The King of the World

Man, I hate to cut off this good fellowship that's going, but good evening, everyone. How are you all doing? Who wants to praise the Lord this evening all together with me? All right. Amen. Why don't we all stand up and I'll open in a word of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, I just thank you for being our rock and our foundation, Lord. I just pray that we can just take this opportunity to give you the praise that you deserve, Lord. And I just pray that this would just draw us closer into relationship with you. That as we, when we walk out of here tonight, Lord, we can just continue praising you and that we would just be your light in the world.

I just pray this in your name. Amen. In my wrestling and in my doubts, in my failures, you won't walk out. Your great love will know you are the peace in my troubled sea. Silence. You won't let go in the questions your truth will.

My troubled sea. My trouble to show up. You guys can all have a seat if you'd like as we continue. I am to, I am to say, all together, all together, all together, so, so, yes, and hey. So here I am to worship, to say that you're my, all together, all together. So here I am to, I am to say, you're all together, worthy, all together, all together. And I'll, and I'll, and I'll, and I'll, and I'll, and I'll be my sin of, so here I am to, I am to say,

you're all together, love thee, all together, all together, world to.

Also salvation was only the start. Now I am true. free and forgive a future it's work cuz I wasn't made to be tending a grave I was called by me born and raised back to life was made for more I make a bed in my shame when a fountain of praise you Lord thank you for not leaving us dead and separated from you God that I just thank you for making a way that we can once again have relationship with you and hear from you and talk to you Lord I just pray that is Ryan comes up and gives your opens the word this evening Lord I just pray that we would just hear your words coming through him good evening if you would open up your Bibles to 1st Kings chapter 9 1st Kings chapter 9 and as

you are turning there I got a little announcement for you we are still needing chili cookers is that what we need we need people to make chili you whatever your greatest like hey this is grandma's recipe this is the this is the one this is the chili cook-off winner we need you to prove that to us Saturday night so talk to Jana afterwards if you have that ability that gifting that calling that service gift to make chili so it was that a good was that a good announcement did I nail that felt good about and a few dozen cookies now we're speaking my language yes yes so okay so 1st Kings chapter 9 I've entitled the message tonight the king of the world because honestly we kind of see the height of Solomon's

Kingdom tonight it's gonna come right before a great fall but that's not the point tonight the point tonight is that Solomon's Kingdom is going to be at the top and so there's a few different stories that we'll look at in chapters 9 and 10 that really show us Solomon's Kingdom being really the the king of the world and so we start off in chapter 9 verse 1 and it says this now it came about when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the Solomon desired to do that the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as he appeared to him at Gibeon the Lord said to him I have heard your prayer and your supplication which you have made before me I have

consecrated this house which you have built by putting my name there forever and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually as for you if you will walk before me as your father David walked an integrity of heart and uprightness doing according to all that I have commanded you and will keep my statutes and ordinances that I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever just as I promised to your father David saying you shall not like a man on the throne of Israel but if you or your sons indeed turn away from me from following me and do not keep my Commandments and my statutes which I have set before you and go and serve other gods and worship them then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them

And the house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight. So Israel would become a proverb and a byword among all the peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins, and everyone who passes by will be astonished and hissed and say, Why has the Lord done this to this land and to this house? And they will say, Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and adopted other gods and worshipped them and served them.

And therefore the Lord has brought all this adversity upon them. So the first thing that we see in chapter 9 ultimately is God's response to Solomon. In chapter 8, we saw that Solomon had dedicated the temple to the Lord. And as he dedicated the temple to the Lord, it was just that fantastic prayer that really ultimately involved a heart for the people of when, not if, but when they end up falling into sin, that the Lord would hear their prayers of repentance and would forgive them and bring them back to life.

And restore them. And so we kind of see an answer, a response here by God to Solomon. And the first thing that I'll point out is that it says that when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to do, that the Lord appeared to Solomon as he had before. Now I want you to take note of something. The last time that we saw God appear to Solomon, again, was at Gibeon when he asked for wisdom.

