Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special Monday Morning Coffee podcast. On this podcast, our preacher, Mark Roberts, will help you get your week started right with a look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives. Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, May the 26th. I'm Mark. I've got some coffee. I've got some sermon notes. I've got stuff about daily Bible reading and... I have the Westside Summer Schedule because today is Memorial Day and that's the beginning of summer. So let's talk for just a second or two about all the great things that are going on at Westside this summer. On June the 4th, Wednesday, June the 4th, we'll begin our summer series, bringing in guest speakers each Wednesday night to talk about the Judges, which is our theme for Vacation Bible School, which begins Sunday, June the 8th through June the 11th. And this year is This year, we're going at night. It will be in the evenings. That'll give some people an opportunity to be there that haven't been able to be there before. And adults, we do have something for you. So, Monday night and Tuesday night, we have adult class. Let's see here, Terry Slack and Stephen Baxley will be speaking for us for the adults at Vacation Bible School, June 8th through the 11th. So mark that on your calendar. And of course, don't forget about our youth lectures. Youth lectures is July 18th, 19th, and 20th. Just an incredible weekend. And it's not just for young people, not just for young people by any stretch of the imagination. So all kinds of good things are going on. All kinds of great things are happening during the summer. We'll be right back. I've got coffee. You need to pour your cup of coffee. Let's get ready. Let's get set. Let's go. Yesterday in the 1040, I talked about how to forgive someone and move on. We're talking about the path of forgiveness, moving from bitterness to blessing. And I just want to say here, and I think I'll keep my bonus remarks here kind of tight because I spent so much time talking about our summer schedule. I think this is a great place to diagnose your spiritual health. Are you ready to forgive? Someone comes to you and says, I did you wrong. I'm so sorry about that. Please forgive me. Are we ready to be gracious like God is gracious and forgive? And even more, am I ready to move, take the initiative and move towards someone to work for their repentance so that I can forgive them? Sometimes we sit in the ready position. But having that awkward conversation where we say, I know what happened here. I know what you did. That was wrong. Let me show you what the Bible says about that. You can't do that. You shouldn't have done that. That was wrong. You need to repent and turn away from that, and I want to forgive you for that. Those are hard conversations to have, but strong, mature Christians will have those conversations. Matthew 18, 15 talks about that. Beyond Matthew 18, 15, we're just talking about doing unto others as we'd have them do unto you. Matthew 7 and 12, we're talking about that golden rule thing. If I'm in sin, I want somebody to come and rescue me and get me out of sin. Even if I get defensive and get my hackles up and I'm all, I need someone to gently help me see that I've done wrong so that I can repent of that, ask God for forgiveness, ask them for forgiveness. That's what Christians do for each other. Can you do that? Will you do that? That's a great measure of your spiritual maturity, of your spiritual health. And another great measure is our interest in the daily Bible reading. Are we in God's Word on a regular basis, maybe even on a Memorial Day when we're having a lot of fun with family and we're doing a lot of fun things and we're kind of in a holiday mode? Are we still doing some daily Bible reading? I hope that we are because that's what we're talking about next. Let's get our Bibles and let's turn to 1 Kings 2. And let's see what Adonijah is up to today. Our reading for Monday is 1 Kings 2, verses 13 to 27. And this finishes up the end of the Adonijah story because Adonijah comes in verse 13, tries to use Bathsheba to say, I would like that concubine, Abishag the Shunammite. Now, that's the girl that is brought to David in 1 Kings 1, verses 1 to 4, when he is old and he can't keep warm. And so, kind of awkward, I guess we don't do much of this today, do we? But they don't have an electric blanket, so they put Abishag in the bed with David. Verse 4 in chapter 1 is very clear that he does not have relationship with her. And so, Adonijah asks for her, verse 17, And this is a terrible mistake on the part of Adonijah. To have the royal harem to possess the concubines of the king is to make a claim to the throne. And we have seen that with Absalom already. And in fact, even going before that in 2 Samuel 3, Isbosheth and Abner, they have a falling out over the harem. And in 2 Samuel 12, the prophet explicitly says to David, you received Saul's harem. So, This is not a minor slight, nor is it Solomon making a big deal out of nothing. And even though some are very critical of Solomon about how he takes this request, the bottom line to that is Adonijah knows what this means, and this is either an attempt to gain the throne... to make another run at the throne, or it's just very foolish. But Solomon says, I know what you're doing. You're trying to get to the throne. You're going to make another claim that you should be the rightful king. And you hear some of that when he says in verse 15, you know, the kingdom was mine and all Israel fully expected me to reign. And