Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Those who honor God, he will honor. That rings loud and clear through today's study on Hope from the Word.

Bill Luebkemann: Those who honor me, I will honor. I think that's the case with Solomon over here in 2 Chronicles chapter 9. It records the zenith of Solomon's career. Up until now, we've been looking at the building of the temple. Solomon was a guy, at least in the beginning of his life, that honored God, did what he was supposed to do, built the temple, built a palace, spent years and years doing these things.

And even though he got off track later in life, he was honoring God at this point. This may just be an example of what happens when you honor God.

Guest (Male): Maybe you can look back on your life and see how God has blessed you as you've honored him. Well, during his early years, Solomon did honor God, and the Lord blessed and honored him in return. One of those great blessings was tremendous wisdom. That's something each of us needs.

Remember what James said in the first chapter of his letter? If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. Join us for Hope from the Word as Pastor Bill Luebkemann teaches us from 2 Chronicles 9.

Bill Luebkemann: We are looking at the Queen of Sheba here in 2 Chronicles chapter 9. A few things that we can see here. This same thing was recorded back in Kings. I believe it's 1 Kings 10. That's almost verse for verse the same, so I don't want to spend too much time on this since it's so similar to that other chapter. But there's a few differences in what's left out, especially afterwards.

Just reminded here, back in 1 Samuel chapter 2, maybe. This is Samuel where the Lord talking to Eli. This is a man of God coming to Eli, who was the priest who wasn't doing such a great job. This was before Samuel. And this man of God said to Eli, "Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares, 'I promised that your house and your father's house would minister before me forever.'

But now the Lord declares, 'Far be it from me. Those who honor me, I will honor. But those who despise me will be disdained.'" And Eli here, being given this bad news that he was going to be cut off and his father's house, and there would not be an old man in his entire family line. They were going to see distress in their dwelling because of the things that Eli had done.

But like the other side of the coin, the Lord said to him here, which I was thinking of, "Those who honor me, I will honor." And I think that's the case with Solomon over here in 2 Chronicles chapter 9. It records the zenith of Solomon's career. Up until now, we've been looking at the building of the temple. Just a fraction of a sentence devoted to the building of his palace.

You know that the writers of Chronicles seem to be wanting to emphasize to the Jews returning to the promised land the good things about their heritage. You notice here it left out a lot of the bad things that happened with Solomon. Didn't mention his 1,000 wives and concubines, doesn't mention how he was worshipping other gods or any of that stuff. We're going to see here in this chapter that it just mentions the good things.

Certainly, Solomon was a guy, at least in the beginning of his life, that honored God, did what he was supposed to do, built the temple, built the palace, spent years and years doing these things. And even though he got off track later in life, he was honoring God at this point. This may just be an example of what happens when you honor God.

I think we're also going to see to what extreme somebody might go to attain wisdom. Solomon went to the extreme that he asked the Lord for wisdom at the expense of anything else. He could have asked for money, long life, death of his enemies, all those things, but he asked for wisdom. And we're going to see here the Queen of Sheba, she was seeking some wisdom and she come a long way to find it. Let's just read the beginning of chapter 9 here.

"When the Queen of Sheba..." By the way, that is present-day Yemen. So we're looking at maybe to the south, maybe something like 1,500 miles or so away. I don't know how a convoy did it back in those days. You're the queen in royal splendor and riding along in your convoy 1,500 miles on some rickety old road. I don't know how many miles you can make in a day. I bet you if you did 40 or 50 miles a day, you're doing really good.

So this is probably not even that far. And this is a month-long journey. And what do you do for the night? No Motel 6s or Holiday Inn Expresses along the way. I guess when you're the queen, you wait for everybody else to get out and set up the tents or something.

"When the Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon's fame, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. Arriving with a very great caravan with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold and precious stones, she came to Solomon and talked with him about all she had on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions. Nothing was too hard for him to explain to her.

