Well, this morning as we open the Word of God, we're going to consider some of his words of great wisdom.
Over the past few weeks, I've been reading through the story of King Solomon,
just in my own personal Bible reading, and some of Solomon's words of wisdom.
Maybe you know the story of King Solomon.
King Solomon was the son of King David, and Solomon lived about a thousand years before Jesus was born.
From our day today, 3,000 years ago, since Solomon lived and was king.
And it's not often someone that we talk about, but Solomon was one of the greatest kings who ever lived.
I love how his story begins.
In his early years as king, Solomon had a real heart for God, just like his dad did.
One day after he became king, he went up to a place called Gibeon.
And there at Gibeon was where the tabernacle was set up.
And it's recorded that he offered a thousand burnt offerings to the Lord in one day.
A burnt offering was a sacrifice of an animal to God.
And I won't get into talking about the sacrificial system this morning,
but it was a moment of worship for Solomon.
It was a moment of extravagant worship that cost him greatly.
He held nothing back.
And that night, God appeared to Solomon.
God told Solomon that he could ask him for anything that he wanted.
And Solomon responded with such deep humility.
He said to the Lord,
Here I am.
You've made me the king of your people.
And who am I to rule over them?
Who am I to take care of them?
To oversee the kingdom?
To ensure that what's good and what's right and just is done among all these people of yours?
And so Solomon asked God for wisdom.
He asked God for a wise and discerning heart.
Specifically so that he could govern and lead the people well as their king.
And God was so deeply pleased with Solomon's request that he answered and gave him what he asked for.
In fact, God made Solomon not only the wisest man who had ever lived up until that point,
but he made him into an even wiser man than any future man would ever be except for one.
And that, of course, is Jesus.
As I was reading again about some of the wisdom that Solomon had,
I was astounded by it.
It says he was held in awe by all the people of Israel because of his great wisdom.
From the rulings and decisions he made to the way that he set up and organized the kingdom
to the peace and prosperity that came to the whole nation and to everyone in it
because of the things that he was doing.
And the people, it says, they knew, they understood that it was God who had given him this great wisdom.
With his wisdom, he built the temple of the Lord.
Probably the most beautiful, ornate, maybe even the most expensive building ever made on earth.
The most holy place, kind of just an inner part of the temple,
was overlaid with about 21 metric tons of gold.
By today's figures, that's almost a billion dollars worth of gold.
Never mind the rest of the temple and its furnishings.
Even the nails, apparently, in the most holy place were made of gold.
Only the best for the place where God would live among his people.
And we might wonder, well, where did Solomon get all this wealth?
God gave him unbelievable wisdom for trade and for foreign exchange and administration.
He was so wise that he was known across the world in his day.
Listen to what it says in 1 Kings 4, verse 29.
God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.
Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the east
and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.
He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezraite,
wiser than Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol.
I don't know who any of these guys are, personally,
but I'm sure that the writer is just listing off all the wisest, the best thinkers,
the greatest philosophers of Solomon's day.
He was wiser than all of them.
And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.
He spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs numbered 1,005.
He spoke about plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the walls.
He also spoke about animals and birds, reptiles and fish.
From all nations, people came to listen to Solomon's wisdom,
sent by all the kings of the world who had heard of his wisdom.
You may have heard the story of the Queen of Sheba traveling up from the south to pay Solomon a visit,
and she was just absolutely astounded and in awe by his kingdom and his wisdom.
At the height of Solomon's empire, his yearly, yearly intake of gold was about 23 tons.
Again, almost a billion dollars by our valuing today.
And then the author is careful to remind us, well, that was just the gold.
Don't forget about all his revenues from merchants and traders
and from all the Arabian kings and from all the governors of all the surrounding territories
that he ruled over.
In 2 Chronicles 9, it says,
He was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth.
All the kings of the earth sought audience with Solomon
to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.
Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift,
articles of silver and gold and robes,
weapons and spices and horses and mules.
A little further down,
The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones
and cedar as plentiful as sycamore fig trees in the foothills.
Reflecting on the building of his palace, it says,
Nothing was made of silver because silver was considered of little value in Solomon's day.
Amazing.
Apart from Jesus, Solomon was the wisest man the earth had ever known.
And it's because God, the one who created the universe, gave him this great wisdom.
So let me ask you something this morning.
If you had lived in Solomon's day,
And by chance, you had been given an opportunity to come to his palace
and to have a private gathering with him, a meeting with him,
would you take that opportunity?
The chance to hear some of his great wisdom?
Well, the amazing thing is that we have the very words that Solomon spoke right here in our Bibles today.
And so as I read from Proverbs chapter 6,
I want you to imagine that that's where you are,
that you've been invited here this morning to Solomon's palace,
something that very few ordinary folk like you and me would ever get a chance to do,
a private gathering with the legendary, world-renowned King Solomon.
