Notes of an address at Bangor, N. Wales, 1938, on 1 Kings 3:3-15; 11:1-13; Proverbs 1:7; 8:11-31; Ecclesiastes 2:3-11
The Bible is made up of history—history, past events and movements chronicled; prophecy, future events and movements foretold. It has been well said that history teaches us that men do not profit by history. The history of the Great War should teach men the uselessness and utter futility of war. Yet the nations are slowly moving into the maelstrom of conflict, the upshot of which can only be inconceivable misery.
We are now about to consider a great example, and a great warning. Who will seek to follow the example and take heed to the warning? We believe many young lives will be altered for the better if this is done.
King David had won a mighty kingdom by his sword. His youthful son, Solomon, succeeded to this wonderful inheritance. We read he “loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David, his father; ONLY he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places.” It was good that he loved the Lord, good that he followed the excellent example of his father. But this “ONLY,” was a fatal flaw, a weak place in his armour, something that led to disastrous consequences.
You must have heard of the Dutch dykes? Much of Holland is below sea level, and to prevent the sea flooding this land, dykes have been built to keep back the waters. Great vigilance is exercised. A tiny trickle is observed, ONLY a tiny trickle. It is carefully stopped, and the small defect in the dyke repaired. They know, if neglected, it will gradually widen, till at length with a mighty rush the waters will inundate miles of country, destroy smiling farms, and the inhabitants will perish. We need to be careful as to “ONLY.” They are the little foxes that spoil the tender vines.
The Lord appeared to Solomon in the night, saying to him, “Ask what I shall give thee.” What an offer! What a test to this young man! Will he ask for long life, or riches, or success over his enemies? He greatly pleased the Lord. He might have been dazzled by the glory of his position. He might have cherished great ambitions and asked accordingly. On the contrary his conduct is beautiful. See his humility: “I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in … Give therefore Thy servant an understanding heart… that I may discern between good and bad.” How beautiful this attitude was! How different from the attitude of modern youth to God, or even to their elders in this world.
The Lord was so pleased that He granted Solomon his desire, and added to it riches and honour and the promise of long life, if he walked in His ways. As for wisdom he excelled all who ever lived before him, as he would all who came after him. “Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt … he was wiser than all men … there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom” (1 Kings 4:30-34). He spake three thousand proverbs, and of songs a thousand and five!
A slight examination of the book shows that when God gave Solomon wisdom, it was wisdom from above. His own wisdom, great as it was, was not sufficient to guide him as directed by himself. So we find “the fear of the Lord” connected with wisdom.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
“Choose the fear of the Lord.”
“Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord.”
“The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.”
“The fear of the Lord prolongs days.”
“By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.”
“The fear of the Lord tends to life.”
“By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honour and life.”
“Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.”
The wonderful wisdom that God graciously gave him was to be governed by the fear of the Lord—the beginning, the A.B.C. of wisdom. If we carried all our plans, great and little, into God’s presence and sought His guidance, our wisdom would be guided aright.
What is the fear of the Lord? Not the fear of a guilty conscience that fears the policeman or the magistrate or the judge, but the fear of a son, who is afraid to displease his father, filial fear, begotten of love. For all through Proverbs Solomon is insistent upon affection, love. “My son, give me thine heart,” “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
The writer has been greatly struck by Solomon connecting wisdom with the fear of the Lord. And still more struck that Solomon should know where wisdom comes from, should know its source. Spell Source with a capital S, for wisdom in Proverbs 8 is Wisdom personified, even our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Now Solomon’s wisdom, surpassing that of all men of all time, was not sufficient for this knowledge. This knowledge came by revelation and wonderful revelation it was. The wit of Socrates or Plato or Solomon or any man was not sufficient for this. Their wisdom, left to themselves, could not rise higher than themselves.
But in Proverbs 8 we get wonderful things predicated of wisdom. Wisdom speaks, not as an abstract quality, but as a Person capable of loving and being loved. “I love them that love Me; and those that seek Me early shall find Me.” And that Person tells us He was set up from everlasting, anointed from everlasting, the title, Christ, means the Anointed.
Not only so, but with Wisdom that never had a beginning there was a companion, so we read “I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him” (v. 30). Who was the delight of the Father but the Son; whose company did the Son rejoice in but the Father’s—an eternal Divine Company that never had a beginning, and will never have an end. “Canst thou by searching find out God?” was asked of old, and the emphatic answer is NO. But here is not searching, but revelation. In the comparatively dim light of the Old Testament this is a wonderful shining forth of the mystery of the Godhead. We get two forming a Divine Society in Proverbs 8:30. In Proverbs 1:23, we get the Holy Spirit—“I will pour out My Spirit to you.”
