of God does something for the Lord. And God gives him instructions about what he's supposed to do next. And for some interesting reasons, you read it, he doesn't do what God told him to do. And so a little bit later he's walking down the road and he gets killed by a lion. And he's riding a donkey and this lion comes out and kills him and leaves the donkey alone and when people are walking by the road, there's a donkey and a dead man and a lion. And the lion's just sitting there. And the lesson in that is when you read the story is very clear, God will not be mocked. He will not be trifled with. In this prophet who does this great thing from God, then turns around and just flagrantly disobeys God. Just right in God's face, the exact opposite of what God told him to do, something very, very simple, and God says, "I will not be mocked." Look at this one, chapter 22, this one's fun. Ahab goes into battle and he goes with Jehosephat, the king of Judah. Jehosephat was a good king but he liked to hang out with bad people and he goes and he's fighting with Ahab in this battle. And verse 30 says, "The king of Israel says, 'I'm going to disguise myself and go into battle but you wear your robes.'" In other words, obviously they're going to try to kill the king first and there's two of us. So here's a plan, you look like a king and I'm going to disguise myself. And for some reason, Jehosephat thinks this is a good idea. Okay, whatever you say, Ahab, a good king, but Jehosephat sometimes just makes some dumb decisions. Okay, I'll put a big target on my chest and you go out there undercover, great. So they go out there undercover and look at verse 34, "A certain man drew his bow and you could put quotes in here at random and he struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate. Just a certain guy, just at random flings and arrow out there and it just so happens at random coincidentally it hits Ahab right in the soft spot and he dies. God will not be mocked. Number three, think about the good. Lesson from first kings is that good is not good enough. The guy who had more blessing from God, more opportunity from God, more favor from God than anyone else proves in the end that good is not good enough. And you can read for yourself Ecclesiastes 12, verse 13 to 14, written at the end I think of Solomon's life and at the end of that Solomon says, "Everything has been heard. I have looked for meaning and purpose and happiness everywhere on planet earth. I've sought it in women, I've sought it in money, I've sought it in learning, I've sought it in drunkenness, I've sought it everywhere, you can seek it. Here's the end of the matter, everything has been heard, fear God and keep God's commandments because God will bring every deed into account, secret or not secret. He knows all of it. And at the end of his life Solomon looked back and he realized, "I got a problem. God is going to bring everything that I have done into judgment, whether good or bad, whether public or private." And so you're reminded that good is not good enough. We cannot be good enough. Number five, bad has long-term consequences. And remember the bad is Raya Bowman, Jeroboam, and they make some really foolish decisions. And when they make those decisions to build idols and to not listen to wisdom but to listen to his idiot friends, when they make those foolish decisions they have no idea the consequences they're going to flow out of that. For themselves, for their families, for their sons who will come after them, for the nation as a whole, none of that is in their radar screen. They're just making one stupid, foolish, sinful, wicked decision. And when you read 12 to 16 you say, "All of that is fallout from the decisions these two guys made." Bad has consequences, always, always, always. First idea is this, ugly is not without hope. And this is good news for us. Ugly is not without hope. Look at 1 Kings 21 in verse 25. God sends Elijah to Ahab, again, to confront him, to rebuke him, to call him on his sin. And Elijah says, God's going to bring judgment on you, it's going to be really, really bad. First Kings 21 verse 25. There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. He acted very abominably in going after idols as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord cast out before the people of Israel. And when Ahab heard these words, what are the words? They're the words from Elijah, Elijah saying, "God is going to punish you for your sin." When he heard those words, he tore his clothes, he put on sackcloth on his flesh and he fasted and he lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. And you may read verse 27 and you may say, "Oh, he's just putting on a show. He's just trying to get out of trouble. He's just faking it. But look at verse 28 and 9. The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying, "Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days, but in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house." God never told Ahab, "I'm through Elijah. I'm going to judge your sin unless you humble yourself and you repent." That wasn't the message, right? This is like Jonah going to Nineveh. Jonah didn't tell those people to repent. Jonah said, "God's going to blow you up." And just like the people in Nineveh, Ahab says, "I'm an idiot," and he humbles himself and he goes around dejectedly and he mourns for his sin, and God responds to that. And even though this guy was the worst of the worst, this is what it says about him. There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab. No one was wicked like this guy. But at this moment in his life, he humbles himself and he repents and God honors that. And so when you take all those lessons together, all five of them, God's concerned about his glory, God will not be mocked. Good is not good enough. Bad has long-term consequences, ugly is not without hope. I hope you see that all of those things, and especially all of them together, point you right to Jesus and right to the cross. Everything in First Kings is pointing you straight to Jesus. God is concerned about his glory. What does Jesus pray with his disciples? Before they go out to the garden, when he's praying with his disciples and for his disciples, in the Gospel of John, the first thing he prays is what, "Father, glorify me. Give me the glory that I had with you before the world began." The first thing on his mind, before he prays for the Twelve, before he prays for you, before he prays in Gethsemane, the first thing he's thinking about is God glorify the Son. God will not be mocked. You think about the mockery that took place as Jesus hung on the cross, and people laughing at the idea that he was some kind of Messiah, and then you think about the resurrection three days later that proved the mockers to be the fools. Good is not good enough. We've talked about this as we've gone through Luke almost every week. You cannot save yourself. You cannot be good enough to earn a relationship with God. The Son of Man came to seek and save you because you were lost. God did for you what you could never do for yourself. Bad has consequences. Sin has consequences. You see that at the cross, more than anywhere else, that sin cannot just be swept under the rug forever. In a sense, that's what happened in the Old Testament. It sort of just gets swept under the rug, and these people are waiting and waiting and waiting for God to save them. Those goats and those lambs aren't taking away anybody's sin. It's just sort of being swept under the rug, and then at the cross all of it, past, present future gets dumped on Jesus, and he pays the penalty because there's consequences for sin. Lastly, ugly is not without hope. You think about some of the people that Jesus saved and that Jesus used and that Jesus forgave. We're going to talk about one this Sunday, a woman who was known in town as the town center, a woman who was without hope that put her faith in Jesus and believed in him for forgiveness and found life and found salvation. So, as first kings, again, all of it points you straight to the cross, straight to Jesus, and we will end with prayer with this study. Let's pray. Father, we love you. We are grateful for your word. We believe that it's true. Father, we see a lot of mistakes and a lot of lessons that can be learned and gleaned from these verses in First Kings. Father, we see first and foremost that you are the hero of this story, that you are concerned with your glory, that you will not be mocked, that you are the powerful one, that you are in control of big things and little things like random arrows and lions on the side of the road. Father, help us to remember that we are not good enough to earn or to deserve a relationship with you. Father, help us to remember that there are always consequences for sin. Father, we look back in faith understanding that the greatest consequence for our sin was the cross, where Jesus took our punishment and He paid the penalty to set us free. Father, thank You that there is hope for people whose lives are ugly like ours. And Father, if we're honest, we are not that different than they have in our thoughts, in our motivations, in our motives, in our desires, in our lusts, Father, we are wicked people and we confess it and we find hope not in who we are but in who Jesus is and what He has done for us on the cross. We love you, we thank You for this book of the Bible, help us to apply it to our lives this week. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.