Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 226 from the hardback hymnal, 226.
I am not skilled to understand what God hath willed, what God
hath planned. I only know at his right hand
is one who is my savior. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know at
His right hand is one who is my Savior. I take Him at His word indeed. Christ died for sinners, this
I read. For in my heart I find the need
of Him to be my Savior. That he should leave his place
on high, And come for sinful men to die. You count it strange,
so once did I, Before I knew my Savior. And, O that He fulfilled,
may see, the travail of His soul in me, and with His work contented
me, as I with my dear Savior Please be seated. We're going to be reading from
Revelation chapter 12 tonight. If you'd like to turn with me
there, we'll begin reading at verse 6. Revelation 12, verse
6. The people of God have always
lived in this world in a desert, a dry and thirsty land, spiritually
speaking. And we come to the well to drink
of the water freely. But here our Lord likens his
church to a woman who fled into the wilderness. You see that
in verse six? where she had the place prepared of God, that they
should feed her there 1,203 score days. Now, the 1,203 score is
three and a half years, and that's symbolic language in the book
of Revelation, identifying the entire period of time between
the first and second coming of Christ. So, Hear our Lord's telling
us that he has prepared in the wilderness a place for his bride,
the church, to come where she can be fed and where she can
drink freely. We know that we are in that place
right now. And there was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon
fought and his angels and prevailed not. neither was their place
found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast
out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth
the whole world. He was cast out into the earth
and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud
voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength and
the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For the
accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accuseth them before
our God day and night. And they overcame him by the
blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they love not their own lives
unto the death. Therefore rejoice ye heavens
and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the
earth and of the sea, for the devil has come down unto you
having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short
time. And when the dragon saw that
he was cast into the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought
forth the man-child. And to the woman were given two
wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness,
into her place where she is nourished for a time and times and half
a time from the face of the serpent. What are these two wings that
the Lord gives to his bride? The spirit and the word. Those
are the two wings. And we have God's word and we
have the promise of his spirit. And the serpent, I want you to
see this, because this is going to relate to the passage we're
going to look at in the Song of Solomon tonight. Look at verse
15. And the serpent cast out of his
mouth water as a flood after the woman that he might cause
her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the
woman and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood,
which the dragon cast out of his mouth And the dragon was
wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant
of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony
of Jesus Christ. Most of you know that Sarah is
at the hospital as we speak, being induced and Aria Rose hopefully
will be here in the world soon. Maybe before midnight, certainly
sometime tonight. But I want us to pray for those
that are ministering to Sarah right now. Also, Caleb is going
to be preaching for Joe Terrell this coming weekend in Iowa. So he wants to pray for Caleb. So let's pray together. Our merciful,
gracious, and glorious Heavenly Father, what great hope we have
in knowing that you have provided for your church a place in the
wilderness, a place where she can fly and find refuge on the
wing of your spirit and the wings of your word. Lord, that though
Satan would do all that he could to overwhelm us with floods of
sin and discouragement. Lord, you've caused the earth
to open its mouth and to swallow up all those attempts that he
makes to keep us from thee and that you've caused us, Lord,
to come before thy throne of grace. And Lord, what great hope
we have in knowing that that when we meet together in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you promise to meet with
us and speak to us and comfort us and and teach us and and save
us. And Lord, we are so needful of
that and so thankful that we can come here to that end. Lord, we pray for Sarah. We ask
for your hand of strength and comfort to be on her and pray
for little Aria Rose, Lord, that you would give her a healthy
birth into this world and the doctors and nurses that minister
to them now and for Trevor. Lord, we ask that you would give
grace and hope and comfort and strength And we ask, Lord, that
you would prepare Caleb for the messages that the brethren in
Iowa would hear this weekend. And Lord, that you would bless
that service. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together again, number
44 in the Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnal, number 44. Precious Savior, friend of sinners,
we as such to Thee draw near. Let Thy Spirit dwell within us,
with that love that casts out fear. Matchless Savior, let us
know Thee, As the Lord our righteousness. Cause our hearts to cleave unto
Thee, Come and with Thy presence bless. Open now thy precious
treasure, let thy word here freely flow. Give to us a gracious measure,
tis thyself we long to know. Come and claim us as thy portion. Let us all find rest in thee. Leave us not to empty notions. We would find our hope in thee. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles together
to the Song of Solomon, Chapter 8. The Song of Solomon, Chapter
8. In the Song of Solomon, God uses
