Alright, Brethren, 1 Kings chapter
10, Queen of Sheba came to Solomon, and our Lord spoke of this. In
Matthew 12, the Lord was declaring that He must give a new heart
for a man to be able to preach the gospel, to speak right things
concerning the Lord. The scribes and the Pharisees,
he said, could not preach Christ. They couldn't speak right things. He said, O generation of vipers,
how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh. And then they came, certain of
the scribes and Pharisees, and they answered him. They're always
quick to answer and object, tell what they knew. And they said,
Master, we'd see a sign from thee. But he answered and he
said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. What about speaking in languages
men had never learned? Wasn't that given for a sign?
But for who? It was a sign for a time, but
who was it a sign for? Scripture said, Paul said, in
the law it's written, with men of other tongues and other lips,
will I speak unto the people. That's what the Lord said. I
will speak through these men who speak in other languages.
And in other lips will I speak unto the people, and yet for
all that they will not hear me, saith the Lord. They won't hear
me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign
not to them that believe, but to them that believe not. But
preaching, prophesying, preaching the gospel of Christ, serveth
not for them that believe not, but for them which believe. And
our Lord answered, and he said to them, An evil and an adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given
to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as Jonas was three
days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son
of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation
and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching
of Jonas. And behold, a greater than Jonas
is here. Christ is the sign. He's the
proof. When he speaks into the heart and he gives a new heart
and he gives faith, then you have the evidence of things not
seen. You have the substance of things
hoped for. Abraham didn't need a sign. He believed the word
of the Lord. He had all the proof he needed. He believed God. That's
what Christ does in the heart. He's the one who gives this this
revelation of him but he spoke of the Queen of the South in
verse Matthew 12 42 he said the Queen of the South shall rise
up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn
it for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the
wisdom of Solomon and behold a greater than Solomon is here. Look there at first Kings 10
Look at what she heard and look why she came. 1 Kings 10 when
the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the
name of the Lord. She came to prove him with hard
questions. She came there not to hear Solomon's
natural wisdom. She came to hear the name of
the Lord. She came to hear what he knew
concerning the name of the Lord. What she had heard, she's going
to say later, I didn't believe it. Too good to be true until
I came. She came to Solomon and she heard
the name of the Lord declared through the Lord's preacher.
When you think of Solomon, what do you think his chief office
was? You think of him being a king? He was a king, but his chief
office was as the preacher of our Lord. He was a preacher of
the gospel. Ecclesiastes 1.1, the words of
the preacher, the son of David, the king in Jerusalem. He was
a preacher. He declared the truth. Her coming
to Solomon is an illustration of the child of God coming to
hear the gospel of Christ, to hear a word from Christ, to hear
Christ speak through the gospel. to be taught of our Lord Jesus.
Behold, a greater than Solomon is here. The Lord gave Solomon
wisdom, but our Savior is wisdom. The Lord gave Solomon an understanding
to preach the truth. Christ is the truth. Paul said,
of God is Christ made unto us wisdom. In Christ are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He said, no man knows the Son,
but the Father neither knows any man the Father save the Son,
and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. She heard the
report in her own land, but she not only heard it, she came from
a long way. The Lord said, from the uttermost
parts of the earth she came to hear. She came to hear. The Lord's
sheep would go a long way to hear the gospel of our Redeemer.
They'll go a long way to hear the gospel of our Redeemer. People
that hear how far some of you drive think that's foolishness.
They think it's foolishness. But the Lord had raised up the
gospel in every place. And, you know, if a man founds
out that he has a disease and he hears there's a physician
that can heal that disease, no distance is too far to go with
that disease. Well, our Lord is the great physician.
He makes His people every whit hole. And when we find out that
we're wounds and bruises and putrefying sores from the top
of our head to the sole of our feet, then we want to come hear
about Christ. We want to hear from Christ.
We want to hear the word of our Lord. We want to hear of how
He is wisdom and how He is salvation. We want to be taught of the Lord.
We keep coming to Him to be taught of Him. The Queen of the South
didn't come there to debate and to object. That's not what these
hard questions are about. That's what the Pharisees and
the scribes did. They always had a word. She came there with
questions too hard for her. She came there with questions
no other man could answer for her. She came to hear the wisdom the Lord had given
Solomon concerning the Lord. the wisdom of the Lord. That's
what she came there with. This was a queen. She had servants
under her rule. But she came there like Mary
and she sat down at Solomon's feet to be taught of him. To be taught of him. The Lord's
going to say through the preaching of the gospel, that's humbling.
