"Behold, the half was not told me."--I KINGS x: 7.
Solomon had resolved that Jerusalem should be the center of all
sacred, regal, and commercial magnificence. He set himself to work,
and monopolized the surrounding desert as a highway for his caravans.
He built the city of Palmyra around one of the principal wells of the
East, so that all the long trains of merchandise from the East were
obliged to stop there, pay toll, and leave part of their wealth in the
hands of Solomon's merchants. He manned the fortress Thapsacus at the
chief ford of the Euphrates, and put under guard everything that
passed there. The three great products of Palestine--wine pressed from
the richest clusters and celebrated all the world over; oil which in
that hot country is the entire substitute for butter and lard, and was
pressed from the olive branches until every tree in the country became
an oil well; and honey which was the entire substitute for
sugar--these three great products of the country Solomon exported, and
received in return fruits and precious woods and the animals of every
clime.
He went down to Ezion-geber and ordered a fleet of ships to be
constructed, oversaw the workmen, and watched the launching of the
flotilla which was to go out on more than a year's voyage, to bring
home the wealth of the then known world. He heard that the Egyptian
horses were large and swift, and long-maned and round-limbed, and he
resolved to purchase them, giving eighty-five dollars apiece for them,
putting the best of these horses in his own stall, and selling the
surplus to foreign potentates at great profit.
He heard that there was the best of timber on Mount Lebanon, and he
sent out one hundred and eighty thousand men to hew down the forest
and drag the timber through the mountain gorges, to construct it into
rafts to be floated to Joppa, and from thence to be drawn by ox-teams
twenty-five miles across the land to Jerusalem. He heard that there
were beautiful flowers in other lands. He sent for them, planted them
in his own gardens, and to this very day there are flowers found in
the ruins of that city such as are to be found in no other part of
Palestine, the lineal descendants of the very flowers that Solomon
planted. He heard that in foreign groves there were birds of richest
voice and most luxuriant wing. He sent out people to catch them and
bring them there, and he put them into his cages.
Stand back now and see this long train of camels coming up to the
king's gate, and the ox-trains from Egypt, gold and silver and
precious stones, and beasts of every hoof, and birds of every wing,
and fish of every scale! See the peacocks strut under the cedars, and
the horsemen run, and the chariots wheel! Hark to the orchestra! Gaze
upon the dance! Not stopping to look into the wonders of the temple,
step right on to the causeway, and pass up to Solomon's palace!
Here we find ourselves amid a collection of buildings on which the
king had lavished the wealth of many empires. The genius of Hiram, the
architect, and of the other artists is here seen in the long line of
corridors and the suspended gallery and the approach to the throne.
Traceried window opposite traceried window. Bronzed ornaments bursting
into lotus and lily and pomegranate. Chapiters surrounded by network
of leaves in which imitation fruit seemed suspended as in hanging
baskets. Three branches--so Josephus tells us--three branches
sculptured on the marble, so thin and subtle that even the leaves
seemed to quiver. A laver capable of holding five hundred barrels of
water on six hundred brazen ox-heads, which gushed with water and
filled the whole place with coolness and crystalline brightness and
musical plash. Ten tables chased with chariot wheel and lion and
cherubim. Solomon sat on a throne of ivory. At the seating place of
the throne, on each end of the steps, a brazen lion. Why, my friends,
in that place they trimmed their candles with snuffers of gold, and
they cut their fruits with knives of gold, and they washed their faces
in basins of gold, and they scooped out the ashes with shovels of
gold, and they stirred the altar fires with tongs of gold. Gold
reflected in the water! Gold flashing from the apparel! Gold blazing
in the crown! Gold, gold, gold!
Of course the news of the affluence of that place went out everywhere
by every caravan and by wing of every ship, until soon the streets of
Jerusalem are crowded with curiosity seekers. What is that long
procession approaching Jerusalem? I think from the pomp of it there
must be royalty in the train. I smell the breath of the spices which
are brought as presents, and I hear the shout of the drivers, and I
see the dust-covered caravan showing that they come from far away. Cry
the news up to the palace. The Queen of Sheba advances. Let all the
people come out to see. Let the mighty men of the land come out on the
palace corridors. Let Solomon come down the stairs of the palace
before the queen has alighted. Shake out the cinnamon, and the
saffron, and the calamus, and the frankincense, and pass it into the
treasure house. Take up the diamonds until they glitter in the sun.
The Queen of Sheba alights. She enters the palace. She washes at the
bath. She sits down at the banquet. The cup-bearers bow. The meat
smokes. The music trembles in the dash of the waters from the molten
sea. Then she rises from the banquet, and walks through the
conservatories, and gazes on the architecture, and she asks Solomon
many strange questions, and she learns about the religion of the
Hebrews, and she then and there becomes a servant of the Lord God.
