on weddings, all the focus is
on a bride. But we have time prior to the wedding
for us to become familiarised again with the Song of Solomon.
And for those who have been with us for some time, you'll know
that's one of my favourite passages of scripture. One of the things
that I love so much about it is that in the scriptures, when
we have the dealings of the Lord Jesus Christ with his bride,
we are reading our biography, we're reading our history, and
we're reading of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so Song of Solomon is just the most delightful picture of of
the Lord Jesus Christ and his bride and the journey of that
bride in relationship with him, her sinfulness and her frailty
and her weakness and his extraordinary grace and mercy and sovereignty
and the completeness and the sureness of the salvation that
he has wrought. And she She wants him, in verse
2 of chapter 1, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,
for thy love is better than wine. She's speaking of his word coming
to her as the sweetness and sweet affection that comes from that
sort of love. In verse 4 of chapter 2, he brought
me to the banqueting house, a place
of rejoicing, a place of shouting that we've just been reading
about in Zechariah chapter nine. And his banner over me was love. Again and again this glorious
picture of the bride and her husband is brought before us,
of him coming to her and them being in the sweetest of sweet
communion and fellowship and then that being broken in various
ways and him withdrawing himself and she seeking after him, but
it's a glorious picture of the dynamic and the intimate and
the wonderful relationship between a bride and her husband. And I want to take us to a passage
that you well know because I've read it so many times and preached
on it a couple of times and I'll test my memory and yours, but
we have not so long ago looked at this verse again. But in chapter
eight, there's a question asked about the bride of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the question is, who is this? Who is this? Who is this woman
that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? Who is this? Who is this? So here we have a glorious picture
of these two people, these two together, these two in, as it
were, an embrace. And this particular one draws
the attention of people, and they ask the question, who is
she? And the question is asked no doubt, I believe, by the daughters
of Jerusalem, because not only have they a special place in
this story, but she has this particular place of intimate
union and communion with him. And she's characterized by these
particular things, isn't it? She's characterized by the fact
that she is coming up from the wilderness and she's leaning
upon her beloved. And every one of those words
has the deepest and most particular meaning. And so I love the fact
that she calls him my beloved. Her Beloved. This is a common
term used in the Song of Solomon. Beloved, of course, is the name
that the Scriptures use for the Lord Jesus Christ. Seven times
in the Gospel accounts, the Father speaks of His Son and says, Behold
My Beloved Son. Behold My Beloved Son. We are
called upon here to ask, who is this beloved son? 33 times
in this particular and small book of just eight chapters,
33 times the word beloved is used and 27 of them refer to
the church, speaking to him as her beloved. Is he your beloved? Is her beloved? And she is characterized in this
beautiful way. Ephesians 1.6 speaks of the Beloved,
to the praise and the glory of his grace, wherein he has made
us accepted in the Beloved. Not that we made ourselves, but
he made us accepted in the Beloved. The Beloved is the one that is
leaned upon, and the Beloved is the one that brings the bride
up and out of the wilderness. What a glorious picture, that
he comes to the wilderness, and he finds her in the wilderness. Her having had all these remarkable
experiences, have you experienced a wilderness? Long after you've
walked and known the Lord for a long time, I've experienced
multitudes of them, where he seems so distant from me. And
this world, rather than seeming like a wilderness, seems like
the Garden of Eden. And I find myself embarrassed
by the fact that I'd rather have more time here than time with
him. It's a shocking thing to say, isn't it? It's a shocking
thing to say, and maybe all of you can say the same, but that's
certainly been my experience again and again and again. What
a glorious thing that he comes to where we are in the wilderness,
and he causes us to lean on him. To lean is to bend, it's to incline,
it's to rest one's weight upon. It's ultimately a synonym for
trust. It's to have faith in, it's to
be persuaded, isn't it? Like Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter
one, he's persuaded, I'm persuaded that he is able. This one leaning
is leaning in humility. of how we need to be humbled,
how the circumstances of our lives humble us. We lean in dependence. A leaning person can't stand
by themselves or in their own righteousness or in their own
strength. To lean on him is to lean in love. He comes so close that she can
lean on him. What a privilege to be able to
lean on him. Come so close. And it's His glory to be leaned
upon. We naturally believe, isn't it,
that the stronger we get and the more independent we get and
the more we grow in our righteousness and other things, the stronger
we get. In fact, according to the Bible, we grow in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you two grow together,
you'll be delighted to grow in the grace and knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ. To grow in grace is to grow in
dependence. The growing grace is to grow
more and more aware of the fact that all of your salvation and
all of your future is in the hands of Him. The growing grace
is to grow in weakness. Gracious people are leaning people. You go through the scriptures
and you'll find all of the people who are evident recipients of
grace are made by that very grace that causes them to lean to make
them more and more and more weak and more and more and more dependent. This leaning speaks of a union. They lean so close that they
are bound together in their coming up out of this wilderness. It
speaks of weakness and yet it speaks of tender affection. no
longer strong and upright in her own eyes, no longer able
to stand in her own strength. The more she trusts, the more
she leans. The more she leans, the less
she is dependent upon her own righteousness and her own activities. And the more she leans, the more
she knows that he can bear her weight. That's what it is to
grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
grow in the knowledge that he is faithful. We grow in the knowledge
that he is absolutely sovereign. We grow in just the knowledge
of the glory of his character, that he is sovereign and he rules
over all things. The more she knows of her weakness,
the more of his strength she rests upon. Have you found him faithful?
