If you turn in your Bibles to
the Song of Solomon, maybe you children or some of you other
people might have wondered, why is the Bible such a thick book?
It's amazing, isn't it? You actually gave me the opportunity
to summarise it. You could actually write the
Bible in just a few pages, couldn't you really? You could just, God,
and then you could have subheadings, sovereign, and subheadings underneath
sovereign, and then you could have omniscience and omnipotence
and all of those things, and then you could have man, and
you could have all of these. You could actually summarise
it down into Just a few pages. You just think of books like
the Book of Judges. It's just a cycle, isn't it?
The people are rescued and put up in the most remarkable place,
the land flowing with milk and honey. And God puts their enemies
down, then they get proud. They can operate by themselves. They can do this. And then they
fall into terrible wickedness. And when they're in their desperation,
God sends another deliverer and they cry out, and God rescues
them. And in no time at all they're
back in the same place. And we see that cycle, don't
we, all through the Old Testament. You can summarise the Old Testament,
if you wish to, in a couple of pages. and you could summarise
the serious nature of the Lord Jesus and what happened on the
cross. And you could have it as just a simple systematic theology,
couldn't you? And you could reduce it down
to its simple things. But the story of the Bible is
this big. And it's repeated again and again. And it's a story, it's his story
of course, but it's a story of his interaction with people.
And it's a story that reminds us again and again that real,
real Christianity, real salvation is a heart knowledge. a relationship
with God, a relationship with God in the Lord Jesus, an intimate
relationship, a communion. It's not for nothing that we
call the Lord's Supper, or some people call the Lord's Supper
communion. It's a common union, isn't it? You actually take that symbol
of the Lord's body, that unleavened bread, and leaven in the scriptures
represents sin, that body without sin, and you take that wine,
that wine that's had the leaven removed from it to produce wine. It symbolises His blood and you
actually take them into yourself and they which have life in them
become life inside of you. true Christianity is a living,
breathing, real relationship. And it's interactive, isn't it?
And it has, sadly from our perspective, it has all the ebbs and flows
which we see in the scriptures. God pursuing those that he has
loved from eternity. The Lord Jesus coming for his
bride and as Ezekiel says he searches over hills and dales,
he goes to the very ends of the earth to find his bride, to bring
her to himself and to make her one with him. But the bride,
as we see in Song of Solomon, has this dynamic relationship,
which is just so expressive of what it is for us to live in
this world. And here in Song of Solomon,
Chapter 5, we find that bride being asked the question, which
is in some ways a question that we'll begin with, a question
that we'll end with, but it's a question that's asked of you. And it's a question that's asked
of me. And I cannot answer for you,
nor can you answer for me. Let's just read the question. And it's repeated so that we'll
get the emphasis of it. What is thy beloved more than
another. Song of Solomon, chapter 5, verse
9. What is thy beloved? What is
he to you? Who is he to you? What is thy
beloved more than another beloved? The world is full of beloveds
of one sort or another. What is thy beloved more than
another beloved, O fairest among women? What is thy beloved more
than another beloved? that thou dost so charge us."
