Positive Influence of Godly Leaders: 1 Kings 4:20-34

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Guys.

My name is Chris. This is Jeff, and we are

qualified to be the Bible Guys because we love the Bible.

Well, because we got the U r L first, right,

Bible Guys dot.

Com, Bible Guys dot com.

So that makes us, That makes us pro. Now you

can you can trust everything that you hear on the Internet,

that's right, the.

World Wide Web, that's right. So today we are kicking

off a segment that Desire put together and this is

a spin off of a very favorite segment.

Yeah, this is one of our favorites.

Well, oftentimes we do a Dad Joe competition, which I love.

That's right, we all love them as long as they're

good jokes. But this here's the spin she said. These

are featuring jokes sent in from our listeners this week.

This is fantastic. Yes, yes, I'm very excited about these, which.

By the way, I didn't even we didn't even ask

for people to do this.

Well, people send us all kinds of fun stuff.

Yeah, so this is pretty great. So great. So let

me just say, if you're listening and you know a

good dad joke and you're like, hey, if I wonder

if I send it in, I wonder if it ever

make the show? Well, here it is? Well, here it

is so info at is it Bible Guys or the

Bible guys dot com?

What We'll put it right here on the screen. Info

at the Bible Guys.

The Bible it's info at the Bible guys dot com.

Give us an email. Yes, so, okay, here we go.

So you want to do the first one?

Yes, I just went off that screen. Here we go, ready, yep?

I told my wife. She was drawing her eyebrows too high.

She looked surprised.

Did you open mine? Oh? I opened?

You quit looking at my stuff?

Oh yeah, okay, here you go. Okay, here's mine.

So Chris is spelled c h.

All right, here we go. Mine says, got a couple

of sock puppets for sale? Anyone interested in taking them

off my hands?

That's a good one.

I like that. Yeah.

Hey, our listeners are good. Why don't skeletons fight each other?

They don't have the guts.

Oh, there you go. That's pretty good. That's funny like

that one. Okay, hey, listen, I know you're busy, but

can you say one ton backwards?

Ton one not now, not now? That's one ton one time,

not now, not now? Oh really yeah, oh one ton? Yeah, okay,

that's one of those you have to read. Yeah, I guess,

so thank you for that.

Yeah, you're welcome.

That was amazing. Okay, what do you get when you

drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat minor?

A flat minor?

Oh my, a flat minor? Yeah right, right right, a

flat minor.

That's a musician.

Joe, yep, yep, very funny.

Yeah, okay, my friend lost his car. I call him Carlos.

Oh no, no, nope, not laughing at that one.

No, that was terrible.

Okay did you hear about the claustrophobic astronaut He just

needed a little space.

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Okay. Ready, instead of water,

I put red Bull in the back and the oh sorry,

instead of water, I put red Bull on the back

of my coffee maker. This morning, I was halfway to

work before I realized I forgot my car.

Glass of red bull.

Okay, that is really funny.

This past summer, my wife and I were in Austria

and we were going to a little village called Halstat.

It's really beautiful. Anyways, on the way we passed the

Red Bull World headquarters and it's in the mountains and

in this forest, but and it's like really space age

looking as effect all the buildings they're kind of tied together,

but they look like spaceships, round space ships like this.

And coming out of one of the it's the main

main entrance building, the glass looks like it's broken, and

a whole herd of bulls are running out and then

they're huge, like copper bulls or brass right, and they're

statues and they're running right down into a lake. It's

really magnificent. Really, yeah, I was really impressed by the

Red Oh I can't imagine. But the owner of Red

Bull is the richest man in or was. I don't

think he's alive anymore, but was the richest man in Austria.

So wow.

Okay, anyways, yeah, but it's funny to me all of that,

all that caffeine and in his mind, you know, what

the whole world needs to think when they drive past

my place is so much energy that comes crashing out

of our building, right, it's kind of yeah. Okay, why

did the girl keep her trumpet in the snow? She

wanted to play cool jazz? That was a rough one.

That's actually, well, not as rough as your Carloss Carlos.

Yes, yeah, I didn't even I try to make it

sound good by saying Carlos. Yeah, yeah, Carlos, it's Carlos.

It's terrible.

