God made his choice and it stands
past Aware that I'm a guilty man And that I'm in God's sovereign
hand The straight I fall before his throne A wretched, helpless,
guilty one Lord, if you will, you can, I
say, take all my guilt and sin away. A guilty sinner at your
throne, I beg for mercy through your Son. Now trusting Jesus
Christ, God's Son, I know that I'm His chosen one. And God's eternal, sovereign
choice makes this poor sinner's heart rejoice. Thank you, Adam. Tom is having
hip replacement tomorrow in the morning, so I want to pray for
him. He'll be out for a couple of
weeks, and Adam will be filling in, so thank you, brother. Christine's
mother passed away Monday, and As believers, we bear one another's
burden. So just want to encourage you
to remember Christine, pray for her. Angus is back with us again tonight.
It's been such a blessing to have him here this week and times
that we've had together have been a great encouragement to
my heart. We'll be leaving tomorrow to go to Lexington and be preaching
there and in Danville. of this weekend, and Michael
and Hugo will be bringing the messages here. So, Lord, if the
Lord reminds you of that and enables you to pray for us, that'd
be, and Michael and Hugo also. All right, let's open our Bibles. We'll ask the Lord's blessings
on those things in a moment. Let's open our Bibles to Psalm
40, Psalm 40. And we all know that these Psalms
that David wrote in particular, he was speaking prophetically
for the Lord Jesus. And so these are our Lord's words,
and in him, they are our words. So as we understand our Lord
fulfilling these things, we are encouraged to pray this prayer
ourselves. Verse one, Psalm 40, I waited
patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my
cry. 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 had 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. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
man. He made his father his trust, and we are made to trust him
as a result of him making his father his trust. and respecteth
not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Many, O Lord my
God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy
thoughts which are to usward. They cannot be reckoned up in
order unto thee. If I would declare and speak
of them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering
thou didst not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened. burnt
offerings, and sin offerings hast thou not required. Then
said I, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my
God. Yea, thy law is written in my
heart. I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness
within my heart. I have declared Thy faithfulness
and Thy salvation. I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness
and Thy truth from the great congregation. Withhold not Thy
tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let Thy lovingkindness and Thy
truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have compassed
me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me so that I am not able to look up Now, there's a mystery
that we cannot understand. The Lord Jesus, you know, there's
two things that sin brings to our lives. It brings shame and
it brings separation. But you and I have never experienced
shame like the Lord experienced shame. And we've never experienced
separation like the Lord experienced separation. He experienced sin
to its fullest. And not his sin, but ours. which he bore for us. I'm not
able to look up. They are more than the hairs
of my head. Therefore, my heart faileth me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver
me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be ashamed and confounded
together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be driven
backwards and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate
for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha. Let all those that seek thee
rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation
say continually, the Lord be magnified. But I am poor and
needy. Yet, yet, the Lord thinketh upon
me. Thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tearing. Oh my God. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we have great reason to hope, knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ
is our sin bearer, as our substitute, Our surety satisfied all the
demands of Thy holy justice when He laid down His life for His
sheep. We ask, Lord, that You would
send Your Spirit in power and enable us to set our affections
on Him and to be glad and to rejoice in His accomplished work
of redemption. Lord, we Pray for Brother Tom, and we
ask, Lord, that you would comfort his heart as he experiences the
anxiousness of surgery, and we pray for the physicians that
you would direct them. We thank you for him and for
his ministry here, and pray that you'd return him quickly to us. We thank you, Father, for Christine,
and Lord, what a burden it is to lose a parent And yet we know,
Lord, that we sorrow, but not as other men who have no hope.
And so, Lord, we pray that you would comfort Christine's heart
as only you are able and remind us to lift her up and pray for
her, Lord, as you give her her hope in Christ. Pray for Hugo and Michael and
pray for the meeting in Lexington, Father. Bless the preaching of
the gospel and call out your lost sheep and encourage your
people, glorify thyself. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. We'll stand one more time and
sing hymn 290 in the hardback hymnal. Be still my soul, the Lord is
on my side. Bear patiently the cross of grief
or pain. Leave to thy God to order and
provide. In every change, ye faithful
will remain. Be still, my soul, thy best,
thy heavenly friend. Through thorny ways, leadst thou
to a joyful end. Be still, my soul, by God the
fondly take To guide the future as he has depressed By hope,
by confidence, let nothing shake Shall be cried at last Be still
my soul The waves and winds still know His voice who ruled Them
while he dwelt below Be still my soul, the hour is
hastening on When we shall be forever with the Lord When disappointment,
grief, and fear are gone Love's purest joys restore. Be still my soul when change
and tears are past. Be still my soul Thank you so much for your welcomes. Thank you so much for your encouragement.
