(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. Well, in chapter number 8, we're finished with the temple being built and the dedication of the temple, and so now we're moving on to see a little bit more about King Solomon's reign in his heyday, right? Chapter 8 is describing some of the just prosperity and just worldly successes that he achieves. Of course, in the next chapter, chapter 9, we're going to have the visit from the Queen of Sheba and how impressed she is. So this is the nation of Israel at its height. This is the greatest that it ever was in its history. Obviously, David is sort of the king of Israel par excellence, and then he gives all of that kingdom and all of that organization and all of that power to his son Solomon, and unlike David, who was constantly fighting wars and having to deal with a lot of threats, Solomon rules over the kingdom in a time of peace, and so it's just unprecedented prosperity, success, et cetera. Now, if you remember, the way that Solomon started out his reign was by offering a whole bunch of burnt offerings under the Lord. The first thing he did was do a major sacrifice under the Lord, and so Solomon is an example of someone who really sought first the kingdom of God, and so because he did that great sacrifice under the Lord, the Lord asked him what he wanted in return. God was going to bless him and give him his heart's desire, so he appeared unto him in a dream and offered him whatever he wanted, and instead of asking for riches or long life or defeating his enemies, he just asked for wisdom. He asked for understanding because he wanted to do a good job as the king of Israel. So he started out as a very humble man, a righteous man. He sought first the kingdom of God, and as a result, God gave him unprecedented wisdom, power, honor. Well, one of his biggest projects at the beginning was to build the temple, and that's what we've seen over the last several weeks, and then it says in verse number one here of chapter eight, and it came to pass at the end of twenty years wherein Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house, so it took twenty years to build the house of the Lord and then also a palace for the king. It says in verse two that the cities which Heurim had restored to Solomon, Solomon built them and caused the children of Israel to dwell there, and what we see in this chapter is that if you seek first the kingdom of God, if you put your effort and your resources and your time and your energy into building God's house, then later God's going to bless you with prosperity. Jesus Christ said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. What are all the things? Food, clothing, our necessities, the things that we need. God will bless us if we first seek the kingdom of God. You know, the Bible says, honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase. Then shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst forth with new wine. Whenever you invest in the kingdom of God, when you put your time and energy and thought into that, you're going to end up doing better even just from a physical perspective, even just in your worldly life, even just in your secular job, even in your finances, everything like that. We should always put God first. A lot of people today, they don't have time for the things of God, right? What's the most common answer? You'll run into people out soul winning. They don't know if they're going to heaven. They don't know for sure, and you say, can I just take 5, 10 minutes and just show you what the Bible says, how you can know for sure you're going to, oh, I don't have time for that, right? And they don't have time for church, or they don't have time to read their Bible, or they don't have time to pray. But let me tell you something. You don't have time not to read your Bible. You don't have time not to pray. You don't have time not to go to church because you will end up wasting more time if you skip those activities. You see, we've all had those days where everything's just going right. Everything's just going smooth, and everything's just falling into place, and we're super efficient. We're getting so much done. We look at the clock. We can't even believe. It's 10 a.m., and we've already been so productive, right? Or just everything is working. And then we've also had those days where nothing's working. We just end up wasting time, burning up a bunch of time. Look, if you won't take the 15 minutes to read the Bible every morning, God can just put you in a traffic jam for 15 minutes, like that. You know, you can just waste time on something at work, failing for 15 minutes, a computer crashing, you know, a tool breaking, whatever. God will reward you if you seek first the Kingdom of God by actually making things go better for you to give you more time in the long run. I firmly believe that if you take the time out of your day to read the Bible, the rest of the day will be more productive. If you take the time out to pray—let me give an example just as a pastor. And I was talking to Pastor Jimenez about this a couple months ago, how a lot of times I'll be really struggling to come up with a sermon idea, and I'm struggling to make a sermon work. Maybe I have an idea, and I'm trying to write the sermon, and things just aren't coming together, and I'm just spinning my wheels, wasting my time. And then I'll pray to God and say, God, please help me. I need this sermon idea to work. I need a new idea. I need help, whatever. And then it's like the idea will just pop into my head. But sometimes I'll end up spinning my wheels for a long time before thinking to stop and pray about it, and then