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Expositions of Holy Scripture

A >> Alexander Maclaren >> Expositions of Holy Scripture




Peter is lying in prison. Herod intends, after the Passover, to bring
him out to the people. The scaffolding is ready. The first watch of the
night passes, and the second. If once it is fairly light, escape is
impossible. But in the grey dawn the angel touches the sleeper. He
wakes while his guards sleep. There is no need for hurry. He who has
God for his Deliverer has no occasion to 'go out with haste.' So, with
strange and majestic leisureliness, the escaping prisoner is bid to put
on his shoes and gird himself. No doubt, he cast many a scrutinising
glance at the four sleeping legionaries whom a heedless movement might
have wakened. When all is ready, he is led forth through all the wards,
each being a separate peril, and all made safe to him. The first gate
opens, and the second gate opens, and the iron gate that leads into the
city opens, and quietly he and the angel go down the street. It is
light enough for him to see his way to the house where the brethren are
assembled. He gets safe behind Mary's door before it is light enough
for the gaolers to discover his absence, and for the pursuers to be
started in their search. The Lord did help him, and that right early--'
the matter of a day in its day,'

We shall find, if we leave our times in His hand, that the old simple
faith has still a talismanic power to quiet us. His time is best, so be
patient, and be trustful in your patience.

Again, God gives gifts enough, and not more than enough. He serves out
our rations for spirit as for body, as they do on shipboard, where the
sailors have to take their pots and plates to the galley every day and
for each meal, and get enough to help them over the moment's hunger.
The manna fell morning by morning. 'He that gathered much had nothing
over, he that gathered little had no lack.' So all the variety of our
changeful conditions, besides its purpose of disciplining ourselves and
of making character, has also the purpose of affording a theatre for
the display, if I may use such cold language--or rather let me say
affording an opportunity for the bestowment--of the infinitely varied,
exquisitely adapted, punctual, and sufficient grace of God.

II. But now, secondly, a word about the text as containing a precept
for our action.

Let me put what I have to say in three plain sentences.

First, take short views of the future. Of course, we have to look
ahead, and in reference to many things to take prudent forecasts, but
how many of us there are who weaken ourselves and spoil to-day by being
'over-exquisite to cast the fashion of uncertain evils'! It is a great
piece of practical philosophy, and I am sure that it has much to do
with our getting the best out of the present moment, that we should
either take very short or very long views of the future. Either

'Let the unknown to-morrow
Bring with it what it may,'

or look beyond the last of the days into the unseen light of an
unsetting sun. If I must anticipate, let me anticipate the ultimate,
the changeless, the certain; and let me not condemn my faculty of
picturing that which is to come, to look along the low ranges of
earthly life, and torture myself by imagining all the possibilities of
evil of which my condition admits, as being turned into certainties to-
morrow. Take 'the matter of a day _in_ its day.' 'Sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof.' Let us make the minute what it ought to
be, then God will make the whole what it ought to be.

Again I say, let us fill each day with discharged duties. If you and I
do not do the matter of the day in its day, the chances are that no to-
morrow will afford an opportunity of doing it. So there will come upon
us all, if we are unfaithful to this portioning out of tasks to times,
that burden of an irrevocable past, and of the omitted duties that will
stand reproving and condemning before us, whensoever we turn our eyes
to them. 'It might have been, and it is not'; does a sadder speech than
that fall from human lips? Brethren, the day, though it is short, is
elastic; and no one knows how much of discharged service and
accomplished work and fulfilled responsibilities can be crammed into
its hours, until he has earnestly tried to fill each moment with the
task which belongs to the moment. 'The sluggard will not plough by
reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest and have
nothing.' If our day is not filled full of work, some to-morrow will be
filled full, in retrospect, of thorns and stings. Life is short; 'the
night cometh when no man can work.' 'I must work the works of Him that
sent me while it is day.'

