The Deceitfulness of Riches (Part C)

What is the profit if we don't give them Jesus? If you get somebody to come to a church and you impress them with whatever, but they don't get Jesus. They're not convicted of sin. They're not invited to the throne. What happens if your neighbors know that you're a Christian? When you're on the subject, you don't bring it up. Conversion and sin.

I mean, if they don't give you the opportunity, you can't force it. But if you have the opportunity, you've got to get to the point. 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 1 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. The Deceitfulness of Riches is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be teaching in 1 Kings 10. Once you've tasted gasoline, you'll never forget it. I'm still washing it out of my mouth. Anyway, yeah, that wasn't prices. That was just a shortage. It was horrible. It was just like, hell must be somewhat like that, you know.

People with guns. Anyway, coming back to this, he says, Who delighted in you? Well, God did delight in Solomon, and this was public knowledge. 2 Kings, Adonijah didn't think so, but 2 Kings 12, this is going back. David comforted Bathsheba, his wife, so she bore a son and called his name Solomon. Now Yahweh loved him. And then the prophet comes, Nathan comes, and Yahweh's given him a nickname, the lovable one. So Solomon was loved, and that's going to factor into his judgment, I think.

I think you'll see Solomon in heaven. You know, the legalist is like, no, no, no, you won't. They talk like that, don't they? Don't the people you don't like talk in some high voice like this?

Or like that? There's one or the other, but there's nothing normal about people you don't like. And of course, they're not capable of disliking you. Therefore, because Yahweh loves you, therefore he has made you king to do justice and righteousness. Now, justice and righteousness are the dominant themes in Proverbs.

Now, not only other books too, but Proverbs is one of the leading books that stresses those themes. Verse 10, then she gave the king 120 talents of gold, spices in great quantity, and precious stones. There never again came such an abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba gave to Solomon.

There's something humorous about that. Now, I mean, they were impressed with her spicy gifts, obviously. And if you're into spices, you would have loved this. You know, it's like someone giving a cow to someone who's lactose intolerant.

Not a good idea. But, you know, I've got a gluten problem. Well, you've just inherited a wheat farm.

You've got to make some corrections. So, anyway, here she brings all these spices. She doesn't come empty handed. She's got class. She says, look, you don't just show up. Maybe I don't believe all the hype about Solomon, but I'm not going there empty handed either.

You're not putting that one on me. She's prepared. She comes with about four and a half tons. I don't know how many camels that he calculates to, but gold is the most mentioned element in the Bible over 500 times, more than any other metal. Maybe she's paying tribute. Chapter four says Solomon's kingdom went to the Euphrates and down to south Egypt.

He doesn't give us the eastern borders. She could be paying tribute. Hyrum gave the identical amount in chapter nine, and maybe that was part.

We don't have enough information. Anyway, she leaves the spices there, and they are impressed by that. Now, Solomon's going to also import a lot of Almag wood, and it will be repeated.

There's never again been so much wood like this. It was the golden age of Israel, and the writer looks back with nostalgia. He says, man, to have been there then. Verse 11, also the ships of Hyrum, which brought gold from Ophra, not Oprah.

I didn't say that. Brought these great quantities of Almag wood and precious stones from Ophra. Verse 12, and the king made steps of Almag wood for the house of the Lord. It's Yahweh.

And for the king's house, also harps and stringed instruments for singers. There never again came such Almag wood, nor has like been seen to this day. Why somebody would name their boy Almag wood, I don't know.

The phonetics. Hyrum and Solomon developed this partnership. It seemed a very profitable partnership for both of them. We are not sure what kind of wood Almag is. It's understood as a luxury item, and so they import it. Now, Solomon is going to import horses too, so he can export them.

He's into making a profit, and he may be doing that with some of this wood. Anyway, vanity. Vanity dominates the book of Ecclesiastes, and it sort of takes the delight out of worldly riches, does it not? Here's the richest man that's ever been, the smartest guy ever at that point. Christ, of course, comes later.

