The Deceitfulness of Riches (Part A)

Churches, I mean, what if a church has a great event, invites all the unbelievers, but Christ is not preached? And the people all go, boy, that was some dinner.

Who catered that thing? Where's Christ come into the picture? Where's Christ exalted?

I think it is about perspective. I think the deceitfulness of riches, as Christ said, is something to beware of all the time. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of First Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of First Kings Chapter 10 as he begins his message, The Deceitfulness of Riches. First Kings Chapter 10, may we make these lessons count.

The Deceitfulness of Riches, that's the title of this consideration. When, in Israel, for me, King Saul didn't really come to mind much. The monument for King Saul in Israel is Mount Gilboa, where he died, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

And that's the end of your, hey, that's where Saul died. But David, on the other hand, of course, Jerusalem. You don't go to Jerusalem without David being one of the leading thoughts in your mind. There is En-Gedi and Elah Valley. The must-see, you know, if you're planning, well, if I go to Jerusalem, Israel, I want to see En-Gedi, and I want to go to the Elah Valley where he slew Goliath, and it's exciting. Or Hezekiah, it's his tunnel.

That was cool, literally, the water was cold, worth going through. But Solomon, what's in Israel? What monument remains for Solomon?

Well, the ruins of some stables, is what I remember, were actually kind of boring. Of all that impressed the Queen of Sheba, nothing's left. And the deceitfulness of riches. It's very important that we have the perspective of Jesus Christ as much as we can, because when we move away from that, trouble's not far away. 1 Corinthians 9, and everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Paul is saying, remember the prize. Keep your eye on the prize, stay focused on the objective. We all say, well done, good and faithful servants.

We all want to hear that. And there's so many things that are necessary. It's not one thing that helps us serve Christ. There's a bunch of things. There are a bunch of things that get in the way. And Paul and Peter and Christ are telling us to love one another, because you're going to need it.

It's one of the big ones, of course. And faith and hope, things like that are not just extras. They are a large part of being effective and serving. I think a lot of Christians, they don't get how important serving the Lord in His house is. Again, I've said this before, if you think, you know, if your motive is to do the church a favor, your motive is wrong. Your motive for serving is Jesus Christ.

It's His house, His people, His objective. And we like to say, I'm serving the Lord. And you cannot serve the Lord, I don't know how you can serve the Lord, without taking a lot of hits, a lot of emotional hits. Well, anyway, verse 1, chapter 10, 1 Kings, Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of Yahweh, she came to test him with hard questions.

Where did I leave my earrings? That would have been a difficult one. Some suppose that she was from Ethiopia.

I don't think so. Jesus called her the queen of the south. In Luke, chapter 11, the queen of the south will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and indeed, a greater than Solomon is here.

And we can't lose that perspective. A greater than Solomon, as Christ is the subject of every Bible study we ever have. As interesting as it may be, as Christ uses these characters, He is the central figure all the time, as it is with prayer. Every prayer is focused on Jesus Christ. That's why we applaud. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

Well, we learn that from Him. Modern historians, they identify Sheba, she was the queen of Sheba, with the south Arabian kingdom of Sheba, present-day Yemen. So she'd come a long way to get to Jerusalem. She had heard stories about Solomon and his kingdom. She came to see for herself. She doubted it.

Verse 7 says, you know, I didn't believe any of this stuff until I saw it. But she was willing to take that long trek, camels and carts and things like that, almost over a thousand miles, and she was not disappointed. Now, there were vital trade routes that went through Yemen and spread throughout that part of the world, and they profited from this.

It made them a commercial power. So she had money. She wasn't poor. She had a wealthy kingdom. And that lends to the story because she hasn't seen anything like what she's about to see. Solomon surrounded his environment with more gold than her kingdom had.