That's humbling. The Lord has to humble us to
hear him and look to him through his means that he's chosen. Our
Lord said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I'm
meek and lowly in heart, you shall find rest until your soul.
He's the faithful witness, but we have to be made as children. He said, except you are converted
and become as little children, willing to hear, willing to be
taught of the Lord through the means he's ordained, He said,
you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. She came there with
some hard questions. She came there wanting to know
some things about salvation. She came there wanting to know
some things about how a sinner can be saved. She came there
to hear concerning the name of the Lord. What are some things
the Lord's going to reveal that are hard questions that no man
can answer? Only the Lord can reveal it.
Only the Lord can reveal it. This is what's revealed to us
by Christ when he speaks and makes us know him. Here's the
question of all questions. You know we're going to talk
about questions. You know where I'm going to start. This is a
question of all questions. How can a man be just with God?
How can he be clean as born of a woman? There's no sinner that
has the wisdom to answer that. We don't even know we need to
be justified. We don't even know we need to
be clean until God makes us know it. And there's no way we can
justify ourselves. There's nothing we can do to
justify ourselves. We wouldn't need to be justified
if that was so. Only the Lord makes us know that
we have no good in us. We have no way of justifying
ourselves. We sinned in another and we must
be justified by another. We must be made to righteousness
of God by another. There's only one way a sinner
can be just by God. Only one way we can be just with
God, be justified by God, that's by God, by our Lord Jesus Christ
being made righteousness unto us, made to know it's by his
obedience alone that we're made the righteousness of God. That's
the only way we can be justified with God. That's what Christ
accomplished. That's why God is both just and
he's the justifier. Every sinner that sins has to
die and we died in him. And that perfect obedience is
the righteousness of His people. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. God did the justifying. God was
in Christ. He did the justifying. Romans
3.24 says this, being justified freely, by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth a propitiation
through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness. his
righteousness in the remission of sins, to declare how he's
righteous in remitting the sins of his people through the forbearance
of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness
that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
righteousness of God. He's God and he's the righteousness
of God. He's God, our righteousness in
human flesh. And He justified His people.
He justified His people. That righteousness is given to
us through God giving us faith to believe Him. Giving us faith
to believe Him. Trust Him. Abraham believed God
and it was accounted to him for righteousness. God imputed righteousness
to him. Here's another question. How
can a sinner have life? How can he have spiritual life?
How can he know Christ? How can he believe on Christ?
The Lord Jesus said we must be born again. Nicodemus had a question. Nicodemus had a question. He
said, how can a man be born when he's old? How can he enter the
second time into his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus answered,
verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of water
and of spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. He can't
even see the Lord, not with faith. We must be born by the Holy Spirit
through the word of the gospel, through the word of the Lord.
A new man is born within. A new man is created within,
within the sinner. A new man is born. A new man
is born, born by the Holy Spirit, born by the Word of God, which
lives and abides forever. That's utterly foolishness to
this world. That's foolishness to this world.
Tell me something else. Give me a sign. Our Lord said,
marvel not. I said unto you, you must be
born again. Here's another hard question. No man can answer this.
The Lord has to reveal this. When I'm born of God, and brought
to believe on Christ, how is it that the all-seeing, all-knowing
God can declare that He sees no sin in His people? How is
that? How can the all-knowing God not
remember our sin anymore? That's what He said. How can
that be? You reckon Queen of Sheba asked
Solomon this? She came asking concerning the
name of the Lord. This is His name. Here's how. Christ Jesus the
Lord has removed all the transgressions from all His people. He didn't
leave one. He removed all the transgressions
from His people. He's the one pictured in a scapegoat
that took all the sins of His people away. This is what God
says of His people. He said, As far as the east is
from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from
us. That's God's Word. He said, I,
even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own
sake, and will not remember thy sins. I will not, God said, I
will not remember them. That's God's Word. He said, in
those days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity
of Israel shall be sought for. Who's going to seek for it? The
devil's seeking for it. Pharisees and scribes were seeking
for it in our Lord. God says it'll be sought for
but before Him, before God, where it matters, before God, this
is what He said, there shall be none. There shall be none. The sins of Judah and they shall
not be found for I will pardon whom I reserve. That tells you
what pardon is, doesn't it? God has wiped every sin out. He has blotted out every sin
of His people. It cost Christ His blood, and
He blotted them out with His blood, but He's removed them.