When the Queen of Sheba saw the wisdom of Solomon, as well as the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, the cupbearers in their robes and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed." I think some of your translations might say something different, kind of like she was burned out or something. What does it say? There was no more spirit in her. She was wiped out.

She never saw anything this great. Now she traveled this long way, and I think we can see in here, written in between the lines, how far Solomon's fame had spread. Here was the God had made him well known not just within his own kingdom, but even at these very large distances. And not just a few details, but specifics. She heard all kinds of specifics about his fame.

She didn't just hear a couple of things. She wouldn't have packed up all this stuff and traveled all this distance, at least a month each way, I would say, maybe two months. All these people, all this time, and she stayed with Solomon for some period of time. So this whole expedition could have lasted a half a year or more.

And you figure she wouldn't have done that if she had just heard, "Yeah, the guy down there is really great over there in Jerusalem. He's some guy all right." She had to hear some real specifics about how awesome this kingdom was and how many things they had going for them. And she wanted to check it out. And she came to test him with hard questions.

And people have discussed, did this woman get saved here? Did she really accept Solomon's God as her God? It doesn't really say. And if you believe anything on that, it's sheer speculation. You're welcome to speculate all you want. It'd be nice to think that she accepted the Lord God. She was amazed at everything she saw, but whether she really had faith in God because of this, it's just unknown here.

But she heard of it, which speaks to the breadth and length and depth of his fame and how he was known all over the world at that time, or as far as they could travel. And she decided she's going to go check him out and she's going to test him with hard questions. That means she didn't just hear about his fame. Lots of people are famous and they're stupid.

They wouldn't know the answer to any question. They wouldn't know how to put a can of soup into a can opener. That's why they have those pop-off lids now, because people don't know how to work can openers. And so she didn't just hear about his fame. She didn't just hear how much money he had. That was probably all part of it.

She didn't just hear how peaceful his kingdom was and how he reigned in peace and tranquility. She didn't just hear how big the temple was and his palace and how ornate it was. She didn't just hear that kind of stuff. She also had to hear about the wisdom part, because he prayed for wisdom. That's what he wanted when God said, "What is it you want?" That's what he took.

And so she had to hear about that. Otherwise, why would she have gone with hard questions? Now, it doesn't say here, but I rather think these questions may have been something that was bothering her. Maybe she had some tragedy in her life. Maybe she wanted to know, "Why does God let bad things happen to good people? Why does he let some people die young?" We don't know what the questions were.

But I'm not given to believe, it doesn't come across to me that she just said, "Well, I'll test him out and see, I'll give him a few questions. I'll see if he knows anything. I know a thing or two, so I'll just give him a little quiz here." She had sincere questions that she didn't know the answer to, because it says a little bit later on nothing was too hard for him to explain to her.

He had the wisdom, she wanted it. She was willing to go to a great deal of effort to get wisdom. How much effort are we willing to go through to get wisdom, which God says he'll provide if we ask him for it? This is how much effort she went to, spent maybe a half of a year or longer out of her life, at great expense. All these people traveling this long distance to ask him the questions.

Perhaps she was searching for the meaning of life. Maybe she was wondering, why certain things happen, as we said earlier. Maybe she wanted to know why were there so many gods? If there was a God, why does he let this happen or the other thing happen? She had the list of questions that we all have. We all have questions that we wonder about.

And I think unsaved people maybe wonder more than saved people, because at least we know the answers to some of the questions now that we're saved. And others, maybe we know that we have the grace to know that we're not going to know the answer, so we stop asking others. She came here to test him to see, "Can I get an answer to these things that have been bothering me? I've tried everything to get an answer to them. Maybe this guy can help me. I've heard such great things about him."

And she was prepared to trade and to give him gifts. She brought all kinds of stuff with her, arriving with a very great caravan. That is not a Dodge caravan. It's a very great caravan, lots of animals. I assume she was riding in some kind of a coach or something being pulled by horses, maybe. And there probably was other royalty with her.

