Rosaria Butterfield wrote an article that you should know it's called How to Get More Out of the Bible this year, and in it she details six marks of meat reading, MEAT. She's trying to identify the difference between meat readers and milk readers. That is a mature Christians read in these ways. First, she says that milk readers read short biblical phrases or sentences using Bible light translations meet readers, however. Feast on the word and the feast is a big meal. She says she suggests six chapters a day or more. I think we typically hit somewhere around that time around that marker. Anyway, number two, humble reading. She says, meet readers use a good study Bible access Bible helps seek counsel from their elders, et cetera. They don't just rely on their own intuition or understanding. They seek help from reputable sources. Number three, meet readers are covenantal readers, which is to say the whole Bible, she says, is a unified biblical revelation. And therefore, meet readers read the Bible accompanied by note taking memorization. That helps 'em see how the details fit into the overarching big picture, so they're not just reading one little section and saying, how does this apply to me? They're trying to understand the whole, the totality of scripture. Number four, meet readers read in a profitable way. She says this, meet readers, however, notice that the Bible that Bible reading leads them to deep repentance and humility, not to pride and criticism of others. As a result, they are genuinely growing in humility, repentance, grace, endurance, and in Christ's likeness, profitable reading as she describes it, is reading that affects the person, changes the inner person, and not looking at other people and saying, how can I change them based on what I read? Number five, she talks about congregational reading. She says, meet readers read as a member of a visible and biblically faithful church. She's talking about reading in a corporate context. And finally, number six it is God-centered reading. She says, meet readers, read the Bible as a god-centered book. These six things in what she suggests, how you can get more from the Bible this year are so good and so helpful and so wise. I can't hardly commend this to you more. You can find the article on desiring god.org, or you could just reread or re-listen to what I just said. And these are helpful tools, and this is why our church is so adamant that we be a Bible believing church, that we be in it every day and not just every other day, or not even most days. We're trying to, as much as we're able to make this a habit that is daily, because we daily need God's help. There's never a day where we could say, I'm topped off God. Thank you very much for your help, but I'm good to go. There are times we won't be able to get into God's word for a variety of reasons, circumstances beyond your control, but insofar as it is under your control, what a good way to spend your Saturday. So with that, well done opening your Bible today. If you in fact have done that and well done joining me on the podcast, I'm honored to have you as a guest and I hope I can provide a few insights as we work through today's reading, which is First Kings Chapters 10 and 11 and second Chronicles nine. Gonna cover them together because they really do overlap quite a bit. Now this is a sad section of scripture, but before we get there, let's start with the good part First Kings chapter 10. This is the visit with the Queen of Sheba, who's probably from a, around modern day Yemen. So if you're familiar with that map you'll notice that's just below Saudi Arabia. You're looking at several hundred miles away from Israel. So the point is this lady came from a far distance. She's a, she came with a large ue. She's got lots of expensive stuff with her. She's got people and resources, and she came to test Solomon. She'd heard about his wisdom and his reputation, and so she came and she offered every hard question she could throw at him. Not only does he answer her, he does so in a way that shocks her. It says in at the end of verse five, there was no more breath in her. And Second Chronicles nine says something very similar. And of course, cue the song, take My Breath Away by Berlin. I know Pastor PG and I were talking about this last year, we couldn't get it out of our heads. And so it is again the day. In fact, before I started the podcast and I was just looking at my notes here, looking at the text, I thought, I can't not think about take my breath away. I don't even know what song or what year that song came out, but I know that it stuck there. Hopefully now it's stuck in your head too. You're welcome. Okay. Her breath is taken away, Allah, Berlin, and then she says, look, I've heard about all of your glory and honor, but the half of it was not told to me, and so she glorifies the God of Israel because of how Solomon has been blessed. There's a slight parallel to us. It's not quite the same, but people should be able to look at our lives and say, man, whatever God you serve, that's amazing because I see the difference that it makes in your life now. Solomon's difference was primarily. His kingdom glory. And of course he had great wisdom. So there's something to be said about that. But as New Testament believers, we have something better than Solomon. Jesus said Someone greater than Solomon is here. The Queen of Sheba was delighted and she responded, how much more ought to we respond we to respond to Jesus? He says referring to himself. And the difference between Solomon and us is that we