God said, I'll give you anything you want. And he said, Well, I just want wisdom. That was 20 years prior to this. 20 years have elapsed in between the time that God appeared to Solomon, telling him, ask for what you want, and the time that God appeared to Solomon again to give him this message, to give him his response. And there's something interesting that I think that we need to pay attention to.

Were there other times that God spoke to Solomon on the in-between time? Perhaps. But it's a good reminder to us that God is not necessarily giving us some grand revelation every single day of our walk with him. I think sometimes that we anticipate that, right? We're always looking for an imagination. We're always looking for an emotional devotional from God.

Like, I want to just hear the voice of God every single day in this crazy big way. But really, the big things that God speaks to us, they're often few and far between. And it's because God desires that we would walk by faith and not by sight. God desires that our roots would grow deep. It's almost springtime. It is springtime, right, quite frankly. We talked about the grass being cut the other day.

And I learned a really important lesson. I've probably shared this before. I learned a really important lesson early on when I was in groundskeeping. And that's that when you first plant grass seed, you have to water it a lot, but you don't water it very deeply. The grass seed sits on top, so that's where the water needs to be, right? And so you have to water it really frequently, but it doesn't go very deep.

But as that grass seed begins to develop roots, and those roots begin to go down deep, you change your watering patterns. You water it less often, but you water it more deeply. And that's a really good indication of what it looks like. And that's what it looks like when we walk with Jesus. Maybe when you first started walking with Jesus, man, you felt like you got something new out of the Word every single day.

And you probably did, because you were like, oh my gosh, I've never even read this stuff before. I didn't even know this existed. And all of a sudden, you're like, man, this is so cool. I can't believe all this stuff that I'm getting out of it. But then you walk with God for a little while, and you're kind of going, oh, it kind of feels like I'm not really having the emotions that I did when I first started walking with the Lord.

Where do those emotions go? Well, those emotions are now being replaced with faith. And that faith is really important. Because God may take a really long time before he gives you, boom, another really big message from him. Because he wants you to make your roots go down deep. You see, he's watering you less often, but he's watering you more deeply. So that your roots will go down deep.

So that when the drought strikes, you're prepared. And you can handle it. And it's kind of what God does with Solomon here. Twenty years later, he appears to him again. Just like he did the first time. And I want to point out. I want to point out something to you also out of verse three. It says, The Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication which you made before me.

I don't think we can just run by that and not take a moment to point out the fact that God heard his prayer. That when we pray, God hears us. You ever pray and you feel like the crazy thing hit the ceiling and nobody really heard that. And it was just a bunch of noise that only you heard. And nobody else even knew that it took place. I want you to know that God hears us when we pray.

And God heard Solomon when he prayed. And I think that that's an important thing for us to pay attention to. Is that God's listening. God's listening to all the words that come out of our mouth. And you know, God's also listening to the words that don't come out of our mouth. Because God sometimes hears what no one else hears behind those words. You know, see sometimes we can pray with our words.

And we feel like we've done a very poor job of presenting how I really feel. But God's like, that's okay, I understand what you're saying. I can pick up what you're putting down here. It's kind of like when you're having a conversation with somebody and you try to explain it to them. And when you're done, you're like, I don't think I did a very good job of explaining it to them.

And you look at their face and you're like, no, I definitely did not do a good job of explaining that. Because they absolutely did not pick up what you were putting down. Because they didn't pick up on your voice inflection and all those kinds of things. And they completely missed it. God doesn't do that. God hears everything. He hears the things that you say.

And he hears the things that you don't say. He hears the things that you articulated perfectly. And he hears the things that you don't even know how to put into words. Because that's who God is. And he hears our prayers. And that's what he does with Solomon. He says, hey, I heard you when you prayed. I heard your prayer and your supplication. And this is God's response.

He says, and I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting my name there forever. And my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually. He said, I heard what you said as you dedicated this house to me. I want you to know I have consecrated this house. That idea of consecration is set apart to me. I will be holy. This place is set apart unto me.