I imagine there were businessmen with her, officials, politicians. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some troops with her for protection. They're bringing all this stuff through the desert on the way up to Jerusalem. They're not going to go unprotected. This could have been potentially thousands of people and bringing provision for all of them as well.

And they brought camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold and precious stones. She was willing to put what she had on the line if she could get answers to her questions. At least that's the way it seems to me. She came to Solomon and talked with him about all she had on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions.

Nothing was too hard for him to explain to her. This wasn't just because he had studied, gone to the right colleges, read all the right books. It wasn't just because he had the right kind of degrees or anything like that. This was because the man had wisdom that was given him from God. And God had blessed him with his wisdom and blessed him because that's what he asked for, and blessed him because he was serving God, at least at this point in his life he seems to have been doing that.

And she was able to ask him all these questions, bring him gifts and what have you, get answers to what's been troubling her. When the Queen of Sheba saw the wisdom of Solomon, as well as the palace he had built, the food on his table—let's look at each of those things. First of all, she saw the wisdom of Solomon, so he was able to answer any one of her questions.

Whatever she asked him, he had an answer for. And he didn't just make them up. It made sense. You can tell when someone is a con artist and they're making it up. Usually, you can. And the more they talk, the more you can tell that they're making it up. But she knew that she was getting the truth here. She knew she was getting her questions answered.

And when she saw how wise he is, and he showed her around, gave her a tour, she stayed there for a while. She saw the palace that he lived in, which took longer to build even than the temple. She saw the food on his table. He was not going hungry. And there was food for all of his officials, all the people that worked for him.

She saw the seating of his officials. Look, they must have sat in some kind of fair order, maybe from the greatest to the least or the least to the greatest. And she saw that all of them were well-fed also. She saw the attending servants and the cupbearers in their robes, and she saw that this guy was making offerings at the temple.

And she was overwhelmed. What did you say your version said? No more spirit in her. She literally had nothing to say. She probably couldn't even get her brain in gear. She was so overloaded. I can't think of a time I was ever that overloaded that I couldn't think of something to say, even if it was the wrong thing. But you get the impression here that that's the case for her.

Ever seen something that just really, it's just really amazing and you don't know what to say and how long does it last? I mean, I'm trying to think, what have I seen in my lifetime? The sunset or rise over the ocean, the moon rise at night over the ocean. That's pretty cool. The space shuttle, I saw that go up once. That's far out, man. Lights up the sky like it's daytime at night when I saw the one that went up at night.

Driving on the California coast, Pacific Coast Highway, the scenery going up through Monterey and up into the liberal leftist enclaves up there—I don't remember what they're all called, Pebble Beach, I was there—up into San Francisco. I tried to have the California breakfast every morning when I was out there. You know what a California breakfast is, right? Fruits, flakes, and nuts.

But I think about the majestic scenery that I saw out there. I'm sure somebody will hear this on the radio and be offended because they're from California. I like California. I would love to live in California. I could get that California breakfast more often. But I just can't think of anything I saw—the Redwood Forest, I saw that too.

Trees, enormous distance around, tall, maybe they were standing when Christopher Columbus sailed to America. They were surely standing then. They may have been there in the time of Christ, for all I know. I wanted to cut one down and count the rings, but they wouldn't let me. Just joking. But I can't think of anything that ever made my spirit—what was that again? Her spirit left her.

I just can't think of anything like that. Seeing the guys walk on the moon, I can still remember where I was when they walked on the moon. I can remember where I was when I heard about Kennedy being assassinated, or I can remember thinking about it anyway. I can remember where I was on when the Challenger exploded. 9/11, whatever. 9/11, that was probably something that made the spirit leave a lot of us.

I just can't imagine, she was already royalty herself. And Solomon's riches and splendor and the majesty and royalty and the money that he had and the food and the staff and everything. Just amazing. And she just couldn't, being royalty herself, still just couldn't take it all in. It was just so much. She had seen a whole lot of majesty and royalty probably herself, but she just couldn't get over this.