I'll pray about it, and God opens up some new idea, or some scripture pops into my head, and I just think, man, why did I wait so long to pray about that? Because if I would have prayed sooner, I probably could have saved a bunch of time. But I guarantee you it's like that in a lot of other areas of our life, too. I don't think you're ever wasting time reading your Bible or praying, and you say, oh, I'm just too busy. Maybe part of the reason why you're so busy is because you don't go to church. Maybe the reason you're so busy is because you don't read your Bible. Because you don't pray, and God's not blessing you by making things work more efficiently for you. Because if you seek first the kingdom of God, then the otherworldly needs will be added unto you, right? You say, oh, man, I just can't afford to go to church on Sunday because I have to be working on Sunday. I have to be working through those services. And look, I don't believe that it's a sin to work on Sunday, but I do believe it is a sin to not go to church. And so we need to be going to church, and so, you know, you say, no, I just have to work. I got to work Sunday morning. I got to work Sunday night. I got to work Wednesday night. Well, you know what? I submit that you're going to make more money if you don't work on Sunday, if you don't work on Wednesday night. You know, I had a job, or I had a situation one time where I needed to get a job, and I was offered this stupid, low-paying job, but it was going to require me to miss church on Wednesday night. And I just decided that I wanted to be at all the services, and I wasn't going to miss any church. And I ended up turning down this job, and it was a stupid, low-paying job, but I needed the job because I needed a job. I just moved to Indiana to go to Bible college, and I was like, you know what? I didn't move to Bible college so I could miss church. You know, why would I move across the country and go to a Bible college so that I could not then go to the church services? Like, that didn't make sense to me. I felt like church needed to take priority above Bible college and anything else. And so I ended up turning down the job even though I was pretty desperate for work, and of course, God had something better for me. God opened the door for a job that was just an absolute miracle, and I was able to meet the needs of my family. But I could have just compromised on what I was there to do and taken that stupid, low-paying job. Or I could seek first the kingdom of God, keep my priorities right, make church the number one priority, and God had something better for me. Right? So what I'm saying is, if you do these things like read your Bible, pray, go to church, go soul-winning, if you'll work these things into your schedule, God will open up other parts of your schedule. Whereas, if you just end up saying, no, man, I've got to take things into my own hands and just go, go, go, God can just make you go, go, go and just be spinning your wheels. And it's not worth it. So King Solomon, you know, his first priority was to put a bunch of time and energy and resources into worshiping the Lord and into building God's house. And then when he did that, God ended up giving him all of these other things, even though he didn't prioritize those things. God just dropped those things in his lap. So if you remember Hiram, here it's spelled Huram. Obviously, the spellings of names throughout the Bible vary. It doesn't matter. Different names are spelled different ways in different languages at different times. Spellings are not really that consistent in the Bible, so you can't get too wrapped up in those things. But Huram slash Hiram, the king of Tyre, is the guy that earlier in the book, Solomon had worked together with on building the temple. Huram had supplied some of the materials and Solomon had donated a bunch of food and they had worked together and come to an agreement. Well, apparently, there were some cities that had traditionally, historically, biblically belonged to the nation of Israel, but apparently Tyre had annexed them, right? Because if you think about it, just to give you the geography a little bit, you've got Israel on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and just north of Israel are the cities of Tyre and Zidon in the Bible on the coast. So they border with Israel to the north and so they were a powerful nation in their own right. The city-state of Tyre had a lot of power at various times and so they had annexed part of the northern part of Israel's territory and the Bible says that Huram ended up restoring that territory to Solomon. And then Solomon built those cities because they'd obviously been abandoned, gone into disrepair, whatever. He built those cities and he caused the children of Israel to dwell there. And of course, you know, when we think about current events today, we've got the nation of Israel seeking to expand their territory, right? Because if you think about it, when they first became a nation in 1948, they had a lot less territory than they have now. They have almost continuously been involved in warfare or military actions of some kind since they were founded in 1948, just all kinds of different conflicts that have been going on with their neighbors. And through those conflicts, they have expanded their territory. And even over the last 10 or 20 years, they are continually expanding their territory by sending settlers into Palestine and they start these Israeli settlements, protect them with soldiers, and they just keep kind of cutting into that territory that was Palestine's territory. So the point is that obviously we can see today Israel does