It's very interesting if you
go to Sermon Audio and you look up the references, messages preached
on the Song of Solomon, the old The Church from hundreds of years
ago preached on it incessantly and if you go looking you'll
find there are just dozens of snippets from Bunyan and Spurgeon
and Whitefield and all of these others. As someone said, turn
with me to Song of Solomon chapter 2 just before Isaiah. As someone said, John chapter
17 which we're in is the Lord Jesus Christ taking us into the
Holy of Holies and so we see the transactions in the Holy
of Holies but in the psalm of Solomon we actually are brought
into the presence of the very heart of God and we hear This
extraordinary love that the world makes a common and a meaningless
thing, but this love in Song of Solomon is very beautiful. passage of scripture I think
there are five or six references to the fact that she calls him
my beloved what a lovely way of talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ he's my beloved my beloved it is mine and I am his. I just wanted to quickly put
some context to this and look at these verses. It says stay
me with flagons, verse 5, stay me with flagons, comfort me with
apples for I am sick of love. I'm sick with love, I'm lovesick
is what she's saying. She says uphold me, you uphold
me, you uphold me with cakes of raisins 6. His left hand is
under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. He's embraced, she's embraced
by tenderness, isn't it? His left hand is nearest his
heart and the power of his right hand. How close is our God to
us? Christ in you, the hope of glory. He gathers his people and he's
in their midst. That's how close he is, close
enough to embrace. Sin, our sin makes him seem so
distant. His embrace of love is not just
a fleeting touch, but it's a loving embrace. And then she says in
verse seven, I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the rows and
by the hinds of the field, that you stir not up nor awake, my
love, till he pleased. She has the closeness of his
love in verse six, and now we hear the sovereignty of his love. And till he pleased. He's pleased. He's pleased to make you his
children. He delights in his bride. Verse 8, the voice of
my beloved. Behold, he cometh leaping upon
the mountains and skipping upon the hills. In the previous verse,
he's like a roe, he's like a gazelle and a young deer and he has all
the fleet of footness of them. He's able to come swiftly, isn't
he? The voice of my beloved. How does Christ come to his beloved?
His voice, His word. My sheep hear my voice. My sheep hear my voice. They
all will. All the sheep will hear the voice.
He comes leaping and skipping, not with reluctance, but with
enthusiasm and delight. Behold, he cometh. My beloved
is like a roe, a young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall. He looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through
the lattice. The roe is the gazelle. But the
Hebrew indicates that it's something beautiful and speaks of beauty
and glory and honor. Both animals with great speed
and an ability to traverse all sorts of terrain. He stands behind
our wall. He looks forth at the windows.
He shows himself through the lattice. He's in the house and
he sees clearly everything. And we see him as through a glass
darkly. How glorious is our Lord in coming. Only the new creation, only the
new creation can see him as he is. We see him as he is, brothers
and sisters, through the eyes of faith. But we get glimpses,
we just get glimpses of his glory and his beauty. We get enough
glimpses for us to hunger and thirst after more of him. My
beloved spake and said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one,
come away. Whenever the beloved speaks,
he finds his bride in the place where she's bowed down. Sin just
bows us down, doesn't it? He's always saying, rise up.
Where does he find his bride in the gospel accounts? At his
feet, at his feet, always at his feet. And he says to us,
rise up. He finds his bride humbled by
the circumstances of life, and he's always saying to her, rise
up. But I love what he says. My beloved
spake, my. He says, rise up. Listen to these
claims of ownership on his bride. He says, she's my love, She's
my fair one, she's my beautiful one, and then he says, you come
away. You come away from this world,
you come away from this religion, you come away from everything
about this world, and you come away with me. His command, isn't
it, is to come. unto me, all you that are weary
and heavy laden, come. The command of God is to come.
