And 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. And she came to Jerusalem with
a very great train, with camels that bear spices, 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 all her questions. answered all of 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, 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 cupbears,
and his assent, by which he went up unto the house of the Lord,
there was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king, It
was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts,
of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words,
until I came, and mine eyes had seen it. And behold, the half
was not told me. Thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth
the fame which I heard. Happy are the men, happy are
thy servants. Stand continually before thee
and hear thy wisdom Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted
in thee to set thee on the throne of Israel Because the Lord loved
Israel forever Therefore made he the king to do judgment and
justice And I've been a long time since I
dealt with this subject. I preached it up at Bruce Crabtree's
and somewhere else one time. But it's evident and plain to
us that when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, it's a
picture of the sinner. coming to the Lord Jesus Christ
for the Lord himself said in Matthew 12 he says you know the
Queen of the South shall arise in judgment and condemn this
generation for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold a greater than Solomon
is here. Solomon in all his glory is like
a candle against the sun in Christ and His glory now look what it
says here in verse 1 this is just and when the Queen of Sheba
listen to this now heard heard you got to hear the gospel God
give you ears to hear the gospel and when she heard what did she
hear the fame the fame of Solomon And where did she hear that?
Well, she said she heard it way down in her country. So Solomon's
name was well known. Christ's name is well known.
Whether anybody will come to hear what he has to say, that's
another story. But she had heard about the wisdom
of Solomon. You know when Solomon was just,
when he was anointed king and was made king over Israel, God
said, ask of me what you want. Ask of me what you want. And
you know what Solomon said? He said, Lord, I'm as a child. I can't go out and I can't come
in. I'm a child. And there's only one thing I'd
ask of you. You've got a great people, great people that cannot
even be numbered. And I would that you would give
me the wisdom that I could do judgment and justice and govern
thy people and care for thy people. And God said, as you've asked,
so shall it be. He just asked for wisdom to direct
and care for God's people. and I Lord Jesus Christ God gave
him this blessed precious wisdom that came from God himself and
God Christ took for a people that had no man could number
and you talking about doing judgment and justice he has done it perfectly
for his people and oh my but she heard oh my that she heard
that's what we want people to do we want them coming here she
heard of his wealth Oh my, who's as rich as our Lord Jesus Christ? Who have saw the glory of His
kingdom? Oh, what a glorious. Look what
she said down here in verse 6. She said to the king, it's a
true report that I heard. It's true. Everything I heard
is true. It was true. What I heard in my land, it was
true. It was true, oh my, a good and
all beloved. Have we not heard? Has not God
brought to our ears and gave us ears to hear of the person
of our Lord Jesus Christ and His blessed work, that He was
made of a woman, oh my, that He was born of a virgin, that
He had called His name Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. Have we not heard of
Him being God? And the glory of Him is being
God. He being the express image of
God. The brightness of His glory.
Upholding the world by the word of His power. That He Himself
is the brightness and glory of God Almighty. Have we not heard
that? Have we not heard of the wisdom and the power of the Lord
Jesus Christ? You know God, you know the world
was created by Him, for Him, through Him and everything that
was made was made by Him and not anything that was made was
made without Him. You want to see God's wisdom?
Just look at creation. Christ is the wisdom of God.
See His power? He upholds it all by the word
of His power. Not in the power that He comes
and gives life to us with. And the wisdom that He satisfied
God in such a wonderful way for us. Have we not heard of His
death? Oh yeah, we heard of His death.
We heard of how He died. We heard of how He was a substitute. And how in that substitutionary
death, He satisfied God. And we heard about His resurrection. I preached on the resurrection,
some part of it, the last two weeks about his resurrection.