I have set this place apart unto myself. And how did God do that? He says, by putting my name there. Now, when we think about putting our name there, you think about the fact that buildings are named and all these kinds of things. And we don't think as much about names as they did at that point in time. But a name at that point carried with it the idea of the character and the nature.

God says, I have put my name there. As a matter of fact, you know what the children of Israel were oftentimes known as? They were known as the people of the name. Why? Because they were the people of the name of God. And that's who they were. Because they were the people of the character and the nature of God. So God says, I will establish my name there. I will put my character, my nature.

Everyone will know that temple as holy because that's what that place is supposed to be. It is to be holy and set apart unto me. Which is why when Jesus came to Herod's temple, not Solomon's temple, but when he came to the temple and he saw what was going on in the temple, that it wasn't holy, that it wasn't set apart unto God, that he drove out all those money changers and he drove out all of the merchants and he drove all of those people out because he says, this is not where God has established his name. I've established my name in the temple and it's to be called a house of prayer for all people.

And so God says, I've consecrated it by establishing my name there. And I've set my eyes on it and my heart will be there perpetually. And so after God answers him, answers his prayer by saying what he has already done, that he's heard his prayer, he gives Solomon what his responsibility is supposed to be. Notice what it says in verse 4. As for you, walk before me as your father David walked,

in integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances. Then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, just as I promised to your father David, saying, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. Now I gave some good thought to this this week as I was studying this. I thought, this is another one of those conditional promises of God, right?

The old covenant's conditional. It's conditional upon the obedience of the people. But I want you to notice where he set the bar on this one, right? He says, I want you to follow me the way that your father David did. Well, we know David wasn't perfect, right? I mean, honestly, he set a little bit of a low bar here. Until you think about something. He says, the way that David did in his integrity.

Now there's one thing that was always true about David. Did he make mistakes? Absolutely. Did he sin? Sure. But he always had integrity in everything that he did. Ryan, how can you say that? You know some of the things he did. You know what the word integrity means? The word integrity means singleness of heart or mind. That's the idea of integrity. In other words, someone whose heart is always singly focused on following God,

not diverted by all of the idols of the world. Because David battled with the sins of the flesh. David struggled with falling into the sins of the world that was around him. But at the end of the day, his focus was always to come back to God. His focus was always that single-hearted focus upon the Lord. It reminds me of, and I made a little reel about this this week,

but the words of this song have just been rolling through my head. And it goes along really great with this. And the lyrics of this song, and nobody's ever heard it before, because it's a hardcore band nobody's ever heard of. But it says, I still believe, and maybe I'll fall or I'll stand, but I'm going to finish. And that's the idea of integrity. He says, what I really want from you is a heart that is singly focused on me.

And you may get distracted sometimes. You may start to fall away sometimes. But as long as you keep that focus, as long as you have a singleness of heart to follow me, then we can lay aside the sins of the past, and you can keep pursuing me with a whole heart. He says, that's what I want for you. I want integrity of heart. I want uprightness in the way that you handle yourselves.

And I just want you to obey. And if you'll do that, then I'm going to keep my promise to David. There will always be one of your descendants to sit upon the throne. But after God tells him what he's going to do, and after God gives Solomon his responsibility, it gives him a warning. And listen, brothers and sisters, we always should pay attention to the warning.

Anytime God puts a warning in Scripture, especially if he impresses it upon your heart, you had better pay attention. Because if God gives you a warning, that means that you could fall into that. Too many times we hear a warning, I'm never going to do that, right? That's never going to be me. And then you go nevering like you've never nevered before, right?

Because you said, I'll never do that. And this is the warning that he gives him. He says, but if you or your sons indeed turn away from following me, don't keep my commandments and my statutes which I've set before you, and go and worship other gods and serve them, I will cut off Israel. Matter of fact, he says, not only will I cut off Israel, but I will make them a byword and a proverb amongst the people.

