Thursday
Evening Bible Study
November
1, 2012
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it speak to the broken hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk
– Meat – Manna Preach for a decision Is the church loved?
After Solomon becomes king, it takes him twenty years to build the Temple
and his own house.
9:1-9 God answers
Solomon
:1 And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished building the house of the
Lord and the king’s house, and
all Solomon’s desire which he wanted to do,
:2 that the Lord
appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.
:3 And the Lord said to him:
“I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me; I
have consecrated this house which you have built to put My name there forever,
and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.
Solomon had asked God to honor the Temple and answer the prayers that
people would pray towards the Temple.
God will indeed honor the Temple.
:4 Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of
heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and
if you keep My statutes and My judgments,
:5 then I will establish the throne of your
kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You
shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’
:5 then I will establish
Lesson
Rewards
God promises Solomon that if he will obey God and follow His ways, that his
kingdom will be established forever – that there will be a Davidic dynasty that
goes on and on.
You might think that this is purely an Old Testament concept – that if you
obey, God will bless.
It’s a whole Bible concept.
Life works better when you do things God’s way. Jesus said,
(Jn 14:23
NKJV) Jesus
answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will
keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our
home with him.
When we learn to walk in obedience, we experience a greater
measure of God’s love and presence.
Sometimes we start to think that “rewards” are not a good thing, and that
Christians shouldn’t be doing things for rewards. We’re like the little girl in the commercial
…
Rewards are not
a bad thing. There’s truth to the idea
that when we obey God, things generally go better.
Illustration
On June 6,1981, Doug White and his bride, Sylvia, were escorted to
their hotel’s fancy bridal suite in the wee hours of the morning. In the suite
they saw a sofa, chairs, and table, but where was the bed? Then they discovered
the sofa was a
hide-a-bed, with a lumpy mattress and sagging springs. They spent a fitful
night and woke up in the morning with sore backs. The new husband went to the
hotel desk and gave the management a tongue-lashing.
“Did you open the door in the room?” asked the clerk.
Doug went back to the room. He opened the door they had thought was a closet.
There, complete
with fruit basket, chocolates, and a Jacuzzi, was a beautiful bedroom!
Opening all the doors in a honeymoon suite is like obeying all the words of
Jesus. Discipleship is the door to happiness.
-- Canthi Thomas, Leadership, Vol. 15:1, Glen Ellen,
Illinois, Winter 1994, p. 46.
:6 But if you
or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and
My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship
them,
:7 then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and
this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight.
Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
:8 And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who
passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this
house?’
:9 Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of
Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them;
therefore the Lord has brought
all this calamity on them.’ ”
:6 if you or your sons at all turn
from following Me
There is a prophetic warning here from God.
Solomon and his descendants WOULD turn from following God.
God would remove the people from the land.
God would have the Temple removed.
People knew that it happened because of their disobedience.
We’ve been reading about this in Jeremiah and Lamentations…
Lesson
Pay attention to God’s warnings
I wonder if Solomon ever thought this could happen to him.
God doesn’t ever give a warning without a reason.
Has God been warning you?
9:10-14 Gift
Exchange
:10 Now it happened at the end of twenty years,
when Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king’s house
:11 (Hiram the king of Tyre
had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress and gold, as much as he desired), that
King Solomon then gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.
:12 Then Hiram went from Tyre
to see the cities which Solomon had given him, but they did not please him.
:13 So he said, “What kind of cities are
these which you have given me, my brother?” And he called them the land of Cabul, as they are to this day.
:14 Then Hiram sent the king one hundred and
twenty talents of gold.
:11 Hiram … had supplied Solomon
He didn’t supply these things for free to Solomon. Solomon had paid for the materials with wheat
and oil:
(1 Ki 5:11 NKJV) And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand kors
of wheat as food for his household, and twenty kors
of pressed oil. Thus Solomon gave to Hiram year by year.
But now Solomon decides to give Hiram twenty cities.
:13 Cabul
– “good for nothing”
Josephus (Antiquities;
8:5:3) –
…if it be interpreted according
to the language of the Phoenicians, denotes what does not please.
It sounds as if Hiram didn’t like this “gift”.
To me, the question is, was it really that bad of a gift? The area of northern Israel is a beautiful
area, the best watered area in Israel.
Yet somehow it doesn’t make Hiram happy.
What do you think of God’s gifts? God’s grace?
The gift of your spouse? The gift your kids are? The gift your friends are? Do you find yourself unhappy with them?