Okay, okay, whoever, So you know who sent that in?

Right right?

You know who are? If that's you, bow your head

in shame. Look away, don't make our contact with the

screen right now.

Look away, look away, right now. But you match my eyes? Boy?

Oh no, okay, here we go. Last one, my friend

joined a dating site for arsonists. He's been set a

lot of matches.

Oh no, that's pretty that's clever, clever. Okay, all right,

we're sorry. We're sorry for that. Thank you listeners putting

up with it. Yeah, well, thank thank eight of the

ten listeners. Yes, we're going to thank eighty percent of

our listeners today.

Like Carlos, you don't like what was the one?

Cool?

You?

Those two?

Yeah?

Not mad?

I think I actually am about Carlos. Yeah, because it

doesn't make any sense, like cool jazz, you understand it?

Yeah, yes, right, it's like, oh, it's just a.

Terrible joke, but Carlos doesn't sound like Carlos.

Okay, well, hey, we want to invite you. We believe

in redemption. Send us a better one.

Okay, you know what.

That's good.

I dare you to to top it, right, So, but

by topping of what we're really meaning is redeem it. Yes, okay,

and let us know I'm the Carlos person.

You don't have to do that, right yeah, yeah, okay,

Well we'll never know otherwise, Well Deaz knows, well, she knows.

If she does searching your history or whatever. But but

if somebody announces it, then it'll be a segment. Then

our listeners will be like, oh, it's the Carlos person.

All right, Well how many? How many do they have

to send to redeem themselves? So that was a bad

enough joke, just one? Oh, I would say it needs

to be probably four or five, don't you think? Well

four or five better is long. It was so bad

it brought the whole segment down for so long. The

consequence of that should be still currently Okay, So whoever

whoever sent in that joke, just understand if you wherever

our friends, you would just spend your time being brutalized.

Because this is how we this is how we show

love to each other and the other people we.

Love, which means we love the freak. We love you

send it in.

Yes, we love it our sense of just we Actually,

if we're super super polite to you, either we don't

know you or we don't like you.

That could be true, actually, right, right, might be true.

Like sometimes you find yourself just being as surface polite

as possible, like hoping the conversation ends quickly.

That that content made me imagine those moments, and I

just get exhausted.

You need to just go, oh well, okay.

Thank you polite. Yeah, and just going through motions of

being surface polite is it's hard. It's hard.

Yes, it's more fun to have fun.

Yeah. Well, you know when when you have good friends

over and all of a sudden you look at the

clock and it's midnight, You're like, oh my goodness, it's midnight.

It's like that's when you know they're good friends, right right,

when time just goes by and it's easy, you know.

So anyway, I just I just hiccuped in Yon.

So is there a name for that? A hiccup and

a yon hic cup?

Ay, yeah, we're just being ridiculous.

Okay, Well this is a rough passage, so not rough,

but it comes up twice in First Corinthians chapter four.

Also Second Chronicles chapter one. So if you're reading and

they're you know, you're doing a kind of a chronological study.

Just understand the life of Solomon and the life of

David show up in multiple books, and so we just

keep flipping back and forth. We're not trying to read

all of them. They basically say the same thing. But uh,

here in One Kings, chapter four, verse twenty, that's what

we're reading, right, yep. Yes. The people of Judah and

Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore.

They were very contented, with plenty to eat and drink.

Salomon ruled over the kingdoms from the Euphrates River in

the north to the land of the Philistines and the

board of Egypt and the south. The conquered peoples of

those lands sent tribute money to Solomon and continued to

serve him throughout his life. The daily food requirements for

Solomon's palace, where one hundred and fifty bushels of choice flour,

three hundred bushels of meal, also ten oxen from the

fattening pens, twenty pasture fed cattle, one hundred sheep or goats,

as well as deer, gazelle's roe deer and choice poultry.

So that was just refast, lunch, and dinner every day.

Yeah, that's every day. Wow, for the palace, for the armies,

for the west.

Okay, everybody there, meat eaters, buddy. Yeah. Solomon's dominion extended

over all the kingdoms west of the Euphrates River, from

Tipsha to Gaza, and there was peace on all his borders.