very descriptive language to express the love and the affection
that a man and a woman have in a marriage union. We know that what our Lord's doing is what
he must always do and that is to condescend to our level to
express to us in the only language that we're able to understand
the truth of his love for his church. He is accommodating us with something
that we can relate to, which is why I am certain that
we're going to all be speaking a completely different language
in heaven. The language and vocabulary of
7,000, I think, languages in the world are not adequate to
express the love and the glory that our Lord has for us and
that we will express in worship to Him. And so when we get to
glory, we'll all be speaking a heavenly language, a language
that is sufficient to to adequately describe these glorious things. But here in the Song of Solomon,
our Lord is describing in language that we can relate to his love
for us and our desire to love him. I've titled this message
Perfect Love. And the scripture says that perfect
love casteth out fear. And then in Psalm 37, at verse
37, the Lord tells us, mark the perfect man, for the end of that
man is peace. And so when we talk about the
love of God, We often are prone to try to
look at our love for God, but like in all the graces of our
gospel, being able to love is the result of being loved. And
as soon as we take our attention off of his perfect love for us
and start thinking about our love for him, we see that our
love falls so far short of being perfect. It's from top to bottom infected with our sin and our
selfishness and our unbelief. That's true of forgiveness, isn't
it? That's true of everything. It's true of faith. It's true
of obedience. If we look to our obedience or
to our faith or to our forgiveness or love, we can
be very discouraged. Because none of those graces
in our lives are as we would want them to be. But when we look to His, His
faithfulness, His perfect obedience, His faithfulness makes us want
to be faithful. His perfect obedience makes us
want to be more obedient. His forgiveness makes us want
to be more forgiving. And his love for us makes us
want to be more loving. And so, I hope, well, John put it like
this, herein is love. Not that we love God. That's
not the definition of love, though we do love him. We love him because
he first loved us. But here in his love, not that
we loved him, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the
propitiation of our sins. So we look at these two verses
of scripture in the Song of Solomon chapter eight, verses six and
seven. I hope that the Lord will reveal
to our hearts his perfect love for us. and that we will leave
here having grown a little bit in his grace, loving him more. Verse six. The bride is speaking now to
her husband. The believer is speaking to Christ. The church is pleading with God. Set me as a seal upon thine heart
and as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death,
jealousy as cruel as the grave, the coals thereof are coals of
fire which hath the most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench
love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man would give
all the substance of his house for love, it would be, it would
utterly be contempt. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
four, Ephesians chapter four. And we'll begin reading in verse
11. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists
and some pastors and teachers. What did he give these things
to the church for? To feed her while she's in the
wilderness, to grow her in his grace, to speak to her God's
word. for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying or the building
up of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the
faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So here's what we're doing in the
wilderness. We're coming together. We're
taking that which the Lord revealed to the prophets and the apostles
in his word. And we are asking the Holy Spirit
to bless this word to our hearts as we grow in grace and in the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ until until we come to that perfect
man. Not going to be realized in this
life, is it? But we continue to look to that
end. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13,
the Lord speaks of love. And I remember hearing a man
preach from 1 Corinthians chapter 13 one time, and he He introduced the message by
saying, I'm going to bring a practical message now. And I was a little
concerned at the time, and more concerned the more I heard it,
because though this description of love given to us in 1 Corinthians
13 is the desire of every believer's heart, it is a description of
God's love for us. It always concerns me when someone
starts talking about a practical application, as if as if election
was not practical or redemption was not practical or all these
glorious truths that we hang the hopes of our immortal soul
on. But he made a work out of 1 Corinthians
13. We want, the scripture says in
1 Corinthians 13 that love is kind. and it envieth not, and
it vaunteth not itself, and it seeketh not its own, it's not
easily provoked, it thinketh no evil. That's the kind of love
I want in my heart, but I don't know much about that. I do know that the love of God
in Christ fought no evil, was perfectly kind. It never vaunted
itself. It never envied. It never sought
its own. It was not easily provoked. Love faileth not. Here's my hope. My hope is that God's love will
not fail. Though ours does, his will never. So now the bride of Christ is
looking in faith. Go back with me to our text in
the Song of Solomon. The bride of Christ is looking
in faith to her husband, the Lord Jesus, and she says to him,
oh, set me as a seal upon thine heart. I looked up this word seal, and
it's, It's the description of a signet ring. And royalty would
take a signet ring and use it to seal a covenant or a contract,
drop wax on the paper and press that signet. And if you saw that
signet, you knew that the power and the authority of the king
was behind this decree. In Genesis chapter 38, Judah,
eldest son, was married to Tamar. And the scripture says that Judah's
son was evil in the sight of the Lord and God killed him.