The obedience to the gospel is to come. Our warrant for coming
is his command to come. He says come. He speaks by his
word and he calls his people out of this world, out of its
enticements, away from its God, away from those things which
defile our relationship with him. What separates us from our
God? Sin, the world, and the devil, the
lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh. Come away, come away and walk
with me. He says, for below the winter is past and the rain is
over and gone. The time of darkness and cold
is past. The rain is over. The sun of
righteousness has arisen with healings in his wings. And the
flowers, verse 12, the flowers appear on the earth. The time
of the singing birds has come. The voice of the turtle is heard
in our land. The flowers, the lilies, and
the rose of Sharon appear on the earth. The gospel song is
sung in Emmanuel's land. And listen to what he says, it
is heard, it is heard. God's gospel always goes out
with his power to his people at his time for his purpose and
at the time of love it takes root in the hearts of his people. what the Spirit says to the church. May God give us ears to hear.
This gospel must go out because God has determined that it goes
out. Verse 13, the fig tree putteth forth her green figs. The rain has come and the flowers
have come and now the fruit has come. The fig tree putteth forth
her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give a
good smell. And then he says, as a result
of all of this gospel work, a result of the son of righteousness,
the rain, the showers from heaven, the gospel song being sung, He's
saying to her, arise, my love, my fair one, come away. When there's sweet fruit to be
promised by what there is in the bud and the flowers, he says,
come away. He's always saying, come away,
come to me. And she's, is sweetly and graciously brought
into his banqueting house with the sweet fruits, the sweet fruits
of all of his labor. Come away, come away. The response to the gospel, his
command in the gospel is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
ye shall be saved. It's a command from God, come
away, come to me. Verse 14, O my dove, thou art
in the cliffs of rock and the secret places of stairs. Let
me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is
thy voice and thy countenance is comely. I love how he characterizes
her as a dove. Don't you love it on Noah's Ark?
You could send out Noah, could send out a raven. an unclean
bird, and the raven can find a home in this world and find
sustenance in the rotting carcasses of this world, the duck goes
out and it finds nothing to feast on. And it comes back into the
ark, it comes back into Christ, doesn't it? Until there is a
time where there is fruitfulness in the land, my dove, let me see thy countenance,
let me hear thy voice. And then there is this prayer,
which is a really interesting prayer. It says, take us the
foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines
have tender grapes. Our vines can only be supported
by their attachment to He who is the branch, isn't it? We are,
he is the vine, we are the branches, and they're weak in and of themselves. Their life comes from his, their
sustenance comes from his, and vines are always needing to lean
on something. Vines only grow while they lean.
Well, little foxes, there are as many interpretations of this
as there are commentators really, but it's one of the glorious
things about this sort of language is that in a sense all of them
are true. There's no doubt that foxes were
really common. You might remember that Samson
had got 300 pairs of foxes and tied them together and put a
burning branch between their tails and sent them off into
a field. You might recall in Ezekiel chapter 13, the foxes
are the false teachers of false religion. I wonder sometimes whether it
might be better if we thought of the little foxes of all those
little things that break our fellowship. If you look back
on your life of fellowship with your brothers and sisters in
Christ, has there ever been a big thing worthy of fighting for
which is broken fellowship? who bore the sins of his people
in his own body on the tree. Little foxes are all those little
things that cause a break in fellowship, aren't they? How little they really are at
the end of the day. How liable are we, how prone
are we to make little things that don't matter in light of
eternity, don't matter in light of the glory of God. How often
do we make little things big things? How often do we invert
the importance and the significance of things? You see, the people
of God are tender. The people of God are tender.
