In his sermon 'Pharaoh's Daughter - Manhood Slain by Temptation', Paul Carrington explores the theme of living a life of purity, drawing a parallel between modern challenges and the biblical story of King Solomon. The sermon emphasizes that true manhood is defined by purity and faithfulness to God's commandments. Carrington urges men, particularly young men, to be exemplary in word, conduct, love, spirit, faith, and purity, as instructed in 1 Timothy 4:12. He warns against the dangers of succumbing to temptation and living a double life, as illustrated by Solomon's marriage to Pharaoh's daughter, which led to his downfall. Despite Solomon's wisdom and accomplishments, his alliances with pagan wives ultimately undermined his spiritual integrity, serving as a cautionary tale about the consequences of impurity. Carrington calls for self-examination and a commitment to purity by fixing one's gaze on Jesus Christ and living a life that honors God.

Good evening. It's such a blessing to be here with our sons and just have this time together to Even reflect on the workings of God and in all of our lives I'm gonna be bringing just a very short message here this evening that I've entitled Pharaoh's daughter And it's gonna be following a very familiar character in the Bible King Solomon as Scott mentioned earlier and really what the call is is living a godly consistent life in the area of purity we heard that that real men are born again real men are like our Savior Jesus Christ. And the contention I wanna make here this evening is that real men are pure men, aiming towards purity in all areas of their life. And to start off with, we're going to look at Solomon, but to start off with, I just want to turn your attention to 1 Timothy chapter 4, where the apostle Paul is giving instruction to his protege, Timothy. We don't know exactly how old Timothy is, but he's in Ephesus, in a place that's extremely difficult.

It's filled with temptation, corruption. The religion there is utterly abased in every way. And there he is and Paul tells Timothy in chapter 4 verse 12 these words. He says, let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. And so a man, a young man especially, were called to be exemplary in all of these different areas of life that you find there in that verse.

And and what Paul's instruction is really designed to do, It's designed to give life and instill credibility to the work that Timothy's embarked on and that he's been assigned by the Lord. His work as a minister will be emboldened and strengthened if he takes care of these things in his character. And so without these, a man claiming to walk with the Lord cuts himself off at the knees. He cripples his impact long-term. This is the fruit of ignoring what Paul tells Timothy in verse 12.

And so tonight I want to just take a few minutes to speak about that last word in the list. If you could rephrase that whole sentence and read it like this, let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in purity. And so in this area, the world that we live in, it lures men by the millions away from this counsel that the Apostle Paul is giving. It has a very, very low expectation, doesn't it? The world that we're living.

And it may not even be on the radar of the world. In fact, it might be a bragging point to discuss your impurity. That's what the world thinks of. They say these are the best times of your life, the times of exploration. That's what the world comes with its message.

But not so the Bible. When you look at the Bible, especially for example the book of Proverbs, it's full of warnings against sexual impurity on the one side as well as the blessings of sexual purity on the other side. It never gives an excuse anywhere in the Bible. You will not be able to find an excuse for impurity whatsoever. It's a totally counter-cultural message that the Bible delivers.

And so to be truly useful, to have peace both with God as well as with men and a clean conscience, you must walk in purity. That's going to be the call here this evening. And so I want you as we're talking about this, I want you to be considering a couple of things. What are the things that you're putting into your mind and into your heart, things that enter in through the ear gate or enter in through the eye gate that you feed yourself? Because those are the things that feed that impurity within us.

And so here's the interesting thing, right? If you have everything else down, everything else down in this Christian life, but you omit this, Guaranteed you will make shipwreck of your life. It's a guarantee. Many ships have foundered at this reef. If you were to scuba dive down to the bottom, you would find the holes, the wreckage of millions of ships, man's souls that have fallen because of what I'm going to be speaking about this evening.

The absence of purity is arguably the greatest murderer of men's souls in our day today. Boys as well, It's the great emasculator of religion. It's the thing that guts religion, just like you gutted those fish that you caught earlier. That's exactly what impurity does to the souls of men and young men. And so specific to this talk, we're going to be dealing with a young lady that's found in 1 Kings chapter 3.

