So join me in your Bible this
morning to Luke chapter 11 as we're continuing our Bible study
in Luke chapter 11. And last week we were in verses 27-32. We left a little bit out of the
middle of that because I wanted to circle back on that by itself
because primarily this had to do with the Lord talking about
sign of Jonah being assigned to the Ninevites and how at the
sign of Jonah the Ninevites repented and how that the generation that
was there present with him at the time would not repent. And he said this is an evil generation
and they seek a sign but there shall no sign be given it but
the sign of Moses or Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was a sign
unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of Man be to this
generation." Luke 11, verse 30. In verse 32,
it says, "...the men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with
this generation." The Ninevites were a Gentile people that heard
the gospel from Jonah. And he said, they shall rise
up in judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented
at the preaching of Jonas, and behold, a greater than Jonas
is here. And so a Gentile nation repented at the preaching of
the gospel. And yet, The Gospel had been
declared so openly, and the witness of the Lord was so plain and
clear, and yet, they said, a greater than Jonas is here, and yet they
repented not. So now we go to, in our text
today, dealing with verse 31. the queen of the south shall
rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation and
condemn them for she came from the utmost parts of the earth
to hear this wisdom of Solomon and behold a greater than Solomon
is here so we have a a greater prophet than Jonas, one with
greater wisdom than Solomon. And of course, we know that Solomon,
the Lord gave him his wisdom. And we'll read that from the
Old Testament here in just a bit. And again, this Queen of the
South, another Gentile. I was looking in my... references on on that and this
she's called the Queen of Sheba in the Old Testament and that
they attribute that to that Sheba and Dedan to being in Arabia
with Dedan being more in the in the central part of Arabia,
and Sheba being down at what we would say is modern day Yemen,
down on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, and that's where they
attribute her. And it was kind of an area that
had a busy trade business going on. And so it says, she came
from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and behold, a greater than Solomon is here. And the greater than
Solomon that was there, his wisdom was ignored. And he was right in the midst
of them, you know. In this earlier part in verse
18 of chapter 11, where they are accusing him of casting out
devils by Beelzebub, and he says, well, that makes no sense. He
reasons with them logically and says, well, a kingdom divided
against itself can't stand, and so forth. Then he says, but I,
if I cast out devils by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God
has come upon you. And yet, they didn't recognize
it. They just said, okay, well, we
need to catch him at some other thing that we can condemn him
for. We want to kind of start at the It's hard to find a place to
start here. You know, I was talking to Norman
about this this morning, and we were talking about Solomon,
and he says, look at all the things that came about to have
Solomon be born. You know, the knavery of David. involved in the murder of Uriah
the Hittite and all that that came about. And it was mindful
of Joseph that said, you know, you meant it for evil, but God
worked it for good to save much people alive. And we find Solomon
being in the lineage of of our Lord. So it was all according
to the purpose of God. So we go back to that part. And
Wednesday night our pastor was bringing this lesson on the Anointed
One, and he brought out a verse from Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55, verse 9, if you want
to turn there in your Bibles. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. And you know, natural man is
always trying to bring God down to their level and make Him,
assign to Him characteristics and attributes and thoughts and
ways that mimic their own. And they justify themselves through
that. But He said, My ways are higher than your ways, and My
thoughts are higher than your thoughts. and make it bring forth and bud,
that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall
not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which
I please, and it shall prosper in the thing where to I sent
it. Well, you know, we find in this
block of scripture here that the word, he sent the word down
to the queen of Sheba. to the Queen of the South. He also read a New Testament
verse that will play into what we're going to study. It just
struck me as I read this, and the more I studied, and the more
I looked at the very principles and truths that were put forth
throughout this block of Scripture, You just find them all over in
the Bible, and they're all the same truth. They're just in different
circumstances, but they all relay the same basic truths and the
same gospel narrative. In John 4, verse 25 from Pastor
Norm's lesson on the Anointed One Wednesday night, he was at
that well with that woman, and she was giving him all the religious
followed her all, and he set her straight. In verse 25, the
woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is
called Christ. When he is come, he'll tell us
all things. And Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am
he. And upon this came his disciples,
and marveled that he talked with the woman. And yet no man said,
What seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her? And the woman
then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith
to the man, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever
I did. Is this not the Christ?" Remember, he told her, he says,
where's your husband? And she says, well, I don't have
a husband. And he says, yeah, five times. Five times the man
you're with now is not your husband. And he told her things that she
didn't think that he probably could perceive because at that
time, her eyes were uncircumcised, her ears were uncircumcised,
and yet by the end of the time that she dealt with the Lord
there and he dealt with her, she says, Is this not the Christ? Is this
not the Messiah, the Anointed One?" And he says, he told me
all things that ever I did. And not only that, but she said,
come see, come see. The same thing that some of the
disciples said, come see, come see, we found the Messiah. truth, come see a man that told
me all things ever I did." You know, the Lord, the Holy Spirit,
when He convicts us of sins, He kind of brings all that to
our mind. All things ever I did that were our own self-righteousness,
our own animosity toward Him, our own
enmity against Him, and yet He overcomes all that. So we'll
look at that principle again as we look at this dealing with
the Queen of the South. And the Old Testament reference
from the Lord for today's text comes to us from 1 Kings 10.
