Welcome back to the book of 1
Kings. 1 Kings 3. Here in these verses,
we have the story of Solomon being visited by the Lord in
a dream. And in verse 5, God asks him, ask what I shall give
thee. God here is giving Solomon a
choice to ask anything of him. And I've thought about this for
a long time. What would my answer be to that question? What would
your answer be, do you suppose? And I'm sure mine would be what
Paul asked in Romans 9, that my kinsmen, according to the
flesh, my children and grandchildren, would come to a knowledge of
Christ, I cannot think very long on the
subject of losing one of my children who does not know the Lord in
saving grace. I often pray that the Lord would
take me out of this world before I have to endure that. I'm not
real sure that I would be like Eli when Samuel told him that
the Lord was going to kill his sons. And Eli replied, it is the Lord.
Let him do what seemeth him good. But in these verses of our text,
we find Solomon asking for wisdom. For, as it says here, understanding
to discern judgment. And because Solomon asked nothing
for himself, such as riches and long life, in verses 13 and 14
of this text, we find the Lord giving him exactly that. Riches
and honor and a long life. And we know that Solomon is a
type of Christ. There are several texts that
bear that out. One is here in verse 8 of our
text. Notice the wording here. It says,
And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast
chosen. What a description of God's elect.
People which thou hast chosen, a great people that cannot be
numbered nor counted for multitude. Likewise, we're told in heaven
that there will be a number that no man can number. They won't
be able to be counted for multitude. Turn with me over to the book
of Zephaniah. Zephaniah, fourth book back from
the end of the Old Testament. Zephaniah chapter 3. Here we read of how God is in
the midst of His people. In verse 14 of Zephaniah 3, it
says, Sing, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O Israel! Be glad and
rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! Why are we given
this instruction? What's all the rejoicing about?
We're told in the next verse, the Lord has taken away thy judgments. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. The Lord hath taken away thy
judgments, thy sins and iniquities, will I remember no more. Judgment
has been taken away from us and placed on another, as we're told
in Isaiah 53, 6. The Lord hath laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. We also read in verse 15 of this
text, here in Zephaniah, He hath cast out thine enemy, Now, which
enemy is that? The believer has many enemies
in this world, but the Lord delivers us from all of them. And in the
end, He will deliver us from the last enemy, as we're told
in 1 Corinthians. The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death. And verse 15 goes on. The King
of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee. Thou shalt
not see evil anymore. Everything that happens to us
in this life after the Lord brings us to a saving knowledge of Christ,
none of it is evil. All of it, as heartbreaking as
some of it is, is always for our good. And dropping down to verse 17,
it gets even better. It says, The Lord thy God in
the midst of thee is mighty, which is how He's able. to take
away our judgments, how He's able to cast out our enemies. Mighty means that He's extraordinarily
powerful, that He has might like no one else. And because He is
mighty, we read next that He will save. Not He'll do His best,
not He'll try to save, not He'll save if you let Him, but He will
save. And this verse goes on, and this
is miraculous to me. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. Joy means extreme happiness. Now you're talking about the
God of glory rejoicing over a bunch of sinners. That's astounding
to me. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. He will rest in His love. He will joy over thee with singing.
Our Lord will present us with joy and singing as He stands
before the Father and proclaims, Behold I and the children which
thou hast given me. 2 Samuel 22 says, He delivered
me from my strong enemy and from them that hated me, for they
were too strong for me. He did for us what we could never
do for ourselves in delivering us from sin an enemy that is
more powerful than any man or woman. But He delivers us from
this great destroyer of men's souls, this thing called sin.
And one more thing before we leave this text, speaking of
the Lord being in our midst, what did He promise us in Matthew
18? He said, for where two or three
are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
Now back to 1 Kings. Chapter 3. Back to our text. 1 Kings 3. In verse 12, we read, Behold,
I have done according to thy words, this is God speaking to
Solomon, lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart,
so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee
shall any arise like unto thee." I have taken my title for this
message from this verse, none like thee. And this is how Solomon
is a type of Christ. There were none like our Lord
before him, and there shall be none that shall come after him.
