Adonijah receives the news that his brother, Solomon, has
received the blessing of their father, David, as king and that the priest has
anointed him as well. Adonijah’s
reaction is fear. He takes hold the
horns of the altar of sacrifice, which, in essence, grants him some form of
sanctuary and remains there until Solomon summons him with the injunction, “If
he will show himself a worthy man, not one of his hairs shall fall to the
earth, but if wickedness is found in him, he shall die.” Paying homage to his brother was his way of
showing contrition, bowing to the one he recognized as king over Israel. We pay homage to Jesus when we come to His
throne or His cross and give up our own claim to the throne of our lives. Now that there are no other rivals, David
gives Solomon final instruction, and that is to follow the commands of the
Lord, the Law of Moses. He gives other
instructions as well, concerning how to deal with those who cannot be trusted,
but apparently we don’t need to read that in the rest of this chapter.
Jesus concludes this end-times prophecy with a warning that
in spite of the fact the signs will be as obvious as a fig tree coming into
leaf presaging the arrival of summer that no one will know the particular time,
not even Him, only the Father. The
command to us is to stay awake, be prepared for His coming again. The signs have always been there since His
death, that this world is passing away and that there will be an end of
history. Our role is to wait as though
He were returning now. We often let down
our guard and fail to live according to the commandments of Jesus. We allow our desires for things of earth to
rule over us and we chase after that which is prohibited to us, we fall into
sin. The answer to that is to stay
awake, don’t allow ourselves to be lulled to sleep by the delay. When we fail we are called to go back and
repent, doing homage to the rightful king, taking ourselves off the throne that
belongs to Him alone.
Paul makes his defense and Festus, the governor, rebukes
him, saying that his great learning has made him mad. Paul speaks to Festus but is really making
his appeal to Herod Agrippa who is a Jew.
He is engaging not so much in defense but in evangelism, his hope is
that all who hear this message will respond in faith to it. His concern is always with the kingdom of God
and impelled by a faith in the Gospel that is complete, it is His message no
matter what the circumstance. Ultimately, Agrippa says his hands are tied in
the matter, he could set Paul free but for his appeal to Caesar and, as a Roman
citizen, he has the right to go to Caesar.
We all know who is actually in charge of the proceedings though, Paul
didn’t make a mistake in the appeals process, the Lord’s intention was for him
to go to Rome.
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