And she doesn't have a name, but it's Solomon's first wife. No name is recorded whatsoever. And she seems a very obscure character. In fact, she only makes a few passing appearances in the scriptures. And if you're not careful, you would miss this woman entirely as we look at her, but her impact was measureless, as we're going to see in a few minutes.

And so here's what I want to say, that if you're a young man or a man who's sitting here who has fallen or even at this very moment as you're looking at me you know inside your heart that you are fallen that you are experiencing and going after things that are impure what I want to say to you is take heed. Take heed. And if you're a young man or a father that hasn't fallen, praise be to God, I want to say to you, take heed. Because the dangers are lurking absolutely everywhere. I'm preaching to you as someone who's not preaching as though I'm above the ability to fall, but I'm praying, oh Lord, sustain me and keep me.

The new man that we heard about, that likeness to Christ, may that be all of us. And so, in 1 Kings 2, 22, chapter 2, verse 2 to 4, we know the story. We just actually read it. King David is on his deathbed. He subdued almost all of Israel's enemies.

And so Solomon was now made the king and and he receives these strong parting words from his father I go the way of all the earth be strong therefore improve yourself a man and keep the charge of the Lord your God to walk in his ways to keep his statutes his commandments his judgments and his testimonies as it is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn, that the Lord may fulfill his word which he spoke concerning me, saying, If your sons take he to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, he said, You shall not lack a man on the throne of David of Israel. Did a dying father ever give better advice than what David gave to his son right here? But if you go down a few more verses and get right into the next chapter you see Solomon making a fatal error a Critical error something that would come back and pay him back in ways He could never ever imagine as I mentioned it's so easy just to skim over this, but I think by the end of this you're gonna understand the whole thing.

It seems so innocent on the surface when you read chapter 3 verse 1. It says, Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh's daughter. Then he brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. Seems innocent enough. It was very customary in those days for a sovereign in order to build peace among other nations to marry the daughter or somehow have some sort of connection familiarly between these different kingdoms so that it would breed peace over the long term except in the kingdom of Israel where it was forbidden for a king to marry a pagan wife and and guess what happened?

Solomon married a pagan wife And nothing seemed to happen right away. In fact, not only did nothing seem to happen, but great things seem to happen over the course of Solomon's life. If we trace Solomon's career, we're just going to walk through little bits of first kings and look at his life. You'll notice just a few verses after that. There was Solomon, this newly minted king, and the Lord comes to him at night and he has these words for him.

He says, ask what shall I give you? And we know this account. He gave such a humble response. It was a humble response and it ended up pleasing the Lord very much. And he received the unmatched wisdom that he asked for.

Lord, how shall I govern so great a people? I'm just a boy. I don't know how to go in. I don't know how to come out. And the Lord was pleased with that response.

And he says to him a little bit later, he says, and I also have given you what you have not asked in verse 13, both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. And so immediately we know the famous story Solomon was put to the test with the two women who came and the dead baby and the living baby, and his reputation spread, not only through Israel, but to other parts, to other regions. Who is this man that operates with such wisdom? The stamp of the Lord's blessing was upon this man. If you look at his list of accomplishments later on in the book, it says this, he spoke three thousand Proverbs.

Imagine your resume like this. He spoke three thousand Proverbs and his songs were one thousand and five. Also, he spoke of trees from the cedar tree of Lebanon, even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall. He spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things in a fish. And men of all nations, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom, came to hear the wisdom of Solomon." Isn't that an amazing record of accomplishment?

But he was just getting started. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment, the thing that he's most renowned for was the building of what was called the seventh, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, which ended up being the temple of the living God. Before he even built his own house, see, he prioritized and said, I'm going to build God a temple. It was a wonderful thing. He spared absolutely no expense.

It was filled with silver and gold, the finest furniture, from the curtains down to the instruments that were used in the sacrifices. Every detail was taken with honor to God in mind. And after that in chapter 7 verse 8, you get this little passing mention. It says Solomon also made a house like this for Pharaoh's daughter whom he had taken as wife okay no big deal and this story continues The time came to dedicate the temple and some of you might also remember that time it says in in the book here in first kings that the number of sheep and oxen sacrificed could not be counted or numbered for multitude. Not only did he spare no expense in the temple, But then he spared absolutely no expense in the sacrifice in honor towards Jehovah.