She actually put these daughters of Jerusalem on an oath. The oath was, if you find my
beloved, tell him that I am sick of love. Let's just read these
verses again so that we can understand the context. Chapter 1, verse
5, the Lord says, I've come into my garden, my sister, my spouse. This is after the marriage. I have gathered my myrrh with
my spice, I've eaten my honeycomb with my honey, I've drunk my
wine with my milk. He feasts, he feasts on what
the Spirit has taken of his and done in her life. He feasts and
then he says to the friends, O friends, drink, yea, drink
abundantly, O beloved. And in verse 2 we find the beloved
in a state that sadly we find ourselves in so very, very often. I sleep, but my heart waketh, She's woken. It is the voice
of my beloved that knocketh saying, open to me my sister, my love,
my dove, my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew and my
locks with the drops of the night. Then she replies to him, he's
come to her, he's come to her. telling her what he's done for
her. My love, my dove, undefiled. She is black, who is black, knows
herself to be black, is called by him undefiled. He calls her
his sister. She's one with him and he talks
about how he's achieved it. His head is filled with dew and
my locks with the drops of night. Then she says, I put off my coat,
how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall
I defile them? A frivolous excuse is what she
gives him in response to his amazing grace. And then he who
will pursue his bride to the ends of the earth goes even further. My beloved put his hand by the
hole of the door and my bowels, my heart was moved for him. He stirs her heart to get up. I rose to open to my beloved
and my hands dripped with myrrh and my fingers with sweet smelling
myrrh upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. My heart, my soul failed when
he spoke. I sought him, but could not find
him. I called him, but he gave me
no answer. Has that been your experience,
brothers and sisters? It has been mine. I've been mine
again and again for long periods. I sought him, but I could not
find him. I called him, but he gave no
answer. The watchman that went about
the city found me. These men who should have been
keeping Jerusalem, keeping this city as a place for the king,
as a place for the gospel, and as a place for his bride. The watchmen that went about
the city, they don't ask who she is. They don't know who she
is. She's just been married to the
king of the city, and they don't know who she is. She didn't seek
them, and they didn't seek to know about her. They smoked me,
they wounded me, and the keepers of the walls took my veil from
me." That veil represents her marriage to the Lord Jesus. It represents the thing that
allows him who is holy and undefiled to be one with her, to be married
to her. Holiness must do two things when
it meets with other people. It either must make them perfectly
holy as He is holy, or it must consume them. in perfect justice. She can be one with him. She
can be called his spouse, his sister, because she has been
made so by him. She's undefiled in his estimation. And they take that away from
her. And then maybe because of the
commotion of all of this, She comes across the daughters of
Jerusalem. I charge you, our daughters of
Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him, tell you, tell him
that I am sick of love. It's a love sickness that she
now feels. See, it's a heart longing for
the enjoyment of fellowship with Him who is her life, who is her
all. It's not a call for salvation,
it's not a call to renew love. She calls Him, My Beloved. It's a call and a cry for her
to have Him with her again. And she calls and she cries this
in Song of Solemn because she's experienced it before. We only
miss the things that we have enjoyed. We miss the delights
of Christian communion and fellowship with Christ because we're delighted
in it. We've found it refreshing to
our souls. We've found it life transforming. In the scriptures, the people
who meet the Lord Jesus in saving grace. meet him and they go away
and they are never the same again. Think of Saul of Tarsus. She'd
been with him in his chambers, under the apple tree, in his
banqueting house, in this garden enclosed. She'd been with him. She had experienced, she'd experienced
a communion, a union, a presence, a real living presence of the
Lord Jesus, which had captivated her heart, and now it was missing. He was missing. He was missing. You see, God's children are underfollowed. As the scriptures say, being
justified being justified, having been justified in eternity, having
been justified by the Lord Jesus and His work of perfect holiness
before the justice of God. Romans 5.1 says, being justified
by faith we now have peace with God. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no peace without Him. He is our peace. Therefore, like the Shulamite,
His absence, His manifest absence from us is an absence of peace. And she cannot rest. She gets
up. She gets clothed. She walks about
the city even when she is beaten. and smitten and wounded by these
people who have the name of God's watchman, but don't know God,
nor know His people. Here she is in this state, her
veil taken away from her. smitten, wounded, distressed. She's still seeking the Lord
Jesus, isn't she? She says to the next people,
she says, I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find him,
tell him, tell him that I'm lovesick. Tell him I am sick of love. There is a sickness, there is
a longing, there is a hunger in the scriptures that are spoken
of so often. And it's a sickness and it's
a longing and a hunger with promises attached to it, only experienced
by the Lord's people. Blessed are they that do hunger
and thirst after righteousness. Who hungers and thirsts after
righteousness? Go about this town today and
find me someone who hungers and thirsts after righteousness. You see, they have their own
righteousness. They're not hungry if their righteousness
is satisfying. They're not thirsty if the righteousness
that they have achieved before men. And men can look at it and
say, there goes a righteous man, there is a sound man. God's children. hunger and thirst
after righteousness. It's not seen by themselves,
and it's not seen by others, but a righteousness fit for heaven,
a holy, pure, undefiled. The Lord Jesus calls out to people,
doesn't he? Come to me, all ye that are weary
and heavy laden. And what's the promise? And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Take my
yoke upon you. It's the beautiful pictures and
who are those, who are those in the very context of those
verses that hunger and thirst, who are weary and heavy laden. The very verse before it explains
who they are, only the bride feels these things. He says,
I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and
have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for it seemed
good in Thy sight. All things are delivered unto
me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father,
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." This
blessedness, this weariness, this heaviness is for God's children. You see that which causes Such
pain is because there is a dissatisfaction with everything else. God's children
are dissatisfied, unrestful until they rest in Him. And this lovesickness
causes the zeal in this lady, a zeal that he brings to her
which presses on even when she is shamed, even when she is misunderstood. by people who would claim to
have known better. The sickness is caused by his
absence. The sickness is caused by her
consciousness of her wrongdoing. He had come in such grace. As we read earlier, Peter talks
about the trials that we suffer. We suffer trials from outside
and trials from within. For a season, if need be, you
are in heaviness through manifold temptations. There are so many
temptations that come. and cause us to look to those
things rather than look to Him who has provided so abundantly. Is there any lacking in Him?
