Well, let's take our Bibles and
turn with me to Song of Solomon, chapter 4. You know, there are times when we would
do well, and I believe that this evening
is a time such as that, when we would do well just to take
a couple of Scriptures as we have done in the past on the
description of our Lord concerning His bride, and look at these
precious names, these spices by which He describes her. Last week we stopped. I actually started the fourteenth
verse, and I'd like to look again beginning
in that 14th verse, and look at verses 14 and 15 and just
for a few minutes, consider what the Lord is saying, what He is
speaking, saying to His bride, how He is describing her. Verse 14 begins, and He says
of her, she is spikenard saffron. Now, we looked at spikenard,
it was that herb, that spice, I mean, that is made from a spike
plant. Long stem, little flowers that
comes off of it, and the root of that spike plant is taken
and crushed and it's made into what's called the nard, the perfume,
the costly. And that spike nard, the nard
that's made from the spike plant was that spice, that ointment
that was poured upon the Lord Jesus Christ by the woman that
took the alabaster box, broke it, There is a picture of our
precious Savior who was broken, gave His body to be broken, and
from the broken body, from that broken alabaster box, a picture
of Him, the odor filled the room where the Lord Jesus Christ was. He said that we are spikenard
and saffron, The savor that we have is from His righteousness
imputed to us. He is the sweet savor. His broken body. His shed blood. His perfect obedience. It's Him. But He describes the bride as
being spikenard and saffron. Saffron is that savor, that ingredient
that savors. We are, referred to, the elect,
are being called the salt of this earth. Salt is a preservative. That's what it's used for, salt. Now, the elect are being called
out of this world. They shall surely, all of God's
people, all that He has everlastingly loved, shall surely hear His
voice." They shall hear Him. They will come to Him. There's
no doubt about their salvation. They shall surely hear the voice
of the Great Shepherd and shall follow Him. Now, until the sheep
are called out, until all of the sheep are brought to the
Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit of God in regeneration
by God's grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, this
earth is maintained. This earth is kept from passing
away. It is not that they are keeping
this earth. God Almighty is keeping this
earth because His sheep shall be brought to him." Now, there
may be some of His sheep, I say may because I don't know, that
have yet to be born. Until this time, those of you
that believe, God kept this world. This world was maintained. And
the economy of all of this earth was maintained for the sake of
the sheep. For the honor of God's name and
glory and grace, this earth is being maintained. So when it
speaks of this earth, you are the salt of the earth, it is
not because of any inherent quality in them save that which Almighty
God has done in them and for them. In themselves, they are
absolutely nothing. So He describes the bride, you
are spikenard and saffron. You are the savor. the salt,
the preserving, the reason this earth is preserved. And then
he called her Calamus. Calamus. Now, Calamus, I found
out, is a reed, a rod, a plant that is used for measuring. It's a straight stick. Because of its straightness,
This reed or rod is used as a measuring device. And it was from the seed
of that calamus plant that the anointing oil was made for the
priest back in the Old Testament. But the root word of the word
calamus is this. The word that is described calamus,
from which that word comes, is to buy or to purchase, or to
recover. That's what the word calamus
means, a reed. In Psalm 74, verse 2, it says,
Remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased of old, the
rod of thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed, this Mount
Zion wherein thou hast dwelt. Calamus. a stick, a rod for measuring
that has been redeemed. And also the word recover is
also the word from the word calamus. Isaiah 11, 11, It shall come
to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again
the second time to recover the remnant of the people which shall
be left from Assyria and from Egypt. Recover. Redeem. to buy. And in Isaiah 42, 3,
we are told the condition of this reed or this stick. The Scripture reveals what that
reed's condition was that was purchased. It was the bruised
reed. Turn with me to Isaiah 42, verse
3. Isaiah 42. Behold My servant, I don't want to speak out of
Isaiah 42 right now, but I have to just stop for just a second. And just on those first words
right there, Behold my servant, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. Behold this man, my servant,
God's elect, that's what he said, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth,
I have put my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up,
nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. But here is him,
a bruised reed shall he not break, a calamus, a bruised reed, the
smoking flax shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgment
unto truth. This calamus This reed, a reed
for measurement. This bruised reed, broken, crushed,
oppressed. Man in Adam fell in the garden. Bruised by the fall. Bruised
by sin. Dead. Crushed. But this bruised reed, the reeds
of his elect, The rods of His redemption. He won't break them. He won't crush them. He won't
destroy them. So to the bride, she is described
as calamus. A redeemed, recovered, purchased
rod or reed that He will not break. Just that one word right
there. He said, you're calamus. Oh,
what a description. And she's described as cinnamon. This cinnamon was from the evergreen
tree. Song of Solomon 1.6, it spoke
of the bed of the Lord Jesus Christ and His bride is green. It's evergreen. It ever lives. He said that you are cinnamon,
a spice made from the inner bark of a tree and one of the ingredients
in the making of the holy oil. The cinnamon referred to here
is called actually the sweet cinnamon. In Exodus 20, 23, the
Scripture says, "...take thou also unto thee principal spices
of pure myrrh, unmixed, with 500 shekels and of sweet cinnamon,
half so much, even 250 shekels and sweet calamus, 250 shekels."
