I'd like us to return to Song
of Solomon. I love the words of that hymn.
It's expressive, isn't it? of Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God, he to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood. O, the grace, how great a debtor,
daily on constrained to be, let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it, prone to leave the God I love, Here's my heart, O take and seal
it, seal it for by courts above. In Song of Solomon the Shulamite
has gone a-wandering and she's been sought by her Lord and she's
been caused to search for Him and we have in these beautiful
verses of chapter 5 her amazing description. her amazing description
of her Saviour, her Beloved. It's remarkable to look up in
the Old Testament where the word Beloved is used and where the
word Song of Solomon is used, where the word Love is used,
and Song of Solomon is just packed full of them, more than any other
book in all of the Scriptures. It's a beautiful, beautiful book,
and it's very, very wonderfully descriptive. wonderfully descriptive
of what it is for us to be in a relationship, a real relationship. with the Living God. It's interesting,
I'm going to see some friends of mine in Orange on Tuesday
having lunch with them. One of them I haven't seen since
university days, a long time ago, far too long ago to contemplate
and another fellow I haven't seen much of since that time. I don't know if you're like me,
but you actually sort of anticipate conversations, don't you? And
you think, how are they going to talk about What's going to
happen? Because they'll say, what do
you do? You see, normally when I tell them what I do, it's almost
as if you have to be sort of careful what part of the meal
they're eating in case they choke on it really because they're
so embarrassed about the fact that someone in this day and
age would be called to do the things I do and to say the things
I say. But the big question of course
is, isn't it, the one big question is, Is he alive? Is he alive? Intellectually and
historically, most people would say he is. But is he really alive? Is he really alive for you? For God's children? It's one of the most remarkable
things that's manifest, isn't it? That God is here, and God
is real, and God is active, and God is sovereign when he comes
to his people in love. They do know two things. They know the depths of their
ability to wander. They know something of the depths
of their sin. But also they are made by Sovereign
Grace to see the depths of the love of the Lord Jesus. and His work. And here in this
amazing portion of God's Word we have the Holy Spirit's description
of God the Son. It's in the words of the Shulamite,
it's in the hand of the pen of Solomon. But this is God the
Holy Spirit's description of God the Son. And it's a wonderful
description, isn't it? It's an amazing description of
Him. She is seemingly left, and she couldn't find Him. Verse
6, I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself
and was gone. Such a real experience of God's
people, isn't it? And my soul failed when he spoke. I sought him, and I could not
find him. I called him, but he gave no
answer. These are real experiences, aren't
they? The watchmen that went about
the city found me. They smoked me. They wounded
me. The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. So
here she is. She sought him and she couldn't
find him. She called him and he didn't
answer. And here she is, unable to see
him, unable to hear from him. She's wounded. The keepers of
the wall took my violent wife from me. They took the very thing
that signified her marriage. her purity, her chastity, and
she was left in their eyes like a common woman. And then she
calls out, she doesn't give up, she says, I charge you, our daughters
of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that
I am sick, I am sick of love. And then they ask this question,
what is thy Beloved more than another Beloved, O thou fairest
among women? What is thy Beloved more than
another Beloved that you so charge us? And then she describes Him,
we've been looking at this over this last little while. My beloved
is white and ruddy. He's both man and he is God. He's the chiefest among ten thousand. He's the chiefest of all humanity.
And then she describes him from head to feet. His head is as
most fine gold, his locks are bushy and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves
by the rivers of waters, washed with milk and fitly set. His
cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers, his lips like
lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold
rings set with the beryl. His belly is as bright ivory
overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillows of marble.
