Let us turn again to God's Word
in the text that we were considering this morning. The Song of Solomon
chapter 4 and verse 16. The last verse here in chapter
4 in the Song of Solomon. Awake
O north wind and come thou south blow upon my garden that the
spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his
garden and eat his pleasant fruits." I said this morning I want us
tonight to consider the second of the two sentences that constitute
this particular verse as it's laid before us here in the Authorized
Version here in The last part of the verse, we have prayer
being made to the Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let my Beloved
come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruit. And so earlier
this morning we were looking at that opening sentence and
I said that there we really have prayer being addressed to the
Holy Spirit. This word wind. It's the same word that our square
in the Old Testament is rendered breath or spirit. and as we said
then it is the context that determines whether we should render it as
wind or breath or spirit but it reminds us does it not of
the ministry of the Holy Spirit the Lord Jesus Christ himself
when he speaks of the new birth in John chapter 3 how the sinner
must be born again, it must be the work of the Spirit, it's
a spiritual birth and Christ says that the the wind bloweth
where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not
tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that
is born of the Spirit those mysterious circuits of the of the wind are
representative of the sovereign operation of the Holy Spirit
in fact the the words as we have them in that verse there in John
chapter 3 wind and spirit are from the same root in the Greek
of the New Testament as I have said it is the same Hebrew word
that in the Old Testament is rendered either wind or spirit
and so we thought this morning of this prayer that is being
addressed really to God the Holy Spirit, Awake O North Wind and
come thou South, blow upon my garden that the spices thereof
may flow out. Remember how in the book of the
Prophet Ezekiel we see God directing that man to address his prayers
to the Holy Spirit with regards to those in the vision of the
valley of the dry bones. Those bones had come together,
they'd been covered with sinews and flesh, but still there was
no life in them. Then said the answer to me, prophesy
unto the winds. Or as the margin says, the breath.
Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind. Thus saith the Lord
God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these
slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded
me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood
up upon their feet, and exceeding great harmony. Oh, He calls upon
the Spirit. It is not improper at all to
pray to the Holy Spirit. The usual manner of prayer, of
course, is that we address the Father. When we come to pray,
Christ in His patterned prayer says, when you pray, say, Our
Father. and we pray to the Father and
we come by and through Him who is the only mediator even God
the Son manifest in the flesh the Lord Jesus Christ and we
recognize how necessary is that ministry of the Holy Spirit who
comes to to help us in our infirmities who indicts through prayers or
we come then through the Son by the Spirit to the Father But
it is not improper to also address prayers to God the Son and God
the Holy Spirit. And so here in the first part
of this particular verse we have a prayer. A prayer addressed
to God the Holy Spirit. And as I said in the second part
that last sentence of the verse we have prayer being spoken to
the beloved, let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant
fruits. Were there not those in the days
of Christ's humiliation here upon the earth who prayed to
him, that Canaanite woman that we read of in Matthew chapter
15, how she worshipped him. Oh, she recognised who he was.
She worshipped him. Worship belongs to God. And she
worshipped the Lord Jesus Christ, saying, Lord, help me. What worship it is, when we come
in the name of Christ, when we call upon him, that he would
grant us that gracious aid and help and enabling. Yosef Hart
says that Christ is God I can avouch and for His people cares
for I have prayed to Him as such and He has heard my prayers.