In other words, they will become the word of warning to everyone else. You don't want to become like Israel. It's awful when you end up being that person, isn't it? You just don't want to end up like Phil in the book. He says, that's what you'll become. And when people kind of groan and hiss and say, why would God have done this to Israel? People will say, because they didn't follow God wholeheartedly.

Therefore, all of these things came upon the nation. Brothers and sisters, we should pay attention. Because we don't want to become the byword. We don't want to become the proverb. We don't want to become the person that people say, how did they end up like that? Why? And the whispers in the background say, because they wouldn't follow God. Because they wouldn't walk in integrity.

Because they wouldn't walk in uprightness. Because they wouldn't obey. Because they lost a single-hearted focus on the truth. And that's the warning that he gives to Solomon. And so that moment comes to an end. And we jump back into sort of the historical perspective on the kingdom. So in verse 10, we pick up on what I've just simply and creatively entitled,

Other Accomplishments. So it says, It came about at the end of 20 years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house. Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire. In other words, he borrowed gold from Hiram. Then King Solomon gave Hiram 20 cities in the land of Galilee.

So Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, and they did not please him. What are these cities which you have given me, my brother? So they called the land of Kabul to this day, which I think means something along the lines of good for nothing or something like that. And Hiram sent to the king 120 talents of gold. You tell me Solomon was not a wise guy.

He gave cities to Hiram king of Tyre that nobody wanted, and then Hiram paid him back for them. I don't know how he did it. Pretty wise guy. It says, Now this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon, because he was the king of the world. Now this is the account of the forced labor which Solomon levied to build the house of the Lord, his own house, the millow, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire and killed the Canaanites who lived in the city and had given it all that it pleased Solomon to build in Jerusalem and Lebanon and in all the land under his rule. As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the sons of Israel, their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel were unable to destroy, from them Solomon levied forced laborers even to this day. But Solomon did not make slaves of the sons of Israel, for they were men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, his chariot commanders, and his horsemen.

These were the chief officers who were over Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty who ruled over the people doing the work, and as soon as Pharaoh's daughter came up from the city of David to her house which Solomon had built her, then he built the mill. And so those are some of Solomon's other accomplishments. And verse 25 it says, Now three times in a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built to the Lord, burning incense with them on the altar which was made before the Lord. So he finished the house.

And so everything seems to be going well. He's worshiping God like he's supposed to. He's major building accomplishments. Not only that, but he established a navy. It says, verse 26,

So, lots of good things happening. Now as we move into chapter 10, I've simply, and again creatively, titled this, The Wealth of Solomon. Now when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with difficult questions. So she came to Jerusalem with a very large retinue, with camels carrying spices and very much gold and precious stones.

When she came to Solomon, she spoke with him about all that was in her heart. And Solomon answered all her questions. Nothing was hidden from the king which he did not explain to her. When the queen of Sheba perceived all the wisdom of Solomon and the house that he built, the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters and their attire, his cupbearers and his stairway by which he went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

And she said, It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. Nevertheless, I did not believe the reports until I came. And my eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. You exceed in wisdom and prosperity the report which I heard." This queen of Sheba is kind of an interesting character. There's a little bit of debate on where this place actually is that she's from.

Most say that it's somewhere down near Yemen, which would be down at the bottom of that Arabian peninsula. Some say it was over closer to Ethiopia. Either way, it's a pretty long journey that she made. And she made this journey for one purpose. She had heard the fame of Solomon's wisdom. And she came to see if it was true. And I tend to agree with the commentators that I read on this.

I don't think she came to try to stump Solomon and say you're really not that wise. I think she had heard that he had wisdom and truth. And she was really seeking wisdom and truth. That she really wanted to know what was true and what was real. And so she sought out Solomon to find out truth because he spoke about a level of wisdom that she'd never heard before.

