Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father. God then gave Solomon an opportunity to ask anything of Him; but Solomon asked for only one thing: that the Lord would grant him wisdom to judge the people's lawsuits before the temple. How did the Lord respond to Solomon's request? And was what Solomon asked for promised to him? The answers to all these questions are revealed in this chapter.

Questions for Reflection:

• If you were called to establish a church, what would you ask God for in prayer? Why?

• What is pleasing to God to pray for? What is not pleasing to God to pray for?

• What kind of person can you discern Solomon to be from his prayer?

• Why did Solomon want wisdom? Does wisdom have any efficacy?

Willing to Pay the Price to Love God

1 Kings chapter 3 begins by discussing King Solomon. The author who wrote about King Solomon also wrote about the later history of the kingdom of Israel. This author was probably someone from several hundred years later. Let us roughly calculate: Judah was around 500 BC, the era of King David and King Solomon was around 1000 BC. If we take five hundred years as a unit, Abraham was five hundred years before Moses, Moses was five hundred years before David, and a thousand years after David was Jesus. The year 1996 AD was three thousand years since David became king, and also three thousand years since Jerusalem was built. Today, as we look at it, the author of Kings has a very clear intention in describing King Solomon, which is reflected in chapter 3: What a person asks for determines what that person will receive. What to ask for is a tremendous thing. A person who loves God asks for things that are in accordance with God's heart, asking according to God's will; a person who loves the world asks in a way that loves the world. The beginning of this chapter writes: Solomon loved the Lord, this one sentence determines what he will ask for.

Today we must think carefully. In Deuteronomy, Moses wrote several times: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. By the time of Jesus, Jesus said: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength (Mark 12:30). The phrase love the Lord your God must enter our hearts. Loving the Lord your God and loving this world are completely different ways of thinking. A person who loves the Lord your God will not say: Prayer is so troublesome, so tiring. Kneeling for three hours at a time is annoying, really annoying, why is believing in the Lord so annoying! Saying this is not love.

Have you ever seen a couple in love? They will not say: Oh, I don't have time to see you, go away. Is that how people in love talk? They can't wait to see each other every day. If they don't see each other one day, they barely endure the day in their respective places, and then when they meet, even if they don't do anything, just sit at the station for a few hours, they don't feel annoyed. That's love! The feeling of love is super good, super awesome! Loving God is also like this: when you love God, you won't feel that it's a problem; when you don't love God, you will feel that many things are problems. The one word love can really solve many problems.

Today someone posted a message in the group saying that her brother-in-law said, The child's stools are fragrant. Then another brother said: Because it's his own child. You see, because of the love for his own child, even the stools are fragrant. I don't mind telling you, if it were me in the past, I wouldn't understand: How can stools be fragrant? Absolutely nonsense. Once when I went back to China to visit relatives, it was in the dead of winter, and my younger brother was changing the child's diaper. After defecating, in the cold winter in Northeast China, the door had to be closed, it was really stinky! When I changed my own son's diaper, the stools really had no smell at all! And I even felt very enjoyable! People are really strange, with love and without love, even doing the same thing, the feeling is different. Love is a tremendous thing, love is unreasonable. With love, you can be patient, and have kindness, and all these qualities can come out. I use this example to illustrate that loving God comes with loving reactions. After loving God, Solomon willingly offered sacrifices, offering a thousand burnt offerings, which is paying the price.

If you say, I love God, but I don't want to pay this price, then that love is a lie. If I love my wife, I love my children, but I don't pay the price, then that doesn't make sense. So brothers and sisters, begin to learn one thing, if you really love God, you must pay the price for God. When you love God, you will put your heart into paying the price for God. What God values, you will also value; what you value, God will also value. This loving relationship is established. When we establish a loving relationship with God, in this loving relationship, you can draw on all the heavenly resources in God's kingdom. We must understand this relationship. Pastor Zhou Shenzhu said: If we have a relationship, there's no problem when a problem arises; if we don't have a relationship, there is a problem when a problem arises. That's troublesome!