Lastly, I would say, keep open a continual communion with God, that day
by day you may get what day by day you need. There are hosts of people
who call themselves, and, in some kind of surface way, are, Christian
people, who seem to think that they get all that they need of the grace
of God in a lump, at the beginning of their Christian career, and who
are living upon past communications and the memory of these, and are
forgetting that they can no more live and be nourished upon past gifts
of God's grace than upon the dinner that they ate this day last year.
We must hang continually upon Him, if we are continually to receive
from His hand. No past blessing will avail for present use.

Dear friends, the purpose of this principle, which I have been trying
to illustrate in God's way of dealing with us, is that we shall be
content to be continually dependent, and consciously as well as
continually dependent, upon Him. In the measure in which we keep our
hearts open for the perpetual influx of His grace, in that measure
shall we be ready for each day as it comes; for its trials and its
joys, for its possibilities and its duties.

This, too, must be remembered--that the days bolted together make
months; and the months, years; and the years, life; and that life as a
whole is 'a day'; and that there is a 'matter' of that day which can
only be done in its day. Oh that none of us may be the subjects of that
sad wail from a Saviour's heart and a Saviour's lips, which lamented,
'If thou hadst known, at least, in this thy day, the things that belong
to thy peace; but now'--the night has come, and the darkness of the
night, and--'they are hid from thine eyes!'




PROMISES AND THREATENINGS

'And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished the building of the
house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all Solomon's desire which
he was pleased to do. 2. That the Lord appeared to Solomon the second
time, as He had appeared unto him at Gibeon. 3. And the Lord said unto
him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made
before Me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put My
name there for ever; and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there
perpetually, 4. And if thou wilt walk before Me, as David thy father
walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to
all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep My statutes and My
judgments: 5. Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon
Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall
not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel. 6. But if ye shall at
all turn from following Me, ye or your children, and will not keep My
commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and
serve other gods, and worship them: 7. Then will I cut off Israel out
of the land which I have given them; and this house which I have
hallowed for My name, will I cast out of My sight; and Israel shall be
a proverb and a byword among all people: 8. And at this house, which is
high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss;
and they shall say, Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and to
this house? 9. And they shall answer, Because they forsook the Lord
their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt,
and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and
served them: therefore hath the Lord brought upon them all this evil.'-
1 KINGS ix. 1-9.


The successful end of a great work is often the beginning of a great
reaction. When the tension is slackened, the whole nature of the worker
is relaxed, and the temptation to slothful self-indulgence is strong.
God knows our frame, and mercifully times His manifestations to the
moments of special need. So, when Solomon had finished his great task,
'the Lord appeared the second time, as He had appeared at Gibeon.'
There had been no manifest token of approval during all the years of
building the Temple, for none was needed; but now there was danger that
the finished work might be followed by languor and indifference, and
therefore once more God spoke words of stimulus, both promises and
warnings.

A solemn alternative is set before the king, both parts of which are
fitted to rouse his energy and inspire him to faithful obedience. The
same alternatives are presented to each of us. In verses 3-5 God
promises blessed results from clinging to Him and keeping His statutes;
in verses 6-9 He mercifully threatens the tragic issues of departure.
In applying these to ourselves we must remember that outward prosperity
was attached to a devout life more closely in Israel than it is now.
But, though the form of the blessings dependent on doing God's will
alters, the reality remains unaltered.

I. The promises to Solomon are preceded by the assurance that his
prayer had been heard. The answer corresponds very beautifully to the
petitions. God has 'put His name' in the Temple, as the descent of the
Glory to rest between the cherubim visibly showed, and thus has
fulfilled Solomon's petition; but the answer surpasses the prayer in
that the presence of 'the Name' is promised 'for ever.' Similarly, in
Psalm cxxxii., the answer to the petition 'Arise into Thy rest'
transcends the petition which it answers, and adds the same promise of
perpetuity, 'This is My rest for _ever_.' Again, Solomon had
prayed, 'that Thine eyes may be open towards this house,' and God
answers with the expanded promise that not His eyes only, but His heart
shall be there perpetually. He is 'able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think,' and He delights to surprise us with
over-answers to our prayers. We cannot widen our desires so far but
that His gifts will stretch beyond them on every side.