Thank you so much for your hospitality. It's been a sweet time of fellowship
and I've taken some rest here and I trust that we can find
some rest in the words of our glorious and great God who calls
us to take rest in him and who he is. I want you to I want you
to treasure the Lord. We read from Psalm 40 how we
magnify the Lord, magnify him, which is to take something which
seems distant and bring it close, to take something which seems
small and insignificant and make it close. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, is the one that can fill all in all. And I want us to
consider some verses out of Song of Solomon chapter two this evening. But before I begin, I want us
to be reminded that all of the scripture is about the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is a much abused book
of the Bible. And on the road to Emmaus when
the Lord Jesus Christ was talking with those two disciples who,
for some extraordinary reason, were walking away from Jerusalem
instead of going there, when he started with Moses, the prophets,
and explained and declared all the things in the scriptures
concerning himself. When you get to Song of Solomon,
I'm sure it was a very sweet time. And their hearts burned
within them as he revealed himself in the scriptures. And so this
book, Song of Solomon, is a picture of the love relationship between
the husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his bride, the church. And
the church, is his dwelling place. Before we go to Song of Solomon,
I want us to see something of how precious the church is. It's
the church that he purchased with his own blood. But it says
the church, I've enjoyed sweet fellowship with many of you and
Lord willing in time, we might enjoy some more before we go
to a place where there's nothing but fellowship in the Lord Jesus
Christ. But in Ephesians chapter two, it says, but now in Christ
Jesus, you who are sometimes far off, we're a long way off. We're far off, we're far off
from the Lord in the fall. We're far off from the Lord in
our sins. Are made nigh, we are made nigh by the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He says when he's lifted up from
the earth, he'll draw all his people to himself. We're made
nigh by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says further
down in that chapter, He says we are built on the foundation
of the apostles and the prophets. We are going to be reading from
one of the prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone, verse 21, in whom all the building fitly
framed together groweth into an holy temple in the Lord, in
whom You, in whom ye also are builded
together for an habitation of God by the Spirit. Church is precious, brothers
and sisters in Christ. The church where the Lord Jesus
Christ comes and meets with his people. It is the meeting place where
God comes. He inhabits, according to Psalm
22, inhabits the praises of his people and he's there where he
gathers his people to himself. And so we trust as we come that
the promises that God has made about gathering these people
together are the promises of ours. So Song of Solomon is a
beautiful picture of the intimacy and the dynamics of a relationship
between the Lord Jesus Christ and his bride. And I'm going
to start, I'm just going to look at a few verses in chapter two.
And I'll read them to you and then we'll go and look at them
and we'll see if the Lord Jesus Christ might be pleased to reveal
himself to your hearts in these glorious verses. He says in verse
one, I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.
As the lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees
of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under
his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my
taste. He brought me to the banqueting
house and his banner over me was love. Once again, this is a picture,
a glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it begins with
those words, I am. I am the rose of Sharon. Sharon is a plain, and it was
there as a plain in Western Israel, and it was renowned as a very
fruitful land. And he declares himself, he is
the rose of Sharon. He's the flower of the field
of Sharon on that level plain. There is this flower, the rose,
just one, the rose of Sharon. Flowers are beautiful things,
aren't they? Flowers come so often, he described later on
as an apple tree, flowers come so often out of what appears
to be dead. And flowers come and they bear
a promise, don't they? Flowers come and they bear a
promise of fruit. And flowers come and bring a
perfume and they're attractive. And they're beautiful, aren't
they? Flowers are beautiful. You men, like me, have had the
pleasure of caring for a lady for a long time, will realise
that we can do a lot of hard labour in the yard, and we can
do a lot of building around the place, and we can do all sorts
of things which we think will please our wives, and they're
much thankful for them. But you bring them home. I bring
home my wife, and I don't do it anywhere near enough, a bunch
of flowers, and all of a sudden, the world lights up for her.
Flowers are beautiful and flowers promise fruitfulness. But he
is the Rose of Sharon, there is just one of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is unique and he is the Lily
of the Valleys. Lilies are renowned for their
whiteness. It speaks of the purity of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Later on in chapter 5, verse
10, he's said to be ruddy. He's both white and ruddy. It
speaks of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But these lilies
of the valleys, these wild lilies, they're growing. without human
effort, and they seem to come up out of nowhere. I was in England
a number of years ago, and up there in the Lakes District,
they have these valleys, and you go over the hill, and there's
a valley, some of you may have seen it, I'd never seen anything
like it. There was a valley, a little valley, full of bluebells. Just full of bluebells, these
little lilies, and they're only this high, and it was just a
carpet of blue. The valleys, of course, in the
scriptures are places of humiliation. It's the valleys of humiliation. Valleys. He's the lily of the
valleys. The Lord Jesus Christ, in his
incarnation, it came in the most remarkable humility. They lived
with him, his family, for 30 years. Fancy living with someone in
your house who never had an evil thought, an evil deed, never
did anything in heart and soul and mind without perfect love
for God and perfect love for his neighbour. And they had absolutely
no idea. And he came to those Jews and
he performed the most remarkable miracles and he acted in the
most glorious humility So much like a man that they couldn't
see any divinity in him, and at times so much like God that
you couldn't imagine that this man was a man. But he came to
a valley, didn't he? He comes to a place of humility. And then he speaks. in this humility, in this place.
And we, ourselves, entered a place where nothing but humility is
worthy of us. When we fell in our father Adam,
we fell into a low place. But as the lily among the thorns,
as the lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters. So he speaks of himself, and
immediately he speaks of his bride. He's a lily. He's a lily of the valleys and
she is described by him as a lily among the thorns. I'm sure you've
grown lilies. I'm sure you've had lots to do
with them. They are the softest plants in all of the garden.
