1 Kings 10:7 However, I believed not the words, until I came, and my eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me… This Queen of Sheba would not rest content with secondhand knowledge. Her example is worth following. Never rest content with secondhand knowledge. The great crisis is past, and the Christian life begins in its full beauty and strength when hearing gives place to seeing and the glory of the living Christ becomes a present fact and the governing factor in the daily life. There is something lacking m your experience unless you can say, "Mine eyes have seen." It is the eternal distinction between the world and the Church, the children of the age and the children of eternity. Have you thus seen the Son? Has the glory of Jesus been so revealed to you as to capture your heart and deprive sin and the world of their power to allure you? Or is your knowledge of Jesus Christ still secondhand, unconvincing, unsatisfying, ineffectual? We take this Queen of Sheba then as a model seeker after truth, one of those sincere and genuine souls of whom Jesus said, "Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice." I. SHE WAS TRUE TO THE NEEDS OF HER OWN HEART. As a great queen, she might easily have become engrossed in State affairs or in the pleasures of court life. But she would not allow even the din of an empire to drown the voice of her own heart. Spiritual suicide is seriously urged in some quarters as the ideal of true religion. People are urged to forget all about their own souls, and care or pretend to care for other people only. This Queen of Sheba put everything else aside until her inner life had been put right. For though a queen she was not satisfied. Questions kept coming before her which she dared not set aside and could not answer. II. THIS QUEEN OF SHEBA PROVED HER SINCERITY BY MAKING A PERSONAL INQUIRY. No man can put another's questions, for no man can read another's heart. You can never be saved by proxy. The hunger of your heart will never be met until you make personal application to Jesus Christ. And you must take trouble over it. Those who never put themselves to any trouble seldom get their questions answered. Of course you can hear the gospel without travelling 1500 miles. But with many there is a barrier between them and Jesus Christ more difficult to overcome than 1500 miles of space. It is the barrier of nearly 1900 years. The Bible seems such ancient history. It deals with a state of society so different to ours. It is an Eastern book wearing an Eastern dress, and its teaching is full of reference to Jewish customs and ideas. The education which can perfectly understand Tennyson or Browning is often utterly at a loss in reading the New Testament. Those who would find Christ in the Bible must take real pains to master the history of Genesis and Exodus and the types of Leviticus, or they will never understand either the Gospels or the Epistles. You might as well expect to understand the differential calculus by the light of Nature as think to understand the Bible without giving years to patient systematic study of it. When the word of God was rare and precious, men studied it and meditated upon it night and day. Now that the Bible is in everybody's hands men think they know it because they can quote a few odd verses, though they have taken no pains to master its deep teaching. They will not take the trouble to make a personal inquiry. Certainly the Queen of Sheba will rise and condemn all such. III. THIS QUEEN WAS GENUINELY TRUE IN HER PRIVATE INTERVIEW WITH SOLOMON. "She communed with him of all that was in her heart." She had not meant to do this. Her questions had been carefully prepared, all couched in general terms and in the third person. How can one explain this? How can one answer this? How should one act under these circumstances? But when she came to Solomon it was no longer "How can one?" but "How can I?" She felt at once that her disguise was penetrated. Solomon read her heart and drew out with perfect tact all her personal longing and unrest. Do be true in your dealings with God. Never attempt to wear a mask in God's presence. As soon as you really draw near to God you find out that you are personally involved. You are the guilty culprit needing propitiation and forgiveness, you are the sick and helpless one needing the Good Physician's touch. You can never have a satisfactory interview with God until you take your right place. IV. THE QUEEN OF SHEBA WAS TRUE IN THE CONFESSION SHE MADE OF HER FORMER UNBELIEF. She was a sincere, candid, and whole-hearted seeker, but she was an unbeliever when she came to Jerusalem. Such unbelief is most wholesome. It is the unbelief of those who are staggered at the greatness of the gospel message. Have you ever been thus staggered? Has it come home to you as the greatest wonder in the world that God should love sinners? Have you ever when listening to the joyful tidings of a Saviour able to.save to the uttermost, of a God willing to forgive and forget all your sins, of a throne of grace to which all needy souls may flee for succour, said in your heart, "It is too good to be true, I cannot believe it"? Solomon was not vexed when the Queen of Sheba said, "I believed not the words." It is the blind unbelief that sees no glory in redeeming love that deserves rebuke, not the weak faith that is so dazzled by it that it can hardly believe it to be true. (F. S. Webster, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard. |
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