J. G. Bellett
The journey of the wise men from the east (Matt. 2), and the journey of the queen of the south (2 Chron. 9) shine with something of kindred beauty and significance before us. All of them go to Jerusalem, but the wise men of the east began their journey under the sign or preaching of the star. The queen of the south began her journey simply on the ground of a report which had reached her in the distant land.
At times the Lord has visited and guided His elect by signs, visible tokens, dreams, voices, angelic visits, and such like. At other times He has simply caused them to hear a report, as in the case of this illustrious lady. But let Him address us as He may, faith recognizes His voice. "My sheep hear My voice... and they follow Me.”
The wise men went to worship, and took offerings with them. The queen of the south went to inquire at wisdom's gate, and to learn lessons of God, searching for that which was more precious than gold or rubies. She took with her some of the choicest treasures of her kingdom.
The journey of the wise men is rich in illustrations of the life of faith. Jerusalem did not satisfy them. In the earlier journey of the queen of the south, Jerusalem answered all expectations. In it we may find some striking moral characteristics which carry several helpful and significant admonitions to our own souls.
First Admonition
In the first place, notice that the report which had reached her touching the king in Jerusalem at once makes her dissatisfied with her present condition, wealthy though it was, and extraordinarily honorable. She sets out immediately, leaving behind her own royal estate with all its advantages in the flesh and the world. The fact of her journey shows the uneasiness and dissatisfaction which the tidings about Solomon and Jerusalem had awakened.
This speaks to us of the effect upon our hearts which the report that has gone abroad about a greater than Solomon should produce. In like spirit and in this day the quickened soul, under the report it has received about Jesus, is convicted and made restless in that condition in which nature has left it. And this report has found us. We have been upset by it—turned out of all the ease and satisfaction which before we may have found in ourselves and our circumstances.
Second Admonition
As soon as the queen reached Jerusalem, she set herself to survey all the estate of the king there. She came for that business and did it. She was not idle, but acquainted herself with everything. She put her hard questions to the king, listened to his wisdom, and surveyed his glories. The very sitting and apparel of his servants did not escape her, nor surely did the ascent by which he went up to the house of God.
This again speaks to us. When we reach Jesus, our souls make Him their object. We learn Him, we talk of Him, and we search the secrets of His grace and glory. We carry the sense of this one thing, that our business is with Him; He is our object.
Third Admonition
After this stranger-queen had acquainted herself with all that belonged to the king in Zion, she was satisfied. Her soul was satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and knew not what to make of herself. She did not understand her new condition; the joy was overwhelming. She says that the half had not been told her, and that Solomon exceeded the fame that had reached her about him. There was no more spirit in her. She returned to her land and to her people filled. She left Solomon, as did the woman of Sychar who left Jesus, emptied of all beside, but filled and satisfied with her new-found treasure.
Such had been her wondrous path. Her journey had begun in the restless, uneasy sense of need, with all her former fair surface of flattering circumstances being broken up. She had acquainted herself with the vast, mysterious treasures of the place where her journey had led her. She had done this carefully, with a heart only the more engaged and interested as she went onward in her search. She ended her journey and returned to her own land as one filled to the very brim with all her expectations and desires.
The Journey to Southern Gaza
The journey of the eunuch of Ethiopia from the south to Jerusalem, recorded in the New Testament, has much the same character (Acts 8). He begins his journey with an unsettled conscience. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship, but he left the city of solemnities still unsettled—that city of the temple and service of God with its priesthood and ordinances.
We see him as an anxious inquirer on his way from Jerusalem to southern Gaza. Nothing in that center of religious provisions and observances had given rest to his soul. He was dissatisfied with the worship he had been rendering there. His conscience was not purged. He had as yet no answer for God; there was no rest in his spirit. Jerusalem had disappointed him, as it had the wise men.
But if, like the queen of Sheba, he was at first uneasy and dissatisfied, he became deeply absorbed with what God was providing for him through His witnesses and representatives. The Word of God was addressing his soul through Philip and the prophet Isaiah, in taking the eunuch out of himself. He was not surprised at the stranger's voice in that desert place. All he cared for, all he thought of was the secret of the Book. He was inspecting that witness of God's grace, as the queen had once inspected Solomon's estate, the witness of glory. And Philip let him into the secret for which he was searching.