So would you turn over in your Bibles to 1 Kings 10, the first
13 verses. And then we're going to back
up a little bit from that just to solidify in our mind a few
things, a few basic truths. So in 1 Kings 10, Verse 1-13, And when the queen
of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, and here's a place where
you can take your pencil out and underline this, because it's
often overlooked here. When the queen of Sheba heard
of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord. She heard
something. You know, right there, we just
have to stop and say, what did Solomon say concerning the name
of the Lord? You know, and we could go over
to Isaiah chapter 9 and read a few things about him. Name
is wonderful, counselor, the prince of peace, the mighty God. So we have to say that just by
the evidence here that Solomon had proclaimed some things about
the name of the Lord, about the gospel. And so she heard of the
fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, and she came
to prove him with hard questions. And we'll look at that here a
little bit. And she came to Jerusalem with
a very great train with camels that bear spices and very much
gold and precious stones. And when she was come to Solomon,
she communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon
told her her questions. There was not anything hid from
the king which he told her not. And when the Queen of Sheba had
seen all Solomon's wisdom in the house that he had built,
and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants,
the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers,
and his assent by which he went up into the house of the Lord,
there was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king, it
was a true report." That would be the title of our message for
today, a true report. It was a true report. that I heard in mine own land
of thy acts and of thy wisdom, but remember it was concerning
the name of the Lord. How be it I believed not the
words until I came and mine eyes had seen it. And behold, the
half was not told me." Boy, you could just say that about somebody
that heard and saw all the things that Christ did and when they
came and were regenerated, they could just say the same thing.
It wasn't anything. It was all that I heard. It was
nothing. And John wrote in, he said, you
know, if all the things that he did were recorded, there just
wouldn't be enough ink and paper and enough places to record it
all. Thy wisdom, thy prosperity, exceedeth
the fame which I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are
thy servants. Boy, what a picture of the Lord's
people there. Which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy
wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God,
which delighteth in thee." You know, there had to be some change
for her to make a statement like that. Blessed be the Lord thy
God, which delighteth in thee, to set thee on the throne of
Israel, because the Lord loved Israel forever. You know, you
don't come to that kind of a statement without being regenerated. You
don't talk about an eternal significance with any spiritual understanding
without it being revealed to you. The Lord loved Israel forever,
therefore made he the king to do judgment and justice. And
she gave the king 120 talents of gold and of spices, Very great store and precious
stones. There came no more such abundance
of spices as these, which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon."
I'd like to read also, it's also recorded in 2 Chronicles, Chapter
9. So, if you turn to 2 Chronicles,
Chapter 9. It's pretty much the same, but
there's a few extra things in there that we'd like to call
your attention to. 2 Chronicles 9, verse 1-12, And
when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came
to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem with a very great company, with
camels that bear spices, and gold in abundance, and precious
stones. And when she was come to Solomon, she communed with
him of all that was in her heart, and Solomon told her all her
questions. And there was nothing hid from
Solomon which he told her not. And when the queen of Sheba had
seen the wisdom of Solomon and the house that he had built,
and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants,
and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers,
and their apparel, and his assent by which he went up into the
house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her. And she said
to the king, It was a true report which I heard in mine own land
of thine acts and of thy wisdom. Howbeit, I believed not their
words until I came and mine eyes had seen it." Kind of reminds
you who said, I've heard about you with the hearing of the ear,
but now my eyes have seen me. The half was not told. The greatness
of thy wisdom was not told, for thou exceedest the fame that
I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are thy servants, which stand
continually before thee and hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord
thy God, which delighted in thee to set thee on his throne to
be king, for the Lord thy God. because thy God loved Israel
to establish them forever. Therefore, made he the king over
them to do judgment and justice. And she gave the king 120 talents
of gold and of spices, great abundance, and precious stones.