How did Solomon know there were two who formed a Divine Society, and a Spirit of God, who could be poured out, as Joel 2:28-29 prophesies, and which prophecy was fulfilled in measure on the Day of Pentecost as Peter avers (Acts 2:16-18) and which awaits full fulfilment in a coming day when our Lord shall return to earth to take up His kingdom when “the knowledge of the glory of the Lord” shall fill the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). So we get foreshadowed the wonderful mystery of the Godhead, an eternal Father, an eternal Son, an eternal Spirit—one God and only one, yet the one God so manifested in three Persons.
Not only so, but Solomon tells us of wisdom personified, of Christ indeed, “rejoicing in the habitable part of this earth; and My delights were with the sons of men” (v. 31). So Solomon traces “the beginning”—the A.B.C.—“of wisdom,” to its source. Surely this comes out in all its fulness in the New Testament when we read of Christ in glory sending forth the Holy Spirit to indwell the believers, uniting them to Himself in heaven and to each other on earth in that grand fellowship that sets forth how God’s delights are with the sons of men.
All this is very beautiful, and the great example of Solomon is before us, his humility—“I am but a little child”—his God-given wisdom. We have known of men of much knowledge and have trembled to see them speaking to immature souls, because with all their knowledge they lacked wisdom, and their knowledge was often used to bewilder and stumble those they came across. But in the Book of Proverbs Solomon emphasises wisdom. Will he then continue to be the exemplification of what he preached?
Alas! here we get a great warning, even as we have had a great example. Let us follow the example and give heed to the warning.
Early on in his life Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs with its beautiful trust in God, its understanding of God’s loving chastisements (chap. 3:11-12); of the advice to say. No, when sinners entice. He wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes at the end of his life. What lay between the writing of these two books. The sight of the wisest man becoming the biggest fool, a great warning to us all.
We read “Solomon loved many strange women, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites, seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. He took wives of nations expressly forbidden of God, “You shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in to you: for surely they will turn your heart after their gods: Solomon came to these in love” (1 Kings 11:1-3). True enough they stole his heart away from Jehovah and he worshipped with his wives the obscene and filthy worship of Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, of Milcom (Molech) the abomination of the Moabites. God was angry with Solomon and told him in the reign of his son his kingdom should be torn in two and part of it given to his servant. This came true when Rehoboam, a servant of Solomon, ruled over ten tribes and left his son with only two tribes—Judah and Benjamin. Sad indeed is this spectacle.
Young Christians may well be warned not to marry unconverted partners. It is expressly forbidden in Scripture. What sort of Christianity can a young man or woman have to take for partner one who does not share his or her faith in the Saviour? “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3).
Ecclesiastes show what steps Solomon took in his own wisdom; great as it was, and not alas! in the fear of the Lord, and how it ended. Twenty-eight times in the book Solomon uses the phrase, under the sun. In Proverbs he looks above the sun, as chapter 8 so beautifully shows. He ends almost with his last word, “Whoso puts his trust in the Lord shall be safe” (chap. 29:25). How happy! But in Ecclesiastes he seeks happiness under the sun. Twenty-eight times he employs the phrase, under the sun. Is it not significant that he uses the word, vanity twenty-eight times?—vanity, futility, empty pleasure, fruitless desire, pure emptiness. Indeed the monarch satiated with every sensuous and sensual pleasure can only wail out his utter disappointment, “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity”—vanity three times in the singular and twice in the plural. It all ends in the grave.
In Ecclesiastes Solomon tells us he went in for mirth and pleasure. People are pleasure mad now-a-days, but they do not look happy. Solomon says of such laughter. “It is MAD,” so it is. “As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so also is the laughter of the fool.” The crackling of thorns does not last long and the pleasures of sin are only for a season. How foolish to forget God, the soul, eternity.
Solomon laid hold of folly so that he might see what was good for the sons of men—repeating the fatal act of our first parents in the Garden of Eden.
We have known of young Christians actually going secretly to dances, theatres and worse places in order to gain experience. How terrible! To eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and EVIL, only brought evil results, and it will ever do so. Whoever goes in for sin (for just this once, not much harm in it, don’t mean to practice it) does so at his or her peril. On these very lines Solomon in his happier days asks, “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” (Prov. 6:27). Solomon with great wisdom and vast resources of wealth gratified his every whim under the sun. He could only wail out in his old age, as he drew near to the gates of death, “Behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit UNDER THE SUN” (chap. 2:11).
To sum up we have a great example and a great warning. We have it reproduced in New Testament language. The young men in the family of God were strong, the Word of God abode in them, God’s word governed their lives, they overcame the wicked one. Were they safe? Strong, were they secure? Overcomers, were they beyond temptation and a fall? Hear the solemn warning “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
May we pay heed to the warnings of Scripture that may lead us to constant and daily dependence upon God for our path down here. “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come to God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).