She is overwhelmed. She begins to think that all the spices she
brought, and all the precious woods which are intended to be turned
into harps and psalteries and into railings for the causeway between
the temple and the palace, and the one hundred and eighty thousand
dollars in money--she begins to think that all these presents amount
to nothing in such a place, and she is almost ashamed that she has
brought them, and she says within herself: "I heard a great deal
about this place, and about this wonderful religion of the Hebrews,
but I find it far beyond my highest anticipations. I must add more
than fifty per cent. to what has been related. It exceeds everything
that I could have expected. The half--the half was not told me."
Learn from this subject what a beautiful thing it is when social
position and wealth surrender themselves to God. When religion comes
to a neighborhood, the first to receive it are the women. Some men say
it is because they are weak-minded. I say it is because they have
quicker perception of what is right, more ardent affection and
capacity for sublimer emotion. After the women have received the
Gospel then all the distressed and the poor of both sexes, those who
have no friends, accept Jesus. Last of all come the people of
affluence and high social position. Alas, that it is so!
If there are those here to-day who have been favored of fortune, or,
as I might better put it, favored of God, surrender all you have and
all you expect to be to the Lord who blessed this Queen of Sheba.
Certainly you are not ashamed to be found in this queen's company. I
am glad that Christ has had His imperial friends in all
ages--Elizabeth Christina, Queen of Prussia; Maria Feodorovna, Queen
of Russia; Marie, Empress of France; Helena, the imperial mother of
Constantine; Arcadia, from her great fortunes building public baths in
Constantinople and toiling for the alleviation of the masses; Queen
Clotilda, leading her husband and three thousand of his armed warriors
to Christian baptism; Elizabeth of Burgundy, giving her jeweled glove
to a beggar, and scattering great fortunes among the distressed;
Prince Albert, singing "Rock of Ages" in Windsor Castle, and Queen
Victoria, incognita, reading the Scriptures to a dying pauper.
I bless God that the day is coming when royalty will bring all its
thrones, and music all its harmonies, and painting all its pictures,
and sculpture all its statuary, and architecture all its pillars, and
conquest all its scepters; and the queens of the earth, in long line
of advance, frankincense filling the air and the camels laden with
gold, shall approach Jerusalem, and the gates shall be hoisted, and
the great burden of splendor shall be lifted into the palace of this
greater than Solomon.
Again, my subject teaches me what is earnestness in the search of
truth. Do you know where Sheba was? It was in Abyssinia, or some say
in the southern part of Arabia Felix. In either case it was a great
way off from Jerusalem. To get from there to Jerusalem she had to
cross a country infested with bandits, and go across blistering
deserts. Why did not the Queen of Sheba stay at home and send a
committee to inquire about this new religion, and have the delegates
report in regard to that religion and wealth of King Solomon? She
wanted to see for herself, and hear for herself. She could not do this
by work of committee. She felt she had a soul worth ten thousand
kingdoms like Sheba, and she wanted a robe richer than any woven by
Oriental shuttles, and she wanted a crown set with the jewels of
eternity. Bring out the camels. Put on the spices. Gather up the
jewels of the throne and put them on the caravan. Start now; no time
to be lost. Goad on the camels. When I see that caravan,
dust-covered, weary, and exhausted, trudging on across the desert and
among the bandits until it reaches Jerusalem, I say: "There is an
earnest seeker after the truth."
But there are a great many of you, my friends, who do not act in that
way. You all want to get the truth, but you want the truth to come
to-you; you do not want to go to it. There are people who fold their
arms and say: "I am ready to become a Christian at any time; if I am
to be saved I shall be saved, and if I am to be lost I shall be lost."
A man who says that and keeps on saying it, will be lost. Jerusalem
will never come to you; you must go to Jerusalem. The religion of the
Lord Jesus Christ will not come to you; you must go and get religion.
Bring out the camels; put on all the sweet spices, all the treasures
of the heart's affection. Start for the throne. Go in and hear the
waters of salvation dashing in fountains all around about the throne.
Sit down at the banquet--the wine pressed from the grapes of the
heavenly Eschol, the angels of God the cup-bearers. Goad on the
camels; Jerusalem will never come to you; you must go to Jerusalem.
The Bible declares it: "The Queen of the South"--that is, this very
woman I am speaking of--"the Queen of the South shall rise up in
judgment against this generation and 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." God help me to break up the
infatuation of those people who are sitting down in idleness expecting
to be saved. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate. Ask, and it
shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened to you." Take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. Urge on the
camels!