His heart is then satisfied and, like the queen of Sheba, filled with what had now been discovered to him. He pursues the second stage of his journey from Gaza to Ethiopia "rejoicing". Philip may leave him, but he can do without him. The woman of Sychar left her waterpot when she found that Jesus was everything to her. With a soul satisfied as with marrow and fatness, the eunuch can go on his way. He and the queen both return to the south, to Sheba and to Ethiopia, with hearts rich in the discoveries they made on their visit to Jerusalem.
These kindred characteristics are easily traced in these narratives. But it was the conscience that set the eunuch on his journey; it was desire that moved the queen. She came in contact with glory in the court and estate of Solomon, the eunuch with grace in the words of the prophet Isaiah. But whether God addresses us with a revelation of His grace or of His glory, whether He addresses the conscience or the heart, it is His high and divine prerogative to satisfy us as He does these two distinguished individuals. He satiates the soul with a manifestation of Himself, let that manifestation take what form it may, or adapt itself to whatever exigency or demand of the soul it please. Such satisfaction we get differently, but very blessedly, and exemplified in these two cases.
No Begrudging or Envy
Another feature that is common to both: their spirit was free of all grudging. The queen surveyed the glories of Solomon and could look on his higher and more excellent estate without the stir of one single jealous, envious movement. She was too happy for that. She could congratulate the king in Zion, his servants that waited on him, and his people who heard his wisdom. She could return home as one who was privileged only to visit him, but she did not begrudge them the richer portion they were enjoying. Her own share of blessing filled her, though her vessel was comparatively small.
The eunuch, I am sure, was willing to be a debtor to Philip—to know that it is the less that is blessed of the better. Let it be so, his spirit would say. He was happy and he was filled. If there was no void in his spirit, so we may assure ourselves there was no grudging there.
What joy there ought to be as we look at such samples of divine workmanship! The soul is disturbed by reason of its own condition, fixed in earnest searching for Christ, satisfied by the discovery of Him, and then too happy to dwell amid the tumults and jarring of that nature that lusts to envy! How noiselessly the process is conducted. It goes on in the spirit of a man by the power that works after the pattern of the wind that blows where it will, but whence it comes and whither it goes we know not.
The Disappointing Great City Jerusalem
There is, however, another thought upon this subject of the journeys to Jerusalem. At times we find, as in the case of the queen of Sheba, that great city answered all the expectations that had been formed by the heart respecting it. But Jerusalem has at times grievously disappointed the heart. It did the wise men from the east who went there looking for the King of the Jews. They had to pass it and put themselves on another journey down to Bethlehem in the south.
It disappointed the eunuch also, as we have observed. He had gone there to worship, but he left unsatisfied in spirit. He searched for rest which all the religious provisions of that city of the temple and priesthood did not and could not give him.
It disappointed the Lord Jesus likewise. Instead of finding His welcome and His place there, He wept over it, pronounced its doom, and met there in His own Person what we may here rather remember than mention.
It will in the last days, as it were, revive and take again the character that it fulfilled in the first days. It will answer all the richest expectations of those multitudes who will then, like the queen of the south, go up there to see the King in His beauty. The highways will then be thronged with joyous visitors, and the hearts of the thousands of the nations will repeat again what they have found in the holy city.
All nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. Isa. 2:2, 32And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2:2‑3); Zech. 14:1616And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. (Zechariah 14:16); Psa. 122:1-41<<A Song of degrees of David.>> I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. 2Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. 3Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: 4Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. (Psalm 122:1‑4).
These are among the divine witnesses of the satisfying virtue of these journeys to the city of the great King in the day of the kingdom. The day is coming when the pledge which the journey of the queen of Sheba has given us shall be blessedly redeemed in the joy of the hearts of the thousands of the nations who, in the coming day of Zion's restoration, shall wait there to do willing service to the Lord of the earth.
The Value Is in Christ
The sequel then is simply weighed. Journeys to Jerusalem either satisfy or disappoint, and it is the Lord Himself who has to determine which it is. His glory was at that time displayed or reflected there, and therefore her visit satisfied the queen of Sheba. His grace was not then ministered or testified there, and therefore his visit disappointed the eunuch of Ethiopia. And thus the value of that city of solemnities was to be measured by the presence of Christ there.
Of all ordinances and services, Jerusalem is but a "city of the Jebusites" if Jesus was not the life and glory of it. It is "the joy of the whole earth," if He is. So, too, with Mount Sinai, or Horeb. It is but "mount Sinai in Arabia," or it takes the dignity of "the mount of God" according as the Lord adopts it or not. The ordinances of the law were shadows "of good things to come," the furniture of God's beautiful house, or mere "beggarly elements," as Christ used them or disowned then.