not have the land that would have traditionally historically biblically been theirs according to the Bible where it kind of lays out the promised land if you're reading, say, the book of, you know, Joshua or something, right? And it's kind of delineating what the promised land is or when it breaks it down by the tribe in different places. You know, they don't have all that land. They have less land than what the biblical Israel had or Israel under Solomon had. And so they want to get that land back, which is why they have fought some of these wars and why they're sending settlers into Palestine to reclaim these biblical sites and reclaim the land for themselves. But the problem is that they're going about it the wrong way because they don't have the Lord on their side, right? Because the nation of Israel does not worship the Lord Jesus Christ. They do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They do not believe that He is the Messiah. And the Bible says, who is a liar but he that denyeth that Jesus is the Christ. He's anti-Christ who denyeth the Father and the Son. And so because they do not have the Son, the Bible says they don't have the Father. Because whosoever denyeth the Son, the same hath not the Father, but he that acknowledges the Son hath the Father also. And so they're going about it the wrong way. They don't have the Lord on their side. They have not sought the Lord and gotten it the way that Solomon got it. Because if you think about it, you know, yeah, they're getting it through violence. There's all kinds of war and fighting and conflict. Their own people are in danger due to terrorist acts of their neighbors. Both Israel and Hamas and the Palestinians and others have committed acts of terrorism. You know, both sides have committed atrocities on civilians. And I'm not here to get all political about that tonight. But the point is that King Solomon is able to annex previously lost territory for the Kingdom of Israel without any bloodshed, without warfare, right? He's able to peacefully get that back. Why? Because God's blessing him. And the Bible says when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with them. And so God was actually making Solomon's neighbors, which could be enemies at other times in history, they were enemies. Obviously they had taken away Israel's territory at some point, but yet God made them to be at peace with them. And so if we will seek first the Kingdom of God, these things will be added unto us. The Israelis, they're not seeking the Kingdom of God. They're not seeking the Lord Jesus Christ, their Savior, the Messiah. And so they're just having to fight and war and be at continual strife because God's not given it to them on a silver platter, the way that God gave it to Joshua on a silver platter. Obviously Joshua did carry out warfare, but he had the Lord on his side. And the Bible says that more of the enemy were killed by things like hornets and the weather and even just natural slash supernatural means. Because why? God's blessing Joshua. And here God's blessing Solomon so much that he's able to just diplomatically get the land that he needs, get the territory that he needs. And so it's extremely different than the Israel of today that's not seeking first the Kingdom of God. So the Bible says in verse 3, Solomon went to Hamath-Zobah and prevailed against it. And he built Tadmor in the wilderness and all the store cities which he built in Hamath. And he built Beth-horon the upper and Beth-horon the nether, fenced cities with walls, gates, and bars, and Beilath, and all the store cities that Solomon had, and all the chariot cities, and the cities of the horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and throughout all the land of his dominion. As for all the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which were not of Israel, but of their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel consumed not, them did Solomon make to pay tribute unto this day. So if you remember, the children of Israel, when they entered the Promised Land in the days of Joshua, they were supposed to wipe out the seven nations of the Canaanites, but they failed to do so. And so God ended up leaving the remnants of those nations to be a thorn in the children of Israel's side. And so they were continually having to deal with these wicked people dwelling among them. Well, in Solomon's day, again, God's blessing Solomon to where he has these people totally subjugated. So even though they're living in the land, they end up being put to tribute. What is tribute? Either taxation in the form of money, or making these people do some work for the nation of Israel, which is kind of another form of taxation, right? Instead of taxing people for money, you tax people for their labor. And so Solomon puts these people to work. He puts them to tribute. They are serving the children of Israel. It says in verse 9, but of the children of Israel did Solomon make no servants for his work, but they were men of war, and chief of his captains, and captains of his chariots and horsemen. If you remember earlier in the book, when the temple was built, foreigners were doing the heavy lifting, and the children of Israel, you know, didn't have to do that kind of really menial, difficult, hard labor. Here again, the Bible says the children of Israel are men of war, captains, chariots, horsemen. These are more prestigious positions. You might think to yourself, well, you know, man, I don't want to be a soldier. I don't want to go to war. But for them, this is a prestigious, honorable thing to be in the military, to be a captain in the military, to be over horses and