set upon sockets of fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon,
excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, yea,
he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved and this is
my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." You see, they ask a question
in verse 9. What is he? What is he to you? And having heard her description
of Him, they say in 6, verse 1, Where is your Beloved gone,
O thou fairest among women? Where is your Beloved turned
aside, that we may seek Him with thee? Isn't that a beautiful
thing? What is He to you? He is described
Let's seek Him together. That's a great description of
what it is that happens in church so often, isn't it? Let's seek
Him together. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven,
we want to acknowledge something of our sin that we are aware
of, Heavenly Father, how often we are prone to wander, how much
sin And Satan and this world entangle us, Heavenly Father. And so often, He who is our treasure,
He who is precious, seems remote. and distant from us. And we pray,
Heavenly Father, that this time as we walk through these amazing
descriptions that You've given us of Your dear and precious
Son, that we, like the Sulamite, would seek Him, and like the
daughters of Jerusalem, would want to go seeking Him together
with Her, She who represents His Church, His Body, Our Father
in heaven, we do thank you for the grace that has brought the
gospel to us. the grace that has brought the
Lord Jesus to this earth, the grace that has brought us to
Him. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that you might grant us fresh glimpses of His beauty, of His
glory, of the amazing promises that He's made, the remarkable
covenant that He entered into on our behalf, A covenant that
sees someone like Solomon, like someone like Solomon's father,
David. Sinners, obvious sinners. Sinners, willful sinners. But sinners, beloved of the Lord. Our Father, we want to confess
our sins before you. We know so little of them, but
we thank you and praise you that all of the sins of all of your
people have been drowned in the flood of the blood that flowed
from our precious Redeemer. We pray, Heavenly Father, that
we would find ourselves washed again, that we might gaze upon
Him and be thankful to His great mercy and His great love. We
praise You, Heavenly Father, that we have such a Redeemer
that we can boast of that we can tell others of, that we can
rest in. We pray you bless us with your
words about Him today, our Father. We pray in Jesus' precious name.
Amen. So we're just going to look briefly,
I trust, at these words that are in And as we've seen, the description
of the Lord Jesus starts with the description of Him who is
above all, God and man, in verse 10. And then she starts describing
His head, and by the time we get to verse 15, she describes
His legs. She's gone from His head to His
feet, and His head is one that is as most fine gold. We saw last time we were in Song
of Solomon that his hands are as gold rings. And now for the
third time it says that his legs are as pillars of marble set
upon sockets of fine gold. from head to foot. Our Lord Jesus
is glorious. Our Lord Jesus is precious. But before we get to these legs
which support all of this. I just want to look briefly at
the last part of verse 14. His belly is as bright ivory
overlaid with sapphires. The belly, of course, is the
tenderest part of the body. In verse 4 this same word is
used to describe bowels. In that language and at that
time and even now, it actually means the inner being. It means
the heart. It's speaking of the love the
Lord Jesus has for His people. His love, His grace, His mercy,
His pity, His compassion. She talks much of His love in
verse 2 of chapter 1 that says, Thy love is better than wine.
It's the love that is better than the things that delight
the sons of man on this earth. And it's a love in verse 4 of
chapter 1 to be remembered. We will remember thy love more
than wine. And then he takes her into his
banqueting house. into his chambers and his banner
over her was love in chapter 2 verse 4. And this love in 8
verse 6 is this love which is as strong as death in 8 verse
7. It's a love that is unquenchable. Many waters,
many floods of all the things in this world cannot quench His
love. And why does God love? It's remarkable, isn't it? It's
a great description of our God, isn't it? He's described in the
scriptures as God is spirit, and God is light, and God is
love. He loves because He loves, is
the answer to a scripture. It's a remarkable thing, isn't
it? In Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 7 it says, did not set His love upon you."
This is the people who were described in the previous verse as a holy
people under the Lord, a chosen people, a special people unto
Himself, above all the people that are on the face of the earth.
The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because
you were more in number than any people, for you were the
fewest of all people, but because the
Lord loved you. and because he would keep the
oath which he had sworn to your fathers, has the Lord brought
you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house
of the bondman from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt." It's
a great description of conversion, isn't it? To be brought out of
that house of bondage, that house of slavery and toil, to a place
of rest. But in verse 7, It really says
in verse 6 and 7 that he loves because he loves. He loves because
he's sovereign. He loves because that's his character. He loves because that is what
exists between the members of the Trinity. And you cannot have
the love of God outside of the Lord Jesus. Our friend Arthur Pink wrote
some time ago, maybe 50 odd years ago, 60 odd years ago now. He
died the year I was born. He said, there are many today
who talk about the love of God, who are total strangers to the
God of love. The divine love is commonly regarded
as a species of amiable weakness, nice weakness, a sort of good-natured
indulgence. It is reduced to a mere sickly
sentiment, patterned after human emotion. Now the truth is that on this, as on everything
else, our thoughts need to be formed and regulated by what
is revealed thereon in Holy Scripture. There is an urgent need for this. That there is an urgent need
for this is apparent not only from the ignorance which so generally
prevails, but also from the low state of spirituality which is
now so sadly evident everywhere among professing Christians.
