June 16, 2025 • 20 mins
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Welcome to the Westside church’s special Monday Morning Coffee podcast with Mark Roberts. Mark is a disciple, a husband, father and grand dad, as well as a certified coffee geek, fan of CS Lewis’ writings and he loves his big red Jeep. He’s also the preacher for Westside church.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special
Monday Morning Coffee podcast.
On this podcast, our preacher,Mark Roberts, will help you get
your week started right with alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think through itfurther and better work the
(00:24):
applications into our dailylives.
Mark will then look forward intothis week's Bible reading so
that we can know what to expectand watch for.
And he may have some extra bonusthoughts from time to time.
So grab a cup of coffee as westart the week together on
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Good morning, good morning.
Welcome to the Monday MorningCoffee Podcast for Monday, June
the 16th.
I'm Mark, and I am inLouisville, Kentucky.
So I will not have sermon notesfor you today because I did not
preach yesterday at Westside.
I'm in Louisville with theExpressway Church.
Wonderful, wonderful church.
Cool thing about this church,from the parking lot, you can
(01:13):
see the spires of ChurchillDowns.
How great is that?
I have been here with thischurch several times before.
It is a joy to be back withthem.
And even though I'm inLouisville, Kentucky, I am
holding...
I'm holding a great cup ofcoffee.
(01:55):
Hawaii is growing coffee, andKona is incredible coffee.
So I'm just doing all the good.
I hope that you are having agreat start to the week.
Let's get it started right bydoing some Bible reading.
We're going to finish up in 1Kings 8.
Grab your Bible.
Pour that cup of coffee.
Let's get ready.
Let's get set.
Let's go! Our reading for Mondayis 1 Kings 8, verses 54-66.
(02:21):
This is the reading, thecontinuation of the reading from
last week.
We departed from that on Friday,of course, to be in the Psalms,
but we're finishing up 1 Kings 8today.
And this is a very beautifulreading.
There really is a lot They boweddown with their faces to the
(03:04):
ground on the pavement andworshiped and gave thanks to the
Lord, saying, For He is good,for His steadfast love endures
forever.
So God absolutely signs off onthis temple as being pleasing in
His sight.
And the keynote in the readingis verse 56.
The Lord has given rest to Hispeople Israel.
This is what they have beenlooking for.
(03:25):
This is what was promised.
We will have rest in the land.
You might look down at verse 66.
I think that kind of bookendsthis.
The people don't do have rest,things are just extremely good.
And this is a great moment forSolomon.
He talks about inclining yourheart, verse 58.
That sounds like David.
Verse 61, let your hearttherefore be holy, true to the
(03:46):
Lord our God.
That's David.
Unfortunately, Solomon willviolate that and fail right
exactly there, the heart beingholy, true.
And the writer of Kings willnote that in 1 Kings 11 in verse
3.
You might also make a note aboutverse 60, all the peoples of the
earth may know Notice there,yes, a little coffee there to
(04:08):
make things better.
Notice verse 60 is a missionaryverse and talks about Israel's
goal as being the nation thatunderstands about God and people
are going to look to them andthey are going to understand
about God as they come to theIsraelites for that kind of
knowledge.
There's a huge amount ofoffering here.
Some translations have sevendays, verse 65.
(04:28):
ESV has the note 14 days, but itjust goes on and on.
Thousands and thousands ofpeople are assembled here.
I love the language in verse 65.
Watch the slip of the pen forthe writer.
This happened before the Lordour God seven days.
The writer says, climbs intothat.
The Lord, our God, I feelconnected to this.
(04:49):
And then notice verse 66, forall the goodness the Lord had
shown to David, not all thegoodness the Lord had shown to
Solomon, all the goodness theLord had shown to David.
It's still about David.
That's very important for us aswe continue As we continue to
think about being a man afterGod's, a woman after God's own
heart like David, it's stillabout David.
(05:11):
David's shadow stands acrosseverything that's going on.
As great as Solomon is, aswonderful as Solomon is, as
great as the temple that hebuilt is, it's still about
David.
Reading for Monday then, 1 Kings8, verses 54 to 66.
Welcome to Tuesday's reading.
Tuesday's reading is 1 Kings 9,verses 16.
(05:33):
And I should say to Westsiders,of course, there won't be a Zoom
call tonight because I'm out oftown.
