As I read through God’s timeless Word through the biblical Scriptures, I am reminded over and over that through all our modern technology-nothing has changed in that people are people and sin is sin. And this goes with the sinful, human desire to control other human beings and amass wealth beyond what they can use, spend or take with them into the presence of God.

Today, I am going to show you through 1 Kings 1, the degree to which even biblical characters went to amass authority, control, power, and wealth. In the end, as I just stated, nothing has changed in thousands of years. When Christians and non-Christians alike fail to live according to God’s ways, moral ethical values, and his basic laws, sin abounds, people get hurt, societies deteriorate, and God is not honored. The good news is that mankind is always sinning but always allows for U-Turns back to Him! Let’s get started by looking at the Book of 1 Kings.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SUCCESSION OF THE KING

The Book of 1 Kings opens with the struggle for the success of the king of Israel. Verse one tells us that King David so old and advanced in years to the point that he was unable to get warm. 

David’s condition left him as the king to be in no condition to affectively rule the kingdom any longer. As a result of King David’s failure to enact a succession plan up until this point almost cost the death of Solomon in that David’s son Adonijah tried to take the kingdom by deception and force. Scriptures tell us that Adonijah, “…exalted himself, saying “I will be king…And he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him” (v.3). He did this without speaking to David in an effort to take advantage of David’s old age through a form of what might be considered “elder abuse”. Had he succeeded, he would have to have Solomon, the rightful successor of throne killed in order to squelch all legal challenges to the throne.

ONCE AGAIN-THE SIN OF PEOPLE WANTING A HANDSOME CHARISMATIC LEADER

I want to pause here to point out that Adonijah was “a handsome man” (vs. 6). This goes back to a previous episode whereby I addressed the fact that humans, including God’s people, tend to want and often demand “handsome-good looking-charismatic-statesman like” leaders over those of character and who speak the truth and who follow God’s word and ways as best they can. It’s a human sickness that has always plagued God’s people, even to this day. That being said, let’s move on.

In a nutshell, in an effort to claim the throne for himself, Adonijah sacrificed sheep and held a feast to proclaim himself king among many of the kingdom’s officials, He would have gotten away with it had it not been for Nathan the faithful prophet and Bathsheba, Solomons’ mother. What happened is that Nathan and Bathsheba met with king David to inform him of Adonijah’s actions to take the throne by force. This resulted in David’s instructing them to immediately do the following which they did. And their counter actions went into action right while Adonijah was holding a feast with many of the kings officials. Verses 38-40 describes the scene as follows:

“So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites went down and had SOLOMON ride on King David’s mule and brought him to Gihon. There Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, “”Long live King Solomon! And all the people went up after him, playing on the pipes, and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth was split by their noise” (1 Kings 1:38-40).

“Then all the guests of  Adonijah trembled and rose, and each went his own way” (v.49).

Why did they do this? Because those associated with Adonijah would be considered co-conspirators. They were caught red handed playing politics in an effort to gain favor and/or a favorable position with Adonijah who they thought would be successful in his efforts to illegally and unethically take the throne by force. They knew they had sinned and that if caught, it might very well cost them their own life and or freedom, so they quietly dismissed themselves in an effort fall back in line with Solomon and rightfully abandon Adonijah as a false king.

SO WHAT HAPPENED TO ADONIJAH?

Verse 51 tells us that Adonijah himself “TREMBLED…and he feared Solomon. So he arose and went and took hold of the horns of the alter” (v.51).

Adonijah went to the alter and took hold of the horns as a legal claim to protection  which was, not automatically granted otherwise (Exodus 21:14; 1 Kings 2:28-34). David allowed Adonijah to let go of the horns and then he allowed him to come out of the alter without being killed. At least for the moment. And this ends chapter 1 of 1 Kings. The point of today’s episode is to highlight just how far people will go to amass and maintain their power. It’s a human sin to use power for one’s personal gain which is temporal,and an eternal blessing which lasts forever if used for God’s glory and the good of others while on earth.

