The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 28

Hence we may test ambition, by asking om·selvee how we regru:d our competitors, If a man envies others ; if, without compunction, he will crush another to the wall that he may pass him by; if he refuses to help another in sore straits, who is within his reach, on the ground that every man is for himself; then hie ambition is a sin, This is more clearly revealed by our Lord than by the old dispensation. He has taught us not only to love our neighbours, but our competitors, o.nd even our foes. He has urged us to " bear one another's bm·dens ," to deny ourselves, o.nd take up our cross to follow Him. The Christian Church ho.a o. sacrifice for its basis, and a, cross for its banner. IV. THIS AMBITION WAS NURTURED IN DEFIANCE OF SIGNIFICANT WARNING. Adonijah repeated his brother's offence. (Comp. 2 Sam. xv.) He knew how that bright young life had closed in darkness, when Absalom died helpless and unpitied by the hand of J oab. He had often seen his father sitting looking at himself with 11, for-off look in his eyes, as if he still were saying, "0, Absalom, would God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom, my son, my son I" Yet the same sin which had been so signally punished he resolved to commit. History is crowded with illustrations of the fact that men who have lived e.s Adonijah did have found their honours unsatisfying, and have died in disappointment and despair. Alexander, who con- quered the world, died, after setting :fire to 11, city, in a scene of awful debauchery. Hannibal, who at one time could fill three bushels with the gold rings of fallen knights, died by poison, administered by his own hand, unwept in a foreign land. Cmsar, who conquered eight hundred cities, fell stabbed to the heart by his friends, in the place of his noblest triumph. Napoleon, the conqueror of Europe, died a heart-broken captive. It has been writ large, in letters of blood, so that he who runs may read, "the expectation of the wicked shall be cut off!'' Conclusion.-Will yon, with the nobler possibilities set before yon in the gospel, whom angel voices are calling to higher things, whose conscience is whispering of duty and love, to whom Christ, the suffering Saviour, the King of Glory, says, '' Follow Me!" will you, like Adonijah, turn to the ways of self-indulgence and vainglory, to prove as he did that" the wages of sin is death."-A. R. Ver. 6.-Moral ruin in a religious home. It is a notorious fact that the sons of devout men sometimes prove a curse t~ their parents, and bring dishonour on the cause of God. When sin entered the world, it caused the earth, on which flowers bad aforetime blossomed, to bring forth thorns and briars. This is a pictnre of a sad truth, known in the :first home, and in many another since. Eve rejoiced over the fair child she had '' gotten from the Lord," and did not suspect that passions were sleeping within him which would nerve his arm to strike the fata.l blow which slew his brother and destroyed his mother's peace. Such sorrow has been experienced in subsequent history. Isaac's heart was rent by the deceit of Jacob and the self-will of Esau. Jacob found his own sin repeated against himself, for-he who had deceived his father when he was old and blind, suffered an agony of grief for years, because he was falsely told by his sons that J oeeph was dead. Probably few have had more domestic sorrow than David. He experienced, in Hs l,Hterest form, the grief of a parent who has wished that before his son had brought such dishonour on the home, he had been, in the innocence of his childhood, laid to rest beneath the daisies. Of David's sons, Amnon, the eldest, after committing a hideous sin, had been assassinated by the order of Absalom, his brother. Absalom himself had rebelled against his father, and had been killed by Joab, as he hung helpless in the oak Chileab (or Daniel) was dead. And now of the fourth son, the eldest surviving, Adonijah, this sad story is told. Adonijah's sin seems so unnatural at :first sight that we mUBt try and discover the sources whence so bitter and desolating a stream flowed. We shall find them in THREE ADVERSE INFLUENCES AROUND HIM AT HOME, which are hinted at in oar text. I. ADONIJAH INHERITED A CONSTITUTIONAL TENDENCY - AMBITION AND SELF• CONCEIT. His association with Abee.lorn is not without significance. The two brothers were alike in their sin and in the tendencieq which led to it, These wer~ inherited. Cll. I. 1-68.] THE FIRST BOOK OF :KINGS. 21