But the promise of perpetual dwelling in the Temple is conditional, as
appears in the latter part of God's answer, though no condition is
stated at first. The promises to Solomon individually are all
contingent. The all-important 'if' at the beginning of verse 4 governs
the whole. The divine eulogium on David, which introduces these
promises, suggests how mercifully God regards the imperfect lives of
His servants. That merciful interpretation of conduct is removed by a
whole universe from palliation of sin. It affords no ground for our
thinking little of our inconsistencies. David's crime was sternly
rebuked and sorely punished, but still his life, in its main drift and
outline, could be presented as a pattern, as being marked by integrity
of heart and uprightness. The moon shines like a disc of silver, though
its surface is pitted with extinct volcanoes.

We may note, too, the pregnant description in outline of the elements
of a devout life, as here enjoined on Solomon. The first requisite is
to walk before God; that is, to nourish a continual consciousness of
His presence, and to regulate all actions and thoughts under the
thrilling and purifying sense of being 'ever in the great Taskmaster's
eye.' Only we are not to think of Him as only a Taskmaster, but as a
loving Friend and Helper. A child is happy in its little work or play
when it knows that its father is looking on with sympathy. The sense of
God's eye being on us should 'make a sunshine in a shady place,' should
lighten labour and sweeten care. It is at the root of practical
obedience, as its place in this sequence shows; for there follow it, in
verse 4, 'integrity of heart and uprightness,' on which again follow
obedience to all God's commandments.

First must come the clear recognition of God's relation to us. That
recognition will influence our relation to Him, bending hearts to love
and wills to submit, and the whole inward being to cleave to Him.
Thence, and only thence, will issue in the life the streams of
practical obedience. It is vain to seek to produce righteous deeds
unless our hearts are right, and it is as vain to labour at making our
hearts right unless thoughts of what God is to us have purified them.
Morality is rooted in religion. On the other hand, no knowledge of the
truth about God is worth anything unless it touches the hidden man of
the heart, and then passes outward to mould conduct. 'Faith without
works is dead.' Correct theology and glowing emotions lack their
consummation if they do not impel to holy and God-pleasing living.

The reward promised in verse 5 is for Solomon alone. His throne is to
be 'established for ever.' The duration intended by that expression is
therefore not absolutely unlimited, but equivalent to 'during thy
lifetime.' Solomon could only affect himself by his obedience. The
continuance of the kingdom after him depended on his successors. His
possession of the throne during his life was the beginning of the
fulfilment of the promise to David referred to in verse 5, but it was
only the beginning, and, like all God's promises, it was contingent on
obedience. We receive no outward kingdom if we are servants of God;
but, in deepest truth, the righteous man is a king, 'lord of himself,
though not of lands.' All creatures serve the soul that serves God, and
all Christ's brethren share in His royalty.

II. The second part of this divine utterance is addressed to the whole
nation, as is marked by the 'ye' there compared with the 'thou' in
verse 4, and it lays down for succeeding generations the conditions on
which the new Temple, that stood glittering in the bright Eastern
sunshine, should retain its pristine beauty. While the address to
Solomon incited to obedience by painting its blessed consequences, that
to the nation reaches the same end by the opposite path of darkly
portraying the ruin that would be caused by departure from God. God
draws by holding out a hand full of good things, and He no less
lovingly drives by stretching out a hand armed with lightnings.

A plain declaration of the evils that dog disobedience is as loving as
a bright vision of the good that attends on submission. The sternest
threatenings of Scripture are spoken that they may never need to be
executed. There is no more foolish misconception of Christianity than
that which calls it harsh because it reveals that 'the wages of sin is
death.' Note that the threatenings come second, not first. God's heart
is averse to smite. To lavish blessing is His delight, and judgment is
'His work, His strange work,' forced on Him by sin.

