You recall where we are. Solomon is on the throne. And during the reign of Solomon, Israel rose to its greatest national glory it ever had. Israel has never been that great since. Of course, one day it'll be much greater, but that was the greatest it ever got for several reasons. God's covenant promises with David. They're the only nation on earth God chose to put his name there. And God made a covenant, not only with the nation of Israel, with David and his seed. God made this covenant that the Davidic dynasty would endure forever. And from that dynasty will come the Messiah. No other nation on earth was ever favored like that. Solomon ruled over more territory and had more vassal states, meaning not just Israeli territory, but the nations around him were paying tribute to Israel than any other Jewish king ever had. Israel never had that much territory, that much income coming, as we'll see in a minute. Solomon built a magnificent temple, which we spent some time on, which the Lord blessed by his presence. God actually put his presence in that temple like he did the tabernacle. And that officially ended Israel's wandering. Now they got a permanent place of worship where God says, my name will be there. And this is, it's established. We read that Solomon loved the Lord and he did in the early days. He certainly did. I don't think he ever stopped loving the Lord. And God was very pleased with him, chapter three, verse 10 tells us. And he blessed him, as you know, with supernatural wisdom, with riches, with prosperity and peace. Solomon's kingdom, it says twice, was firmly established. And turn back to chapter four, this reminder again, as a starting off point for how crazy great this was. Can you say crazy great? That's a good way to describe it. Chapter four, verse 24, again, kind of like a summing up. 424 says, for he at Solomon had dominion over everything west of the river. That's the river Euphrates. From Typsha even to Gaza, over all the kings west of the river, and he had peace on all sides round about him. So Judah and Israel lived in safety. Every man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon. Solomon, Israel never had this good before. And they're rarely going to have anything near this after this. But it's a glory days of Israel, the height of the kingdom. God's blessings are on Solomon, no doubt about it. Now, we saw back when Solomon came to the throne, God appeared to him, remember, in a dream. Remember, he said, ask me anything you want. Well, now it's 20 years later. It's 20 years into Solomon's reign. We'll see that in a minute. He's had a 20-year building project. Now the temple's finished, the palace is finished, all the big buildings are finished. God appears to him again. Look at chapter nine, verse one. Now it came about when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to do, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as he appeared to him at Gibeon. The Lord said to him, I've heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house, which you've built by putting my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually. As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all I've commanded you, and 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. But if you or your sons indeed turn away from following me, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which I set before you, and go 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 will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples, and this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone who passes by will be astonished and hiss and say, why has the Lord done thus 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 worshiped them and served them, therefore the Lord has brought all this adversity on them. Powerful word. This is 20 years now into Solomon's reign. Solomon reigned just like his father did for 40 years. This is 20 years in, he's finished his building projects, well, some of them, the main ones. But Solomon, we get from the text that he must have loved building projects. Look at verse one again. My version says, all that Solomon desired to do. Look at verse 19. It says it again. It says, all the storage cities which Solomon had, even his cities for his chariots, cities for his horsemen, all that it pleased Solomon to build. Both those phrases are strong. I mean, Solomon had like a, he just loved to build things. He loved big building projects. And he says that in Ecclesiastes. It's on your sheet there. He says, I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted them in all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools in which to water the forest of growing trees. I built and I built and I built. He's gonna make Jerusalem bigger. He's gonna build the wall and all kinds of stuff. In verse three here, God pledges himself. this temple. He said, you've asked me to bless this temple. God says, I have. I put my name there, my presence there. And notice he says in verse three, God says, my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually or forever. Think of that. There's not many times in scripture when God mentions his heart. Genesis 6.6 says that the heart of God was grieved over man's wickedness. Here, God says, I will always look to this place and my heart. In other words, God has emotions. He's a person. They're perfect emotions, because they're infinite emotions. But God says, my heart will always be in this place. That makes up a whole lot of scriptures, a whole lot of verses in the Psalms and the prophets. I'm going to give you a few there. Psalm 78, but he chose the tribe of Judah Mount Zion, notice, which he loves. God loves this place. God loves Jerusalem. God loves Mount Zion, where his temple is. Psalm 132, for the Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling place. There's great significance in these things. Isaiah 24 is a prophecy, 23. Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed for the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and is glory before his elders. These are pictures. What's happening here with Solomon now is a picture of that future reign of Messiah, when God himself will reign from Jerusalem. Jeremiah 3 is a prophecy on your sheet there. At that time, Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord. Notice, and all nations, plural, shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. There's a day coming. when God himself will reign from Mount Zion in Jerusalem, and all the nations will stream to see him, to learn of him, and that's a beautiful millennial kingdom, and even afterwards. But again, verse four and five, we've seen this many times, God does this with many of the following kings, God will do the same thing. He promises great blessings. if they obey. And he says something specifically here, which we'll see several times now as we go through Kings. If you walk as your father David walked, David now will be held up as a standard for all the rest of the Davidic Kings. They'll all be compared to David. They did like their father David, or they did not do as their father David had done. Now again, David sinned greatly, but he loved the Lord. He served the Lord. He repented. David was a man after God's own heart. God loved David. God made promises to David. And he's telling Solomon, if you walk before me as your father walked, you'll be blessed. I'll keep a man on the throne forever. David is the standard. But then we also saw here in verses six through nine, the same formula God gives all the time. He promises judgment for disobedience. Specifically, if you turn to other gods, I'm gonna destroy this place. Now think about that, because that's exactly what's going to happen. It's a very kind warning. He's warning Solomon specifically, don't do this sin. Don't turn away from following me. Do not turn to other gods. If you do, he says, I'll so ruin this place that the nations will go, wow, God must have really been mad with us. He said, I'll make this temple and this city a ruin. That's going to happen. Actually, it's going to happen twice. So this is warning. Solomon heard these, this is 20 years into his ministry, into his kingdom. But now the author of 1 Kings wants us to see even more how incredible this time period for Israel was. I call this the amazing wealth and glory of Solomon's kingdom, part one. Let's work through this. Chapters nine and 10 read sort of like a documentary. Like you'd watch on TV. Look at how great the kingdom was under Solomon. Look at how much God blessed Solomon. He goes through all of this. The word gold is mentioned over and over and over. In fact, I did a lot of number crunching. It's kind of fun. We'll get there in a minute. Look at verse 10. Let's pick it up. 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. Now Hiram, king of Tyre, had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire. 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 he did not please him. He said, what are these cities which you've given me, my brother? So they recalled the land of Kabul to this day. And Hiram sent to the king 120 talents of gold. No one's exactly sure what's going on here. Apparently Solomon was owed Hiram money. He was a little short on cash. So as part of the deal for paying, remember Hiram, king of Tyre, gave Israel these building projects, stones and timber and all kinds of supplies, innumerable stuff. Solomon, to pay him back apparently, gives him these 20 cities in Galilee. We're not told what cities they were, just towns, cities in Galilee. We're not sure what it was, just some kind of a payback to Hiram. He worked, Hiram worked with David and with Solomon, quite a bit. In fact, Hiram goes down, comes from Tyre all the way down to see these 20 cities that Solomon gave him. He doesn't think much of them. He doesn't like them. In fact, he does a wisecrack here. He calls them Kabul. This is not Kabul in Turkey. Kabul, he calls them. Kabul means literally as good as nothing. What is this you've given me? Worthless, basically. Kabul's in Afghanistan. Afghanistan. It's not that Kabul. Whole different word. But then it mentions here, again, we're not told why, Hiram sends 120 talents of gold. Now just don't read that, just pass over that. That's 9,000 pounds of gold. That's four and a half tons. You know I like crunching numbers. So this week I sat down, about three days ago, the price of an ounce of gold was $1,910 an ounce, for an ounce of gold. This amounts to $275 million in currency today that Hiram gave to Solomon. This is nothing compared to what's coming. Solomon must have owed him money and gave him these 20 cities. Then at some point, for some reason, Hiram sent him this 9,000 pounds of gold, which is a lot of gold. Look at verse 15. Read on. Now this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the Lord, his own house, the Milo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gizir. For Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had gone up and captured Gizir and burned it with fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife. This will be important a little bit later on. So Solomon rebuilt Gezer, and the lower, Beth-horon, and Balath, and Tamar, and the wilderness, and the land of Judah, and all the storied cities which Solomon had, even the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and all that pleased Solomon to build in Jerusalem and Lebanon, and all the land under his rule, as for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, who were not sons of Israel. Now get verse 21. Their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel were unable to destroy utterly, from them Solomon levied forced labor 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 charioteers. and his horsemen. These were the chief officers who were over Solomon's work, 550 who ruled over the people. In other words, Solomon's building all these amazing works all over the kingdom, big cities, little cities. He's building the wall in Jerusalem, all this stuff. And he's using slave labor when Joshua led the people into the promised land. We read in the book of Joshua, they were unable to drive out all of the inhabitants. They were supposed to destroy them all and drive them all out, but they didn't. They left some behind. Now, many years, just several hundred years later now, there's still Jebusites, Hivites, all these Ites living in the land. Yeah, they're non-Jews. So Solomon makes them slaves to do all this work, slave labor. And he gets 500 and some Jewish men who aren't slaves. He's paying them to be over there. That's basically what this is telling you. He's building