Can we say that? That we've prayed to Him we've
asked Him to come and save us and He's heard our prayers and
He hears prayers. It is a request that might be
if I would come into His garden and eat His pleasant fruits and
then we have the answer The very next verse in the beginning of
chapter 5, I am come into my garden, he says. I am come into
my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with
my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. I have drunk my wine with my
milk. These, O friends, drink I drink abundantly, O beloved. And we observe there in that
opening verse of chapter 5, it's the past tense. It's the past
tense, before they call, I will answer, he says. While they are
yet speaking, I will hear. Here is the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ. How we see the Lord himself speaking,
as we said this morning, how he commends his church, he uses
his figure of the God, At verse 12, following a garden enclosed
is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy
plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, campfire
with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the
chief spices. A fountain of gardens, a well
of living waters, and streams from Lebanon. What a description
it is of the church under this figure of the garden. And it is the Lord himself who
speaks and so commends us. And now we have that response
in the words of our text. Christ's words are, as it were,
turned into a prayer. Oh, let my beloved come. into
his garden and eats his pleasant fruits. Well, first of all, as
we come to consider this part of the verse, I want to say something
with regards to the believer's relationship to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we notice relationship immediately
in that she speaks of him as my beloved. Oh, it's the language
of appropriation. He's not just the Beloved, no,
He is my Beloved. Now, what is the reason and what
is the basis of this relationship? Well, we're told in the New Testament
by John in that first general epistle in chapter 4 verse 19
that we love Him because He first loved us. or we can never be beforehand
with Him you see we love Him because He was first He first
loved us says John here in His love not that we love God but
that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for
our sins all that amazing display of the love of God how before
time was created, before the foundation of the world, He had
made choice of a people and He had set His love upon them. And
He had determined that He would do all that was necessary for
their salvation, even sending His only begotten Son, the Son
of His love, to be the propitiation for their sins, to bear in his
own person, all that holy wrath and indignation of God against
the sins of his people. That's what propitiation reminds
us of. It reminds us of that Godward
aspect of our sins, that God is angry with the wicked. Our
sin is so detestable, he can by no means clear the guilt.
Expiation is another word, a theological term. It speaks of the effect
of sin upon us. It's made us guilty. but when
sin is expiated the guilt is taken away but propitiation deals
with that Godward aspect that God's wrath must be appeased
and the Lord Jesus Christ is that one who was born in his
own person all that wrath of God against the sins of his people
for scarcity for a righteous man would one die Yet for adventure,
for a good man, some would even dare to die. But God, God commendeth
His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Oh, the love of God the Father,
that He did not withhold His Son, even His only begotten Son,
but was pleased to deliver Him up for sinners. And then, of course, also we
have to take account of the love of the Son. What He cost the Son of God.
And why would He do such a thing as to come into this world and
bear in His own person all that wrath of God? Why would He so
willingly come to die as a substitute in the sinner's room instead? it's love Christ also loved the
church we're told and gave himself for her and how he loved having
loved his own which were in the world he loves them unto the
end or he loves them to the end's degree his love for them terminated
in all those sufferings that he had to endure in order to
redeem them, in order to reconcile them to God. Here is the basis
then of this relationship. Let my Beloved, she says. Why my Beloved? Well, we love
Him because He first loved us and so there's a response here.
There's a response. He first loved us, says John,
but we love Him. Or do we know what it is to be
those who can say that we love Him? We love the Lord Jesus. And we love to use this language,
this language of appropriation, to speak in these personal terms,
these intimate terms, to address Him as our Beloved, my Beloved. my beloved think of Thomas he
was not present on that occasion when the Lord came and appeared
to the eleven as they were in that upper room on the day of
his resurrection that first day of the week but on the following
Lord's day Thomas who had been so doubting was present with
them when the Lord came again showed himself to his disciples
and invites Thomas to put forth his hand and to thrust it into
his wounded side and to put his finger into the wounds upon his
hands we're not told whether Thomas did such a thing but what
did Thomas do? why? Thomas answered my Lord
and my God there's a response if that love of God is truly
shed abroad in our hearts, there will be a response. There must
be a response. There must be that language of
appropriation. We cannot but love Him. Who are
we those who truly love Him? And love Him to this extent that
we would confess Him, we would make a public confession of Him. That's the significance, is it
not, of believers' baptism. It's owning and acknowledging
Him to be our God and our Saviour. And in that, of course, we are
but evidencing our love by obeying His commandments. It is what He expects of His
children, that they will, if they love Him, keep His commandments.