How little real love there is for God. One chief reason for
this is because our hearts are so little occupied with His wondrous
love for His people. The better we are acquainted
with His love, His character, His fullness, His blessedness,
the more our hearts will be drawn out in love to Him. The remarkable
thing, isn't it, is that the Lord Jesus prayed that great
high priestly prayer. And the remarkable thing is that
the love of God for us is exactly the same as the love of God for
the Lord Jesus, because we and the Lord Jesus are one. And so this love, this love of
God is like all of God's attributes. They are but one. We divide them up so we can understand
them better. But we need, whenever we look
at one another, to put them all back together again and put them
into a context, put them into an eternal context. Because God's love is eternal.
God's love is sovereign. God's love is infinite. It is unchangeable. It is holy. It is gracious. His love no end
nor measure knows. No change can turn its course. Eternally the same it flows from
one eternal source. Solomon was born in the context
of grievous sin, of murder, adultery and death. And yet Solomon was
named by God, Jedidiah, beloved of the Lord. Why does Solomon
have the right, the honor, the privilege to carry these words
of God to us today? He was loved eternally. He was
loved infinitely, he was loved unchangeably by a God who knew
Solomon, knew his failings, knew his weakness. A God who knew
Solomon like he knows all of his people. He knows us better
than we know ourselves. He knows more about us than we
know about ourselves. But He loves because of His love
for His Son. He loves His people with an unchanging
and immutable love, a love that began in eternity. when all of
our lives were clear before Him. Our sins, our failings, our wanderings,
the wicked blasphemies of our youth, the sins that we delighted
in, God knew them all. And he looked upon his people
and he loved them. He loved them because in the
eyes of God, that land who is their entrance into heaven is
the land that was slain from the foundation of the world.
Our sins are gone. They're remembered on this earth.
Satan loves to cause us to remember them. Our conscience loves to
remember them. There's a place, brothers and
sisters in Christ, where our sins are no longer remembered. You can bring charges here on
earth against God's people, but there is no place for one of
those charges in heaven. Not one. God won't hear it. God won't hear those charges.
There is just love. This love is described as bright
ivory. Bright ivory is ivory that's
been polished. In its natural state, ivory is
dull, but bright ivory is polished. Solomon had his throne made from
it. As you who've handled it, you
know that it's incredibly hard. and incredibly strong. It's valuable
and precious, which is why they're killing elephants all over the
world, just for the sake of getting ivory even to this day. His loving kindness is better
than life. That's the loving kindness of
our Lord Jesus. I've loved you. with an everlasting
love. Ivory is strong and it is durable,
it is pure. There is no spot, there is no
stain, there is no blemish, there is no hypocrisy, there is no
deceit in love. He rests in his love. He rests in His love, that unchangeable
love. It's a love from ever, isn't
it? Having loved His own in the world,
He loved them to the end. I have loved you with everlasting
love. We quote from Jeremiah 31 often, don't we? I have loved
you with everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
you. You will not leave. This love
of our God is not this pathetic, wimpish love that we hear about
that can't do anything to get sinners out of hell. This love
is a love that began in eternity. This love is an effective love. It's strong. It's durable. And it's a love in which we can
find rest. We can find peace. Solomon's
name means peaceable. We can find peace in a world
that's like a tossing, restless, constantly changing sea. Here
is rest for weary souls. As I said, the love of God is
an eternal love, an unchanging love. The story of the prodigal
is the story of God's people in so many ways, isn't it? We
really, in Adam's flesh, said to our father, I wish you were
dead. I will take, I will take from
you all that you can give. Did you see the prodigal? He
was a son in that rebellion. In that hatred, in a sense, as
it would have been seen in those days of his father, he was a
son. In his sin, in his depravity,
in his degradation, he was a son. In his turning and his repentance,
he was always this, my son. In his coming back and begging
for mercy, he was a son. On his journey home, he was a
son. My son. You see, God's children
receive the blessings of God because of an inheritance. We don't receive the blessings
of God because of activities. We receive the blessings, the
spiritual blessings of God because we inherit. I have reminded you
before, and Lisa's here to hear it now, that her grandfather
did something quite remarkable. I hadn't heard of it much before.
But he, before any of his children were married, and when he knew
he was dying, he actually left his will, and in his will he
left his estate to his grandchildren. And then he left his children
to have the interest benefit of it. It's remarkable to think,
isn't it, there are ten of these grandchildren. Imagine one of them is incredibly
moral, really, really nice, and earns millions, is incredibly
wealthy. What does he get? He gets 10%. Imagine one of them is a complete
wastrel. None of them have that. But imagine
one of them is a complete scoundrel, lived his life in debauchery.
