God Gold and Goofs (Part B)

It is a thorough word because that's what they did. They didn't tinker with other gods. They embraced them, going so far as to name their children after them.

That which is sensational and false at the same time. Let's consider how many churches, schools, Christian schools, how many Christian ministries, missionary outreaches, paraministries, how many of them have abandoned Christ? We could write Ichabod over the edifice of many a church that still pretends to be a church and they've locked Jesus out. And they will knock out anybody that is upholding him or his word from their congregation. Many of these places, again, that once honored God. Where Christ is locked out, that's usually very easy to see and say, okay, that's an apostate church that we wish wouldn't call itself a church anymore. But what about the ones that mingle Christ with other things?

They're worse. I think what kind of creeps most of us out about snakes is, more than anything, is that they sneak up. I mean, their stealth ability is, I don't know, maybe the mosquito can outdo them, but that's why a lot of us don't, they're just there. And if you could see them coming, if they wore a cowbell, we'd like them more. But that would mess up hunting, I'm sure. That's why tigers want no part of the cowbell on them. The shame of it, tiger with a cowbell. Anyway, trying to sneak up on the deer, clonk, clonk, clonk. The deer would die laughing.

The tiger could eat him. Anyway, God warns that he will not reward the wicked. And we need to get it in our heads and seeing churches kind of mingle things that come out of the world, as though the Bible weren't enough. Is that just the very thing that is warned against in the scripture? And we're going to come to that when I quote Zephaniah, one of my favorite verses from Zephaniah.

Israel is entitled to nothing except the judgment. But grace is offered nonetheless, same with Christianity. And that's why God departs the temple. He's saying to them in Ezekiel chapter 10, we see the Shekinah depart the temple and God is saying, you're not entitled to this.

To earn this, all you need to do is abide with me and not pick up any hell-born ideas. Verse 8. As for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss. Now remember, this is God talking. And say, why has Yahweh done thus to this land and to this house? Jeremiah, when he writes the lamentation, the weeping of Jeremiah, it's because he's tried so hard to stop his people from going into idolatry. And not only did he warn them with words from their own scripture and use logic, but he exercised prophecy that was fulfilled right in front of their eyes. You would think they would look at this, see the madness of sin. Sin makes us so dumb, humans that is.

It makes us all dumb. Lamentation 2.15, this is what Jeremiah wrote out as the city is now destroyed, the people are taken captive. He says, all who pass by clap their hands at you. Jerusalem, he's speaking to. They hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem. Is this the city that is called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? Well, I mentioned that Israel's temple was the greatest building on earth at this time in human history. But so was Jerusalem, the greatest city at this time. Other cities had fallen by the wayside. You know, Memphis and in Egypt and other cities in Egypt, they were no longer these splendid places. Jerusalem was. So God says here to Solomon, your kings are going to mess up, your people are going to follow them, and I'm going to pass judgment, and people are going to hiss at you and say, what happened to you? I thought you were the righteous city. God was blessing you.

What happened? They do this today with a church. You know, some unbelievers can't wait for a church to fail. They can't wait for the pastor to fail. Oh, you know, that's why I don't go to church or something like that.

And unfortunately, we hand them, we tend to hand them victories that they don't deserve. Verse 9, then they will answer because they forsook Yahweh, their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and have embraced other gods and worshipped them and served them. Therefore, Yahweh has brought all this calamity on them. I have read through these passages before, and there are people who were present, who are no longer present, who are no longer walking with the Lord, and you just scratch your head.

Why? They read the same Bible I read. The two thieves on the cross heard the same sermon, saw the same things. God does nothing without a cause, without cause.

Ezekiel 14, 23. And God will not reward those who refuse to honor Him. And why we have highly intelligent human beings that expect God to reward them for turning their back on Him is ridiculous.

But they do it all the time. And they get bitter and blame God, I'm not going to, He's not a loving God, how could He let this happen? Why would you expect Him to bless you when you won't even acknowledge Him?

You write forgery on His universe. God didn't do that. God didn't build that.