He says as much, if you love Me, keep My commandments. Well, here then we see relationship. we see relationship. And this
whole prayer that is contained in the text tonight is pressed
on the basis of relationship. Let my beloved come into his
garden. It's because he's my beloved
that the request is made that he come into the garden. There's
an interesting verse in the 119th Psalm, that
long psalm, and there at the beginning of verse 94, David
says, I am thine, save me. Here is the basis, you see, of
his request for salvation. I am thine, I am thy creature,
he's saying. I am thine, that sinner whom
thou hast so quickened and awakened that I'm aware of my need. I am thine. The work is altogether
thine in my heart. Save me. And so here, it's because
I'm loved of God and can address God as my beloved that I desire
him to come into the garden. Oh, the significance of this
little word, My, My Beloved. Now, this is how we are to address
God when we come to pray. When the Lord instructs His disciples
and gives to them that patterned prayer, He says, when you pray,
say, Our Father. We don't just say, Father. We
don't just say, My Father. why we embrace one another we
embrace our brethren and sisters when we come to pray we say our
father but we address him in that language that indicates
that he is ours and we are his there is in here relationship
and the relationship lies at the very basis of the prayer
that is being made. It's my beloved. But let us in
the second place look a little more carefully, a little more
closely at the request that is being made. What is the request? Well it is for the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Let my beloved come into his
garden. Now we can think of the coming
of the Lord Jesus in a variety of ways. There is of course Christ
coming in the flesh. And we tend at this season of
the year to think of that great mystery, that great doctrine,
the doctrine of the incarnation. We know not precisely when it
was, exactly what time of year it was, but we do know that it
was that time that had been foreordained and appointed for all eternity.
When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His
Son made of a woman made under the law. It was that time that had been
ordained and right back at the beginning when our first parents
sinned in the Garden of Eden that terrible account of the
four and the curse that comes and remember how the curse is
spoken to the serpent enmity between thee and the woman between
thy seed and her seed or there would be the seed of
the woman the woman who was first in the transgression saved through
childbearing is in up there in Timothy some reference to that
remarkable childbearing this one who has a human mother but
has no human father he is the seed of the woman and the time
comes and we have the record of course and it's all detailed
in careful historical context as we read the opening chapters
of the Gospels, when that decree went out from Caesar Augustus,
that all the world should be taxed, we're told precisely when
it was. But it was that time that was foreordained of God,
the fullness of the time, the coming in the flesh of the Lord
Jesus Christ. What What a mystery it is! What a mystery it is! Without
controversy. Right is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. He cannot be controverted, says
Paul. This is what happened. God was
manifest in the flesh. Our God contracted to a span. Incomprehensibly made man. He comes in the flesh and he
comes ultimately to die. What do we read in the Gospel
there in the opening part of John chapter
18? When Jesus had spoken these words,
his great high priestly prayer, when Jesus had spoken these words
he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron where was
a garden into the which he entered and his disciples and Judas also
which betrayed him knew the place for Jesus himself of times resorted
thither with his disciples it was a garden and it was a place
where the Lord of times went with his disciples it's Gethsemane
And it's very much Christ's garden, is it not? It's Christ's garden. Oh, let my beloved come into
his garden. And what a garden it is, Gethsemane. It means the wine press. It was there at the foot of the
Mount of Olives, and we're told there was probably a wine press
in the garden. Not a wine press, an olive press
there in the garden, where the olives would be pressed. And
there, of course, as we see the Lord wrestling with God in his
prayers, anticipating all that he knew was before him, the great
sacrifice that he must make, how his own soul is like a heaving
press. As he wrestles there in prayer,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, he says, nevertheless,
not as I will, but as thou wilt. Oh, he comes, he comes in the
end of time. Now once in the end of time hath
He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Here
He comes. Here He comes. There were those,
we know, who were at Jerusalem, who were looking and watching
and waiting for His coming. We read of Simeon in Luke chapter
2 Verse 25, Behold, there was a
man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon. And the same man
was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Ghost was upon him,
and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should
not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Oh, he was
looking and watching and waiting for that coming, that appearing. And not only Simeon, what do
we relate to here in verse 36 there was one Anna, the prophetess,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asa. She was of great
age and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity.