this all with a pagan slave labor. Now, we don't know much about who these all were. It's difficult to know. The commentators, they look like five or six commentators. They go back and forth. Is this a good thing? Is this said to praise Solomon? Is this said to warn us about Solomon? It's hard to say for sure. But the point is, he's building huge siege works, huge. Siege works. Those who were left in the land, he puts to slave labor. Notice it says there back, three cities, Hazorah, Megiddo, and Gizir. Now these places still exist. Each of these cities are one of, there's three major trade routes. If we look at a map, Israel, the reason Israel is such important to the world, it's the major trade route between north and south, between Asia to North and Africa to South. It's a major trade route. There's three major trade routes that go right through Israel. The three of these cities are in each of these trade routes. Under Solomon built garrisons in each of these trade routes and had collected taxes and levied all kinds of stuff for these trade routes, which brought in all kinds of money. The archaeology has found in every one of these places what looks like Jewish walls and stuff for these trade routes. Notice it says there in verse 15, 24, it mentions the milo. The word milo means basically filling. What Solomon did, where Jerusalem is on the hill, it's surrounded by valleys. He filled in several of these valleys with milo, with filling. In other words, he's making the city bigger. He's filling in the valleys. And it says here he made the wall much bigger. He's expanding Jerusalem outward. Probably a lot of construction debris. Yeah, a lot of stuff. And that's what all this slave labor is doing. But notice verse 25. Now, three times in a year, Solomon offered burn offerings and peace offerings on the altar, which he built to the Lord, burning incense with them on the altar, which was before the Lord, so he finished the house. That's just telling you, at this point, Solomon is still obedient to the Lord. In 2 Chronicles 8, you can turn there, it gives you a much longer description of what 25 just told you. Solomon kept all the feasts of the Lord. supported all the sacrificial system. He appeared when he was supposed to appear. Solomon obeyed the law of the Lord at this point, 20 years in, and Solomon is still faithfully serving the Lord at the temple. Everything he has to do, that's what it's telling you. But now let's move on, verse 26. Solomon does something new. King Solomon also built a fleet of ships in Ezeon Geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent his servants with the fleet, sailors who knew the sea, along with the servants of Solomon. They went to Ophir and took 420 talents of gold from there and brought it to King Solomon. And look at chapter 10, verse 22. 1022, for the king had at sea the ships of Tarshish with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years, the ships of Tarshish came bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. Solomon builds a navy. Israel has never been a seafaring people. But he builds here massive trading ships. And Hiram sends down people who know how to navigate the sea to run them. So Hiram's people are on these ships, along with Jewish people. And it just tells you, it's bringing in trade and wealth from all over the region. He built this ship. This isn't going to last long. These ships aren't going to, this business isn't going to last all that long. But for the first time, Israel has basically a navy, a shipping navy, not so much a military navy. It's a shipping navy. Yeah, merchants. And they're going all up and down the Mediterranean Sea and all the inland seas, bringing in all kinds of merchants. It's just an amazing time for Israel. Israel never had anything like this before. Now, to carry on to show you how great this is, we'll start chapter 10, verse 1. You know the story. Now, actually before we get there, let's look at a few verses. Go back to chapter 4. An amazing thing is happening. All of this isn't just to make Solomon fat and happy. There's something else going on here, as God promised he would do. Look at chapter 4, verse 34. You've seen this several times already. It says, men came from all peoples, note the S, to hear the wisdom of Solomon from all the kings of the earth who had heard his wisdom. Look at chapter 8, verse 41. When Solomon prayed, remember when he prayed to the temple, all those things he asked for? Remember what one of them was? 8 verse 41. Also, concerning the foreigner who is not of your people, Israel, when he comes from a far country for your namesake, for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm, when he comes and prays towards his house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name to fear you as do your people, Israel. Look at verse 60. At the end of Solomon's prayer, this is what he wants the Lord to do. So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and there is no one else. Solomon's well aware of the fact that all that's going on here is for the glory of the Lord to the nations. Israel was always meant to be a light to the nations. And God here is raising Israel to an enormous height. And now we see an example of that again in chapter 10, verse one. Now when the Queen of Sheba heard all 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. Solomon answered her questions. Nothing was hidden from the king which he didn't explain to her. When the Queen of Sheba perceived all of the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters in 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. Then it took her breath away. Then she said to the king, 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 have seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. You exceed in wisdom and prosperity the report which I heard. How blessed are your men. How blessed are your servants who stand before you and continually hear your wisdom. And note this, verse nine. 