This sweet spices. These pure spices made up the
holy oil, the best of the making of the holy oil. And then he
describes her, after he describes her as calamus and cinnamon,
it says, with all the trees of frankincense. Now frankincense,
I look that word up. I've heard of frankincense as
long as I can remember hearing the story of the gifts that were
brought to the Lord Jesus Christ whenever He was born in a stable
in Bethlehem. One of the gifts that was brought
to the Lord Jesus Christ was frankincense, gold and frankincense
and myrrh. Frankincense, when I looked up
the word, I found out that there was not one word in the dictionary
that described frankincense. When you look it up in the dictionary,
it says you have to go to these two words. You have to go to
frank and you have to go to incense. Frankincense. So, I went and
I found out what frankincense actually was. Frankincense is
the resin or the rosin. I don't know how you say it.
I say rosin. You know, some people say tomatoes.
Rosin. that gummy substance that comes
out of the side of a tree. Frankincense was made from a
variety of trees. It says here that she is calamus
and cinnamon with all the trees of frankincense. Now these various
trees that were used in the production of this frankincense was used
to make the holy perfume, frankincense. It was used in the meat offering
of fine flour for a sweet savor to the Lord. They would take
this gum off the side of these trees and they would put it together
and it became a gummy substance. It was dry. They could make a
powder. They could take it. But that frankincense was made
from a variety of trees. The savor was from the tree itself. split or cut, you've seen that,
a tree that has a split in the bark, and this gummy substance
will come out. That's what they would take.
It would cause that rosin to flow. Now the significance of
this frankincense right here, first of all, we behold the beauty
of the savor of what it pictures. Our Lord was wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. And that rosin, that
savor, that sweet incense from His wounds is what is pictured
in frankincense. But that frankincense in the
actual definition of the Word, there is beauty that is found
in that Word when you look up these two. Number one, the word
frank. That word means free. Free from guile. That's what
the word frank is described. And then the word incense. The
base word incense means to anger. Free to anger. So frankincense is descriptive
of the saints standing in the Lord Jesus Christ wounded for
our transgression, He who was made a curse, and now in Him
we are free from the anger of Almighty God. There is now, therefore,
no condemnation to them that be in Christ Jesus." But we notice
also, before we continue, that this frankincense is found from
the trees of incense. It says, the trees of frankincense. The word trees here is actually
interpreted sticks of wood. Trees. Sticks of wood for firmness. Trees that are put together like
this. You take a little twig like this
and one might be able to break it, but this is setting forth
the strength. of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
strength of Him who is set forth in this, the trees of frankincense. Not that there were many trees
or many different kinds of trees, but it's setting forth the tree
Himself, the root Himself. Man in the garden ate of the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and by it,
fell. He rebelled against God Almighty.
