I'll turn with me to Psalm and
Solomon and I just wanted to spend a little bit of time before
we have the Lord's Supper and I head off to the beach looking
at those two verses in five and six and the Shulamite is declaring
as a result of of her fellowship with him as a result of him coming
to her and kissing her with the kisses of his mouth, and as a
result of him revealing that his love is better than wine,
and as a result of him having poured out his good ointments
of his name, the glory of all of the attributes of God is poured
out, having been a participant with the other virgins in loving
you, and then she makes a cry. draw me and we will run after
thee. The king hath brought me into
his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in
thee. We will remember thy love more than mine. The upright love
thee." Now someone with all of those remarkable privileges,
you would think that the very next words that came out of her
mouth would be something about how special and privileged she
is. But listen to what she says. I I blank. But comely. First, black, but comely. Comely means beautiful, lovely,
suitable. And here she is speaking to the
daughters of Jerusalem, and she's declaring to those others who
came and rejoiced. She said, daughters, I'm black,
but comely. I'm black, but comely. You daughters
of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
Verse 6 says, it looked not upon me because I black, I am black,
because the sun has looked upon me. My mother's children were
angry with me. They made me the keeper of the
vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept. It's a glorious picture, isn't
it? Sin is black. Sin's master is darkness. Sin's defilement is blindness,
isn't it? God's people, in the very presence
of God, are brought to know what they are. Simon and Jenny were
out there the other day, and when Simon used to live next
door, we used to mow the grass, and there would be, at the springtime
of the year and through the summer, these little white sort of filaments
come up all over the kaikia lawn, and Simon used to call them the
flower of the grass. What is man? And that's what
we are, to proclaim, aren't we? What shall we cry? All flesh
is grass. I tried to find some up here
and I couldn't find it. But if you go out and have a
look around the grass and have a look at the flowers, there's
a sermon illustration in them, isn't it? There they are. And
they're substantial ones compared to the ones on the lawn, aren't
they? And you can mow off millions of them and all it takes is a
hot breeze and they are gone. Our life is short in our life. According to James chapter 4
verse 14, our life is a vapor. And when Simon spoke to me about
that and showed it to Jenny, the flower of the grass, I thought,
well, need to be reminded yet again of what the scriptures
declare us to be. Across the bottom of our paddocks,
just a couple of hundred yards down from the house, there's
a little lower patch of ground and there's a vapour that comes
in there all the time, a mist that comes in there. And I often
think of that verse that James 14 says, our life is but a vapour. We think that we are something
special and we think that we can make plans, and he says, They say, this is what people
say, isn't it? Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such
a city, James 4, 13, and continue there a year and buy and sell
and get gain, whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? What is your earthly life here?
It is even as a vapour that appeareth for a time and vanishes away. and that vapour that comes across
the paddock there can be really sort of strong and thick and
look like it's substantial and a couple of minutes later it's
gone and it's continually moving and so what a picture of the
fall and that's what this lady in the Song of Solomon is declaring
isn't it she says I'm black I am fallen in the Father Adam. A
vapour is just a fog, isn't it? It's on the ground at home, but
in cold weather you can just breathe out and you'll have a
vapour come out of your mouth. You've experienced that, no doubt.
But a vapour is constantly changing. What a description of life! outside
of Christ and life in this flesh. It's always just rolling around.
It's always in perpetual motion. At one moment, it looks like it's
something substantial and then it's just gone. The wind passes
over it and it's swept away and there's nothing there. And such
is our lives, isn't it? It looks like it's something,
and obviously physically it is tiny little water droplets, but
they just disappear into nothingness. God has made that vapour that
we would know what we are. The vapour is unsubstantial. It's unreal. It's almost dreamlike,
isn't it? You can't get your hands on it.
It eludes your grasp. It is little more than a shadow,
an appearance. And God says that is our life. A vapor is transitory, isn't
it? It's formed, it appears, it changes,
it looks as if it's going to be of something of substance
and then it just dissolves. There was a time when we weren't. and physically in this world.
And there's a time when we're no longer physically in this
world. And if I asked you to tell me something about your
great-grandfather and your great-grandmother or some of those others, you'd
be, like me, at a loss to try and figure it out. I'd have to
think hard to figure out their names. And they're closely related
to us in some sense, aren't they? The vapour is constantly changing. The vapour disappears while we're
looking at it. The vapour is unsubstantial.
