Although ‘Solomon in all his glory’ did not match the beauty of ‘the lilies of the field’, we must certainly attempt to discover the secret of his undoubted greatness. After all, so far as the past is concerned, he reigned over Israel in its ‘golden age’. We shall discover that his reign was marked by wisdom, work, worship and wealth. Alas, at the end, it was marked by women.
Solomon confessed that he felt ‘but a little child’ when faced with the task before him. But he was a wise ‘little child’ when God appeared to him at Gibeon with the invitation, ‘Ask what I shall give thee’. Solomon fulfilled the New Testament injunction, ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him’, Jas. 1. 5. God gave him ‘wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore’, 1 Kgs. 4. 29. It was not long before Solomon displayed his God-given wisdom, not in handling the massive burden of state affairs, but in resolving a delicate problem posed by two mothers with one baby, 3. 16-28. No wonder Hiram, king of Tyre, exclaimed, ‘Blessed be the Lord this day, which hath given unto David a wise son over this great people’, 1 Kgs. 5. 7.
The Scriptures refer to the ‘wisdom of words’, ‘the wisdom of the wise’, ‘the wisdom of this world’, and ‘the wisdom of men’, 1 Cor. 1. 17, 19; 2. 5; 3. 20. But God’s wisdom is totally different. ‘Christ crucified’ is a ‘stumblingblock’ to the Jews, and ‘foolishness’ to the Greeks, but to every child of God, He is ‘Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God’, 1 Cor. 1. 23-24. James describes the ‘wisdom that is from above’ as ‘first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy’, Jas. 3. 17. This is the antithesis of human wisdom! But these are the features of ‘a wise man and endued with knowledge’. Solomon built his kingdom on the ‘wisdom that is from above’, and we must do the same.
But ‘a greater than Solomon is here’, Matt. 12. 42. He is the true ‘wisdom that is from above’, and perfectly displayed every one of its features. Let us learn true wisdom at His feet.
