Something Greater than Solomon

Introduction

Let me open with a question this morning. If you were given the opportunity to travel back in time and spend one week with any Old Testament character that you chose, you would spend that week with that person in their time and at their home. Who would you like to spend a week with? There are probably a lot of really interesting options. I was thinking on this pretty heavily over the last few weeks, and a lot of them went through some stuff. So I’d be a little afraid to visit. You know, if I visit Daniel on Lion’s Den Day, that would be really unlucky. I guess it kind of depends on what you’re into. If you like camping, you might go spend a week with Abraham. He pretty much camps his entire life.

If you’re interested in animals, you might want to go hang out with Noah for a while, or if you like Pokemon, because he had to, you know, catch them all.

You could spend a week in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Though you should call ahead and ask about the dress code. I think there are a lot of really interesting choices. But as you can probably tell, my choice today will relate to one of the kings of Israel, and probably the one who would have had the most to show you in terms of what it looked like to be the blessed people of God. And while we talked about him in the class this morning, and he definitely made some mistakes. And flaws were prevalent at the end of his life, by and large, I think his time was a time of an amazing series of blessings and a wave of goodness from God, and I would just like to put my eyes upon it.

I think of the list of people to visit for a week, for me, I would find it most interesting to visit Solomon, a truly great king. Of course, we know from Ecclesiastes and other letters that there would be much to see. They had this grand amount of property that the Israelites owned. There was lakes and there were different celebrations that were going on and houses were built, and just sort of looking at it and seeing the opulence at which they were living because of the blessings of God. But when it all kind of settled down for me, just to sit down with Solomon and talk about some things would be one of the most rewarding conversations of my life. What would you talk to Solomon about if you had a chance to sit down and discuss a few things?

1. A Week with Solomon, a Truly Great King

Earlier in his life, before some of the things that we’ve documented this morning. I’ll tell you this. He came from a pretty amazing dad, didn’t he? His father was King David. I almost feel like I’m getting a two for one here. Because if I visit during the time that Solomon is king, of course, David is gone. But by the time that Solomon was born, David had gotten through much of the things that aren’t so great that we know about him. And he was probably a very godly and focused man, and Solomon came from a godly father. And I would like to ask him about that. I mean, how was dinner at your house? Did you just sit down and your dad just would bust out in a psalm or something?

Was there some revelation? Was God working? And particular events would be of most interest to me. Open your Bibles with me to 1 Kings. Most of what we’ll discuss in the first half of the lesson this morning will look at the life of Solomon and will be based back in 1 Kings. I hope I haven’t thrown you off too much. These are really ugly slides with really basic font. I’m well under the ten font minimum that Tony likes to use, so I hope you’re okay with that. But 1 Kings chapter 2 is where we want to be. And remember this. Remember the end of David’s life when he had a conversation with Solomon? As David, chapter 2, verse 1, as David’s time to die drew near, he charged Solomon his son, saying, I am going the way of all the earth.

Be strong therefore and show yourself a man. Some verses say, be a man. Solomon, how’d that hit you? When a man after God’s own heart, a man of great faith, a man who had delivered to you just about every good thing that you would then possess, tells you to be a man. And verse 3, keep charge of the Lord your God to walk in his ways. What was that like? I want to know what it was like being a teenager in the house of King David. I think that would be interesting conversation about his family and his life. But then eventually we need to settle into sort of the big elephant in the room, and that’s all that amazing straight from God wisdom, because he was given some pretty incredible wisdom from God.

Do you remember that story? It’s told to us early on in his story in 1 Kings chapter 3. Look with me in chapter 3. And I would say, as we prepare to read this in verse 6, both of these things are kind of going together. He learned a lot of really great things from his father, and he saw what it looked like when a king and the Lord were in fellowship, and he wanted that too. So in 1 Kings chapter 3 and verse 6, the Bible says this.

According as he walked before you in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart toward you. And you have reserved for him this great loving kindness that you have given him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day. Now, verse 7, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. Your servant is in the midst of your people, which you have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. Now, verse 9, please. So give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people to discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours?