chariots, and to have that. And again, it's not a super militaristic time anyway. It's a time of peace anyway, and so this is an honorable position for them. So they don't have to do a bunch of just kind of grunt work. They just have the foreigners doing the grunt work, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, those kind of people. The children of Israel are in positions of, you know, power, honor, prestige. The Bible says in verse 10, those were the chief of King Solomon's officers, even 250 that bear rule over the people. And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her. For he said, my wife shall not dwell in the house of David, king of Israel, because the places are holy where unto the ark of the Lord have come. So here you can start to see some of the seeds of the downfall of King Solomon, because what is it that ultimately brings down King Solomon? It is his outlandish wives, right? Outlandish meaning foreign wives. Now, the problem with these foreign wives, it has nothing to do with race or genetics or ethnicity or anything like that. The thing here is that they worship false gods. They're foreigners and they're not Israelites and they don't worship the God of Israel. Now, something's wrong when your wife is so unholy that you can't bring her to church because he's basically saying, like, well, I can't have my wife in the city of David because she's too pagan. She's too ungodly. You know, this is a holy city. This is a holy place. And so I can't have my wife live here because she's this Egyptian pagan. Now, look, if she would have been worshiping the Lord, if she would have converted, if she would have got right with God, then there wouldn't have been an issue with her even just, like, living in the city of Jerusalem. He has to put her somewhere else because of the fact that she's too ungodly. She's too pagan. So here's an idea. Don't marry a woman that is that ungodly. But this is going to end up being the downfall of King Solomon. He has multiple wives, and he ends up, later in life, we know this from other parts of the Bible. This is not emphasized in the Second Chronicles. But elsewhere from the Bible, we know that he even starts to sponsor the false religions that they belong to. And he actually is helping them worship their false gods by building temples for them and donating to their weird, stupid, pagan false religions. I mean, it's unbelievable that King Solomon, who starts out so good and so humble and so right with God and with such good priorities, seeking first the kingdom of God and building the house of God, how does he end up to the point where he is sponsoring false religion and donating to false religion? I mean, what would it take to get you to donate to the Mormon Church? I mean, can you imagine, like, well, I got this Mormon wife, so I'm going to donate so that we can build a Mormon temple over here in her town and whatever. I mean, what would it take for you to be that wicked, that backslidden, that ungodly, where you're donating to the Mormon Church, you're donating to the Jehovah's Witnesses, you're donating to the Hindus, you're donating to some Buddhist temple? I mean, can you even imagine? It's crazy, right? But yet, Solomon was a real person. Solomon was a human being. Solomon was a godly, righteous man who loved the Lord and served the Lord, and yet he ended up going down that road. And that's why later, he's going to be used as an example, even in the Old Testament, about how, look, if you marry foreign wives, they are going to mess you up because Solomon's a great man, Solomon's a godly man. If they could mess him up, they could mess you up. And again, we're not, obviously, in the New Testament, we're not talking about different countries, different nations. The foreign wives for us in the New Testament would be non-Christian, unsaved. Obviously, red, yellow, black, and white, we're all God's people if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile. It doesn't matter. We're all one in Christ Jesus, and those things don't matter as far as ethnicity, because the nation of God's people in the New Testament is a spiritual nation, not a physical nation. But if you marry an unsaved person, this is going to take its toll on you spiritually. This is one of the worst decisions that you could possibly make in your life, and so therefore, young people, you've got to make very sure that the person that you marry is saved. It's critical. It's so important. I mean, this is what you should be talking about when you're on those dates. You should be exploring and making sure that the person is saved. That's got to be the number one concern. And let me tell you something. When I was a teenager, I never knowingly dated a girl who was unsaved, but looking back, I actually dated several girls that weren't saved. Not knowingly. I just assumed that if they go to the Baptist church, they must be saved. If they go to this evangelical, non-denom church, they must be saved. I mean, hey, we're all Christians here. I remember I went to a Christian school, and when I was going into the Christian school, they had me write a one-page paper explaining my salvation testimony, describing what it meant to me to be saved. And then, when I went in to the principal's office, he questioned me about salvation to make sure I was saved. And of course, I was saved. Of course, I passed the examination. But to me, it seemed like the school was making an effort to make sure that the students were actually saved, that they actually knew the gospel. They're making them write a page about it, and then they actually asked us about it, which is great, obviously. You want to