And she was a widow of about four score and four years. which
departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings
and prayers night and day. And she coming in at that instant
gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of Him to all
them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. Oh, there were
those, you see, who must have known something of this prayer.
Let my beloved come. They were longing for His coming,
for His appearing, and He did come. He came in the fullness
of the time and He came in the flesh, the God-man. And then of course there is to
be another coming. The New Testament speaks much
of His coming again, His second coming, when we come to the book
of the Revelation. There in the opening chapter
of that remarkable book we're told of His coming and the manner
of that second coming. Chapter 1, verse 7, Behold, He
cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also
which pierced Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because
of Him. Even so, Amen. always to come
again. John sees him now in glory. The glorified Savior
is what John is favored to have revealed to him there. But he
speaks of that coming of Christ again, the second time. The one
to whom the Father has committed all judgment. Remember the language
again, it's John in his gospel this time. There in chapter 5,
the Father judgeth no man, he says, but hath committed all
judgment unto the Son, and given him authority to exercise judgment,
because he is the Son of Man. Or the Father doesn't judge,
it's the Son who is to come and sit as that One who is the Great
Judge. We refer just now to the opening
chapter of the Revelation We go right through to the very
last chapter. There in chapter 22, the end of the Scriptures,
He says, Surely I come quickly. O let My Beloved come. Here is the Lord's response,
I come quickly. And as we said at the beginning,
this prayer is already answered as we see in the very next verse,
I am come, He says. Even so, come quickly. That's what we
should desire, is it not? He's appearing, He's coming again. Even though He comes to be that
one who is the terrible judge of all, surely I come quickly. Even so, Lord Jesus, Amen. Or would we say our Amen to that?
Do we long for His appearing? Are we looking and watching for
that blessed appearing? unto them that look for him shall
he come the second time we are told without sin unto salvation
there is that first coming then there is the great mystery of
the incarnation there is the promise of his return he is to
come again but now doesn't the Lord Jesus Christ also come?
doesn't Christ come to us today? He comes in His words. He comes
in His words. He is the words incarnate. That's how He's spoken of in
the opening chapter of John. The words was made flesh and
dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And what is the Bible? Well,
the Bible is also the Word. It's the Word of God. It's the
Word inscripturated. It's God's voice here in this
blessed book. And we're familiar with those
lines of the hymn of Joseph Hart, The Scripture and the Lord bear
one tremendous name, the written and incarnate Word in all things
of the sight. As we come to this blessed book,
it's Christ who speaks, is it not? Look at chapter 2 and verse 8.
The voice of my beloved, behold, he cometh. He comes by his voice. He comes to speak to us. My sheep,
he says, hear my voice. Have you ever heard the voice
of the Lord Jesus Christ? As the Lord Jesus dying to come
and speak to you as you've read the Word of God, as He dying
to come and speak to you as you've heard the ministry, the preaching
of the Word of God, He comes. He comes by His Spirit, He comes
in His Word. He speaks to us. It's the mark
of those who are the sheep. We are to give all diligence,
Peter says, to make our calling and election sure. There are
those who are much troubled by the great doctrine of election,
fearful, unsure, uncertain, are they elect or are they not? The
secret things belong unto the Lord, our God, the things that
are revealed belong unto us and to our children we are told.
But observe the order that Peter gives us here He says we are
to give all diligence to make our calling and election. How do we know whether or not
we are those of the election of grace? We know that by effectual
calling. We look to our calling. We have
to examine ourselves. Are we those who have ever heard
the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to us in Scripture? Oh, He comes here and He comes
with such gracious words, such kind promises. Why the Word of God is full of
such kindly words to sinners. Oh, the Lord is pleased to come
to us and to say to us such things as we read in Isaiah 35.4, say to them that out of a fearful
heart be strong, fear not, behold your God will come with vengeance,
even God with the recompense He will come and save you. That's
the Word of God. You see how the Lord speaks to
those who are fearful. In the context, strengthen ye
the weak hands, confirm the feeble knees. All these, you see, who
feel themselves to be nothing but weakness and frailty, and
they're fearful. But the Lord comes to them. And
He comes to save them. All the Lord does come, He comes
in His Word. That is the great mark of the
day of grace, is it not? Behold, now is the accepted time
and behold, now is the day of salvation. What a blessed people
we are that we have the Lord Jesus Christ coming to us when
we turn to His Word, when we come into a service such as this.