Sound familiar? Jeremiah 22, and many nations will pass by this city and everyone will say, this is before the city fell, before the lamentation, this is part of Jeremiah, his old ministry was trying to save the city. Isaiah succeeded, well God did through Isaiah. Couldn't do it with Jeremiah, not because of Jeremiah, he's a profound prophet. And many nations will pass by this city, and everyone will say to his neighbor, why has Yahweh done so to this great city? Then they will answer, because they have forsaken the covenant of Yahweh, their God, and worshiped other gods and served them. Well Jeremiah comes along after Solomon, he had the same book of Kings, chapter 9 verse 9, even though there were no verse divisions, verse and chapter divisions yet, he still had the text and he knew this, and that's what Jeremiah is quoting.

He's saying this is God, God said this already, and you're making it happen, you're fulfilling the prophecy. The disobedience of the Jews became legendary. It's just like the hypocrisy of much of Christianity has become legendary. And then there's false Christianity. Roman Catholicism's leadership is false, all of it, all of our leadership is false Christianity, the biggest cult on the planet. And yet, within that cult, there are those that can't find their way out, their hearts are right, but God has to do that work. Anyway, that's a whole, you know, people want to debate that, you'll lose.

Don't bother, just the grace of God. Anyway, their disobedience, as I mentioned, became legendary. The destruction of their kingdom, and the dispersion of their people.

And it didn't happen just once. So we look at the history of the Jewish people and we say, you know, God called it all. None of this is like, ooh, what has happened to us? We don't understand. We'll get to something from the rabbis more there. The rabbis' rabbinical Judaism has menaced the Jewish people because they've departed from the scripture, and they're just, you know, walking around patting each other on the back, and have embraced other gods. Why?

Why? Well, because the other gods let you do things. Jehovah would never let you do. You can go to work on a Sunday, or a Sabbath day, a Saturday. You can go to work on a Sabbath if you follow, you know, the Ashtoreth or somebody, and other things. Embrace is an accurate translation of the Jewish word used here.

It is a thorough word, because that's what they did. They didn't tinker with other gods, they embraced them, going so far as to name their children after them. Fallen nature is drawn to false worship, to idolatry.

That's part of the curse, but there's a solution, and it's doable. It's a never-ending fight to keep many Bible-professing Christians from mixing in that which is sensational and false at the same time. It feels so good. They'll pick it up. Pastor, what do you think about this, wanting that endorsement? It is anathema.

You know, you've got to be careful. After a while, they stop asking, and that's nice. I mean, you know, some folks, when they ask you to bless something, to endorse it, they've made up their mind.

You better endorse it. They don't care about a genuine opinion. They just want you to side with them, and when you don't, they're crushed. And, you know, I don't know if they ever hear me snickering as they're going away.

No, I don't do that because I have to answer to God, and I am way more afraid of God than anybody else. So far, so good. Anyway, when you least expect it, when you think, okay, we've got smooth seas, there's a fresh outbreak of absurdities, advocated, defended, and embraced by people who tell you they believe in the Bible, and they advocate some stupid sin. Now they're really, this generation, we've got people, well, they're trying to hijack the faith by saying that these trans peoples and brazen homosexuals, militant homosexuals, that they're Christians. No, they're not.

They are not. You'd have to renounce your sin. Maybe you struggle with it still, but you cannot say, oh, God's good with this. The same with a thief. If a thief is out, well, I've been robbing banks on the weekends.

Well, the banks are closed, which means he has to break in. But anyway, and he's boasting about it. Well, but God understands. He understands he's going to judge you. That's blatant sin. It's a sin you're not even trying to, you're now embracing as acceptable versus the one that says, I know, I can't get this stuff together, and they're tax collected.

They would, you know, smote his heart. Lord, forgive me. And you've got the Pharisees strutting around like a rooster. I don't know. I don't know if I've ever seen a live rooster loose. I have. I have. And I've already made up my mind. They come running at me. I'm going to kick that thing so hard. I'll never run after another human being again.

I've been on YouTube. I see what they do. Barnyard animals, man. Give me asphalt and concrete. Okay, back to this. Yeah, I got my driveway asphalted, and the country folks wanted me to move away. No, they did not.

They did not. It's like, man, you know, they want, never mind. Okay, I'm sorry.

Where am I? Okay, so this apostasy, yeah, it starts off sometimes with just a curiosity. Let me just look and see what they're talking about.

You better be careful. You know, Jehovah Witnesses pray on people that do that kind of stuff. Have you ever wondered why your church doesn't, and yet they go, hmm, and because they're biblically illiterate, they take the bait.

Or, again, there's that permission for sin. But some people who profess to believe in the Bible don't even know what's in the Bible that they claim to believe, and they stop learning what they need to know because they won't look. They won't sit through verse-by-verse teachings. Paul talks about those who can bear the word, make them servants.