Let's look at 1 Kings 9, 1 to 9,and maybe look at this really
across the whole chapter here.
In many ways, this is a survey,maybe from the middle of
Solomon's reign here.
He's been building 20 years onthe temple and on his own house.
And so from kind of a mid-reignperspective, one scholar says
(05:56):
this is a look back over theconstruction that he has been
doing.
And the operative word here isbuild.
It occurs nine times.
verses 1, 3, 10, 15, 17, 19, 24,and then twice in the word in
verse 25.
So this is about building andwhat we are building and what
(06:17):
Solomon has built just all overthis text.
But in the middle of our readingtoday, there is this important
note about faithfulness.
Walking with integrity of heartand uprightness, verse 4.
Then I will establish your royalthrone over Israel for The
conditional nature of thepromise to the house of David
(06:39):
cannot be emphasized enough,particularly in a time when
people still want something tobe happening over there, that
God owes the Jews something andthere's going to be a physical
kingdom and the throne of David.
No, no, no.
If you turn aside verse 6, thenverse 7, Israel will become a
(07:00):
proverb and a byword among allpeoples, and this house will
become a heap of ruins.
People will hiss at it, verse 8says.
How can this possibly havehappened?
So as we continue to read in 1Kings, what we want to watch for
is does the house of Davidfollow faithfully?
Do they walk with God withintegrity of heart and
uprightness?
(07:20):
And if we see that they are notdoing that, then pretty much all
of us would just be holding ourbreath and sitting on the edge
of our seats wondering, when issomebody going to show up and
destroy that beautiful,beautiful temple that Solomon
built?
Because that's what God is.
is warning about.
So we really get a preview ofcoming attractions here, of
coming destruction, I guess Ishould say, as we read in 1
(07:42):
Kings 9, verses 1-9.
Our reading for Tuesday, 1 Kings9, 1-9.
It is Wednesday.
It is Wednesday, my last day inLouisville, coming home
tomorrow.
1 Kings chapter 9 verses 10 to28 is our reading for today.
1 Kings 9, 10 to 28.
And this, as I said yesterday,is a review of some of Solomon's
(08:04):
building projects.
We get a little unusual notehere in verse 12.
Hiram is not happy.
Maybe Solomon has run up abigger bill than he can pay with
with taxation.
Starting to wonder here ifthere's some difficulties in the
kingdom already.
Some of the prosperity that theyseem to know in the south,
particularly the capital,doesn't seem to be extending all
(08:25):
the way to the north.
And Hiram ends up being paid offin more cities because Hiram has
sent so much building materialand so much gold.
So Solomon seems to need to payhim some additional money and
pays that off, as I said, Andthen if we don't get enough of a
red flag there, verse 15 startstalking about forced labor, and
(08:47):
that doesn't sound very good.
That's going to come back tohaunt the house of Solomon, the
house of David later on.
Please notice verse 24, thebuilding of the Milo, M-I-L-L-O,
the Milo, the Milo.
This is an area...
This is an area between MountZion and the city of David.
(09:09):
And the word Milo literallymeans to fill.
And it seems like the old cityof David and the new site of the
temple in the palace area,they're being filled in and
connected.
That valley between them isbeing bridged.
So the city is growing and it'sgrowing together.
One scholar said the term Milomeaning supporting terraces is
(09:31):
derived from a word that meansto fill, hence a mound, and
refers to rock terraces used asfoundations for buildings in
Jerusalem.
The exact location of this isnot known.
But Solomon is building up thecity.
He's building up his capital.
He's building all kinds ofdefense works and Hazar and
Megiddo and Gezer and a bunch ofthat has been excavated by
(09:52):
archaeologists.
Interestingly, he puts togethera navy, verse 26.
This is really unusual for Jews,for Israelites.
Generally speaking, there's abig suspicion of the ocean.
Lots of times in the Bible, badthings come from the ocean.
The book of Job talks about theocean in that way.
The book of Revelation talksabout the ocean that way.
Generally speaking...
(10:13):
The Israelites are notinterested in sailing.
There's no account of themsailing out across the
Mediterranean to Spain doing allthose.
Nope, nope, nope.
We're not interested in theocean, but we've got a navy
right here.
We'll see how all that worksout.