Can I just say, first of all, that I really like Solomon’s attitude in that entire exchange? I hear some wonderful things like these are your people, not my people. And you bless my father for his faith, and I just want to carry that forward. Would you please give me wisdom? He asked wisdom of God when God told him that he could ask whatever he chose. And you know a little bit further down in verse 10, this was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked for this thing. God said to him, Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself a long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but you have asked for yourself discerning discernment to understand justice.

Behold, I have done according to your words. And you know the story, God blessed him with great wisdom. It’s really interesting. If you’re in our Bible class this morning in Deuteronomy 17, he was not focused on those three things that he was not to be focused upon. And God recognized that in that verse and blessed him with great wisdom. And so the stories commenced. If I asked everybody in the room, could you tell me a story of Solomon’s immense wisdom? Which story comes to mind? The baby. The two ladies and the babies, and one baby dies, and they bring the other one, and one claims that it’s hers, and the other one does as well, and he asks for a sword to tear that baby or cut it in two, and you remember the story, and exposed, I would wonder.

I’d want to say, All right, Solomon, now that I’m here, did you really know how that was going to go down? I mean, did you have an alternate plan to say, wait a minute, that’s we were just trying that. I don’t know, but he had great wisdom and insight from God to do that. Can I just remind you of something? Solomon was king forty years. That’s one story. How many dozens or hundreds of stories like that? I would just like to go for a week and sit in the courts and listen to this man speak. Listen to him judge the people. We know that he wrote Psalms, and he wrote most of the book of Proverbs, and he wrote the book of Song of Solomon, and he wrote Ecclesiastes, and it’s just immense wisdom dripping from his tongue and his pen, and I just want to be there.

I think it would be neat to spend a week just to hear from his great wisdom. But after a little while, we’d have to get up and take a little walk, a road trip, because I’d have to see it. I cannot go back to this day in time and spend time with Solomon without us taking a little trip down the road, because I want to see God’s house. You know that David wanted to build the dwelling place of God among God’s people in Jerusalem, and God said, You can accumulate the supplies if you’d like, but that will be a job for your son Solomon. And Solomon embarked upon building the house of the Lord. Open your Bibles with me to chapter 6. First Kings chapter 6, the first two verses, please.

1 Kings 6, 1 and 2. Now it came about in the 480th year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel. Look at the end of the verse. He began to build the house of the Lord. As for the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, its length was 60 cubits, its width 20 cubits, its height 30 cubits, and then a whole bunch of verses that you usually skip over, where you learn all the meticulous details of it. We’ll flash forward to chapter 8. Would you do that, please? First Kings chapter 8, verse 10. Solomon built the temple. And in verse 10, it happened that when the priest came from the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord.

So that the priest could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. They couldn’t even go near the thing. The glory of the Lord had filled every square centimeter of it and was pouring out upon the people, and everyone was in awe of the power of God. Solomon, you built that. Let’s go take a look at it. I would feel very close to God. Would you feel very close to God? I wouldn’t touch it. I wouldn’t go inside. But I am looking up on that little hill in the corner there in Jerusalem, and I see God’s in there.

I’d want to spend a week staring at it and the glory that surrounded it. Solomon will be an interesting character to spend time with because of his father, because of his wisdom, because of what he built. Now, unfortunately, we can’t overlook this. You studied with me earlier in 1 Kings chapter 9 at the end, or chapter 10 at the end, and leading into chapter 11. We know the story that came about in terms of he multiplied horses from Egypt. Yes, he actually multiplied horses from Egypt. I still have trouble sort of getting a grasp on that. He multiplied riches from foreign lands, and in chapter 11, you know the story. I don’t need to read it this morning. In verses 1 through six, he multiplied these wives, not just wives, but wives from foreign countries.