Because there is only one man, that is God, and there is only
one God who is man, which is Christ Jesus our Lord. There are dozens of texts through
our Holy Scriptures that speak of this very thing, how that
there is none like unto our God. Mark, you read it back in the
study a few minutes ago. In Deuteronomy we read, "...know
therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the Lord,
He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath, there
is none else. In 1 Samuel 2.2, there is none
holy as the Lord, there is none beside Thee, neither is there
any rock like our God. 2 Samuel 7.22 says, Wherefore,
Thou art great, O God, and there is none like Thee. Neither is
there any God beside Thee, according to all that we have heard with
our ears. And Mark, you read this verse
back in the study. Among the gods there is none
like unto Thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like unto
Thy works. And Isaiah tells us, Tell ye
and bring them near, yea, let them take counsel together. Who
hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told her from
that time? Have not I the Lord? And there
is no God else beside me, a just God and a Savior. There is none beside me." Now,
how do we begin to describe the majesty of Christ? A good place
to start would be at the beginning, Genesis 1-1. In the beginning,
God created the heaven and the earth. Now, who can make something
out of nothing? I used to make a fair amount
of furniture, and never once did I not have to go buy some
lumber in order to do that. I didn't just speak that lumber
into being, I actually had to go purchase it. And there's no
one else, before or after Christ, who was ever able to do this,
who was able to speak not only this world, but this universe,
into being. We're told that our Savior is
the One who created all things. In John 1, it says, "...in the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God." Plainly speaking of Christ. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him. And without Him was not anything
made that was made. We read in Genesis, that Christ
said, let there be, and there was. But most folks would say,
you know, to believe such a thing is ludicrous, that a being can
speak something into existence. It just simply proves what simpletons,
Christians, really are, to believe such a thing. But is it any more
absurd than to believe in the so-called Big Bang Theory, that
things just exploded, but then they suddenly settled into a
pattern of organization and order. One of our guest preachers, I
think it might have been Frank Tate, made this illustration
that I thought was really good. He was talking about setting
some cans of paint in a room and putting some explosive in
them and letting them blow up. And you go back in that room
and you find beautiful paintings. The Mona Lisa, A Starry Night
by Picasso. And that makes about as much
sense as the Big Bang Theory. And we believe all sorts of things
about our God, which, from a logical or scientific standpoint, are
completely ridiculous. It's called living by faith. That if God says it in His Word,
then it's so, despite what logic or science might tell us. Because
our sovereign God is not ruled by logic. And He's certainly
not ruled by man's so-called science. If God were ruled by
logic, then surely He would not have come to this earth to make
Himself an offering for sin. From a human standpoint, what
our Lord did makes no sense whatsoever. None. That He would leave His
place of magnificence and glory with His Father and come to this
earth in itself would be a wonder, but to come here and to be made
a sacrifice, there's no logic in that at all from a human standpoint.
None whatsoever. It's not like he needed anything. He enjoyed an existence with
the Father of complete bliss, basking in the Father's love
and delight, We're told that he was daily the Father's delight,
and yet he chose to leave all that behind, and to condescend,
and become, as the Scriptures tell us, like unto his brethren,
to be made of human flesh and blood, to suffer hunger, fatigue,
sorrow, and in the end be forsaken of his Father as he's slain on
a Roman tree. that Father with whom he enjoyed
unbroken fellowship for untold trillions of millennia. And our
blessed Savior endured all this for His chosen people's sake.
He experienced unimaginable sorrow. In the book of Psalms, chapter
69, it says, Reproach hath broken my heart, And I am full of heaviness,
and I looked for some to take pity, and there was none. And for comforters, but I found
none." This verse says, I am full of heaviness, where there
is no room for any other emotion but heaviness. So we see that
our Lord traded unimaginable bliss for unimaginable misery,
and we're told why He did that. in the book of 2 Corinthians.
And it's an explanation that defies all human logic. For ye
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich,
yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye, through His poverty,
might be rich. This is how He can be a just
God and a Savior, a God who will by no means clear the guilty.