Neither was there any such spices as the Queen of Sheba gave King
Solomon." Then I want to read down through
verse 12 here, And the servants also of Huram and the servants
of Solomon, which brought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees
and precious stones. And the king made of the algum
trees terraces. to the house of the Lord and
to the king's palace and harps and psalteries for singers. And
there were none such seen before in the land of Judah. And King
Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever
she asked, beside that which she had brought to the king.
So she turned and went away to her own land, she and her servants."
Boy, you know, If you turned over to Genesis and you read
about Joseph and his brothers coming to him because there was
a famine in the land. And they went down there and
he didn't make himself known to them right away. And he had
all their beasts of burden loaded with corn. And he took all the stuff that
they brought down there to buy that food with, he stuck it in
there with the food. So they went away with more than
they came with. They had what they brought, plus
the food. Then they were all worried. They
said, uh-oh, he's going to think we stole all this back. So they
had a little trouble with that. But he set them straight. But
it's kind of the same thing here. She went back with more than
she came with. just the way of it is with salvation.
We think we come to the Lord with stuff, but we come with
nothing. We have no merit of our own.
We have nothing, and we walk away after He saves us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. It can't be compared with anything. I'd like to back up a little
bit now that we've read these two reports about the Queen of
Sheba coming down there and some of the things that is mentioned
here I wanted to examine, but a little background on Solomon
here, which will aid us in grasping this true spiritual context of
this in Luke. You know, all this is not by
accident. She didn't hear the Word by accident. She didn't
come to Solomon by accident. And the Lord who caused the Old
Testament to be written and who was causing the New Testament
to be written, it was all according to His purpose and will that
this be recorded and that the things that she experienced be
noted down for our benefit, for our edification. So let's back
up a little bit here to 2 Samuel 12, verse 24, and we're just
going to read this one verse regarding the birth of Solomon. In 2 Samuel 12, verse 24, David
comforted Bathsheba, his wife, and we already talked about how
that marriage came to be. And he went in unto her, and
lay with her, and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon,
and the Lord loved him." The Lord loved Solomon. before the
child had done any evil or good that the purpose of God according
to election might stand." And you know, the Lord spoke to David
regarding who would reign after him despite the skullduggery
going on, you know, and David's and his family, and his life,
you know, they were all plotting against him. Adonijah exalted
himself as king, and the prophet had to come in and say, hey,
you know what, Bathsheba, the Lord said that your son would
be the king, and we need to go talk to David about this. And
you probably remember those stories from the kings. But the Lord spoke to David about
who would be the king. Let's turn to 1 Chronicles 17,
beginning in verse 11. 1 Chronicles 17, verse 11. And it shall come to pass, when
thy days be expired, that thou must go to be with thy fathers.
This is the Lord speaking to David. That I will raise up thy
seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons, and I will establish
his kingdom. He shall build me a house, and
I will establish his throne forever. And boy, I want you to pay close
attention to the metaphor, the spiritual metaphors that are
brought out here. in verse 12 and 13, he shall
build me a house and I will establish his throne forever. I will be
his father and he shall be my son and I will not take my mercy
away from him as I took it from him that was before thee. And then let's go to 1 Chronicles
22, and we'll read three verses there. 1 Chronicles 22, verse
8, But the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, and this is
David talking, and he's talking about that the word of the Lord
came to him. saying thou has shed blood abundantly
and has made great wars thou shall not build a house to my
name and that was david's desire he wanted to build this house
to the lord and lord says no he says thou shall not build
a house under my name because thou hast shed much blood upon
the earth in my sight. Behold, a son shall be born unto
thee, who shall be a man of rest." Again, we have these spiritual
pictures, these metaphors, speaking of the Christ. Excuse me. He shall be a man of rest, and
I will give him rest from all his enemies round about, for
his name shall be Solomon. That means Solomon. The name
Solomon means peaceful. His name shall be Solomon, and
I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days." What