And the reason why I think that is this. If you were to jump all the way into the New Testament and go to Matthew chapter 12, you would find that Jesus, when rebuking the Pharisees, told them that the Queen of Sheba, I believe it's Matthew chapter 12 verse 42 if I remember correctly, that the Queen of Sheba will rise up in judgment against you because she came to see Solomon to explore the wisdom that he had. And yet one who is greater than Solomon sits before you, sits before you today. So I think the fact that Jesus references her in that way would indicate that she was one who really sought the truth because the reputation of what God had done for Solomon had gone everywhere in the world.

Again, a reminder of what God had promised and I believe it was Deuteronomy chapter 28 that he said, hey listen, if you obey me, if you follow me, if you do what I tell you to do, then people from everywhere will seek you out because they will be amazed at the wisdom of God. And of course it is a fulfillment of what God had told to Solomon and it's a really good reminder to us. Brothers and sisters, if you live out the truth, if the wisdom and the purity of God is what you are known for, people will seek you out because they will want to know what do I do in the hard times? When everything is going great, most people won't seek you out.

If everything is going great in their life, they'll be like, he's just another person who has something good going for him. But when their world comes crashing down and they know that you're the one who knows God, listen, take this from experience, they'll come find you and they'll say, can you tell me what you know? Because all I know is I'm hurting really bad and I know that you know something I don't. So can you please tell me what you know?

Tell me how to find God. I have watched it happen over and over again that when you live out the truth, people seek you out, especially when the times get really hard. That's why those broken times are so important in the lives of the people around you, which is why we have to pay attention to the broken times of the people that are around you. So she seeks out Solomon and she sees everything.

Like you can just imagine her question, okay, well I got this one for you, right? And he answers it with wisdom and she's like, oh, that was a good one. I hadn't thought about that. You know what I mean? You can just imagine how the conversation went. And then she's seeing all the things, which we'll describe in just a moment, seeing all the amazing things about his kingdom.

And it's a fascinating verse that she used there where it says there was no more spirit in her. In other words, it took her breath away. She was amazed. She was in awe of everything that she saw. And as she was in awe of everything that she saw, she said, man, I heard about it, but they didn't even tell me. But they didn't even tell me the half of what's going on with you.

They didn't even tell me the half of everything that's taking place. As a matter of fact, it's amazing what's happening, the wisdom and the prosperity that's going on here. Notice what it says in verse eight. How blessed are your men. How blessed are these your servants who stand before you continually and hear your wisdom. Now if we just left it there, we'd say, man, she's just giving Solomon all this praise.

But notice what happens in verse nine. Blessed be the Lord your God, who delighted in you. He set you on the throne of Israel because the Lord loved Israel forever. Therefore, he made you king to do justice and righteousness. I love the way that she handles herself there. She says, not blessed be Solomon, blessed be the Lord. Because when she saw everything

that was taking place in Israel, when she heard the wisdom of Solomon and saw the wealth of his nation, because she was seeking the truth, she realized the truth. And that's that Israel was in the position that they were, not because of how great of a man Solomon was, but because of how great of a God the Lord is. In Matthew chapter five, verse 16, I think I had to put that one up there. Matthew chapter five, verse 16.

It says, when you do your good works, do your good works in such a way that when they see them, they glorify your Father in heaven. I have a little bit of a question for you on that. Whose glory are you seeking in your life? Maybe God has blessed you in a lot of ways, maybe financially, maybe with wisdom, maybe with abilities. Whose glory are you seeking with those things?

Boy, we really like to seek our own glory, don't we? We live in a world that that's just, that's who we are right now, is we're always seeking for our own glory. We love the attention of people. We love the praise of people. It's a tendency that we have as human beings. And listen, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be thanked for what you've done and to be recognized for what you've done.

There's nothing wrong with doing things for people to see them, as long as the goal behind you doing things is so that people will glorify your Father who is in heaven. This year, they come up with a new theme every year or two with Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and I just saw the new theme that was released, and the theme is glory. And I thought, what a fantastic theme to introduce to a bunch of junior high, high school, and college athletes who, in a world of NIL deals, in a world of clickbait Instagram posts and TikTok videos, that they remind them that the person that they are seeking to glorify is not themselves. They are not competing in order to bring glory to their own name.