And yet, with all of that success, he writes Ecclesiastes. This is all just a waste. That's what vanity means. I wish the translators wouldn't use the word vanity. Think of a cabinet every time I come across it.

You don't have a cabinet anyway. I'm serious. The word would have been better if it's nothing. It's all just nothing.

It's just a frustration in that tone, and it's appropriately applied. So, that is an interesting thing, that the man with so much wealth would write the Ecclesiastes. If a poor guy wrote Ecclesiastes, you'd say, well, I get it. He didn't have anything. Of course he was bitter.

But the author had everything, and he's still saying it just isn't satisfying. Verse 13. Now, King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all she desired. Whatever she asked, besides what Solomon had given her according to the royal generosity, so she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.

Now, there are those, you know, Haile Selassie was a king of Ethiopia, and he said that he was a descendant of Solomon because this verse means that when she was given all that she desired, it was a child. That's a stretch. I mean, I'd hate to go to somebody's house, and he gave me everything I wanted, and I'd come back with a baby. That would just not be right.

So, let's say a lifetime supply of Pampers would make it, you know, doable. Anyhow, whenever I talk about babies, I always feel that the women are glaring at me. Watch it, Buster.

This is our field, and you don't, no, you guys don't do that. Anyway, here at King Solomon, she's smitten. She's so impressed by him.

Love doesn't enter into this, you know, at least we don't really see it come up, but she certainly is taken by everything. She's the queen in the candy store, and here she has on her shopping spree. Now, King Solomon gave Queen Sheba all she desired.

I'll take two of those, and one of those, and this over here, but she has class about the whole thing, and so she departs. Enriched from her visit by the gifts that Solomon gave her, she gets back to Sheba, and then you say, how was your trip? Made out like a bandit. But did she come away with God?

You just can't get away. Jesus could be telling a parable, and you're into the parable, and at the end, he's going to get you to convict you or exhort courage, and the Bible does that, as it is here. And if you just look at her and say, well, she just made out like a bandit. Did she?

Did she come back with anything concerning the true God? Verse 14, the weight of gold that came to Solomon yearly was 666 talents of gold. Verse 15, besides that, from traveling merchants, from income of traders, from all the kings of Arabia, and from the governors of the country. So, the income of traders from all the kings of Arabia. Well, Arabia is that land to the east of Israel, which would reach to Yemen, where she likely, again, paid 120 talents of gold as tribute.

These are some of his sources of income. Duty, which is tax on imports, the days of peace and prosperity for Israel, and the region. Israel was the world power at this time. The Assyrians were not yet this great force. You know, many commentators will tell you that Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh, the Assyrian territory, because they were so cruel.

Well, they had not evolved to that cruelty yet. Jonah just didn't like them. He didn't like Gentiles. He didn't want to share God with them. Which is the story of the point of Jonah's story. What does it profit a man? You're a prophet.

Two different uses of the same phonetically sounding word. You are my man with my message. I want to reach the Ninevites, and he did not want to do it. And that is the story. What is the profit if we don't give him Jesus? If you get somebody to come to a church, and you impress them with whatever, but they don't get Jesus. They're not convicted of sin. They're not invited to the throne. What happens if your neighbors know that you're a Christian? When you're on the subject, you don't bring it up. Conversion and sin. I mean, if they don't give you the opportunity, you can't force it.

But if you have the opportunity, you've got to get to the point. We are uncomfortable, at least I am, with Solomon's blessings because of his approaching tolerance for idols. His appeasing. His appeasement of his wives. That's why he did those things.

I just want to keep the peace. Same thing got Adam in trouble. Now, this number, the yearly income of 666 talents. 25 tons, or 50,000 pounds of gold. If you add up Hiram's 120 talents, the 420 talents in chapter 9 brought by the navy to Solomon. If you add 120 talents from Sheba, you end up with 660 talents. I find no connection between the 666 talents with Revelation 13, 18. Now, I think this is important because if we get into the habit of stretching things to suit something else, just without any fact, then we can enter into poor Bible teaching. It has to be there. When we make our analogies, we hang it on something. It's not just this wandering opinion. There's nothing in this to link Solomon's 666 talents with the Antichrist to come.