The ones that can't take the word, they're going to be a problem. Apostasy is the ultimate reason for the fall of Israel. I know I'm staying on this a little bit because I've come to these three verses that I've really been looking forward to share with you. Some of you may know them, some of you may be fresh to you, but either way, here's the first one, Ezekiel 14, verse 3. Son of man, God is talking, that's how he addressed Ezekiel. You know, you think Ezekiel is saying, you know, my name is Ezekiel, but not when God says, Son of man, you just take it.

Anyway, Ezekiel 14, verse 3. Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity. Should I let myself be inquired of at all by them?

Should I let myself be inquired of at all by them? God says, see what these guys are doing? They're playing games. They're serving these fake gods, not me, in their hearts.

This is deep. They've embraced this. And then they want to pray to me, too.

Now, do you think I should answer these kind of people? He continues, therefore, speak to them, God said. Say to them, thus says the Lord Yahweh, every one of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity and then comes to the prophet, Yahweh will answer him who comes according to the multitude of his idols.

This is incredible. First, the grace, the idol in the heart. I'm one that I don't believe Solomon really embraced the idols.

I think he was wrong, but don't misunderstand me. We'll come to that in chapter 11. I'm not looking forward to it. But here, God says, when these people come to you, come to the pastor, I'm going to deal with them. I'm going to answer the door when they ring the bell.

That's pretty serious stuff. So here, Ezekiel has his audience. He's always had an audience. They'd come to listen to them and he'd, boy, sometimes he would just get them because they were guilty. And they're here before him and God says to the prophet, these people, they're playing games with me. You think I should answer their prayers? I'm going to answer their prayers, but I'm going to answer them according to their false beliefs. I'm going to judge them. My wrath will be on them.

That's the answer. Zephaniah. Zephaniah says, here he is preaching, he says, those who worship the host of heaven on the housetops, those who worship and swear oaths by Yahweh, but who also swear by Milcom. God is saying, who are you fooling?

You can't have it both ways. You can't put a statue of Saint Joseph on your dashboard and then expect to go come to the Christ of the Bible and that be excused, although some do it out of ignorance and God, that's his issue, but the ones that know better, God is saying, what's wrong with you? Ezekiel 13, verse 17, likewise, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people who prophesy out of their own heart. Prophesy against them. So you had the women here, they were selling, they opened these little shops up and they were selling trinkets and they would sell curses on people. They would hunt the people, God said to Ezekiel. They're hunting the people's souls.

Male and female alike are guilty, can be guilty of these things. Verse 10, now it happened at the end of 20 years that Solomon had built the two houses, the house of Yahweh and the king's house. We pause there for a moment, see the chronology is just all over the place and so we're not trying to figure out when he's doing this and that too much. Verse 11, Hyrum, the king of Tyre, had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress and gold. As much as he desired that King Solomon then gave Hyrum 20 cities in the land of Galilee.

Well this is where it starts, this is the gold and then we're going to get to the goofs concerning the gold. This partnership between King Solomon and King Hyrum, evidently it was mutually rewarding to them. They liked the arrangement. A lot of the details are left out and we are glad. We don't want to have a business contract before us in the Bible laid out. So we have to kind of fill in some of the blanks.

Anyway, these two sought to further their interests mutually and they entered into this joint venture, these joint ventures, these enterprises. King Solomon then gave Hyrum 20, back up a little bit more and more in verse 11, the gold, as much as he desired. Well, Solomon is going to abandon simplicity for enterprise. The supplies that he's getting, the cedar, the cypress, the gold, they're not gifts.

It's part of their business arrangement. What King Solomon desired was four and a half tons of gold. This is to build his palace. The temple had much gold, but it was Corban. It was dedicated to the temple and you couldn't use it on his house. So as collateral, he gives to Hyrum these 20 cities.

He says, I'll give you these cities. You can yield of the produce as yours. You can tax the people. You can just get your money back from this investment. Well, of course, Hyrum is going to go look at this city and find out what kind of friend Solomon is.

This is why you have lawyers, because it deals like this. So he had, for the temple, over 3,750 tons of gold. Well, he used up a lot of it. Remember, we covered the temple.