They are competing in order to bring glory to the name of Jesus. I saw a fantastic interview with a young man that plays basketball, I think for UConn, and fantastic player, but went through a little bit of a slump and came out of that slump, and they did an interview with him after he came out of his slump, and they said, what did you do? And he had a tempting moment at that point. The tempting moment would be to say, well, I worked really hard, or I got in the gym a whole lot more, and I did all these other things, and it was fantastic because this young man, this young 20-something-year-old kid, sits there in front of an ESPN reporter, and they said, what did you do?

How did you get out? How did you all of a sudden just go off in this game? And he said, honestly, I got back in the Bible. I got back in the Word, and I got myself right with God again because I had been missing that fellowship with Him. His words. I'd been missing that fellowship with Him, and He put me back on track. I got my mind right and my heart right with Him,

and it put everything else back on track, and I thought, that's the guy that gets it. That's the guy that gets it. His job is to do His good works in such a way that men will glorify His Father who is in heaven, and I thought, what a fantastic example for every other young ball player that's out there, but not only that, what a fantastic example for every middle-aged person that's out there, for every old person that's out there, for everybody, I don't care what age you are, that's out there that still wants a little glory for yourself, to be reminded that when things are going really good, it's because God has given you what you need, and when things are going really bad, it's because God is still seeking to glorify Himself in your life.

He says, she says, Blessed be the Lord your God, who delighted in you to set you on the throne of Israel, because the Lord loved Israel forever. Therefore, He made you king. So in verse 10 it says, She gave him 120 talents of gold, a very great amount of spices and precious stones, never again did such abundance of spices come in as that which the queen of Sheba gave to Solomon. Also ships of Hiram, which brought gold from Ophir, brought it in from Ophir, a very great number of almug trees and precious stones.

And so now we get into really all of the great wealth and splendor. It says, The king made almug trees, supports for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house also lyres and harps and singers, such as have not come in again, nor have they been seen again to this day. And King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire which she requested, besides what he gave her according to his royal bounty. And then she turned and went to her own land together with her servants.

It says in verse 14, Now the weight of gold which came in to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold. Talents of gold. Besides that, from the traders and the wares of the merchants of all the kings of the Arabs and the governors of the country. Now, let's not get lost in the weeds here, okay? I know exactly what people start thinking when you read 666 talents of gold.

You know, that's the mark of the beast. I bet that has something to do with somebody like King Solomon. Don't do that, okay? I don't know why that's the number. That was just the number. But I want to talk to you about how much gold that actually is. Now, I'm not good at math at all. That's why I'm a pastor, okay? Like, I'm really good at reading words and interpreting words

and doing those kinds of things. You throw math at me and I'm like, sounds good to me. So I read a little bit about this. And apparently, and the commentary that I read, it was John Corson's commentary. So it would have been in like the late 90s, early 2000s. So about, call it 20 years ago, right? Let's just average that. Say 20 years ago. 20 years ago, John Corson said that this amount of gold

would have been worth about a billion. That's a bunch of gold. That is wealth that is unheard of, right? And he worked this thing out. And I don't know how you worked this thing out. But he said, if you gave your wife a million dollars and she could spend $1,000 a day, whatever, it would take her like three years or 10 years or 100 years or something like that to go through it.

If you gave her a billion dollars and you told her she could spend $1,000 a day, it would take her like 300 years to go through it. Thank God I don't have a billion dollars. I would need a bigger house. That's just all that there is to it, right? And that's just for coffee. So it's a fantastic amount of money. But again, all of these things we're about to read

are all of the wealth that God gave to Solomon because he promised him, because you asked for wisdom, I'm not only just gonna give you wisdom, I'm gonna give you everything else that you didn't even ask for. So, 666 antichrist talents of gold, I'm just kidding. Verse 16, King Solomon made 200 large shields of beaten gold using 600 shekels of gold on each, I'm not doing any more figures, I don't know what that's worth. 600 shekels of gold on each large shield and he made 300 shields of beaten gold using 300 minas of gold on each shield and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