He rose from the dead by his own power. He says, no man takes
my life from me. I've got the power to let it
down, and I've got the power to take it up again. And I'm
telling you the morning that he rose from the dead, he went
walking with two disciples and turned around, went right back
and appeared to them. Said, peace be unto you. And
I tell you because he was raised from the dead, we're going to
be raised from the dead. Oh my, we're going to too. It's
like Paul when he stood before Festus. You know, he's going
to preach the way he had to appear as a prisoner before Agrippa
and Thestis came down. And his queen. They sat on the
throne. And Paul began to preach to them. And he said, I'll tell you something
about what God's done. He didn't do this over here in
the corner. He done it out where everybody can see and know who
he is. And I tell you, God don't do
things in a corner. He don't do things hidden. He
makes it manifest what He's done. And then look what it says there
again. In verse 1. She heard of the
famous Solomon. Listen to this. Concerning the
name of the Lord. Concerning the name of the Lord
and listen to what she says now. Oh my she came to hear about
him for herself The Queen you know she came to hear from Solomon
himself She came to hear what he had to say hear his wisdom
And the Queen, she come to the right place, she come to the
right person. And she came right to Solomon. And ain't that what a sinner
does and must do? Is come to Christ for himself.
I can't come for you and you can't come for me. I can't come
for my kids, you can't come for yours. But that's what a sinner
has to do. You don't have to bypass it.
You don't have to go through anybody else to get there. You
just come to Him. Just come to Him. Don't just
be satisfied with hearing about Him. But all this and come. And come to Him for yourself.
You know our Lord Jesus Christ, He stood in that last day, that
great day of the feast. And He said, if any man is thirsty,
let him come to Me. If you're in darkness, I'm the
light of the world. If you're hungry, I'm that bread
which came down from heaven. And oh, there was a man, his
name was Robert Howey. And he's a fella, he'd been witnessing
to a fella and he was a preacher. And this man asked him, said,
why don't you write down in black and white a text a text and give
me one to read so I'll know what to read and believe." Well he
told him, he said, it's not any one text. It's not any number
of text. that saves any more than a manslayer
reads the signpost, but yet don't go into the city of refuge. And that's the way it is with
Christ. There's so many texts in this book. Which one would
you give to a man and say, now if you read this text here, God
will save you. You can't do it. You got to hope. He said I want
it in black and white. Here it is in black and white. Oh my, you know what I'll tell
you, that's the way it is. Salvation, we know this and we
want people when they come and hear the gospel. Salvation is in Christ. Salvation
is coming to Him. And when a man's thirsty, he
don't walk up to a well and just say, boy, that's a nice looking
well. I like the way they built the wall around it. I like the
rope they got on it that they let the thing down in. A wonderful
water, just come up and just talk about the well. If you're
thirsty, you know what you say? Somebody drop that bucket in
there and get me a drink of water. And that's what people need.
That's what the thing is. People have to come to Christ.
And that's one thing we as believers do over and over and over and
over and over. And I'll tell you, and the king,
look what she says here now again in verse 1. She came to discern
the name of the Lord. She came to prove Him with hard
questions. She said, I'm going to see if
this man is as wise As they say, yes, and she'd come up with some
hard questions. Huh? Oh, she had some hard questions. That's why she said she came
to prove Him. Came to prove Him. And I'll tell you what, and then
it says there in verse, last part of verse 2, and she communed
with Him of all that was in her heart. Oh my. You know, she asked questions
that nobody else could answer. But Solomon could. Solomon could. And that's why, you know, we
say that Christ is the wisdom of God. Christ is the truth of
God. If a man would know God, he's
got to know Christ. Look over in Luke chapter 10,
verse 22. Look at this with me a moment.
Luke 10, 22. About our Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, If a man's going to know God,
he's going to know the mysteries of how God saves sinners. And
it is a mystery how God can work in a man's heart. And that redemption
that's in the Lord Jesus Christ and the life that's in Christ.
You know what he's got to do? He's got to ask Christ himself.
Look at what he said here in verse 22. All things are delivered to me
of my Father. and no man knows who the son
is but the father and who the father is but the son and he
to whom the son will reveal him what he's saying is that you
don't know who the father is and the father is the only one
who knows me if you won't know him you got to come to me that's
what he says no man cometh unto the father but by me and I'll
tell you what And how do we know these things? How do we know
these things? Because there's hard questions. And I tell you
what, you know there's hard questions, and there's some hard ones in
the Bible. There's some hard questions in the Bible. And I
tell you what, the one, if you can ever answer this one question
right here. Answer it. A pretty good indication
that you know God, been saved by grace. How can a man be just
with God? How can that happen? Me and Scott Richardson somewhere
preaching, and I preached from that text out of Job. And old Scott met me on
about, I hadn't got out of the pulpit, he met me and he says,
Boy, that's it. That is it right there. That's
just it. That's it. Because you know you
got to have a lamb if you're going to be just with God. You
got to have an offering. You got to have a sacrifice.