He's pardoned His people of all our transgressions. Brethren,
God does not pretend. He does not pretend. He does
not see sin in His people because Christ put our sin away. When
God says He will not impute sin to His people, it's because by
the blood of Christ we have no sin to impute. That's so. God imputes righteousness because
Christ made His people the righteousness of God by His obedience. This
is so. Here's another question. How
can God say in His Word that those born of Him sin not and
never die, and yet you and me that trust Him and believe Him,
we see our sin and we die physically. How can both of those be true?
How can both of those be true? Christ said to Nicodemus, he
said, that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of the Holy Spirit is spirit. That's how it can be so. Our
old man is still sinful flesh. The Lord didn't do anything to
our old man of flesh. The Holy Spirit entered in and
created a new spirit. That which is born of flesh is
still flesh. That which is born of the Holy Spirit is spirit. Those born again are two men
in one. You're an old man of Adam and
a new man of Christ. An old man of Adam, a new man
of Christ. The new man cannot sin, cannot be corrupted, cannot
die. Why is that? Because we're born
again of the incorruptible seed. the Word of God which liveth
and abideth forever. So the new man can't be corrupted,
can't sin, can't be corrupted, can't die. Born of the incorruptible
seed by the Word of God which lives and abides forever. Whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin for his seed remaineth in
him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. But then we
have our old man. Our old man's only sinful flesh
and only sins. Our old man is sin and only sins. The carnal mind is enmity against
God, for it's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be. Paul said, I delight in the law
of God after the inward man. That's so of you who brought
in him. I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
Every word of God, I delight in it. It's my hope. It's my
salvation. We just sang it. Christ is all
in all. But I see another law in my members,
in my old man. Warring, constantly warring,
just warring against the law of my mind, a new man. He's against
me. He's bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin, which is in my members. Brethren, when you
come to our great Solomon, he declares, those that were born
of him and believe on him are under grace. Therefore, sin shall
not have dominion over you. He will not let you fall away
from Him. He will not. There's a new man
created in Him, by Him, and He dwells in that new man, and He
will not permit sin to have the dominion over you. But we know
this, you know this, the fear is, you are brought into the
captivity of your old man. That's exactly what Paul declared.
But God has a purpose in that. He could have totally made you
entirely new, but God has a purpose in that as long as you're in
this world. What's His purpose? He keeps us seeing that in my
flesh dwells no good thing. He keeps me seeing when I would
do good, evil is present with me. You examine yourself tomorrow. You do an inventory tomorrow
as you go through the day, and you just count how many times
you've sinned against God. but just the ones you know about.
Thoughts, words, looks, whatever. You know what he does by that? He keeps you from getting puffed
up. He keeps you from being too exalted. And here's something else he
does. He keeps you crying out to the Lord to deliver you and
be your salvation. Here was Paul's question, and
here's the answer he got from the Master. He said, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I'm carrying around a dead body. Who's going to deliver me from
him? Today, next hour, next hour, tomorrow, eventually in the end. Who's going to deliver me from
the body of this death? Here's the answer the Lord gave
him. I thank God is through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with
the mind, with the new man, I myself serve the law of God, but with
the flesh, the law of sin. Child of God, you that are His,
mortify the flesh through the Spirit. Come to Christ. Come to our Solomon. Cry out
to him. Ask him for mercy and for grace
to help. Go to His Word. Mortify the flesh
through the Spirit. The only way we can do it. We
can put away sin and be so puffed up in sin that we put away some
sin that we don't even know who we are. Do it through the Spirit. But
when your sinful flesh brings you into captivity, you keep crying to the Lord to
deliver you. Paul said, you've not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear. You've received the spirit of
adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. You see, if you weren't
born of the Spirit of God, you wouldn't know anything about
this warfare. The scribes and Pharisees didn't have this warfare. Only if you're born of God do
you have this warfare. That's the only time that you
see you are the loathsome thing. and hate yourself, not just your
sin. Our Lord said in that day, they'll
loathe their own selves. But Paul said, because you have
the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of adoption, he will bear witness
with that new man. The Spirit will bear witness
with our spirit that you're the children of God. And he'll bring
you to cry, Abba, Father. And he said, not only that, he
said, when you don't know how to cry or you can't even get
the words out, he said, the Spirit himself will make intercession
with words that cannot be uttered. That's what he's telling us.