They are so soft. Their leaves are incredibly delicate
and the flowers are incredibly delicate. It's a lily among the
thorns. The thorns in scripture, of course,
are a reference to the curse that fell upon this creation
because of the sin of our father Adam. It speaks of the fall, it speaks
of this earth. that is never going to produce
as we would like, and God gives us abundant mercies in feeding
us as he's promised until his return. Seed time on harvest
will continue to the end, but we labour in this world and we
labour by the sweat of our brows to earn our daily bread. But the thorn pictures the fact
that this lily is among the thorns, among the thorns. It's a picture,
of course, of believers in this world. We are those who have
been given hearts of flesh, those who have been softened by the
grace of God. We are delicate and we are damageable. No wonder God says and commands
his people, you comfort my people. You comfort my people. You tell
them that their warfare is over, that they have received double
from the Lord's hand. We comfort their lilies among
the thorns. It pictures, of course, the fact
that he is describing himself as a lily and his people, he
sees his people as his own in this world, and he is not ashamed
to call us brethren. He's not ashamed to name us with
the name that he describes himself. She is described as the lily
among the thorns. He is the rose of Sarah, and
he is unique, and she is the lily. He has eyes only for his
bride, brothers and sisters. He has eyes only for his bride. It speaks of our union with the
Lord Jesus Christ as he is. So are we in this world. And all the beauty of his bride
is from him. You remember that glorious description
of the church in Ezekiel chapter 16, and she was, thou wast decked
with gold and silver, Ezekiel 16 verse 13, thy raiment was
of fine linen and silk embroidered work, thou didst eat fine flour,
and thou wast exceeding beautiful, exceeding beautiful. and he was
beautiful. Then thou went forth among the
heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness
which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. Our great and glorious saviour
is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He always looks
upon his bride, he always looks upon his bride in light of the
fact that she is precious in his sight, that her sins have
been dealt with in him. As the lily, as the lily among
the thorns, so is my love among the daughters, This speaks of
electing grace, isn't it? God is distinguishing her, and
it's electing grace, it's suffering grace, and it's separating grace,
and it's always saving grace, and it's always effectual grace.
As a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
The 10 virgins were waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ that night,
and if you'd looked from outside, you wouldn't have seen a single
difference between them, would you? 10 of them dressed, 10 of
them waiting, 10 of them with lamps, 10 of them expecting the
bridegroom to come and for them to rejoice with him. What was
the difference? Nothing that you could see on
the outside, it was the oil in their lamps. And when were they
exposed? They were only ever exposed in
the presence of the Lord God himself. My love is among the
daughters. She's among the thorns and she's
among the daughters. It's a picture of the two natures
of man. Song of Solomon is a glorious description of man in this world,
man amongst these thorns. And she says, if you turn back
to first five of chapter one, she says, I am black. I'm black. I'm black, she says, but comely. I'm black in fallen Adam. I'm black in my sins that I come
forth my mother's worm speaking lies. I'm black in my rebellion
against God, but I'm comely, but I'm beautiful. I'm beautiful. He can call her, he can call
her my love, my undefiled. I am my beloved's and he is mine. She says, and I love the possessive
pronouns in the scripture. Don't you love the possessive
pronouns? She says, my love, my love. It speaks of possession,
it speaks of property, it speaks of union and communion. She says, mine, this is mine.
This whole universe is moving, at the very hand of our sovereign
God, in every little tiny detail, that His people, every single
last one of them, will be brought to a saving knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ. There's no harm can befall the
righteous. We can have harm in our flesh
here, brothers and sisters, and we can grieve spiritually, but
the Lord God will have His. He says, mine, you are mine. My love, so is my love. You are not your own. You have
been bought with a price. You're not your own, you're bought
with a price. And whether you know it or not,
for the children of God, we love the fact that we're bought with
a price and we love the fact that the Lord God is absolutely sovereign
over everything that happens in our lives. And it's exactly
the same for the unbeliever. The only thing missing is love.
We love what the unbeliever is unaware of, that God, our God
reigns, our God reigns. As a lily among the thorns, as
I said, the lily is a delicate flower and the children of God
have been given hearts of flesh and they are wounded and woundable. They are able to be wounded.
Paul speaks of the thorn in his flesh, and he pleaded with the
Lord to take it away. I suspect the thorn in his flesh
was, O wretched man that I am, and I suspect that the evidence
of the thorn in his flesh was the pride that grew and grows
naturally. Thorns grow naturally. I never
planted thorns. I know some people have gardens
with cactus and other things in them, but we don't plant thorns,
do we? Thorns grow naturally out of
this creation, out of Adam's sin and Adam's race, naturally.
Sin is natural to us. and common to us. Thorns grow
naturally. We don't have to water them and
fertilise them and cultivate them. They just grow naturally.
When we were poor some years ago and our children were little
and we needed to earn some money, I sold our front lawn. Our front
lawn had been a front lawn of a house for 150 years by that
stage and no one had ever ploughed or fiddled with it. So I sold
the front lawn. They come in with a machine. They take all
the grass off the top and it looks like a paddock. What did it do? 150 years and immediately all
these thorny, these weeds that grow thorns came out of that.
It speaks of our fallen nature. The Lord's children have many
thorns in this world. There are wicked and ungodly
men, sons of Belial, and they thrust, the thorns thrust away
and they cannot be taken with hands. There are, there are those There are those who can wound
so easily the children of God in this world. We are wounded,
aren't we? And those who are children of God, when they are
wounded, the first thing they say is, is it I, Lord? That's
what the disciples did, isn't it? Is it I? Someone's gonna
betray you. Every single one of them, bar one, thought it
was him. Everyone. Is it I, Lord? We are wounded. We are wounded by the fall and
we are wounded by this flesh that we live in. And we're wounded
by the reproaches and the revilings and the persecutions of the wicked.