They're the lilies, the lilies of the valley. They're the lily
among the thorns. The new birth gives the heart
of flesh and removes the heart of stone, and flesh is so easily
wounded by the stones. You who have the gift of the
new creation know what hurts feel like. And you're also liable
to be one of those who does the wounding of tender shoots. Comfort
ye, my people, is the command of God to his pastors. Comfort ye, my people, should
be the cry from the tender grapes to one another, isn't it? To
the lilies. How do a lily embrace another lily with softness and
tenderness, not with the rocks and the stones? Our old man is
a trial to it, to us in trial. And so much of what becomes big
is actually really little, isn't it? And so how easily we are
able to tread on the feelings of others. As I said last week,
let us be the hurt ones and not the hurting ones. Let us be the
lilies and not the thorns. Our relationship with the Lord
is reflected, according to 1 John, in our relationship with the
brethren. Don't talk about love for God if there's no love for
your brethren around you. I'm talking to me. I'm talking
to me. You can listen in, but I'm talking
to me about What I should be. And now we come to this verse
with all that in context. We've seen how extraordinary
the beloved is and we've seen the activities of the beloved
in coming. We've seen him embracing his bride and then he says, my
beloved is mine and I am his. My beloved is mine. We would often, if we were to
write that verse, we would say, I am his and he is mine. And that's true. But here Solomon
is led by the Holy Spirit to put our love as he's revealed in the preaching
of the gospel. And then we realize that he laid
to him. We embrace him. We lay hold of
him. We cry out to him, take us the
little foxes, because I can't take the little foxes. You must
do all of this work for me. And then we find out that he's
the one that takes all the responsibility. He says, to give diligence to
make your calling and election sure, which came first with God. election came first. What comes
first with me? I hear his voice calling me and
I come. And then when you come, you realize
that you were elected and he made you to respond. My beloved
is mine, he's mine, he's mine. By faith, I believe on him, I
hold him. Like Simeon took up that little
baby in his arms in that temple and says, I've seen God. and he lay hold of him and he
held his in his arm. I've seen the consolation of
Israel. Simeon had no idea at the time
that the Lord had taken Simeon up in his arms and held him.
When that woman came with the issue of blood, Do you think she ever knew that
he loved her from the foundation of the world, and he'd come to
that place on that particular day, at that time in her life,
after all those years of her trials, just to heal her? She touched him by faith, clinging
to the only hope she had. Then she found out that he'd
touched her with his healing power. We know that all things
work together for the good to them that love God, to them who
are the called according to His purpose. Which was first, our
calling or His purpose? Well, obviously His purpose,
but in our experience, it's His calling, isn't it? I love Him,
I love Him, and then I find out that He loved me infinitely and
eternally. My beloved is mine. That's the cry of the bride of
Christ, isn't it? He's mine. He's mine by faith. He's mine by an affectionate
relationship. I love him. We love him. God's children love him. He's
mine. He's my beloved. He's mine by
a living union. He's my head. I'm his body. He's
divine. I'm one of his branches. He's
my husband. I'm his bride. He lives in me. He's mine by
faith. He's mine by affectionate relationship.
He's mine by a living union. He's mine by divine decree. He is my Lord and my God. And as a result of that, she
then says, and I am his. You hold of him and you'll find
out that he's laid hold of you. We belong to him in eternal union,
a union, that indivisible union that we spoke about earlier.
We are in him. We belong to him by creation. We belong to him by redemption. You're not your own. You're not
your own. I'm not my own. We've been bought
with a price. What did he pay? His life's blood
was the price, wasn't it? What did he get for his payment?
If you go down to the shops and you hand over your hard-earned
cash, You expect that the lady behind the till will give you
what you paid for. That calls true for everything,
doesn't it? Except in religion, where they want to present to
Jesus who paid a price and didn't get what he paid for. You wouldn't
do that. You wouldn't go back to that
shop. Multitudes go back to that shop of religion every week,
don't they? Making merchandise of men's souls. We belong to
Him by union. We belong to Him by the gift
of the Father, by creation, by redemption. We belong to Him
by a life given, eyes to see His beauty. He gives us hands
to lay hold of Him. He gives us feet to run after
Him. He gives us a new mind to know Him, a new heart to love
Him, new ears to hear His voice. We have a new record His presence, justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. What's
my record before God? 33 and a half years of perfect
love, perfect obedience, law. That's my record, isn't
it? That's now my record before God.
All things are passed away. They passed away on the cross.