And yet a God and a Savior who forgives the iniquities of those
that are guilty. And there's only one way that
that's possible, and it's explained in Isaiah 53, 6, And the Lord
hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. This is one of the
reasons that we can declare that Christ Jesus is a type of Solomon,
that there is none like unto Thee, Every other imaginary God
that men worship require a sacrifice. Every God. There is none other
than Christ who lays down His life for His worshipers. It's
not to be found anywhere in human history. In modern day works,
religion is a lot like that. They require a sacrifice. They
require that you give up that liberty that is found in Christ
and be shackled with the chains of rules and regulations. Taste
not. Touch not. Handle not. Sure,
they teach Christ would die on a cross. He died for everybody's
sins. But when He said it's finished,
He meant just His part was done. Your part is yet to be accomplished. He just opened the door. You
need to walk through it. And men and women that are bound
with those chains constantly, have to worry, have I done enough
good to offset the bad? How are the scales tipping? There
never, as we that are free in Christ, they never understand
that text that there is now no condemnation for them which are
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. And certainly our Savior was
like none that came before Him and none that came after in the
miracles that He did. In Matthew 11, verse 3, we read
of the two disciples of John the Baptist coming to Christ
and asking, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for
another? John instructed him to ask. This
of the Lord. And our Lord's reply in verses
4 and 5 show that he was indeed as with Solomon, like none who
came before him, or like none that would come after. Because
Christ answered them and said, Go and show John again those
things which ye do hear and see. The blind receive their sight,
The lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and
the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached
unto them. These things were prophesied
in Isaiah 35, where we read, Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame
man leap as a heart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. For
in the wilderness shall water break out, and streams in the
desert." I want to look at each of these miracles briefly that
are listed here and see if they were ever done by anyone else
before Christ or after Christ. The first miracle that we see
is the blind receive their sight. There are several instances of
this throughout the New Testament. But you won't find it ever in
the Old Testament scriptures. As great as the prophets of God
were, and as much power as the Lord gave them, there's never
an instance recorded of them restoring the sight to a man
who was born blind. We read about blind Bartimaeus,
that's probably one of the best known texts as far as Christ
restoring sight to a blind man. And there's another account in
John chapter 9 about the man who was born blind and said the
Lord spat on the ground, made a little mud, put it on his eyes,
and instructed him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. And this
guy was questioned by the Pharisees. They just couldn't believe that
this was an actual true story. And they actually called his
parents and said, is this guy telling us the truth? And he,
fearing to be thrown out of the synagogue, said, he's of age,
ask him. But this man made a statement
that kind of set the Pharisees back on their heels. He said,
since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened
the eyes of one that was born blind? And the Pharisees, knowing
the Scriptures as they did, knew that that was indeed the case.
We do not find an account of that ever happening anywhere
in the Old Testament. And just a side note here, I
remember reading a story years ago about a man who had been
born blind, and the doctors, I forget how, restored his sight. And at first, it was great, but
as time went on, this man slowly began to lose his mind, contemplated
suicide. Because he had never seen things
as we do, and been taught from the time you're a little bitty
infant that that's a cat, and that's a chair, and that's a
table. And he saw all these things and had no idea what many of
them were. And eventually he asked the doctors
to take away his sight, and spent the rest of his life blind. But
blind Bartimaeus and the others that we read of in scriptures,
We don't ever read of them ever having this kind of problem,
because when the Lord heals, He gives you the complete package.
They didn't just have their sight restored, they had their understanding
of what things they were seeing restored as well. And He did
the same thing for the lame man, which we read of being healed
in Acts chapter 3, the one that sat at the temple begging alms. The instant he received the healing
of his feet and ankles, He also received the ability to balance
and leap. Now that, any doctor would tell
you is impossible. As I said, we learn from a child.
You can watch a child learn to walk, and they fall many times,
and eventually learn to balance, and they learn to run, and they
learn to jump. But this man had done none of these things, and
yet we read that he went into the temple. with Peter and John,
and he was weeping and praising God. Which brings me to my next
point, that the lame walk, again, you will never find an account
of that happening anywhere in the Old Testament scriptures.
There's never an account given of a man who was born lame ever
being healed by any of the prophets. Next in Matthew, we read in this
reply to the Lord, to the disciples of John the Baptist, the lepers
are cleansed. Now we find much about leprosy
in the book of Leviticus, starting in chapter 13. It gives a description
of leprosy as to how the priest could determine if this skin
disorder this person had was leprosy or something else. And
then in chapter 14, it gives instructions on how a leper was
to be cleansed. And it was a lengthy process.
Now we have an account in 2 Kings 5 of Nahum being cured of leprosy. And he was instructed by Elisha
to go bathe in the Jordan River seven times. Again, a lengthy
process. Yet our Lord, in the accounts
of healing a leper, it was not a lengthy process. He just simply
said, be thou clean. Simply by speaking, He healed
these people. And no one before Him or after
Him ever did such a thing. There was none like unto Him. The next miracle that we find
spoken of by our Lord to John's disciples is the death year.