have the spirit. Jesus has sent his spirit to dwell within us, and we now have something better than what he has. He had the riches and he had the glory, but we have the New Testament spirit of God dwelling within us, which therefore ought to create the kind of difference that people can notice, such that people might say, man, take my breath away. I can't believe how different you are. Your forgiving spirit is unusual. The graciousness of your demeanor, the fruit of the spirit that I see in your life, they may not use that terminology of course, but they'll notice it. All of these things ought to shock people as they see us. Jesus says that we are meant to be salt and light, and this is what Solomon is doing here in an Old Testament sense. And so they begin a trade agreement. They exchange services and lots of money here. Lots of money is exchanged. Lots of dollars and cents here. In fact, the 120 talents, I looked this number up last year. This is over $300 million, give or take. Obviously it's hard to do a one-to-one, and that was last year. I would imagine that gold is more expensive this year. 120 talents is what he was received from her. But you'll notice in verse 14, there was one year that he brought in 600 or 66 talents. So we're talking about hundreds upon hundreds of million. Millions of dollars. Solomon was likely the richest man to ever walk the planet, period, even more than some of the richest that we have today in America and beyond. So Solomon has been exceedingly wealthy. He has everything that he could possibly hope for. He has great relationships with people around him. And then in the next half of First Kings, chapter 10. Scripture highlights his extravagance, enormous and even ludicrous wealth. This guy has money upon money. He's he's gold plating everything. He's got these he's got throne steps with lions on them. He's just got extravagance, gaudy wealth. And this is God's blessing, or is it? Here's what verse 23 says as we prepare to make our way into chapter 11, but it says, thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth and riches and in wisdom and in the whole earth. Rather, and the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon and hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. That's an important caveat there. The wisdom was not inherent to Solomon. It was God who gave him the wisdom. Verse 25, every one of them brought his present articles of silver and gold garments, me, spices, horses and mules, so much year by year. And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had 1400 chariots, 12,000 horsemen whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the kings in Jerusalem. Okay, so he's doing. A lot of business. He's making a lot of money. He's got lots of services, lots of horses, lots of chariots. I hope this is ringing a bell because what this is doing is showcasing us subtly that Solomon is actually violating Deuteronomy 17. Now, if you have a minute, I would encourage you, pause the podcast. Go read chapter 17. Starting around verses 17 and following, you're gonna see what Moses says about how the king should conduct himself. And you're gonna see some warnings against the. Accumulation of wealth, and in particular horses and chariots because God knows that the heart of man tends to want to trust in these things and not himself. And so God warns against these things, and Solomon is being shown to have his heart subtly and slowly drifting in that direction. And Chapter 11 sadly confirms that it says here in Chapter 11 verse one. Now, Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite Amite. Mite Sian Hitite, women from the nations concerning, which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, you shall not enter into marriage with them neither shall they with you for surely they will turn your heart away after other gods. It says here, Solomon clung to these in love. And you know the story. Solomon married many of them. Many of them became concubines. I'll let you explain that to your kids and when Solomon was old, verse four. His wives turned away, his heart after other gods. It seems like age presents a particular challenge to allow convictions that were once strong to drift, and I'm not sure if that's part of what it is to get older and consequently to have your heart drift or if it's tiredness or something else, whatever it is. Age presents opportunity, I guess everything does, but age in particular. Maybe the fight isn't in you as much as it once was. The energy to maintain rigorous devotion to Christ was at one point strong when you were younger and healthier. But now age and time and ongoing health issues have weakened your resolve here. Solomon's weakened resolve was not due to those things. Remember, he had everything that he could benefit from. It was the ladies who also had his heart. Make no mistake, there is no room for contenders in the heart of the believer. There's only room for one God, and it cannot be your spouse. Cannot be your kids, can't be your job, can't be your house, can't be anything. God alone must sit on the throne of your heart, lest the contenders remove him and God will not share. God will not share you. He wants you holy and completely and make sure. Today, as you think about Solomon's story and how he wants was a great king with a great reputation and a great platform to glorify God. Suddenly it seems it's actually over the course of time. Slowly but surely drifts away from him. Notice how quickly, rather how slowly notice how slowly this thing changes. It's like turning the