Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3166
“The Queen of the South shall rise up in thejudgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon: and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” Matthew 12:42.
WE cannot tell exactly who the Queen of the South was, nor exactly where Sheba lay. The expression used is Yemen, the south. Yemen is the name of a part of Arabia Felix and it would appear from the spices which the Queen brought with her that she came from that region. At the same time, the Abyssinians claim her as having been their queen. They say that she was converted through her conversations with Solomon, that afterwards the faith of God was preserved in the country, and hence that that famous Ethiopian, who was a eunuch of great authority under Candace in later times, was a proselyte to the Jewish faith on account of that faith existing in Abyssinia. We do not know. It may have been so and it is possible that the supposition of her having come from Arabia—and the supposition of her having come from Abyssinia may both be true—for it appears that the two countries were at one time under the same government, both shores of the Red Sea making up in far distant ages one empire. And she may have been the queen of both.
Very extraordinary are the stories which tradition has handed down with regard to her—some of them not to be repeated—others of them, when repeated, not at all ministering to the profit of the hearer. They tell us of many things with which she tried Solomon. Among the rest there is a tale of her bringing some flowers, artificial flowers most beautifully made, so that no one could detect them and, putting before Solomon the real and the manufactured, she asked him which were the true flowers. The wise king simply ordered that the windows should be opened and he observed to which flowers the bees flew—and at once knew which were the true flowers of the gardens. Many other things are reported concerning attempts she made to test him, but the king in every case, of course, came off triumphant. Scripture has omitted these because they would be of no spiritual use to us—and the Book was not written to minister to curiosity, but to be helpful to the salvation of our souls.
This evening all that we shall have to say about her will hang upon this fact—that she came from the very ends of the earth, from a far off and remote country—to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And that in this she rebukes persons who lived in the age of Christ and, I also think we had better come to make it practical, and say that she rebukes many of us.
The points in which she rebukes us, or some of us, will be six. I will mention them one by one.
I. The first is this. Her interest in Solomon was readily awakened. She heard different reports concerning him and she took an interest in them. She heard that he was the wisest of kings. Then she thought within herself, “I would like to know wherein he is wise, and be a partaker of his wisdom.” She was told that he was the richest of monarchs. Then she thought, “I would like to see something of his glory—the vast magnificence with which he surrounds himself.” Some talked about that wonderful house which he had built for his God—the Temple, a building so glorious that none had ever rivaled it, and she said, “I should like to see it.” They spoke of the mighty stones which he had moved from afar, and squared and fashioned and dropped into their places without the use of hammer or engraving tools and she wondered how this was done. His wisdom, his wealth and his various building works, no doubt, were told to her again and again. And she sought out persons who could tell her yet more, gathered up all the information possible and took an interest in it. I do not see so very much that is commendable in that except that it shows that she was a woman of mind—a woman of intelligence—that while many of her day would have passed the matter over with, “Well, it may be so, but it is noth-
ing to me,” or would have made it a nine days wonder. She, on the other hand, had her whole mind stirred by it, thought it over, and laid it to heart.
Here is the point, however, at which the Savior aimed when He said that she would rise up in judgment against many, “For,” He said, “she took an interest in Solomon, but you take no interest in Christ.” A greater than Solomon was in the streets of Jerusalem, but the mass of the people cared not who He was! He went up and down the sacred land proclaiming the Gospel—the bulk of the people took some interest in the bread and the fish with which He fed them, but not in the Doctrine which He taught! And while He claimed to be Divine, and asserted Himself to be the Son of David and the King of the Jews—and also to be the Son of God, God over All, blessed forever—great crowds turned away from Him as though it was nothing at all to them and utterly despised Him. Here was a woman, a stranger, a foreigner—not of Jewish race—and yet her enquiring mind rendered her inquisitive about the great king whose scepter of peace was swayed over so wide a territory! And here were those who were of the same race as Jesus, who saw Him at their doors and heard Him in their streets—and yet they passed Him by as though it were a mere trifle with which they had no concern!