And they even go as far, verse28, as Ophir.
Ophir is in Arabia or in India.
At this point, we're just seeingthe high point of Solomon's
(10:36):
reign.
He's walking with God.
Yeah, there are some thingsthere where like, well, I don't
know about that, but he seems tobe close to the Lord.
He's built a great temple forthe Lord.
The nation is prospering inmany, many ways.
It's looking good.
And chapter 10 will further someof those ideas before, yeah,
spoiler alert, everything goessouth in a really big hurry.
(10:58):
A reading for Wednesday, 1 Kings9, verses 10 to 28.
Welcome to Thursday.
Our reading for Thursday is 1Kings 10, verses 1-13.
Today, we meet the Queen ofSheba.
This is a wonderful chapter, andI think it's very important to
start by saying, we need tofigure out what this is doing
here.
Solomon had a lot of cool thingshappen.
(11:19):
I'm sure many dignitariesvisited him.
I'm sure lots of importantpeople arrived with gifts.
Why is this chapter in theBible?
What is God doing here?
And I think the answer to thatis she is one of the greatest
dignitaries of the time.
She comes from a long ways away,probably modern Yemen, although
not everybody is exactlyconvinced precisely where the
(11:40):
kingdom of Sheba is.
But she is a powerful queen.
She is an important queen.
She's come a great distance.
She brings all kinds of gifts.
And all of this just underlinesthe greatness of Solomon's
kingdom because God blessed him.
That's what's going on here.
God has blessed Solomon in anincredible fashion.
(12:03):
So she arrives to ask him, Ilike the ESV here, hard
questions.
Some translations have riddleshere and then you almost get the
idea of her, you know, standingaround asking him silly sort of
things like, does a tree fallingin the forest make a noise if
nobody's there to hear it?
Or did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons?
That's not what she's asking.
She's asking because wisdom inthe practical questions, hard
(12:29):
questions that would showSolomon's understanding of how
to apply his knowledge to realproblems in the world.
Remember, this is about thewisdom theme.
We saw that in chapter 3,chapter 4, chapter 5.
Then there's all this buildingthat goes on, and we've kind of
come back to that.
Verse 4, the Queen of Sheba sawthe wisdom of Solomon.
(12:50):
Verse 6, these reports aboutyour wisdom.
Verse 7, your wisdom inprosperity.
Verse 8, here your wisdom.
Why is he so wise?
Verse 9, God has done this.
Only God could do something likethis.
God is getting the credit.
(13:10):
By the way, I don't think that'sconversion in verse 9.
I think that's probablycourtesy.
Notice verse 13.
There's no indication here ofconversion.
She just goes home, maybe evenmade a trade alliance.
And of course, There is tons ofspeculation about what it means
when it says King Solomon gaveto the Queen of Sheba all that
(13:33):
she desired.
Lots of people have interpretedthat romantically, and there is
lots of literature among theJews, among Arabs, and
especially among Ethiopians thatfill in the blanks there and say
that Solomon and Sheba had somekind of romantic liaison.
Now, the Bible doesn't say that.
What we know, of course, whatwe're about to read about
(13:54):
Solomon in chapter 11 It doesbecome a very important story in
Ethiopia.
In Ethiopia, there are Jewishpeople, and they trace back to
(14:14):
this and say, To them, this ispart of their story, and they
take this very, very seriously.
They have a royal line that theybelieve descends from Solomon
and Sheba.
So you might bump into somebodyat some point, or you might read
about Ethiopian Jews, and you'rethinking, Jews in Ethiopia?
Where'd that come from?
Well...
The answer to that, at least forthem, is chapter 10 and verse
(14:36):
13.
Thanks for reading the Biblewith me today.
I'm headed home.
Can't wait to be home and seeDina and see everybody on
Sunday.
Our reading for Thursday is 1Kings chapter 10, verses 1 to
13.
I would love to keep readingabout the wonders of Solomon's
house, but we'll need to savethat for next week.
Tomorrow, we're in the Psalms.
(14:56):
See you tomorrow.
Welcome to Friday.
We made it.
Made it through another week,and it is Friday.
Today our reading is the 25thPsalm.
I think you will like this Psalma lot, even if it is unusual in
some ways and kind of seems alittle choppy in places.
We'll talk about why that is injust a moment.