IN SUMMARY: This illustrates vividly through another biblical story, “WHAT PEOPLE WILL DO TO OBTAIN POWER”. As we have seen, sinful humans will steel, cheat, lie, and even commit murder to obtain and maintain their power and all of the perks that come with that. And for what? A few years of temporal power amassed “against God’s will” most likely end up hurting them in the temporal and certainly in eternity. It most likely will as well land them in hell as opposed to heaven for eternity. What people will do now for temporal pleasure is very short sited. We as followers of God through Jesus Christ should inventory how we are living our lives daily in an effort to avoid the pitfalls of falling into such temptations in our own lives.

This is not just a story about kings, presidents and leaders, but about you and I and all of us as parents, managers and community leaders. We should be careful to act rightly, fairly, and biblical at our job in how we treat other family members with financial matters, inheritances, and other resources. God knows all, sees all, and deals with all. Nobody, not even the earthly kings get away with evil and sin. And neither will we. The great news is that we can lead rightly wherever God’s calls us to with moral, ethical and biblical direction. And this is the great news and the hope we have in our temporal time here on earth we call life and how we can use whatever power, influence and affluence God lends us for the blink of an eye we call life.

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“THE SUCCESS OF ANY PRESIDENT AND NATION DEPENDS ON IT’S ALLEGIANCE TO GOD’S LAW”

With the upcoming-November 2024 elections in the United States and 65% of all nations across the globe, the future of the U.S. and world will be defined by those results.

Today, I am going to show you through the Book of 1 Kings, that the success of any leader and nation depends on their commitment to God’s law as laid out in the biblical record. And that failure to adhere to God’s law results in decline and captivity of that nation. Let’s get started.

As we move out of the Book of Samuel, we will now move into 1 Kings. 1 Kings, author uncertain. 1 Kings was written circa 550 A.D. by a person who most likely  was one of the exiles who lived in Babylon, perhaps on unknown one, Ezra or Ezekiel or Jeremiah (through someone other than Jeremiah would have had to write the last chapter of 2 Kings, since Jeremiah apparently died in Egypt, not Babylon: (Jeremiah 43:6-7).

1 Kings opens with the struggle for Accession of Solomon in (1:1-3) to the final charge of David to Solomon in 2:1-12. The wisdom of Solomon in 3:2-4:34, the Temple of Solomon to the rise of fame of Solomon, the DOWNFALL of Solomon for failing to keep God’s ways and law (11:1-43) to finally, the DIVIDED KINGDOM in (12:1-22:53). It’s within this context that I would like to give a general, Birdseye view of our journey into 1 Kings in light of the fact that the success of any king, president or nation depends on their allegiance to God’s Word.

BASIC FOUNDATION

1 Kings is a historical narrative of Israel and a Judah and includes interaction with the surrounding nations, the disasters of following false prophets, and the tragic Babylonian captivity. The historical narrative of Kings records the 19 kings of Israel (all bad) and 20 kings of Judah, (only eight of which were good). 1 Kings was written FIRST, for the Jewish people in Babylon in 560 B.C., later for the Jewish community, and lastly, for you and I today, as reading of 1 and 2 Kings would provide insight into their circumstances, explaining the cause of the Babylonian conquest. It’s important to note that the nation was taken into captivity for their wicked practice of idolatry: setting up a corrupted worship of the Lord with the Golden calves in the north kingdom, worshipping the gods of the pagan nations around them on high places and in Jerusalem, and even sacrifice their children to Moloch, SIMILIAR to today’s abortion epidemic. Please note that after the return from exile, Israel would never again practice idolatry.

IN CONCLUSION: 1 and 2 Kings:

1. Reveal that each king failed, even the good kings of Judah, to be the ultimate heir to the Davidic throne promised by God in the Davidic convent (2 Samuel 7:8-17).
2. In the end, 1 Kings was provided by God as an understanding of Kings to give the Jewish people, and all readers up to date, renewed opportunity to fear God, live in devotion to Him.
3. For us to look for the messianic King.
4. So, let’s pray people awaken to the true God of the Scriptures, as the success of any president or king (any of the nation as a whole)depends on the measure of his/their allegiance to God’s law. And failure results in decline and captivity.

