The Lady Who Got It Right (1 Kings 9:15–10:25)

We should begin with our usual review. That is the subject matter of the book of Kings, by which we mean the book containing First and Second Kings. What is the subject matter of this book? The fall of the house of David. If we want a fuller title we could say the decline and fall of the house of David. That is the theme of the book of Kings.As we suggested it exactly: Israel is judged for ignoring God’s prophetic word. What is the solution through the collapse of the house of David? Yes, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to sit on the throne of His father David.

Now note carefully that we’ve read material that precedes the material that we are about to read and material that follows the material that we are about to read. Our passage is centered in First Kings chapter 10 verses 1 to 10. Let’s read that at this point.

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. 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. So Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing so difficult for the king that he could not explain it to her.

And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, 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. Then she said to the king, ‘It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. However I did not believe the words until I came and saw it with my own eyes. And indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard. Happy are your men and happy are these your servants who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom. Blessed be the LORD 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.’ Then she gave the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold, spices in great abundance, and precious stones. There never again came such abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

Years ago I was shopping for a Christmas present for my parents at the Sanger Harris department store in downtown Dallas. Now the very fact that I referred to Sanger Harris in downtown Dallas tells you that this was quite a few years ago. And as it happened I was searching for a present that I possibly hadn’t gotten them before. And I banked into a section of the department store that contained pictures. And I found there a very nice large picture of an outdoor farm scene painted by, I found out later, a master painter by the name of Constable. And it was enclosed in a big, big, golden cupboard frame. It looked very attractive to me.

And the thought occurred to me, “I’ve never given my parents a picture before. I’m going to give them this picture.” And it turned out to be one of the most successful gifts I ever gave them because they hung it in their living room. They hung it above one of their sofas. And every time I went home every year there was the Constable. The name of the picture is called “Hay Wain.” It’s a farm scene. There was the Constable hanging in the living room. Well when my parents went home to be with the Lord I just couldn’t leave that painting behind. And so I brought it back with me.

And would you believe that it is hanging on the wall of my bedroom at the foot of my bed? And I wake up in the mornings a lot of times and I look at that picture. And I have to say that I admire the artistry of the painter who created it and I still admire the golden frame in which it is enclosed. And it reminds me of home. But it also reminds me that what goes around comes around. And there is that picture hanging in my house now.

I have started this way because it seems to me that in the passage of Scripture that we read a few moments ago the writer of Kings has painted us a picture. He has painted us a picture. Perhaps it would be better to say he has painted us a portrait. And it is the portrait of a very remarkable woman, an extremely remarkable woman. And in the course of the portrait that he gives us in this passage this woman speaks words that are as wise as any words that were spoken during the whole entire reign of King Solomon. And for that reason I called my talk this afternoon “The Lady Who Got It Right.” The lady who got it right.

Now it is worth saying that just as that picture in my home has a frame around it there is a sense in which the portrait of this woman is encased in a frame created by the narrative of the writer of Kings. There is what I would call the left hand frame which is the first set of verses that we read a few minutes ago which describes for us in some detail the magnificent variety of Solomon’s building projects. It describes the workforce, the drafted labor if you will, that he created in order to carry out his projects. We’re told here that the first laborers were actually descendants of the original inhabitants of the land who had not been cast out by the children of Israel, descendants of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

And that the children of Israel were not compelled to do forced labor but they served as his officials, they served as his captains and his men of war, the supervisors of his operation. Notice what a change has occurred in the history of Israel because if you remember Israel started its career doing spade labor for the Egyptians. It was the Egyptians who were over them. And now they only the forced labor of the inhabitants of the land. Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar at the temple in Jerusalem. And this particular part of the frame closes by telling us that Solomon built a fleet of ships at a seaport on the Red Sea. That King Hiram of Tyre who ruled a seagoing nation sent his expert sailors who helped the servants of Solomon. And that this fleet of ships sailed to a place called Ophir and brought gold back for Solomon. This is gold, just like the frame in the picture I was describing. And they brought back it said four hundred and twenty talents of gold.