Again, my subject impresses me with the fact that religion is a
surprise to any one that gets it. This story of the new religion in
Jerusalem, and of the glory of King Solomon, who was a type of
Christ--that story rolls on and on, and is told by every traveler
coming back from Jerusalem. The news goes on the wing of every ship
and with every caravan, and you know a story enlarges as it is retold,
and by the time that story gets down into the southern part of Arabia
Felix, and the Queen of Sheba hears it, it must be a tremendous story.
And yet this queen declares in regard to it, although she had heard so
much and had her anticipations raised so high, the half--the half was
not told her.
So religion is always a surprise to any one that gets it. The story of
grace--an old story. Apostles preached it with rattle of chain;
martyrs declared it with arm of fire; death-beds have affirmed it with
visions of glory, and ministers of religion have sounded it through
the lanes, and the highways, and the chapels, and the cathedrals. It
has been cut into stone with chisel, and spread on the canvas with
pencil; and it has been recited in the doxology of great
congregations. And yet when a man first comes to look on the palace of
God's mercy, and to see the royalty of Christ, and the wealth of this
banquet, and the luxuriance of His attendants, and the loveliness of
His face, and the joy of His service, he exclaims with prayers, with
tears, with sighs, with triumphs: "The half--the half was not told
me!"
I appeal to those in this house who are Christians. Compare the idea
you had of the joy of the Christian life before you became a Christian
with the appreciation of that joy you have now since you have become a
Christian, and you are willing to attest before angels and men that
you never in the days of your spiritual bondage had any appreciation
of what was to come. You are ready to-day to answer, and if I gave you
an opportunity in the midst of this assemblage, you would speak out
and say in regard to the discoveries you have made of the mercy and
the grace and the goodness of God: "The half--the half was not told
me!"
Well, we hear a great deal about the good time that is coming to this
world, when it is to be girded with salvation. Holiness on the bells
of the horses. The lion's mane patted by the hand of a babe. Ships of
Tarshish bringing cargoes for Jesus, and the hard, dry, barren,
winter-bleached, storm-scarred, thunder-split rock breaking into
floods of bright water. Deserts into which dromedaries thrust their
nostrils, because they were afraid of the simoom--deserts blooming
into carnation roses and silver-tipped lilies.
It is the old story. Everybody tells it. Isaiah told it, John told it,
Paul told it, Ezekiel told it, Luther told it, Calvin told it, John
Milton told it--everybody tells it; and yet--and yet when the midnight
shall fly the hills, and Christ shall marshal His great army, and
China, dashing her idols into the dust, shall hear the voice of God
and wheel into line; and India, destroying her Juggernaut and
snatching up her little children from the Ganges, shall hear the
voice of God and wheel into line; and vine-covered Italy, and
wheat-crowned Russia, and all the nations of the earth shall hear the
voice of God and fall into line; then the Church, which has been
toiling and struggling through the centuries, robed and garlanded like
a bride adorned for her husband, shall put aside her veil and look up
into the face of her Lord the King, and say: "The half--the half was
not told me."
Well, there is coming a greater surprise to every Christian--a greater
surprise than anything I have depicted. Heaven is an old story.
Everybody talks about it. There is hardly a hymn in the hymn-book that
does not refer to it. Children read about it in their Sabbath-school
book. Aged men put on their spectacles to study it. We say it is a
harbor from the storm. We call it our home. We say it is the house of
many mansions. We weave together all sweet, beautiful, delicate,
exhilarant words; we weave them into letters, and then we spell it out
in rose and lily and amaranth. And yet that place is going to be a
surprise to the most intelligent Christian. Like the Queen of Sheba,
the report has come to us from the far country, and many of us have
started. It is a desert march, but we urge on the camels. What though
our feet be blistered with the way? We are hastening to the palace. We
take all our loves and hopes and Christian ambitions, as frankincense
and myrrh and cassia, to the great King. We must not rest. We must not
halt. The night is coming on, and it is not safe out here in the
desert. Urge on the camels. I see the domes against the sky, and the
houses of Lebanon, and the temples and the gardens. See the fountains
dance in the sun, and the gates flash as they open to let in the poor
pilgrims.
Send the word up to the palace that we are coming, and that we are
weary of the march of the desert. The King will come out and say:
"Welcome to the palace; bathe in these waters, recline on these banks.
Take this cinnamon and frankincense and myrrh and put it upon a censer
and swing it before the altar." And yet, my friends, when heaven
bursts upon us it will be a greater surprise than that--Jesus on the
throne, and we made like Him! All our Christian friends surrounding us
in glory! All our sorrows and tears and sins gone by forever! The
thousands of thousands, the one hundred and forty-and-four thousand,
the great multitudes that no man can number, will cry, world without
end: "The half--the half was not told us!"