She said to the king, "The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half the greatness of your wisdom was told me. You have far exceeded the report I heard." Look, she says it herself here. First of all, the report is true, his achievements and his wisdom, so we see here for sure she heard about his wisdom.

But this report painted such a picture of Solomon. The way she heard it, "This guy's achievements, this wisdom, everything he's got." She said in her mind it can't possibly be that good. He can't possibly be as wise or have achieved as much as what I'm hearing. It can't possibly be that way.

But now she saw the report was not only accurate, but it was even better than what the report didn't even say the half of it. So who are we to sit here today and read this and pretend that we have any idea what this was like? This was just something more than anybody could imagine. She said, "I didn't believe what I heard, but not only was what I heard correct, but it's even better than that."

And this again is because God has blessed Israel in such a way. And Solomon knew where it all came from and apparently he told her. "How happy your men must be! How happy your officials who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the Lord your God."

"Because of the love of your God for Israel and his desire to uphold them forever, he has made you king over them to maintain justice and righteousness." So she says here now, how happy it must be here, how much your officials must enjoy being around here and listening to you. She stayed in town for a while, so she got to listening to him for a while. Doesn't say exactly how long.

But now here she's saying your officials get to sit around and listen to your wisdom all the time. It's almost like being Mary and sitting at the feet of Jesus. I know, Solomon wasn't Jesus, but he was the wisest man that was alive at the time and the wisest king that ever was or ever will be. And certainly there's not a whole lot of wisdom in kings and leaders around the world today, and there hasn't been in a very long time.

They don't even know what wisdom is nowadays. Everything's for a cheap buck or a quick return. How happy, she says, your men must be. How happy your officials to get to stand around and listen to you. "Praise be to the Lord your God who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the Lord your God."

So she's acknowledging in some way God here. Doesn't really give us any sense that she accepted him as her God. In her mind, she could have still been thinking like many people did, "Well, we have gods down here, they have gods over there, there's other gods over there. His God is a God who's here." She may have still been praying to her own god the whole time but at the same time acknowledging what Solomon's God has done for him.

Did she really understand that Solomon's God was the God, the one and only God, and there is no other? I would certainly think Solomon would have told her that. But she acknowledges this is from God, that God has delighted in him and placed him on the throne because of the love of your God for Israel and his desire to uphold them forever. He has made you king over them to maintain justice and righteousness.

God has done all these things. He loves you, he loves them, he wants to uphold the land, the nation forever. Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold. That's around 75 pounds to a talent. So that's something like, I don't know, 90 times 100, maybe 9,000 pounds or so, maybe four or five tons of gold.

Large quantities of spices and precious stones. There had never been such spices as those the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon. Apparently where she came from, they were into spices and they knew how to make them. And she gave him these gifts here that were just something that he couldn't get at the corner store.

You know how when you travel, you like to get what they have somewhere else because it's hard to come by? When people come back to Philadelphia, they have to have their cheesesteak or their hoagie. My wife's sister comes up for a visit once in a while from Florida, and she just wants to go to the diner and to Big John's or wherever.

She's got to have her hoagie and her cheesesteak and have her diner food. Makes me wonder how people survive being down in Florida. Obviously they don't, they have to come up here for real food every once in a while. But she gave the king all this gold and all kinds of spices and stones and precious stones—who knows what they were? Rubies maybe, sapphires, diamonds perhaps, different kinds of gems.

She lavished the gifts on him. She was so appreciative of what he had taught her and showed her and how she had learned from him and from his wisdom. You know, here's another verse that I'm reminded of. Deuteronomy 28:1: "If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth."

And that certainly seems to be what happened here. And over in verse 10: "Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they will fear you." Well, that seems to be what's been happening here. The peoples of the earth heard, the peoples of the earth knew how great and wonderful the Kingdom of Israel was.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in a study of 2 Chronicles. You can hear this message or more Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet.

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And we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study in 2 Chronicles next time on Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. A presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.