a spiritual metaphor for the Lord, the Prince of Peace, the
one who brings peace with God, not just peace from a physical
aspect, but peace with God, the peace that counts. In verse 10,
1 Chronicles 22.10, he shall build a house for my name, And
He shall be my Son, and I will be His Father, and I will establish
the throne of His kingdom over Israel forever." Boy, what a
picture there. And so now, Years later, Solomon
is anointed king, and boy, that kind of reminded me of the Wednesday
night lesson, because David recognized that Adonijah was trying to,
through skullduggery, assume the throne and everything. He
says, man, I've got to stop this right away. So he called Nathan
the prophet, and he says, I want you to bring up my mule. And
the mules were not allowed to be bred in Israel. crossbreeding
was not allowed, but they were imported and they were very expensive
and valuable. And he says, you put Solomon
on my mule and you take him where I tell you and when you get there,
you anoint him king and you say, long live the king. And it'll
be done. So now he's been made king, anointed
king by Nathan there, and you can find that in 1 Kings 1, verse
34, if you want to look that up and read it later. But now
we go to the prayer of Solomon after the Lord anointed him as
king. 2 Chronicles 1, beginning in verse
6, And Solomon went up thither to the brazen altar before the
LORD, which was at the tabernacle of the congregation, and offered
a thousand burnt offerings upon it. Boy, what a deal. A thousand burnt offerings. Can
you just imagine? Just reminded me, you know, all
that drainage and stuff went down that Brook Kidron there
that, you know, the Lord had to step over on his way up into
the garden there. In that night did God appear
unto Solomon and said unto him, ask what I shall give thee. And
Solomon said unto God, thou hast showed great mercy unto David
my father and has made me to reign in his stead. Now, O Lord
God, let thy promise unto David my father be established, for
thou hast made me a king over a people like the dust of the
earth in multitude. Give me now wisdom and knowledge,
that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can
judge this thy people that is so great? And God said to Solomon,
Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches,
wealth, honor, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast
asked long life, but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself,
that thou mayest judge my people over whom I have made thee king. Wisdom and knowledge is granted
unto thee, and I will give thee riches and wealth and honor,
such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee,
neither shall there any after thee have the like." You know,
it's just, the Lord gave him wisdom and knowledge and all
these things, and he was, he was He knew that. He knew from whence
it came. He didn't say, well, I got these
by my own hand. You know, if you go to Ecclesiastes,
he says, you know, I spent a lot of time reading and trying to
reason things out by the words of men and stuff, but it was
all useless. Wisdom and knowledge came from
the Lord. It was revealed unto him, and
he was given that gift. So now, we come to this Queen
of the South, this Gentile, and we have this sneaker verse that
we often read, but we overlook that part that says, the Queen
of Sheba heard of the famous Solomon concerning the name of
the Lord." Well, I think that, you know, having read all the
things that we just read about Solomon's, the Lord speaking
to David, the Lord speaking to Solomon, his prayer and the answer
of it, and all the things that transpired, I think it sheds
more spiritual light on what she heard. He had to say those
things, you know. The Lord said that I would be
made king. The Lord spoke it before I was
born. And when I was born, He said
He loved me. before I did anything. And he
did plenty of wrong stuff later on. He's just like his dad. He set up altars in high places
for all these other women that he got involved with. She heard the fame of Solomon
concerning the name of the Lord, and she came to prove him with
hard questions. You know, there's some things
here that we can just highlight. She heard. She came. She asked. She heard. She was caused to hear the report.
You know, we read that in Isaiah 5511. So shall my word be that
goeth forth from my mouth. It will go where I send it, and
it will accomplish the purpose. So we have to say that He caused
the Word to go down to Sheba, and the purpose that He had was
that she would come and visit Solomon, and it would be for
our record. And she came, and you know the
Scripture says, comes unto me, except the Father which sent
me draw him." And she asked. She asked hard questions. And
you know that word, hard questions, the meaning of that word means
kind of regarding a puzzle. She asked hard questions. So,
I don't think she came there and said, okay, what's the square
root of 1,462,000 divided by 6? She heard of his fame concerning
the name of the Lord. So I think her questions, her
hard questions, it says the meaning of that word is regarding a puzzle.