And so Judah took his eldest son's wife, Tamar, and gave her
to the next son. And the next son was evil in
the sight of the Lord and God killed him. And so Judah went
to Tamar and said, I have another son, but he's not of age. You
go back to your father's house. And when my son becomes of age,
I'll call for you and you'll become his wife. Well, the son
became of age and Judah never called Tamar. And so Tamar heard
that Judah was coming to town and she dressed herself up as
a harlot and she seduced Judah. And Judah wanted to be with her. And she said, well, what will
you give me? And he said, I'll give you a
kid. I'll give you a kid. Now, as sordid as this story
is, and as wicked as Judah was in all of this, like all of scripture,
it's a picture of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is of the
tribe of Judah. He's the lion of the tribe of
Judah. And he goes into a harlot, which is us, we're the sinful
harlot. And he promises to us a kid,
which is the Lamb of God. And what does Tamar say to him?
When Judah says, I'll send you a kid from my flock, She says to him, well, what will
you give me as a pledge? And he said, well, what do you
want? And she said, I want your signet ring. I want your signet
ring. I want that seal that you have
because that ring assures me that the promise that you made
will come true. And so when the bride of Christ
is saying to the Lord Jesus Christ, set me as a seal upon thine heart,
what she's doing is she's looking back to the covenant of grace
and she says, Lord, love me with that everlasting love where you have always loved your
elect. in the eternal covenant of grace
before the foundation of the world, she's looking back to
the origins of God's love. This is what the father gave
to the son, the prodigal, when he came home after wasting his
inheritance on riotous living and came home and the father
was waiting for him. And what did the father say?
Put the ring upon his finger. That ring that has the family
crest in it. That ring, that signet ring that
seals the covenants. This is my son who was once lost
and now is found. So what the bride's saying here
in the Song of Solomon is, Lord, remember me when you come into
your kingdom. Lord, the hope of my salvation
goes all the way back to eternity past when you sealed a covenant
as my surety with your heavenly father. And you became the lamb
slain before the foundation of the world. Lord, this is my hope. Seal me upon thine heart. And notice in the second part,
and she says, and seal upon thine arm." The
Lord Jesus Christ is the strong right arm of God that accomplished
the salvation of his people. And so she's saying to him, Lord,
look to the covenant that you established with me for my salvation. And look to the accomplished
work that the Lord Jesus Christ performed in accomplishing my
righteousness and satisfying justice for my salvation. That's
what she's saying here. Saying, Lord, I'm looking to
that seal, that covenant promise in the eternal covenant of grace
and in the fulfillment of that eternal covenant in the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, The ring's not worn on the
heart, it's not worn on the arm, it's worn on the hand. It's worn
on the hand. But the hand is controlled by
the arm and the arm is controlled by the heart. And so it all goes
back. And what the bride is saying
is, Lord, love me with that everlasting love, the first cause of my salvation. If I don't know anything about
that love, I won't be loved and I won't be saved. And Lord, if
what you did on Calvary's cross, you did that out of love for
your people. Lord, there's my hope. My hope for salvation is
not the strength or sincerity or my love for you. It's your
love for me. It's your love for me. Let this
seal be upon my heart. And notice what she says. Set
me, set me, Lord set me. That thief on the cross said,
Lord, remember me. Lord, we may lose all our ability
to remember anything before we depart from this world. It happens. The hope of our salvation is
not in our remembering. It's Him remembering us, isn't
it? Lord, remember me. Set me as that seal in your covenant
and in your work, in your heart and in your strong right arm. There's my hope. For love is strong as death. Oh, greater love hath no man
than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us, In this was manifested the love of God toward
us because God sent his son into this world, his only begotten
son. There's our hope. Turn with me
to Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians five. Look at verse one. Be ye therefore
followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also
hath loved us and hath given himself for us as an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. We looked at not eating
the blood Sunday because the blood was not given to us. The
blood was given to God. The Lord Jesus Christ took his
precious blood and put it on the mercy seat, not made with
hands. And we looked at that verse in
Hebrews chapter nine, verse 14, where the scripture says that
he offered himself to God. And now the Lord is telling us
the same thing here. He offered himself a sacrifice
to God for a sweet smelling savor to God. It was an offering that the Lord
Jesus was not making to mankind to be accepted or rejected by
us. He made himself an offering for the sins of his people to
his father. And his father accepted that
offering. Why did he do it? Well, here it is. As Christ also
hath loved us and hath given himself. God so loved that he
