At Psalms of Solomon, the second
chapter, verses 8 through 13, and of course we're continuing
on the thought and the truth and reality of this love relationship
between Christ and his people, Christ and the church. And in
verses 8 and 9, the church hears the voice of her beloved. sitting there observing her master, her Lord, and he speaks
to her and she hears him. And so let's look at these two
verses right now. This goes together, verses 8
and 9. The church hearing the voice
of Christ, her beloved. The voice of my beloved. Behold,
he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills my beloved
is like a row or a young heart behold he stands behind our wall
he looks forth at the windows showing himself through the lattice
so you kind of get a somewhat of an idea of the physical surroundings
of what's uh at least in your mind's eye in my mind is that
you've got this lattice work separating this wall of latticework,
separating the physical locations of Christ in the church, but
the voice of Christ, he speaks and she in the church hears,
the church hears. Turn to John chapter 10, John
chapter 10. John chapter 10, and look with
me at verse 27. John chapter 10, verse 27. Christ says in the Gospel of
John, He says, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and
they follow Me. Now, keep your hand there as
I re-read verse 8. The voice of My beloved Behold,
he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. He is
like a row or young heart. Behold, he stands behind our
wall. He looks for at the windows, showing himself through the lattice. He speaks to the church. And
as the sheep of his fold, he says, My sheep hear my voice.
And he says, I know them. I know them. I love them. I have
compassion upon them. And they follow me. Turn to 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13. He speaks to us by his effectual
calling in grace through the preaching of the truth regenerates
us through the Holy Spirit, causes us to see the blood, causes us to know
ourselves, causes us to understand the mind and the heart, what
we are and who He is. But it says here in verse nine
that he shows himself through the lattice. And is this not
also the case in first Corinthians, chapter 13, verse nine? We do
hear him and we do see him. But he says in verse nine of
first Corinthians, chapter 13, for we know in part and we prophesy
in part in verse 12. For now, we see we see Christ. We understand his gospel. We
see him and we know we know his voice. Because we're of his sheep. And he knows us and we follow
him. But you know as well as I do
that we still don't see things perfectly. We don't see things
as we should because we're still in this flesh. And that's what
he says here in 12th verse of the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians.
For now we see through a glass darkly. We do know him. We do love him. We do worship
him. We do understand His gospel,
but there's so much about Him that we don't know. He's on the
other side of the lattice. We see Him. We can recognize
Him. We understand Him through the
preaching of the gospel. This Christ, not another. This
gospel, not another, like Paul tells us in Galatians. It's not
another gospel. It's THE gospel. But oh, how
little we truly do know of Him. our finite mind trying to understand
the infinite which can't be done. For now we see through a glass
darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then shall
I know even as also I am known. There's one day there's not going
to be a hindrance. One day there will not be a need
for a video to listen to a message. There will not be a need for
this teleconference. It will not be because we'll
be joined together and joined together with our Lord. But right
now we suffer many things and we don't understand many things,
but that's just needful. So He touches us and He tries
us so we would, like a child, we would cling to Him. we would cling to him. I remember
so often the times when as Carol was getting older and being the
only child, she was independent in many areas, which we promoted
that, that was fine, but there were so many times that she would
step a little further than what she felt comfortable. And if
she knew we were around, when she was real small, when she
knew we were around, she could hear us, And she could see us.
She got bold. I remember one time when we were
out in a mall or somewhere shopping and she was doing that and I
was watching her and Linda was watching her and she got a little
bit further away and she didn't know I was watching her and she
got out of eyeshot. our earshot and out of sight
from Belinda and boy her face just, I mean it was just panic. Where's mom? Where's mom? And often times we hear the voice
of our beloved, we see him and understand him and believe him
but we're like Peter, Lord I believe but help my unbelief. We struggle
with so many things. You know, Bruce, we were out
praying for the service and made a comment that, you know, there's
so much going on this week. And it's Wednesday and this has
been a crazy week. It's been the last two days of
the month trying to get caught up in all these different things.
And it's just so much happening. Way more than what I would even
have thought about in high school. Way more than I would have thought
about in college. Way more than, you know, it just seems like.