Then we have the portrait in the middle of this. And then we have what I call the right hand frame. We return to the ships of Solomon. And not only did they bring gold from Ophir but they also brought precious stones. And they brought a special kind of wood called almug wood which was apparently a very high quality wood. Solomon used it to construct stair steps for the temple of God as stair steps for his palace. And they used it for musical instruments. And then we are told that all of the gold, not only that which came from Ophir but that which came from other places that was brought to Solomon, amounted to six hundred and sixty-six talents a year.

Now my Bible has tried to transfer that into a value for modern money and it comes to, according to the part of my Bible, eight hundred and thirty-six million one hundred and sixty thousand dollars worth of gold every year. I wonder then that Solomon was able to go ahead and make large shields that were gold. Each of these shields is six hundred shekels. And if you go then he makes three hundred smaller shields having three minas of gold. Then he built the most splendid throne that had ever been built in the Middle East. I’m sure it was a throne made of ivory overlaid with pure gold. And beside the armrests of this throne there were the carved figures of two lions. On either side of the throne the throne sat on a dais. You went back from the floor of the palace up six broad big steps to reach the dais platform on which the throne sat. And on either end of the stairways there was another figure of a lion. So there were twelve lions there.

And the Bible tells us that there was not any throne like that made anywhere else. Then we are told that all of the drinking vessels from which King Solomon drank were of gold. And that in the house of the forest of Lebanon which I take to have been a banqueting hall of some kind, when only vessels, not just the drinking vessels but all the vessels that were used in there, were of gold. The silver was so plentiful in Solomon’s days that it wasn’t anything. You had a cheap piece of furniture, you had a cheap plate or dish. It was just simply made of silver. And we’re told that all the kings of the earth came to King Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart. The Bible says that Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in wisdom and in prosperity. And as people came they continued to bring him gold and silver and horses and mules and all of these things.

Now do you see that these two frames that I’ve talked about are beautiful portraits of the splendor and wealth and magnificence of the kingdom of Solomon? And right in the middle of these two frames is the portrait of the lady who got it right.

Now this lady was the queen of Sheba. We’re not told where Sheba was located. But information that we get both outside of the Bible and inside of the Bible suggests that Sheba was probably located in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula in the area that is now occupied by the Arab nation called Yemen. Now Sheba was apparently itself noted for wealth because it stood evidently at the commercial crossroads of the land routes and the sea routes that connected the trade of Asia with the trade of Africa.

And so when the queen of Sheba comes to visit King Solomon we are not talking about the queen of a backwater nation. We’re not talking about the ruler of what we might call a third-world country. We are talking about a ruler who was in her own right extremely, extremely wealthy. And you will notice that as she comes to Jerusalem she has with her a great retinue of attendants and servants. She leads a train of camels. And the camels are loaded with gold and with precious stones and with spices. She’s a very prestigious lady, you want to put it that way, a very powerful and wealthy woman. And of course she gets an audience with the king.

Now her purpose in coming was to ask this famous king in Jerusalem all of the difficult questions that she could possibly think of. And so as she sits with the king she plies him with all of her hard questions. And to her amazement there wasn’t a single question that Solomon was unable to answer. Nothing was too difficult for him that he could not explain to her.

And then of course she gets to go into his banqueting hall or into the palace dining room, whichever it was. And the Bible tells us that she was awed by the sumptuous, delicious, high quality food that covered his table. Of course kings in those days had a large number of people that they ate with. These were his civil servants, his commanders and so on. And each of them, I don’t know that, each of them apparently had a very arranged place at the table. She noticed how smooth and efficient the waiters were and how they were dressed in gorgeous apparel. She noticed the cupbearers who carried the goblets full.

And then when apparently Solomon conducted her from his palace to the house of the Lord he went through an archway or a corridor that was splendid and glorious. And the Bible tells us that when she had seen all this there was no more spirit in her. To put it in our language it took her breath away. It took her breath away. And she turns to King Solomon and her words are something like this. She said when people came to my land and they told me how wise you were and how splendid and prosperous you were she said I thought it was fantastic. I thought it was fabulous and unbelievable. I just couldn’t believe it was like that.

