Avoid the Pitfalls of Wealth: 2 Chronicles 9:1-28

You're listening to the Bible guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, we just want to let you know we appreciate you tuning in, listening or watching the Bible guys today. I love that roll in because if people didn't know, they might be thinking that they were tuning into something different, really amazing. And so there's a warning. Hey, just so you know you're listening to the Bible guys, we should just change the role and we go okay, heads up, warning, warning. Yeah, this is not a scholarly approach. This is a discussion of fun and practical things revolving around the Bible, which, by the way, I have always believed one of the main reasons why. In fact, I just talked about this when we were on vacation. Not vacation, but I went down a couple of days earlier this year, your daughter in Florida. You had a couple of vacations. Yes, yes, we went to that. I did not. Yes, that's anyway. When I was on the vacation part of my thing, I was walking and I was talking, and I said, you know the reason why I become a communicator or actually a pastor in general. It's because I wanted to be able to communicate that the Bible is relevant, it is practical, it is applicable, right, and it's understandable, and so it's it's it's one of the reasons why you know, I'm so passionate about communicating is because that's what the Bible is. It's meant for that, so fun and practical way is there's nothing wrong with that. So while you were saying that, you were also walking. You were walking and talking on your vacation. We were walking to a restaurant. That's those that skill sets. One of things I've always loved about you. You're reality to walk in. I was able to rub my stumach and pat in my head at the same time. We haven't even get into that segment yet. Okay, all right, So this is our one of our favorite segments that has a jingle. We are going to do mail bags. Mail Bags is when somebody writes in by the way, wait, there's no physical mail bag. It's an email. There's not it's always a quote unquote bag. That's right, by the way, if you want to email us, it is info at the Bible guys dot com hopefully put it on the screen if you're watching, and you can also text in, you know, through YouTube and all these different different ways. So that's right. Anyway, Carry your pigeon, carry a pigeon anything. This comes from Marissa L. Hi. Marissa L Yeah. Marissa says this. Throughout your years of ministry or out traveling, did you ever have an quote I can't believe I actually did that unquote moment and what was it? Yes, we did plenty of so many of those. That's a great question, Marissa. Yeah, okay, you first, Oh, I've had a few. Most of them are usually on like a day off. So typically when when I go overseas, it's like five or six days, ten twelve hour days of working. But then we kind of have this policy, and you've been a part of this, where we will take a day and we'll do something fun right somewhere, and so on those fun days sometimes I think maybe I shouldn't have done that. We went whitewater whitewater rafting in Nepal in the Himalayas during monsoon season. God bless you, Chris. Yes, God bless you Chris. Thank you so much. I was just hoping it wasn't picked up, that was it. And it's during monsoon season and all of the rivers were shut down except the river we were on, and we got in the middle of that, and I thought this was a really bad idea. So the owner of the you know, they didn't even have a sign a waiver. We didn't sign anything. We just get in these raging rapids. I've showed you the video of where we got in on that river, and it was already Class three rapids there and he's explaining to us, now listen, if you go overboard, don't worry. We have the three time world champion recovery team wow, our group. And I raised my hand and he said yes, And I said I I don't want to be recovered. I'd rather be rescued. Can you send that rescue people. He just kind of shrugged his shoulders and left and we got in. And I'm telling you there were moments on that white water rafting trip I thought, this is it. This is That's. How I die. Yeah, So that's so great. So mine is. When we were in Egypt, we also had a day where we were just sort of sightseeing and we went to go see the Pyramids, And for those of you who don't know, the Pyramids are one big giant tomb of the Pharaoh and you can climb, you can actually pay to climb all the way up into the Pyramids. And it's exhausting cliss it's. A grueling climb, and you get up in. There, it's hot, and it's hot, so yeah. And your muscles are anyway, so I'm all the way up in there. It took like thirty minutes to get up there, it seemed like. Anyway, And there's this. Room where there's. A box and it's made out of own it's part of the you know, one big. Marble that's kind of built into the into that sarcophagus room. Yeah, and so it's the box where the pharaoh sarcophagus was for I'm assuming thousands of years, but since then all the treasure has been removed. But you can walk into that room and there's like this box. Well there's like a rope that says do not cross, do not touch, And there was a guy in there and the security guy, and the security guy said, hey, since you're the only two in here, he