Have you found him able? Have you found him, in your times
of need, to be dependable? He's her beloved. And I love
what the verse says. It says, Who is this that cometh
up from the wilderness, not having leant in the past upon her beloved,
not hoping that she might lean in the future upon her beloved
because she's okay by herself right now, but she is leaning. She never grows above leaning.
She never grows above being absolutely dependent. What's she leaning
for? She's leaning for stability.
If you've ever tumbled and you find something to lean on, you're
very, very thankful that something is solid. She's leaning because
all other helps are gone. What's she leaning on? She's
leaning on Him as a person, isn't she? She's leaning on His glory. She's leaning on His righteousness. She's leaning on everything about
Him, all of the glorious attributes of our great Lord. and glorious
saviour. We read about it in the beginning
of our service, didn't we? We worship him in the beauty
of holiness. The holiness that covers all
of his attributes. Holy Sovereignty, Holy Justice,
Holy Faithfulness, Holy Power, Holy Ability. She has none of
her own. God sent His law to make His
people so guilty before God that they can't look to their own
righteousness for a single thing. They can't look anywhere inside
of themselves for help, just like that publican that beat
upon his chest and said, Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. Lord, you look to the sacrifice
of your son. You look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
You look to him on my behalf. I'm looking to him. You look
to him. Lord, be merciful to me. Lord, be propitious to me. Every single person in the scriptures
that comes to the Lord Jesus Christ leaning comes away gloriously
satisfied. He says to that harlot, doesn't
he, your sins are forgiven. She loved him much because she
thought it was forgiven much. He said, go in peace. Everyone
that comes to lean finds him. and finds in him the most glorious
acceptance. She leans on him. She leans on
his obedience, his righteousness. She leans on his blood for pardon. She leans on him for acceptance.
Right now, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Not
in the future, but right now. It's a continuing right now.
She's leaning right now. right now for acceptance. At
death we're leaning upon him, at the judgment we're leaning
upon him for his acceptance. We're leaning upon his word,
all of his promises. all of the glorious promises
that we read in the scriptures, that he will save his people
from their sins. He will build his church in the
gates of Hades, he will not prevail against it. He'll gather his
people out of the nations and he'll bring them all to himself.
And they will have a glorious union and a glorious inheritance. And he declares the end from
the beginning. What's the end? Isaiah 40, 16, what's the end?
The Lord Jesus Christ being revealed in all of his glory in a new
creation where sin and Satan and every enemy is gone and the
children of God live in glorious, physical, real existence in the
very presence of the Lord Jesus. That's the end that he declares
from the beginning. That end goes on forever and
ever and ever. And you can't mess it up. You
can't mess it up. Because it's all about Him. It's
all about what He's done. He gets all the glory. That's
why we're leaning. Because we have no glory of our
own. It's all been taken away. And we're leaning on those promises
for our future, aren't we? That's the end, isn't it? The
end of God's children is not is not a grave in this ground,
isn't it? The end of God's children is
for those bodies to be gloriously resurrected. God says they're
asleep. And when he comes back, we can't put our tiny little
brains around the glory of that resurrection day, can we? We
just can't put our tiny little brains around it. Believing, and when he said it's
finished, he meant it was finished. He didn't say, I've started something
and you've got to complete it by your own activity. He said,
I've done it all. I've done it all for you. There will be a glorious marriage
and all the marriages since the Garden of Eden are destined and
determined by God to be a picture of that glorious marriage. and we're just waiting. We're
waiting for the bridegroom to come back. We love the fact that he's promised
to be close, hasn't he? That's how close he is. You can
leave. I'll never leave you. I'll never, never, never, never,
it is in the original, leave you nor forsake you. How close. How close. Near, so very near
to God, nearer I cannot be, for in the person of his dear Son,
I am as near as he. Dear, so very dear to God, dearer
I cannot be, in the person of his dear Son, I am as dear as
he. We're leaning on the fact that
right now in heaven stands our Advocate and he shows his wounds. The resurrected Christ is in
heaven's glory right now and he shows his wounds for our sins. marked the Son of God, brothers
and sisters. And those wounds declare our
salvation. Those wounds declare that the
justice of God demands the salvation of everyone He died for. We are dependent upon Him as
our advocate with the Father. We're dependent upon Him that
He pleads our case before the Father's holiness and justice.