And I had to come here to Jerusalem to see for myself. And now I realize that what I was told in my own country was proven that it was an understatement. There was an understatement of your wisdom. It was an understatement of your splendor. The half was not told me. Your wisdom and your prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard.

Now I want to ask you this question. Did Solomon need to hear that? And I want to suggest to you that he did. That he did need to hear it and that his subsequent career shows us that he did. You see one of the most treacherous habits of the human heart is this. If we are constantly surrounded by the blessings and benefactions and benefits that come to us from God slowly but surely we cease to be impressed with them as we ought to be. So ever truly we lose a sense of their greatness and importance and significance.

Go home to your house today and look around your house. I’ve been in most of your homes and most of you have nice homes to live in. You have nice furniture. You may have good carpet on your floor. And then remind yourself that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in the world today who would regard your home as a virtual palace. Go into your kitchen. You can draw hot water, cold water. You have maybe a dishwasher, an oven. Maybe you have a microwave oven as I do or maybe you have a blender or something else. You have conveniences at your fingertips that hundreds of thousands of people who live in the world today could only fantasize about. They can only dream of having such things.

Sometime somewhere this past week we sat and watched on television while our military services bombed the nation of Iraq. And we were told about the amazing technology which is in the possession of the United States of America. Guided missiles. They were saying in the first Persian War they say it makes a name for a door and hit the door. But this time they can aim for the doorknob at the door top. That may be somewhat overstated. But there’s no question that what we were watching on our television screens was a performance of sophisticated technology which no nation on the face of the entire earth could duplicate.

But not much more than ten years ago we were locked in a death struggle with the godless atheistic communist empire, the evil empire of communism. But our enemy collapsed. Russia was broken up. Their economy is in a freefall. Their future is very, very, very uncertain. They can barely even pay their soldiers. They don’t pay their soldiers. And yet America remains the richest and most prosperous nation, the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. Is that an accident? I don’t think so.

As a matter of fact there are probably more born-again Christians per square mile in the United States of America than in any other country of the world. And you and I who sit here at this table have the privilege of living in a country that God has enormously, enormously blessed. With all of our faults and with all of our failures we experience enormous benefits and blessings from the hand of the living God. Now we know that the world, the country around us usually doesn’t acknowledge that or even admit it. But the question I’m asking is has that become so common for us as it becomes so second nature? Are we so used to it that we no longer feel a surge of amazement that God has allowed us to live in a country that is blessed like our country?

And now I submit to you that if the queen of Sheba had said nothing more than that to Solomon she would have said a mouthful. She would have said something that Solomon needed to grasp and meditate on. But she went further than that. And she goes on to say, “Happy are your men. Happy are your servants who stand before you, who hear your wisdom.” How fortunate your servants are because they wait on you every day and because they are in your presence they are able to hear the marvelous wisdom that God has put in your heart.

And then she says, “Blessed be the LORD God who delighted in you, who delighted in you to make you, put you on the throne of Israel.” Now that should have brought something back to Solomon. Do you remember that when Solomon was born to David and Bathsheba they named him Solomon. But the Bible says in the book of Samuel the LORD loved him. And God sent the prophet Nathan to David and Bathsheba and Nathan said God has called your son Jedidiah which means beloved of the LORD. So his name is Jedidiah. And think that this should have meant to Solomon. His parents told him that.

The queen of Sheba says because the LORD found delight in you, because you were the beloved of the LORD He has put you on this throne. And then she reaches what I consider to be the bottom line of her words to Solomon. Listen to what she says. “Because the LORD loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king to do justice and righteousness.” Because the LORD loved Israel forever that’s why you’re here. Isn’t that just like a woman? She reduces it all to love. “My, how fortunate your servants are. My, how He delighted in you. My, what a demonstration this is of the everlasting love of God for Israel.”