What might he say to you?
Imagine you're sitting there sipping a glass of something.
The contents of the cup are so expensive that it's more than you can even,
than your whole net worth.
And you look around at the palace and you see the gold-decked walls.
You see all of this amazing artwork that he's collected from all over the world,
these amazing furnishings.
And you consider his great kingdom.
And finally you come up with a question,
something that you feel, well, maybe I should ask, I could ask this.
Your Majesty, King Solomon,
how have you managed to accomplish all of this in under 40 years?
It's really a question of astonishment and wonder.
But maybe if you're honest, you're looking for some priceless wisdom
to help you out in your own life.
And we all know the God answer to this question.
Solomon has accomplished all this by his wisdom,
and his wisdom, as we have said,
came as a special gift from God.
God blessed the work of his hands,
and that's how he did it.
Without that, he would have just been another king of Israel.
And of course, Solomon would have been an arrogant fool
not to give God the credit and the glory
for all that he had done in his great kingdom.
But on a different level, from a different angle,
Solomon, can you give us some practical wisdom from God?
How have you accomplished all this in less than 40 years?
What might his response have been?
Perhaps it would have been this.
Proverbs 6, verse 6.
Go to the ant, you sluggard.
Consider its ways and be wise.
It has no commander, no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
Can you imagine that?
Here you are, sitting in the presence of one of the greatest,
wisest, wealthiest kings who ever lived,
and you're asking him for some practical wisdom
to help you be more productive in life,
and he basically says to you,
go out into your backyard
and sit down in the grass
and watch some ants.
If anybody else had answered your question like this,
you might have laughed in their face.
Are you kidding me?
Human beings here,
we're the most intelligent creatures on earth.
You're telling me to go learn a lesson
from those tiny little guys
that I accidentally step on in the backyard all the time?
That's a good one.
But then you look around again
and you think of this magnificent palace
and all Solomon has achieved.
Could it really be
that Solomon himself,
with the wisdom that God gave him,
grew more wise
by watching and studying ants?
You better believe it.
God has a way of humbling us
when we need to be humbled,
of using the small
and the weak
and the lowly things
to humble the proud
and the strong.
Of all the things
that God commands us to do
in the Bible,
this is perhaps one of the most surprising.
Go watch the ants,
he says.
And of course,
he doesn't mean just go look at them.
I think most translations get it right
when they say,
consider its ways.
Consider.
Yes, watch them,
but also think about them.
Reflect on what they're doing.
Ponder them
and learn wisdom from them.
And then Solomon gives us
just enough of a tidbit
of what he's seen
from watching the ants
to get us started,
to whet our wisdom appetite.
He says,
you know,
ants have no commander,
no overseer,
no ruler.
You'll never see
some of the ants
just kind of standing
on the side
as the worker ants go by,
making sure that all the ants
are doing their jobs.
And if one of those ants
decides to get out of line
and slack off,
you'll never see
one of them go over there
and smack it on the abdomen
and say, get back to work.
You'll never see that with ants.
They just do their jobs
when nobody is looking.
Now we might wonder why.
Well, it's beyond us
to figure out
what really goes on
in the brain of an ant
or if they even have motivations.
But let's consider
for a moment
with Solomon
the challenges
of the ant.
He says,
it stores its provisions
in summer.
And so we think
of the challenge
of winter.
How do those little critters
survive up to six months
of that?
Canadian winters.
Think about this
from the perspective
of an ant.
Six months of that
must be like
an ice age to them.
Those piles of snow,
those drifts
must be like
Everest's
to them.
The whole world
becomes a frozen,
barren wasteland.
And not only
is the cold a threat,
but the scarcity
of food is a threat.
In order to survive
the winter,
the ants must make
some serious preparations.
They must prepare
a fully functional
underground bunker
and it's got to be
fully stocked
and supplied
to go all those
months.
They've got to get
enough food
to survive
that whole long
period
even before it
starts.
And not only that,
think of it in terms
of the number
of mouths
to feed.
Apparently the
smaller ant colonies
have about 500
ants in them,
but they can go up
to 10,000.
And I never knew
this before this week,
but they can even
group with other
colonies to form
super colonies
in the millions
in some places.
500,
let's go with
the small number,
500 mouths
to feed
for six months.
It's not a perfect
analogy because
ants don't eat
or function like
we do,
but just imagine
trying to meal plan
for 500 people
for six months
in an underground
shelter
with no contact
with the outside
world,
no grocery stores
to go shopping
at.
That's going to
take some serious
planning and
preparations to get
the whole colony
of 500 up to
10,000 through
that.
No wonder they
work almost
non-stop from
the time that the
snow melts to
the time that it
falls again.