At least I can't find it, and I don't know of any other commentator that can either. However, that number 6, there's something there that is, in biblical numerology, a pronounced number. We find this pattern all over the Old Testament and into the New. It is the number of man. Well, even in Revelation, it says that his number should be 666, the number of a man. He's not going to be a materialized demon.

He's going to be a human being filled with Satan. That's Revelation. But the number 6 is a man. It's not always an evil number. The implication is a limited number because the number 7 is perfection by the hand of God. And 6 can't get there. 6 can't be 7. 6 is forever 6. So, the number of completion, of God's completion, of course, comes in Heaven. You know, the 7 days in a week and the number just shows up in this context frequently. Solomon's 666 talents represents man's ultimate weakness.

He's just completely limited. He is just a man and unable to truly fulfill the eternal wealth from God. And so that is a fair connection.

But again, I don't see a direct one to Revelation. Now, I'm sure you might have your theories and that's fine. Well, if they disagree with me, it's not. But we thought we liked that.

We get so... Now, I mean, I'm kidding about that, but I can remember when I first started reading commentators and studying the Bible, I would get so upset with a commentator who didn't agree with the last commentator who I liked. And I had to grow out of that. Because I would stop... I'm not reading him anymore. Why? I was dumb.

The guy's great. There's a point you don't agree on. He's not being blasphemous or anything like that.

People, you know, they go to a church and they hear something that, you know, some cats are fat. No, I'm not going back. All right, Solomon, here he is networking. This is an important part of all this. Here he is networking and it helped the nation. He's bringing in all this prosperity.

He is bringing in many influential visitors. Did it help the king and the people draw near to God? Or did it contribute this influx of unbelievers, these foreign merchants, did it contribute to false ideas of religion and worship and morality and God?

Yeah, it did. Eventually, Solomon himself is going to be influenced by his foreign wives and succumb to enough of their idolatry. Anyway, the coming of Sheba to see the glory of Israel is proof that it was possible to draw the people in. Solomon, the church is the church. First Corinthians 10, verse 12. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Why didn't Solomon know that? He did know that. That's not unique to the New Testament. It's not unique to Christianity. First, Solomon was right. Pride goes before the fall. First Timothy 3, moreover, speaking of pastors, Paul is saying to Timothy, when you're going to raise up pastors in the church, not a novice.

You can't have a rookie step in there. Satan's just going to wipe the floor with him. And then the next verse he says, moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. So Satan has his snares out. He has traps, just like a birdcatcher has these snares out and other trappers. So Satan is a trapper.

Verse 16. And King Solomon made 200 large shields of hammered gold. 600 shekels of gold went into each shield. These were decorative. They were very large shields.

15 pounds each. You couldn't carry that on a battle. Gold is not a very strong metal.

It's very heavy. Why did he need? He's going to have another 200 in verse 17. 500 shekels. Over 2500 pounds of gold went into these. Verse 17. He also made 300 shekels of hammered gold. 3 minas of gold went into each shield. The king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon. Where the seamen were, I guess. Anyway, the house of the forest.

We won't go there. These are smaller shields and the Hebrew word used is just that. So he's got these large shields and these small ones made out of gold, very decorative. Of course, she would see these things and say, this guy's got money to burn.

Verse 17. Moreover, the king made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with pure gold. I think this is just extravagance. Some of the commentators will say, well, it was really wood inlaid with ivory. What's the difference? It's still, to me, I don't know. I've never seen ivory overlaid with gold.

Is there some benefit to doing this? Ivory's pretty by itself. And so is gold.

Well, the extravagance. Amos, the prophet, he criticized him. He was the prophet to the north. He was from Tekoa, which was in Judah, but he's a prophet up north. In fact, at one point he said, we need to get out of here.

We don't want you around us anymore. But he says, he attacked these extravagant rulers who were just abusive to the poor and living luxuriously. He writes in Amos 6, who lie on beds of ivory and stretch out on your couches. And he's attacking their waist.