The trees of frankincense that are set forth in Song of Solomon. There were so many that I found,
I will but list a few in descriptive of the trees of frankincense. Now here you have to understand,
we set forth Christ and Him crucified. We look at Him alone. We see
only in Him our hope. Where is the savor of this? The Lord said, speaking of the
bride, He said, you are calumny, you are sin, you are frankincense. There is no condemnation to you. But what is the source of no
condemnation? What is the source of the frankincense? What is the source of all these
trees of frankincense? all the woods of Frankincense. Well, we behold, and I say again,
I show you but a few of the many, many that I could have found
in all of the Scriptures. But I looked at the ark, and
it spoke of, make an ark of gopher wood. And that ark that set forth
the salvation of Noah and his family There is the wood of surety
and preservation. Abraham secondly came to the
place which God told him of and Abraham built an altar there
and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son, laid him
on the altar upon the wood. Here is substitution. the trees
of frankincense, the wood, the stability over and over. A tabernacle
was provided from the shittum wood with ramskins dyed red and
badger as our high priest, our tabernacle, an arc of wood covered
with gold. Reconciliation. He said, you
are frankincense. All of the trees of frankincense
You begin to look at all of the illustrations of our blessed
Lord that is described in the trees that set forth Christ. But especially do we behold Him
who bore our sin upon the tree. Our blessed Savior who laid down
His life, He said, No man takes it from Me. Oh, the sweetness
of the blood that flowed from His side. We look at that rosin
and see a split in the side of that tree, and we see the sweetness
of that rosin, that savory substance, and God Almighty smelled the
savor of His sacrifice, and He was pleased. He said, you're
frankincense. And then next, He says, describing
the bride, He said, you are myrrh and aloes with all the chief
spices. Myrrh means bitter. Either this might symbolize the
suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, which I know is perfectly right,
on this earth, being forsaken of the Father, forsaken of men,
bore our guilt, Gladly, he suffered and died under the penalty of
God Almighty. Justice was spewed out upon him. He set his face like a flint,
but he suffered. I lay down my life. Or the sufferings,
he says, of the bride here being described as myrrh, may be the
sufferings or the bitterness with which the elect are called
to suffer in this life. If the myrrh is descriptive of
the bitterness of the saints in trials and tribulations here
on earth, take heart. These are but light afflictions
for the bitterness that had us bound and captive. That is sin. The Lord Jesus Christ
was made to be that for us. He was made to be sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Made a curse to redeem us from
the curse of the laws. He says of her, you are myrrh. And then aloes. Aloes. And the word aloes I found was
actually L-I-G-N. Line. Allos. Turn with me to Numbers chapter
24. I want you to just look at this. Numbers 24. Numbers 24 and verse 5 and 6. Have goodly, that is, made good,
made orderly by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ
How goodly are thy tents, your covering, your dwellings, O Jacob,
supplanter." You know, the Lord said, I change not, therefore
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob,
and thy tabernacles. We are in this life, but sojourners,
Temporary. It's not our home. We're just
pilgrims. This residence is a temporary
residence. And it says in Tabernacles, O
Israel, O Prince with God, as the valleys are they spread forth,
speaking of the bride herself, she is winding narrow valleys
spread forth, a number that no man can number, spread forth
as gardens by the riverside, that is, well-watered garden,
as the trees of lying aloes." You see that right there? Lying
aloes. That's the same word that the
bride is described in Song of Solomon, chapter 4. Lying aloes. Now, the thing that I found out
about lying aloes is that these lion aloes are not cultivated,
they are not planted or cultivated by the industry of man. But they
grew up totally without man's culture by God's good providence. They were not man-made, man-produced. And when they were cut down,
a very sweet savor proceeded from it, when they were cut down.
It made me think of that Scripture in Psalms 116, verse 15. It says,
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. Why? Why is that? Because in
that there is the savor of His redemption. Precious in the sight
of the Lord is the death of His saints. Psalm 45.8, all of thy
garments smell of myrrh and aloes. There's a sweetness to it. And he tells the bride, he said,
your calumny, your cinnamon, all the trees of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes with all the chief spices. The combination
of these spices used in the anointing oil produced a particular smell
a distinguished fragrance that spoke of that holy anointing. I read one writer that said even
the savor, the smell of that anointing oil, now this was just
a Jewish writer, this was not something I found in Scripture,
that it was even, he said, forbidden to even try to imitate that smell,
which I could, you know, I can see something. Like I said, I
don't know if that was so or not, but even that was forbidden.