It was an amazing time in Israel to be there, to witness these things. And then as though it was not good enough that the Lord appeared to him at the beginning of his reign. In chapter 9, the Lord appears to him the second time. How many men can count that as experience for them? Even in the whole Bible, not that many men can actually say, the Lord appeared to me the second time.

And there was the last passing mention of Pharaoh's daughter also. Hardly anything is even said about her again. Not even her name is mentioned. And of course, in chapter 10, we can all remember Sheba, Queen of Sheba's visit, the Queen of the South, she came as one of the monarchs to just sit as it were at Solomon's feet. And it says when she got there that the half wasn't even told her.

It says there was no breath in her when she witnessed the wisdom that Solomon exhibited in the way that he governed everything. And we could even go on and talk about the economy during the time of his reign. We don't have time, but it says that silver was as common in Jerusalem as stones. Imagine the stones along that dirt road you just kick or you pick up and throw into the lake. That's like the way they treated silver.

Today by the way silver is something like $17 per ounce but then there was so much of an abundance. It just didn't have all that much value because of Solomon's mining enterprises. Just at a phenomenal time. So we see in Solomon's life that trade was more lucrative than ever. Monarchs traveled from all over the world just to sit at his feet, just to glean, just a crumb of wisdom from this great man and he was visited not once but twice by the Lord.

He built the temple, one of those seven wonders of the ancient world. He penned, by the way, not only the book of Proverbs, but we know him as the author of Ecclesiastes and also the Song of Solomon as well. And all of this we we add this up and and we marvel what a life, what a career this man had. But here's the thing, I want you to consider this and look at your own life and all of us should examine ourselves because here's the great danger, is it possible, is it possible to live life on two planes? Where there's a public life, where there's the life that you project, where there's a life of a lot of activity, right doctrine, and all of these things.

But underlying some of this can be another plane as well. And we can, as men, so easily compartmentalize, can't we? That's what men oftentimes specialize in. On the one side, a man can experience unbelievable unmatched success like King Solomon could be an author you could be a renowned speaker but on the other side that in Solomon's life the crippling effects of sin were working quietly in between his great feats. Sin was at work.

When the dust would settle on the day, when public life was over for the day, and all of his performances and things were over, he would go home, and there he would rest his head on a pillow, and there would be the daughter of Pharaoh. And she multiplied. This is what sin does. One, as we get to the end of his life, became 1, 000. That's what sin does.

It multiplies in our lives. And it was so seemingly innocent. All of these harmless alliances that he was doing for the advancement even of God's kingdom to spread the name of the Lord all over the world. But during all of this purity was undermined in Solomon's life, even when it appeared that great success was underway. And so what can we learn by looking at Solomon?

We can learn that you can talk doctrine. You can talk evangelism. You can talk missions. But is something chewing, as it were, at the root of your soul? In private or on your pillow, so to speak, in between your religious observances, Sundays coming up, but in between the next Sunday And this one, are you able to compartmentalize everything?

And we begin to see the result in Solomon's life here. In chapter 11, verses 1 to 3, if you have a Bible, you can turn there. This is the end of Solomon's life. And it sums it up this way. It says, but King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites.

From the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel you shall not intermarry with them Nor they with you Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods Solomon clung to these in love And you look at this man and this this almost slaps you in the face, it's on the back half of what happened with the Queen of the South coming, and then this three verses comes and it jars you. Wait, wait, wait, what happened? Not only did he marry these women, but he then not only tolerated these women, but then what happened, he built altars to these false gods. It mentions later on Ashtaroth, Milcom, Chimosh from Moab, and Molech from Ammon, just to name a few of the gods that he entertained right within the precincts of the temple. Somewhere along the line, even with all the religious trappings and attendance on service, He lost his way.

Now I'm not saying Solomon was eternally lost. I'm not saying that God only knows, but what a cost. Just tabulate the cost, how it carried into the next generation, where his son Rehoboam lost the kingdom. It was never recovered, but it started with Solomon doing what he did in these early days. I want you to be shocked at the terror of sin and impurity specifically and what it can do in your life as well as generations down the road.