All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. We're wounded, the children of
God are wounded by offences. I trust you are. We're wounded
by offences to the Lord Jesus Christ. and we're wounded by
offences to his church, we are wounded, we find no pleasure
and we find hurt in the doctrinal wickedness, open wickedness that
has led this world to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a common
swear word. And where did it all begin? It
began behind the pulpits of this world, didn't it? It starts there. God's people are hurt by that.
We're hurt by our Lord Jesus Christ not being honoured for
who He is. We're hurt by the fact that His
blood is considered a common thing. We're hurt by the fact
that His love is considered a common thing. We're hurt by the fact
that He is dethroned again and again, and we do it so often.
They pierce and wound. They pierce and wound. I do love what the Lord wrote
to us in Ephesians 4. 32, he said, be ye kind one to another. You're amongst thorns, brothers
and sisters, thorns in this world, thorns with your brothers and
sisters. We're brought nigh to each other, aren't we? Two sinners
are brought nigh. The sin is exposed in ways that
you've never seen. You people who've become married,
you thought that it was a bed of roses until you got really
close to another sinner. And all of a sudden, they see
what you are, and you see what you are. You see the need for
the grace of God to maintain relationships. Be kind one to
another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for
Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. God's children are taught
of God. to love one another. It's the
evidence, isn't it? It's the evidence of the work
of God, isn't it? By this shall all men know that you are my
disciples, that you love one another. If we've been born of
him who loved us, then we'll love those others who are begotten
of him. I do love the amazing promise
that God makes in Ephesians 4.9. He says, but us touching brotherly
love, You need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are
taught of God to love one another. You bear thorns, and you bear
the wounds of thorns, and your brothers and sisters bear the
wounds of thorns, and we live in a world of thorns. And what
a remarkable thing is that the Lord Jesus Christ carried our
sorrows, and he wore a crown of thorns, brothers and sisters.
He was made a curse for us, and he bore that curse, and he bore
all of the infinite wrath of God against it, which is why
he can speak such sweet words to his bride. And isn't it lovely
that they speak sweet words to the bridegroom a thousand years
before he came. They saw him through the eyes
of faith, and they loved him. Oh dear, oh dear, how much more
privileged are we to see the finish of all of this and the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and him gathering his
people and revealing himself through the preaching of the
gospel in ways that the angels desired to look into and the
prophets were anxious to see what was there and how it was
come. Let's go to verse three of our text. is a lily among
the sawn. So is my love among the daughters.
It's distinguishing grace. It is where the Lord has left
us. He's put us here for this. Such a time as this, Esther was
told, you are here. Such a time as this. This is
the best time we could ever be here. It's the only time we could
ever be here, brothers and sisters. This is a special time. Let's
go to verse three. As the apple trees among the
trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. As the
apple tree among the trees. The Lord Jesus Christ is unique,
isn't it? He is the one above all. And I want you to notice that when she is commended as
delightful in his sight, She immediately turns and commends
him. If the Lord has come to you and
the time of love has arrived, you'll immediately respond to
his love calls to love him, don't you? We love him because he first
loved us. She is commended as delightful in his eyes and immediately
she looks to him and all her beauty is of him. All her beauty
is him, he and his own, it's my beloved. All her relationship
is with him, all her relationship is of him. The apple tree is
a tree that is fruitful. In flower they are beautiful,
isn't it? In the fall, as you call it here,
the leaves turn a beautiful orange colour. They're more beautiful
than all the others. Here's the apple tree. He's the
apple tree among all the others. Among all the trees, the Lord
Jesus Christ is one above all, is one among a thousand. is none
to compare to the glory and the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the apple tree among the trees
of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. He is the most
precious of all, isn't it? let all the angels of God worship
him. And they did worship him. And
he came to this earth and they sang the songs of heaven on those
hills outside of Bethlehem. And then he lived in the most
extraordinary humility and bore that extraordinary shame on the
cross of Calvary as he owned the sins of his people as his
own. He's my beloved. I love the fact that she can
say mine. I remember, I think it was Martin
Luther who said, there are many, many people who leave this earth
and go to eternity because they can't use personal pronouns about
the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are countless millions
that use the personal pronouns about the Lord Jesus Christ who
don't know him. My beloved, my beloved among
the sons. He is unique and special. He
is the lowest in the kingdom and yet he's the most glorious
of all. He's the apple tree. He's the tree of life. He's the
tree of life. And I want us to come to this
part of the text and spend a little bit more time here. It says,
and I sat down under his shadow with great delight. What is it to sit down? It's
to cease your doing. It's to stop from your labours.
I was talking to someone yesterday about the fact that I was a a
vegetable farmer, and we have a Louisiana house in Australia,
a Louisiana house in southern Australia. I used to grow vegetables,
and I have all these fields of vegetables. The last thing on
a hot summer's day, I'd put out all my irrigation pipes, and
there'd be 40 or 50 irrigation pipes, and I'd press the button
on the sprinkler and come in and have a shower and I'd go
back out on our, we called it a veranda, you called it a porch.