I do know this, gold would be the exact wrong thing that you would want if you were going into battle with a shield because it's not a very hard metal. And so it would not take up beating very well. So these shields were not shields that would be used in battle, they were simply for show. Anything that was used for battle is completely separate from this. So that's just the wealth within the kingdom

is they just making shields of gold, like why not? It says, moreover, the king made a great throne of gold of ivory, not very popular today, overlaid with refined gold. There were six steps to the throne and around top of the throne at its rear and arms on each side of the seat, two lions standing beside the arms. Now I did not take time to look up a picture of this.

The picture in my mind works just fine. I want you to think about this. A giant throne that took six steps to walk up to, right? There's two steps coming up here. So that thing was sitting way up there, right? It's made of ivory, covered in gold, and there are two gold lions sitting next to it, just chilling there, just... This is a fantastic scene in the throne room, right?

So it says, 12 lions were standing there on the six steps,

one on one side, one on the other, nothing like it was made for any other kingdom. There's nothing in the world like this at this point in time. It says, all of King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold. You're gonna hear that a lot. And all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None was of silver because it was considered,

it was not considered valuable in the days of Solomon. No one was collecting silver then. For the king had at sea the ships of Tarshish with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years, the ships of Tarshish came back, bringing gold and silver and ivory, wait for it, and apes and peacocks. So King Solomon became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and in all wisdom.

This is fascinating that he was able to do. Can you imagine what it would be like living there at that point? Sorry, this is what my brain does, so follow me. Can you imagine living there at that point in time? This is the scene I had pictured in my head today of a ship showing up from, and they would have sailed clear down to the end of, around where Spain is,

kind of where Spain and Africa come together, right? That's the distance at which they would go on the Mediterranean Sea there. Can you imagine a ship rolling up and, oh, another ship's here, and like apes are just cruising off the ship and peacocks are, you know, strutting around? That's a fantastic thought. Who owned those things? Were the peacocks on the lions?

Were the apes on the lions? I don't know. This is a fascinating scene, but the pets were fantastic at this point in time. It says,

At this point in time, of course, Solomon is not only writing Proverbs, but I believe at this point in time, Solomon's also writing Ecclesiastes. Because while he was writing the wisest of Proverbs, he had the most wealthy, as you can imagine. And I think at this point in time, he was at least starting to, in his mind, formulate that idea of Ecclesiastes, where vanity, vanity, all is vanity. It says, They brought every man his gift, articles of silver and gold, garments, weapons, spices, horses and mules, so much year by year.

Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen. They had 1,400 chariots, 12,000 horses, and he stationed them in the chariot cities with the king in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem, and he made cedars as plentiful as sycamore trees that are in the lowland. Now, we don't think about the fact that that phrase was used. He made silver as common as stone

because we live in the Western culture, and if you don't know very much about Israel, you just think, okay, well, that's pretty common, right? And so you know a little bit more about Israel, right? I remember Chuck talking about this because he made lots of trips to Israel, and he said, Stones are just everywhere there. There's this old proverb that the Jewish people have that there was one particular angel that was given the job to distribute all of the stones, all of the rocks throughout the entire world, and he spent one day going to the rest of the world and one day dumping the rest of them on Israel because there are just so many stones there.

And so when he says he made, when he says he made silver as common as stones, that's like saying he made silver as common as prairie grass in Kansas, right? It was just an average thing that everybody saw every single day. That's how average silver was there, and that's how much wealth he had. It says also, verse 28, Solomon's import of horses was from Egypt and Q, and the king's merchants procured them from Q for a price.

A chariot was imported from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150. And by the same means, they exported them all to the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of the Arameans. So not only was he importing horses, but he was exporting. They were good that he was exporting as well. Now, when we read this on the surface, everything seems fantastic, right?