;14 one hundred and twenty talents
of gold
About
9,000 pounds of gold. At today’s
gold prices, that’s about $225 million.
Why did Hiram send Solomon gold if he didn’t like the cities?
Josephus (Antiquities; 8:5:3) gives us an interesting account that
is not recorded in the Bible. It may be the reason why Hiram sends this money
to Solomon. He quotes another ancient historian named Dius,
who said,
“Solomon, who was then king of Jerusalem, sent riddles to Hiram, and
desired to receive the like from him; but that he who could not solve them
should pay money to them that did solve them; and that Hiram accepted the
conditions; and when he was not able to solve the riddles [proposed by
Solomon], he paid a great deal of money for his fine; but that he afterwards
did solve the proposed riddles by means of Abdemon, a
man of Tyre; and that Hiram proposed other riddles,
which, when Solomon could not solve, he paid back a great deal of money to
Hiram.”
9:15-28 Solomon’s works
:15 And this is the reason for the labor force which King Solomon
raised: to build the house of the Lord,
his own house, the Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.
:16 (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and taken
Gezer and burned it with fire, had killed the Canaanites who dwelt in the city,
and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.)
:15 the Millo
= “rampart” or “mound”
The Millo is thought to be some sort of landfill,
enlarging the city of Jerusalem.
:15 Hazor, Megiddo,
and Gezer
Play Hazor map clip
Hazor was an important ancient Canaanite city in
the north. Megiddo was located in the Jezreel valley, and is the same as where “Armageddon” will
take place. Gezer is in the south.
:17 And Solomon built Gezer,
Lower Beth Horon,
:18 Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land of Judah,
:19 all the storage cities that Solomon had, cities for his chariots and
cities for his cavalry, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in
Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.
:17-18 Gezer, Lower Beth Horon, Baalath, and Tadmor
Play Gezer to Tadmor map clip.
We’ve seen where Gezer is, near Jerusalem.
Beth Horon and Baalath
were also near Jerusalem. Tadmor is located up where modern Syria is. They say that when someone asked Solomon if
he had enough territory, he said he’d like just a “Tad-more”, and that’s where
he got this city … J (Tadmor (“palm tree”) is located where modern Palmyra in Syria is).
:20 All the people who
were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were
not of the children of Israel—
:21 that is, their descendants who were left in the land after them, whom
the children of Israel had not been able to destroy completely— from these
Solomon raised forced labor, as it is to this day.
Solomon drew from the non-Israelis living in the land for his “forced
labor” or slave labor.
:22 But of the children of Israel Solomon made no
forced laborers, because they were men of war and his servants: his
officers, his captains, commanders of his chariots, and his cavalry.
:23 Others were chiefs of the officials who
were over Solomon’s work: five hundred and fifty, who ruled over the
people who did the work.
Israelis were used for the military and leadership positions.
:24 But Pharaoh’s daughter came up from the City
of David to her house which Solomon had built for her. Then he built the
Millo.
:25 Now three times a year Solomon offered burnt
offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he had built for the Lord, and he burned incense with them on
the altar that was before the Lord.
So he finished the temple.
:25 three times a year
This would be
in keeping with God’s command that all the men of the nation come together and
worship three times a year at specific times. (Ex. 23:14-17)
(Ex 23:14–17 NKJV) —14 “Three times you shall keep a feast to
Me in the year: 15 You shall keep the
Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I
commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came
out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty); 16 and the Feast of Harvest, the
firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of
Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of
your labors from the field. 17 “Three times in the
year all your males shall appear before the Lord God.
Those three
feasts were Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
:26 King Solomon
also built a fleet of ships at Ezion Geber, which is
near Elath on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land
of Edom.
:27 Then Hiram sent his servants with the fleet,
seamen who knew the sea, to work with the servants of Solomon.
:28 And they went to Ophir,
and acquired four hundred and twenty talents of gold from there, and brought it
to King Solomon.
:26 Ezion
Geber, … Elath
Play Eilat map clip
These cities are in the south. The
modern Israeli resort city of Eilat is here on the
coast of the Red Sea.
:27 Hiram sent his servants
Hiram is the
king of Tyre, the capital of the Phoenicians. They
were quite famous as a seafaring people.
The Israelites weren’t known for their navies. Solomon uses Hiram’s people
to teach his own.
:28 they went to Ophir
– “reducing to ashes”.
Play Ophir map.