Verse 19. The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round at the back. There were armrests on either side of the place of the seat, and two lions stood beside the armrest. No, not real lions.

These are, of course, carvings. But the six, again, there's that number. Six steps for a man.

That's as far as he goes as a man. Verse 20. Twelve lions stood there, one on each side of the six steps. Nothing like this had been made for any other kingdom.

So the writer had no knowledge of anybody. When we get further into the wicked kings, we'll find them importing, one of them importing an altar. He goes up to Damascus. Oh, I love this.

I must have one. And just highlights the blasphemy that was rampant in Israel. So here in verse 20, archaeologists from that time have discovered other impressive thrones.

So I don't know what the distinction is, but it must have been something significant. Verse 21. All King Solomon's drinking vessels were gold, and the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Not one was silver, for this was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon. For the king, verse 22, had merchant ships at sea with a fleet of Hyrum.

Once every three years, the merchant ships came, bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys. Verse 23. So King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.

So you can't really capture the wealth with just these words, except to just, you know, say, well, it says he just outshined them all. And again, had wealth been so great, Ecclesiastes would be a cheery book, would it not? It's not a cheery book. It's not depressing. I don't find it depressing.

I do find it real. I mean, just, I don't know, at 14 years old, reading Ecclesiastes would register, unless you had a hard upbringing. But as you get older, you read Ecclesiastes, you say, oh man, he's right.

I wish it weren't that way. What am I going to do now? I'm going to go read the Gospels and cheer up. Verse 24. Now all the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. So here, he was a lecturer at Solomon. People would come and he would have his regular sessions. And this is, I think, how, we have Ecclesiastes.

It takes his notes and he just puts together this book. Ecclesiastes 12, verse 9 says, and moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs.

Well, he did do that. What is the end result, Solomon? Did people come closer to God because of you? I think some did.

I think after his death and his writings, yes. Solomon was wise, but David was devout. And that is a good thing for us to remember. Verse 25, each man brought his present, articles of silver and gold, garments, armor, spices, horses, mules, at a set rate year by year. The perks of being a wise man. Verse 26, and remember, greater than Solomon is Christ. Verse 26, and Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in chariot cities with the king at Jerusalem.

So some of those chariot cities, as I mentioned, the ruins are there, the posts where they would hitch the animals to, and the cribs where they would put the straw, whatever they were eating, nuggets. Anyway, this is to his military to protect his wealth. You just can't have any peace without some defense. You cannot sit outside in the summertime without some defense, spray or swatter. They just won't leave you alone. Especially those hummingbirds.

I hate them. He's minding your business. There's a giant buzz. It's not a little one like a bee. You think it's a gorilla or something coming at you. If you're reading, you know, not if you see him coming. You say, oh, that's a hummingbird. Oh, look how nice.

But if you're engrossed in reading something, and all of a sudden this thing is, you guys don't read. Verse 27, the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar trees as abundant as sycamore, which are in the lowlands. It speaks for itself. Verse 28, also Solomon had horses imported from Egypt. Keva, the king's merchants, brought them from Keva at the current price. So, Keva's in Cilicia where Paul was from, by Tarsus, that region in Turkey, and so he's importing horses from Egypt and from Cilicia, and probably selling them. Verse 29, now a chariot that was imported from Egypt cost 600 shekels of silver and a horse 150, and thus, through their agents, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria. So, he's a very successful businessman. A chariot cost about 15 pounds of silver, a horse about almost 4 pounds of silver.

You'll need that to know that. Interesting enough before, and I'm going to get into the Hittites are from Turkey, and they spread out. They migrated south and to various places. A very accomplished people. Solomon had Hittite women in his harem, and we'll get to that in the next chapter, like, again, not that important. Closing with this, the earning money, of course, is not a sin. Amassing wealth and being wise, but loving money and living to acquire money enters into money as a root of all evil. So, here's a quote. I don't know who it's from, so I'll put my name on it.

It's good to have the things that money can buy, provided you don't lose the things money can't buy. 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.