And I tried to tell those people yesterday that you cannot be
accepted of God by yourself and under any circumstances. God
is just and holy. And how can he be clean that's
born of a woman? If your mother's unclean and
your daddy's unclean, and the scripture said all of our righteousness
is ours a filthy rag, we're all as an unclean thing. We're like
leaves that's withered on the tree. Oh my, how can he be clean
that's born of a woman? He can't clean himself. God said
over in Jeremiah, He said if a man had neither and he had
lied, he cannot wash himself from his sin. Oh my. Here's another question. Oh these
are hard questions. And I tell you what, Solomon
had the answer to them. Christ got the answers to these
things. Old Bruce Daly, I was thinking of him this afternoon
when I was looking at these questions. I don't know how many times he'd
come to service. He started coming in 1981. And
he'd come to service and every once in a while he'd say to me,
he said, boy, you got in my pocket. You've been picking my pocket,
ain't you? He said, you read my mail today. I don't know how
many times he'd say things like that to me. You know just exactly
where I'm at and what I was thinking and what I've been doing this
week, don't you? And I didn't, you know. That's what the Word
does. It answers questions. It deals
with us where we are. Deals with us what we're going
through. And then he asked, she asked this question. How can
a man, how can God be just? And then turn around and justify
a sinner? I believe every one of you all
know the answer to that. I believe every single one of
you know the answer to that. Huh? And I tell you what, here's
your question. She asked old Solomon. And I
tell you, ask Christ these questions. Can a man be born when he's old? That's what Nicodemus asked. Can a man be born when he's old?
If Christ gives him life, he can. If a man die, shall he live again? That's what Job asked. You know,
Mary and Martha, when our Lord Jesus Christ came, our Lord told Martha, your brother
is going to rise again. And she said, Lord, I know he
will, at the resurrection, at the last day. And our Lord said,
Martha, I'm the resurrection. If a man is dead by me, he is
going to live. And to show that he is the resurrection,
he raised a dead man with just a word. And he is the resurrection
now. He is the one who raised us from
our sins. Raised us from the death of our
sins. And he is going to be the one that is going to raise these
vile bodies out of the grave someday. Oh my. And then about the Gentiles. You know, Gentiles wasn't supposed
to be converted. Salvation was just of the Jews.
But God had already said Christ to be a light of the Gentiles.
He said that several times and made Him a covenant to the Gentiles. And I tell you what, how that
mystery, how that God, and you go back in the Old Testament.
Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, God was showing all along there, I'm going to
save my people out of every place. I'm going to save them. And I
tell you what, and it's not he that's a Jew outwardly, but one
inwardly. Circumcision of the heart, not
of the flesh. And I tell you what, And here's
your good question. Here's your good question. She
asked Solomon. Solomon answered these questions like Christ answers
these questions. Christ answers these questions.
Me and Bruce Crabtree used to come up with some awful questions
when we was first learning the gospel. You know, did God decree
all things? Or just, you know, we were just
babes. Little, oh my. And me and him
would talk for hours. And, you know, we'd say, well,
if we preach this here, this will be the consequences of it.
And if we don't preach this, then what does this over here
mean? And so we wrestled with so many
things in the Bible. You know, I'll give you an illustration,
two things that I wrestled with in the Bible. When Abraham went
down to King Amalek's kingdom and told him, told Sarai, I said,
now you tell them that you're my sister because they'll kill
me and take you. Well, God came to Abimelech in
the night and gave him a dream and said, don't you touch that
woman. He said, she is the wife of my prophet, my servant Abraham.
