GLORY AND DEATH
GLORY AND DEATH
“There was no more spirit in her”, is the description given of the queen of Sheba after she had seen all Solomon’s wisdom and glory (1 Kings 10). It was not from any lack in her own circumstances, for she had come with a very great train - her spices were a very great store, but the beauty and brilliancy of Solomon’s glory so overpowered and captivated her heart, that she lost consciousness of all her own high and royal estate. She was like Paul in the third heaven, when he proved the superiority of divine things to the things of man. This is a great lesson. It is not that the rude force of evil has blighted the topshoot of our hearts, so that any gleam of real light is eagerly sought by us; but because of association with our Solomon in His own things which are so infinitely superior to the beauties of nature, that the best are eclipsed in our eyes. If you are the widow that has lost her only son (Luke 7), you have lost all interest in this world, because bereaved of what was dearest to your heart; you go through it with the feeling that nothing can repair the blank, and you rejoice to find outside it a gleam of light, and assurance of joy and rest with Christ; but if it be only this, the things that could have attracted you if bereavement had not withered your heart, are not really displaced, because not eclipsed by what is superior. The grapes are sour to you only because your heart refuses to reach to them. Now, if you are like the queen, you are introduced into a circle of things above, which so captivates you that you are proof against what is most admirable here; however beautiful they are in themselves, you have seen things above which transcend them beyond measure, so much that you have no more spirit in you, no more interest or pleasure in the greatest things here.
The difference between the two practically is this: the one who has been widowed here by bereavement is [p. 30] relieved by gleams of brightness from above, and thus learns to bear up and thread her way through this dark and dreary scene right up to glory; while the one for whom the brightest things here have been eclipsed by the glory of Christ takes a true and divine estimate of everything. She has learned what suits Christ, and she refuses everything of man as unworthy of Him. She begins with refusing herself. She has no more spirit in her. A widow has suffered from death in this scene, and looks to Christ to cheer and sustain her onward and upward. The queen is deadened to this scene because of what she has found outside of it, and therefore is more truly a widow in it. If she had not seen all Solomon’s wisdom, she could not have become insensible to all the brightness here. The inclination to enjoy things below has gone, because of the things above, casting everything into the shade. She is not looking for gleams of light and cheer, but the full circle of Solomon’s glory so engages her heart that she is dead to the things here. The widow can comfort a widow as she has been comforted herself; but the queen can give proof of the insignificance of earthly things because of her acquaintance with things above - she can detect the incongruity of everything here with the mind and purpose of God. If I turn to the glory merely for relief and comfort, I can be mixed up with a great deal here, nay, with everything that does not touch my heart or my conscience; but if I have been deadened to earthly things by the superior circle of things above, nothing here suits me, and I find that many a thing which once I had allowed or tolerated with an unupbraiding conscience, I now see to be incongruous and uncongenial to me as formed and influenced by another order of things. The glory of Christ eclipses the most beautiful things here, and what once would have awakened sensations of delight has now no charm for me. God disciplines us to make us seek resource in Christ in glory; but when we are in company with Him [p. 31] there we are so enriched that there is no more spirit in us.
Take care of lending yourself to the beauties of nature; if you do, you will have no heart for Solomon and his things. It is only intimacy with Christ in the sphere and order of His glory, which so absorbs the heart, that all of man is really excluded as incongruous; you practically become dead to that which has lost its interest to you; and thus, while you are a queen in that scene, you are a widow in this.