One of the Christmas movies we watch every year is Home Alone with Macaulay Culkin. In case you are not familiar with the movie, it is about a family who goes to Paris, France for the Christmas holidays but accidentally leaves 8-year-old Kevin home alone. The accident happens because a storm causes the power to go out in the house so that their alarm clocks do not go off. The mom and dad wake up and must rush to get into the vans to take them to the airport.
There is a scene at this point in the movie where the van driver is sitting outside the house, waiting for the family to bring out their suitcases. A neighbor boy comes up and he bombards the van driver with a litany of questions, one after another. He walks up and says, “Hi, I’m Mitch Murphy. I live across the street. You guys going out of town? We’re going to Orlando, FL. Well, actually, first we’re going to Missouri to pick up my grandma. Did you know the McCallisters are going to France? Do you know if it’s cold there? Do these vans get good gas mileage?”
Questions. Anyone who has children, or who have been around children, know that kids can ask a lot of questions. A second-grader can ask more questions than a college student!Teens and adults can ask extremely important questions. What is perhaps the most important is: to whom do we go for the answers to life’s most important questions?
Jesus gives us the answer to that question…
MATTHEW 12:42:
Jesus brings up another Gentile (along with the people of Nineveh in vss 40-41; and a woman at that, in the minds of His Jewish audience), from the days of King Solomon. Who is the “Queen of the South”? Let’s take a step back in time, 960 years before Christ, to the days of Solomon and learn something about this woman.
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA SEEKS WISDOM FROM SOLOMON – 1 Kings 10:1-10, 13:
Where was Sheba and for what was it known? It was located in the region of modern-day Yemen. Sheba was known for their trade: frankincense, myrrh, spices, aromatic wood, and gold.
The Queen’s Primary Motivation for Visiting (10:1) – The queen heard about Solomon’s fame, particularly his interest in spiritual questions, and she came to “test him with difficult questions.” These “difficult questions” may have been riddles. Consider further references to this reason for visiting Solomon: verses 2-3, 4, and 7.
The Queen’s Secondary Motivation for Visiting (10:2) – As any good ruler, the queen was interested in increasing trade with other nations, to benefit her own kingdom. So, she brought some commercial items, some would come from Sheba and some would be items from other countries that the queen would use to trade with Solomon: camels, spices, gold, and stones. We have two brief references to the queen’s economic interests in Israel (vss 10, 13) so clearly, her primary motivation in visiting Solomon was to experience his wisdom.
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THE APPLICATION TO JESUS: – Matthew 12:42:
Let’s go back to the teachings of Jesus now, Matthew 12:42. The queen of Sheba, a Gentile and a woman, came from the south to hear of the wisdom of Solomon. We do not know exactly where she was from but if she was from the area of modern-day Yemen, the capital of Yemen is Sana’a. The distance from Sana’a to Jerusalem is over 1,500 miles! There are people today who will not open the Bible laying on their coffee table in order to learn about Jesus Christ!
So, where are you and I when it comes to the wisdom of Jesus? Are we listening to Him? Are we obeying what Jesus, in His wisdom, tells us to do to have success in this life and experience heaven in the life to come?
Since Jesus is greater than Solomon, will we tell “about all that is in our heart,” to Him?
Since Jesus is greater than Solomon, when we come to know Him and be impressed by His greatness and His wisdom, we will have “no more spirit” in us! We will be “breathless” when we get to know Jesus. We will simply fall at His feet, as Peter did, and say, “Depart from me, for I am a wicked person” (Luke 5:8).
Skeptics today do not believe the reports about Jesus and do not understand why we love Jesus and follow Him… because they have not seen Jesus. They have not read about Jesus. They have not come to know Jesus as He is presented in the Gospel accounts.
You and I are blessed because God loves us as members of His family, His church.
Jesus has the greatest wisdom of anyone in the world. Let us listen to Him and follow Him in every aspect of our lives.
Paul Holland