goes, I just want to let you know I'm gonna go down and I'll be back up. So he left us in the room alone, and it's like. A twenty minute thirty minute walk down, and so I knew nobody's going to be there, and so I looked over at my buddy and I said, hey, I want to climb in and lay in the tomb where it was. And so I actually climbed over the rope, but you're not supposed to do. Laid in there, and I folded my arms like a cross and he took a picture and I have a photo of it. But I'm just thinking, gosh, every time I see the pyramids, right, that thing was created right for that pharaoh, and I laid there where he was for thousands. That was the one that you can go up into the middle of. That's the great pyramid, right, that's a great pyramid of Cufu. Oh no, is it? I thought, well, it's in Giza. Oh it's yeah, yeah, it's a great pyramid of Kufu. So I did the same thing when I went there, which is hysterical. I don't have a photo of it because I didn't want any evidence, but I just did it just to be funny. Yeah, yeah, it's so funny. Is I told that story a long time ago, a couple of years back, and You're like, I did the same thing, and I'm like, no, you didn't. And by the way, I don't know anybody who has either. I don't know. I don't know either you and I both have done it, which is hilarious. Okay, so those are two crazy things that we've done that we can't believe. How about have you had any encounters with animals or any of those kinds of things or vehicles or those kinds of things. Yeah, I think you probably have more than me. The only the only thing that the only story I tell is that when I was in Kenya, which I think. You were there that weekend, uh, the the when. I was in that missionary house, that Methodist missionary camp with. You, when you two. I hear that it was. Like two in the morning, and I heard the dogs barking outside, like like in a really fierce way, and and I almost walked outside because they were in a pen right now. I almost walked outside to see what was going on, but I didn't. I was super close, you know, two in the morning, I thought, oh, good, look at the stars. And the next morning our leaders came in and said, you know, it's really possible. The reason why they were barking is because the wild dogs that roam Africa could have been out there very close in the field. And they said, you know, had you walked out and that was the case, you would have surely died. Well, so when we were when we are in bed, they let go their guard dogs. So their guard dogs are inside the fence of the compound. Oh wow, and those guard dogs will tear you up too, so yeah, yeah, so either side of that, Yeah, that was that was I remember when that happened. That was a crazy one. Yeah. How about that time we were in Hanzania together and the driver drove right into a Pride alliance. Yes, remember that we didn't have any doors doors. You reached out smacking on the head if you want. Thank goodness, they were you could see their bellies were distended. They'd already eaten that morning. But well, you know, hey, how many times have you been completely full and you still lated a twinkie? Right? One more chicken nugget? I mean, you're literally white meat. They might go, hey, I haven't had that before, you know what I mean? I have a video of the lion who eyeballing me walking. She was walking towards me and then she just turned at the last minute. I'm like, I'm like, I am within striking distance. You could have smacked her on the head. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, we've done a lot. Well, thank you, Marissa. There's honestly, I bet you we could go for another hour just telling snippets. That's dumb things we've done somehow. You know, this is how you know that God protects dumb people, right, because we've done some stuff. Yeah, not because of ourselves, but in spite of ourselves. That's right. It was a fun one. I like that was Thank you, Marissa. Thank you. So we are continuing with the Life of Solomon Solomon, which we began last week. And how do you transition from I can't believe I actually did that to this Chris Well speaking of traveling the world, Solomon had the world travel to him. Ooh, there you go, man, that's fantastic, because that's what this is all about. That's right. This whole thing is about the visit of the Queen of Sheba. Yeah. You know what funny thing is we said it right before the recording. You're a cheesy transition life forgotten. Right right there, you go. Well, the best cheesy transitions are the one you don't think about, speaking of traveling the world, the world travel to Solomon. Okay, so we are in Second Chronicles, chapter nine, and we're going to read. I think most of this entire chapter says when the Queen of Sheba, which Sheba is down in Ethiopia what we would consider modern day Ethiopia. When the Queen of she But heard of Solomon's fame, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. And she arrived with a large group of attendants and a great caravan of camels, load with spices, large quantities of gold, and precious jewels. When she met with Solomon, she talked with him about everything she had on her mind. Salomon had answers for all her questions. Nothing was too hard for him to explain to her. When the Queen of Sheba