We've got nothing to plead in that court. We haven't got a
single thing to plead. All we can do is plead Him to
the Father. We lean on Him for all of our
cares and all of our anxious thoughts. We have sins that come
back and haunt us. Maybe they don't you, they certainly
do me, and they can't be erased. They just keep coming back. And
we are called to cast them all on Him. He's dealt with them
a long time ago. We have worries and concerns about things around
us and we are told to cast them all on him. We have concerns
about the future. Who's got the future in his hands? Cast it all upon him. That's
what it is to lean, isn't it? It's just he's throwing it, isn't
it? We need a great big shovel to throw all of our cares and
all of our worries and all of our... throw it on him. He's
able to carry it. That's what it is to lean on
him. He's able to bear the weight. We lean on him in his glorious
humanity. He became man that we might be
brought as men into the presence of God. We lean on one who has
been through the wilderness. You remember the very first thing
that happened to the Lord Jesus Christ after the glorious declaration
that this is my beloved son. What was the very first thing?
Mark chapter 1 verse 12, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. We have someone who knows what
it's like to be in this wilderness. We have someone who knows what
it's like to be tempted and tried in all points. and that without
sin. He's touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. He's able to succor. He's able
to come to the cry of them who call on him. Can he bear our
weight? Can he bear the weight? Of course
he can. He's sovereign. I love what John
says. John leaned on his breast at
the last supper. He leaned on his breast and John
declares himself to be the one whom Jesus loved. The one whom Jesus loved. The
loved lean. The loved lean. David leaned, Moses was leaning
right at the very end of his life. The end of Moses' life,
he says, the eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the
everlasting arms. He shall thrust out the enemy
from before you and shall say, destroy them. Moses never stopped
leaning. David never stopped leaning.
None of the children of God ever stopped leaning. So why did these
people ask this question? Because they saw something in
the demeanor and the activities of this woman. It was a rare
sight. It was an enticing sight, it
was an encouraging sight. How should we be praying that
the Church should get the attention of this world by the way we live
in devotion and faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ? Is our leaning seen by others? and wooed by him and he came
to her. He's the one who always initiates
all of the relationship we have with him. Isn't it wonderful
that he begins and what he begins he's promised to complete. She
was welcomed by him and she was wooed by him. He brought me into
his banqueting house and his banner over me was love. She saw him as beautiful. You
read the Song of Solomon, every time she had opportunities she
would talk about how beautiful. He's the chief among 10,000.
He's altogether lovely, the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot exalt
His beauty and the beauties of His holiness and the beauties
of His glory and the beauties of His sovereignty, all of His
attributes. seen him. She'd seen him. It's
beautiful. She was, he came to her and she
was welcomed and word and she was brought and she heard his
voice. She heard his voice as she always kissing her in sweetness. Have you heard his voice? There's
a story I read the other day, a time, some considerable time
ago, where they were having in a public hall some readings from
sort of famous passages of writing, and a lady who was highly educated
got up and read Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, and she
read it beautifully, and she put all the commas in the right
place, and the full stops in the right place, and emphasized
the words in the right place. And when she'd finished, an old
man got up and said, do you mind if I read it? And he read Psalm
23, and the lady, in honesty, said, there's a huge difference. I knew the words, and this old
man knew the shepherd. If you hear his voice, his voice
is sweet. His name is as ointment poured
forth. And she had that name emboldened
and embedded in her heart. She just loved hearing what he
said. She loved his word. She loved his voice. Who is this
that cometh up from the wilderness? Just in closing, there is this
glorious description of this work of the glorious savior. What's the wilderness? Well,
the wilderness is us, for a start. That's the very first thing that's
a wilderness, isn't it? It's a wilderness to all of the
glory of God. It's a wilderness to the beauties of God. God must
pour out the rain from heaven on this wilderness so that we'll
actually see and have revealed to us the glory and the worthship
of our God. Our sins and our flesh have separated
us from our God. Our sins led to this world to
being cursed. Every time you tread on a thorn
or a thistle or you see a death, that came into this world because
of us and our rebellion against God. It's a wilderness, isn't
it? The people of God were brought
up, were led by God through what God calls in Deuteronomy 8.15,