A loving relationship is tremendous! Love will make a person's heart, even God's heart, lean towards you. If you have a loving relationship with God, God is biased towards you. You might think: That's impossible, isn't God righteous? But God's righteousness is not treating those who love Him and those who don't love Him the same. No! God's righteousness is showing mercy to those who love God, to a thousand generations; and visiting the iniquity of those who hate Him, to the third and fourth generations (cf. Exodus 20:5-6, Deuteronomy 7:9). That is called righteousness. Do you think it's fair? It may not be fair in human eyes, but it is very fair in God's eyes. So Solomon has this love as a foundation to love the Lord God. He began to pay the price, running a long way to offer a thousand sacrifices. We recall what we read earlier, David offered sacrifices every six steps he took while bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. Is it troublesome? It is troublesome! But with love, people will not嫌麻烦. So brothers and sisters, we must begin to change. Whether there is love or not, people can see it at a glance.

Praying for God's Attributes and Mission

What a person who loves God asks for is very important. So what should you ask for? Anything that is an attribute of God, you should ask God for, and that is tremendous. God's attributes include peace, joy, wisdom, kindness, goodness... all these fruits of the Spirit are characteristics of God, so you should ask for these. The first time I walked into the church, I really didn't know that it was God's Spirit working in me. The first thing I did when I went in was sit down, and I couldn't understand anything. I said: Lord, there is no peace in me at all, I want to have peace, I really want to have peace and joy. It was really good that I asked like this, after coming out, I received peace and joy, because our God is peace and joy. In the first few years after I believed in the Lord, every time I prayed, I asked: Lord, give me peace, give me joy. Thank God! I wasn't being foolish then. I was very poor at that time, but I didn't ask the Lord: Give me money, I really need money. Actually, money is not that important, God doesn't like people asking for money, God likes people asking for things related to God's attributes.

In the New Testament era, what do we need to ask for? Ask for things related to mission. That's why I often say on the pulpit: You must obtain a mission. When you ask for this, He will give you other things. Why? Because you are asking within God's will. Solomon's strength lies here: that day he had a dream, and in the dream he asked for wisdom, which is what he longed for in his spirit. Proverbs says that wisdom is the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is the Spirit of wisdom. So you ask for God's wisdom, which is asking for God's Spirit. So everyone will gradually understand God's attributes more, will know God, will ask for God's attributes, and then will obtain God. If you obtain God, and the Lord God is your inheritance, if you obtain the Lord God, aren't you obtaining everything in God's hand? Right? So Galatians says that we are heirs of God's inheritance, the Lord God is our inheritance, what we possess is tremendous!

So brothers and sisters, after we understand these things, we know that Solomon is really remarkable, perhaps David didn't recognize this so deeply. Solomon, a little child, actually recognized it so deeply! Do you know what he asked for wisdom to do? He said: God, the mission you have given me, I cannot do it on my own, so please give me wisdom so that I can manage the people of Israel well. So God's response is very interesting, He said: You have not asked for long life, nor have you asked for wealth, nor have you asked for the destruction of your enemies, but only for wisdom to govern God's people (cf. 1 Kings 3:11). Today, what is particularly lacking in the church is the gifting to administer God's church, for example, doing text ministry, Weibo ministry, all require administration. Then you have to seek wisdom wholeheartedly! Transcribing recordings requires a certain process, how to type faster, how to write Weibo posts, how to answer the questions of fans... so in what we do, we really need God to give us such wisdom. For example, the text ministry, which has been done for almost half a year, is really God's grace, being led step by step to today. Recently, a brother discovered a software: when organizing recordings, you can set it to automatically play and stop, it will stop after a few sentences, so you have time to type, which greatly improves the efficiency of the ministry.

The Efficacy of Wisdom

Wisdom is a remarkable thing, and we must learn to seek it. After Solomon sought wisdom, God said to him, Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days. (1 Kings 3:11-13) What is this? This is to be at the top and not at the bottom, the head and not the tail.