If they didn't,
there probably
wouldn't be too
many of them
left.
at least not
up here in our
climate.
So how do they
do it?
It's their
diligence.
Maybe you've
seen an ant
doing some work.
Maybe you've had
ants in your home
even.
They're relentless.
They're tireless.
They're persistent
in their work
all through
those summer
months.
We might call
them prudent.
Whether they're
actually planning
or thinking ahead,
I don't know.
Probably God
instilled them
with some kind
of natural
instinct and
programming,
a God-given
wisdom of sorts
so that they can
flourish and thrive
according to his
good design.
But it's the work
itself that they
do, all that
work through the
summer, that
ensures their
survival.
And boy, can
ants work.
have you ever
taken the time
just to watch
ants at work?
I've had a couple
good opportunities.
When I lived in
Edmonton, I
remembered just
marveling.
We had a giant
colony underneath
the concrete pad
in our backyard.
Every time I would
put the lawnmower on
there and start it
up, the vibrations
would send them
out every side,
thousands of them.
It was amazing.
I even tried
wiping them all
out a couple
times because they
were pretty close
to the house.
I didn't want them
to get in.
And yet, it seemed
like within days,
I'd do it again
and there's thousands
more.
Where are these
things coming from?
Well, one day,
these ants had
found something
tasty in the back
alley.
And I couldn't
believe it.
I just watched
as all in a line,
about over 20
feet away, they
just marched.
All the way
out, grabbed a
hunk of whatever
it was, I can't
even remember.
It was about half
the size of the
ant.
And then they
would lug this
thing all the way
back to the
colony.
And they would
just go back and
forth all day
long.
It was amazing.
You tried to put
something in the
line, they would
just go around and
get back on the
line and keep
going.
I was reminded
of this all again
this week because
some ants actually
found their way
into my basement
this past week
here in Davidson.
I just noticed a
little something
scurrying across the
floor in the
washroom.
Okay.
Then another.
Uh-oh.
We got a problem
here.
I started following
this trail of ants
into the hallway,
into my bedroom,
going under my bed,
and there's this
little hole by the
baseboard and the
carpet.
And they, one by one,
just crawling up out
of that.
All the way to the
other side of the
house, they were
going in the bathroom,
down the hallway,
into the kids'
bedroom.
And then at the very
end, you could see
different ants kind of
just wandering all
over the place,
scouting for any kind
of food to eat.
It's amazing.
They were doing
that in the morning,
first thing, when I
saw them, and they
were still going hard
in the evening when I
went to bed.
Hopefully they got
lots of good food from
the ant traps that I
put down for them,
because I don't want to
have a total infestation.
But amazing creatures,
and according to God,
they are creatures that
we're meant to learn
from.
Go to the ant, you
sluggard.
They are an example
of wisdom, of
diligence, of
discipline.
You want to accomplish
more in life?
Then, says Solomon,
you need to work like
they do.
You need to make the
most of every
opportunity you have
to work while you
have it.
So how can we apply
these words?
How can we put them
into practice?
Well, if it's been a
while since you last
took some time to
consider the ways of
the ants, I'll invite
you this week to even
go out and take a few
minutes to do some
ant watching.
You're probably
thinking that's funny.
You can't be serious.
What a waste of time.
I'm not joking.
I don't think Solomon
was joking.
I think he actually
meant for us to take
a close look and to
understand the lesson.
So I want to encourage
you to try that this
week.
And if you can't find
some ants, there's
lots of them on
YouTube.
And there's lots of
phenomenal videos just
showing the kinds of
things they do.
I saw one little video
clip of a wasp nest
hanging from a roof.
And a trail of ants,
they made a bridge of
themselves into the
nest from on top of
the roof.
And they were crawling
on a chain of ants
into this thing,
invading the nest,
dismantling it and
taking it back to
their colony for food.
Amazing.
There's other things,
all kinds of things
you can see.
I'll let you search it
up and see it.
The second thing,
and this is kind of a
more general principle
to consider.
Do you know that the
entire created world
is full of similar
kinds of lessons?
God has infused all of
creation with his
beyond measure wisdom.
Everything you see in
nature points to his
glory.
Some things offer a
practical wisdom lesson
like this one.
Others might give us
creative inspiration for
our own inventions and
creations.
Think about it.
this is not the only
wisdom lesson in the
Bible that's drawn from
nature.
Solomon will tell us
many more things like
this through the rest of
his Proverbs and in
Ecclesiastes.
Jesus will tell us to
look at and consider the
birds, to take a lesson
from them and the
flowers of the field.
He pointed his disciples
to seeds, to sowing and
planting, to rain, to
clouds, to thunder, to
lightning.
The men who wrote the
Psalms pointed us to the
sun, the moon, the
stars, the mountains, the
seas and their powerful
waves, the meadows and
the grasses.