(15:17):
Mostly, this is a lament.
It is a concern about problemswith enemies and a plea that God
would come and save and deliver.
But I like this lament a lotbecause it just breathes trust
in God.
Some have even termed it aprayer of confidence.
You do get some laments that arejust super desperate.
And this one has notes in aplace or two, hey, God, I'm
(15:38):
going under and I need you rightnow.
But it is not as sad as somelaments.
And it does have, I think thisis what I like about it so much,
some instruction.
There's a wisdom nature to it.
It's almost a wisdom songbecause it talks about the right
way to live.
There's This is the way to dothings.
Verse four, make known to meyour ways.
(15:58):
Verse five, lead me in yourtruth and teach me.
Verse eight, he instructssinners in the way.
Verse nine, he leads the humblein what is right and teaches the
humble his way.
Verse 12 and verse 14 talk aboutthe fear of the Lord.
So it teaches us even in amoment of desperation and need.
Now the dominant note here inthe Psalm is its structure.
(16:20):
It is easy to remember.
if you read Hebrew, because itis an acrostic.
There are a number of these inthe Psalms, and what that means
when I say it's an acrostic isthat each line or each stanza
starts with the correspondingletter of the Hebrew alphabet.
So it'd be the ABCs, if youwill, of lament and deliverance.
(16:42):
So it'd start with an A, andthen the next line would start
with B.
Well, when you have to start theline with a specific letter,
that really jackets thepsalmist, the writer, into a
certain structure, into certainword choices, so sometimes it'll
jump around just a little bit.
Maybe to illustrate What I'mtalking about when I talk about
an acrostic here, if this wasEnglish, you'd have always
(17:05):
praise God and then better toserve the Lord than sin and then
can't imagine life without theLord.
So you'd have the ABCs likethat.
And if you think that's easy todo, you should try writing an
acrostic psalm sometimes.
It is not a simple task at all.
And sometimes you have tosacrifice that fluid poetic flow
(17:27):
to stay within your structure.
The structure here, The outline,I should say, is pretty easy.
The opening prayer is in verses1 to 7.
There's then confidence in God'sgoodness in 8 to 14.
As the psalmist says, I know whoGod is and what God is going to
do and how I need to respond toHim.
The friendship of the Lord isfor those who fear Him and He
(17:49):
makes known to them Hiscovenant, verse 14.
And then there is a closingprayer in verses 15 to 21.
It's a little bit of loneliness.
I talked last week, two weeksago, about isolation And you get
a little bit of that lonelinesshere in this closing stanza.
Don't leave me alone, Lord.
I need help.
I don't want to be left bymyself.
(18:11):
And maybe you'd go back andthink about the sermon I
preached on connection andconnecting with others and
consider some of that as we workout of this psalm.
But that is the 25th Psalm.
It is an acrostic psalm thatcries out to God for help while
it is teaching us the ways ofthe Lord.
The reading for Friday, Psalms.
That closes the podcast then forthe week.
(18:36):
I certainly do appreciate yourinterest in the podcast.
So many people are kind to meabout the podcast, talk to me
about it, and say it isencouraging to them.
I hope that you are using thepodcast to encourage others to
be involved in daily Biblereading, and I certainly am
looking forward to seeingeverybody Sunday at Westside.
It will be Preaching ThemeSunday.
We'll talk about the questionthat you voted to be the the
(19:00):
question that you want to talkabout.
I think this is the eighth mostpopular question, if I remember
correctly.
And so we're going to talk aboutan important question that Jesus
asked.
Have a lesson in the nine aboutloving the Lord.
We need to think about thatmore.
Exactly what does that mean andhow do we do that?
Both of those lessons, I think,are going to be of great help.
(19:20):
I think they'll be a great helpto you.
I know they were great help tome as I put them together.
So thank you for listening.
I hope that you've left a ratingor review so more folks will
find the podcast and be Don'tbuy it.
And until then, next week, whenwe'll open our Bibles together
again, I'm Mark Roberts, and Iwant to go to heaven, and I want
you to come too.
I'll see you Monday with a cupof coffee.
SPEAKER_00 (19:48):
Thanks for listening to the West Side Church of
Christ podcast, Monday MorningCoffee with Mark.
For more information aboutWestside, you can connect with
us through our website,justchristians.com, and our
Facebook page.