We are not sure exactly where this is.
Some suggest it’s further south on the Arabian
Peninsula. Others on
the eastern coast of Africa. Others on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and others
all the way to India.
:28 four hundred and twenty talents
of gold
16 tons,
or $800 million.
10:1-13 Queen of
Sheba
:1 Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame
of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord,
she came to test him with hard questions.
:1 Sheba
Play Sheba map
An area on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula.
The ships travelling to Ophir would have passed
through the land of Sheba.
Josephus calls
her “queen of Egypt and Ethiopia” (Antiquities, 8:5:5).
:1 to test him with hard questions
Such testing was a sport among ancient Near Eastern monarchs (Like we saw
with Hiram and Solomon).
:2 She came to
Jerusalem with a very great retinue, 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.
:3 So Solomon answered all her questions; there
was nothing so difficult for the king that he could not explain it to
her.
:4 And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the
wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built,
:5 the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his
waiters and their apparel, his cupbearers, and his entryway by which he went up
to the house of the Lord, there
was no more spirit in her.
:6 Then she said to the king: “It was a true
report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom.
: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.
:8 Happy are your men and happy are
these your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your
wisdom!
:9 Blessed be the Lord your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the
throne of Israel! Because the Lord
has loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and
righteousness.”
:7 I did not believe the words
until …
Lesson
Living Proof
Jesus talked about the Queen of Sheba and used her as an example of people
who want to find out the truth and will do anything to figure out the truth.
(Mt 12:42 NKJV) The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this
generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is
here.
The people in Jesus’ day weren’t quite as interested in
finding out the truth.
The Queen of Sheba went to great lengths to see what was
true.
Part of the lesson of the Queen of Sheba is that she was willing to see
what the truth was all about, she would have done anything to find Jesus if she
was alive in His day.
There is a challenge for us as well, to be a little bit like Solomon. Jesus said,
(Mt 5:16 NKJV) Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works and glorify your Father in heaven.
People who are looking for truth ought to be paying attention to the things
we say, but even more, they should be taking a look at our lives to see if we
are as “good” as they’ve been “hearing”.
That means we need to really be letting God be working in our lives.
That’s not always an easy thing to do.
Sometimes it means you have to face your problems and let
God help you to deal with your problems.
Illustration
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in
Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time
for Friday night’s dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of
these salesmen inadvertently kicked
over a table which held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without
stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their
nearly-missed boarding... ALL BUT ONE!!! He paused, took a deep breath, got in
touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl
whose apple stand had been overturned.
He told his buddies to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them
to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his
taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were
all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did. The 16-year-old girl was
totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in
frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as
the crowd swirled about her; no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them
back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed
that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in
another basket. When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the
girl, “Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?” She
nodded through her tears. He continued on with, “I hope we didn’t spoil your
day too badly.”
As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out
to him, “Mister....” He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes.
She continued, “Are you Jesus?” He stopped in mid-stride ... and he wondered.
He gently went back and said, “No, I am nothing like Jesus - He is good, kind,
caring, loving, and would never have bumped into your display in the first
place. “The girl gently nodded: “I only asked because I prayed for Jesus to
help me gather the apples. He sent you to help me, so you are like Him - only
He knows who will do His will. Thank you for hearing His call, Mister.”
Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question
burning and bouncing about in his soul: “Are you Jesus?”
People hear the truth about Jesus, but they need to see it. They need to see it lived out in our
lives. We are His representatives.
:10 Then she gave the king
one hundred and twenty talents of gold, spices in great quantity, and precious
stones. There never again came such abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba
gave to King Solomon.
:11 Also, the ships of Hiram, which brought gold
from Ophir, brought great quantities of almug wood and precious stones from Ophir.
:12 And the king made steps of the almug wood for
the house of the Lord and for the
king’s house, also harps and stringed instruments for singers. There never
again came such almug wood, nor has the like been
seen to this day.
: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.
:13 gave the queen of Sheba all she
desired
The Ethiopians have a tradition that when the Queen of Sheba left, she had
one last present from Solomon, that she was pregnant.
Until 1974, Ethiopia had been ruled for several thousand years by a
monarchy that claimed to be descended from King Solomon. They claimed that when
the Queen of Sheba came home from Jerusalem after visiting Solomon, that she
was pregnant. They claim that she was their queen.
Ethiopia remained a monarchy until
1974, and was ruled for most of the 20th century by Emperor Haile Selassie.