gave. Love is demonstrated most clearly. The love of God is demonstrated
most clearly. in what the Lord Jesus Christ
did in laying down his life for his sheep on Calvary's cross. Love is strong as death. Turn with me to Romans chapter
five. Romans chapter five. Look at verse six. You know, the world, One of the
reasons, probably the main reason why men become so angry when
we tell them that God doesn't love everybody is because they
think that God's obligated to love them. They believe that. They're not concerned about any judgment of hell because
they presume upon God's love. They fashioned a God in the imagination
of their own darkened heart that loves everybody. And how could
a God who loves me possibly send me to hell? I'm a good person. The child of God is amazed that
God would love them. We know he's not obligated to
love anyone. We know that we are held deserving. And so we say, oh, what manner
of love the father hath bestowed upon us, upon us, that we should
be called the sons of God. We're amazed at God's love for
us. Why would God love me? A righteous,
holy God? Why would he stoop so low to
love someone like me? And here in Romans chapter five,
verse six, for when we were yet without strength in due time,
Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die. And I believe what the Lord's
speaking of there is a self-righteous man. Most people would not lay
their life down for someone who's aloof, pretentious, and self-righteous. Yet peradventure, the second
part of verse seven, for a good man, some would even dare to
die. The person was truly good. Someone would die for them. But God commendeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, at enmity with God,
with our fists raised to heaven. Everything about us falling short
of the glory of God. Why were we yet sinners? Christ
died for us. For us. Love is strong as death. Here's what the Lord's describing.
The bride is saying to her husband, Lord, remember me in the in the
seal of your covenant established in eternity past in the covenant
of grace. Remember me in the work that
the Lord Jesus Christ, the strong right arm of God accomplished
on my behalf. Lord, remember me in the death
that he died out of love for his people. Look at the rest of it, go back
with me to our text in the Song of Solomon chapter 8. Love is strong as death. Jealousy
is cruel as the grave. Next to robbery, jealousy is
the number one reason why Men kill one another in this world
out of jealousy. The Lord tells us in Exodus chapter
34 verse 14, he said, I am a jealous God. I'm a jealous God. In Exodus chapter 20, when he
gives the 10 commandments, And the second one is not making
an idol. He says, for I, the Lord thy
God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the children's children. God's
a jealous God. He will not allow any any compromise or any test to his name. Ezekiel chapter
39, verse 29, verse 25 says, I will be jealous for my holy
name, for I will not share my glory with another. God is jealous. He's jealous for his name. His
jealous is his name. and he'll not share his glory
with another. And what the Lord Jesus Christ
did on Calvary's cross. Look back with me to our text.
Jealousy is cruel, and that word cruel is strong, as strong as
the grave. Zechariah 1, verse 14 says, I am jealous for Jerusalem and
for Zion with a great jealousy. Our jealousy is sinful. God's jealousy, like all of his
attributes, is holy. It's holy. So when God says,
I'm jealous, the Lord Jesus Christ was upholding the jealousy of
God by the sacrifice that he made on Calvary's cross. And
so the Lord's saying there's nothing that demonstrates the
love of God more than death. And there's nothing that shows
more of his jealous love for his father and for his church
than what he did at Calvary's Cross. Lord, here's my hope. The hope of my salvation is this
kind of love that you have revealed for Go back with me, let's finish
these verses up real quick. The coals thereof are coals of
fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Yes, this is the same
fire that fell from heaven when Elijah built that altar and put
those bullock on there. And the fire fell from heaven
and consumed the altar and the sacrifice. And when the altar
and sacrifice were consumed, the fire was quenched. This is
the same fire that Moses saw at the burning bush. When the
bush was ablaze with fire, but it wasn't consumed, picturing
what happened when the fire of God's wrath fell on the sinner's
substitute as he bore our sins in his body upon Calvary's cross.
and felt the full fury, the full fury of God's wrath. This is
the same hot coal that Isaiah saw. You remember when Isaiah
chapter six, when Isaiah said, woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a
man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.
My eyes have seen the King. Surely I'm going to die now.
And the angel took a hot coal with a tongue from off the altar
and touched his lips. The fiery justice of God that
was satisfied on Calvary's cross is imputed by grace to all those
who God makes to be sinful in his sight, who cry out for mercy
and cry out for grace. And so here's what our Lord's
saying. This love is like a hot coal. It's a fire that has fallen from
heaven The scripture tells us that our God is a consuming fire. And this is why the unquenchable
wrath of God can never be satisfied through the fires of hell. Because
a holy sacrifice has to be made. Justice has to be satisfied.