Ended up a junkie, ended up in jail. What does he get? He gets 10%. Why does he get
10%? Because he's an heir. Not because
he's been good or bad. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
when was your inheritance established? When was it established? Do your good deeds change your
inheritance? Do your bad deeds change your
inheritance? Isn't it wonderful? God's children
are sons. Galatians 4.6 is a very powerful
and incredibly significant verse. It's like so much of the scriptures. It speaks of grace. It speaks of grace in action. It says, because ye are sons,
God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. Not to make you sons, but because
you are sons. Sons from eternity. And you see this belly, this
heart of our Lord is strong like ivory and bright and polished
and durable and valuable and precious. And then it's overlaid
with sapphires. And we talked last time we were
speaking from Song of Solomon about those precious stones,
the sapphire and the beryl. They're all emblematic of those
precious stones that were on the breastplate over the heart
of the High Priest and written on those stones, those 12 stones,
are the names of the tribes of Israel. And the High Priest,
our great Lord Jesus, takes on His heart the names of those
people and He takes them into the Holy of Holies. They meet
with God, carried by Him, They meet with God in Him. They are perfectly acceptable
into that place that not one other human being on earth and
not one other human being except on that particular day and with
that particular sacrifice was allowed in there. Anyone else,
any other human being stepped foot in there and they died. But that high priest, carries
His people, these precious gems, these jewels that make up His
crown. He carries them into the Holy
of Holies. What a remarkable picture we
have of that high priest. He carries us in and these sapphires
express the glory of God in His covenant purposes, the glory
of God in the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And in Exodus
24, we don't have time, but there was a remarkable incident in
Exodus 24 where 70 of the elders, plus Moses and Nadab and Abihu
and Aaron, they all went up onto the mountain and they met with
God. Who did they meet with? They
met with the Lord Jesus on this mountain. It's remarkable. They went there because of a
blood sacrifice. And then it says in verse 10,
it says, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under
his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone, as it
were the body of heaven in clearness." They entered into the presence
of God. the heart of our Lord Jesus,
bright ivory, covered with sapphires. It speaks of His glory. It speaks
of the magnificence of His throne. It speaks of the glory of His
people, the Nazarites. The beauty of the Nazarites is
compared to sapphires in Lamentations 4-7. And it speaks in Isaiah
of the glory of the Church. We must move on. But it's a beautiful
thing to contemplate, isn't it? That those stones are representative
of all of God's elect. They are named, they are chosen,
they are precious, they are carried. But also there's one other place
where they were carried. They were carried on his shoulders. And the next part of this verse
it says, the question of course is, what bears all the weight
of this? The next part of the verse says,
his legs are as pillars of marble set in sockets of gold. And the
marble there is a reference to white marble. Marble is strong,
it is pure. It speaks of power, doesn't it? It speaks of a pillar which is
able to bear all that's laid upon it. It speaks of something
which is lasting. As I've said sometimes before,
it's remarkable to think those pillars in Ephesus and Rome and
other places have stood there now for 2,000 years in a part
of the world that shakes a bit. Those pillars are there. These
pillars are far more impressive than those. It speaks of lasting,
immovable things. And what does Christ have to
bear? Just think of some of the things that our Lord Jesus bears. He bears the weight of the whole
universe. He upholds all things. I presume
if he doesn't uphold it, it collapses, which is exactly what Hebrews
2 says. He upholds all things by the
word of his power. He made all things, he rules
all things and he upholds all things. He bears the weight of the covenant
of grace. Adam had but a small weight placed
upon him in a perfect situation and he couldn't bear it. No creature
has ever borne the weight. The creatures have fallen in
every environment they've been placed in. You think of them,
the angels fell. Satan was an angel. Adam and Eve were placed in the
perfect garden, the most perfect situation, walked with God. They
fell in the blink of an eye. Noah, what a remarkable situation. We have increased sin because
we have increased population. Imagine their situation, just
eight, four families. You could spread yourselves out
far enough so that you could not be a bother to your neighbours.
What does Noah do? Probably from the first crop
of grapes, he gets drunk and one of his sons is cursed. Wherever man has been placed,
wherever the creature has been placed, no matter what the circumstances,
they have fallen. And brothers and sisters, you
and I do too. We need to be upheld. We have
no strength in ourselves. We have no power in ourselves. God's people are sustained by
the covenant of grace. All the blessings of that covenant
come from Him. All the promises, as we've talked
about earlier, are yes and amen in Him. As Hebrews says, they
are better promises. It's founded on a better covenant.