realized how wise Solomon was, and when she saw the palace he had built, she was overwhelmed. She was so amazed at the food on his tables, the organization of his officials and their splendid clothing, the cupbears and their robes, and the burnt offering Solomon made at the temple of the Lord, and she exclaimed to the king, everything I heard in my country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. I didn't believe what was said until I arrived here and sought with my own eyes. In fact, I had not heard the half of your great wisdom. It is far beyond what I was told. How happy your people must be. What a privilege for your officials to stand here day after day listening to your wisdom. Praise the Lord, your God, who delights in you and has placed you on the throne as king. Rule for him. Because God loves Israel and desires this kingdom lasts forever. He has made you king over them, so you can rule with justice and righteousness. And then she gave the king a gift of nine thousand pounds of gold, great quantities of spices and precious jewels. Never before had there been spices as fine as those the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon. In addition, the crews of Hiram and Solomon brought gold from ofir They also brought red sandalwood and precious jewels. The king used the sandalwood to make steps for the temple of the Lord and the royal palaces, and to construct leers and harps for the musicians. Never before had such beautiful things been seen in Judah. I continue right, yes, verse actually vers Nomber twelve. Oh yeah. King Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba whatever she asked for, gifts of greater value than the gifts she had given him. Then she and all her attendants returned to their own land. Each year, Solomon received about twenty five tons of gold. This did not include the additional revenue he received from merchants and traders. All the kings of Arabia and the governors of the provinces also brought gold and silver to Solomon. King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold, each weighing more than fifteen pounds. He also made thirty smaller shields of hammered gold, each weighing more than seven and a half pounds. The king placed these shields in the palace of the Forest of Lebanon. Then the king made a huge throne decorated with ivory and overlaid with pure gold. The throne had six steps with a footstool of gold. There were armrests on both sides of the seat, and the figure of a lion stood on each side of the throne. There were also twelve other lions, one standing on each end of the six steps. No other throne in all the world could be compared with it. All of King Solomon's drinking cups were solid gold, as were all the utensils in the palace of the Forest Elebanon. They were not made of silver, for silver was considered worthless in Solomon's day. The king had a fleet of trading ships, manned by the sailors sent by Hyrum. Once every three years, the ship's returned loaded with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. So King Solomon became richer and wiser than any other king on earth. Kings from every nation came to consult him and to hear the wisdom God had given him. Year after year, everyone who visited brought him gifts of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, horses, and mules. Salomon had four thousand stalls for his horses and chariots, and he had twelve thousand horses. He stationed some of them in the chariot cities, and some near him in Jerusalem. He ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates River in the north to the land of the Philistines and the Bard of Egypt in the south. The king made silver as plentiful in Jerusalem as stone and valuable cedar timber was as common as the sycamore fig trees that grow in the foothills of Judah. Salomon's horses were imported from Egypt and many other countries. And we can just go on and on and on, yeah, with his unbelievable wealth and power and wisdom. So again, it's just one of those things where you know, growing up breeding the Bible and going to Bible College and being in church world. You know, when you hear all these references to King Solomon or or David, you don't think that think of them as like multi billionaires, right right, You just don't. You know, you think of you know, what it means to fight battles, and then you know all the different things that are written about them in terms of their character, integrity, their lessons, their faith right and all their hardships and struggles and all their you know, things that they had overcome, and you know, you just don't think of them sitting there receiving ready for this twenty five tons of gold. I looked that up. I looked it up and today's value. Yeah, that's one point nine billion dollars. And that was every year. That was that was every year, not including the gold he got in tribute from all of the kings of Arabia and all of the governors of the provinces. Yeah, that's that's just some that's some of his revenue gold. By the way of gold, that's just of gold. It doesn't mention all, you know, it doesn't even add up. It doesn't tell us the totals on the number of gems and all that kind of stuff that's also coming to him. I'm a little fascinated by him receiving apes. Yeah, apes and peacocks. Yeah, well y had his own zoom, right, that's that's kind of what they're hinting at there. And that's one of those traditional tribute of one thousand apes. What do you do with apes? But I guess I guess that was kind of a thing. So so here were some peacocks. You can imagine the big peacocks walking all around here his palace. Imagine peacocks on that landscape. The beautifulful landscape, right, it had to have been just glorious. So then the Queen of Sheba shows up, which. I can't even believe you said the words that would be modern day Ethiopia without saying. I was just Ethiopia a couple of days ago. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't believe you. I can't believe you didn't say that immediately. And so, by the way, this is a this is a cool quick reference. Uh so you tell tell everybody why you went to Ethiopia, what what was the idea? So, you know, I worked with the Timoth Initiative, and so we had a large gathering of our you know, major contributors and donors. And every year we do this, it's a Global Partner's Weekend. You can find that online. Global partners Weekend. We do two of them. We raise a lot of money in those times. But for a lot of people, they give a lot of money and don't always have you know, they're giving to an idea, and so we're always trying to find ways to make the idea be very real and tangible because a lot of these people they're not going to get on a plane and go to the places that we're investing in where we start new churches, we make disciple makers, all these kinds of things. So one of the ideas the CEO had was, hey, let's send the chairman of the board and his wife to Ethiopia. And because Ethiopia was getting ready to have a big baptism and so they were going to baptize three hundred and fifty something new believers this one event. And so my wife and I at GPW the Global Partners weekend gathering, they call us up on stage with our suitcases. They send us with a friend of ours called mez Gebu within the first half an hour of the start of the weekend. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right, And we took off right from there, got on a plane, flew all the way to Ethiopia. We were on a plane and in airports for twenty two hours. We landed, We got three hours of sleep, and then we went to this baptism and we broadcast the baptism live yeah, and told the story of the guy. It was pretty neat. And then that we baptized, and then they had all these other baptisms and they were singing and dancing and celebration, and then we were able to sleep that night in bed, and then we got on the plane and flew back to the US. So forty something hours of flying in so we could do this, you know, one hour baptism. In one hour baptism vent. Yeah, that it was pretty rough. It had been one of the craziest things to sign up for that I've heard of. Yeah, because obviously we I've been to you know, Africa, I don't know, eight nine times or whatever, and and I've seen, you know, different villages, and I've seen baptisms work. We've been there together in Kansanaia where those baptisms are incredible, phenomenal. They're phenomenal, but getting there is it's like it's brutal, brutal, Yeah, And so for you to spend forty hours to do that for one hour baptism was one of the most insane. So we get there and this lake is a it's a volcanic lake. So the top of the volcano had blown off and then it flooded, and so we're in there and they wanted me to go down in the water baptized. The water was like chocolate milk. It was so yeah, it was really it wasn't it wasn't great. Yeah, and so I was like, no, no, it's okay, I'll witness. No, no, we want to go to your guest of honor. So I go down the water, and just before I go in the water, I said, well, I hope the crocodiles don't like white meat, because I'm going to be the only option, right right, But thank goodness, nothing bit me while I was in the water. Yes, and yeah, it was a little scary. But anyways, there's amazing things happening. Thousands of new churches are being planted all over Ethiopia, and it's it's really phenomenal. But you know, the Queen of Sheeba goes back from according to tradition, she leaves Jerusalem. She's so impressed by Solomon and his wisdom but also his faith that she adopts Judaism and imports Judaism into Ethiopia to the point that thousands of years later one of the largest groups of non Hebrew Jews in the world where they're in Ethiopia, to the point that by the time you get to the New Testament, remember one of the very first non Jewish people, you know, non Middle Eastern people to become Christians was the Ethiopian Eunich coming In the Book of Acts literally says the Ethiopian Eunich was returning home to Ethiopia from Jerusalem. Ever, having worshiped, right, he went to Jerusalem to worship, Yeah, and then he was going home. So this was the beginning of that. And it's you know, a thousand years before. Yeah, that's that's before Jesus. That's great thinking. And I wouldn't have connected those dots. Hey, there's a note here and for it says in First Kings ten, which tells the same exact story. By the way, it says in accumulating cheerio and horses a huge harem for king's eleven and incredible wealth, it actually says Solomon