THE elephant is, I suppose, the largest animal we know of at the present time, though many hundreds of years ago, there were huge creatures, which were even larger than the elephant, living in the woods and forests, and feeding on the wide plains. These enormous beasts are generally called mammoths, but they are all gone long ago and we should not know anything about them, if men did not occasionally find their bones hidden away in the caves where they died, or sometimes one is found far up in the North, frozen into the great ice fields. And these even have their flesh and hair upon them, so we can tell exactly what they looked like. At the present day we often see elephants, but in our part of the world, they are not used for work, and riding upon, as they are in the hot countries of India and Africa. There they roam in the thick woods or jungles, feeding on the tender branches of trees, or the grass, either of which they can reach with that wonderful trunk. The head of the elephant is so large and heavy that it could not be supported by a long neck, and how could it reach any food without its trunk? This trunk has, I am told, forty thousand muscles, so he can move it in any direction, stretch it out, roll it up, in fact do anything he wishes with it. At the end of the trunk is a little finger, with which he can pick up even a pin. Did you ever hand an elephant a bun, and see it take it with its finger, and then, bending its trunk up, put it into its mouth? I remember some years ago, seeing an elephant in the Central Park, in New York. It was a cold day, and though the huge animal was in a nice warm stable, I suppose he was chilly, for he kept picking up the straw around him, and laying it on his back.
Elephants are very strong; they can lift enormous weights, and they are so intelligent that they can be trained to do a great deal of hard work. Long ago, they were used in war, in the East. They were brought into battle covered with bright colored trappings, and a sort of small tower upon their backs, in which three or four men stood, and fired their arrows at their enemies. Now, however, we do not hear of their going into battle, but hunters often ride upon them, when they go out to shoot the terrible tiger, who so often infests the jungle.
Do we get anything of value from the elephant? Yes, his huge tusks are made of ivory, which is much sought after. As far back as the time of king Solomon, we read of ivory. This king not only built the beautiful temple for the Lord, but also a large and magnificent palace for himself. In this palace he had a wonderful throne made of ivory. It had six steps up to it, and on each step stood two lions of gold. This throne must have been one of the things which the Queen of Sheba saw, when on hearing of the fame of King Solomon, she came to see it with her own eyes. “She came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices and very much gold, and precious stones.” She brought these beautiful things as presents to the king, but what she gave him, was as nothing to what he gave her, for he gave her all her desire, everything she asked for, “besides that which he gave her of his royal bounty.”
Is not this like the Lord Jesus? Of His “royal bounty” He has given us a free and full salvation. We never thought of such a thing! We could not have imagined that the Son of God would leave His throne and glory to come and give His life for us, but He did it out of love for you and me. And now even as King Solomon gave to that Eastern Queen all she asked for, so He has promised to give us what we ask for, and at the same time, though everything is His, He is willing to take from us, what we have to give Him. Did you ever offer the Lord Jesus anything? Do not say you have nothing to give. If you love Him, you will find something; look in Hebrews 13:15, 1615By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. 16But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. (Hebrews 13:15‑16), and you will find two things that He is willing to accept from you, and there are many more.
But we must go back to our subject, and try to think where Solomon got all his beautiful ivory. The Bible says he sent ships once in three years to a place called Tarshish, and brought from there, “ivory, apes and peacocks.” 1 Kings 10: 22. This place is thought by some to have been Spain, and by others, India. Other kings besides Solomon brought ivory into Canaan. We hear in 1 Kings 22:3939Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? (1 Kings 22:39) that King Ahab built an ivory house, which probably means a house, the walls of which were inlaid with ivory. But I do not think all this extravagance was pleasing to the Lord, for in the prophet Amos we read, “The houses of ivory shall perish, . . . saith the Lord,” and the same prophet also says, “Woe to them . . . that lie upon beds of ivory.” How different those wicked kings were from our blessed Saviour, Who, though He was “King of kings” had not where to lay His head.
ML 11/14/1909