make sure that these kids are saved and not just assume that growing up in a Christian home, you're just automatically a believer. But let me tell you something, though. I made the mistake of thinking, well, if I was put through this rigorous examination, everyone else must have been as well. But apparently, not everybody got the exact same treatment as me, because years later, you would talk to these people and find out they were other denominations besides being just a Baptist or an evangelical or something. They were things like Lutheran and Pentecostal, where they would flat out... I mean, I remember talking to a Lutheran guy at the same school when I was in 10th grade, and he told me, well, you know, I've been saved ever since I was a baby, because I got baptized, and that's why I'm going to heaven. I got baptized as a baby, and then I explored more with him, and he was totally trusting in works. Kind of ironic, since supposedly Martin Luther is all about faith alone, but then when you actually talk to a lot of Lutherans, a lot of them are going to just flat out tell you works for salvation, ironically. But by the way, Lutherans in general, none of them, to my knowledge, believe that we have eternal security. They all believe you can lose your salvation, and they're all screwed up on the gospel from the conversations that I've had, and I've had a lot of conversations, let me tell you. And so, you know, these Pentecostals that were trusting in works and believe you could lose your salvation, and all of these sketchy people were at that Christian school. Here's the moral of the story. Don't just assume that because somebody's at a Christian school or a Christian college or a Bible college that they're automatically saved, or even if they go to Faithful Word Baptist Church that they're automatically saved. You know, I guarantee you, there's probably someone in this building tonight that's not saved. Just, you know, based on past experience. You got a couple hundred people, one of them is not saved. You know, everybody's like, is it I? And obviously, look, if you have personally put all of your faith and trust in Christ, what he did on the cross, his death, burial, and resurrection, and that's what you're trusting to get you to heaven, you're not the person I'm talking about. You're saved. But somebody else might be here that just was dragged in here or just brought by someone else, or just maybe they're new and they don't understand, or they're just a kid who grew up in a Christian home, but they, you know, they just have not yet actually put their faith in Christ and actually made that decision for themselves. But I'm telling you, if you're dating someone, talk to them about salvation. Talk to them. And by the way, why don't you just talk a little bit about the things of God anyway, in general, besides just salvation. You know, and look, I'm not saying that that's all you talk about, okay? Obviously, we have other interests in life, and you want to get to know each other, and, you know, you're not just going on dates and only talking about the Bible. I get that. Obviously, you want to talk about other things. But can you at least include a little bit of talk about the faith? You know, it's crazy sometimes. I'll ask young people, oh, you're dating this person? What church do they go to? I don't know. I know they're Christian, but I'm not sure what church it is. So if you ask them about this, you know, what's their salvation testimony? What's this? What's that? You know, you should know that stuff. How can you be romantically involved with someone, which means that you're pondering at least the potential of marrying that person, because that's what dating is ultimately heading toward, and you're not 100% sure that that person's saved. Not only that, maybe you want to just make sure that they actually have an understanding of the Word of God. Because if you're talking to them about the Bible and everything's just going over their head, or they just don't care, not interested, blowing you off, you know, maybe they're lying about being saved. I mean, do you think that a guy has ever said he was saved just because he wanted to date the pretty Christian girl, the pretty Baptist girl? You think guys have lied and pretended to be saved because they knew that that's what it's going to take to date her? All day long, okay? You don't think girls have lied and pretended to believe on Jesus, pretended to be a Baptist or whatever? Why? Because they wanted to date some Baptist young man? Now hopefully, you know, if they come in with those kind of motives, they'll hopefully just eventually get saved anyway. Like, you know, they came for the dude, and they stayed for Jesus. Or, you know, they came for that girl, and they stayed for Jesus. That's, you know, great. Amen. You know, God could maybe use that, but here's the thing. You don't want to marry someone who is actually secretly not saved. So you should look for red flags of not understanding anything about the Bible, everything's going over their head, or just not having any interest in the things of God, not wanting to ever talk about the Word of God or the things of God. And again, I'm not saying to be some holier than thou where that's all you can talk about, but I'm saying you should be exploring those kinds of subjects and topics and making sure that you're on the same page because I'm telling you marrying an unsaved person is the worst mistake that you can make in your life. I mean, it's just so destructive. I remember at that same Christian school, there was a guy, and he was arguing with the Bible teacher one time because he thought it would be