We saw that in Deuteronomy. He did it anyway. And so in verse 8, thus also he did for all of his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrifices to their gods. Now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord. And so my prayer, and I have no say in this, or no full understanding of it, but I am prayerful that after that, after that, with a little time on the clock, that he writes maybe Ecclesiastes, and he comes back to his senses. I don’t know the answer to that. But if I was there for a week, I would warn him about what was coming. Now, not a perfect man, I think that’s important to see, but I’ll tell you this.

He drew people from all over the place. I can’t actually go back there, nor can you. But if you lived there in that day, you would have been impressed by the same things that I hope you’re impressed by this morning. And people traveled from everywhere just to see the man, to hear him speak. One of the most notable stories is found with me, please, in 1 Kings chapter 10. You remember the woman. She is the queen of Shiva, verse 1. She’s a powerful lady. People come to her. She’s got power and influence, and yet when she goes to Solomon in the first three or four verses, and she starts kind of hitting him with questions, and he’s answering those questions and absolutely blowing her away. She can’t believe that she is in the presence of divine knowledge.

So I want to read verses four through ten because I need this morning. I need for you to get a grip on how impressive a character this was, and how much people want to be around him. Look in verse 4. When the queen of Sheba perceived all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters and their attire, his cupbearers, his stairway by which he went up to the house of the Lord. There was no more spirit in her. Then she said to the king, it was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. Nevertheless, I did not believe the reports until I came and my eyes had seen it.

And behold, the half was not told me. You exceed in wisdom and prosperity the report which I had heard. Verse 8. How blessed, watch this. I want you to see something. She’s not only impressed by this guy and blown away, but she can’t believe that other people actually get to stay with him. Watch this. How blessed are your men, how blessed are these your servants who stand before you continually and hear your wisdom. Blessed be the Lord your God who delighted in you to set you on the throne of David because the Lord loved justice forever. Therefore he made you king to do justice and righteousness. Verse 10, she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold and all kinds of stuff. She sacrificed.

2. Something Greater than Solomon Is Here

She gave of her goods just to be around him. I tell you, a week with Solomon would be quite a sight to see. For the most part, and based on his reputation, he was a great man. But can I tell you something this morning that’s more important than anything I’ve said so far? Solomon was really great. But can I give you a message to take home with you today? Something greater than Solomon is here. Something greater. Something more glorious. Something more worthy. Don’t forget the Queen of Sheba this morning. Something more worthy. More amazing. Surrounded by people more blessed. Provided for more fully by God. Something greater than Solomon is here. A couple of questions. Question one. Do you remember who said that? Who said something greater than Solomon was here?

Jesus said that. Do you know where that’s found? It’s found in Matthew chapter 12. Would you open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 12? I’m drawing your attention there. You’re going to see that Solomon gets brought up, and we’ll need to sort of make some comparisons today. Sometimes the glory of Jesus is most clearly seen, as I mentioned in the Bible class, when you look at the best days, the best choices, the most glorious moments in the king’s history, and you see how Jesus so easily exceeds them all. In Matthew chapter 12, I need to give you a little bit of the setting. Jesus is doing what Jesus does. He’s preaching and teaching and working miracles, and the people are what? They’re rejecting him. They’re attacking him at every turn.

In verses 1 and 2. In Matthew chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, you remember his disciples walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath day, picking the grain, by the way, let the cat out of the bag. They did not violate the law of Moses. They did not sin in the least against any law of God at all. But they took that opportunity in verses 2 and 3 and 4 to attack him. They always wanted to tear him down. I want you to think about Solomon. Solomon, they lauded and magnified Jesus. They wanted to tear him down. In verse 13, Jesus heals a man. Stretch out your hand, verse 13. And stretching it out, it was restored to normal like the others. And what happened in verse 14?

They wanted to kill the guy. He just healed a man, and they want him dead. They’re threatened by his power. They respected the power of Solomon. They are threatened by the power of Jesus. In verse 22, Jesus casts out demons. A demon-possessed man, verse 22, who was blind and mute, was brought to Jesus, and he healed him. And what do they say about that? What did they say? Now I know Solomon did some great things. He’s a pretty smart guy. But I don’t remember him casting demons out of anybody. Jesus does this amazing miracle, and what do they say? It’s the devil working in the devil. Are you kidding? At every turn, they try to get around giving him the honor he deserves. So, Jesus speaks.