During the lifetime of Solomon, all of Judah and Israel

lived in peace and safety, and from Dan in the

north to Beersheba in the south, each family had its

own home and garden. Solomon had four thousand stalls for

his chariot horses, and he had a twelve thousand horses

and the sinct. The district governors faithfully provided food for

King Solomon at his court. Each made sure nothing was

lacking during the month assigned to him. They also brought

the necessary barley and straw for the royal horses and

the stables. God gave Solomon very great wisdom and understanding

and knowledge as vast as the sands of the seashore.

In fact, his wisdom exceeded that of all the wise

men of the East and the wise men of Egypt.

He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan, the Ezra Height,

and the sons of Mayhall. He Man really wow, Wow,

Kelcall and Darta. Right. His fame spread throughout all the

Only he Man got its own TV show.

I know that.

Yeah, the others not so much. Cal Call and data.

Yeah.

His fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations. He composed

some three thousand proverbs and wrote one thousand and five songs.

He could speak with authority about all kinds of plants,

from the great cedar Lebanon to the tiny hitsip that

grows from cracks in a wall. He could also speak

about animals, birds, small creatures, and fish. And kings from

every nation sent their ambassadors to listen to the wisdom

of Solomon. Yeah, and I love this.

Yeah, I did too. And it's prosperity and wisdom. And

you know what, I know, it's you know in.

Terms of like it feel similar to yesterday?

It does, but you know, you always ask yourself there's

a sermon in there somewhere, right, like where's the sermon?

And before I get to any attempt on a sermon thought,

I just want to marvel at the fact that the

Queen of Sheba observed when we read first chronicles yesterday

at she observed how organized, yeah, the kingdom was, and

she marveled over the organization. Well, you can't even you know,

this gives us a little bit more insight. Think about

ten oxen from the fattening pins, twenty pasture fed cattle,

a hundred sheep or goats, as well as deer, gazelle's

road deer, and choice poultry with one hundred and fifty

bushels of flowers three hundred bushels a meal. So think

of think of everybody who lived in the palace or

around the palace, or the armies that served the palace,

the servant guards, and think of how organized you would

have to be in order to execute ready, not not

one big kitchen, but rather how many kitchens hundreds, right,

so many, so many and then and then just and

then have that just I mean it's just an incredible

thing to establish that from nothing, And so I would

imagine that if you've never seen anything like that. A

queen who comes from Ethiopia sees that and says, I've

never seen anything like this.

Let's ask let's ask uh chat GPT, how many meals

can an average ox provide?

She is what a question?

Between five hundred and seven hundred pounds of usable meat.

So if it was seven hundred pounds of meat between

somewhere around fourteen hundred meals.

Wow, So one ox.

And they're killing ten oxen. Wow, so fourteen thousand meals.

Let's say it was on the low side, ten thousand

meals okay, right, just from the oxen. Wow, he's feeding

ten thousand people a day just from his oxen. Then

it's twenty twenty pasture fed cattle. That's probably going to

be five or six hundred more meals. Times twenty, it's

gonna be another ten thousand meals. And then he's got

one hundred sheeper goats. You and I we've eaten sheep

and goats in Africa before.

Right, sure?

And I mean it feeds the whole village one hundred people,

right right, So you're talking another one hundred of them.

That's going to be another ten thousand people. It's crazy, right,

he's thirty thousand people a day. He's feeding a day,

So ten thousand people a day if he's eating three

times a day.

Okay, So perhaps a sermon in here is this is

that when the king does well, in other words, when

he is a person of prosperity, and in this case

he's a person of wisdom and prosperity who follows God.

Right.

Right, So you know, have you ever heard the saying

everything rises and falls on leadership? Yes, And so you know,

when the king and the leader does well, then everybody

in the household, who, by the way, may not even

deserve it, may not even earn it or work for it,

but yet everybody gets well taken care of. And so

you know that speaks into the roles that God has

given for instance, like me, So God has given me

a role as a father, as a husband, as a leader,

as a friend, as a family member. Right, And so

I'm a provider. I do all sorts of things. And

when I don't follow God, and when I am not

doing well, my life is not my own. Right, there's

the sermon. My life is not my own. So people

always think, hey, I'm just gonna I met with a

guy yesterday. In fact, we obviously I won't give you

his name, but he is. I did their wedding five

years ago. And uh and they're struggling. And he's been

in and out of rehab and he literally just got

out of rehab a couple of days ago. And this

is his third rehab in uh in in just in

one year. And uh and he's not doing well.