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 to do justice and righteousness. She gave the king 120 talents of gold and 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 King Solomon. Let's work through this. Sheba is probably part of modern-day Yemen. That's about 1,500 miles south of Jerusalem. It's North Africa. She came a long way. With a retinue, it says. She's a queen, the queen of Sheba. We don't know who the king was. She's the queen. She comes with this huge entourage carrying all this gold and all this supplies and all this spices. Some of these caravans would be several hundred camels long. So for a queen, it would take her months to get there. She made this journey to get up there. In Matthew 12, 42, Jesus said that the queen came from the ends of the earth. It was that far away. All the way down in North Africa, they're hearing about what's going on up there in Israel. So imagine, all the traders and the caravans passing through Israel would see what's going on. This has never happened on earth before. And every place they go, you should see what's going on back there in Israel. Their God, Yahweh, has so blessed the Son of David. You should see it. It's amazing. And the Queen of Sheba's hearing all this. She says, I didn't believe it. This can't be true. That can't be true. So I had to go find out for myself. And she goes up and checks it out. She said, I heard. In my own land, I heard. I did not believe it. That just can't be true. No nation is like that until she went there and saw it. In verse 2 and 4, it says, she came Solomon is famous for his wisdom. We saw that earlier, back in chapter four. He's famous. Everybody's talking about, you can't believe how wise this king is. There's never been a king as wise as this guy is. They're all talking about, so she decides, I'm gonna take some very hard questions. I wish we knew what those questions were, but we don't. Some very hard questions and see what he does. And it says there, he answered her easily. He told her everything that was in her heart. God given, It's an amazing thing. It says difficult questions. And then verse, it says there was no more spirit. That literally means she was left breathless. As she looked around, as she heard Solomon's wisdom, as she saw him and his throne and his kingdom and his servants, even the food he ate and the cups they drank out of, she just couldn't believe it. There's no other nation on earth was as blessed as this was at that time. No other nation with anything like this. Now notice this verse nine, it's very important. Here's this pagan queen. Don't have any illusions that she worships Yahweh, the true God of Israel. But she heard about this. And they know that Yahweh is Israel's God. So she says, let's check this out. And she concludes, blessed be Yahweh, your God. He has delighted in you. He has loved Israel. None of the other nations could boast of anything like this. I mean, there are some great nations. Egypt is in decline. They'll come back. later on. Egypt isn't much going on. Egypt and Babylon is not put together yet. Most of the nations around them aren't. There's nothing like this on earth anywhere. But she ends up praising Yahweh. Blessed be your God. What a God you have. Which means At least in some sense, she's probably coming to worship and believe in Yahweh. We don't know that for sure. Then verse 10 says, she gave him 120 talents of gold. And we saw that already. That's a huge amount of money, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold, several tons of gold. They carried 1,500 miles up through the desert to Jerusalem. Yeah, and then she gave him precious stones and then spice, more spice than they've ever seen in her life. I'm sure that Jerusalem must have smelled pretty good for a while. Tons and tons of spice, which was important back in those days. I threw a few verses here. This is all important. The idea that because God is so great in Israel, the nations far away would hear of this. It's all through the scripture. This was the purpose of Israel. This was Israel finally fulfilling her destiny, to be a light to the nation, that the nations would hear about the great things God is doing and come check it out. There's many verses that speak, I'm gonna give you a few. Psalm 72, this is Solomon wrote this psalm. I tried to find out this week when in his career he wrote this, you don't know. But notice what he says here. This is just part of the Psalm of Solomon. That's hard to say. He says, may he, meaning the king, the king of Israel, may he have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. May desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute. May the kings of Sheba, get that, and Seba bring gifts. Seba's down in Egypt. May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him. Long may he live, may gold of Sheba be given to him. May prayer be made for him continually and blessings invoked for him all the day. This Solomon there is prophetically speaking about God, please bless the son of David, meaning himself and all those who will follow him. Isaiah, this is then prophesied. I mentioned this before, this glory of Israel, is a picture, a type of what's coming. When Messiah reigns, it's going to be like this with a million times over. This is a picture of the glory days of Messiah. Isaiah 60 talks of this. Then you shall see and be radiant. God, you're talking about Jerusalem, your heart shall thrill and exult because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you. The wealth of the nation shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you. The young camels of Midian and Ephah, all those from Sheba, there it is again, shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord. And you see the word good news, that's also what? Gospel. They will bring gospel, the praises of the Lord. But again, this Queen of Sheba, we don't know her name, don't know much about her, but we haven't heard the last of her either, as I'm sure you know. So when you see Jesus mentions her. Matthew 12, 42, it's also in Mark. He said, the queen of the south, that's the queen of Sheba, will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. As he was going through the places and the people were disbelieving in him, giving him a hard time. Right before this, he mentioned about the people who lived in Nineveh. They repented at the preaching of Jonah. Says, someone much greater than Jonah is here, yet you won't repent. Here he says, that queen of the south traveled all that distance because she heard about the greatness of Solomon. And when she came there, she believed, she saw, she praised the Lord. And notice he says, something