Our music is from upbeat.io.
That's upbeat with two Ps,U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creators
(20:13):
can get free music.
Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again, with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special
Monday Morning Coffee podcast.
On this podcast, our preacher,Mark Roberts, will help you get
your week started right with alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think through itfurther and better work the
(00:24):
applications into our dailylives.
Mark will then look forward intothis week's Bible reading so
that we can know what to expectand watch for.
And he may have some extra bonusthoughts from time to time.
So grab a cup of coffee as westart the week together on
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Good morning, good morning.
Welcome to the Monday MorningCoffee Podcast for Monday, June
the 16th.
I'm Mark, and I am inLouisville, Kentucky.
So I will not have sermon notesfor you today because I did not
preach yesterday at Westside.
I'm in Louisville with theExpressway Church.
Wonderful, wonderful church.
Cool thing about this church,from the parking lot, you can
(01:13):
see the spires of ChurchillDowns.
How great is that?
I have been here with thischurch several times before.
It is a joy to be back withthem.
And even though I'm inLouisville, Kentucky, I am
holding...
I'm holding a great cup ofcoffee.
(01:55):
Hawaii is growing coffee, andKona is incredible coffee.
So I'm just doing all the good.
I hope that you are having agreat start to the week.
Let's get it started right bydoing some Bible reading.
We're going to finish up in 1Kings 8.
Grab your Bible.
Pour that cup of coffee.
Let's get ready.
Let's get set.
Let's go! Our reading for Mondayis 1 Kings 8, verses 54-66.
(02:21):
This is the reading, thecontinuation of the reading from
last week.
We departed from that on Friday,of course, to be in the Psalms,
but we're finishing up 1 Kings 8today.
And this is a very beautifulreading.
There really is a lot They boweddown with their faces to the
(03:04):
ground on the pavement andworshiped and gave thanks to the
Lord, saying, For He is good,for His steadfast love endures
forever.
So God absolutely signs off onthis temple as being pleasing in
His sight.
And the keynote in the readingis verse 56.
The Lord has given rest to Hispeople Israel.
This is what they have beenlooking for.
(03:25):
This is what was promised.
We will have rest in the land.
You might look down at verse 66.
I think that kind of bookendsthis.
The people don't do have rest,things are just extremely good.
And this is a great moment forSolomon.
He talks about inclining yourheart, verse 58.
That sounds like David.
Verse 61, let your hearttherefore be holy, true to the
(03:46):
Lord our God.
That's David.
Unfortunately, Solomon willviolate that and fail right
exactly there, the heart beingholy, true.
And the writer of Kings willnote that in 1 Kings 11 in verse
3.
You might also make a note aboutverse 60, all the peoples of the
earth may know Notice there,yes, a little coffee there to
(04:08):
make things better.
Notice verse 60 is a missionaryverse and talks about Israel's
goal as being the nation thatunderstands about God and people
are going to look to them andthey are going to understand
about God as they come to theIsraelites for that kind of
knowledge.
There's a huge amount ofoffering here.
Some translations have sevendays, verse 65.
(04:28):
ESV has the note 14 days, but itjust goes on and on.
Thousands and thousands ofpeople are assembled here.
I love the language in verse 65.
Watch the slip of the pen forthe writer.
This happened before the Lordour God seven days.
The writer says, climbs intothat.
The Lord, our God, I feelconnected to this.
(04:49):
And then notice verse 66, forall the goodness the Lord had
shown to David, not all thegoodness the Lord had shown to
Solomon, all the goodness theLord had shown to David.
It's still about David.
That's very important for us aswe continue As we continue to
think about being a man afterGod's, a woman after God's own
heart like David, it's stillabout David.
(05:11):
David's shadow stands acrosseverything that's going on.
As great as Solomon is, aswonderful as Solomon is, as
great as the temple that hebuilt is, it's still about
David.
Reading for Monday then, 1 Kings8, verses 54 to 66.
Welcome to Tuesday's reading.
Tuesday's reading is 1 Kings 9,verses 16.
(05:33):
And I should say to Westsiders,of course, there won't be a Zoom
call tonight because I'm out oftown.
Let's look at 1 Kings 9, 1 to 9,and maybe look at this really
across the whole chapter here.