Again, this is prophesied in Isaiah 35, which says the years
of the death would be unstopped. And this account in Mark 7 doesn't
tell us if this man, that the Lord healed, was born deaf or
if he lost his hearing later in life. It would seem that he
at one time was able to hear, because it says that he had an
impediment of speech, that he could speak, but it wasn't very
plain, which seems to me that he would have had to have been
able to speak at one time. And even though there's no account
found in the four gospels of our Lord healing a man who was
deaf from birth, I'm sure that it happened. And as I thought
about that, I thought, what language would someone who
has never heard, who's been deaf from their childhood or from
birth, what language would they think in? We speak English, and
we think in English. So I did some research on this,
and I read much on it, and from the research that men and women
have conducted, they say that people that are born deaf think
in images rather than in words, that they understand the world
in a unique way, different from those of us who can speak and
hear. But based on other scriptures that deal with Christ healing
various other people with a variety of other ailments, the healing
was always 100%. Like I said, it's a package deal. When the Lord healed one, He
gives them complete understanding. And He gives them the ability
to understand and to speak the language of the nation that they're
in. In this case, it would be Hebrew. And the next miracle that our
Lord speaks of in His reply to John's disciples is that the
dead are raised up. Now, there's ten times in Scripture,
ten total times, that speak of the dead being raised through
your font in the Old Testament, seven in the New. Elijah raises
the son of the widow of Zephrathah in 1 Kings 17, the second account. is Elijah's successor, Elijah,
who raises the son of the Shumite woman. And in both accounts,
you find it strange, the prophets lay down the child, and it says
they put his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, and his
hands upon his hands, and then the flesh of the child began
to warm. And in this account of Elijah, it says he did that,
and then he walked around the house for a while, And then he
stretched himself back on the child, and it said, the child
sneezed seven times, and then opened his eyes. And I have no
idea what that means. But we find it in God's Word,
and it's true. And the third account, where
we find the Old Testament, is actually quite odd and bizarre.
In 2 Kings chapter 13, we read, and Elisha died, and they buried
him. And the bands of the Moabites
invaded the land at the coming end of the year. And it came
to pass, as they were burying the man, that, behold, they spied
a band of men, and they cast the man into the sepulcher of
Elijah. And when the man was let down
and touched the bones of Elijah, he revived and stood on his feet."
Again, I had no idea what the meaning of that is, but it's
there for our instruction if the Lord will actually give us
eyes to understand it. There's other accounts in the
New Testament, seven accounts. We won't go over every one. There's
Jairus' daughter. There's a young man who was his
mother's only child. He stopped the funeral procession
and told the young man to rise. And he said he sat up and spoke. We find in the account of Lazarus being raised in John
11. And in that instance, the Lord
didn't even touch Lazarus. He just simply shouted to him
in the tomb and told him, come forth. And he did. And the greatest instance we
have of the dead being raised, of course, is our Lord being
raised by the Father. He said that He healed up the ghost.
And yet the Lord raised Him, His Father raised Him from the
grave. And also in that text it says
that the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints
which slept arose, another instance of the dead arising. And it says,
and He came out of the graves after our Lord's resurrection,
after the Lord Himself had risen from the dead. And it says that
they appeared unto many, And each time I read that text, I
can't help but wonder what these risen saints did after they went
into the city and appeared unto me. I would guess, and it's only
a guess, that the Lord took them into heaven as He did our risen
Lord. And lastly, we find two accounts
in the book of Acts. The one where Peter raised Tabitha,
and the other where Paul was preaching and a young man fell
out of the window and said, raised him up, fell on him and embraced
him, it says, and his life returned to him. And each of those accounts
that healing is done by our Lord Jesus Christ may be through another
person, but they're quick to tell you that it was not done
of any power of theirs. The next miracle we read of in
Matthew 11 verse 5 is where our Lord is answering the disciples
of John the Baptist. It says, "...and the poor have
the gospel preached unto them." But some would say, how can that
possibly be a miracle when it happened in this place every
Sunday and Tuesday? But I would go so far as to say
that out of these five miracles that are listed, this is undoubtedly
the greatest one of all. Every single one of these people
that we have read about, and if you've read about over the
years, throughout the Scriptures, particularly the ones who admire
our Lord, unless the Lord did a work of grace in them, they
perished eventually under the wrath of God. But that's not
going to happen with this miracle of the ones who have the gospel
preached unto them and the Lord gives them life. that the very fact that our almighty,
majestic, omnipotent God would condescend to this world and
become human flesh is like a miracle that is like no other that has
been seen before or since. And we would know nothing about
the God of heaven or His attributes were it not for the fact that
He has shown us that things can turn to Himself through the preaching
of the gospel. We would not know anything about
a strict law or a strict justice. We would not know such a place
as hell existed. We would not know such a place
as heaven existed. And we certainly wouldn't know
how our redemption is accomplished. And yet God revealed these things
to us. It's indeed a miracle that he
makes these mysteries known. We read in Romans 1, starting
in verse 1, it says, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be
an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised
to forify his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God, with power,
according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead, from the beginning of time, from the time that God created
the first man and he fell in the garden, our God has declared
himself to mankind in unmerited mercy. He told Adam the day that
Thou need'st serve, Thou shalt surely die. He warned him. And
yet Adam, disobeyed, and he did indeed die and brought death
upon the entire human race. And we need to understand that
he could have just as easily left this entire race to perish.