The special sin against which Israel was warned was that to which it
was specially prone and tempted by its circumstances. When all the
nations 'worshipped stocks and stones,' it was hard to 'keep thy faith
so pure' as to have no share in the universal bewitchment. So the whole
history of the people is one of lapses into idolatry and of
chastisements leading to temporary amendment, until the long, sharp
lesson of the Captivity eradicated the disposition to be as the nations
around. No doubt, idolatry in its crudest forms is outgrown now in
Western lands, but sense still craves material embodiment of the
unseen, and still feels the pressure of the material and palpable.
Hence the earthward direction of so many lives. Asthmatical patients
often breathe more easily in the slums of a city than in pure mountain
air, and sense-bound men find difficulty in respiration on the heights
of a religion which minimises the appeal to sense.

The penalty attached to departure from God was the loss of the land.
Israel kept it on a tenure like that of some of our English nobility,
who hold their estates on condition of doing some service to the
sovereign. Of course, that connection between serving God and national
prosperity involved continual supernatural intervention, and cannot be
applied entirely to national prosperity now; but it still remains true
that moral and religious corruption saps the foundations of a people's
well-being, and, when carried far enough, destroys a people's
existence. The solemn threat of becoming 'a proverb and a byword' among
all peoples is quoted, apparently from Deuteronomy xxviii. 37, and has
been only too terribly fulfilled for weary centuries.

The promise in verse 3, that God's eyes and heart should be perpetually
on the Temple, has now the condition attached that Israel should cleave
to the Lord. Otherwise it will be cast out of His sight, and be a mark
for scorn and wonder. The vivid representation of a dialogue between
passers-by is quoted from Deuteronomy xxix. 24-26, where it is spoken
in reference to the nation. It carries the solemn thought that God's
name is made known among the heathen by the punishment of His
unfaithful people, not less really, and sometimes more strikingly, than
by the blessings bestowed on the obedient. If we will not magnify Him
by joyous service, by rewarding which, with good He can magnify
Himself, He will magnify Himself on us by retribution, the more severe
as our blessings have been the greater. The lightning-scathed tree,
standing white in the forest, witnesses to the power of the flash, as
its leafy sisters in their green beauty proclaim the energy of the
sunshine. Israel has, perhaps, been a more convincing witness for God,
in its homeless centuries, than ever it was when at rest in the good
land. 'If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also
spare not thee.'




A ROYAL SEEKER AFTER WISDOM

'And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning
the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. 2. And
she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare
spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come
to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. 3. And
Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from
the king, which he told her not. 4. And when the queen of Sheba had
seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, 5. And the
meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance
of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent
by which he went up unto the house of the Lord; there was no more
spirit in her. 6. And she said to the king, It was a true report that I
heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom. 7. 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. 8. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy
servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy
wisdom. 9. Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighteth in thee, to
set thee on the throne of Israel: because the Lord loved Israel for
ever, therefore made He thee king, to do judgment and justice. 10. And
she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices
very great store, and precious stones: there came no more such
abundance of spices as these which the queen of Sheba gave to king
Solomon. 11. And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir,
brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones.
12. And the king made of the almug trees pillars for the house of the
Lord, and for the king's house, harps also and psalteries for singers:
there came no such almug trees, nor were seen unto this day. 13. And
king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever
she asked, besides that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So
she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.'--1 KINGS
x. 1-13.


We feel the breath of a new era in the accounts of Solomon's reign. One
most striking peculiarity is the friendly intercourse with the nations
around. The horizon has widened, and, instead of wars with Philistines
and Ammon, we have alliances with Egypt, Tyre, and, in the present
passage, with Sheba, a district of Southern Arabia. The expansion was
fruitful of both good and evil. It brought new ideas and much wealth;
but it brought, too, luxury and idolatry. Still Israel was meant to be
'a light to lighten the Gentiles,' and in this picturesque story of the
wisdom-seeking queen, we have the true relation of Israel to the
nations in its purest form. The details of the narrative. Interesting
as they are, need not occupy us long.