But that distinguished fragrance, holy oil, all of those sweet
spices, it was a scent that was not misinterpreted. It symbolized
the savor of Christ to the Father, a sweet savor. That's what he
tells. He said, these savory spices,
calamus and cinnamon and all the trees of frankincense and
myrrh and aloes, all of these chief spices, that's what you
smell like. That's what you smell like. I
realized as we read, and as I looked, I thought, oh, how I see through
a glass darkly. I read these precious descriptions
of the bride and how the Lord described her to be, and I think
how little I perceive in what he's saying. I see just a glimpse
of what he's saying, and I wonder how many times I've read things
in Scripture and I miss. the depth of what is set forth. The scent, the smell of His righteousness
upon the saint. When that lime aloe tree was
cut down, it just smelled. Oh, what a scent! It had a scent of Christ Himself. And it had a scent also that
symbolized the anointing of the Spirit of God to the believer
by which The Spirit of God I'm talking about. The saints know
the voice of the Savior. It's the savor of life to them. They smell Him. You tell a believer,
you hear the Word of God set forth. You hear Christ being
preached and it smells of life. And a believer says, I know what
you're saying. I smell that. It smells of Him. Someone else
says, I don't know what you're talking about. That's just the
way it is. It smells of life. It tastes
of life. Taste the Lord and see that He's
good. Oh, Psalm 45, verse 8, that word
that we just read a moment ago, that word, smell. It's actually
in that verse, it says, His garments are of myrrh and hallows and
cassia. That is to say, the garments
of His righteousness are purging cleansing and makes sound the
believer upon whom they are imputed. Let me say this, with all those
chief spices, that bride is adorned and kept, wonderfully described,
the chief spices which receive their smell and savor of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verse 15, a fountain
of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon."
I believe that this is the words of the Bride. Now, I read some
that said that this was the Lord Jesus Christ still speaking of
the Bride. After reading it over and over
and over, Again, I believe the bride is speaking here. And it
is the bride that says in response to what He has said. He said,
this is the way you are. This is what you're like. This
is how you smell to me. This is how I see you. Bruised
but redeemed. The smell that is not made by
man's cultivation. Totally by God's good pleasure,
God's problems. God's will. God's favor. This is how you are. And she
says back to him, speaking of him, he is a fountain of gardens. He is a well of living waters. He is the fountain of gardens. There's one fountain. Actually, there's but one church. There is one church. But here
it may be, and the reason I say that is because these wonderful
words that speak of Him and speak of His bride, there is truly
much that we do see through a glass darkly. We don't begin to say
we understand the depth of the fullness of everything. There
are some things here that we shall not know until we see Him
as He is and know Him as He is. But I believe that it could be
here, speaking of when it says, a fountain, the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself, of gardens, realizing that there is one church, but
gardens planted in various spots throughout this world. Here in
Katy. Ashland, Dandler, gardens. Places where God Himself has
raised up the hearing of His precious Word. A fountain of
gardens. All the trees of righteousness
planted by the Lord who is the fountain. The fountain Himself. A well of living waters. Out of your belly shall flow
rivers. of living water, a well of living
waters, fathomless, bottomless, dug, if I can use that word that
speaks of a well, dug to us by sovereign grace. Living waters
because of Him. Dead sinners are quickened. Ever-flowing waters. and streams
from Lebanon." Lebanon was a mountain, a large mountain. And the bride here describes
coming from Him who is the fountain, from Him who is the well. Streams flow from Him as water
flowing down from the mountain powerfully, forcefully, I tell
you what, you know, you stop and think for just a minute about
water that's coming down a mountain. Have you ever tried to think
what it would be like to try to stop it? You know, well, I
think I'm going to just stop it and push it back up the mountains. You're just not that powerful.
He is the fountain of the gardens. He is the well of living waters. And from Him streams from Lebanon
powerfully bearing down, breaking down, pushing down all obstacles,
irresistible grace. Those that Almighty God has purposed
to call out to water, to feed, to clothe, to impute, His righteousness
to grant faith to. He does. My sheep shall hear. My sheep hear. They come to Me. They shall never perish. He is the fountain. He is the
well. And streams of Lebanon come from
Him. Irresistible, saving grace. watering his gardens. Well, Lord willing, we'll look
next week at verse 16. Verse 16 is in itself a very,
very precious verse that we would do well to look at by itself. Well, let's have a closing word
of prayer. And I'll tell you what, let's
sing one verse. of amazing grace, 236. 236.