It just blew her away literally. She is, well, Sheba, not her, but the place that she was queen of, is associated with gold and spices, and we get that from the prophets, from Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, three of the major prophets, three of the four major prophets, Daniel being the other one. There are five major prophet books, if you count Lamentations, which Jeremiah authored. Her visit highlights the secular and the intellectual influence of King Solomon. It says here in verse one that she was coming interested in the name of the Lord, concerning the name of the Lord. But as the story goes, the Lord doesn't seem to be as pronounced as everything that was bedazzling her. Now, of course, the Lord is the cause of these things, and it is that perspective that Solomon lost.

We do well to take heed to these lessons because they're all over the place. He had become the celebrity king. He'd given lectures, word traveled.

You've got to hear this guy. Kings and queens would come, and there he was. We'll get that said right out in verse 24. But was God truly glorified by all this wealth?

I mean, what about you? Maybe you don't have a lot of things. Is God still glorified through you? Or maybe you do have a lot of stuff. Is God glorified through you?

It just comes down, it's relative to what you have. Let's go back to serving for a minute. I mentioned you're going to get beat up if you serve. Just being in a church. If she came and said, I like this place so much I'm staying here.

Well, how much before the personality clashes would have surfaced because she's surrounded by sinners as you are, as I am. What do you do when you start getting beat up? You can't have your way. Well, many people have a tantrum of some sort to express themselves. We see this on the internet all the time. People just got to, you know, tell you what they think and then go off into the cyber world somewhere and you never hear from them again.

Serving's not like that. You've got to show up again or you walk away. And I believe, I believe the angels would like to tell some people who leave good churches, get back in there. Stop making it so easy for Satan. But I think they have to leave it with the free will and the movement of the spirit and the life of the individual. We all need to hear this, including me.

I don't think I've ever preached down to anybody as a Christian and I don't plan to start now. If I point out something that I've observed, it's something that I've observed and I'm sharing it with you and you have every right to agree or not to agree. Crazy not to agree. Did you hear that?

Is this thing on? Concerning the name of Yahweh, she came to test him with hard questions. Again, initially doubting the fame. Why isn't Hebrew history taught wherever Egyptian history is taught or Grecian history or Roman history? I mean, their civilization rivaled their, their kingdoms.

They had a lot to do. It's not anti-Semitic. It's anti-God.

That's what's happening. You can say, well, they're against the Jews. Yeah, but why? Because Satan's pulling strings. They're under the influence of hell. Hell has a huge say-so in the mind of a natural person. Whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not, you got to serve somebody and it's either going to be the Lord or it's going to be the devil. The coming of Sheba, this queen, to see the glory of Israel proves, proves that Israel's light could shine far and it could attract people.

You would think somebody would say, well, let me get this right. This queen came over a thousand miles. I don't care if she came 50 miles. She comes all this distance to see what Yahweh has done. Well, let's start preaching Yahweh to these people. Churches, I mean, what if a church has a great event, invites all the unbelievers, but Christ has not preached? And the people walk away, boy, that was some dinner.

Who catered that thing? Where's Christ come into the picture? Where's Christ exalted? I think it is about perspective. I think the deceitfulness of riches, as Christ said, is something to beware of all the time. Isaiah chapter 60, now Isaiah writes long after, so some 200 years at least, after Solomon, and he talks about Messiah attracting the Gentiles. Mostly it's millennial, but it's something that goes back even to, you know, Eve, where the seed of the woman, the Messiah, and then Abraham, that all the nations, the people will be blessed through the seed of Abraham as it progresses. That means the Gentiles. And we see that there are proselytes, there are these Gentile converts to Judaism. We'll meet them in the book of Acts, and they, you know, they are in this search for a religion that is not hollow. They want real religion. There is a such thing. There's false and there's true. And these Gentiles, they don't want the idolatry, and so they're attracted to Judaism, but they only come but so far, many of them.

They don't go all the way in. And then Christianity comes along, they meet Christ, and many of them become Christians, part of the first church. But Isaiah says the Gentiles shall come to your light, kings to the brightness of your rising. I think whenever you invite somebody to church in this country, it's a mistake to just say many times, hey, why don't you come to church? You got to prep them. Why don't you come to church? The pastor's going to beat you up from the pulpit like you've never been beat up before. And if they go, if they're already Christians, you know, you can say, look, don't come here expecting this place to be like the other place.

