This language may be considered as implying 1. That human government, in all its branches, is the appointment of Divine wisdom. 2. That all who sustain positions of authority and power should set habitually under the influence of Divine wisdom. 3. That no authority can be rightly exercised, and no judicial process successfully carried out, without the direction of Wisdom. 4. That Divine wisdom exercises control over all human agents in the administration of public affairs.—Wardlaw.
“By me kings reign,” not as if men did behold that book, and accordingly frame their laws, but because it worketh in them when the laws which they make are righteous.—Hooker.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 17–21.
The Reward of Earnest Seekers.
I. The mutual love which exists between Wisdom and her children. There is always a mutual love between a true teacher and a diligent, receptive pupil, and the love on each side has a reflex influence on both master and pupil, and renders it more pleasant to teach, and more easy to learn. When a child loves his parent, and the parent is teaching the child, love oils the wheels of the intellectual powers, and furnishes a motive power to conquer the lesson. And when the parent feels that he is loved by his child and pupil, the love is a present reward. There is such a love between Christ and His disciples. Peter appealed to Christ’s consciousness of being loved by him when he said, “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee” (John xxi. 17). And Christ loves His pupils. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you” (John xv. 9, 13). This mutual love imparts patience on the one side and perseverance on the other. It was Christ’s “first love to us” that gave Him patience to “endure the cross and despise the shame” (Heb. xii. 2). And it is the responsive love of the disciple that enables Him to endure unto the end. It is the love that is born of the consciousness of being loved that stirs up to the diligent seeking of the latter clause of the verse, which expresses—
II. A certain success to the seekers of wisdom. In Holy Scripture earnest seeking and finding are complements of each other. The one does not exist without the other. Seeking ensures finding. Finding implies seeking. “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not” (Jas. i. 5). God’s promise is absolute. It can only fail on one of three suppositions. 1. That when God made the promise He had no intention of keeping it, or—2. That unforeseen circumstances have since arisen which render Him unable to fulfil His word, or—3. That the conditions have not been fulfilled on the part of the seeker. We know that God’s holiness and omnipotence render the first two impossible, and therefore, whenever there is no finding, we are certain that there has been no real, earnest seeking. For the promise is limited by the condition, “they that seek me early, or earnestly.” If a traveller has a long journey to perform and many difficulties to overcome in the way, he shows his determination to arrive safely at his destination by setting out at early dawn. Those who are anxious to make a name, or a fortune, show their anxiety by rising early and sitting up late. There are degrees of earnestness in seekers after Divine wisdom as in all other seekers. But those whose seeking is the most earnest will receive the most abundant reward. The Syro-Phœnician woman who besought Christ to heal her daughter was a type of earnest seekers. She redoubled her efforts as the apparent difficulties increased. She asked, she sought, she knocked. And she received not only what she sought, but a commendation from the Lord for her earnest seeking (Matt. xv. 28).
III. What those find who find God. The reward promised to those who seek God is God Himself. In finding Him they find 1. The lasting riches of righteousness (vers. 18, 19). This a wealth which will last. However great the satisfaction, however many the blessings which may flow from the riches of the earth, “passing away” is written upon all. Yea, long before the end of life the riches may “make themselves wings” (chap. xxiii. 5). Among many other qualities that make moral wealth incomparably superior to material wealth, not the least is its durability. (See on [vers. 10, 11]; also chap. [iii. 15, 16].) 2. Guidance, ver. 20. (See on chap. [iii. 6], etc.) 3. Reality in opposition to shadow, ver. 21. The hungry man who dreams that he is feasting experiences a kind of pleasure. But the feast is only in vision. There is no power in it to appease his hunger, or nourish his frame. But, if on awaking, he finds a table really spread with food, he then has the substance of that of which in his dreams he had only the shadow. Worldly men walk, the Psalmist tells us, in a “vain show,” i.e., in an “image,” an “unreality” (Psa. xxxix. 6). “They walk,” says Spurgeon on this verse, “as if the mocking images were substantial, like travellers in a mirage, soon to be filled with disappointment and despair.” There are many who dream that they are being satisfied while they are morally asleep. But by and by they awake and find that they have been feeding on visions of the night, that they have been spending their money for “that which was not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not” (Isa. lv. 2). To all who are conscious of this soul-hunger, eternal wisdom here offers substantial heart satisfaction, “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 17. The philosopher could say, that if moral virtue could be seen with mortal eyes, she would stir up wonderful loves of herself in the hearts of the beholders. How much more, then, would “the wisdom of God in a mystery!” (1 Cor. ii. 7), that essential wisdom of God especially, the Lord Jesus, who is “altogether lovely,” “the desire of all nations.” “My love was crucified,” said Ignatius, who “loved not His life unto the death” (Rev. xii. 11). Neither was there any love lost, or can be, for “I love them that love me.” Men do not always reciprocate, or return love for love. David lost his love upon Absalom; Paul upon the Corinthians; but here is no such danger.—Trapp.
The characters whom Christ loves. Christ loves those who love Him. (1) Because He has done and suffered so much for their salvation. We naturally prize any object in proportion to the labour and expense which it cost us to obtain it. How highly, then, must Christ prize, how ineffably must He love His people. For this, among other reasons, His love for them must be greater in degree, and of a different kind from that which He entertains for the angels of light. (2) Because they are united to Him by strong and indissoluble ties. The expressions used to describe this union are the strongest that language can afford. The people of Christ are not only His brethren, His sisters, His bride, but His members, His body, and He consequently loves them as we love our members, as our souls love our bodies. (3) Because they possess His Spirit, and bear His image. Similarity of character tends to produce affection, and hence every being in the universe loves his own image when he discovers it. Especially does Christ love His own image in His creatures, because it essentially consists in holiness, which is of all things most pleasing to His Father and Himself. (4) Because they rejoice in and return His affection. It is the natural tendency of love to produce and increase love. Even those whom we have long loved become incomparably more dear when they begin to prize our love and to return it. If Christ so loved His people before they existed, and even while they were His enemies, as to lay down His life for their redemption, how inexpressibly dear must they be to Him after they become His friends.—Payson.