okay for him to marry an unsaved girl. And he said, you know, I would marry an unsaved girl. And the teacher's like, no, man, that's a bad idea. And, you know, this guy just thought, well, but what if we just have lots of other things in common, and we just really love each other, and we're just different on that one point. You know, here's a guy who's not very committed to his walk in the Lord. He's not very committed to his Christian faith. If it's like, well, hey, as long as we, what, listen to the same music, dress the same, you know, like the same movie, it's like, what in the world? The biggest thing is, are you on the same page spiritually? It's important. You've got to make sure that the person that you marry is saved. If Solomon could get that messed up from a bunch of unsaved wives, so can you get completely derailed in your Christian life by marrying someone who's unsaved. Not to mention the fact that why would you want to be married to an unsaved person when unsaved people, they don't have the Holy Spirit? How are they going to be having the fruit of the Spirit? Because I don't know about you, but I would want my spouse to have love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, temperance. I mean, are these attributes that you want your spouse to have? You want your spouse to love you? You want your spouse to be joyful? Do you want a spouse of peace or a spouse of contention and warfare and strife, right? The contentions of a wife are a continual dropping, right? A continual dropping on a very rainy day, and a contentious wife are alike, right? The Chinese water torture of the continual dripping on your forehead. That's what it's like, a wife that just always argues with you. But you know what you want? You want love, you want joy, you want peace, gentleness, goodness, temperance, right? Do you want your wife to be an alcoholic? Do you want your wife to be a drug addict? Or do you want her to have temperance? You know, do you want her to have self-control? Do you want her to have moderation? Do you want her to have all these addictions and things? Well, look, obviously we as human beings, even if we're saved, we still can struggle with any of those things when we're walking in the flesh. But at least the fact that we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us gives us the potential to overcome these things and walk in the Spirit. At least we as Christians, we got the new man and the old man. Unsaved people, they're just the old man. It's just all old man. And so obviously a saved Christian is going to make a better spouse, just objectively speaking. But not only that, the unsaved person has the potential to possibly down the road, God forbid, to possibly become a reprobate. Whereas the saved person will never be a reprobate. It's impossible for the saved person to ever be a reprobate. And so, look, it's obvious that you should make sure that you marry a saved person, a Christian, make sure that they're actually saved. And ideally, that they're one who loves the Lord. They're one who wants to walk in the Spirit and wants to serve God with you. So important. Solomon, he doesn't even want her in Jerusalem. He doesn't even want her around the temple because it's too holy. And she's just too stanky. She's just too raunchy. She's just too ungodly for whatever reason. I'm kidding because I don't think that was the problem. I don't think she was that skanky or raunchy. But what it is is that she was too pagan. She wasn't saved. She's worshipping a false god. My wife shall not dwell in the house of David, king of Israel, because the places are holy whereunto the ark of the Lord has come. So he puts her somewhere else. So then, if you think about it, he's kind of got this double life going on. Because he's got his life in Jerusalem with God's people. Then he goes out with his worldly wife out somewhere else, away from the Lord, away from the presence of God, away from the house of God. And he goes over there and is, you know, partying with his heathen wife. I wonder why things ultimately go wrong. Look at verse 12. Then Solomon offered burnt offerings unto the Lord on the altar of the Lord, which he had prepared before the porch, even after a certain rate every day, offering according to the commandment of Moses on the sabbaths and on the new moons, on the solemn feasts, three times in the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of wheats, and in the feast of tabernacles. So he's following the Bible. He's worshipping God according to the Bible. He's doing right. He sought first the kingdom of God. Unfortunately, he marries a heathen woman, women, lots of them. And now he's still serving God at this point in his life. He's still following the Bible. Verse 14, he appointed according to the order of David his father, the courses of the priests to their service, and the Levites to their charges, to praise and minister before the priests, as the duty of every day required, the porters also by their courses, at every gate, for so David the man of God commanded. Now, this is an interesting point, and we saw this in more detail at the end of 1 Chronicles. But in 2 Chronicles here, we're kind of alluding back to what's described in 1 Chronicles, was that actually music was performed at the temple, actually 24 hours a day, believe it or not. Actually, all the time. Day and night continually, the Bible said. The Levites were there just praising God nonstop, which is kind of crazy to think about. But obviously, they're just rotating in and out. But somebody is always singing praise to God and worshiping the Lord, playing music on instruments and singing 24 hours. Can