Titanic. If your life is going strongly toward Christ right now, you need to know that it only takes a few degrees of change to end at an entirely different destination. And this is what happens at King Solomon. His heart was divided. He was slowly but surely changed over the course of time. Beware small sins. Because small sins, if not dealt with, if not uprooted, can result in large sins. And as someone once said, sin takes you further than you ever wanted. Sin doesn't sit complacently in your heart. It actively metastasizes and seeks to consume. You beware Christian well in response to Solomon's apostasy and response to Solomon's rejection of the Lord. Which by the way, here's what God said about this. Solomon did what was evil on the side of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord as his father David had done. Solomon built high places for mosh the abomination of Moab and for Mole, the abomination of the Ammonites on the mountain east of Jerusalem, and he did so for his foreign wives who made offerings and sacrifices to those Gods Mole is not a good guy. The other God isn't great either. Osh is not a good name, but Molech in particular, this God is known for baby sacrifice. I'll just leave it at that. This is a bad situation. God notices here in verse nine. The Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel. And notice this who had appeared to him twice. God uniquely visited Solomon, uniquely blessed him and exposed himself to Solomon in ways that no one else had to that point, except for maybe Abraham. God spoke to David, but God appeared to Solomon. There's something special about this. Those are unique privileges that God expects a unique responsibility from. And Solomon sadly rejects this. Consequently, verse 11, this is important because this is gonna inform the rest of the book and first kings and also second kings. He says, therefore, the Lord said to Solomon, since you have been, since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I've commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. This is the introduction of the divided kingdom. This is what changes everything. The reason for the change. Was Solomon's infidelity to the Lord. This is what divides Israel and Judah. Part of this is why God raises up three enemies. The first enemy in verse 14 is, Hey dad, Edam might. We recently talked about. In Obediah how Edam was a brother to Israel and yet was not brotherly. They actually did evil to Israel. And God doesn't forget that. But here, one of their enemies is, Hey dad, Edem, might they have a history as you'll read there in verse 23, God also raised up an adversary, a reason the Son of Elda. Thirdly, and this is the one that's gonna make the most difference in the next chapter, and the chapters that are follow, rather, is Jira and of neba. He's an e Aite of Zaida. He's a servant of Solomon, and so his story is actually gonna be one that carries through the rest of the book because he is the one that God anoints to be king of the 10 tribes. And that's what on verse 29 where the prophet deja, the Shalon knight, finds him on the road and tells him exactly what's gonna happen. He uses the garment analogy that was also used with Saul, which says, I'm gonna tear the kingdom away from this guy and give it to you. That's kinda what's happening here. And so God tells Jbo. And son of Neba, you're gonna be the guy. And Jira is a bad dude. We're gonna find out more about him soon enough. But this is what precipitates the change in the kingdom. It's a sad turn, and it's one that we can predictably have foreseen given Solomon's leaky faithfulness to God. And I would pray that you don't have that. I'm praying that you would not be leaky in your faithfulness and that you would plug the holes that you would as Song of Solomon says that you would catch the little foxes. The things that seem to be rather innocuous, but actually have a significant impact over the long course of time. So please deal with your sin for the sake of your family, for the sake of your coworkers, for the sake of your community, for the sake of your church. And of course, for the sake of your God, please deal with your sin. Do not allow little sins to metastasize. Don't allow them to spread because you have no idea the way that it'll impact you now and in the future. Let's all take a lesson from King Solomon with that, please pray with me. And God, please help our church to avoid living in any kind of sin, whether it be large or small. God, we are appropriately warned that sin has reverberating consequences. Consequences that not only hurt us, but hurt the people that we love. And of course, Lord, they hurt you, the God that we love. Please guard us and protect us against such evils and help us to walk upright. Help us to walk with a di, not a divided heart, but a united heart, a heart that is fully dedicated to you. Lord, you alone can cause us to do this, and so we rely on you. We depend upon you, and we beg you to do this for our church, for your glory. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you again for joining me. I am honored that you decided to spend time with me, and I pray that you'll come back tomorrow with a renewed, reinvigorated heart to study God's word. Open it again and to see what we can learn together. Alright guys, you have a great day. I'll see you again soon. Bye.

thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about ourChurch@compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review to rate to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.