And it’s found for us later in the chapter, and I need you to look down in verse 38. There are two comparisons that Jesus makes. One we’ll look at now, and the other one is where we need to put our focus. But look at verse 38. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. By the way, he just healed a man and cast out demons. But he answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation craved for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Verse 41, please. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, there’s one of the lines. Something greater than Jonah is here. Jesus is drawing a comparison between himself and Jonah. You remember Jonah, right? He was what we might call the reluctant messenger. He did not want to go to the people. He did not want the people to be saved. He understood the repercussions that would come upon him by his own people. He complained about it the entire way, so God just swallowed him up with a fish because God does stuff like that. And when God spits him up on the land, he goes to a people who hate the will of God.

He goes to a people who hate him. He doesn’t want to be there. He might, may or may not still smell like fish. We don’t know that for sure. But he walks in and he says, Everybody here needs to change your life completely. And the reason why you should believe me is some fish swallowed me for three days. He literally came in with a fish story. What’d they do? They repented. They turned their lives around. They extended their kingdom by, I think it was 150 years. Because they believed in him. Jesus said, something greater than Jonah is here. I will enter into the grave. I will die. You will watch me die. And on the third day, I will be raised again and appear to many.

And still there will be people who will not give their life to me. There will be people who repented at Jonah on a fish story and will not repent, though I have taken back life from death and provided life from death for you. And he says something kind of scary in verse 41. One day in the judgment, when you look up and you’re preparing to see the mercies of Jesus down upon you. You’re going to look up and see a bunch of Ninevite guys. Who are you? Oh, you can’t see Jesus today. I’m here to tell you that we believed a fish story by a prophet who didn’t even want to come. And you couldn’t give your life to the Messiah who was raised from the dead.

That’s a different sermon. Shouldn’t have preached that. I’m kind of like Tony does that. He’ll just bust off in some other sermon somewhere and come back. But it sets the stage for this one verse 41, or verse 42, pardon me, and kind of where we are this morning. He goes on to a second example, and this one we know pretty well. The queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. A couple of things we need to do this morning. I need you to be absolutely convinced, not only that Jesus is greater than the most glittery king of Israel’s history, but I need you to see in what ways he is greater and how much greater he is.

3. My King Is God from the Father

We need that, because that’s the faith that really drives our choices when we start to see the difference between them and him. Here’s the first thing I would tell you. Matthew 12, 38 through 42. Jesus, the King of Kings. Let me tell you a few things about Jesus. Number one. It’s pretty impressive to come from a godly Father, Solomon. Your dad was David. That’s really interesting stuff. But let me tell you about my king. My king is God. And he came straight from the Father in heaven. How many of you know there’s no one else in the history of all mankind who can make that claim? He is God from the Father. Open your Bibles with me to John chapter 8, please. John chapter 8. It is important, it is critical that we see him for what he is, and that nothing ever causes us to take him down in any way from the magnitude of being God from God.

And in chapter 8, he makes a large point about that. In verses 42 and 43, in John 8, 42 and 43, Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on my own initiative, but he has sent me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You know, I’ve wondered about this for a long time. Why didn’t they honor this guy? He was raising people from the dead. He was casting out demons. They saw it. It happened right in front of them. How could they answer negatively to someone who worked great miracles? It wasn’t the miracle working that was the problem.

They would have been fine to say, hey, you’re a pretty amazing prophet. You’re a pretty incredible priest from an odd tribe, but you’re a pretty incredible priest. You’re an amazing teacher. You’re a superman of faith. They would have been okay with that, what they were not okay with. And I would submit to you, Americans, fall into a similar category. Is elevating him beyond amazing to deity, to absolute God condition and glory. Not just a prophet, not just a priest, not just a king, not just a redeemer, but God. Look in the same text. Move forward with me just a little bit. In fact, let’s head on up to John 17.