The walls were all inside. It was cold and just everywhere, but whatever was left over, according to 1 Chronicles, that was for the temple. He wanted a loan from Hyrum, which he gets. He's got these other projects, not just his temple, as was going to be itemized. So these 10 cities that he gives him, or however many, or 20 cities that he gives him, they're really Solomon trying to pull a fast one. He's a cheapskate.

And I do think cheapskates go, there's a blindness that goes with it. My lawyer, family lawyer years ago told me, he says, you know what, we had to go to court for something. Afterward, we go to get something to eat, and he says, he had to get this off his chest. He said, I got a customer. We just sold his house. He took all the light bulbs out. And the new family goes in and says, we have no light bulbs. He said, and there were a lot of them.

You know, it was a law, you'd have to put a ceiling, each room had to have a ceiling light, and this was for people who couldn't afford lamps. Anyway, he said, I call that guy, because you get back to that house and you put those. What was wrong with that guy? Couldn't he see how stingy he would look? You know, I got a light bulb.

Like Uncle Fester or something. Anyway, just some stingy people, they just get so into the deal, the saving, they trip over a dollar reaching for a penny. Anyway, this is what Solomon was doing. It's just not good. This giving of the land, he had no right to do that. This is God's land.

The Feast of Jubilee that would come every 50 years was to ensure that the land remained with the original owners, going back to the decrees of Joshua and the priests and the leaders. In this life, I believe that you can fall away from the faith, else there'd be no need to warn. So many times we come across it in the New Testament.

If you want to opt out, that's your prerogative. But no one's going to snatch you out of God's hands. You will be with God as long as you want to be with God.

However, I believe when we die in Christ, there is nothing that can upset that relationship. That's eternal. That's eternal salvation. And I believe the Jubilee is sort of a type of this that says within that time frame, the land can move around. But once that feast comes, it is locked in. It goes back and you can't upset that.

So the tribal inheritances were permanent, ultimately permanent. Now verse 12, I hope I communicated that okay. I'll know later when I'm driving home thinking about how I said it. Anyhow, very seldom do I say, Man, I nailed that one.

In fact, I don't know that I've ever done that. But I sure have said, Man, why did I say it like that? Oh, they're smart.

They'll figure it out. Verse 12, Then Hyrum went from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, but they did not please him. So he said, What kind of cities are these which you've given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabal, as they are to this day. Verse 14, Then Hyrum sent the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold. Now it reads as though he knows, Boy, this land is terrible.

Let me give you something. It's all connected. This is the gold that he borrowed, what is not told to us. He does give the land back to Solomon, and Solomon has to pay this land off. So before I get to that, Hyrum hoped to receive a rich, fertile land that could produce grain that he could sell, or he could tax, and he would make his money. Instead, he gets this barren land filled with hills and things like that.

So he doesn't like the cities. That Hebrew word, Cabal, translators are not sure what it means, but they are sure that it sounds like another Hebrew word, which means that it's nothing. Well, it sounds like it's nothing in English. I mean, somebody said, I bought a 19, you know, 99 Cabal. It's like, man, it's junk. It's like a, what's that, a Yugo. I don't know if you remember that car, what it appropriately named. You bought the Yugo. Didn't you see that coming? Or the gremlin, I mean, there's a bunch of them. What was the one where you'd tink on the rear end and it'd explode?

Wasn't that the gremlin? Okay, anyway, back to this. So the collateral was beneath the investment, and King Hiram was no dummy. I thought King Solomon was busted. He's a cheapskate, and he called him out on it, and he says, my brother, he's appealing to a part of Solomon that's not there. You would think that if you show kindness to somebody, that they would show kindness back, because that's what you would do, and you can be surprised sometimes if the other people, the other side doesn't do it that way. Anyway, it is right to look a gift horse in the mouth. If someone wants to give you some beastly animal that can drop dead on your porch, I think you have a right to look in his mouth before you say, I'll take him. Because, you know, somebody can just give you something that you're saddled, you're burdened with. Anyway, you know, what if they gave you a lot of barren land?

Boy, that guy gave me 100 acres of swamp. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the book of 1 Kings has had a lasting imprint on your life. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series or share it with someone you know, please visit crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just visit crossreferenceradio.com and follow the links under radio. Again, that's crossreferenceradio.com. Our time with you today is about up, but we hope you'll tune in next time to continue studying the word of God. Join us again as Pastor Rick covers more in the book of 1 Kings on Cross-Reference Radio.