Is that what we desire? That we might meet with Him,
that we might be able to see beyond a mere man standing in
a pulpit, and not be listening to the words of the preacher,
but heartening for the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
comes in His Word, He comes, of course, by His Blessed Spirit. Oh, that's how He comes. It's
not enough to have the Word of God. No, I don't say that in
any disparaging way it's a great blessing to have the word of
God but we want more than the word of God when Paul wrote to
the Thessalonians he spoke about how the gospel had come to them
and he says not in word only not in word only Not enough just
to have the Word of God. We don't just obtain a blessing
if we decide, well, we read so many verses and so many chapters
a day. We'll read so many in the morning
and so many in the evening. We don't just obtain a blessing
in that mechanical way. We need the words to be applied,
we need the Holy Spirit. And He's the one, of course,
who is spoken of, as we saw this morning, here in our text, Awake,
O North Wind, and come, thou saith, blow upon my garden, that
the spices thereof may flow out. Well, we need the Spirit, and
the Lord Jesus, He speaks of that ministry of the Spirit,
as you know, in those blessed chapters there in John, chapter
14 and verse 16 he says I will pray the Father and He shall
give you another comforter that He may abide with you forever
even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because
it seeth Him not neither knoweth Him but ye know Him for He dwelleth
with you and shall be in you I will not leave you comfortless
I will come to you well see what the Lord says here in verse 18
He is going away, He must go away Otherwise the Spirit will
not come. And yet though we go away, He
comes again. I will not leave you comfortless,
He says. I will come to you. How the Lord
comes. How He comes by that blessed
ministry of the Holy Spirit. He came to the Ephesians, did
He not? He came to them through the ministry
of the Word when Paul writes to them, he reminds them, he
says, you have not so learned Christ, if so be you have heard
Him and been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus. They heard
Him. They were taught by Him, although the Lord never went
to Ephesus there in Asia Minor because His ministry was to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel. He was there in the ministry
of those men when they preached the gospel, the Spirit of Christ. And what we have here of course
in the context is the Lord coming, the whole idea of fellowship
as he continues there in Chapter 5, I am coming to my garden,
my sister, my spouse, I have gathered my myrrh with my spice,
I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine
with my milk. Eat, O friends. Drink, ye drink
abundantly. O Beloved. It's a feast. The sharing of a feast will come
to that present. But all its real communion that
he's spoken of And that's something that is known and felt, is it
not? To feel the coming of the Lord. To feel that gracious presence
upon our own spirits. It's not the believer's constant
experience. It seems that Job, dear Job,
he'd known something of it. And there in the midst of all
those terrible trials, He looks back and he recalls those days
in chapter 29. Moreover, Job continued his parable
and said, O that I were as in months past, as in the days when
God preserved me, when his candle shined upon my head, when by
his light I walked through darkness, as I was in the days of my youth,
when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle, when the Almighty
was yet with me, when my children were about me. Oh, he looks back
so longingly, and he wants to know those experiences again
and again. Oh, is that what we desire, friends?
That our fellowship might be with the Father, and with His
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Here we have the believer's request,
And what is the believer's request to the Lord Jesus Christ? That
he come. Let my beloved come into his
garden and eat his pleasant fruits. And so finally what we have here,
of course, is a great feast. A glorious repast. They are pleasant fruits. Let
him eat his pleasant fruits. Why are they pleasant fruits?