In John 17, verse 6. I have manifested, John 17 and 6, I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept my word. Now they have come to know that everything you have given me is from you. Notice with me, verse 8. For the words which you gave me, I have given to them. And they, watch this, received them, and truly understood that I came forth from you, and they believed that you sent me. You know what the difference was for the disciples? They truly understood that their king came from God. I was doing a study last week, and I won’t do this twice this morning and bust off into another sermon, but we were doing 1 John 5 13 about that you may know that you have eternal life and confidence.

And we were kind of walking through 1 John 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and picking up these ideas of if you want to have you’re in fellowship with God through baptism, and you want to know that you’re going to heaven. I think all Christians should know it. They shouldn’t think it, hope it, believe it. They should know it. I’m a Christian, I’m going to heaven. But if you want that confidence, you need to do a few things in 1 John. And I do want to show you this. Look in 1 John 5. When it got to the big punchline of the big thing you got to do if you are interested in knowing you’re saved, it was not obey the commandments. I mean, they’re all over the letter, but that wasn’t the big thing.

4. Jesus Is the Wisdom from Heaven

It was not love your brother, though you should love your brother. This brother loves banana pudding. Keep that in mind. You know what it was? It was the thing we just kind of brush over, is obvious. But it’s the biggest thing of all. Look in verse 1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Look in verse 5. Who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Even my verse 13. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. He is God, and we should treat him as such. Excellent glory. But there’s more even. Solomon, pretty impressive with that wisdom from heaven business. That made him a prophet, didn’t it?

I get my prophets and my priests mixed up sometimes when I’m speaking too quickly, but he became this prophet. He took the words of God and he gave them to man. But Jesus. Jesus is not some prophet who took the words of God and gave them to you in red letter edition. He is the wisdom from heaven. His nature is truth. Every syllable that he proclaims, every message his apostles and prophets carry, this is why the Bible means so much to us. Is heaven, not just heaven’s message, it’s heaven. In readable form. Open your Bibles to John 1. You know where we’re going. Look in John chapter 1, and how this letter opens. It gives Jesus a position of glory and worthiness unmatched by even the greatest of prophets.

They too are just shadows of glory. And in chapter 1, listen to a description of your king. In the beginning was the word, verse 1, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him, nothing came into being that is coming to be. In him was life, and the light was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Now that’s a picture of Jesus, eternal, creator, illuminator. And yet a little further down in the text, you know where we’re going. Verse 14. That word, he’s called the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory.

5. I Will Make the Church the Temple

Glory is of the only begotten from the Father. In other words, we’re putting both of our points together. Only begotten from the Father, Word. He came and he’s so full of grace and truth. And verse 17 shows you it’s Jesus. His worthiness exceeds anything. And I wonder what Queen of Sheba would do today. She’d be really blown away, would she not? To be in his presence. Third thing. As I told you, Solomon, I’d like to hear him talk a little while, although I think I’d be more interested in hearing Jesus talk. It would be really neat if we had a book with the words of Jesus in it. I’d probably read that a lot. But I told you I’d like to take a little road trip with old Solomon there.

I’d want to walk down and take a look at that temple. I mean, God lives there. That’s pretty much a big deal. Can I tell you something about Jesus? He threw out the rule book on this. The standard approach of a structure in which God lives. God tabernacled among men, connected to men through a structure and the things that were inside of it. Open your Bibles with me to Ephesians, please, chapter 2. In Ephesians chapter 2, Jesus said, I’m going to change this. I’ll make it better, more direct, more rewarding than any tabernacle, any temple, any structure, any altar. I will make you the people of God. I will make the church the temple. Now, if you have trouble understanding that, you just come hang out with me because I have trouble understanding it as well.

