1 Kings 5:7, And it came about when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said, "Blessed be the Lord today, who has given to David a wise son over this great people."
We are continuing forward with our consideration of what is part of this current passage. Last time, we dealt with the fact that there were blessings given to Jehovah by even foreign monarchs as they witnessed how God had made provision for His people to be ruled by one who would be wise and practice compassion with justice and righteousness. This was a means of the witness of the Lord’s ruling and overruling through the choice of Solomon to become the king after the passing of David from this life. 
This morning, we want to deal with another aspect of what we have before us in the manner of the Lord being blessed. That is as it shows forth the witness of the familial relationship and the manner in which the father’s steadfast preparation of the son to inherit the throne worked to bring forth the glory of our Heavenly Father. This is the evidence of that perfect relationship with the manifold obedience of the Only Begotten Son to fulfill the desire of the love of the Heavenly Father. 
We know that King David was thoroughly desirous to build the temple of Jehovah because he wanted that place within the nation of Israel in which God would have a permanent home with His people. David knew that God could not be contained by any building because The Lord transcends any physical limitations or location. Yet, Yahweh did inhabit that place between the Cherubim in terms of being there for the meeting together with His people through the priestly order. 
David was prevented from carrying through on this desired task of the building of the Lord’s House within the city of Jerusalem. This was because of all the blood that was accounted to him as a man of war. As much as he wanted to honor Yahweh in this manifest manner, Jehovah would not allow David to build His Temple because of all the blood and the violence that were part of the past of this king. 
Therefore it fell to David’s son, Solomon to carry out that which was his father’s heart’s desire. He was able to do so through the wisdom that was given from God, through the fact that David had made the every provision in stockpiling the necessary supplies. He also maintained those relationships with the best of the carpenters and stone masons and artists who would be there for the time appointed to help Solomon. 
The temple, eventually built by Solomon, was the representation, to the nation, and to the world, that Jehovah was living among His chosen people. This is now brought forth, today, in the fact that He actually lives in those who are called and respond to the great love of God in Christ Jesus. We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being worked together into the now living temple of the Most High and Awesome Lord God Almighty.
There is another requisite detail to this entire matter. Solomon was fully prepared by his father for this task through the teaching and the encouragement and the guidance that he received within the household of the king. God was ever the preeminent reality of the House of David in which Solomon received that training and that encouragement to so honor the Lord by honoring the heart of his earthly father. 
This was inherently taught from father to son, from mother to daughter, from parent and grandparent to child and grandchild. The design of the family whose hearts and minds were to be centered on that which would so honor Jehovah as the Lord, was ever to be the course of each generational entity of the people of God. He was always to be honored as the Only True and Living God, and as the Overarching and Always Abiding Patriarch of the family which He had redeemed and brought into being. 
Please turn back into your Bibles to Deut 11:1-7, where this was detailed manifestly to the nation as a whole by Moses. It was with the force of the Word of the Lord to reach into the hearts and minds of all the collected people. They had received the great salvation from the slavery to Egypt through the Red Sea. This led to the resultant glorious establishment of the people of God through their walk with Him in the desert of Sinai.
Deut 11:1-7, "You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments. And know this day that I am not speaking with your sons who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord your God — His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm, and His signs and His works which He did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land; and what He did to Egypt's army, to its horses and its chariots, when He made the water of the Red Sea to engulf them while they were pursuing you, and the Lord completely destroyed them; and what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place; and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, among all Israel — but your own eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord which He did. 
	This encouragement was to the generation that had been so forcefully and awesomely redeemed by the power of the Hand of Yahweh in operation. This was something they were to teach to their children, day in and day out. The entire focal reality of what God had done was to be the foundational center of their lives and the lives of their families. Each succeeding generation would be able to recount and set their eyes back upon the history by which that family and that nation of God had come into being. 
	Consider how manifestly this was to become the core walk of this people together, as a family, in the Lord, as detailed without question and without exception in the manner in which this was to be taught to each generation of the people of God. Please turn to Deut 6:4-25. There was nothing greater to be taught to the children and the children’s children, and their children than this over and abiding love for the Lord God Almighty.
Deut 6:4-25, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. "Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you shall eat and be satisfied, then watch yourself, lest you forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him, and swear by His name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth. "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah. You should diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies and His statutes which He has commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which the Lord swore to give your fathers, by driving out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken. "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord our God commanded you?' then you shall say to your son,' We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt; and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand. 'Moreover, the Lord showed great and distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household; and He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers.' "So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival, as it is today. And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as He commanded us. 
	The writer of the Proverbs encourages the parent and the child of each family in the course of what is necessary for this love of God to take priority in preparation for the manifested love of God to become the central and unhindered treasury of each one of the father’s posterity. There is a discipline that is required to give correct and proper attention to that which is of utmost concern to God as each child is corrected and directed in the paths that will hold true in the honor of the Lord and the honor of the parentage. We have some short snippets of wisdom which are placed before us in rapid succession in order to show the necessity and responsibility in both the parentage and the children. Each entity has a vital role in this manner of honoring God in the course in which He is loved with all our hearts, with all our minds, and with all our strength.
	Consider what the writer tells the children in terms of their relationship with the parents that God has so blessed each one with. First is the well known shoring up to each of us in Prov 3:11+12. This is as we consider how we are to receive the discipline of our Heavenly Father in relationship to how we present our testimony of God on this earth as well as when we are disciplined by our earthly parentage in the love of God. 