far greater than Solomon is here, and you guys want to kill me. And she says here, in the Judgment Day, that Queen of Sheba is going to rise up and condemn you all, because she believed. I don't know that she ever got truly... We don't know. But Jesus says she's going to rise up in judgment against you because she came and was amazed and praised God at the wisdom of Solomon. She says, but you guys, the Son of God is here, and you hate me. Now Jesus here does speak favorably of her. He uses her as an example of right. We don't know what she came to be. We don't know much about her. We just don't know. You can't read too much into that. But she saw what God did and acknowledged it and praised God. Jesus says, you're seeing much greater things than she ever saw. But you don't believe in me. You reject me. That's a serious issue. And of course, you know the principle. Luke 12, Jesus said, everyone to whom much is given, of him much will be required. And from him whom they have entrusted much, they will demand the more. All she had was the wisdom of Solomon. And she praised God and believed in it. She said, you have something much greater than Solomon here. They'll be much more accountable. In other words, come to judgment day, they'll be much more accountable. That's how it works. Now, we already saw a little bit of the amazing wealth of Solomon. Now we get to part two, the amazing wealth and glory of the Sovereign Kingdom, part two. We return to this description. It's almost like a documentary. It's almost like you're saying, can you believe this? Can you believe what was going on here? Let's work through this. We're in chapter 10, go to verse 11. Also the ships of Hiram, which brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir a very great number of almog trees and precious stones. No one knows what an almog tree is. It's a Hebrew word, it's some exotic wood that didn't grow in Jerusalem, but they brought it in by the shipload. The king made of the almond trees supports for the house of the Lord and for the king's house, also lyres and harps for the singers. Such almond trees have not come in again nor have been seen to this day. We don't know what that is. There's a lot of debate on what it is. It's some exotic, beautiful wood that doesn't grow in Israel. Solomon had these brought in by his shipload, and then he built the temple even stronger, put supports around the temple and around his palace and made everything beautiful. So there was so much of this lumber that they've never seen it again. The whole capital city was probably decked out with this beautiful, whatever this lumber is. And notice verse 13, King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all her desire which she requested, besides what he gave her according to his royal bounty. Then she turned and went to her own land together with her servant. He gives her a huge gift to go home with, a royal bounty. Doesn't tell you what it is, just some nice, she gave him a couple hundred million dollars worth of gold and spices, least he can do is give her something to go home with, and he does. But now note verse 14. I have a good commentary, David Morris recommended to me, a guy named Ralph Davis something. He likes to be funny. He says, it's almost like you're saying, and now can you believe this? Can you believe this? Notice verse 14. Now the weight of the gold, which came into Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold. Besides that from the traders and the wares of the merchants and all the kings of the Arabs and the governors of the country, just stop there. You know, I like crunching numbers. 666 tons of gold. That's 25 tons of gold. By today's prices, that's $5,128,000,000. On top of all the other gold we just saw. They're swimming in gold. They're eating gold for breakfast. I mean, it's just gold, gold, gold. It's amazing, isn't it? This is besides, it says, what comes in from all the trade routes and the travelers and all the tariffs and the collections they do on the trade routes. Besides all that, he gets $5 billion worth of gold in a year. Someone said that Solomon's Temple was probably the most expensive building per square foot ever made because of all the gold and silver and precious stones. But that's finished. That's finished. This is after that gold coming in. It's probably not wrong to say Israel's the richest nation on earth at this time. Probably. It's doubtful any other nation has wealth like this going on. Well, remember what happened. Remember when Solomon, remember when God appeared to Solomon the first time. Remember when he said, ask whatever you wish. Remember Solomon asked for wisdom. Remember what God said? Because you didn't ask for wealth and you didn't ask for power over your enemies, I'll give you wisdom and I'll give you other ones too. I'm going to give you wealth, Solomon. God here is going to give him wealth beyond any man's wildest dream. But just try to get your mind around these numbers. It's amazing what's going on. But wait, there's more. In the 40 years that Solomon reigned, he never used his army once. There were no battles. He never fought a battle. He didn't need to. There's no assassination attempts like with David. None of his sons are trying to take over his throne. He had 40 years of uncontested rule and no one rose up against him. There was peace for 40 years. But look at verse 16. As if that weren't enough. But wait, there's more. Verse 16. King Solomon made 200 large shields of beaten gold. using 600 shekels of gold on each large shield. He made 300 shields of beaten gold, using three miners of gold on each shield. And the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon." Just stop there. I didn't do all the number crunching. I'm getting tired of crunching numbers. 