On the surface, from everything that we read, this is why I named this the king of the world, Solomon is on top of the world. And if you're living in another country at this point in time, you're maybe sending your wise men to go hear what Solomon has to say. Perhaps you're solving issues yourself, and so you're sending word, or maybe you've even planned a trip to go see Solomon. Like, hey, we're kind of working on some difficult things.

Maybe we'll call in Solomon. Maybe we'll go visit him and see what he has to say about it. The guy's got more wisdom than anyone has ever seen. Solomon is making all the sacrifices that he's supposed to, right? Like, everything's going fantastic religiously because he's making all of the trips that he's supposed to. There's wealth beyond anything any kingdom has ever seen at this point in time.

Truly the golden era of Israel, right? Because everything is gold. Nothing's even made out of silver there. Everything's just gold everywhere you look. And from all outside appearances, everything looks perfect. Everything looks like it's running exactly as it's supposed to. And after all, the one thing that King Solomon will hold onto always is, I'm the guy that built the temple.

Remember that time that I built the temple? Remember that moment that was probably the high point of Solomon's religious life as he built the temple? But underneath the surface, underneath the surface, there was some rottenness going on. And they just kept covering it over with another coat of paint. They just kept covering it over with another coat of gold.

And ivory. But under the surface, there was a problem. I want you to go with me one place in scripture. I want you to go back to the book of Deuteronomy. I want you to go to Deuteronomy chapter 8. And I want you to start in verse 11. Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 11 says this. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances

and His statutes, which I am commanding you to obey. Otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them and when your herds and your flocks multiply and your silver and your gold multiply and all that you have multiplies then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. This is a warning in the book of Deuteronomy to beware. To beware that when wealth was accumulated to beware that when gold and silver were multiplied when they were no longer fighting for their next piece of bread when they were no longer fighting the enemies of God beware.

Because in that moment you can forget about the Lord and your heart will be lifted up with pride. How was a king who was as successful as Solomon supposed to find himself not forgetting about the Lord? Do you know that there was a task that every king was supposed to do? It's given to us in the book of Deuteronomy. There was a task that every king was supposed to do

when he came to the throne. Do you know what that task was? The king was supposed to write out the law. Supposed to write out the law. He was supposed to write out the law. And as he wrote out the law it would keep it on his heart and on his mind so that he would not forget God. How does one handle themselves in the time of success? You see the time of struggle is not the time

when you have to worry about falling away from God. Yeah, there's always going to be that concern there that you'll just give up but if you have a foundation of the things of God then the time of struggle is when you find yourself pushing in the hardest, right? It's when you find yourself leaning in the hardest. When you don't know how you're going to pay the bills that's when your prayer life is the strongest, right?

When the sickness is going on that's when your prayer life is the strongest. When you have the rebellious child that's when your prayer life is the strongest. When you're going through the lawsuit that's when your prayer life is the strongest. But what do you do in the moments where you're successful? What do you do in the moments when there is quiet? When the war is done for a little while?

not another battle to fight and you're just living in the success of what god has done well that's a fantastic time to get back to your roots of the word it's a fantastic time to get back to the roots of the word because when you get back to the roots of the word you are reminded that he is the god who delivered you from slavery and he is the god who delivered you from egypt and he is the god who wants you to walk strong with him brothers and sisters we could very well be moving into a time of success in our nation right now and i know what happens hard times create good men good men create good times and good times create weak men weak men that create hard times and right now we might be moving

into some more hard times right now we might be moving into some more hard times right now we might be moving into some more hard times right now we might be moving into some good times and we have to make sure that we keep ourselves rooted in the truth so that we remember that god is the god who delivered us from egypt so that we don't fall away so that we don't become lifted up with pride so that we stay humble before the lord amen father we come to you now and lord i i thank you that that your power is so great you can do amazing things things no one else has ever seen before but lord may we keep our hearts and our eyes and our minds focused on you may we remain humble before you and know and understand that you are the god who

delivers and that you are the god that we need for our next breath no matter how much we think we've done it for ourselves and so lord keep us close to you keep our hearts close to you keep our eyes focused on you and we just thank you for who you are in jesus name amen be blessed