The Gentile queen travelled many miles to visit the man whose ‘wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men’, 1 Kgs. 4. 30-31. But the Lord Jesus, ‘in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’, was rejected by His own people. They failed to recognize their greater privilege, and will incur greater judgment, Matt. 12. 41-42. How do we respond to our privileges? We must notice the following:
1. What she brought. ‘And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones’, v. 2. This was for the king himself, v. 10. When the woman with the ‘alabaster box of ointment’ was criticized, the Lord Jesus replied, ‘why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me’, Matt. 26. 10. Do we 'minister unto the Lord’ in worship, praise and thanksgiving?
2. What she asked. ‘She communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not anything hid from the king, which he told her not’, vv. 2-3. We too can come to a throne with our ‘hard questions’; ‘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. So often we ‘have not’ because we ‘ask not’. The queen ‘communed with him of all that was in her heart’, and we can come ‘boldly to the throne of grace’ to commune with God of all that is in our hearts.
3. What she said. The queen referred to Solomon himself, to Solomon’s servants, and to Solomon’s God. ‘Thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants … Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel’, vv. 7-9. She was blessed through Solomon: we have been supremely blessed through the ‘greater than Solomon’; cf. Eph. 1. 3.
4. What she received. ‘And the king gave the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty’, v. 13. The woman who had come to give and to ask, returned enriched. The ‘unsearchable riches of Christ’ belong to all who take time to commune with Him.