Well, they're his own. They're his own. Isaiah 60 verse 21, the branch
of my planting, he says. The work of my hands. Any good
that's in us is not of ourselves, it's the work of God. It's the
gracious work of the Spirit, applying the things of the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is what makes them such
pleasant fruits. But how the Lord is pleased to
condescend. And He does come, He comes down.
In chapter 6 and verse 2, My Beloved
is gone down into His garden, to the beds of spices, to feed
in the gardens, and to gather lilies. Oh, My Beloved is come
down. an amazing act of gracious condescension
that the Lord Himself should be pleased to descend to us,
to come where we are. And He does that. He does that.
Why, He meets us at the very point of our needs. Did He not
do that to Jeremiah when he was in the pits, in the deep dungeon?
He thought of his prayer there as he cries in Lamentations chapter
3 out of the dungeon. How the Lord was pleased to hear
his prayer from that dark, dismal place, as we were thinking only
last Thursday. And was pleased to hear the cry
of poor Jonah out of the fish's belly, the belly of hell. The
Lord descends, you see, he comes, comes to us where we are. that
we might feel ourselves to be in such terrible places, such
deep places. The Psalmist, remember the language
of Psalm 40 for example. Where is David? He says, he brought
me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and
set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings, and he
hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many
shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. Blessed is
that man that maketh the Lord his trust. And respecteth not
the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Oh, the Lord comes,
you see, He descends. His gracious condescension. And
He comes to invite. He speaks such kind words of
invitation here in the end of verse 1 in chapter 5 he says
eat so friends drink yea drink abundantly oh beloved yes he will eat his pleasant
fruits but how he delights to share these things with his people it's that great gospel feast. It's that that is spoken of in
the book of the Prophet, again there in Isaiah's book in chapter
25. At verse 6, In this mountain shall
the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things,
a feast of wines on the leaves, of fat things full of marrow,
of wines on the leaves, well refined, Oh, it's that blessed
Feast, the Feast of the Gospel of the Grace of God. And what
is that Feast? Why? He feeds His people with
Himself. We read that familiar 6th chapter
of John. Christ, the Bread of Life. That's
what He feeds His people with. He feeds us with Himself. We are to eat His flesh were
to drink His blood. For we are favoured, we are privileged
to partake of all that that sets before us. It's not some carnal
feeding, it's not the blasphemy of the Romish mass. You know the teaching of the
Church of Rome, the doctrine of transubstantiation, how that
the poor, benighted, The papist imagines that the priest has
changed the wafer into the body and blood and the soul and divinity
of the Lord Jesus, and simply by partaking of the wafer is,
in some mechanical way, feeding upon Christ. It's not that. It's
spoken of in John 6. It's a spiritual feeding. It's
all that the incarnation speaks of. It's all that the blood speaks
concerning Christ's death, his crucifixion. It's feeding upon
Christ in his person and in his work. And he invites us to come. Behold, he says to that Laodicean
church, and he was in many ways in a sad sorry state, lukewarm,
neither hot nor cold. And he threatens he'll spew them
out of his mouth. But then that gracious words
addressed to the church at the end of Revelation chapter 3,
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice
and open the door, I will come into him and sup with him, and
he with me, says the Lord. This is what he is pleased to
do. Oh, it's such a mutual fellowship, you see. It's a feast to be shared. And this is the man This is the
man how the scribes and the Pharisees were so dismissive of him. Why
this man was one who would go amongst the harlots and the publicans
and the sinners. And they ridiculed him. This
man receiveth sinners, they said. This man receiveth sinners. and
eat us with them. That's the glory of the Lord
Jesus Christ, is it not? He is the friend of sinners.
Are you a sinner? Well, if you are a sinner, let
me tell you this without any doubt at all, there is a savior
of sinners. And this is the one that's spoken
of here in the text. It's the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
He loves sinners. Let my beloved come into his
garden and eat his pleasant fruits. And what does he say? And we'll
close on this. I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse.
I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb
with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my
milk. Eat, O friends. Drink, yea, drink abundantly. O Beloved. Amen.