This is how you're delivered. And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. When he tells you
the Spirit makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot
be uttered, this is something that you and I, we, if we do
enter into this, it's very, very little. It has something to do with how
Peter was spared. It has something to do with how
David was spared. How all his people are spared.
When you're not calling out to God, when you're not, when you're,
when you're crying bitter tears and you think it's over for you,
the Spirit is interceding for you. Christ is faithful to you
when you don't have faith toward Him. And he's the one, just what
Brother Adam just read, when he said, call on him, they not
called on him. And he gonna keep you calling
on him. This is how, and all of this
is what Paul's talking about when he said, God is working
all things together for them that love God to them who are
the called according to his purpose. It's all united with this being
constantly delivered from the body of this death. That's one
thing he's working together with everything else to show you Christ
is your salvation. And you're going to be more than
conquerors through Christ that loved you. None of these things
are going to separate you from him. That's what he's declaring.
Why? Because it's God that justified you. It's Christ that laid down
his life and is at God's right hand interceding for you. That's
how. That's foolishness to men that think they're righteous.
This is how God makes his people zealous of good works. zealous to do for you brethren
what Christ has done for you constantly. Constantly. Be gracious and merciful and
not trust in your works, not boast in your works. Listen to
Proverbs 24 15. Lay not weight, O wicked man,
against the dwelling of the righteous. Spoil not his resting place,
for a just man falleth seven times, and he rises up again. Be careful about God's people. That's what he's saying to the
enemy. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and
he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not
be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.
Christ lifts us up, He uses brethren to speak of Christ our righteousness,
and by that, you know what He's doing? He's growing you to be
patient under the Lord's rod. And trust the Lord. Wait on the Lord. Micah learned that. Micah said,
therefore I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God
of my salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice
not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When
I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be light unto me. I will bear
the indignation of the Lord. I'll bear the rod because I've
sinned against him. until he plead my cause, execute
judgment for me. He'll bring me forth to the light.
I shall behold his righteousness. That's what Paul's talking about
when he said, who's going to deliver me from the body of this
death? When I'm brought into captivity, this is what he's
teaching me. Wait on the Lord. He's going
to raise you up. He's going to show you his mercy
and his grace abundantly towards you. You wouldn't see it if you
didn't need it. And what he's going to do by
that is he's going to grow you to know. He's not going to let
sin have dominion over you. He's going to keep you. No matter
what men say, no matter what they do. Now lastly, notice what
happened. This is what happens when we
come to Christ. Go back there to 1 Kings 10. How do we come to Christ? How
do you come to Christ? You come in your heart. You come
in your heart. By the Spirit of God, you come
in your heart to come to Him. Come to His Word. Meditate on
His Word. Come hear His Gospel. Solomon's
a preacher preaching the Gospel to this woman. You hear the Gospel,
but you're hearing Christ. You're coming to Christ. Verse
2 says, When she was come to Solomon, she communed with him
of all that was in her heart. That's what we do when we come
to Christ. And Solomon told her all her questions. There was
not anything hid from the king which he told her not. You go
to Christ and you pour out your heart to him. Open up your heart
to him and pour out your heart to him. Be honest with him. Pour
out everything to him. Everything to him. He said that He will receive
all who come to Him broken, asking mercy and asking wisdom. He said,
ìHim that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.î And what
does Christ make us see? Look at verse 4, ìAnd when the
queen of Sheba had seen all Solomonís wisdom in the house that he had
builtÖî Thatís what the Lordís going to make you see. Heís going
to make you see Christ, our wisdom. The Pharisees never saw him.
He never made them see him. And that's why they kept on quick
answering. Every time he'd speak something,
they had something, something they knew. She came there and
heard. She came there and heard wisdom
speak. She heard the Lord speak through
Solomon. And our Lord's going to make you see that he builds
his house She saw the house that he had built, the Lord going
to make you see, he's building his house. One living stone upon
another. Putting them together fitly frank.