His name meant “Might of the Trinity.” One of his numerous titles was “Lion of
Judah”. In 1974, he was overthrown by communists. He died in 1975 at the
age of 83.
10:14-29 Solomon’s
Wealth
:14 The weight of gold that came to Solomon yearly
was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold,
:14 six hundred and sixty-six
talents of gold
About 25 tons.
An odd number.
Sounds a little ominous.
:15 besides that from
the traveling merchants, from the income of traders, from all the kings of
Arabia, and from the governors of the country.
:16 And King Solomon made two hundred large
shields of hammered gold; six hundred shekels of gold went into
each shield.
:17 He also made three hundred shields of
hammered gold; three minas of gold went into each shield. The king put them in
the House of the Forest of Lebanon.
:17 shields … gold
In a sense, these golden shields will be a symbol of the height of
Solomon’s reign. Things will go downhill
from here.
When his son Rehoboam becomes king, the shields
in the Lebanon house are made of bronze, not gold.
:18 Moreover the king made a
great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold.
: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 armrests.
:20 Twelve lions stood there, one on each side of
the six steps; nothing like this had been made for any other
kingdom.
Solomon’s
throne would be legendary. See picture.
:21 All King Solomon’s
drinking vessels were gold, and all 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.
Talk about prosperity. Silver was
worthless in Solomon’s day.
:22 For the king had merchant ships at sea with
the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the merchant ships came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys.
:22 merchant ships
The Hebrew here is “ships of Tarshish”.
Tarshish may refer to the Mediterranean area near
Spain, possibly even Great Britain.
Tarshish is where Jonah was trying to flee to
(Jon. 1:3)
(Jon 1:3 NKJV) —3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go
with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
:22 apes, and monkeys
This is ancient entertainment.
He’s got the
finest big-screen TV available.
:23 So King Solomon
surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.
:23 in riches and wisdom
It is interesting that he’s not known for “wisdom and riches”, but now
“riches” take center stage.
Lesson
Wealth’s emptiness
Solomon will write towards the end of his life, twenty years after this
point …
(Ec 5:10–12 NLT) —10 Those who
love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings
true happiness! 11 The more you have,
the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except
perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers! 12 People who work hard sleep well, whether
they eat little or much. But the rich seldom get a good night’s sleep.
Greed is never satisfied. You can never get enough. Learn
to work hard so you can sleep well.
:24 Now all the earth sought
the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.
:25 Each man brought his present: articles of
silver and gold, garments, armor, spices, horses, and mules, at a set rate year
by year.
:25 Each man brought his present
People are so impressed with Solomon that they bring him gifts.
You could make a case that some of this is just a little picture of King Jesus in the
Millennium.
Jesus too is the “Son of David”.
(Zec 14:16 NKJV) And it
shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which
came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of
Tabernacles.
:26 And Solomon gathered
chariots and horsemen; he had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve
thousand horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king at
Jerusalem.
:26 twelve thousand horsemen
Josephus (Antiquities, 8:7:3) has an interesting detail about the
“horsemen”.
Their riders
also were a further ornament to them, being, in the first place, young men in
the most delightful flower of their age, and being eminent for their largeness,
and far taller than other men. They had also very long heads of hair hanging down, and were
clothed in garments of Tyrian purple. They had also
dust of gold every day sprinkled on their hair, so that their heads sparkled
with the reflection of the sunbeams from the gold.
:27 The king
made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar trees as
abundant as the sycamores which are in the lowland.
:28 Also Solomon had horses imported from Egypt
and Keveh; the king’s merchants bought them in Keveh at the current price.
:29 Now a chariot that was imported from Egypt
cost six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse one hundred and fifty;
and thus, through their agents, they exported them to all the kings of
the Hittites and the kings of Syria.
:28 horses imported from Egypt
Lesson
Prosperity’s danger
The older Solomon gets, and the wealthier he gets, the more he will slip
away from where he needs to be.
Paul wrote,
(1 Ti 6:10 NKJV) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for
which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows.
God gave Moses some important instructions for kings, including three
things to be careful about:
(Dt 17:16–17 NKJV) —16
But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people
to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again.’ 17 Neither shall he
multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly
multiply silver and gold for himself.
We’re seeing Solomon going down two of those three danger trails tonight – horses and gold. Next week we’ll see him make it three for
three – multiplying wives.
The problem is that ultimately these things will lead him
away from God.