I'd sit there and I'd see all of my thousands of corn plants
being drinked. I sat down. I sat down. The work was done. The Lord Jesus
Christ sat down. There was no seat in that earthly,
holy of holies and in that earthly temple, but there's a seat in
heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ sat down and his people sit down. I sat down, she says, says the
bride. When will you sit down? The first thing, you just turn
back over. She says, in verse seven, she
says, tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where you feed. And you'll find later on in Song
of Solomon that he feeds here. He feeds amongst the lilies,
he feeds in his church. He feeds them and then he feeds
himself. He feeds them and then he rejoices in the work that
he's done. Tell me, whom my soul loveth,
where thou feedest and where thou makest thy flock to rest
At noon, you'll rest when he makes you to rest. You'll rest when he makes you
to rest. You'll rest when the great shepherd
comes and gathers his flock to himself. I do love Ezekiel chapter
34. And if you're ever in doubt about
the glory and the power and the sovereign gathering of the flock
of God to himself, Hebrews, Ezekiel 34 is wonderful. In verse 15,
he says, I will feed my flock. I will feed my flock, I will
cause them to lie down. You'll rest, you'll sit down
when you have absolutely nothing to do and nothing you can offer
God by your activities. I'd like you to turn to a passage
of scripture that's been very precious to us, and I want you
to, in Ezekiel, if you're in Ezekiel 34, it's Ezekiel 36.
And this speaks, and when we read the scriptures, we love,
we love the fact that she sits down because he makes her to
sit down. And you'll stop when you're made
of God to stop your religious toing and froing in your religious
efforts to produce your own righteousness, you'll sit down and rest when
you realise that I have no righteousness of my own and it's filthy rags.
And the only righteousness that I'll ever speak of is his righteousness,
thine and thine only. But listen to this glorious passage
of scripture. He says, then I will sprinkle,
verse 25, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall
be clean from all your filthiness and for all your idols. I will,
I cleanse you. This is the work of God on the
cross of Calvary, a new heart. I will give, also will I give
you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of
flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you, cause
you to keep, to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments
and do them. Such is the glory of our Lord
and our union with him. And you shall dwell in the land
that I gave your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I
will be your God. I will also save you from all
your uncleannesses. I'm so pleased that's in the
plural, brothers and sisters, isn't it? There's plenty there.
I'll save you from all your uncleannesses. and I will call for the corn
and increase, and I will lay no famine upon you, and I will
multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field,
that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the
heathen. Then, then, you'll sit down,
you'll truly rest when God does a work of giving you a heart
of flesh and removing your heart of stone and revealing the Lord
Jesus Christ to you. You'll sit down then, listen. Then shall ye remember your own
evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall loathe
yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your
abominations. I can almost hear all the psychologists
and counsellors of the world rising up in anger. This is what
God says. You'll sit down when God does
a work, a spiritual work in your life and cleanses you from all
your uncleanness. When you know, when you know
that your sins are gone, that's the rest, isn't it, for the children
of God. Which is why, which is why you sit down Under his
shadow. The hardest thing in all of the
world is to do nothing and the greatest faith is just to rest
in him. To rest in the fact that he's
made these extraordinary promises to his people. But listen, listen
where you sit. Where do you sit? You sit under
his shadow. Under his shadow. This is where you'll rest. You'll
rest when he makes you to sit down and you'll rest under his
shadow. A shadow is such a beautiful
picture, isn't it? It is the illumination of an
object and that being revealed in a shadow on the ground, isn't
it? Under his shadow with great delight. As I said earlier, where do you
find the shadow? The shadow is always going to
be very near the object on this land. So where do you sit down? You sit down under his shadows,
which is to be near him, to be near him. to sit down under his
shadow is to be covered by him. To sit down under his shadow
is where the reality of his being is illuminated with the light
from above. That's where you sit down. What
a glorious place. You'll sit down there, and it
goes on to say, you'll sit down there with great delight. But that shadow speaks of something
and some one and a work so much more glorious than the shadows
that we see on this earth. The shadow, of course, is a picture.
It's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ shadowing his people,
covering his people. He's the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. He is that refuge. The refuge,
according to Isaiah 28, and he's that shadow as a place of protection. But I love Ruth. This is a glorious
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and his church. It's a glorious
picture of her being drawn into his presence and into his company,
drawn into a marriage and drawn into a marriage which is fruitful
in his fruitfulness. It's glorious. But Boaz, when
he meets with her, In chapter two, he says to her, Boaz is
such a glorious type of Christ. The Lord recompensed thy work
and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel under
whose wings thou art come to rest. She sat down under his
shadow. The wings, of course, are the
glorious pictures of those angels of God. set in gold in the Holy
of Holies, and they were above the Ark, and they continually
stared at one thing, brothers and sisters, those angels. They
had their eyes, their golden eyes, fixed on the mercy seat,
and the mercy seat covered the law of God, that holy law of
God, written with the very hand of God, the perfect, pure law
of God, kept in that gold, that gold, little gold box, not very
big at all. It's what it pictures of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They were looking in one place.
You sit down under his shadow when you sit down and you rest
in the glorious and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when Solomon built the Holy of Holies in 2 Chronicles 2,
he made these angels enormous. Enormous, they filled. They touched
the wings, touched the wall, touched the other angel and touched
the wall again. There was nowhere in the Holy
of Holies that you weren't under the shadow of the wing of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It pictures that glorious place
where God promised to meet with his people. He meets with them.
He meets with them at the mercy seat and he reveals himself to
the mercy seat. And the children of God were
taken in their names, weren't they? I just love the fact that
the high priest, our great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ,
went in there with blood, that blood. The blood that washes
us clean. But carrying that blood, he carried
the names of his people. And he had them in two places,
brothers and sisters. He had them written on his heart,
on his breastplate. And he had them written on his
shoulders. He carries us close to his heart. And he carries us on his shoulders.