I am very grateful to see that our brothers and sisters in the church are beginning to be willing to pay this price. In most churches in Singapore, there is only one small group meeting a week, and it is already remarkable if the attendance rate can maintain more than 50% of the church members. That is the situation. Why? Because people reserve their time for themselves. But today, we set aside time for God, to study the Bible together, to read God's Word together. Are you delaying anything? Nothing will be delayed! God will give you wisdom and understanding, and you will find that everything you do goes smoothly. If you love the Lord your God, God will grant you a clear path, cutting off all your enemies before you. Many, many graces come from loving God: And if you walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days. (1 Kings 3:14) See that? Even what you have not asked for is given to you.

When Solomon awoke, behold, it was a dream. Do not think that dreams are just dreams. If you have a chaotic dream, then you really need to pray for rejection. But if you have a good dream, such as one day, the Lord says to you in a dream, I will greatly bless you! When you wake up, you must say, Amen! Do not say, Rubbish! That would ruin all the good fortune. Some people often say, I had a dream and woke up startled, but who knows that it was the disturbance of the power of darkness? So be careful, do not take those things as ordinary.

A person whose spiritual eyes are open has a completely different perspective from someone whose spiritual eyes are blind. I encourage everyone to use spiritual eyes often. Know that dreams are very spiritual. From Abraham and Jacob in Genesis to Joseph, they all had dreams. David and Solomon also had spiritual dreams. Dreams are not just you think about it during the day and dream about it at night, it is not like that. If you dream that God is talking to you, you must cherish and seize it. Because that is a revelation for your future, and it is God responding in a dream to your love for God in your heart.

And Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. Then he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants. (1 Kings 3:15) What revelation does this give us? I tell you, coming back to the church to pray is offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, and you are beginning to realize God's promise. Once this promise is realized, it brings a characteristic to Solomon's work: a wise person does not rack his brains in deep thought, but can speak out instantly. There is something called the word of wisdom, which is a gift God gives to Christians, a manifestation of God's wisdom in your life, that suddenly you have the wisdom to speak out, and you do not even know how you know it.

I often encounter this situation in my work. For example, when I was working at school, I had to create an online examination system. That thing was super complicated: you have to ensure that you capture 100% of what the students enter, and you cannot lose any of it! The whole process was very difficult because there were so many parameters to consider. Once, my team encountered a problem, and I said, Look here, the problem should be here. They went there and found it was indeed there. When I did system testing, my efficiency was higher than the sum of their team, and I still had time to do my own things. God often gives you a premonition, and God often gives you a feeling that you do not know why you know, and then you go there and find it. It is really amazing!

Everyone knows that wisdom comes from God, dreams come from God, and faith is the same. These are all spiritual things. Therefore, Solomon was quick to make decisions when judging cases. The Bible does not say that Solomon needed to spend two days thinking about things. With so many things, if he spent two days thinking about each one, I think he would not be able to do anything in his life. Like the case of the two prostitutes arguing over a child in this chapter, Solomon's method was very clever. He did not rack his brains thinking about how to test who the child really belonged to, but said, Go, bring a sword and cut the child in two! This immediately tested who the real mother was and who was the fake one.

So in verse 28, all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had made, and they feared him. For they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice. What does this sentence mean? The story of the two prostitutes fighting for a son spread throughout Israel. Do you know what effect this would have? It immediately deterred many people: do not play tricks with Solomon, otherwise we will not be able to hide from him, and we may be in danger of being killed. This immediately eliminated a lot of crime! So wisdom has a deterrent effect. Not only to the country, but also to the surrounding countries: this person is very wise, this person is powerful, and knows things like a prophet, so do you still want to fight him? Obviously not. Because he has wisdom, you will definitely be defeated. So with wisdom, you can not only govern the country well, but also deter people with criminal impulses. This is very remarkable! So today, think about our society, the crime rate is rising sharply! Today's society is so turbulent, it does not need human wisdom, but wisdom from God. If there is wisdom from God, are there still so many problems today? No! It is because of the lack of wisdom that people now do things by brute force, using human methods, creating more and more problems, and they are becoming more and more complex.