In many ways, this is a survey,maybe from the middle of
Solomon's reign here.
He's been building 20 years onthe temple and on his own house.
And so from kind of a mid-reignperspective, one scholar says
(05:56):
this is a look back over theconstruction that he has been
doing.
And the operative word here isbuild.
It occurs nine times.
verses 1, 3, 10, 15, 17, 19, 24,and then twice in the word in
verse 25.
So this is about building andwhat we are building and what
(06:17):
Solomon has built just all overthis text.
But in the middle of our readingtoday, there is this important
note about faithfulness.
Walking with integrity of heartand uprightness, verse 4.
Then I will establish your royalthrone over Israel for The
conditional nature of thepromise to the house of David
(06:39):
cannot be emphasized enough,particularly in a time when
people still want something tobe happening over there, that
God owes the Jews something andthere's going to be a physical
kingdom and the throne of David.
No, no, no.
If you turn aside verse 6, thenverse 7, Israel will become a
(07:00):
proverb and a byword among allpeoples, and this house will
become a heap of ruins.
People will hiss at it, verse 8says.
How can this possibly havehappened?
So as we continue to read in 1Kings, what we want to watch for
is does the house of Davidfollow faithfully?
Do they walk with God withintegrity of heart and
uprightness?
(07:20):
And if we see that they are notdoing that, then pretty much all
of us would just be holding ourbreath and sitting on the edge
of our seats wondering, when issomebody going to show up and
destroy that beautiful,beautiful temple that Solomon
built?
Because that's what God is.
is warning about.
So we really get a preview ofcoming attractions here, of
coming destruction, I guess Ishould say, as we read in 1
(07:42):
Kings 9, verses 1-9.
Our reading for Tuesday, 1 Kings9, 1-9.
It is Wednesday.
It is Wednesday, my last day inLouisville, coming home
tomorrow.
1 Kings chapter 9 verses 10 to28 is our reading for today.
1 Kings 9, 10 to 28.
And this, as I said yesterday,is a review of some of Solomon's
(08:04):
building projects.
We get a little unusual notehere in verse 12.
Hiram is not happy.
Maybe Solomon has run up abigger bill than he can pay with
with taxation.
Starting to wonder here ifthere's some difficulties in the
kingdom already.
Some of the prosperity that theyseem to know in the south,
particularly the capital,doesn't seem to be extending all
(08:25):
the way to the north.
And Hiram ends up being paid offin more cities because Hiram has
sent so much building materialand so much gold.
So Solomon seems to need to payhim some additional money and
pays that off, as I said, Andthen if we don't get enough of a
red flag there, verse 15 startstalking about forced labor, and
(08:47):
that doesn't sound very good.
That's going to come back tohaunt the house of Solomon, the
house of David later on.
Please notice verse 24, thebuilding of the Milo, M-I-L-L-O,
the Milo, the Milo.
This is an area...
This is an area between MountZion and the city of David.
(09:09):
And the word Milo literallymeans to fill.
And it seems like the old cityof David and the new site of the
temple in the palace area,they're being filled in and
connected.
That valley between them isbeing bridged.
So the city is growing and it'sgrowing together.
One scholar said the term Milomeaning supporting terraces is
(09:31):
derived from a word that meansto fill, hence a mound, and
refers to rock terraces used asfoundations for buildings in
Jerusalem.
The exact location of this isnot known.
But Solomon is building up thecity.
He's building up his capital.
He's building all kinds ofdefense works and Hazar and
Megiddo and Gezer and a bunch ofthat has been excavated by
(09:52):
archaeologists.
Interestingly, he puts togethera navy, verse 26.
This is really unusual for Jews,for Israelites.
Generally speaking, there's abig suspicion of the ocean.
Lots of times in the Bible, badthings come from the ocean.
The book of Job talks about theocean in that way.
The book of Revelation talksabout the ocean that way.
Generally speaking...
(10:13):
The Israelites are notinterested in sailing.
There's no account of themsailing out across the
Mediterranean to Spain doing allthose.
Nope, nope, nope.
We're not interested in theocean, but we've got a navy
right here.
We'll see how all that worksout.
And they even go as far, verse28, as Ophir.
Ophir is in Arabia or in India.
At this point, we're just seeingthe high point of Solomon's
(10:36):
reign.