16 and 17. He made 200 large, these aren't for fighting, these are ornamental. They're huge, they're the size of a man. You really couldn't even carry this into battle. And besides, they're made out of gold. You wouldn't want to do that. I just figured out the large shields. Each large shield has three and a half pounds of gold. Remember, it's overlaid in this gold. That's $106,960 a shield, just in gold. Each shield's worth over $100,000 in our day's time. I didn't figure out the small shield. They're probably a little less than that. But wait, there's more. Look at verse 18. Moreover, notice the author here is doing that too. You think that's something? Moreover, verse 18, the king made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with refined gold. There were six steps onto the throne and a round top to the throne and its rear and the arms on each side of the seat and two lions standing beside the arms. 12 lions were standing there on the six steps of the one side and on the other. Nothing like it was made for any other kingdom. Well, I'm guessing this throne was wood, overlaid, though, with ivory, and then fine, beaten, polished gold. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to cover ivory with gold, does it? Well, it was overlaid. Inlaid. Inlaid, yeah. He had a big round thing behind him, and then these two lions beside the throne, and then six steps with six lions on each one, each one representing the tribe of Israel, I'm sure. It was gorgeous. But again, I don't think these lions were like this. This thing is enormous. Big, massive step. In fact, it says how the Queen of Sheba saw the massive steps for the temple. These are massive steps with his throne up high there. all ivory and gold and the lions. It says there's no other throne like it in any other kingdom on earth. But again, get the picture. There's God's wise, good king sitting on this royal throne and all this regal opulence and glory and power. It's a picture. But wait, there's more. Look at verse 21. All King Solomon's drinking vessels were gold. All the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. None was silver. It was not considered valuable in the days of Solomon. Literally, it was not considered anything. There's so much gold and silver that silver is not even considered precious anymore. There's so much of it. But all of his cups and drinks and plates and silverware and pitchers and bowls and everything is solid gold. You see all that when Nebuchadnezzar invades, he takes all that wealth to Babylon in about a couple hundred years, but Jane? Yeah, it's all a picture of this. He's that wealthy that everything's gold. I hate to say this, but it comes to mind. Remember Jim Baker, Jim and Tammy Baker? He had a gold toilet seat. Just dumbness. Well, this isn't dumbness, but this is just everything's gold. Everything's gold. Every single thing is gold. Gold, everything, silver was common. In fact, it says in verse 27, it was as common as stones. Think of it, gold is, silver, there's so much gold and silver, and silver doesn't even mean anything to anybody. Let's read on, verse 22. For the king had at sea the ships of Tarshish with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years, the ships of Tarshish came bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. Just stop there. Why apes and peacocks? Oh, no. They were exotic. They didn't live in Israel. Yeah, they show off. The king probably had a nice little zoo there. Plus, we do read in a verse back in chapter 4 that when Solomon got this great wisdom, I think I put that in a sheet somewhere. Yeah, verse 433, it says, he spoke of trees and animals and birds and creeping things. Solomon had a lot of wisdom to say about animals. Maybe he's studying them. Yeah, yeah. They're bringing all this stuff in, all these stones and fish. Now, I did the last of the crunching here. I took chapter 9 and chapter 10. Ten times in chapter 10 alone, the word gold is mentioned. If you add all this gold up that you just saw in chapter 9 and chapter 10, it's 50 tons of gold. The amount is $6,656,000,000 in our day. That's a lot of money, just in gold. Not mentioning the silver, the precious stones, all the rest of it. Jerusalem was the richest city on earth. Remember God said, because you didn't ask for wealth, I'm going to give you wealth. When God gives you wealth, this is amazing, isn't it? 6 billion with a B, 656 million. That's 6, 6, 5, 6, followed by six zeros. But keep in mind, keep your finger here and turn to chapter 12, verse four. There's other things happening here, which we'll see in the future lesson. Look at chapter 12, verse four. When Solomon's gone, this is how they remember him. This is one way they remember him. Chapter 12, verse four. They complained to Solomon's son, who's now on the throne, Rehoboam. So your father made our yoke hard. Now, therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us." In other words, it was hard serving under your father. Now, the hard probably means all the cities he built, all the labor he constricted, maybe taxes were very high, don't know for sure. Samuel said that. You want a king, here's your king. He'll take the best of your lands, the best of your daughters, the best of your men, the best of your houses, the best of everything for himself. And you'll pay taxes to him. Welcome to America. But now note how he says it again, verse 23. This is the point, really, of all of this. In chapter 10. I'm sorry, verse 24. Verse 23. Verse 23. So King Solomon became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. Here it is. All the earth was seeking the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. They brought every man his gift, articles of silver and gold, garments, weapons, spices, horses, mules, so much year by year. Get that phrase 24, all the earth. Solomon, God has so blessed Solomon and Israel. The whole earth is hearing this. And I got to go see this. Again, someone that says like back in the golden days of America, when the whole world wanted to come here, because we were so rich and prosperous and free, they're hearing about what Yahweh is doing in Israel. And like this Queen of Sheba, she came 1500 miles to see this. Says all the earth, all the nations all around them are coming to Israel to see this great thing. Solomon prayed that, Lord, when they hear about your greatness, they will come here. And when they pray, Lord, please hear their pleas. Isn't that cool, Dean? God knows how to gather his glory. Yeah. And these are all pictures. Remember Jesus said, and I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men to myself. Well, Israel is a picture of that. The glory of God, the blessings of God. This isn't Solomon's doing. God gave him this wisdom, and God gave him all this wealth, and God gave him all this peace, and God favored the nations that come to him and support