See, the Lord has this account for a reason right here for us. It's as though He wants to hit us between the eyes with the shock of what can happen When you live life on these two different planes an outward experiential religious life, but inwardly There's something chewing at the root of your soul that you're just tolerating over the course of time See what you need to know if you're a newborn believer is that your body, not only your soul, but the Bible says that your body is the temple of the Lord. He's purchased you with a price. That accounts for your eyes. It accounts for your ears.

It accounts for your hands. These things are the Lord's when you become a new believer. And so all the while, while Solomon was doing all of his exploits, sitting in the background of his life was the virus of Pharaoh's daughter. She opened the door and and paved the way. One wife became two wives.

What's hey what's five more? What's 100 more? What's 200 more? See this is what sin does in your life. It seems so strange and solemn.

What a foolish thing. But we all do the same thing when we tolerate sin and do what God told us not to do. And what's amazing about this is that her influence might not have been strong, but it was steady. She was really never the main character. We don't even again, we don't know her name.

But it took 40 years. And this nameless woman, along with a few hundred of her friends, eventually took down the great king, Israel's wisest king. Again, chapter 11, verse one, but King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh. And so brothers, we all have sin in our lives. I'm not standing up here as a man who does not sin or does not have sin even at this very moment.

But there are besetting sins, sins of impurity that must must must not be tolerated or they must not be allied with under any circumstances. They can't just sit back like the furniture in your life unattended, waiting for you like a pagan wife after a hard day and you come home maybe after a full day at court, even doing religious things. See, here's the reality I want you to understand is men are seldom taken down by one massive thing. If you look at all men who have fallen, it's very rarely that it's one massive situation. But what it is, it's the accumulation of hundreds of little things that are tolerated over time.

Little permissions. Little, hey, it's not so bad. This will be the last time. Okay, you know what? And you make these pledges and it's this toleration over time and this is true of impurity as well.

And so what's the conclusion? Well, I want you to just think about this, that there's something much more beautiful than gazing upon the things that are impure, the things that are evil, the things that destroy and eat out the soul, really don't offer really any sustenance and any true joy or any true peace. And it's being captivated with true beauty. And that true beauty is when we lift our eyes and our gaze away from these weak and evil beggarly elements, and we set our eyes and we fix our eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the beauty.

See, I wanna say again, real men are pure men. You might be mocked by the world and laughed at and scorned that you don't laugh at certain jokes or watch certain things or go to certain places but don't believe the lies of this age. Fix your eyes on what is truly good. And even if you're right now even in chains, in the bond of chains, right this very moment, What did Jesus Christ come to do? He came to set sinners free.

Last night we were talking, we heard a man, an old Welshman say that oftentimes God is more willing to forgive than we are willing to go to Him to ask for forgiveness. And so the Proverbs comes with this verse it says keep your heart with all diligence. It's not a light thing to be a Christian. There's a warfare. There's a difficulty that we have to surmount.

And what you might not need most, it's not so much good advice, but what you might need most is the good news. To be born again is what we just heard just a few minutes ago. Men don't only need to put sin to death, and young men don't just need to put sin to death, but we also need to become alive unto righteousness. It's not about just not sinning. Jesus didn't save us just to not sin, but he also gave us good things to do.

This is the beauty of it all. And so it is possible through Jesus Christ. You could say it's impossible. Well, what did Jesus say? He says, I do not pray that you should take them out from the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one.

And so to walk in purity so that your life speaks of a greater glory and gives more honor to God is one of the greatest things that a man can do. 1st Timothy 416 I'll read this and sit down it says take heed to yourself and to the doctrine continue in them for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you amen father we we come before you as as fallen men that have been redeemed many of us but oh lord how we feel the motions of sin, how we see the pull and the lure of impurity all around us, Lord, everywhere we look, driving down the road to the devices we have in our pockets and in our hands. Lord, help us not to succumb to the snares, to the evils that strip and gut our souls, O God, but help us to behold the true beauty that is in you, O Lord. Fix our gaze upon you and set the captives free. Help us, O God, we pray.

Only you can give us such victory, Lord, and so we look to you. In the name of our great captain and saviour, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.