And I tell you, God kept, that man, he got upset and said, Abraham,
why did you lie to me? He said, I wouldn't have bothered,
she is your wife. But when I seen that, I said,
how in the world would God keep a king back from sinning against
him? And that's what he said, kept
me back from sinning against God. And when I read that, I
said, well why didn't God keep Adam back from sinning against
God? Well I was sitting in an old
wooden swing one day and I got to swinging in that swing, got
to thinking in things, got to thinking about it and then all
of a sudden it dawned on me why God did not, why God didn't keep
Adam from sinning. Because I'll tell you why. So
that God could have a race that He could save and bring glory
to Himself through His Son, world without end. All so many sons
of Adam. And so Adam, go ahead and eat
of that tree. And I'll tell you what, then
I'm going to run you away, but I'll tell you what, I'm going
to put you out of the garden so I can bring a multitude that
no man can come to me, number come to me because of my son,
because he's not going to do like Adam. He's going to obey
me perfectly, absolutely, and love me with all of his heart
and do everything I tell him to do. Oh my. And that answers that question. Let me tell you another time.
This happened to me, oh my goodness, I was in my early twenties when
this happened. I read in the book of Acts, Paul has one place
that says there that when God smote him down on the Damascus
road, he heard the voice of God. Nobody else, they just heard
a sound. And in another place it says that he heard and others
heard a voice. And I said, what in the world?
He said, one place said they didn't hear. Over here says that
they heard a voice. Well, how are you going to answer
that one? Well, let me ask you, this is how I come to the conclusion
of what it's about. You know when you're on the telephone,
you've got the phone up to here, you're hearing the person talking
to you. If anybody's standing around, all they'll do is just
hear a voice. They'll just hear a noise. They don't know who's
on the other end or anything like that. And that's the way
it was with Paul. They heard something from heaven,
but Paul was the only one who heard the voice. He's the only
one on the other end of the line. So I had to, those things were
really something to wrestle to me about. And then another thing
I wrestled with, talking about hard questions, If salvation,
part of God's work and our work is holding us to something we
do or God does. And I've told you all this time
and time again. And I prayed earnestly for an
answer to that question. And I was sitting up in the woods
with a shotgun squirrel hunting. And I had a Bible with me. And
I got it out of my back. And I was sitting reading that
Bible. And I opened up to 2 Timothy. And just like a light shined
on three verses of Scripture. I mean it was like a light turned
on. God who has saved us. And called us with the holy calling
not according to our works that took care of works But according
to his own purpose that took care of God's purpose And called
us listen to this with the holy calling so god answered all my
questions one verse scripture But those were real, real dilemmas
to me at one time. And every one of you have had
dilemmas when you face certain verses of scripture and things
that you deal with. And I tell you, so let me ask
you this question. How is it that God sees and knows
all things, yet he does not see or remember His people's sins. He sees and knows everything,
but he don't see our sin and don't even remember it. And everything about the Old
Testament talked about Christ. You know, our Lord told them
time and again, I said, starting at Moses and the Law and the
Psalms and the things concerning me, to Him all the prophets give
witness. And then it told us there that
in verse 13, excuse me verse 3, I tell you I really got sidetracked
didn't I? Look at verse 3, and Solomon
told her all her questions. And I tell you, God answers our
questions, don't he? Oh my. You have something on
your mind, sometime you come in here and God answers and meets
what you've got to deal with. And look what else he said here.
There was not anything hid from the King. There's not anything
hid from Christ. And listen to this. Which he told her not. There
was not anything in her heart that he didn't expose and say,
I see that, I know that, I can answer that. And I tell you,
ain't that the way it is with our Lord Jesus Christ? God giving
all things into his hands. Then look what here in verses
4 through 7, let me hurry on, I've got to hurry. And when the
queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom and the house that he
built, now you know Moses was a servant, faithful as a servant
of his house, But Christ is the master and builder over his house,
whose house we are. So I tell you what, and the meat
of his table, oh my, how does Christ feed us? And the sitting
of his servants, oh how they sit. And the attendance of his
ministers, and their apparel, and his cup barrels, oh look
at their apparel. How they was dressed, they was
dressed fit to be in the presence of a king. And oh my, and his cupbears,
and look at here, his assent as he walked up, by which he
went up into the house of the Lord. And she said, oh my, he
is just so glorious, so majestic, so wondrous, so wise, told me
my heart, told me all my questions, there's no more spirit in her.
She said, you know, I've just got nothing else to say. That's
what she said, got nothing else to say. And she said to the king,
here's a true report that I heard in my own land, and I tell you
what, of your action and your wisdom, and listen to this now,
how bit I believe, not the words, what everybody else told me,
Until I came, until I got here myself, and my eyes seen it. I had to see it for myself. Ain't
that the way it is? We have to see it for ourselves.