You want things just to slow down. And you know, one reason
why it's so needful to come together as often as we do, is it is needful
to just take a breath. This stuff is, work's going to
be there tomorrow. Lord willing, you know. The bills
are not going anywhere. The hate, the anger, the false,
all these different things that we deal with, they're not going
anywhere. Oh, how important it is to repose, hear his voice
through the preaching of the gospel. And, you know, get all
worked up about so many things. But when I looked at this, these
two verses, the voice of my beloved, I thought to myself three things.
What a privilege it is to even when we hear a voice to know
it's His. That's pure, sovereign grace,
because we don't understand. By birth, by nature, and practice,
we have absolutely no clue what the gospel is. We hear of a Jesus,
a small j. We hear of a God in the pulpits
today, a little g. He is not the God of this book
whatsoever. So what a privilege The voice
of my beloved. What a privilege it is to hear
a voice, but know that it's the voice of our beloved. Because brethren, as Paul said,
as Peter said, John, all these disciples, Jude, all the disciples,
all the apostles, there are so many false teachers, false preachers,
and false gospels around. It abounds. It absolutely abounds. So one, I thought what a privilege
to even be able to hear a voice and know that it's His. The voice
of my Beloved. Secondly, what grace is given
to us to hear it as it speaks to me. You can hear a voice,
the voice of Christ, but is it speaking specifically to you? What grace to hear the voice
as it speaks to you and to me. And thirdly, what mercy it is
to hear Christ speak for me and for you. Somebody speaking to
you to have your attention. There's that communion. But then
when you get in trouble, or you get in harm's way, or you get
falsely accused, or Satan accuses you, or the flesh slays you,
or this world has you over a barrel, how blessed it is to hear this
voice for you. Leave him alone. He's one of
mine elect. Leave her alone. I died for her. Leave them alone. It's my church. So what a blessed
privilege it is to just to hear the voice that's his. Grace that
speaks to us and thirdly, mercy that speaks for us. Look at verses
10. Look at verse 10. He says, My
beloved, stay and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one. And come away. Rise up. My love, it's a particular, a
specific call. Not a universal. Christ doesn't
call everybody because he didn't die for everybody because the
Father didn't love everybody. And before the foundation of
the world, he wasn't sent for everybody. He says, my beloved
spake and said to me, specifically to the church, to the elect,
rise up my love, my fair one, come away. There's an outward
call which is enforced by the inward call of the Holy Spirit. Turn to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew
chapter 11. He speaks. He speaks to us. He says, come away. And then
we find here in Matthew chapter 11, verses 28, 29 and 30, the
same concept, the same principle. He spake. He says, rise up and
come away. And then Christ says in Matthew
11, verse 28, Come unto me, Christ speaking here, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. You
shall find rest under your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden
light. Now, we'll pause this for a minute,
and return to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. We're going to be having a couple
weddings this year. Yeah? No, one and two-sixths. One and oh-seven. Oh-six, oh-seven. But some people refer to marriage
as the old ball and chain. Hmm. Christ says about His marriage
relationship between us and Him that His yoke is easy. Bird and light. And when there
is harmony in the home, it is centered around Christ. And I'm
not going to say you're not going to argue, you're not going to
fuss, you're not going to fight, there's not going to be difficulties
because sin remains in the believer. There's evil present with the
believer, as John Newton would say in one of his books, one
of his articles. But when the home is centered around Christ,
loving one another, submitting one to another, It's not a burden. It's not a
burden. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. I told you this story many times
when I was with the city department. One of the workers, a friend
of mine and a friend of Belinda's, was engaged and was going to
get married. And he was working with me and
about four other married people, married guys, and we were all
out in one of the parks working. made a mistake of making a comment
out loud in front of everybody. And one by one, all these other
married men, and they were all married, they just told, don't
do it, don't do it. This is, you know, you lose your
identity, all these different things. And after they got done
talking, probably 30 minutes to an hour, then he, Doug turns
to me and he goes, well, what do you think? I said, it's the
best, if it's the right lady, if it's the right woman, it's
the best thing that'll ever happen to you. So you won't even want
to go back. And of course, I got I got ridiculed
for that. But he and I became closer because
of that comment in that statement. And I told him, I said, it's
it's it's a beautiful thing in the eyes of the Lord. First Corinthians,
I'm sorry, First Thessalonians, chapter two, verses 13 and 14.