In the end, the fate of our country and freedom rests in how we as the Christian community and world at large embraces the true God of the universe and our allegiance to His Law.

Business is about the numbers but character is about success. And success is all about how you get to those numbers, right or wrong.

Today, I am going to show you that while numbers are necessary for running a sales organization, or any organization for that matter, including our family budget and personal lives-the lack of good character in achieving those numbers is false success. It also leads to a heartless soul organizationally and personally speaking through wrongly, ill-gained profit. On the other hand, godly character leads to God-dependent success. That success must be coupled with our obedience to work hard, smart and ethically-moral.

I was in outside sales for many years and can attest to the fact that marketplace success is based on numbers.  In sales, success is measured and driven by the NUMBER of cold calls, appointments, presentations and closed deals. In the end, the value of a sales-person is based on how much money a salesperson bring as defined by closed sales at the end of each month.

To be blunt, compensating people on performance is the best way to reward sales people, but selling based on one’s character is the right and best model. If a person is honest, hard working, driven, fair, thinks of the other person first, that salesperson will in most cases perform more highly than if strictly driven by numbers. To be fair, there are many lazy and dishonest sales people (and people in general) in the marketplace and world in general. Laziness is slothfulness, and that goes back to character. If doing business and closing sales with a foundation of good character sounds like a pipe dream, it’s not. It’s the way that Americans business used operate and in some cases, still is. While character driven business has never been perfectly executed in America or in any culture, it was executed with a high level of success up until the 1990’s.

When a company judges a person strictly by their sales numbers, they create an environment based on a lack of character and a lack of moral values. More specifically, a lack of Christian values which used to be the values of the United States in particular. It’s important to understand that nothing acts or operates in a vacuum. If Christian values such as “do not steal, murder, lie, honor other people as you would want to be honored”, etc. are no longer the cultural foundation of business ethics, what is? The two main choices are as follows: ATHEISM: (Communism or Socialism-every man and woman for him or herself with the government running the economy). Or ISLAM: (which is communism under a theocracy). These two worldviews have already taken over much of the world’s economic philosophies, but Christian values based on character still exist and can make a come back! Indonesia has the highest number of Muslims in the world of any country. They never sent a missionary or religious people to accomplish that. They sent business people to start businesses.

GOALS:

Sales is not for everybody, but everybody sells and should have goals. We should all have goals, including stay at home moms, teenagers, the president of companies and the president and leaders of countries, as well as sales managers, sales people and sales teams. But one’s value system ought never be attached to a number, and one’s character ought never be judged by their numerical success. I agree that if your numbers aren’t met after a specific time, perhaps that person ought to look for another job-probably outside of sales. This goes back to character and ego. I

In our next episode, I am going to tie this into the Bible through 2 Samuel whereby we read about David’s taking a CENSUS in numbering of the people, which was usually done for the purposes of taxation or military draft. David’s sin was in putting his faith in NUMBERS rather than in God. This is the danger of measuring  success strictly by numbers without biblical character. To be fair, numbers are necessary in living out our lives, including how organizations run their sales organization. With that in mind, God is today with out us today as He was with king David in 2 Samuel that there are occasions whereby we are not to use numbers. In David’s case, he was not to measure the numbers of citizens due to the fact that it would puff up David’s ego and give him a false sense of his own worth, power and success as opposed to depending on God and giving him the glory, honor and credit. This will be the subject of part two!

CONCLUSION:

In the end, building a business and a successful sales team must be by numbers. That being said, they must also be driven by character and personal development and understanding, based on biblical character. The final determiner of true success in God’s eyes boils down to how the person, manager or organization gets to those numbers. While numbers are necessary for running an organization, our family budgets and personal lives, the lack of good character in achieving those numbers leads only to a heartless organization and wrongly driven profits. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In our next episode we are going to look at what happens through the biblical story of king David’s ordering of a numerical census for personal ego and trying to achieve numbers apart from God.