And you know that if you go back to the great prayer that Solomon prayed when he dedicated the temple you will find a lot of wisdom there. You’ll find that Solomon speaks of the greatness of God. “The heaven of heavens cannot contain You,” he said. “How much less this house that I have built.” He acknowledges God is the only one who knows the hearts of all men. He acknowledges God is the one who keeps His covenant, who fulfills His promises to David. A lot of wisdom in Solomon’s prayer of dedication. But listen, not a word spoken there or anywhere in the reign of Solomon by Solomon that said anything about the love of God. It takes this woman, it takes this woman to say to him God loved Israel and because He loved the nation forever He prospered you and made you wise and righteous.

What is the lesson then? I think the lesson is this: that the real secret of fidelity and thankfulness to God is not to be found in wisdom and knowledge as important and as vital as wisdom and knowledge are. The secret of fidelity to God is to be found in the love of God to which we respond in love. Remember the words of the Apostle Paul in that great chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love I have become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have not love I am nothing.”

Remember the words of Jesus to His disciples. He says, “He that has My commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves Me. He who loves Me keeps My word. He who does not love Me does not keep My word.” And then those wonderful words in 1 John 4:19, “We love Him because He first loved us.”

Did Solomon know about love? Unfortunately in chapter 11 we’re going to be told that King Solomon loved many foreign women, not only the daughter of Pharaoh but the daughters of the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, etcetera, whom God said don’t marry them because they will turn your heart away from Me. Solomon clung to these women in love after 1 Kings 11 verse 2. The queen of Sheba says to Solomon everything I see is a token of the magnificent love God has for you. And the question that hangs in the air is you love God who loves you. And Solomon clung to foreign women in love and he let go of God. What about you? What about me?

You know this is the last time that I will be leading a discussion in this group in 1998. I’m not scheduled to do that next week. This has been an unusual year for me and frankly I almost didn’t make it to this particular day. I suppose you could say that for a few seconds in the emergency room I was medically dead. And the Lord was gracious in His love and mercy to allow me to resume my life. And now I remain from this experience with the vessel that has rested the hardest on my heart, to realize that every day that the Lord gives you is a token of His love and mercy.

And that suddenly all of the mundane things of life, ordinary things of life, are rich this morning and they are the tokens of God’s love. I sit in the office and I punch the computer and continue to write. It’s a privilege that the love of God has given to me. I’m in the gym working out with the family and I thought many times as I’ve been in the gym I might never see you. I’m at home relaxing or reading a book and the thought crosses my mind I might never have seen this apartment again.

And I’m hoping that one of the things that will remain with me for the remainder of the days that God gives me is the realization that every single favor that He allows us to enjoy, whether ordinary or extraordinary, is a token of His love, a token of His goodness and mercy to us. And I hope and I pray that I will return that love in greater measure as the days go by.

I want you to go home today, sometime between now and Christmas, trying to get by yourself. I know it’s a busy season. We’re trying to get by yourself and begin by thinking of all of the things that are right around you in your home that are the tokens of God’s love to you. Then think of your loved ones who will be with you at Christmas or who actually still live in your home and think of each one as God’s gift of love to you. And then of course think of Christmas as the supreme expression of God’s love for us, His Son to become our Savior by offering His life on the cross.

Think of all these things and then say in your heart to God, “Help me to love You more. Help me to love You more.” The songwriter has put it so well, “Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky. O love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong. It shall forevermore endure the saints’ and angels’ song. We love Him because He first loved us.”

It would seem to me, uh-huh, I would certainly say yeah it would seem to me that that’s okay. The Old Testament itself has many indications in it that the people of the Old Testament were people of faith and a knowledge of the life to come. And they had the gospel from the earliest time in a form that is consistent with what we know without knowing the name of Jesus. So yeah I would say surely, uh-huh, I would surely think so. Well in Solomon is remarkable in that he is, to the very best of my recollection, the only king whom God directly dealt with. He appeared to him twice. He was, I’m sure he had all of the necessary answers to these obvious questions.