him and help him. This is all God doing. It's amazing. But all the earth is seeking Solomon. That's important. That's what this is all about. This is the best Israel ever. This is the only time in Israel's history, really, that they were what God intended them to be, a light to the nations. Where God lit up Israel, and that light shone to all the nations, and they all said, wow, we got to go down there and see what their God is doing for them. We don't know how many hundreds or thousands of Gentiles came to Israel. It says they're all the earth. That's not an exaggeration. They're all coming to see Israel. And God's presence was in the finish. They would see this, yeah, all of that. There would be no other nation on earth had anything close to this. Can you imagine coming to Jerusalem from far away and seeing that temple and the pillar of cloud and all this other stuff and the gold and the blessings and the people are happy and the wisdom of Solomon. You think, wow, your God is amazing. Our God doesn't do this for us. And of course, let's go to verse 26. We hear about Solomon's international horse and chariot business. Verse 26. Now Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen, and he had 1,400 chariots. Remember, chariots in their day were kind of like our army tanks today. They were weapons of war. Chariots can be used for transportation, too. But he had chariots, 12,000 horsemen, and he stationed them in the chariot cities with the king in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem. He made cedars as plentiful as sycamore trees that are in the lowland. Also, Solomon imported horses Import of horse was from Egypt and Q, and the king's merchants produced them from Q for a price. Q, I believe, is down near Egypt or in Egypt. It's associated with Egypt. A chariot was imported from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 115. By the same means, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of the Arameans. Solomon's got, getting all these horses, all these chariots, silver and gold in his chariots, selling them to all the nations around him. No one, that's amazing. But again, I think that's a hint of what's coming, as you know. That's a hint. On your sheet there, Deuteronomy 17, God through Moses warned about this. Speaking of the king, only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said, you shall never return that way again. Now Solomon should have known this. One of his priests probably should have told him, maybe they did. He has this huge international horse trading going on, and most of them are coming from south in Egypt. And they're bringing them to Israel, and they're fixing up these fancy, beautiful chariots and selling them all over the region. That's probably a hint of what's coming. Now sum this up. What is all this saying? And you know where we're going here. This is the highest and the best it's ever going to get in first Kings. This is the highest Israel has ever got. And it was gorgeous. This went on for 40 years, roughly. 40 years it was like this. Nothing has ever happened in the Middle East like this again. Of course, today with Bahrain and they found oil, they're filthy, filthy rich. But back in their day, this was unbelievable wealth. Now we know Solomon loved the Lord. We're told that several times. He obeyed the Lord. He was greatly blessed by the Lord. But think now, all of this opulence, extreme wealth, Fame and glory and a life of lavish luxury are very dangerous to the soul, aren't they? What would you do if all of a sudden you were filthy rich? Would that be a good thing? This kind of wealth, imagine what a day in the life of Solomon's like. He probably sleeps on the best, most comfortable bed in the world. He has attendance for every second, the best food, the best servants. He never has to lift a thing. He never has to probably even dress himself. He has the best horses. He has the best house. He has the best of, he can't get any richer. Everybody all over the world's coming and admiring him and praising him and bringing more and more stuff. His people love him. Now that's all the blessing of the Lord. But how would you fare in a place like that? Our souls don't do well in that kind of situation. And you know where this goes, and it's sad. Isn't it amazing and tragic how God's great blessings he gives us? And they're given as a token of his love. We often use them as an excuse to turn away from him, don't we? Why do we do that? Our hearts are so... Not right. God gives us great, if he would, if he would, I know if he'd give me great, if I'd become a millionaire overnight, I'd need a lot of help. You'd have to, how would you handle that? Yeah. But really, if you had no struggles in life, if your life was opulent and cushy every day, you know what would happen, right? And you know what's coming. We're not being, yeah, when the king went out to war, what was he doing? Sitting there in the palace. Chilling out, yeah. We often twist. God gives us these wonderful, great gifts because he loves us. But our evil hearts often then focus on the gift and use that gift to draw our hearts away from him. The Bible warns about this all the time. I just gave you a few verses. The one Dean just mentioned. Remember, Solomon never had to use his army. He never had to go to war, never. No one ever rose up against him in 40 years. There were no assassination attempts. No one ever tried to take over his throne. He was in absolute peace and safety for 40 years. That's God's blessing. Proverbs 30, verse nine, it says, give me neither poverty nor riches, why? Lest I be fooled and deny you and say, who is the Lord? Don't make me poor that I'm tempted to steal. The Lord, don't make me rich. that I forget you. You get full. You have everything you need. You don't need God, do you? When do you pray most? When things are going great or when you have a lot of problems on your mind? A lot of problems. Why is that? We forget the Lord. We don't need him. We need problems. We need trouble. Jesus said, several quotes here from Jesus, Matthew 19, 23, Jesus said to his disciples, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. It's not impossible. But he says, boy, it's hard for rich people to go to heaven. Why? Because you love your riches. Riches get a hold of your heart and you can't, it's hard. Jesus