What's He short of? Is He short of money? Is He short
of possessions, our God? Is He short of power to provide? It's a love sickness. the fee
brings because she has been in His presence. It's a lovesickness
that's caused by love's delight, no longer being present. As I said earlier, it's only
those who have loved and have been loved who understand what
it is to go without it. we so easily take the things
of this world for granted. I look back on my life with so
much gratitude to God and thankfulness, because I feel like I've failed
in just about everything I've done. I've been a very successful
failure, I feel. But one of the trials in my life
that I've never ever forgotten, and I've spoken to many of you
about it, was when Jennifer was two weeks old. She was born on
the 13th of January and early February I had to leave. for
this project that we'd got ourselves embroiled in. Through temptation,
through desire, some of it to do good things, a whole bunch
of it just to have for myself. And it all went belly up and
it became a big mess and I had to go to Oberon, which is I think
four hours drive from here, Graeme, isn't it? It's about four hours
to Oberon. Not a pleasant drive through Goulburn and on that
jolly gravel road. And I was away from my family
effectively for the next 13 months. In fact, when I came home and
Jennifer was a baby, Lisa had to introduce her to me because
she didn't know who I was. It was just the most appalling
thing. I had never got over the pain of it. I never got over
thinking about what it was like to have that year, that whole
year and it went on and on and financially and emotionally and
personally everything was a disaster, an absolute disaster and I couldn't
get out of it. I had no way out. In the mercy
of the Lord, my family survived and we had times together. But
sometimes Lisa had, when I was in Gloucester, which was even
further away, Lisa had to come to the northern suburbs of Sydney
and I'd drive down and I had to get up at two o'clock in the
morning and drive back to Gloucester. I could never drive past that
road to Gloucester without thinking of how painful that was. And
then it might be weeks before I saw them again. It was just,
anyway. But see, what was the problem?
It wasn't just the fact that it was uncomfortable where I
was, and we had lots of people working for us, and it was a
trial. What I was missing was something
I'd experienced. I was missing the fact that I
loved them, and I was loved by them, and they accepted me as
I was. And I had to wait. And that's
one of the lessons, isn't it? One of the lessons the scriptures
keep reminding us is that we are so much wanting to be gratified
now, here and now. And the Lord continually causes
His people to wait. And it's a blessed waiting. Wait on the Lord, says Psalm
2714. Wait on the Lord and be of good
courage. And here is the promise. And
he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. The great rely of religion. The great lie that is told us
again and again is that there is within believers the power
to hold an intimate and loving communion with the Lord at any
time of His choosing. The religious world has perfected
its instruments, hasn't it, especially over this last hundred years
of bringing people into some state of emotional euphoria and
saying that this is God. God is doing this. It might be
music. It might be rituals. It might
be great and awesome buildings. It might be ceremonies. It might
be emotion. But you can actually create an
atmosphere and that atmosphere can bring you into the presence
of God. Man can get God to do his bidding. Isn't that nice for us? We just
love a little spot on the throne, don't we? We love a God. We love to think of a God who
will do our beck and call. Not the God of the scriptures.