There's lessons to be
learned from all these
things that God has made
from sheep and goats,
lions, the deer, and
yes, even from the rock
badgers that I saw at the
Calgary Zoo last week.
They're actually in
Proverbs, believe it or
not.
All of creation is filled
with the wisdom of God.
And so I want to
encourage you this summer
to open not just your
eyes but your hearts to
that possibility, to that
reality.
I want to encourage you
as you go your way this
summer, maybe some of you
are going on vacation,
maybe you're going to be
outside a little bit more
because the weather is
nice.
You'll probably see lots of
things but take some time
to linger over them and
ask God to open your
heart to the wisdom, to
the lessons that he has
for you, even in the
stuff of nature which he
has made.
Don't just go to the ant
this summer, go to all of
it.
But back to the ant for a
moment.
None of us really wants to
admit that we are a
sluggard.
I don't even like that
word.
It's a pretty strong word,
isn't it?
I really like the Christian
Standard Bible.
It translates it a little
differently.
It says, go to the ant, you
slacker.
That's kind of a good
modern day rendition of
that.
It's a word that's sometimes
used in parallel with
foolishness.
And probably none of us
wants to admit that we are
foolish or sluggardish or a
slacker or lazy.
But then we might wonder,
well, how would I know if
I am?
How do you measure if you're
working long enough or
hard enough?
We can't always trust our
feelings about it because
the person who's lazy is a
sack of potatoes feels like
he's doing all he can each
day.
But on the other hand,
must I always feel guilty
about stopping to take some
rest, to take a break, to
take a night off?
We can't go by our
feelings.
And so probably the next
thing that we'll do is we'll
start to compare ourselves to
others.
But even that way of
measuring is unreliable
because truthfully we can
all think of some people
that work much harder, much
longer than we do.
And we can all think of some
people who compared to us
seem lazy.
Is a sluggard just someone
who's really lazy compared
to me?
If that were the case, then
this advice would only be
for a very few people.
Or is Solomon aiming this
wise advice at a mindset,
at a mentality, at an
attitude that any of us can
have?
Is it possible that by God's
measure, I am a sluggard?
Are you willing to ask that
question of God this week?
Lord, am I working long
enough?
Am I working hard enough?
Am I working on the right
things?
The things that are most
important in life, the things
that you would have me do?
I want to encourage you to
simply ask God some of these
questions this week in prayer.
Because this is something that
we need his help to see if it's
in our lives.
We need his spirit to convict us
of this.
And as we do that, let's not
misunderstand the lesson from the
ant.
It's not that we should work
constantly and never rest.
If we're listening carefully,
Solomon, God is saying that we
should work diligently when we
have the opportunity to do so.
Because a time or season or day
is coming, may come, when that
window of opportunity will be
closed.
And we can apply this to all
sorts of things.
We could apply this to old age.
There comes a day when you're no
longer able to work like you're
used to.
Are you being careful to store up
provisions for that day?
Or are you going further and
further and further into debt?
We could apply this to seasonal
work.
We all know that feeling of the
leaves hitting the ground and,
oh, we've got to get them up
before the snow is coming.
Sometimes we need to burn the
midnight oil just to get things
done.
We could apply this to the work
of any given day.
There's only so much light in a
day.
We have the opportunity to work
during the day, to connect with
people while they're awake during
the day.
But when evening rolls around,
those doors start to close.
We could apply this like Jesus did
to the spiritual work of meeting
the needs of others.
Are we making the most of our
opportunity to connect with others
and to serve others, to reach out to
people who don't know Christ and
build relationships with them?
Because we know that eventually those
opportunities, those doors will close
for one reason or another.
Whether the Lord takes us home or that
person or their family move somewhere
else.
I want to encourage you to pray about
this this week.
You may not need to go to the aunt for a
lesson about working more hours at your
job or around your house.
But maybe when it comes to your spiritual
life, you've been a slacker, a sluggard.
Maybe you know that there's something in
your life that you really should be working
at, but you've been putting it off and
putting it off and putting it off.
So I just want to simply encourage you to
ask the Lord about this this week.
And I trust that he will show you, that
he will show me as I ask him to what we
need to hear, what is really going on in
our hearts this week.
And the good news is this.
When we ask, God gives grace.
He gives help.
He gives strength to those who earnestly
and humbly seek it from him.
So let's do that.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for this lesson,
this simple, practical lesson of wisdom
that you've put into your word.
God, we pray that you would put it deep
in our hearts.
Make us diligent in all the areas of life
that matter most.
help us to see where we need to change,
where we need to grow.
Open our eyes to the countless lessons
that you would have us learn this summer
through all that we see that you have made.
We love you.
We give you praise.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.