He rules all things to bring them to himself. It's the shadow,
a refuge. Adam's labour in the garden brought harsh thorns, and we're
born into this world of thorns, and we live amongst the thorns. And Christ's labour was to wear
those thorns as a crown, to be made sin, to be made a curse
for us. And there is a rest, there is
a rest. But listen to it. What's it like
to be under the shadow of his wings? What's it like to sit
down? You sit down with great delight. You rest with delight. That word delight means to be
satisfied, to be satiated. It speaks of preciousness, but
it also speaks of covetousness. It means to hold. We'll hold
this, brothers and sisters, won't we? Christ is our all in all. And he delights his people. We rest there in great delight.
He says in Psalm 37 verse 4, delight thyself in the Lord and
he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. He'll give thee
the desires of thine heart. In Psalm 63, because thou hast
been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings I shall rejoice. It's a delight. Listen to how...
Ruth, to go back to Ruth, chapter two, responded. She said, you're
declaring that I've come under these wings. You've come to rest,
you've come to trust under these wings. Then she said, and this
is what happens to someone, this is the delight, let me find favour
in thy sight. Have you read the rest of chapter
two and the rest? She's found remarkable favour.
He took one look at her and he fell in love. He does with all
of his bride. Boaz loved her. instantly loved
her at first sight. Let me find favour in thy sight,
my Lord, for thou hast comforted me. That's rest, isn't it? Thou
hast comforted me, for thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid,
though I be not like one of thine own handmaids. She was precious,
she was brought there. Those who are recipients of grace
and find delight in grace are continually amazed at the grace
that falls to us. You sit down, we sit down under
the shadow of his wings with great delight. I know you know
2 Samuel. 23 verse 5 but it's always just
so glorious to read it again and again and again David rested
his dying head on this pillow, didn't he? 2nd Samuel 23 verse
5 the Lord the Lord Hath made with me my house be not so with
God my house is thorns my house. I'm black but comely inside I
He said, although my house be not so with God, yet he hath
made with me, he hath made with me, an everlasting covenant ordered
in all things and sure, and this is all of my salvation, it's
all of my, it's all my desire. Although he make it not to grow.
If you have all that, you don't need it to grow, brothers and
sisters. It's perfectly complete as it is. Moses. He delights
in an eternal covenant that God made with him. Moses rested his
head, his dying head, on the pillow of God's everlasting love,
didn't he? The eternal God, Exodus 33, 27,
the eternal God is thy refuge. And underneath are everlasting
arms, everlasting arms. Oh child of God, as far as you
can fall, the furthest you can fall is into the arms of God. Underneath are everlasting arms,
don't you love that? The shadow, the wings of the
Lord are above us and we look up and see his glory and underneath
are everlasting arms. You sit down, you sit down, you
sit down and you cease from your works. If you've entered into
his rest, you have ceased from your works. If you enter into
his rest, you're covered by him and his works. You're not under
law, but under grace. You'll come and sit, and you'll
find it delightful when you are made to be a sinner." And she
goes on to say, his fruit, his fruit, was sweet to my taste."
His fruit was sweet to my taste. So there's not only him declaring
her beauty in his sight, not only bringing her Under the shadow
of his protection there is with him, there is life giving fruit. Adam ate fruit that looked delightful
and brought upon himself and all of his posterity a curse
of sin and death and all the travail that ever happened in
this world. Every single sin and every single
horrible thing that we are caused to witness again and again, both
in ourselves and outside of ourselves, is just simply an exhibition
of that. And what was the first words? God really said. If you sit down and you rest
and you rest under his shadow, you'll rest in his word. You'll rest in his word. That
great evil that we performed, has God really said? And we imbibed
Satan's poison, didn't he? You shall be as gods. You shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil. What fruit that has brought
every tear, every cry, every sigh, every drop of blood ever
shed. And now we have another fruit,
his fruit. His fruit was sweet to my taste. So the Old Testament saints,
and we have a gospel that's an everlasting gospel according
to Revelation 14. The Old Testament saints rejoiced
in the gospel that we rejoice in. Abraham had the gospel. Abel had the gospel. Adam and Eve had the gospel.
We have an everlasting gospel. We have an unchanging gospel.
But isn't it lovely to think that these people, thousands
of years before they saw it, they saw it so delightfully.
His fruit was sweet to my taste. They delighted in the finished
work of Christ yet to come. His fruit was sweet to my taste.
His fruit of sins forgiven. His fruit that comes as you sit
under that shadow of that apple tree. What a glorious fruit of
sins forgiven. What a glorious, what a glorious
antidote to the enemy who accuses us again and again and again.