And uh, well, if you're listening, stick with it, man,

don't give up. Don't And you know what, here's the thing.

When I met with him yesterday, I was very encouraged,

and I was hopeful, and I was prayerful. We prayed

together at the restaurant and uh and so I'm just

prayed like maybe it's this time, right and and and

this fighting, this is the time, keep on fighting. But

here's the thing. We talked about the consequences of him

wanting to do what he wanted to do.

When he when he indulging himself, when.

He indulges himself, it's not just his life, right, It's

his wife, it's his family, it's his loved ones. And everybody.

Everybody suffers because of you know, obviously in this case

it's an addiction, but in a lot of cases it's

just selfishness.

You know.

I'm not talking about him anymore. Rights as a leaders,

as a family, man, as a father, right, anyway, I

just think that this is a great lesson, even under

these goofy stats of trying to figure out twenty thousand

ox and meals, right, you know, and here we are

doing that math. But there's a sermon in there somewhere

that says, your life is not your own, and everything

rises and falls on leadership. And when you serve God,

when you follow God, then the blessings and every life

you touch benefit, and the responsibilities certainly that God has

given you also benefit because you're just living life.

And I've been very struck by the fact that the

world is run by kings. Yeah, pray for good kings

and hope that God stops bad kings. Right, that's it.

And whether we're talking about kings of industry or kings

of nations or leaders in communities, right, there's this kind concept.

And so what you pray for is good kings. And

if you have the opportunity to be a king in

your office or at your corporation, be a good one,

be a good man, be a good woman. And what

you see here is it starts off the people of

Juda and Israel, whereas numerous as the sand on the seashore,

which is what God promised Abraham. It says they were

very contented, with plenty to eat and drink. Right, So

a good king doesn't work for himself. This is what

we warned about yesterday, because eventually Solomon shifts the other way.

But during this time he was good, and he worked

for the benefit of his people. He leveraged his wisdom,

he leveraged his power, he leveraged as well. You notice

it never mentions that he's taxing his own people here.

It mentions that the money kept coming in from everywhere else. Right,

but his people are prospering and they love him.

He had their own home and garden.

Yeah, yeah, everybody, everybody. Yeah, that's incredible. The whole country.

Everybody was satisfied. Produced. And so there's this idea. And

you know you mentioned everything rises and falls on leadership.

John Maxwell became famous for that. That statement existed way

before John Maxwell. I hate to break your buster bubble.

But he became famous for John also was famous with

really introducing the American business world to the idea of

servant leadership built around Jesus being a servant leader. Right,

And so a servant leader doesn't only work for his

own benefit, he works for the benefit of others. A

servant leader in the household, the father doesn't just work

for his own comfort and his own benefit. He works

for the comfort and benefit of the whole family. Well,

then what happens is he also gets comfort and benefit, right,

And that's what happens with the king. I've had the

privilege of knowing a couple of and meeting President in Africa,

working for King in Africa, working for shakes in Middle

East that are I'm not saying that they're completely moral people,

but their mindset is work for the betterment of the

nation and the betterment of the people. And in all

three of those countries, the people loved their leaders. I'm

a saying that they're perfect. They also do some things

I wouldn't agree with, obviously, but the people love these

leaders because these leaders are building streets and good water

supply and sewers and prospering the people and supporting business

and bringing in business from outside the country, and bringing

in other revenues, and building hospitals and schools and all

these things. Those kings could, by right of the law

of their land, just hoard all that stuff, and instead

they turn it out to the people in a way

that the people benefit. And then they're providing education and

training so that the people get better and better and

the nations become stronger and stronger. You and I have

also been in nations where the kings were the other way.

They took everything, and everybody lives in poverty, everybody lives

in ignorance, nobody has education, people die young because they

don't have any medical supplies, any care. Right. So this

is what you see with Solomon is he's a phenomenal

leader who is putting God and people first, and he

has outrageous wealth himself. Right. The other thing that I'd

like to just kind of end with this, this is

very interesting God gave it, says in verse twenty nine.