once again, we notice that Adonijah is aware of God's will, but he doesn't care for it was his from the Lord. He says in verse 15, but he wants to be king. And Solomon knows what he's about. Solomon has been gracious to him before. He's now coloring way outside the lines, and he pays for it with his life. Please notice verse 24, As the Lord lives who has established me. Established is the key idea in chapter 2. It's used in 2.12, 2.24, and then used again at the end of the chapter in 2.45 and 2.46. So part of establishing the throne... in Solomon's hands is taking away rival threats. Adonijah is a rival threat. And then we get this marvelous note about Abiathar. Solomon believes that Abiathar is supporting Adonijah, and please notice that Abiathar does not object. He has supported him before in chapter 1 when they made an attempt to grab the throne and usurp it, and Abiathar now is told, you need to get out of here. I can't put up with you anymore. I think you and Adonijah are a Verse 26, Notice verse 27. fulfilling the word of the Lord. There are two branches of the priestly family that are descending, the Ithamar branch and the Eleazar branch. The Ithamar branch is Eli's branch, and it was prophesied that that branch would be done away. They would be losing the priesthood because of Eli's sons and how he did not restrain them. And so here it is. That comes to pass. It's been a long time since Samuel was a little boy being raised in the It's been a long time since then, but the word of the Lord is fulfilled, verse 27. And from now on, the house of Zadok will be the high priest family, the kind of priest that you want to have no more, not going to have any more from Abiathar and the line of Eli. Our reading then for Monday, 1 Kings chapter 2, verses 13 to 27. Have a great Memorial Day. It is Tuesday. It is Tuesday. That's kind of a tough day for a bunch of us as we get back to work after a day off. I hope that your day is going well. It's 1 Kings 2, verses 28-46 that we are reading today. This breaks neatly into two parts. In verses 28-35, Solomon deals with Joab. In verses 36-46, he deals with Shammai. And the material in verses 36-46 may, in fact, be a little bit out of place, out of chronological order, I should say. And we know that because verse 39 says at the end of three years. So we'll kind of project forward a little bit here to get the story of Shammai finally fully taken care of. Let's deal with Joab first. Verse 28, when the news came to Joab for Joab had supported Adonijah. See, there was a conspiracy going on, wasn't there? Abiathar, Joab, and Adonijah supported. were going to make some sort of attempt to take the throne by force. So Joab flees to the tent of the Lord, holds on to the horns of the altar. He clearly does not know the law. Exodus chapter 21 and verse 14 says you can't take shelter in the tabernacle if you're a murderer. There was the right of asylum in the sanctuary, but that only applied to those who had been involved in some sort of accidental death. Joab is a murderer. He has murdered lots of people, and there is discussion of that in verse 32, and it's time for him to pay for his crime. So Solomon sends Benaiah down to take care of that, and Benaiah does take care of that. Benaiah is the guy who killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day, and so he seems to be a fearsome warrior, and he is able to take care of these kinds of situations perfectly. And he does. Benaiah takes care of Joab. Joab's career, as you look back on that, what a mixture of good and bad. There are times when he's so loyal to David and really helps David, saves his bacon. I think particularly with the rebellion of Absalom, there's some things going on there that Joab really is David's right-hand man and helps him manage to ride through that big mess that Absalom creates. On the other hand, he has a tendency to murder anybody who gets in his way. He does not follow orders very well. He murdered Absalom, for example. And so it's time for him to go, and Solomon takes care of that. The final loose end then that Solomon ties up so that his kingdom would be established. Look at verse 45 and verse 46. So the kingdom was established. It says that twice. Keeping the main thing, the main thing here, the main thing is the kingdom is being established in the hands of Solomon. We need to deal with Shammai. Shammai is the guy that cursed David when Absalom chased him out of Jerusalem. And Solomon is very gracious to Shammai. Remember, curses are important. Curses have power in this culture and in this time. He says, listen, I need you to stay put. You need to keep an eye on you. And particularly, verse 37, that house arrest would show real wisdom. It means that he can't go to his kinsmen in Benjamin. That's always an issue because Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. And there are a couple of places where it just seems like somebody from Benjamin is jumping up and down and saying, the house of David really shouldn't be the king, shouldn't be on the throne. We need a Benjamite. We need someone from the family of Saul, maybe. And so, Shammai, we don't want you running over there to Benjamin and stirring up trouble and leading some kind of rebellion. You better just stay put. And incredibly, after three years, verse 39, Shammai seems to have forgotten the admonition of the king and says, goes to Target to run an errand. What are you doing, Shemite? What's going on? Well, they had a great sale down there. Well, of course, he's not really going to Target. He's chasing some slaves. But the