And he says to you, and he says to me, how on earth can you call
yourself a Christian when you behave like that and think like
that? David, David sinned and that
law of God said you and Bathsheba must die now. And Nathan comes
to him and says, the Lord has taken away your sin. I don't know how he felt that day. I know what he wrote. Isn't it
remarkable, isn't it? He says, restore unto me the
joy of my salvation. Restore me to the joy. You sit
down and it's sweet to your taste. Transgression's finished, he's
made an end of sin. And I love the fact that it's
his fruit. It's his fruit. It's him and
all he provides. It's all of what he does in the
hearts of his people. And it's the fruit that causes
these people to rejoice in the glory and the goodness of what
he does. He says, and I'll read a few verses
to you, the lily among the thorns in Psalm 57, he says, I will
cry unto God most high, unto God that performeth all things
for me. performeth all things for me. In Psalm 87 verse 7 Again and again and again throughout
the scriptures we see that the fruit is the fruit of
the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is just
one fruit, isn't it? If you have one, you have all. People agonize
over the fruit of the Spirit and think that you have to divide
them all up. It is the fruit of the Spirit. It is God's fruit. And if you
have one, if you have him, you have all. I love what Hosea says. Ephraim shall say, what? Have I to do, Hosea 14.8, what
have I to do anymore with idols? I have heard him and observed
him. I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found. I'll finish with one more out
of Isaiah. I just wanted to say that this fruitfulness is the
work of God. That's why we can have great delight in it, brothers
and sisters. It's not something that we've put our hand to. It's
not something that we've earned. It comes from him. Lord, Isaiah
26, 12. Lord, thou wilt ordain peace. That's to rest, isn't it? That's
to rest unto his shadow. Thou wilt ordain peace. He is
our peace. He's made peace. He's made peace
by the blood of his cross. Thou wilt ordain peace. Don't
you love that? He'll ordain peace for us. Why? For thou hast wrought all
our works in us. All of the works that God finds
delightful in his bride are what he dresses her in. We're dressed
with his comeliness. As no wonder Paul would say,
he'd turn away from his own righteousness and his own works, and he'd turn
away from all of the benefits of his heritage in Philippians
chapter 3, and he just sought one thing, didn't he? He sought
one thing. To be found in him. He says, yea, doubtless, I count
all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them done, that I may win him and be found in him, not
having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith, the faithfulness of Christ. the righteousness which is of
God by faith. He is our Lord Jesus Christ,
a root out of dry ground, and this apple tree has now grown,
and it's flowered, and the fruit is there, and it's sweet to my
taste. Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is gracious. Taste and see that the Lord is
gracious. Those bitter waters of Mara in
Exodus 15, There was nothing you could drink, nothing that
could satisfy your longing, desperate thirst. And into that water was
cast the Lord Jesus Christ in picture form. And they were sweet
waters of Mara now, weren't they? The Lord Jesus Christ sweetens
that which is bitter. He sweetens that which is injured
and damaged by the thorns. Oh, taste and see, where else
can you go? That was the question. Was that the question, the Lord
Jesus Christ? It wasn't the question. It says, to whom shall you go? We go to whom? All the time,
we're going to whom? We're looking to whom? It is.
Him who provides His fruit. It's the fruit of free sovereign
grace. It's the fruit of His eternal
love for His own. It's the fruit of Him drawing
and calling you to Him. It's the fruit of Him revealing
Himself in His glory and grace into your heart and you hold
on to Him and you cherish Him and that's what it means, isn't
it? I love what Mr. Hawker said, and I'll just quote
him. Like some rich, luxuriant tree, generous, which not only
shelters the traveller from the scorching heat, but holds forth
on its branches delicious fruit to regale and satisfy for food. So Jesus, by his person, work
and righteousness, protects his people from all evil and by the
fruits of his blood and redemption supplies them with all goods. The fruits of his life, the fruits
of his death, the fruits of his resurrection, the fruits of his
ascension, the fruits of his glory. They give to thy redeemed
mercy, and pardon and peace with all the fullness of the covenant.
Is that sweet, brothers and sisters? Is he sweet? Is his fruit sweet
to you? It's his fruit, isn't it? It's
grown from him. It's all him. It's all him. It's sweet to my taste. It's
sweet to revive. I love that story of Jonathan
when he was exhausted on that day when they were fighting and
he found some honeycomb. And he dipped his spear into
the tiny comb and he was revived to fight on again. It's sweet
to revive. There's fullness of joy in his
presence and his right hand are pleasures forevermore. Whom do I have in heaven but
thee? Ah, Christ in you. We take him home. We take him
home and we hold him dear and we hold him dear in our hearts
is to know him, is to value him. To know him is to use him. It's to eat of him, isn't it?
To eat of his fruit and when you eat, it becomes a part of
you and you become, ah, what you eat. It's to live to him,
to walk with him, to hope in him and to rejoice in him. Christ is all. It's sweet to
my taste, and we're sealed up. We're sealed up in marriage to
Him. It's sweet to my taste, and I
don't want it to go away. I want to have it ever. I love what chapter eight, he
says, she says to him. as she comes up out of the wilderness,
leaning on her beloved, resting in him. You lean so hard that
he carries you, brothers and sisters, that's how hard you
lean. If you learn to lean, you'll be leaning more, and as you go
on in life, you'll be leaning more and more as the days close
in. She says to him in verse six
of chapter eight, set me as a seal upon thine heart. It's a good
place to be, isn't it? Set as a seal upon his heart,
as a seal upon thine arm, both in his heart and in his arm of
power and strength, for love is strong as death. Love is as
strong as death. Whom do we have but him when
we shut up in marriage? In closing, one of the glories
that this passage reminds us of, as all of the Old Testament
and the New, it reminds us of the covenant of grace and the
covenant of love and the covenant of peace. And here it is again
in verse four, and we'll just look at it very briefly. He brought
me. How do you get to the banqueting
house of God where you can enjoy all these things? He brought
me. How do you rest? He makes me
to rest. I will and they shall is the
eternal covenant that is the rest. I will and they shall. That's the shadow under which
we find this tree so delightful. He draws us to himself. I will
and they shall. Draw me and we will run after
thee, she says. And he reveals himself to us. He reveals us to us as he reveals
himself to us and he makes us to sit down. He feeds us with
his fruit. This is grace, brothers and sisters.