said that. And there are rich men who are born again. Probably not many, but there are. God gives riches sometimes and raises up wealthy men. Mark 4, 19, Jesus says, given that parable of the sower, and because here's why the one seed didn't bloom, but the cares of the world, and notice, the deceitfulness of riches and desires for other things enter in and choke the world and it proves unfruitful. That's so true. The things of the world enriches themselves. They're deceitful. They lie to you. And you know how it is. Let's be honest. Too much TV, what happens? Does it take your heart towards the Lord or away from the Lord? Too much ease, too much money, too much, let's go on vacation 50 weeks a year. Is that going to take you more towards the Lord or away from the Lord? Most likely away from the Lord. How would you do if you were very rich? I thought about this a couple of days this week. How would I do it? I know me. I don't know, fully, I wouldn't do well. But then one more verse, Jesus said in Matthew 6, 24, no one, get that, no one, not even Solomon, can serve two masters. If you hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other, you cannot serve God and money. Almost everybody tries to do that, but Jesus says you can't. If you're serving money, you can't serve God. It's a dividing wall between the two. You can serve God and have money, but you can't serve them both. Just to see where this has gone. You know, you're now up to chapter 11. Look at verse 1. After all of this, you read this. Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonite, and Hittite women. Look at verse 6. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not follow the Lord fully as David his father had done. Look at verse 9. Now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. What makes this so bad, look at verse seven. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemost, a detestable idol of Moab, on a mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech, the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon. How is that possible? Solomon's doing this in Jerusalem. Well, all these warnings, all these things. As I read this, his only real wife is a daughter of the pharaoh of Egypt. All the rest of these women, it says they're gifts. Everybody who comes from a country brings a whole bevy of women. Here, Solomon, they're yours. They weren't even supposed to take a foreign wife. No, but he loved his, and again, as enticing as money is, guys, you know how enticing this would be, to have the most beautiful women on earth given to you. When you read Ecclesiastes, which I'm sure Solomon wrote, you're reading the words of an old, somewhat bitter man saying, listen, I had it all, I did it all, and it's all vanity, the only thing that matters is the Lord. That's where he ends up. That's a hard road to get there. Exactly right. Again, a good quote from Charles Spurgeon. He never promised you riches. He did, however, promise you that you would lack no good thing. And if riches had been a good thing for you, you would have them. The Lord does not think much of riches, and therefore he usually gives them to the ungodly as men give bones to dogs. Well, in Babylon, it mentions all this stuff by name. When Babylon came and all those gold dishes and cups and silver and all the gold in the temple and all the gold, Solomon's house, the king of Israel brings them in and shows them all these gold shields that we just mentioned. And Isaiah says, you shouldn't have shown them to him, because they're all going to go to Babylon now. All that gold went to Babylon. All that silver, all that stuff, all that wealth, as God said it would. And in Daniel 5, remember when the king has that drunken feast, that drunken orgy, and Daniel's there? And he calls for the goblets of Yahweh, those gold and silver cups that they use in the temple that they brought from Israel. They bring them to this feast to have this drunken orgy. That's when God writes on the wall, you've been weighed in a balance, you're done, you're out of here. And that very night he was killed and Babylon fell. Even though those things were taken from the temple, God still had, remember he said, my heart is still there. Well, let's close in prayer and we can talk afterwards. Oh, Heavenly Father, it is amazing to see how easily you can bless. And Lord, we see what you did here, how you kept your word and your promises. And you, Lord, you blessed Solomon and the nation of Israel beyond anyone's wildest imagination. It was recorded in your word that we might sit here and just go, wow. They didn't deserve it, Lord. You were just being kind, as you said, as the Queen of Sheba said, God loved Israel and you were very kind to them. And Lord, we thank you for this testimony. We know that that's a picture, that's only a faint picture of the glory and the wonder. And when our Lord sits on the throne and rules over this earth, we long for that to be soon. What a day that will be when all the nations will bow before him and see how great the Messiah is, one much greater than Solomon. Lord, we thank you for this picture. Help us, Lord, to see the warnings here as well, Lord, to understand what's happening with Solomon, Lord, and to take these warnings seriously, Lord, and to know that Lord, I thank you for not making me rich. I thank you for keeping us humble, Lord. What little riches we have already, Lord, corrupt our hearts so many times, and materialism is such a plague. Lord, we thank you that you've warned us in your word over and over again not to set our hearts on riches, or as our brother Dean said, to have our treasures in heaven, where our Savior is. Lord, we thank you for this time. We thank you for this. Lord, we do ask for Jane's dealings with her mom. Lord, we know that's very complicated and very annoying. Lord, please, Lord, clear the path. Make the way, Lord, for her mom to get back where her money should be, Lord. Just move in whoever's heart you need to move, Lord, to make this thing happen and to make it simple. Lord, bless Jane's mom and bless Jane as she takes care of her mom. But again, Lord, we ask for all of this and we thank you for your word and how precious it is, how fun it is to study your word because it tells us of our Savior. We ask all of this in his great and wonderful name. Amen.