The vapour changes and the vapour disperses as it goes upwards. Our lives are going from here
into eternity as our days are numbered here. There is a meeting. There is a meeting and there
is an eternal destiny. We are, like the rest of Adam's
race, born with a physical body and a soul, but God's children
are given and that soul is eternal. The soul never dies. Therefore,
the things of time and the things of eternity and the things of
the presence of God, the things of the meeting with God and the
things of being in his presence and taking the things that he
says with the greatest of seriousness, it's just incredibly powerful. Incredibly personal, incredibly
poignant and incredibly serious. But in the midst of all of that,
these pictures in the Scriptures of the Lord dealing with His
Bride are just so beautiful. We'll see in Song of Solomon
that this lady's life, the Shulamite's wife, is like that vapour. She
has moments of extraordinary closeness and union, then she
has moments of the most extraordinary wickedness and she has moments
where she has him in her embrace and then moments when she's searching
and looking for him. But I love the way this glorious
love story begins, isn't it, with her delighting in his presence,
delighting in what comes from him, delighting in his word,
delighting in his name, delighting in the fact that He alone has
to draw her to Him for her to be in His presence, for her to
be glad and to rejoice, for her to remember His love. She has to be drawn, and that's
exactly what we are, isn't it? We have to be drawn. This life
which is a vapor, this life which is like the flower of the grass,
it just disappears. But this is the result, isn't
it? It's just lovely how she declares what she is to the daughters
of Jerusalem. I am black. What a great description
of sin, isn't it? What a great description of what
we were. Ephesians 5.8 says, You were
once darkness. Darkness. The tents of Kedar,
they were the sons of Ishmael. And the psalmist in Psalm 120
says, Woe to me that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among
the tents of Kedar. Sin is black. Sin causes the
children of God to be those who cry out. When sin is only ever
revealed by God the Spirit, they only people who call themselves
black are those who the Holy Spirit has worked and convicted
them of sin and righteousness and judgment. The carnal mind
is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. We are, according to Ephesians
chapter four, corrupt according to seekful lusts, black, sinners
by nature, sinners by choice, sinners at heart. Sinners, enabled to declare to
others around them what they really are. We are very, very good at parading
our righteousness and defending our righteousness, and you only
have to be offended a little bit, a tiny bit, and you'll see
that your flesh will rise up and you will want to be esteemed
as highly as you want to think of yourself. It's in the presence
of God Almighty that we are brought so low. As soon as there is the
work of grace wrought upon a soul, there is what she cries out here
in the midst of all of those extraordinary blessings. In verse
6 she says, Look not upon me because I am black, because the
sun has looked upon me. My mother's children were angry
with me. They made me the keeper of the
vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept. What beautiful, what amazing
grace brings humility to people. As soon as there is a work of
grace in the hearts of God's people, there is an enmity that
rises up, isn't it? A man's foes, according to the
Lord Jesus Christ, will be they of his own household. And he
that was born after the flesh persecutes him that was born
after the spirit. So it is now. The greatest enemies
of the Gospel and the children of God, the greatest enemies
of their confession and their dependence upon the Lord Jesus
Christ and their humility, are those who believe themselves
righteous in their own eyes and despise others. Those who believe that by some
act of theirs they can do something to make up for what they are
with God. Someone who says they're black
is not looking for what they can do. They're looking to what
He must do for them. She says, look not upon me because
I am black. Don't look upon me with a jealous
or suspicious eye. What you see on the outside is
what I'm prepared to confess, but also there's much, much more
that's worse inside than you can possibly imagine. criticize
and condemn our brothers and sisters or other people in this
world. We are pointing the finger at ourselves. And for those who
have been in his presence, they will declare that I am black. They made me the keeper. They
made me the keeper of the vineyard. They put me to work. They put
me to work. That's what happens in religion,
isn't it? They take the G out of grace and it becomes a race,
doesn't it? And the prize is to the strongest
and the fittest and the wisest and the cleverest. Not so with
the children of God. She shrinks from notice. She
wants to be hidden. Her life is hidden with Christ
in God and she wants to be hidden. And then she confesses, and this
is what someone who's been in the presence of the Lord confesses,
doesn't it? My own vineyard I haven't kept.