And oh my, and listen to this. And this is the way we feel all
the time. The half has not yet been told. You know one little bit I've
seen, I came out the half has not yet been told. That's what
she saw. Oh, everything about you exceeds anything I ever dreamed
of hearing from you. And now my eyes saw it. Thy wisdom
and prosperity exceedeth the fame that I heard. And Christ
exceeds what we ever thought or heard. Oh, that's why we want
to go to be with Him. And I tell you, when we heard
of our Lord's love, and we heard of His mercy, heard of His grace,
heard of His glory, but it was until we came to Him, and saw
Him, and experienced Him, and saw His wisdom, and saw His power,
and saw His glory. We was like Job, we heard about
you with the hearer and the bearer. Now my eyes see you. Oh my. And I tell you, I know
we do this, not near as much as we ought to, I'm sure, but
we stand absolutely in awe and amazed in the presence of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Realizing it's impossible, impossible
to put into words the riches of His grace and His glory. I've
been preaching this now 40-something years. Henry Mayan preached for
50-something years and so did Scott. And they'll tell you when
they tell you I ain't touched the hilt of the garment yet.
I ain't been through this all the way through this book and
I tell you, you're going to deal with one little bit at a time.
It's like Paul. He was called up to the third
heaven. And when he got back, he didn't
say, well, I saw a great light and all this happened, that happened. No, no, no. He got back and he
says, you know, I saw things that I can't tell you about.
I can't utter. I couldn't express it. I can't explain it to you. And that's the way we are. Sometimes
we try to explain to Christ and we just get stuttered around. But oh my, but I tell you what,
we sure love to tell it, try to talk to it, tell it, don't
we? We love to try to tell it. And look what she said here in
verse 8. Happy are thy men. That word happy is the same word
as blessed. Happy are thy men. Oh, how blessed
your men are. They've got the beautifullest
apparel. Oh, how they sit at your table
and eat of your meat. You feed them so well. You dress
them up so well. And oh my, happy are these thy
servants that stand continually before thee and hear thy wisdom. Well, you know what we can say?
Happy is that man whom thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee. Oh my! Happy is that man whose
sins is covered and whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Thy
happy is that man who has the eyes to see what you see and
the ears to hear what you hear our Lord said. happy is that
man whose delight is in the Lord Jesus Christ himself and how
happy and how blessed are those who know him love him and live
by faith in him and then look what she said in the last there
now oh my this is blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted
in thee who did God delight in He delighted in His blessed Son.
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Oh, the Father
loves the Son, delights in the Son. Gave everything into the
hands of the Son. Gave Him preeminence over everything.
And then look what she said. Delighted in Me to set thee on
the throne. Oh, God set Christ on the throne
because He delighted His Father. Honored His Father. Listen to
this. Because He loved Israel. You
know why Christ came? God sent His Son because He loved
His people. He loved them with an everlasting
love. And because the Father loved
Him, therefore made He the King to do judgment and justice. And
I tell you what, He loved us with an everlasting love and
He came down here and He took God's law and He held it up there. And He honored it. And then He
went to the cross and bore its curse. And went down to that
grave, come back up again. And God made Him to be all and
all to us. And God made Christ to be everything
to us. And the only way God can have
any dealings with us at all is because of who Jesus Christ is
and what He did And he did it for God first, so God could do
some for us. Amen. Oh, our Father, thank you
for your Gospel. Thank you for your precious Word.
Lord, it's such a blessing to our heart. It encourages me,
blesses me. Lord, I know that If it doesn't
meet my needs and speaks to me, it certainly wouldn't do anything
for anybody else. But Lord, this is so precious
to me. This gospel's my life. Christ is my life. Christ is
their life. We have no life apart from Him.
He is our life. Not the most important, He is
our life. It's Christ in us that's our hope of glory. God bless
these dear saints as they go home tonight. Keep them, give
them a good night's rest. Help them to pray for one another
and especially pray for those who are sick among us. And we
pray that wait till you have them able to come back among
us. We bless you and praise you in
Christ's name. Amen. turn your eyes upon Jesus look
full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow
strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.