This idea that God dwells among men in his people is kind of a hard thing to grasp. But it just shows how incredible Jesus’ plan is compared to every other plan. Look in Ephesians chapter 2, please. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 19, he’s talking about Christians like you and me. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God’s household, having been built. Watch this, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing, watch this, into a holy temple of the Lord. Now I’m going to stop there a second. Jesus said, I’m going to build a temple.

It will be holy. God will dwell there, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. I could spend all day on this. If you were a Jew and you needed to get close to God and you’d made a mistake, you’re going on a road trip, and you’re taking an animal with you, and you better find Jerusalem, and you’d better stand in line. You better hope the priests aren’t off at lunch break because you need to go to the temple and you need to have them represent you. We don’t do that anymore. Christians are in direct fellowship with God. I think that’s the idea here. And when we join his church, check this out. You join the church, you’re in fellowship with God.

6. Jesus Mastered His Flesh

Because he’s there and you’re there and you live together. That’s so much greater. Why is the world missing this? Why are people missing the magnitude? People are very what’s it called? Tactile. Touch things? Like put their hands on things. Ooh, I had a building to touch. God would be in there. He’d be in a building. He’s not in a building. He’s in all the people of God. Jesus did that. You know, Solomon, unfortunately, not a lot of great things to say at the end of his life, but I could say a few things about Jesus. You know, he was tempted too, right? He had power, he had opportunity to make a lot of mistakes, and Solomon kind of flipped, didn’t he? He lost all that great humility we read when he asked for wisdom from God, and he started sort of multiplying his own thing and being full of himself.

But Jesus mastered his flesh. He said no to himself entirely in every time sin raised its head, and he did it for us. Hebrews 2 will suffice. Look in Hebrews, the second chapter. We could read so many passages about this. But Hebrews 2 shows how personal a Savior He is. How much He knows what you’re dealing with, but He’s not one who failed and said, Alright, I’ll help you out. Don’t do what I did. He’s someone who succeeded and said, I went first. He’s such a great king. Jesus went first. There’s nothing you’ll ever be asked to do. Jesus didn’t go first. He was even baptized first. The reason of which, Tony will preach in the sermon coming up. To fulfill all righteousness and to please God.

He went first in every way. And he paved the way to victory. And he shows you that it can be done by his mercy. In Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14, we’ll do great. Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil. We could look over in chapter 4, verses 14 and 15, and we would see that he did so. Hebrews 4, 15, no sin. No sin. He defeated the devil in every arena in which the devil battles. If it’s the sin arena, he won. He didn’t sin. If it’s death, that scary, deep, dark veil, he went and he came back again.

I like that in John 10. I’m going to lay down my life. I’m just going to take it right back up. So you’ll see that my victory is complete and absolute. And we get to serve this great king. Now go back to Matthew chapter 12. What are the people doing about it? It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? Greater in every way. And the people won’t listen. Oh, they would give him some of the props that he might have desired. They would say, You’re definitely a miracle worker. Or like the world would say today, you’re oh, definitely an excellent moral teacher. Oh, yeah, I have a Bible in my house in the garage somewhere, I think. But definitely Jesus is a good moral teacher, and I think we should really follow a lot of the principles, except all the principles that I don’t like, but all the rest of the principles, certainly.

He’s more than all that. He’s more. Solomon, by the way, was more than all that. Would you be interested to know that people are relegating Jesus to a lower role than even we would relegate Solomon? That’s kind of the point this morning. Jesus’ glory is magnificent and amazing. And so back in Matthew chapter 12, please. Jesus wants them to know how this is going to work out. In Matthew chapter 12 and verse 42, the queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it. Because she came from the ends of the earth. Sacrifice time, all that stuff we preach about, sacrificed her time, sacrificed her goods. She was humble. She did all those things to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

Conclusion

Let me just say something once more as we close about that last statement. I love comparing Old Testament characters to Jesus. I talked to you about that shadows of glory business.

