“Hiding Beneath Prosperity” – FBC Morning Light (6/1/2023)

Well a good Thursday morning to you, and here we are beginning the month of June. Is that not incredible to think that we're already at this stage in 2023, June 1st? Well, I hope your month gets off to a great start today, and I hope it does in God's Word.

Reading 1 Kings 9–10, Acts 20, and Psalm 109

And today we're reading in 1 Kings 9 and 10, Acts 20 and Psalm 109. I want to go back to 1 Kings today and particularly focus on chapter 10. Now back in chapter 3 of 1 Kings, Solomon is confronted by the Lord, or engaged by the Lord, and the Lord tells Solomon, ask me what you will, ask me what you would like of me.

And Solomon says, what I would like of you is wisdom, that I may be able to judge this people, which was quite an impressive request for a king in his position. And then verse 10 of chapter 3 says the thing pleased the Lord, that the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing, and God said to him, because you have asked this thing and have not asked long life for yourself, and have not asked for riches for yourself, nor asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, behold I have done according to your words.

See, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone before you, like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you, and I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among all the kings, among the kings all your days.

And so the Lord promises, okay, you prayed and asked for wisdom, I'm going to give you wisdom so that you may be able to judge and discern wisely, and I'm also going to give you riches and honor. And right away, chapter 3, you have the example of the wisdom that God gave to Solomon when those two women come, the harlots had come and had their children, and one of them died, and you know, he says, cut the child in two, you know, he's putting out a test, and the real mother says, no, go ahead and give the child to this woman, and the stealing, the mother who had stolen the child said, no, go ahead, cut him in half, and Solomon says, okay, give the baby to the real mom.

All right, so he showed wisdom. And then when we come to chapter 10 here, that was all kind of a background, you come to chapter 10, and there's this very impressive engagement between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and she comes to see him and wants to pick his brain and get some wisdom from Solomon, and she's totally impressed.

She's impressed by his wisdom, but she's also impressed by the incredible splendor of his kingdom, the wealth of his kingdom. And what a display. I mean, this was a time in Israel's history under Solomon's reign where gold was plentiful, silver was counted as nothing, and what an incredible display, what an impressive display.

But that can be quite the sign of God's blessing. This was what God said was going to happen. I'm going to give you all this prosperity, Solomon, because you asked for wisdom. And in his grace and in his kindness, God saw to it that all of this prosperity would come to him.

Prosperity Can Hide Seeds of Destruction

But at the end of the chapter, in this listing of all the examples of his wealth, it says this in verse 23,. So King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. All the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his heart.

Each man brought his presents, articles of silver and gold, garments, armor, spices, horses, mules, at a set rate year by year. And this is after also telling us all of the great wealth in verses 14 through 22 that Solomon had accumulated.

But, and it's like, just in the cataloging of that, almost set in passing, it goes on to say, Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen. He had 1 ,400 chariots and 12 ,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.

And the king made silver as common as Jerusalem as stones, he made cedar trees as abundant as the sycamores which are in the lowland, and Solomon had horses imported from Egypt and Kiva. The king's merchants bought them and he sold them, and so forth.

And a chariot that was imported from Egypt cost 600 shekels of silver, a horse 150, and thus through their agent they exported. There was this trading of this stuff. But here's the key, the key verse, 26.

Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen. So what? Seems like, I mean, it's just set in passing, doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal, but here's the thing. God had warned Israel that their king was not to do that.

The king wasn't to accumulate horses and chariots, and the reason was simply that God wanted Israel to know that their strength and their power did not come from horse and chariot, it came from him, from God himself.

So watch this now, this relative prosperity of a kingdom or a nation or even an individual can be quite impressive, and it may very well be God's blessings showered in his grace, but at the same time that wealth and prosperity may hide some underlying seeds of destruction, not noticeable at first, but in time it'll come out.

And I've seen that true in the lives of not known very many people who were very wealthy, but in relative terms I've seen it where people had, in comparison with others around them, great wealth and seemed very prosperous, but they tolerated some things or they embraced some things in their lives that sowed seeds of destruction down the road, and that I think is what needs to be learned from this particular passage.

Don't allow little things to come into your life when it seems like God is blessing you and everything's going fine and you're doing well and you're succeeding and so on and so forth. Don't allow little things in your life that the Lord has said are taboo or to be avoided.

Don't allow them in, they'll sow seeds of destruction for down the road. Our Father and our God, I pray that you would help us in this warning to heed it and to be wise in eliminating those things that you do not want us to partake of and to have for ourselves.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, listen, have a good rest of your Thursday, and I trust the Lord will bless you. Good day.