He's walking with God.
Yeah, there are some thingsthere where like, well, I don't
know about that, but he seems tobe close to the Lord.
He's built a great temple forthe Lord.
The nation is prospering inmany, many ways.
It's looking good.
And chapter 10 will further someof those ideas before, yeah,
spoiler alert, everything goessouth in a really big hurry.
(10:58):
A reading for Wednesday, 1 Kings9, verses 10 to 28.
Welcome to Thursday.
Our reading for Thursday is 1Kings 10, verses 1-13.
Today, we meet the Queen ofSheba.
This is a wonderful chapter, andI think it's very important to
start by saying, we need tofigure out what this is doing
here.
Solomon had a lot of cool thingshappen.
(11:19):
I'm sure many dignitariesvisited him.
I'm sure lots of importantpeople arrived with gifts.
Why is this chapter in theBible?
What is God doing here?
And I think the answer to thatis she is one of the greatest
dignitaries of the time.
She comes from a long ways away,probably modern Yemen, although
not everybody is exactlyconvinced precisely where the
(11:40):
kingdom of Sheba is.
But she is a powerful queen.
She is an important queen.
She's come a great distance.
She brings all kinds of gifts.
And all of this just underlinesthe greatness of Solomon's
kingdom because God blessed him.
That's what's going on here.
God has blessed Solomon in anincredible fashion.
(12:03):
So she arrives to ask him, Ilike the ESV here, hard
questions.
Some translations have riddleshere and then you almost get the
idea of her, you know, standingaround asking him silly sort of
things like, does a tree fallingin the forest make a noise if
nobody's there to hear it?
Or did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons?
That's not what she's asking.
She's asking because wisdom inthe practical questions, hard
(12:29):
questions that would showSolomon's understanding of how
to apply his knowledge to realproblems in the world.
Remember, this is about thewisdom theme.
We saw that in chapter 3,chapter 4, chapter 5.
Then there's all this buildingthat goes on, and we've kind of
come back to that.
Verse 4, the Queen of Sheba sawthe wisdom of Solomon.
(12:50):
Verse 6, these reports aboutyour wisdom.
Verse 7, your wisdom inprosperity.
Verse 8, here your wisdom.
Why is he so wise?
Verse 9, God has done this.
Only God could do something likethis.
God is getting the credit.
(13:10):
By the way, I don't think that'sconversion in verse 9.
I think that's probablycourtesy.
Notice verse 13.
There's no indication here ofconversion.
She just goes home, maybe evenmade a trade alliance.
And of course, There is tons ofspeculation about what it means
when it says King Solomon gaveto the Queen of Sheba all that
(13:33):
she desired.
Lots of people have interpretedthat romantically, and there is
lots of literature among theJews, among Arabs, and
especially among Ethiopians thatfill in the blanks there and say
that Solomon and Sheba had somekind of romantic liaison.
Now, the Bible doesn't say that.
What we know, of course, whatwe're about to read about
(13:54):
Solomon in chapter 11 It doesbecome a very important story in
Ethiopia.
In Ethiopia, there are Jewishpeople, and they trace back to
(14:14):
this and say, To them, this ispart of their story, and they
take this very, very seriously.
They have a royal line that theybelieve descends from Solomon
and Sheba.
So you might bump into somebodyat some point, or you might read
about Ethiopian Jews, and you'rethinking, Jews in Ethiopia?
Where'd that come from?
Well...
The answer to that, at least forthem, is chapter 10 and verse
(14:36):
13.
Thanks for reading the Biblewith me today.
I'm headed home.
Can't wait to be home and seeDina and see everybody on
Sunday.
Our reading for Thursday is 1Kings chapter 10, verses 1 to
13.
I would love to keep readingabout the wonders of Solomon's
house, but we'll need to savethat for next week.
Tomorrow, we're in the Psalms.
(14:56):
See you tomorrow.
Welcome to Friday.
We made it.
Made it through another week,and it is Friday.
Today our reading is the 25thPsalm.
I think you will like this Psalma lot, even if it is unusual in
some ways and kind of seems alittle choppy in places.
We'll talk about why that is injust a moment.
(15:17):
Mostly, this is a lament.
It is a concern about problemswith enemies and a plea that God
would come and save and deliver.
But I like this lament a lotbecause it just breathes trust
in God.