God gave Solomon very great wisdom and understanding and knowledge

as vast as the sands the sea shore. And then

it said it exceeded all of the wise people. And

we made jokes about he man and all those guys,

it's not the real it's not the he Man. I

was gonna say the real he Man, this is real,

he Man, it's not the cartoon he Man.

I have the power.

But he was a writer. He wrote some three thousand proverbs.

He was a musician. He wrote over a thousand songs.

He could speak with authority about horticulture, about food, about

animals and birds and creatures and fish. Right. He clearly

was brilliant at law. He was brilliant at organizational leadership.

That's why the Queen of shebacame to see him. There's

something about being. It's what we you know in the

in the Western world, would call a renaissance man. Right.

He clearly had a curious mind. So God gave him

the supernatural gift of wisdom. But it doesn't look to

me like he just rested on that gift. He took

his gift, invested with curiosity and became very intelligent about

so many a breadth of things, which.

Is which is?

This is different than wisdom. His wisdom drove him to

pursue knowledge, and his knowledge then enhanced his wisdom. Right,

And there's something about that that Hey, I always encourage

young people. When you're growing up, be very well read,

develop a curious mind. Maybe the greatest mind is a

curious mind, right, and so so read the a breadth

of things. I had one of my mentors when I

was in my late teens early twenties, really make a

big deal about, Hey, when's the last time you read

the Wall Street Journal? I said, I don't think I've

ever read the real free journal. He said, you should

get subscription to Wall Stree Journal. I'll read it. Then

he says, when was the last time you ever read

about And you just start asking things. What do you

know about anatomy? What do you know about biology? What

do you know about plants? What do you know? He said? Well,

then how are you going to talk to people? Do

you know anything about engineering? Do you know anything about banking?

Do you know anything about real estate? No? You need

to know those things. Why because you're going to serve

people who are experts in those areas and you won't

have anything in common with them if you don't know

something about those things. He said, You don't have to

be an expert, you just need to know about it.

And there is something about that being If you want

to be a leader of a lot of people. You

need to have a breadth of knowledge, not a narrow knowledge.

Hey, another thing that you'd mentioned earlier, like ten minutes ago,

you said, the people of Judah and Israel were as

numerous as the sand on the seashore. And you said,

and that was God promised Abraham, which of course you

know is very famous, right. It was the big promise

to make you a nation, and he said those exact words.

So here's my question. I wonder if that's the very

first time that it was phrased that way.

Oh yeah, I don't know, you know what I mean.

Yeah, Because if that's the case, then that would be

the first time it's I'm not saying it's the first

time it's happened, like that's the moment of that promise

being fulfilled. But if it's the first time that it's mentioned,

it would definitely be the first time that it's been celebrated, right, Yeah.

And then and then then I wonder, like, how many

years in between God promising Abraham this that He's going

to make his people a great nation and then all

of a sudden, here we have here the Jewish people

being made a great nation. Uh, you know, is as

much as the uh sand is on the seashore. So

that's the fulfillment of a promise. If that's the case,

that's a whole sermon in there together.

Right, absolutely, that's.

That's the uh you know, the idea that you know,

Abraham didn't obviously live to see the fulfillment of that promise.

I don't remember anywhere else where. It just declares right this, yeah,

as being just, and it's in passing it's a right, right,

just saying that has been accomplished. Yeah, yeah, I don't

remember it. Yeah, well, that's that's really interesting.

Yeah, it's it's a It's a great thought, isn't it.

So you know, the promises of God, you know, through

every generation, knowing that God never forgets his promises, that

he is, you know, faithful to his word. If God

promises something to you, you know through his words as

a blanket promise, for instance, I will never leave you

nor forsake you. There's never a time where you have

to pray God, please be with me. If you're a

follower of Christ, if you're a believer in Jesus, there

is never a time that you should pray God be

with me, Please be with me. Because you're not right

or Father, give me your holy spirit. The Gobi says

you have holy spirit right. So there's just certain things

that we can just bank on God's promises when he

says them, we never have to worry about it. And

so there there it is. There's another sermon that's really brilliant.

So all right, well that's all our time for today,

so hopefully we will see you next time. I'm the

Bible Gos