king says, hey, I told you this. You heard the instructions. You knew the instructions. Now you're going to have to pay for violating the law, for violating my instructions. And as a result of that, He is struck down. Benaiah again, verse 46, is the one that does the deed. And that's the end of Shammai. So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon. I think the most important question to be asking in our Bible reading this year is what is God doing? And what God is doing is he is keeping his word to Solomon. David. He told David Solomon to be on the throne. Some people said, nope, I don't think so. I think I'll be on the throne. They were wrong. Solomon is on the throne. Let me give you one more note. Westsiders, there is not a Zoom call tonight. No Zoom call tonight for Westsiders. I'm out of town. So we'll have Zoom probably next week, I would guess. Maybe you have to work around VBS and some things with some of that. But no Zoom call tonight. And We'll just see everybody on the podcast in the morning. See you on Wednesday. The reading for Tuesday, 1 Kings chapter 2, verses 28 to 46. Welcome to Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday. Our reading today is 1 Kings chapter 3, verses 1 to 15. There's a lot to like in our reading, but there are some things that are truly troubling. It begins by telling us in verse 1 that Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. I think contextually this probably serves to say that that Solomon is ruling a very powerful empire. Archaeology confirms that Egyptian kings did not like to do this. They did not give their daughters in alliances. So clearly, Solomon is the big dog on the block if that kind of thing is happening. So there's a lot to like about all of that. By the way, this is not his first wife by any means. And Solomon will say some things about, I'm just a little child, but he is a full-grown adult here. He is married and has children and all that goes with all of that. And of course, what is really concerning as we pay attention to what God thinks of what's happening here is that people are sacrificing in the high places. Solomon is sacrificing in the high places. That seems to be... people doing the best they can since there isn't a central sanctuary. There's not one established place to do that, but oftentimes that seems to be done in places that used to be centers of idol worship, and that ends up becoming idol worship. Generally speaking, this is not a good idea. Israel was forbidden to sacrifice in the high places. Sometimes it seems like that's okay. Maybe God is using those. God will appear to Solomon while at a high place, but Generally speaking, high places, not so great. And then even worse, he's marrying foreign wives. That is not a good idea because it's a violation of the law. Deuteronomy 17, 17, the king is not to multiply wives. They are not to marry Canaanite women. Deuteronomy 7, verse 3. Everything about that is problematic. Everything about that is truly troubling. One of the things about Solomon's reign, and I'm maybe a little more aware of this than I would be usually, is I've been preaching through 1 Kings. In fact, just recently, a couple weeks ago, preached on 1 Kings 7, so really close to this material, and I just really have noticed that over and over again as Kings talks about Solomon's reign, there'll be these little red flags waving. And Solomon is doing all these great things, but you know what? He also did this. And you're thinking, oh no, where is that going to go? And of course, it's going to end in no good place for Solomon. But God does ask Solomon, verse 5, what he would desire. I don't think that's a blank check. I think God is testing Solomon here. And Solomon exhibits some tremendous attitudes in prayer. He is humble, verse 7. He has a sense of responsibility. He uses the expression, your people, uses that twice, verse 8 and in verse 9. He has right priorities in verse 9, and he trusts in God in verse 9. This is a very good prayer. God honors that prayer, verse 10, and gives him wisdom. I want to say a lot about wisdom as we move forward in Kings here, because wisdom so often is equated with kind of an esoteric guy sitting on the top of a mountain with his legs crossed, humming to himself. He's the wise guru, or maybe we think of it as being sort of academic. Wisdom in the Bible is none of those things. Wisdom in the Bible is about how to navigate Well, it is about how to order life practically. It is not philosophic. It is about handling life's ups and downs, problems and difficulties in a way that honors God and lives in the best kind of fashion. And we're going to see lots of that as we move along throughout 1 Kings 3, 4, and 5, where there are illustrations of Solomon's practical wisdom. Our reading today ends... In verse 15, where Solomon makes a public testimony to the relationship that he has with God. Let me just give you one more note. I may share this tonight in Bible talk as well. Please notice here that half of our reading today causes us to say, retro, what are you doing here, Solomon? And then half of our reading, God is blessing him and it's very, very good. And I think what all of that says is God uses imperfect people. Solomon is not flawless. God's blessing him and using him anyway. And that ought to give us great hope because everybody listening to this podcast and the guy making this podcast, that's right, we are all imperfect. See you tomorrow. Our reading for Wednesday, 1 Kings 3, verses 1-15. Welcome to Thursday. Thursday's reading is 1 Kings 3, verses 16-28. This