you imagine just if our church just throughout the week, Monday, Monday night, Tuesday, Tuesday night, somebody's just down here just leading singing. And you just walked by anytime, and it's just continual praises to God. It just never stopped. But that's actually what was going on. But if you stop and think about that, that's what they're doing in the Old Testament. But if you think about it, that is actually happening right now in the New Testament. Because God's house in the New Testament is the local church. And because of time zones and the fact that God is worshipped all over the world. I mean, every time zone is filled with saved, born-again, actual saved Christians. You know, God's people are scattered all over the world in every time zone. So I guarantee you right now, somebody's singing praise to God right now. And like at three in the morning, God's people are singing praise to God in the house of God somewhere. You know what I mean? Because somewhere there's a church service. You say, well, I don't know, what about on Fridays and Saturdays? Yeah, but churches have all kinds of special services. Even if it's not the normal Sunday, Wednesday night, think about how many churches have services on Thursday. Think about how many conferences, you know, conferences on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I mean, there's 8 billion people in the world, and lots of born-again, saved Christians on every continent, in every nation, every time zone, that literally, I believe, that probably, even if we just restricted it to church services alone or assemblies of God's people alone, God is being praised 24-7 in his house in 2024. And I think that this is like a foreshadowing of that, the fact that they had the 24-7 praise of God going on in the temple in the days of David, seems to be continuing in the time of Solomon, because with Solomon, it doesn't explicitly talk about the 24-7 thing like it did back in 1 Chronicles, but it does say that, you know, the duty of every day required what? The Levites in their charges, verse 14, halfway through, it says to praise and minister before the priest. You know, they had a job of just praising God in the temple. They're just praising. And we know from 1 Chronicles, it was literally day and night continually non-stop. But God's being praised non-stop right now. And think about all the people, even outside of church services, just walking down the street, in their homes, in the shower, singing praises to God. God is being praised all over the world 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the New Testament, because God's house is not one physical location. Now it's all the churches throughout the entire world that are actually saved. It says in verse number 15, they departed not from the commandment of the king, unto the priests and Levites concerning any matter or concerning the treasures. Now all the work of Solomon was prepared unto the day of the foundation of the house of the Lord, and until it was finished, so the house of the Lord was perfected. The meaning of perfected here is like completed, finished. Perfect in the Bible often means complete, finished, mature. And so here, the house of the Lord is perfected, meaning it has all the elements, everything's in place. You got the singers, you got the preaching, you got the sacrifices, you got the vessels, everything's there, nothing's missing. Then went Solomon to Ezion Gabor, and to Eloph at the seaside in the land of Edom. And Huram sent him by the hands of his servants' ships, and servants that had knowledge of the sea. And they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought them to King Solomon. And again, what do you see here? The same pattern, serving God, perfecting the house of God, seeking first the kingdom of God. What's the result? Money comes in, okay? And look, this isn't some kind of a prosperity gospel of, hey, if you give a hundred, you're gonna get a thousand back, and put your hand on the screen, and that kind of thing. But the true story is that if you seek God, God will meet your needs. If you seek first the kingdom of God, all these things will be added unto you, food, clothing, whatever you need, shelter, whatever it is that you need, God knows your heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask Him. And if you will invest in the kingdom of God, and I'm not just talking about financially or something, I mean just time, just spending the time to read your Bible, the time to pray, the time to attend church, the time that you spend out soul winning, right? And by the way, this is why we have church on the first day of the week, seeking first the kingdom of God. First thing we do every week, we get church done, you know, we worship the Lord, we praise God, we take care of that right away. First thing you should do in the morning is acknowledge God, right? Wake up, and the first thing you should do is meditate on the Lord, pray unto Him, read the Bible, etc. Before you even get out of bed, you should already be thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ, thinking about the Word of God, and just acknowledging the Lord. And if you do, then you're going to have a better day. You know, God's going to bless you. I'm not saying you're not going to have problems, or trials, or tribulations, or struggles. You do have those things in life, but you're ultimately blessed, and your life turns out the way you want it to turn out, as opposed to you crashing and burning, because you did not take the time to seek the Lord. And you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off, not accomplishing anything, because you didn't have