I love what Zechariah says, of the sure mercies of David. What remarkable testimony David
bore to God. As he says on his deathbed, the
Lord has made with me an eternal covenant, ordered and secure
in every detail. David was weak, David was fallen,
but all of his joy and all of his salvation was in another
place and in another person. You see, he bears the weight
of that covenant of grace. He bears the weight of all the
elect. See, man's legs support and carry
the body. That's what's pictured here,
isn't it? These pillars, these legs, are pillars of marble. They carry the body, they carry
the church. They are carried in the everlasting
covenant. They are carried, as it were,
on his heart, on the cross. Just look at some of the words
referring to this in Isaiah 53. He has borne our griefs. He has
carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed. The Lord has laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. My righteous servant shall justify
many, for he shall bear their iniquities." Just think of the
iniquities that he must bear. Think of your own, think of my
iniquities, what iniquities he bore. He bore the sin of many,
and he bore it in his own body on the tree. And to put those
sins away, he bore all the weight of the judgment of God Almighty
upon the sin that was carried by him. He earned it as his own. He suffered punishment as if
it were his own. and he bored away like that scapegoat,
bored away never to be remembered by God. They'll search for their
sins. They'll be searched for and they
will not be found. And he's done it all for his
church, and he bears the weight of the government of his church.
He bears the weight of every individual. He bears the weight
of carrying those living stones and putting them into that temple.
He bears the weight of all the churches, individually and collectively. He walks in their midst. He bears
the burdens of his people. He's willing to bear them. He
has the ability to bear them. He has the desire and the power
to bear them. He bears them up under trials
and afflictions. He says, in all their afflictions,
He is afflicted. He is one with us. He supports
us and He holds us. He bears and sets a limit on
temptation. There has no temptation taken
you but such as common to man. Temptations are common things. But God is faithful. He will
not will suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able,
but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that
you may be able to bear it." He sets limits, my brothers and
sisters. He carries them. He carries them
even to their grey hairs. He carries His people into Heaven
itself. In fact, we are now seated there
together with Him, created, redeemed with His precious blood, saved
from sin and Satan and the world, and He bears all the glory of
this house that He is building. He bears all the glory of His
Father's house. He builds the temple. He shall
bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings crying, Grace,
grace unto it. He builds His church. And these
pillars have their strength because they are straight and they are
true and perfectly upright. I lay in Zion for a foundation,
a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste. Judgement will I lay to the line
and righteousness to the plummet. His building will be perfectly
perpendicular. Things will be perfectly level.
That cornerstone which sets out the place of the whole building
is perfectly placed by God. Straight and upright. He's righteous
in all His ways and holy in all His works. The pillars speak
of firmness, of unmovable-ness. They speak of constancy. He is
of one mind and who can turn Him? And then these pillars are
set in something that no earthly builder would ever set them in.
They're set in sockets of gold. As I said earlier, at the very
head, his head is as the most fine gold. His hands are as gold
rings set with a barrel. His hands of providence, his
hands of sovereignty over all of the things of this world.
And those rings speak of eternal things, no beginning nor end. They speak of marriage. They
speak of that union. The basis and the foundation
of all this, these sockets of gold, is this eternal covenantal
purposes of God Almighty. He works all things after the
counsel of His own will. And singing in heaven right now
is a multitude beyond number. And they say in the words of
Revelation 15, 3 and 4, Great and marvellous are thy works,
just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints, who shall not
fear thee. Gold is precious. to you that
believe He is precious. Everything about our Saviour
is precious. He's precious in His person. He's precious in His offices
as Prophet, Priest and King. He's precious in His character. He's precious in His dealings
with His people. His sacrifice is precious. He's precious in his sovereignty. See, to describe him is to describe
his work. You cannot separate the true
from the true. And gold is durable. And remarkably, as you see those
pictures from Russia, you see those domes. When did they put
that gold up on those domes? Hundreds of years ago. And it
shines. It's beautiful, isn't it, to
think that this pillar, set in the sockets of gold, retains
its luster despite all the things that this world throws at it
to weather it away. Our Lord Jesus is the builder
of His temple, which is His Church. He is the foundation of it. He
is the substance of it. He is the glory of it. He alone can bear the glory,
says Zachariah. He alone bears all the glory. As he said of himself, one greater
than Solomon is here. Let's finish with these words
from 1 Peter 5. Humble yourselves therefore under
the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,
in His due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth
for you. He can bear it, brothers and
sisters. Let's pray.