Or again, we're in verse 10 of Song of Solomon, chapter 2, when
the Lord speaks to the church, my beloved spake and said to
me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. His calling
of his people. Look at 1 Thessalonians, chapter
2, verse 13 and 14. For this cause also, Paul says
to the Thessalonians, also we thank God without ceasing, because
when you receive the word of God, which you heard of us, because
God uses The means of preaching. The foolishness of preaching.
To say to them that believe. You received it. What's that? The
Word of God. You received it not as the Word
of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually
works also in you that believe. You see that? It works effectually. That's the Holy Spirit takes
that general call. That preaching meant the message
of the preaching of the Gospel. and he effectively works it in,
causing us to believe. But it's the Word of God. It's
not the Word of men. That's why you've got to be so
careful with these traditions. It doesn't make any difference
what denomination it is. If people just go back and go
back and go back and go back to some creed, a Nicene creed
or the Apostles creed or whatever the creed they want to call it.
If it comes from man, that's all it is. It's the Word of man.
When Paul was preaching to these people here, Using this book,
that which had been written, which would've been the Old Testament.
They took it, looked it over, and received it not, oh that
guy truly speaks well, he's a great orator. No, they heard what he
said, compared scriptures with scriptures, and received it as
the word of God. When you sit there and you talk
with somebody and say, well, now there's a bunch of air in this book,
or you take this out, that out, you've got no room. You can't
even begin to talk to anybody because this is the Word of God. It's not the Word of men. None who hear this sweet and
fragrant call will ever refuse it. They can't because we are
transfixed by it. That's what he's saying here.
Back to our text in verse 10. My beloved spake, and he said
unto me, Rise, my love, my fair one, and come away. And that's
what we're going to do. Because this is an effectual
call. You can refuse what I say. You can refuse what I preach.
You can refuse what I say the scripture teaches. But if God's
in it, and He has a hold of you, you cannot do it. Look at the
last couple verses, verses 11 through 13. Before the call from Him, before coming
to Him, before regeneration in the soul. This is what we find
in verse 11. For lo, the winter is past, and
the rain is over and gone, before we heard His voice. Now, I know
we thought we had spiritual life. I know we thought we had a spiritual
burning in the soul. I know we all think that we've
got some part of God in us from birth. But the truth is, before
our beloved spake to us in regenerating truth and told us to rise up
in pardon and free forgiveness and come away with him, winter
was our lot. And that winter, winter and rain,
signifies the bitter coldness of sin and rebellion against
God. Our soul is barren and lifeless. Sin and judgment is our lot.
You get people that talk about having cabin fever because they
go crazy because you look outside and it's grey. I don't mind winter
but after a certain point in time I want to see color. I want
to see those buds start bursting. I want to see life. And the only
reason why I want to see life and know what life is, Mary,
in the spring is because I've seen some springs before. Now,
all I ever knew was gray and no leaves, et cetera, et cetera. In the blind man, the lost man,
he's blind. He doesn't know what color is. He doesn't know what
grace is. But oh, when God starts to work in the heart and if we
ever get a taste, of His free, sovereign, meritorious grace. We won't want to go back, we
can't, but we won't want to go back to any of that stuff, that
nonsense. Linda and I were talking, illustration
to this, we were talking just today and the other day, one
of the, there's so much going on at work it's just crazy, but
one of the Well, probably the top guy that's been the top guy
for ever today. And when I came in, I gave him
a five year hiatus. You know, he was a top dog and
then I've been with the company seven years and for five or six
or whatever, then I was up there and then now he's, but he's,
he's definitely, I told him, Linda, he's, you know, he's a
guy, he's been through adversity. He's been with the company like
15 years and he's always finding a way to do very well. He's just
an excellent, excellent worker. Well, I found out yesterday that
he's wanting to move to Utah to stay with the same company,
but go to Utah to their place out there. So he's wanting to
leave the St. Louis area and he's wanting to go out there.