The queen had heard the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the
Lord, by which seems to be meant his reputation of being gifted with
deep knowledge of the divine character as revealed to him. The
questions which occupy earnest souls in all lands and ages were
stirring in the heart of this woman-chief. The only way, in these old
days, to learn the wisdom of the wise, was to go to them. So the
streets of Jerusalem saw the strange sight of the long train which had
come toiling up from Arabia, laden with its characteristic produce,
gold and spices and precious stones, in the enumeration of which is
reflected the wonder of the beholders at the unaccustomed procession.
But better than all her wealth was the eager woman's thirst for truth.
Surely it is a very unworthy and unlikely explanation of her 'hard
questions' and purpose to suppose that she came only for a duel of
wit,--to pose Solomon with half-playful riddles. The journey was too
toilsome, the gifts too large, the accent of conviction in her
subsequent words too grave, for that. She was a seeker after truth, and
probably after God, and had known the torture of the eternal questions
which rise in the mind, and, once having risen, leave no rest till they
are answered.

So she came, though half incredulous, hoping to find some solution to
what 'was in her heart,' and as thirsty for the answer as her country's
sands for water. Only they who have known the pain of carrying such
questions, like a fire in their bones, can know the joy which she felt
when she found one to whom she could speak them. It is something of a
drop to pass from Solomon's wisdom to the list of the splendours of his
household, and the effect which these produced on the queen; but the
whole account of Solomon's reign is marked by the same naive blending
of wisdom and material wealth. In those days, outward prosperity was
the sign of divine favour. But even in those days they knew that wisdom
was 'better than rubies.' The two elements were both at their height in
Solomon's reign, and the lower of them finally got uppermost, and
wrecked him. Plain living and high thinking are better than 'wisdom,'
which lets itself down to make much of 'the meat of the table,' and a
retinue of servants in fine clothes. How many of us would listen much
more respectfully to wisdom, if it lived in a palace, than in 'dens and
caves of the earth'? The queen's words in verses 6 to 9 are graceful
with a woman's tact, and full of feeling. She confesses that she had
come half-doubting, even though she risked the journey, and fervently
avows how far fame had been unlike itself in this instance, and had
diminished, and not magnified. Then she envies the servants who wait on
him, because they are so near the fountain, and finally breaks into
praise of Solomon's God, whose love to Israel was shown in giving it
such a king. One does not know whether praise of God or compliments to
Solomon were most in her mind. The words scarcely sound as if she had
become a worshipper of God. He is to her but 'thy God.' But we may
believe that she carried away some seed which grew up. Then, with
munificent interchange of gifts, she and her train glide out of the
story, and we lose them in the dark. The account of the wealth brought
by Hiram's ships comes singularly in, breaking the narrative of the
queen. Its insertion seems to indicate some connection between the
fleet and her, and to suggest that Sheba and Ophir were near each other
(which would put Ethiopia, where some have located it, out of court),
and that she heard of Solomon through it.

The whole incident may be regarded as an illustration of the spirit
that should mark all seekers after truth, whether earthly or heavenly.
This queen had to win a victory over national prejudices, over the
disabilities of her sex, over the temptations of her station, to travel
far, and face dangers, and to incur great cost. It was surely no mere
playful errand on which she was bent. She was smitten with the sacred
impulse to 'follow knowledge like a sinking star.' Seldom, indeed, have
rulers made progresses from their dominions for such an end, and seldom
have two of them met to confer on such subjects. We shall not rightly
measure the relative importance of things unless we resolutely set
ourselves to look at them with eyes purged from the illusions of sense,
and cleared to see how much better than wealth and all outward good is
the possession of truth. All sacrifices made to win it are richly
repaid, and wise investments. Even in regard to lower kinds of truth,
to win them is worth the effort of a life; and, in regard to the
highest kind, which is the personal Truth, he is the wise man who
counts all earthly good but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of
it. This queen points the path by which all pilgrims of the truth must
travel. It is not to be won without effort, without conquest of
prejudices, repression of weakness, sacrifices of delights, and long
effort. There must be humility, which will gladly learn, if there is
ever to be its possession.

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