This is not the experience of Son of Solomon. It's not the
experience throughout the scriptures. God has caused His people to
wait and He's caused them to go through extraordinary periods
of longing and languishing. Job is remarkable, isn't he? Beloved of God, held up by God
as an object of His love and His special care. What does Job
say? He says in 29, 2 and 4, he says,
Oh, Lord, I were as in the months past, as in the days when God
preserved me, when his candle, when his lamp shined upon my
head, and when by his light I walked through darkness. Have you experienced
that? walking, knowing His light, seeing
the darkness all around because of His light. As I was in the
days of my youth when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle. Oh that I could be back like
that again, just like the Shulamite. And then he says in chapter 23,
verses 8 to 10, Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that
I might come even unto his seat. Behold, I go forward, but he
is not there, and backward but I cannot perceive him. On the left hand, where he works,
but I cannot behold him. He hides himself on the right
hand, but I cannot see him. Then he has this remarkable declaration,
Job who knew his God, Job who went through the most extraordinary
trials, the extraordinary sense of God's absence from him, despite
his efforts to find him. He says this remarkable statement
doesn't he in Job 23.10. He knows the way that I take. And when He has tried me, I'll
come forth as gold." Did Job come forth as gold? What was
the gold that Job had at the end of that book? The gold that
Job had at the end of that book was a real and amazing and intimate
knowledge of God, and a more real and honest knowledge of
Himself. God causes His people to wait. Noah waited all that time to
build the ark, whether it was 80 years or 120 years, but he
had to wait. Abraham had to wait. He had a promise from God. and
he had to wait 25 years. Jacob had to wait all that time,
14 years of labour to get his wife. Joseph probably had to
wait 20 years or so in Egypt before he was rescued out of
that jail. Moses spent 40 years in the desert,
tending sheep, a prince of Egypt, one who knew that God had a call
on his life and had things for him to do. Forty years he made
him wait. David was anointed king by Samuel
as a young man, maybe not much older than Jack. And he was a
much, much older man, 20 or 30 years he had to wait. And he
waited patiently, knowing that God had made a promise. Brothers
and sisters, we are a people, the people of God have received
promises. and we don't see them fulfilled
and we're in agony over what we see in ourselves and we're
in agony over what we see happening in the lives of our brothers
and sisters around us. But we will all, all of God's
children will say, like Job, but he knows the way that I take."
Of course he knows the way that he takes. He's ordained it from
eternity. Every little tiny step. I love Proverbs 16 verse 9, isn't
it? In his mind a man plans where he's going and the Lord determines
his footfall. You cannot take a step in this
world as a child of God without God determining where it lands. He knows the way I take. When
He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." So these trials
that Peter talks about, these trials that our friend here,
the Shulamite, who represents the Bride of Christ in this amazing
book, these trials are trials which cause her to hunger and
thirst. You see, He knows how to draw
His people after Him and to Him. He knows how to renew that hunger
and thirst. He knows how to cause that weariness,
that heavy laden spirit. He knows how and when to lead
them again to rest in green pastures. And She knows it. She knows because
she's experienced His promises and His presence. And here she
comes to these people, these daughters of Jerusalem, and they
ask that amazing question. that question that I would like,
in some sense, to leave you with, and we might look forward, if
the Lord wills, in anticipation to going through her answer. You see, the remarkable thing
is that this is not the end, is it? She's asked this searching
question. What is your beloved? What is he more than another
beloved? and people have asked in the
commentators' debate about who the Daughters of Jerusalem are.