Justice will never be satisfied in hell. It's an eternal fire. And the Lord Jesus Christ experienced
all the fires of hell and then some. And he quenched that fire
and he put it out. Why? Love. Love. Love is why he did it. Look at
verse seven. Many waters cannot quench love. Could not quench his love for
us? The waters mixed with blood dripping
from him in the garden of Gethsemane could not stop his love for us. Father, if there be any way this
cup can pass from me, let it be. What is the cup? The cup
of sin. Why did he drink it out of love for his people? And the
water and blood of sweat that dripped from him could not stop
his love The seas of sin, the turbulence and trouble of sin
that he bore in his body on the cross could not sink him or stop
him from loving his people. The rivers of wrath that were
poured out upon him on Calvary's cross could not quench his love. Look, many waters cannot quench
love, neither can the floods drown it. And when Satan sends torrents
of floods against our soul, causing us to fear and to doubt and to
be tempted to look away from Christ, what did we read in Revelation
chapter 12? The earth opens its mouth. Many waters cannot quench the
love of God. The Lord in his providence turns
all the attempts of the evil one against him and for our good
so that all of these troubles that we face in this world turn
out, turn out in God's providence to increase our love, to improve
our love, to show us more of his love for us. That's the earth
opening up its mouth and swallowing up the floods that come. Isaiah
chapter 43, verse two, when thou passeth through the rivers, they
shall not overflow thee. When God sent that torrent of
a deluge to destroy this world, the very floods that he used
to kill all living things in this world were the waters that
lifted up the ark and those that were in it. And that's still
the way God works. It's still the way he works. When you pass through the sea,
I will be with you. Whatever that sea might be. And
the way of the Lord is through the seas. It's through the sea. He held back the waters like
a wall. that the children of Israel might
cross over on dry ground. He opened up the river Jordan,
the river of death, the river that emptied into the
Dead Sea. He opened up that river by Joshua
and the children of Israel walked across on dry ground. Let's close with reading our
text again. Song of Solomon chapter eight,
verse six. Lord, set me, set me as a seal,
as a signet, signet upon thine heart in the eternal covenant
of grace. Lord, remember me. And upon thine
arm, the strong arm of salvation that you accomplished in your
right hand as the Lord Jesus Christ did all that was required
for my salvation. And he did a lot of love. Greater
love hath no man than this that he lay his life down. Love as
strong as death. Lord, you've demonstrated your
love in dying for me. And Lord, I know that you did
it out of jealousy. for your justice and for your
holiness, for your bride and for your righteousness. Lord,
this is your love for me. The coals of fire, vehement though
they were, could not consume the love of God. The love of
God consumed the fire of God's wrath. Many waters could not quench
it. The floods could not drown it. They couldn't then, they
can't now. Love never fails. It never ever fails. And notice the last phrase in
this text. If a man would give all the substance
of his house for love, It would be utterly contempt, contemptible,
insufficient. You ever sold something and someone
lowballs you? And maybe before they do, they
say to you, I don't want to offend you. And they offer you a very
small portion of what it's actually worth. That's what the Lord's
saying here. If a man was to offer me all
that he owns, if he was to offer me the whole world for the love
of God, it would be contemned. It would be insufficient. It would be infinitely, infinitely
not enough. God's love can't be sold for
any amount of money, can it? For nothing, nothing. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father,
thank you for the perfect man who has perfect
love. And Lord, we pray that you would
enable us by your spirit to glory in your love for us. For we know
in doing so that we will have some experience and taste of
how we ought to love. And we ask it in Christ's name,
amen. 252, 352, 352. Jesus, lover of my soul, let
me to thy bosom fly. While the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high, hide me, O my Savior, hide. ? Till the storms of life are
his past ? Safe into the haven, God ? O receive my soul at last
? Other refuge have I none ? Hangs
my helpless soul on thee Thee I'll leave me not alone, still
support and comfort me. All my trust on Thee is staid,
all my help from Thee I bring. Cover my defenseless head with
a shadow Humble Christ art all I want,
more than all in Thee I find. Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick and lead the blind. Just and holy is Thy name. ? I am all unrighteousness ?
False and full of sin I am ? Thou art full of truth and grace ?
Plenty as grace with thee is found ? Grace to cover all Let the healing streams abound,
make and keep me pure within. Thou of life, the fountain art,
freely let me take of Thee. Spring thou up within my heart,
rise to all eternity.