is a very famous story. I don't think I need to spend a whole lot of time working with the story. It's pretty straightforward. I think what's important here is two things. First of all, what's the story doing here? And what can we learn about Bible times from this story? And let me just start with what it's doing here. The story is here to demonstrate that God kept his word to Solomon. He told Solomon, I'm going to give you an understanding heart. going to give you wisdom. And then Solomon demonstrates his wisdom. Notice verse 28,"...all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered. They stood in awe of the king. They perceived the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God was in him to do justice." The fulfillment of 1 Kings chapter 3 verses 1 to 15 is given to us immediately in the story of 16 to 28. The other thing that needs to be said here is this is a good chance to learn something about life in Bible times. And I'll just share with you a quote from a scholar about prostitution. Ancient prostitutes were generally slaves, daughters who had been sold by their own parents, or they were poor women who had never had an opportunity to marry or who had lost their husbands. The normal expectation was for a woman to be married and live in her husband's house and bear his children. Women who had to support themselves by yielding to the lust of strangers and whose children were destined to grow up as illegitimate That's the story of prostitution in the Bible. And anytime you see a widow woman in the Bible, I'm thinking about Naomi, for example, you should immediately be thinking, Oh, no, she's in so much trouble, she may end up having to turn to prostitution just to live, just to support herself. That doesn't make it right. I'm not justifying prostitution by any stretch of the imagination. No, no, no. But I am saying this is a terrible situation for a woman to be in. And the women who are caught up in these situations, they weren't happy to be there. They didn't want to be in that situation. They're just trying to survive. And the application of that to us today is pretty clear. The majority of women in prostitution today Exactly the same thing. They're runaways. They're caught up in drug abuse. They're being trafficked. They're being used. They're not happy about it. And what drives me crazy is that Hollywood keeps churning movies out where they show prostitutes as if they are just the happiest people. They love this sexy lifestyle that they're part of. It's just so great. That's such a false, false view of prostitution, and it's just an outrageous lie. It's just an outrageous lie. When we see women like this in the Bible, it doesn't make it right, but it does mean we want to extend compassion. We want to extend compassion and feel compassion for them, and that may have something to do with why Solomon takes this case and hears this case. He knows these women are living a life that they don't want to live. This is not what they want to be all about. I'll see you tomorrow. Our reading for Thursday is 1 Kings 3, verses 16 to 28. Tomorrow, we turn to the Psalms. Welcome to Friday, welcome to Friday, and today we're reading the 21st Psalm. This is an important psalm for us to be reading because last week we read Psalm 20, and Psalm 21 seems to be going with Psalm 20. Let's work on that a little bit. First and foremost, what kind of psalm is this? That's answered in verse 1,"...O Lord, in your strength the King..." This is a royal psalm. It is about the king. And it does seem to be paired with the 20th Psalm because in chapter... Psalm 20, verse 4, may he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans. And then in 21, 2, you have given him his heart's desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. So chapter 20, or Psalm 20, I should say, is about going to battle. And it does seem in some ways that Psalm 21 is about victory in battle. There's not a reference to a particular victory. And verses 8 to 12 are very future focused, very oriented on what's to come. But there is some victory language here, I think there is a tie between these two psalms. The outline is pretty simple. God's goodness to the king in times past, verses 1 to 6. The king and the Lord in the present, verse 7. And then God's goodness to the king in the future. And it is a beautiful psalm. And I think this psalm pushes all of us to think about how good God is and how much God blesses us and how God takes care of us. This is a psalm that calls for us to be thankful. Maybe you're not a king. Maybe I'm not a king, but God in many ways, verse 2, has given us our heart's desire. And you know that that is true. So this psalm points us to the importance of thanking God for the blessings that He gives to us. And I think maybe the rich language of this psalm points to the fact that God often gives us more than what we asked for. Verse 6, you make him most blessed forever. You make him glad with the joy of your presence. You get more from God than you could have ever possibly dreamed, that we ever possibly could deserve. God is so good. He is good to the king in Psalm 21, and he is good to you and me as well. That concludes the podcast for the week. I certainly do appreciate you listening. Hope you're telling others about the podcast and you left us a rating and a review. So until next week when we'll open our Bibles together again, I'm Mark Roberts and I want to go to heaven and I want you to come too. See you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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