I think in the context of this passage and this book that the
Daughters of Jerusalem represent younger believers. They're daughters
of Jerusalem. It's remarkable their testimony,
isn't it? They saw her. They saw her reflected. They saw her wounded, smitten. They saw her beaten. They saw
her outcast. They saw her They saw her seemingly
without her veil on, without that covering of ownership of
she and the Saviour. And yet they say to her the words
that He says of her. You see, they call her, O thou
fairest among women. exactly the same words that he
uses of her you see they saw her even in this state as beautiful
as he did they saw her not as the world sees her they saw her
not as the religious world sees her they saw her our fairest
she knows that she's black They know what she looks like, but
they say who she is, in Christ, justified in His righteousness,
washed in His blood, sanctified by His Spirit. Beautiful. What is thy beloved? Who is he
to you? What is thy beloved more than
another beloved? You see, I can't answer that
question for you. It's a question that you are
being asked. This is God's Word. It's a question
that you must seek an answer from Him for. Is He? Is He beloved? Is he beloved to you? I was led, I don't know why,
I picked up Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It's remarkable, isn't it, the
church has sanitised Foxe's Book of Martyrs, but it was remarkable
in the early church in those, after the Reformation, which
transformed and took away so much of the dark veil that Catholicism
had spread over much of the known world, and now is spreading apace
again in its wicked evil deception, now transforming itself, as it
were, into an angel of light, as deceptive and as evil and
more dangerous than ever before. But when that great veil was
taken away and the light of the Gospel shone,
upon our ancestors, the books they had in their house, if they
had access to books and could read, they would have Pilgrim's
Progress, they'd have Fox's Book of Martyrs, and they would have
the scriptures. They were the books they read
in Fox's Book of Martyrs, excerpts from Fox's Book of Martyrs was
read in churches regularly every Sunday. Part of the reason, of
course, is that like the early church, the people in those generations
suffered the most extraordinary persecutions. There were ten
waves of persecution. in the first 280 years of Church
history after the resurrection of the Lord, which meant that
they were spaced out fairly evenly, which meant that there was never
a generation in those 300 years where they didn't know of fathers,
of sons, of brothers, of cousins, of dear beloved church members
who had died, who had died because of their love for the Beloved. Some of them are just so remarkable
and heart-rending. The story of a young woman in
North Africa who had a baby and they were trying to be compassionate
for her. And she had a very simple way
out. She could have her baby and have
her life. All she had to do was just a
little bit of incense, a few drops of wine, pay homage to
the Roman gods, you can have your baby and you can go free.
And just before, at her last trial, they brought her father
in. And the father held the child
in his arms and the judge pleaded with this young woman, save yourself,
save your father's grey hairs, save your baby. All it is is
a little bit of incense and they took her away to be executed. As Hebrews 11 says, the world
was not worthy of them. They thought it was a small thing
and it was not for nothing that the church in the time of the
Reformation had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people
who died. They saw them die and the religious
people, like these watchmen here, preached sermons as they burnt
them, these brothers and sisters. You see, now we don't suffer
those things. We may again, in the providence
of God, do so. But we suffer a much more dangerous
situation these days. We suffer the danger of just
compromise. You can have peace with the world,
just compromise. Don't take the Lord Jesus quite
so seriously. Don't take these doctrines which
are really just the truth about Him, you don't have to take them
so seriously. We can all join hands together. We're all talking about Jesus. Our forebears didn't believe
that. Our church history is littered. It's a blood-stained history.
As the Lord Jesus said to his disciples in that last night,
he says, the world will think that it's doing God a favour,
it's serving God, They shall put you out of the
synagogues, yea, the time cometh, when whosoever killeth you will
think that he does God's service. And these things will they do
unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But
these things I have told you, that when the time shall come
you may remember, that I told you of them, these things I said
not unto them at the beginning, because I was with you. But now
I go my way to him that sent me." He's gone his way. But it was a way of the cross. It was a way of a blood sacrifice. And what does she say? She has
been led through this extraordinary situation. She's been asked that
searching question. She's been asked it twice to
emphasise how serious it is and how significant the answer is.
And then if you read at your leisure the next six verses,
Her immediate response, having been with these daughters of
Jerusalem, is that she, when she's asked the question, she
just breaks into praise, just like Paul breaks into praise
in his letters. When he starts talking about
the Lord Jesus, it just overflows. My beloved is white and ruddy,
the cheapest among ten thousand. And she starts at his head and
she goes to his feet, every part of him from top to bottom. is
glorious, his words are sweet to her, and then she says in
verse 16, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, she still
hadn't met him, she still hadn't had that comfort, but her comfort
comes from her talking about him, proclaiming the gospel to
her friends. This is my friend, oh daughters
of Jerusalem, He's absent, but he's her friend. He's seemingly
absent, but he's her beloved. He's seemingly absent, but she
calls him my beloved. He's white and ruddy, the cheapest
among ten thousand. and the daughters of Jerusalem
at the beginning of the next chapter say as we would love
others to say to us. Where is your beloved gone, O
thou fairest among women? Where is your beloved turned
aside, that we may seek him with you? Isn't that glorious? She'll continue seeking him.
and they are there seeking Him with her." It's wonderful to be led by the
Lord, to seek Him. It's wonderful to answer that
question in such a wonderful way. May God give you the grace
to do that. May God cause us to be honest
with ourselves and say, what is my beloved? What is he to
you? Let's pray.