“Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the LORD your God. Because of the love of your God for Israel and his desire to uphold them forever, he has made you king over them, to maintain justice and righteousness.”
~ 2 Chronicles 9:8
Hi James and Ellen,
How well-to-do are you? Do you have lots of money and lots of things? Does your dad have lots of money and lots of things? Is your dad a Solomon? Your grandpaa believes that Solomon became the wealthiest guy who has ever lived on planet Earth. Solomon ruled for forty years as king over the Israelite people group’s guys and gals. A guy by the name of Nathan documented in his records the kind of enormous wealth that Solomon accumulated over his lifetime. What Nathan recounted regarding Solomon’s wealth is in 2 Chronicles 9 in the Chronicles Books. The chronicler’s recording of Solomon’s wealth begins with a visit from the Queen of Sheba. Sheba’s land area was located in western Arabia. Sheba’s land area may be the land area that is known today as Yemen. Word throughout the known world was that Solomon was a really wise dude who was accumulating lots of wealth. Solomon’s domain went from the river – which probably was the Euphrates, to the land area where the Philistine people group of guys and gals lived to the boarder of the country of Egypt. The Queen of Sheba had to pass through Arabia’s land area to get to the city of Jerusalem to where Solomon was living as the king over God’s specially chosen guys and gals. Arabia’s land area is inhospitable. Your grandpaa has no idea why the Queen of Sheba thought it was so important for her to meet Solomon but . . . when the Queen of Sheba arrived in the city of Jerusalem, the Queen of Sheba asked Solomon a number of hard questions – which Solomon answered in a way that proved to her that the dude really did have an awfully lot of smarts and wisdom. The Queen of Sheba had caravanned on camels with a large entourage to the city of Jerusalem. When she finished hearing Solomon’s wise answers to her hard questions, the Queen of Sheba gave Solomon special gifts that included large quantities of spices and precious stones along with 120 talents of gold. A talent of gold over 2950 years ago weighed right around 75 pounds. The Queen of Sheba – as a gift, gave Solomon about 9000 pounds of gold. How many camels do you think that it took to carry across a hot, uninviting desert for days and days four and a half tons of gold? Yesterday – which was about seventeen years ago from the present editing of this ‘missive’, the price for an ounce of gold was $428.20 (it is $1797.82 today). The dollar amount of gold that the Queen of Sheba gave as a gift to Solomon by that day’s gold price was $61,660,800.
Would you rather have lots of wealth or would you rather be known as having good characters? Would you rather have millions of dollars in gold or would you rather have respected names? Would you rather have ships that bring you gold, silver, ivory, apes and baboons or would you rather be moral, ethical kids? Would you rather have lots of different spices, a plethora of precious stones and an abundance of algumwood or would you rather live lives that honor and glorify God? You might be honestly thinking right now that you are always going to be putting God first and foremost in your lives no matter how much wealth that He might give you. Your grandpaa believes that being affluent has the ability to pollute character. Your grandpaa believes that having lots of things has the ability to corrupt a respected name. Your grandpaa believes that the pursuit of fortune has the ability to corrode morality and ethicalness. Your grandpaa believes that to accumulate things becomes a god that can only be pleased by getting more things. Solomon made accumulating wives and concubines as one of his life objectives. One legacy of Solomon is his wisdom. Another legacy of Solomon is the number of his wives and concubines that he had. Still another legacy of Solomon is is that he left none of his sons – when he died, in place to succeed him as king over the Israelite people group’s guys and gals – which left a leadership vacuum in the land which God gave to His specially chosen guys and gals to always to have to live in as their very own land if . . . which would ultimately lead to the land area becoming two separate nations of God’s specially chosen guys and gals. When Solomon asked God for wisdom, God gave Solomon the gift of wisdom. Verse 8 has the Queen of Sheba responding to what she could clearly observe in Solomon’s life when she said, “Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the LORD your God. Because of the love of your God for Israel and his desire to uphold them forever, he has made you king over them, to maintain justice and righteousness.”’
Wealth may be a blessing from God. Good character is a gift from God. You can give wealth away. Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba 666 talents of gold when she left to return to Sheba. That much gold would weigh almost 50,000 pounds. 50,000 pounds of gold would be worth about $345,560,000 dollars today. Solomon was a generous, benevolent king who had everything but . . . Solomon still died. How do you want to be remembered when you die? Your grandmaa and grandpaa were doing okay financially before God called them to a cross-cultural vocation as missionaries. Your grandmaa and grandpaa were actively involved in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church that is located in Aberdeen, South Dakota when . . . not long after your grandmaa and grandpaa began to attend the Aberdeen Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, they were asked by a couple who were members of the church to join them to go through a Bible study on the Mark Book that they were beginning with two other couples in their home, they were both asked to teach a Sunday School class, they both went weekly with a friend to share their faith systematically door to door and they began a couple’s club that met monthly. It was not money or having things that gave your grandmaa and grandpaa fulfillment; it was having God ordering their lives that gave them fulfillment.
2 Chronicles 9 (535)