My own vineyard. I've been made to do all this
work, but my own vineyard I have not kept. She's black, but comely. She's black, but beautiful. The beauty is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The beauty is in what he sees
and what he does. The beauty is in him, his kisses. The beauty is in his name. She
wears his name. She's called the Shulamite. That
means it's a feminine of Solomon. the one who his peace in his
very name brings peace to her as she is robed in his righteousness
and she bears his name and she has his peace and she can be
honest she can be honest What glorious freedom there is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. If He is all of my righteousness
and I have absolutely none, then I don't have any righteousness
to defend. I don't have any righteousness to declare. I don't have any
righteousness about which matters anything. all my righteousness, and you
can't take it away from me. All of my righteousness, all
of my legal obedience before the holy law of God sits now
in heaven. Don't tell me what I have to
do, I can't keep my home in here. If you think you can, then maybe
you haven't been kissed, and maybe his good name hasn't been
pulled out, and maybe you haven't drawn And maybe you haven't cried
out as verse seven says, tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth. She's speaking to the Lord Jesus
Christ as the shepherd here. Where thou feedest, where thou
makest thy flock to rest. At noon, in the heat of the day,
when the sun is shining in all of its brightness and all of
its ferocity and all of its glory, they rest. They rest. He feeds, as you'll see later
on in Song of Solomon, he feeds among the lily. He feeds and
he calls his people to feed with him. He rejoices. in who he is, and he rejoices
in his bride. You tell me, you tell me where
you feed, where you find your sustenance, where you find your
satisfaction, and where you make your flock to rest. It's in exactly
the same place. Don't you love that? You're made
to rest. Run, John, run, the law demands. Begives us neither feet nor hands. Better news the gospel brings.
Bids us fly and gives us wings. Rest. What a glorious word, rest,
is. I'm off to have some rest by
the beach and I'm very, very much looking forward to it and
very much in need of it. But isn't rest sweet? You strive to enter into his
rest, which means you put aside all of the things that the world
and religion is telling you to do, do, do, and you look to him. You look to him. I love how we
have been reading his promises, and we keep reading his promises,
and we keep being astounded by his promises. And his promises
come with blessings of great, great grace, and they come in
power to the hearts of his people. He says at the end of 2 Corinthians
3, but we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory
of the Lord. Listen to what he says. Talk
about progressive sanctification. Isn't this an amazing verse?
are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord. You make your flock to rest.
We rest in the green pastures of His Word. We rest in the shepherd's
arms. He carries Isaiah 40.11. He carries
the little ones in His arms. Don't you want to be carried?
That's why he washed the disciples' feet, didn't he? We are told
to wash each other's feet. Tell me how amazing the Shepherd
is. Tell me how amazing the Shepherd
is in carrying me through the troubles of this world. I can't
keep myself, and I'm black to start with. His good name. I can rest in
His love. I can rest in Him and with Him. If He's resting and He's feeding,
I want to be there. I want to be there. For why should
I be one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?
There are flocks that are turning aside all the time, aren't there?
Multitudes turning aside, turning aside, turning aside, turning
aside from grace to works, turning aside from Christ to Christ plus
something they have to do. Tell me. "'O thou whom my soul loveth.'"
What a lovely, lovely description. For someone who can say, I'm
black, and the only beauty I have is the beauty that he puts upon
me. Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, despite her sins, she
still loved him. Despite her life under the sun,
she still loved him. Despite her treatment by her
family, despite her treatment by the religious world, She still
loved him, despite her own backslidings. She still loved him. Being drawn into his chambers. He draws us into his chambers,
that's where he rests, doesn't he? And in that place, God's
children confess their sins. And what is he? We come to him
and we confess our sins. We confess that that sin is what
we are, and sin is what we do. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. That's what it is to be comely.
That's what it is to be comely. Being drawn into his chambers,
his place of rest, she acknowledges and confesses that that's what
she is. She's just a sinner. If we say, is to be a sinner. To be brought
into his chambers is to rest in the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ alone, to feed upon his word, to love all that Christ
loves, to love Christ above all, to love Christ despite what's
around. I am black, but come me. Tell
me, tell me where you make your flock to rest at noon. May we
rest in his finished work and in his glorious being and in
the glory of his grace to his people. Let's pray. Our Father,
we thank you for your word. We thank you for not only the
extraordinary truths that are in it in so many marvelous ways,
but the glorious pictures are in it and we pray, Heavenly Father,
that you would cause us to know what we are, but rejoice in what
we are in our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that his broken body was shed In His people, as much as they
see sin in themselves all the time, in Him there is no sin,
the sins of all of His people. Oh, may we come to the fountain
and find ourselves washed in his blood again and again. And
may we, Heavenly Father, find ourselves continually asking
him to take us to a place of rest. Rest with him and rest
with his flock. We pray these things in the name
of our dear and precious Saviour and for your glory, our Father. Amen. Thanks, Col.