God owed nothing to this human race. He could have chosen not
to declare himself unto us and left us in darkness, and if he
had, he would have been perfectly just in doing so. But He's merciful. He delights
in mercy. We're told that so many times
throughout the Psalms and throughout other scriptures. So that through
the preaching of the gospel, these five miracles that our
Lord listed to the disciples of John the Baptist are fulfilled. Number one, the blind receive
their sight. We're given sight to see Christ,
and others are not. Our Lord said, speaking of a
parable, to you it is given, to them it is not given. Number
two, the lame walk. Before Christ reveals Himself
in saving faith to the sinner, we have no legs to come to Christ. But afterwards, we come to Him
leaping and praising God as that man did after being healed by
Peter and John. Miracle number three, it says
the lepers are cleansed from birth. We are polluted, corrupted
with sin, from the top of our head to the soles of our feet.
There is no soundness in it, we're told, but Christ comes
and says, be thou clean. And in the curse to stay, number
four miracle, the deaf hear. Our ears, which before could
not hear the truth of Christ, are now unstopped, are now opened.
And for the first time, we're given hearing by which faith
cometh. Faith cometh by hearing. Miracle
number five, the greatest miracle of all, the dead are raised up,
and you have be quickened who were dead in sins and trespasses. So once again, we are given the
ability to see Christ as He is. We're like the Queen of Sheba
when she met Solomon. Turn over a few chapters in 1
Kings. We're already in 1 Kings. Turn
over to chapter 10. This is a description. of what
happened when the Queen of Sheba met Solomon. First Kings chapter 10, starting
in verse 1. 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 great train, with camels and a pair of spices, and very much
gold, precious stones. And when she would come to Solomon,
she communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon
told her all 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 attention 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 left in her. And she said to the king,
It was a true report that I heard in my own land of thine acts
and thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words
until I came, and my eyes had seen it, and behold, the half
was not told me. Thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth
the fame which 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 delighteth in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel,
Because the Lord loveth Israel forever, therefore may he come
to do judgment and justice." What a description of our Savior. The Lord has set him on the throne
to do justice and judgment. So it is with the people of God.
When we see Christ, we begin through the preaching of the
Gospel to hear of Him. And the Spirit allows us to see
Him. And when we do see Him, we realize that the half has
not been told. But I'll tell you what, when
we see Him in glory, we're going to find out that one-tenth of
one percent has not been told. Only then will we fully understand
the magnificence of our God and Savior. One day soon, we will
see Him as He is, and we will realize in His fullness that
there is none like unto Thee. Now a word to those who are sitting
here, or maybe listening over the streaming, who don't yet
know Christ in saving faith. In the same way that the half
of the glory of Solomon was not told, so is with our God and
His wrath. All the descriptions of all the
terrors that have ever taken place on this earth cannot begin
to scratch the surface of what the damned in hell will suffer. But know this, that our God delights
in mercy. He's not the pathetic little
Jesus that would like your endorsement. He's a sovereign dictator over
all this universe, doing what He wants, when He wants, with
whom He wants. He leaves some to perish and
brings some to faith in Christ. So I would encourage you to put
yourself unto the hearing of the Gospel every opportunity
you have. And maybe, just maybe, God the
Father will show you His Son, and you'll realize then that
there was none like unto Him before Him, and there will be
none that comes after Him. May the Lord grant you saving
faith in Christ, and may our Lord grant us to see Christ as
He truly is and rejoice in all that He has done for us, His
redeemed people. Lord willing, Chris Cunningham
will be with us this coming Lord's Day, and a week from tonight,
Fred Evans will be back with us. So be in prayer for those
men and those services that our Lord will speak to our hearts
through the preached Word. Pray for one another. Lord bless
you. You're dismissed.