Just come like a new wineskin. Or you can just make a mess out of everything. Prep them.

It's, to me, the sensible thing to do. I remember sharing Christ in the workplace and someone, I was telling them about, I don't know, Job and Satan, and they said, you can talk about Satan in your church? You can't? Anyway, it's just the work we prep work. Take nothing for granted. A lot of Christianity should leave you tired. Imagine if, you know, I was just, you know, out hanging out before I came up into the pulpit and treated it like a gig.

I know the material. I can just wing it. Well, my motivation for not winging it is I have to answer to God for my behavior. Now, there are some areas I mess up and I say, Lord, I just did mercy. And there are other areas.

He said, listen, this is not about mercy. This is about diligence. And you need to be ready and do these things because where does that end? Well, verse 2, she came to Jerusalem with a very great rit in you with camels that bore spices, very much gold and precious stones.

And when she came to Solomon, she spoke with him about all that was in her heart. I like to look, see the look on his face when she was doing that. Well, that's funny, is it not? Come on. All right, maybe it's not.

Anyway, yeah, it's really not that good. I can do better. Anyway, she comes with this retinue, this entourage, advisors, attendants, soldiers, laborers, doctors, cooks, the staff, all these donkeys and animal whisperers and things like that. And she doesn't show up empty-handed and nor empty-headed either. She's got things she wants to discuss with Solomon. She heard that he's so smart. Well, she's going to question him about these things. And so she confides in Solomon, ruler to ruler.

You can bet there were some of that, but there's also person to person, human to human. We don't know if she's ever married. History doesn't tell us anything about her. Outside of the Bible, really, everybody else has got hearsay about the Queen of Sheba, but we don't know if she's married, had kids, we know nothing about her. Anyway, of course she sees this kingdom.

She's going to want some of this success, don't know how to get it. And he didn't yet publish a book on it. Ecclesiastes wouldn't have helped her.

It wasn't printed yet. Anyway, verse 3, so Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing so difficult for the king that he could not explain it to her.

Well, I don't think she asked parochial questions. I think he was just the wisdom that God had given him. Of course, with a gift from God, it is just that it is irrevocable, it is your gift, but there's no guarantee you're going to do the right thing with it. Judas blew it and others have too. Solomon's going to mess it up.

Among men, Solomon was truly the smartest guy. He became the smart, dumb guy, which is, you know, a big difference between being an A student only. You can get As, but you just can't, you don't have the wit, the ability to apply. Again, we've got another administration run by A students who really are pretty dumb and so deceitful and so icky that it's just who they are now. This is common.

On the other hand, you can get A students who are sharp. I mean, you go across a suspension bridge, you're really happy that the engineers had put that bridge up. New mathematics and we're sharp cookies and, yeah, so what do you do with what you have? Oh, that's what life is. When we stand before God as Christians, it's what did you do with what you have? You went to one of the greatest Bible teaching churches ever.

What did you do with it? It's not funny. Okay, it is. Anyway, Solomon turned on his royal billionaire charm with the Queen of Sheba, no question. You know, the dynamics of a man and woman, verse 4.

When the Queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, verse 5, the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his waiters and their apparel, his cup bearers, and his entryway by which he went up to the house of Yahweh, there was no more spirit left in her. She saw that it was exceptional and she's looking for something like, oh, we've got that in Yemen. Oh, we do it better. Just the other way. It's like, we don't have that.

We don't do it better. This is what the church should be, to someone that comes through the doors. It's like, man, I'm impressed with the Spirit of God being here. We don't have to have the, I mean, wouldn't you love colonnades?

I mean, wouldn't that be nice? You could hide from people. Jump out, boo. But, you know, the Spirit of God, one of the highest compliments that I've ever been given as a pastor is by someone who got saved here on a Christmas Eve service and said to me after, I didn't hear a word you said. All I did was feel the Spirit of God here.