Colossians 1.27 says, To whom God would make known what is
the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which
is Christ in you, the hope of glory. I like what it said in
the bulletin. I don't have it in front of me
here, but a hard question was, how can a man be just before
God? How can that be? Well, it's a mystery. It's a
mystery that He is the just and the justifier through the blood
of Christ to His Son. She had questions. You know,
it says she had questions to which Solomon knew before she
asked them. It says, he told her all her
questions, and that word told means to manifest, to announce,
or to make known. So if we look at that with that
definition in mind, Solomon made known to her all her questions. Wouldn't that be... that takes
us back to, come see a man that told me all things ever I did. That same biblical principle
that we found there in John, we find here back in the Old
Testament in 1 Kings 10, in verse 3. Solomon told her all her questions,
and there was not anything hid from the king which he told her
not." You know what the Scripture says? All things are naked and
open to Him with whom we have to do. That's what this Bible
says about the Lord. There's nothing hid from Him.
And you know, throughout Luke we said, Jesus knowing their
thoughts, Jesus knowing their hearts, Jesus knows, He knew
they were not pulling the wool over his eyes about anything. She said, it was a true report. And you know, that calls to mind
what Isaiah wrote in chapter 53, verse 1. Who hath believed
our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? Well, we have to say that the
Queen of Sheba believed the report. She said it was a true report.
And you know, there's another section in your bulletin here
about from Gary Shepard that said, you know, we just can't
spend enough time or there's not enough time to spend refuting
error. He says that what we have to
do is just bring the truth and it'll take care of all that. And the truth will overcome all
of that. Who has believed our report?
Well, she believed the report. The truth. And remember that
key part of verse 1 of 1 Kings 10. She heard the fame of Solomon
concerning the name of the Lord. And she said in 1 Kings 10, 6,
it was a true report that I heard in mine own land. of thy acts
and of thy wisdom." And I'm sure that it wasn't, well, Solomon
said, I'm pretty smart now, and I did all this, and I've gotten
all this by my own hand. We read all the things in his
prayer when he spoke to the Lord. And he's probably, when it all
was said and done, he probably like, when did I do that? He didn't take the credit for
any of that stuff. He gave the praise to the Lord
God Almighty. He says, "...howbeit I believed
not the words till I came, and mine eyes had seen it. And behold,
the half was not told." Thy wisdom and thy prosperity exceedeth
the fame which I heard." Boy, what a picture of our Lord. Now,
since the Lord was the source of Solomon's wisdom and the Queen
of the South reported what she had heard was not half of what
she witnessed, you know, the Lord says back in our text verse
in Luke 11 31, He said, a greater than Solomon is here.
She came to hear the wisdom of Solomon greater than Solomon
is here. We had this same verse scribbled
down in our notes, Norman and I, but in 1 Corinthians 1, verse
30, it says, But of him are ye in Christ, who of God is made
unto us wisdom. and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. Christ has made unto us wisdom.
And boy, you know, if you just wanted to spend three or four
days or weeks or months looking up all the verses that talk about
the wisdom of God, then you wouldn't exhaust the supply there. Ephesians
3.10 says, to the intent now, unto the principalities and powers
in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom
of God." You know that? Well, a long time ago, we had
a Bible class, and it had to do with that word, manifold,
and grace, and we looked at the rainbow as the symbol of grace. how it was seven primary colors
in the rainbow that we can see and that the spectrum of light
and colors is infinite. But we can see those seven primary
colors and there's various combinations of them that we can distinguish.
Researchers say that we can see about a hundred shades of each
color, lighter, darker, more intense, and in combination we
can distinguish about a million different variations, but the
spectrum of light and colors in the electromagnetic spectrum
are infinite. And that's just a picture of
that manifold wisdom of God. We can just see this much, but
it's just way more than we can comprehend. It expands more than
we can think. What a picture of grace. We can
see now only a part. As Paul said, you know, we just
see through a glass darkly now. but someday we shall know, even
as we are known." So in today's lesson, a greater than Solomon
is here, and may we praise God for His infinite wisdom in the
provision of the Lamb, slain before the foundation of the
world, for His electing love, and His unspeakable gift of salvation
by grace alone. I was thinking, I wrote this
in my notes here after I got here, but she left with more than she came,
and we talked about what happened
in Genesis chapter 42 where Joseph loaded their donkeys with corn,
and then he put in all their money, And we were talking about how
we find these spiritual truths virtually everywhere we go in
the scripture. And as I wrote that, I was thinking,
you know, that's what it says in Ezekiel 36, 29. I will call
for the corn. They came down from the land
of famine. And Joseph gave them the corn.
I will call for the corn and there will be no more famine.
Isn't that interesting how that principle is the same principle
of the gospel? All right. Well, I'll stop for
now. And as always, thanks for attention and be free. John 8.