We have a new record. We're His by union, by creation,
by gift, redemption, by life given, but we're mostly He makes himself so captivating
to his bride that she falls in love with him. I am his and my
beloved is mine. Being taken captive, that's what
happens in a marriage, isn't it? There is the expression before
the public of a captivity of one to the other. of a commitment
of one to the other, of one belonging to the other, of a responsibility
of one to the other. He loves his bride. May that
be reflected not just in an event on Sunday, but be reflected throughout
the rest of your lives. that he continually conquers
his bride by expressions of his love for her, his self-sacrificial
love. He's turning away from himself
and his own desires and putting her first. He conquers us, doesn't
he? My God was the price he paid. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? What a price to pay. What love
on display. What a reward for the joy set
before him. What's the joy that's set before
him? The joy of glorifying his father's holy and righteous name. The joy of having his bride with
him, fit and perfect to be in the presence of God by his own
finished work. The joy of living with her forever
and ever. He conquers us by His love and
He conquers us by conquering everything that's ever against
us, isn't it? We owe a debt to God. You owe
a debt to God. You owe a debt to His law. You
owe a debt to Him to love Him, to honour Him, to glorify Him
in every thought, word. What a debt! And we were captive
to the fact that we couldn't pay the debt and He comes and
we didn't even know that we had a debt to pay. his life of perfect
obedience, honoring his father. He did it all as a nuisance. And he conquered death. He conquered
the law and he conquered death. He fulfilled it and it's gone. We never die, brothers and sisters
in Christ. Our last breath here on this
earth is our first real breath There is just glory ahead. And
I am His. We belong to Him. I'm His by
willing surrender. He makes His people willing in
the day of His power. May He exercise His power again
and again and again. We're His. by a family bond. The children
of God, my children are my children no matter what happens. No matter
what they do, no matter what I do, they're always going to
be my children, aren't they? So it is with his. And we're his
by a relationship of marriage. He calls her my sister, my spouse. We're betrothed to him. The two
become one in union, a union of life, a union of love. He
calls them his people. Awaiting his people is the marriage
shopper. What happens at the marriage
supper? What do you bring? Absolutely nothing and everything
is provided. Even the robe that gives you
entrance into the marriage supper. You can read about that in that
parable in Matthew chapter 20. The robe is provided by God,
the robe of his righteousness. We're his because he creates
in his people a new desire to live for his glory. You glorify God in your bodies
because you bought with a price. We're his because we have a new
estimation of his blood, it's precious. has been washed in
his blood. We're his and he is ours because
we have a new community, a new family. We're brought, not just
individually, but we're brought together into the church of God
and we have fellowship. For you who have been overseas
and met our friends or had them come here, instantly there's
this bond of love and union and fellowship, isn't it? We've become
closer to them than people that we've known all of our lives.
We have a new freedom. We have the freedom to love.
Love him with all your heart and do as you want. Love him
with all your heart and do as you want. We are compelled and
constrained by life. What's she told? You come, you
come to him. To get Christ is to get all. Jacob loved Rachel and he labored
14 years for Rachel. He said it seemed like nothing.
It was just like a day because he loved. Christ labored hard
for us from his birth to his death. And now he's living forever
to intercede for us. We belong to him. We belong to
him. his. We belong to him by his
indwelling. We are in him as the branches
in the vine. The verse concludes by saying,
he feeds among the lilies. Isn't it extraordinary that the
Lord Jesus Christ finds nourishment and joy in his lilies being gathered
together? And where we feed, he feeds. Faith believes And he is mine. Arise and come
away. My beloved is mine and I am his. Listen to what she says in Psalm
chapter 7 verse 10. It says, I am my beloved's and
his desire is toward me. Someone wrote, a Christian is
never strong for service when he does not know whether Christ
loves him or not. If that be a question. You have
to put out the fire by which alone the force can be generated
which must work the machinery of your spirit. You must know
beyond question that Jesus loved you and gave himself for you. Come away, come to him, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, trust him, rest in him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we do pray that you would send the Blessed Spirit and take these
words and cause them to be spirit and life for us. We might be
led again and again and again, Heavenly Father, to cherish your
Son, to cherish His love, to cherish the wonders of union
with Him, the wonders of communion with Him, the wonders of what
it is for you to say to us, I will be your God and they shall be
my people. Heavenly Father, conquer us.
Conquer us and constrain us and compel us by love that we might
embrace the Lord Jesus Christ and find ourselves embraced by
Him. May we, Heavenly Father, be reminded
again and again of how precious His blood is, how precious His
person is, how precious His fellowship with Him is. And as we eat and
drink, cause us to know him. Do so with simple childlike faith,
resting in who he is. We thank you for your word. We
thank you for the power of your words that come into the hearts
and souls of your people with captivating force. May that be
ours and everyone here that might hear us, our father. For we pray
in Jesus' name and for his glory. Amen.