So I emailed the boss and I said, Melinda and I have talked about
it and we want to move to southern Utah, which is the southern part
of that territory, just to get them going because I like to
get them going. And as much as we enjoyed that
southern Utah, that St. George area, and it's gorgeous,
absolutely gorgeous, that landscape. You know what we missed? Green
trees. They ain't got it out there.
Oh, they've got some in their yards, in their water room. You've
got pinyon pines. You've got spruce. You've got
things like that, but you don't have you've got rock beautiful
looking rock escarpments you've got all these different things
but we got to talking we thought you know we would miss when we
came back there from Utah to here that was the first thing
we noticed no there wasn't any mountains rolling hills but green
green and we really enjoy this area. So you've got the Smoky
Mountains, 8,000 feet, and you've got Grand Canyon. We're at 8,000
feet. Completely different. Totally
different. So, before he calls us the winter,
it's winter, but he says, look at the way it's worded, verse
11, winter's past. And it's over, rain is over and gone. And oftentimes
we do think about where we were at before He saved us and how
He delivered us. And we shouldn't forget that,
but we need to always remember that right now we are in Him
and verse 12 and 13. This is the way the believer
is in Christ. Yes, but now in Christ, verse
12 and 13. Christ, grace, pardon, freedom,
mercy, salvation, as David said in the Psalms, we get honey from
that blessed rock, and that rock is Christ. The flowers, for lo
winter has passed, the rain is over and gone, but now the flowers
appear on the earth. The time of the singing of the
birds has come. The voice of the turtle is heard
in our land. The fig tree puts forth her green
figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, says Christ to the church,
my love, my fair one. And he restates what he said
in earlier verses, come away. Come away. And I know oftentimes
we feel as though Things are barren, things are
cold, things are winter. And we like I said, we do go
through those times, but oh, we need to smother ourselves
in this book, smother ourselves in the fellowship of God's people,
smother ourselves in the gospel of God's grace and see that in
him. Flowers singing. Fig trees putting
on green figs. The vine has the grapes on it.
And a good smell. And I looked at that and I didn't
really say anything about that but you could go off on that
if you wanted to. False religion has a foul smell. Has a foul
smell. I don't care how pretty. I don't
care how big. I don't care how ornate it is. I met with a preacher the other
day. Nice guy, really like him. Really likeable fella. Big church. All the bells and whistles. They
had more kids in there just doing some projects than we've got
members. It's dead. There's no gospel
there. Nothing. You can have all that. and you can have everything around
it, but where there is no gospel, it is not a good smell at all. Well, he conquers our blackened
hearts, he gives a new heart with newness of life, newness
of understanding and belief of the truth, We worship him and
we continue with him. Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away. He's not leaving without us.
That's the beautiful. That's almost the way it seems
to be intended. He is not going anywhere without us. He shed his blood, extended his
life to the fullest. And perished, as it were, physically.
You could say that for us. But he rose. He didn't stay in
that grave. He rose. Victory over Satan, death in
this world. And he is not going home without
us. He's not going to do it. I like this, the last two words
of the last verse in our section, verse 13. Come away. Come away. Come away from self and go to
him. Come away from sin to reconciliation,
from death to life everlasting, come away with Him. Everything that we need and we
have to have and we must have is found in Christ. This song of Solomon's is worded
so well, so in joy, it's so full of emotion and feeling and That's what a marriage is. Melinda
and I have talked about this many times. We know people who
once the kids are gone, they're together. They put up with one
another. We're not going to separate or
divorce because we've been together for so long. I don't want to
be that way. I don't want to be the lack or
the negative. I want the presence of the positive.
This is kind of a relationship. And in Christ, we do. In Christ, we do. May you and
may I, may we take heed and be found in this call. Arrive, my
love, my fair one, and come away. May ye call us and may we be
given ears to hear and hearts to believe and come away with
Christ. Matt, would you close this, please?