time to pray. You don't have time to read your Bible. No, you don't have time not to. And listen to me. If you have a history, spiritually, of serving God, and being in church, don't ride on that past glory and think, well, I don't really need to read my Bible, because I already read it back then. Like, hey, I'm too busy now to read my Bible, but you know what? I've already read it so many times. I can skip it. I'm fine. Here's the thing. Solomon had a really good spiritual history, and yet he ended up crashing and burning spiritually. Why? Because he got careless. He basically did not continue to spend the time and the energy on the things of God. He obviously got lax or careless about his spiritual life if he can get so backslidden that he's donating to false religion, which is what he ultimately did. And so let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. If Solomon can get that messed up, so can I. So can you. We can all fall away from our walk with God and get to the point where we're out of church, we're backslidden, we're not serving God. Any of us could do that. Now, we'd still be saved, of course. We're still going to heaven. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But I want to serve God until the end. You know, I want to be in church. I want to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And so I don't want to be one where, oh man, Pastor Anderson, you know, he used to be so zealous about the things of God. Now he doesn't even go to church. I mean, can you imagine how ridiculous that would be? It's unthinkable. It's madness. But could it theoretically happen? Absolutely. Okay, now, it's not going to happen because I'm going to take heed and I'm going to be reading my Bible every day and I'm not going to stop caring about the things of God and serving God. But theoretically, it could happen to any of us as soon as we stop being vigilant and taking heed under those things. And of course, I'm not married to an unsaved woman. You know, but man, you get married to an unsaved spouse? Well, then you're very likely going to be pulled away from serving God. Even though you're saved, you will not be an effective servant of God. You're not going to live the blessed life that God has in mind for you. You're not going to do the works which God had before ordained that we should walk in them. You're going to end up wasting your life on something stupid. And so the main morals of the story tonight are number one, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Always make sure that you prioritize the things of God. And I'm talking about both chronologically and, you know, temporally because this could be on a weekly basis. Putting God first each week. Putting God first each day. Putting God first. How about taking the macro of your whole life? How about, hey, I'm going to serve God when I'm young. I'm going to give Him those prime years of my life when I'm strong and have energy. I mean, look, these young pups, they can go out and do a lot of great works for God with their energy to go out and do a bunch of great mission strips and soul-winning and everything. People, as they get older, they're going to get tired and be like, no, man, that sounds exhausting. Give God those prime years of your life. Right? So seek first the Kingdom of God over a lifetime. Seek first the Kingdom of God each day. Seek first the Kingdom of God in your priorities. Seek first the Kingdom of God in a week by worshiping the Lord on Sunday. You know, in every possible way, seek first the Kingdom of God, number one. Number two, do not marry someone who's unsaved. Do not marry someone who's unsaved. This will derail you the way it derails someone. Don't date someone who's unsaved. And by the way, it's like, oh, we've been dating for a few weeks, you know, I'm hoping that she gets saved. Look, obviously you can spend time with people that are not saved, get to know people that are not saved. Do not become romantically involved with people that are not saved. Okay? Until they get saved, they're off limits romantically because you don't want to get all emotional and attached and, and, and you just say, well, if she doesn't get saved, I'll walk away. But yeah, but you don't even want to start down that road. You just, you're just friends. It's just casual. It's just acquaintances until they get saved. Do not date an unsaved person. Do not marry an unsaved person. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, the Bible says. Make sure that you actually, you know, know what they believe, know that they're saved and, and that they want to serve God. Okay. You seek first the kingdom of God. Number one, number two, you marry a saved spouse who also loves the Lord. And number three, you continue to take heed to your Christian life and don't ride on past glory and just take for granted that you're still going to be serving God because you did it in the past, because many people have zealously served God, been faithful to church, done so many who now don't even attend church. They're saved. They're going to heaven, but they're just so backslidden that they don't even go to church anywhere. Or maybe they just go Sunday morning only to some super liberal church where they can just kind of show up, watch the show, check it off and go home. And they're not doing anything for the Lord. You know, I want to be working hard for Christ until the very end. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you for this chapter. Lord, I pray that we would take heed into the lessons that can be learned from the life of Solomon. Lord, bless us now as we go our separate ways. And in Jesus name, we pray. Amen.