He brought me to his banqueting house and his banner over me
is love. That banner is the banners that
the children of God were to hold up. It speaks of them belonging
to him. You have a banner here, don't
you? The banner of the United States. It says you belong. You
belong to the United States. It belongs to you and you belong
to it. And that banner, the banner speaks of him marching triumphantly
through this world of thorns to gather his own to himself.
The banner over me is love. The banqueting house means the
house— of wine. It speaks of the church and the
fellowship in the gospel, the fellowship that brings love to
one another, the fellowship that brings understanding of the fact
that we are in a thorny world and we are thorny sinners and
we have a great and glorious God and we've been given hearts
that are soft in all of that thorniness. Soft, soft, a living
heart. that delights in his beauty,
a living heart that loves to hear from him, a living heart
that can respond to his beauty and his glory and respond to
his call. The cup of blessing which we
bless, is it not the communion of the blood, the communion of
the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is
it not the communion of the body of Christ? We're brought nigh,
brothers and sisters, we're brought nigh. To be brought near to him
by the blood of Christ, according to Ephesians 2, is to be brought
near to each other. Which is why, as remarkable and
as fragile and as much encompassed about by thorns is the church. It is the most precious thing
in this world, brothers and sisters. Treasure, treasure a place, treasure
a community where you have a banqueting house and you feast upon the
glories of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll just look briefly with me
in Sovereign Solomon and just look some of what we banquet
on and I'll leave you I trust resting and rejoicing in the
glory of our Redeemer. She says, in this banqueting
house, we feast on his word, don't we? It's always, thus it
is written, isn't it? Thus saith the Lord. Listen to how she describes it,
how God, the Holy Spirit describes it. describes us describing him,
verse two of chapter one. Just follow with me through the
Song of Solomon. Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth. Isn't that a glorious description
of that Word of God, the Holy Spirit illuminating the Word
and taking what is just a bit of ink on a bit of paper, the
commonest things, and revealing the Lord Jesus Christ to your
heart and it becomes precious. And those words almost leap out
of the pages and they grab your heart and grab your soul and
you can feast and feast and feast on them all day long. When I
was in India with all of the students, one of the things they
used to ask me about how you do devotions in the morning,
and I used to say to them, well it's good to read lots of scripture
and it's good to read scripture all the time, but one thing I'd
encourage you to do is to read it until a word or a phrase grabs
you. and you feast on it, and you
can feast on it all day long, and you can feast on it in its
context, and you can feast on all of the... This is a living
and glorious word. Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth. And then... It speaks of distinguishing
love. Listen to what she says. Chapter
one, verse two, for thy love is better than wine in this banqueting
house. This banqueting house is a house
where his word kisses us, where his love is better than wine. Verse three, because the savour
of thy good ointments Because of the savour of thy
good ointments, all that unction, all of that ointment, all of
the glory of what perfume emanates from the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that sweet incense that goes up and satisfies our, the
name, the ointments, thy name is as ointments poured forth.
It's his name, it's all of the character of God as revealed
in the scriptures and revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. This
banqueting house is a banqueting house where the power of God
is revealed. As I read to you earlier out
of verse four, she says, draw me and we will run after thee. When we preach the gospel, we
are bringing commands from God. When we preach the Lord Jesus
Christ, we're not saying for you to go away and make a decision.
This is a command, isn't it? But don't you love the fact that
he draws his people to himself? We love his commands, but he
loved his drawing. But when people are drawn, they
run after him. They don't wander and stagger
all over the place. And we keep saying to him, draw
me again, and I'll run after you. Draw me again to yourself.
I'm black but beautiful, withdraw me again. In the banqueting house,
we can speak to him and he answers beautifully, I love what verse
seven says, tell me, are thou whom my soul loveth? If He loves
you and He's revealed His love to you, you'll be calling out
to Him. You'll be calling out to Him. Tell me, tell me, O thou
whom my soul loveth, where you feed. I want to be where you
feed. He feeds, as you'll see as you
go through psalms on, He feeds. He feeds His flock. That's where
He feeds, isn't it? Where thou feedest thy flock. where you feed your people. He feeds his people on the gospel
and he preserves his people. And I love what it says, where
you make your flock to rest at noon, when the heat of the sun
is at its zenith. and the thorns and the things
of this world are most able to burn you, you find rest. You
find rest in the greatest turmoil. You find rest in him. Where you
make your flock to rest? And he responds to her in verse
eight, if they're now not, are thou fairest among women? Go
thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock and feed thy kids
before the shepherd's tents. And he clothes her so beautifully,
doesn't he? He enrobes her, we're covered
with a robe of his righteousness. He says in verse 11, we will
make borders of gold with studs of silver for thee. And there
is a union and a communion of the Lord Jesus Christ and his
bride as he gathers them together. A bundle, verse 13, a bundle
of myrrh is my well beloved unto me. He shall lie all night betwixt
my breasts. My beloved, my beloved is mine. My beloved is mine. And I am
his. He feedeth among the lilies. He feedeth. We come to the banqueting
house. I pray that the Lord will cause
you to find the banqueting house a place of rest, a place of refuge,
a place of protection, a place of nourishment, a place of safety. And that you might, as I go from
here, find again and again that you are brought into the banqueting
house and you see that the banner over me is love. Amen. May the Lord bless his word to
your hearts, my brothers and sisters. Appreciate the fellowship.
May it continue and may it continue again, either here or in Australia. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Angus.