Some have even termed it aprayer of confidence.
You do get some laments that arejust super desperate.
And this one has notes in aplace or two, hey, God, I'm
(15:38):
going under and I need you rightnow.
But it is not as sad as somelaments.
And it does have, I think thisis what I like about it so much,
some instruction.
There's a wisdom nature to it.
It's almost a wisdom songbecause it talks about the right
way to live.
There's This is the way to dothings.
Verse four, make known to meyour ways.
(15:58):
Verse five, lead me in yourtruth and teach me.
Verse eight, he instructssinners in the way.
Verse nine, he leads the humblein what is right and teaches the
humble his way.
Verse 12 and verse 14 talk aboutthe fear of the Lord.
So it teaches us even in amoment of desperation and need.
Now the dominant note here inthe Psalm is its structure.
(16:20):
It is easy to remember.
if you read Hebrew, because itis an acrostic.
There are a number of these inthe Psalms, and what that means
when I say it's an acrostic isthat each line or each stanza
starts with the correspondingletter of the Hebrew alphabet.
So it'd be the ABCs, if youwill, of lament and deliverance.
(16:42):
So it'd start with an A, andthen the next line would start
with B.
Well, when you have to start theline with a specific letter,
that really jackets thepsalmist, the writer, into a
certain structure, into certainword choices, so sometimes it'll
jump around just a little bit.
Maybe to illustrate What I'mtalking about when I talk about
an acrostic here, if this wasEnglish, you'd have always
(17:05):
praise God and then better toserve the Lord than sin and then
can't imagine life without theLord.
So you'd have the ABCs likethat.
And if you think that's easy todo, you should try writing an
acrostic psalm sometimes.
It is not a simple task at all.
And sometimes you have tosacrifice that fluid poetic flow
(17:27):
to stay within your structure.
The structure here, The outline,I should say, is pretty easy.
The opening prayer is in verses1 to 7.
There's then confidence in God'sgoodness in 8 to 14.
As the psalmist says, I know whoGod is and what God is going to
do and how I need to respond toHim.
The friendship of the Lord isfor those who fear Him and He
(17:49):
makes known to them Hiscovenant, verse 14.
And then there is a closingprayer in verses 15 to 21.
It's a little bit of loneliness.
I talked last week, two weeksago, about isolation And you get
a little bit of that lonelinesshere in this closing stanza.
Don't leave me alone, Lord.
I need help.
I don't want to be left bymyself.
(18:11):
And maybe you'd go back andthink about the sermon I
preached on connection andconnecting with others and
consider some of that as we workout of this psalm.
But that is the 25th Psalm.
It is an acrostic psalm thatcries out to God for help while
it is teaching us the ways ofthe Lord.
The reading for Friday, Psalms.
That closes the podcast then forthe week.
(18:36):
I certainly do appreciate yourinterest in the podcast.
So many people are kind to meabout the podcast, talk to me
about it, and say it isencouraging to them.
I hope that you are using thepodcast to encourage others to
be involved in daily Biblereading, and I certainly am
looking forward to seeingeverybody Sunday at Westside.
It will be Preaching ThemeSunday.
We'll talk about the questionthat you voted to be the the
(19:00):
question that you want to talkabout.
I think this is the eighth mostpopular question, if I remember
correctly.
And so we're going to talk aboutan important question that Jesus
asked.
Have a lesson in the nine aboutloving the Lord.
We need to think about thatmore.
Exactly what does that mean andhow do we do that?
Both of those lessons, I think,are going to be of great help.
(19:20):
I think they'll be a great helpto you.
I know they were great help tome as I put them together.
So thank you for listening.
I hope that you've left a ratingor review so more folks will
find the podcast and be Don'tbuy it.
And until then, next week, whenwe'll open our Bibles together
again, I'm Mark Roberts, and Iwant to go to heaven, and I want
you to come too.
I'll see you Monday with a cupof coffee.
SPEAKER_00 (19:48):
Thanks for listening to the West Side Church of
Christ podcast, Monday MorningCoffee with Mark.
For more information aboutWestside, you can connect with
us through our website,justchristians.com, and our
Facebook page.
Our music is from upbeat.io.
That's upbeat with two Ps,U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creators
(20:13):
can get free music.
Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again, with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
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