He's doing that. Verse 5, and she saw the meat
of his table. The Lord, the Lord just keeps
on bringing you to his table and reminding you, you eat my
flesh and you drink my blood, you have life. And he keeps feeding
his child with the bread from heaven. He draws you to his table, like
Mephibosheth. He fetches you and brings you
to his table. When you're so crippled, you
can't get to the table. And she saw, verse 5, the sitting
of his servants. They weren't running about. They
weren't all in a fuss. They were sitting there listening
to Solomon with her. That's what they were doing.
He gives you rest in His presence. That's what He does. When the
Lord makes His presence known, don't you know it when He makes
His presence known? You've experienced that. And
He just gives you rest. You just sit down. And she saw,
verse 5, the attendance of His ministers. You know, John, he
was given this revelation And he looked up into glory, and
he saw and he heard the voice of many angels round about the
throne, and the number of them was ten thousands times ten thousands,
thousands of thousands. And the Lord teaches us in his
word, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister
to them who should be heirs of salvation? He makes you know
you're safe in Christ our refuge with all his angels about you,
protecting you unless you dash your foot against a stone. This
is how Christ made wisdom to us. She saw, verse 5, their apparel
and his cupbearers. Don't you know that Solomon's, all his servants were just covered
in the finest apparel. The Lord Jesus is going to make
us see He has robed all His people in His righteousness. These cupbearers,
If a cup got that full, they just came and filled it up with
new wine. They kept the cup running over.
Christ is going to make by His grace and His mercy and His love
and His faithfulness, He is going to keep your cup running over,
running over, running over. She saw verse 5, His ascent by
which He went up unto the house of the Lord. Christ Jesus is
going to turn us from everything below And he's going to turn
us to see Christ ascended up into glory, into his house, seated
at God's right hand. And here's what else he makes
us see. He makes you see that you're seated right there with
him. Your life is here with Christ in God. That's how he settles
you. That's how he becomes wisdom
to his child. What's the result when he does
this? Look at verse 5. There was no more spirit in her. She came there with some unbelief.
She came there, probably had some objections in her heart.
She's going to prove, in her flesh, she's thinking, I'm going
to prove Solomon. I'm going to ask him some hard questions.
When she saw everything and she heard the wisdom of the Lord,
that spirit was gone. Now she's in awe. And she said to the king, it
was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts
and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words
until I came and mine eyes had seen and behold the half was
not told me. You see, we can preach and preach
and preach and you can read the word, but it's only when Christ
draws you to him and he speaks to you that you're going to realize
the half hadn't been told. And even when right now, we can't
even hold much more than half. We're going to find out one day
the half wasn't even told. Thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth
the fame which I heard. That's what you're going to say.
That's what we're going to say one day. Now watch this. Happy, blessed are thy men. Happy,
blessed are these thy servants which stand continually before
thee. and that hear thy wisdom. Just come to Christ and hear
his wisdom. That's where you're going to find happiness. Blessed, this is what the result
is. Blessed be the Lord thy God. This is what we're going to say
of Christ Jesus right here. Blessed be the Lord thy God which
delighted in thee to set thee on the throne of Israel. Because
the Lord loved Israel forever. Unchangeable, everlasting love.
How do you see it? Therefore made He the King. He made Christ our King. That's
how you see God loved His people. He made Christ our King to do
judgment and justice. And that's what Christ did. Do
you see your sin? Do you see your sin? Are you troubled because all
you can do is see others sin? You need to be saved from that.
Are you in a trial? Is your heart aching? Do you
need direction? Do you need to know what to do? Christ bore all the sin of all
his people and put it away. Whatever burden you got, he can
bear it. He'll carry you and your burden.
He don't just take your burden off of you. He picks you up and
carries you. You need light? He's the light.
You need wisdom? He's wisdom. You need righteousness?
He's righteousness. You need mercy? He's mercy. You
need grace? He's grace. Whatever you need,
that's what He is. What are we just saying? Christ
is all. He's all. Come to Christ. Come empty. Come
absolutely empty. She came with all this stuff.
Come empty. Come empty. And you pour your
heart out to Christ, telling you what I know. Come with all your sins and all
your spots and all your disease and everything about you. You
ain't hiding it from Him. Come to Him. Pour your heart
out to Him. You'll see His wisdom and you'll
see His works and that'll be the result right there. And don't
ever stop coming to Him. Amen.