I’ve never been before. I’m not trying to sound all, ooh, I got to go to Washington, D.C. I’m just, it happened, okay? Live with it. I was preaching in Virginia in 2014, and we got up at five in the morning and we drove, or three in the morning, I forget, and we drove up to Washington, D.C., and we stayed there six whole hours. Six hours, watched the whole deal, the whole mall, six hours. I thought the mall was a mall, by the way, I’ll be honest. So it’s bright and early in the morning, and we park way over on this end where the Lincoln Memorial is. And one of the first things I noticed was not the Lincoln Memorial, but this long dark peak on the ground.

I said, What’s that? And I peeked around because it came over the trees and down. It was the longest shadow you’ve ever seen. It was a I figured it out later. A 3,000 foot feet. Feet. A 3,000 foot shadow. And it ran about as far as I could see, and there was this little thing at the end of it. This monument, right? The Washington Monument. By the way, a little trivia question. Do you know how many monuments there are in Washington, D.C.? Only one. All the rest are memorials. Washington’s the only monument. See, you learned something you can use today. One thing today you learned you can use. But the shadow was pretty impressive, and I noticed it kept getting shorter. It was the most impressive shadow I’d ever seen.

But as we got closer, you know, you start, you don’t pay attention to the shadow so much anymore. And I remember when I finally followed that shadow all the way to the to the wall of the Washington monument. And I put my hands on it, and I looked up at this thing. What it represented, where it stood, its magnificence. And it was almost 9 30, almost time for us to go inside. And the guy I was with said, Are you ready to go inside and really climb this thing? Because they’d reopened it and been closed for a while, and they’d reopened it. Are you ready to see? And I said, No, I think I’ll walk around it and keep walking and look for something better. Kind of a dummy says that.

I didn’t really say that. Everything about that shadow was leading this me to that structure. And it was awesome. And I went up inside of it, and it was a pretty amazing experience, and there wasn’t anything else coming, folks. That was the pinnacle. That was where it was all leading. Everything I saw on the ground projected from it. And can I just say that Jesus is that structure? You can’t walk past him and wait for something else. Nothing else is coming. Nothing greater is coming. He’s the greatest. And if we’re looking for something greater, it just means you don’t understand his greatness. Nothing can be greater. One day in the judgment, Matthew 12. We can read some other passages in John about how he is the final one.

He’s the one we’ll see at the end. He’s the culmination of everything. But I just want to leave you with this. One day in the judgment, the trumpet sounds, and roofs like this are just ripped away. And we see Jesus flanked by countless souls, brought to be united with bodies, and there are resurrections happening all around us, and we’re completely in awe and terrified and confident, 1 John 2 28, trying to mix all that stuff together. One day, I know what you think. You’re going to hope that you’re going to look up and you’re going to see Jesus and barely be able to raise your head. And you’re going to beg for mercy and plead for entrance and pray that his love is showered down upon you.

And you get to spend an eternity in his greatness. But can I tell you there are a lot of people who are going to go through everything I just described, and they’re going to finally look up to the Lord to see him, and instead, there’s going to be some Ethiopian woman standing there, saying, You can’t see Jesus today. I’m here to tell you that I traveled hundreds of miles. I gave much good. I praised his name. I praised his people. I sung his praises. I was completely in awe and devoted to the glory of a shadow. And you couldn’t give a percentage of that to the glory of Jesus. You can’t see him today. Now, in truth, you will see him that day. But you don’t want to see her first.

Can I just tell you? Not me. That’s all I can tell you. I can’t speak for you. Not me. I want to give him his proper place, maintain the glory of that place. Use Sunday and every day in between one Sunday and the next, lauding and magnifying that majesty, because something greater than Solomon is here, and nothing greater is ever coming. He is Jesus. And if you’re ready to restore to him the honor he deserves, his worthiness hasn’t changed, though your allegiance may have. If you have yet to acknowledge him for the glorious fulfillment of all shadows that permeate in every direction and submit to him and become a Christian, Jesus said, repent, Matthew 7. Jesus said, be baptized, Matthew 28. He is the king, and that is his proclamation.

Who will obey him? Because of who he is and how worthy. We can help you do that. Come now as we stand and sing.