	Prov 3:11+12, My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord, Or loathe His reproof, For whom the Lord loves He reproves, Even as a father, the son in whom he delights. 
	Then we have the relationship of whether that discipline after the Lord is fruitful as detailed in Prov 10:1. This is reflective of how Solomon became the productive heritage of David as the kingly lineage was handed down to him. 
	Prov 10:1, The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a father glad, But a foolish son is a grief to his mother. 
	The continued encouragement, as evident in the relationship of the son accepting and following in the steps of the father through the disciplined walk that was taught and directed is further expressed in Prov 13:1. Prov 13:1, A wise son accepts his father's discipline, But a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. 
	Once more, because of the necessary importance of this parent/child relationship based in the teaching and the discipline which leads to wise choices in the honoring of both God and the parentage is expressed again in Prov 15:20. Prov 15:20, A wise son makes a father glad, But a foolish man despises his mother. 
	Finally, from the Proverbs, in Prov 23:24-26, we have the joy expressed as both children and parentage learn what it means to live in accordance with the plan and the design of God in terms of our familial relationship on this earth. This is to be reflective of that relationship which God designed in the redemption of a people unto Himself as He gathered together those who are adopted into His household.
	Prov 23:24-26, The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, And he who begets a wise son will be glad in him. Let your father and your mother be glad, And let her rejoice who gave birth to you. Give me your heart, my son, And let your eyes delight in my ways. 
	The Prophet Isaiah next brings forth several aspects of the relationship that parents and children, as, in this case, rabbi and disciples, have with each other in the growing walk with God on this earth. It is not just for the sake of teaching those whom the Lord has given for our instruction and nurturing and disciplining. It is most earnestly for the heritage of the Lord that will be seen through the ever more dedicated and consecrated people whom He has brought into this relationship as His own family on this earth. We declare the glory of The Lord as our lives reflect just how much He means to us in our day to day living expression of Jesus Christ, reesurrected and glorified.
	Consider that which we have before us in Isa 8:16-18. Isa 8:16-18, Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait for the Lord who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob; I will even look eagerly for Him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. 
	As the Prophet was told by God and relays to us in Isa 9:6+7, all of this that was going forth through the discipline and the instruction of the people of God was for much more than just the few years of a man’s life, and his children’s lives, and the lives of each succeeding generation. The eyes of this prophet were shown the One Who was to come for those people of Israel, and the One Who has come for those of us who have been grafted into the family tree of God through His giving of His Only Begotten Son.
	Isa 9:6+7, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. 
	This One, Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, was the perfect man who did only that which the Heavenly Father instructed through the Word that was given. Jesus suffered the discipline that would cause Him to be faultless in His obedience, even unto that death on the cross. Accordingly He would bring forth that eternal redemption of all who would but call upon His wondrous and amazing name. 
He did not turn away from that which would result in such physical pain and anguish. He embraced it with all dedication unto that which had always and forever been the plan of the redemption of those who were called and chosen from before the eternal ages were even set into place. In so doing, He perfectly honored His Father, and brought everlasting glory and praise and adoration from the entirety of creation unto the Lord God Almighty!
	This perfect example is now the life that we are to live on this earth. We are not absolutely faultless in our dedicated walk with and unto God, but we want to be! We want to add to the honor and the joy and the majesty that He Alone deserves! Therefore we find ourselves being encouraged throughout the Word in both the New and the Old Testament with that which will stand the test of time. 
	We find ourselves rejoicing together in the support and with the sustaining and maintaining power of the Holy Spirit working vitally to show us how to be children who honor our parents as unto The Lord! As well, we are taught to be parents who honor God in the manner in which we show our children and grand-children, and great-grand-children the awesome and manifested love and discipline of dedication and commitment unto Jehovah, our Savior and Our Lord to the praise of Our Heavenly Father!
	The Apostle Paul is such an encouragement as we read in the letter that he wrote to Titus, a disciple to whom he entrusted the church in Crete. Let us share together in that which Titus faced with all hope and grace and mercy in the Lord. 
In Titus 1:5-16, there was a great responsibility placed upon this man in relation to the manner in which the church was cared for by those who would be so honoring to the Lord in their demeanor and their commitment. This was to be utterly unto that which brought forth a true and sincere testimony of righteousness before the citizenry of a city blinded and stumbling in the darkness that needed the pure light of Christ Jesus. 
	Titus 1:5-16, For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might set in order what remains, and appoint elders in every city as I directed you, namely, if any man be above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion. For the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach, for the sake of sordid gain. One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." This testimony is true. For this cause reprove them severely that they may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed. 
	Our final passage of this morning is from the Writer to the Hebrews. In Heb 12:5-14, we are given the very sobering and uncompromising details of what each one of us needs to have the Lord establish in our relationship with Him. It is nothing other than what was at the beginning as we saw in the stated necessity for the people of God to set their hearts, their minds, and their strength totally into that which was so honoring to their Redeemer.
	Heb 12:5-14, and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives." It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. 
	So be it!
	And it came about when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said, “Blessed be the Lord today, who has given to David a wise son over this great people.” Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 72:18+19. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who alone works wonders. And blessed be His glorious name forever; And may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and Amen.