was violating God's commands for a king, violating what was said in Deuteronomy seventeen. Apparently God prohibited these actions because he knew how they would hurt the nation, both politically and spiritually. For simulate, the more luxurious Solomon's court became, the more the people were taxed. Excessive taxation created unrest, and soon conditions became ripe for a revolution. Having everything he wanted, Solomon forgot God and allowed pagan influences to enter his court through the pagan wives, thus accelerating the spiritual corruption of the nation. And it sounds like we've not really gotten there yet. But the reason why I bring it up is because this is the beginning of the road there, right. Yeah, this is there's a conflict here because also the Bible often talks about Job's wealth Abraham's wealth as signs of God's blessing for right living in right. So you have that David was incredibly wealthy as a sign. The issue wasn't that he became wealthy. Wealth by itself is not an issue. It's often a sign that you did the right things, you made good choices. You know, you were wise with how you manage your resources. It's the opulence that's the difference you and I. We have a friend Tom Messer down in Florida. He's pastors a great church, he's the president of a great Bible college. And Tom says one of his challenges to his wealthy friends is before you increase your standard of living, make sure you increase your standard of giving. And what happened was Solomon shifted. So he took several billion dollars and built the temple, and then he was done with that. He just kept giving to himself. Now the people also prospered. There was a season here where silver was so rampant in the city of Jerusalem was like stones. So the people also benefited. As long as the as long as the king is serving the people and serving God, things are good. But what happens is by the end of Solomon's reign, and you'll find this out. We'll talk about in the next few days, Solomon, all these women that he has in his household did not convert to Judaism. Instead, he began to worship their gods and build their temples. He also began to drive for more and more and more and more wealth. And it stopped being that the silver was flowing through the streets and started being that everything was flowing to the king, and his heart shifted in there somewhere, but here at this point, when you meet Queen of Sheba, she's seeing him at his peak's seeing him when he's honoring God as much as he can. He's prospering the city and the people of Israel. He's got peace from coast to coast, and he has wealth beyond comprehension, and the whole kingdom. Everybody in the kingdom is succeeding too. So it's possible to have your very best day today, and if you're not paying attention, you might have your worst day tomorrow spiritually, right, So sometimes it's attempt. Well, I built my temple, I've worshiped my God, I proved that I'm a good follower of God, and then suddenly it shifts from God over to us if we're not careful. So it's a constant battle of our heart. I think that's what you see in Solomon's lives of faith at this moment. I don't think this is a bad thing. By the time you get to into his career, it's turned into just self centeredness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean it just it's a good thing to mention on the onset because we have to be on guard against that all the time. So even as we make great things and wealth increases, and even as we you know, you know, began to be stable and financially secure, we need to guard against all those things in our lives. Well, we've had several questions, and I don't know if Desire is going to put this in one of them. In the next few days or not. I haven't looked ahead, but we've had several questions about if Solomon was so wise, why did he make so many dumb choices? Right? Right? The two big dumb choices that he made was marrying so many women that were pagans, they didn't follow God. That was one, and then the other was his abuse of his power later in his career and taking everything to himself. Those two would probably be the two worst things that he does. So I think my answer to that question, how could such a wise man, the wisest man who ever lived? Essentially, how could he possibly make so many dumb decisions? And it's possible to be wise and still make a dumb decision. Yeah, right, that's the only answer. It seems shocking to us. If he's the wisest person, he's still only a human and humans are sinners, and so he makes bad choices. Something. Sometimes we know the right thing to do, we just don't want to do it. Oh yeah, we could ask our listeners, why do you know what you should do and then don't do it? Sometimes it's the same. If you can know the truth, you can have wisdom. But wisdom is only valuable if you apply it, and there's times that he chose not to and it was catastrophic. But here in this season, you know, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and blessed is the nation whose king follows God. And that's what's happening here doing all the right things. At this point. It's later in his in his life that he shifts. That's great. Well, that's our time, so hopefully we'll see you next time on the Bible, guys. H m hm m h m m m