King Solomon lived in such over-the-top opulence even the cup he used to rinse his teeth out at night after brushing was made of gold. Just look at this passage from I Kings:

“And all king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver: it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon.
[22] For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
[23] So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom.
[24] And all the earth sought to Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.
[25] And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and garments, and armour, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year.
[26] And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen: and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he bestowed in the cities for chariots, and with the king at Jerusalem.
[27] And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycomore trees that are in the vale, for abundance.
[28] And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn: the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price.
[29] And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse for an hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their means.

Jordan observes, “Can you imagine cedars as plentiful as just old scrub brush? Ever been in a cedar forest? You ever smelled a cedar chest? You know how fresh it makes everything smell? The environment around this guy was perfumed with the fragrance of a prosperous creation. . .

“Year by year, he was given horses and chariots. Everybody knew how wise this guy was so they’d bring him presents; they’d bless him in order to get the benefit of his wisdom and benefit of his counsel. It was just everywhere—the wealth, the grandeur.”

*****

Of course, it was in the midst of this unparalleled blessing Solomon got it in his head to go after “outlandish women,” as Nehemiah defines them, and “had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.” (I Kings 11:3)

I Kings 11 explains, “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.
[5] For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
[6] And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.
[7] Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.
[8] And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.”

The primary distinction between Solomon and his father, as verse 4 clearly tells, is Solomon’s “heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.”

Jordan explains, “David was an adulterer, a philanderer, a murderer. He’s a guy who would have been a good senator from Massachusetts. He commits adultery, covers it up with murder and destroys the integrity of his own army and commanding staff by doing so. He makes them complicit with it and brings judgment on his nation.

“He’s a lousy father. He raised some of the biggest brats you’ll ever want to know who destroyed his nation, his kingdom. One of his boys raped his own sister. I mean this is not a happy home and yet King David is a great man in the Bible; a sainted man—the man God made a covenant with and said, ‘I’m going to bless him.’

“God had said of David, ‘He’s a man after my own heart.’ David got caught up in a lot of the sins of the flesh but his heart never left the Lord; he never went out and worshipped idols. Solomon did, and in doing so, he forsook the wisdom of God and sought after the wisdom of man.”

*****

In a classic macro code tucked into the Old Testament, pointing to Solomon as a type of the Antichrist, I Kings 10 lists the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year as “six hundred threescore and six talents of gold”! That’s 666!

I Kings 10:16-19 further reveals, “And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold: six hundred shekels of gold went to one target.
[17] And he made three hundred shields of beaten gold; three pound of gold went to one shield: and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.
[18] Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the best gold.
[19] The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round behind: and there were stays on either side on the place of the seat, and two.”

Jordan observes, “You notice in Solomon’s life from this point on there becomes a fixation; a downward spiraling fixation with sixes. In verse 18, he’s got six steps, six lions, six steps. He does that in the architecture. Now do you think when he sought wisdom from God, God divided the architecture like that? No! He did that from human viewpoint, and as you go on in Solomon’s ministry life, you see Solomon just slowly drifting, falling down and it’s at this point in his life somewhere along in here that Ecclesiastes is written.

“It’s in these books (Job through Song of Solomon), by the way, that there’s demonstration to Israel for when they’re in exactly the same situation; when there’s the temptation and the draw to be pulled into the 666 system.”

(Editor’s Note: To be continued . . .)