What is that? But isn't that a glorious thing, right? That's what we're here for. We're not here to impress people.

We're here to impress upon them the Christ. And he did it and didn't need me to do it at that time. Come on. Come on.

Work with me. Well, she knew the value of a palatial setting. She didn't come in and say, well, you know, she knew what things cost and their value. She knew that I can't afford this.

Look at this thing. And, you know, she was an educated consumer. She's going to go on a shopping spree before this is all over. Her kingdom, as I mentioned, could not produce the tonnage of gold that was surrounding her to be used like it was being used.

And we get to the part where silver was almost, you know, silver and I don't want that. It's just an amazing kingdom that she was where she was. Otherwise, she would not have been swept away. She lived it.

The ambiance, the fragrances, the mood, the ambiance, the abundance, the exotic. You couldn't see things that she was looking at. And just think, this is nothing compared to heaven.

The comparison would be an anthill to a mountain. But it was surreal, like a dream for her. She was mesmerized by the reality of what she was experiencing. So that's why the historian says there was no more spirit in her, literally leaving her breathless because the Hebrew word there for spirit is the same word translated breath. It took her breath away, the exact equivalent. Now, I can tell you Christians have achieved this effect in witnessing Christ. You leave a person smitten, convicted of sin, no criticisms, anything. Just you've taken their breath away and they want salvation. Peter did this when they cried out, man, what should we do to be saved?

What do we do? He took their breath away. I see the parallels and I like them too.

They're not by accident at all. Nothing to criticize. Nothing was better than what she was experiencing. I'm sure there was a note of sadness when she had to leave, you know, no place like home still. Sadly, far from being a grand witness to God, he was more grand witness to Solomon. Verse 6, then she said to the king, it was true, a true report, which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom.

Verse 7, however, I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes and indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard. So she says, I heard, but I saw.

And that's, you know, her senses were engaged. This time it was true. And sometimes, you know, people fluff it up, oh, you got to go to this restaurant. I'm never going back to that place again. Well, they just served me a bowl of salt.

I couldn't stop drinking water. Anyway, I mean, not really, but really. Anyhow, I can imagine what the first thing she saw was the temple as she's approaching Jerusalem. Because, you know, that foyer was just like 20 stories up in the air. And no doubt, the fragrances from the sacrifices, the palace, the city itself, this was rushing upon her in waves, her emotions. She was, you know, looking out the window of her little, whatever she was, paliqueen or whatever she was riding on. And so she says, indeed, the half was not told me.

She's shock and awe. But it's only stuff. It's still only stuff. And what remains? Nothing of what she, those stables that I mentioned that are in Jerusalem, she didn't go see those.

Those are up in the north of Megiddo. Everything she saw is gone now. Our king and his heaven will dwarf all of this. Matthew 12, Jesus said, the queen of the south. I'm reading it from Matthew this time.

Luke was the first time. She came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And indeed, a greater than Solomon is here. And Jesus, you know, Christ is notorious for understatement. He just said, I'm greater than Solomon.

Yeah, as the difference is from, you can't even find a scale to measure it. Solomon is a created being. Jesus Christ is self-created, self-existent, and eternal past and future.

You go back as far as you can go to eternity past and he is there. Verse 8, she says, happy are your men and happy are these, your servants, who stand continually before you to hear your wisdom. So like a fairy tale again to her, her servants evidently, you know, remember Nehemiah? Nehemiah said, if I go in front of the king and my face is down, he can kill me for this.

The king's just like, look, I'm not, I'm the king, and I'm not putting up with this. You know people in the workplace, like pushing them up a hill, and they just come in and there's a little dark cloud that comes before they get there. And it's just, they bring everyone down and they get like a sick day or something, it's like, boy, I had a good time at work today, I wonder why. And you realize who wasn't there. He says, man, I hope that's never me.

I hope that's not the Christian, to be that sour puss. Okay, you hate your, I worked with a guy, all he did all day long, I want to win lotto. I want to win.

Let's settle that. Go all day long. 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.