a great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents and
scorpions in drought, where there was no water. He found his people,
Deuteronomy 32.10, he found them in a desert land. That's where
he has to come. He comes to the wilderness. That's where he finds
his bride. He found him in a desert land, in a waste, howling wilderness. He led him about, he instructed
him. He kept him as the apple of his
eye. The Lord leads his people through
the wilderness. Jeremiah 2.6 says it's a land
of deserts and of pits. There are many places to fall
and many pits in this wilderness that we walk through. many many
pits. It's through a land of drought
and the shadow of death. Through a land that no man passes
through. The only possible way to pass
through the wilderness is in the arms leaning upon the Beloved. He's the only one that passed
through that wilderness. taking upon all of the temptations
of Satan and defeating him and then making a public mockery
of him and the cross and he did it for us he did it with us in
him The people wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way
and they found no city to dwell in. Abraham was sent to that
amazing land filled with milk and honey and he looked around
there and he couldn't find a single place to rest. And Abraham walked
through that land of milk and honey for all those years. 70, 80 years he walked through
that land and he had two things. He had a tent and an altar. Just
a tent. Never built a house. A tent and
an altar. That's how we walk through this
wilderness land. This world offers so much, doesn't
it? For most people, it seems like the Garden of Eden. But
it's no place. It's no place for the child of
God to build his home. If it was a tree, you wouldn't
want to build your nest in it. This world is marked for condemnation. This world promises so much. and delivers nothing. It entices so many and entraps
them in what it gives. It causes so many to cling onto
it, to their destruction. It provides men with religion,
that causes them to hold on to their righteousness. In India,
you could trap monkeys. I've never seen it happen, but
I didn't like monkeys at all. They're terrible little things.
But anyway, nasty, bitey, rabid little things. But they said
you could trap a monkey by putting an apple in a glass jar, and
the monkey would reach in and lay its hands around the apple
and hold onto the apple so tightly that if the apple was of the
right size, it couldn't get its hand out, and you could catch
the monkey. And that's exactly, what a great picture of men holding
on to things in this world. Clinging on to them, aren't they?
Our generation is particularly good at that. We're clinging
on to all sorts of things. And one house is not enough,
two's not enough, we want three or four of them. We're clinging
on to them. I'm not saying that wealth is
wrong, but wealth, according to God, is deceptive because
it's so easy to put our trust in it. There are pits everywhere.
The pits of man-made works religion. It's just all over this world,
isn't it? It's enticing millions. I can't believe it. I read something
the other day that the Roman Catholic Church is growing like
a mushroom with so-called converts. 3.7 million in America have converted
so-called into Catholicism in this very recent time. You'd
only have to read an encyclopedia to know that that was silly.
You'd only have to look at all the nonsense that goes on in
Rome to think, dear oh dear oh dear. You see, there are pits
everywhere, aren't there? There are religious pits, and
there are earthly pits, and they're all over. It's a wilderness.
This wilderness. We only get through this wilderness by coming up. We come up From. We come up from. We're coming up. We're leaning and we're coming
up. It's a continual activity, isn't
it? The God is drawing. That's where the Song of Solomon
begins, isn't it? Draw me and we will run after
you. If you don't do the drawing,
I'm gonna run in exactly the opposite way. You gotta draw
me, we'll run after you. She's coming up from. In his
arms and leaning upon him, she has her back turned on the world
and she's looking in another direction. She's coming up and
she's coming away. She's still in the world, but
she's coming up and she's coming from it. And if you are like
me, if you are a born again child of God, you will declare what
The Shulamite, what God sees in the Shulamite is seen in us. In verse 13 of chapter 6, just
on the same page, return, return, O Shulamite, return, that we
may look upon you. What will you see in the Shulamite,
this one coming up out of the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?
You'll see the company of two armies, two whirling forces,
spirit and flesh, one with the other. She's still
in this world. She will be in this world until
the Lord takes her into glory. Has he drawn you so near to him
that you can lean on him? I love the fact that he's the
one that comes. When he comes, he causes us to be so dependent
upon him. Has he weakened you so much of
yourself that you now just lean? As we saw in John chapter 15
and 16, one of the marks of a leaning person is that they're an asking
person. God's people never stop asking.
They never stop pleading. Lord, save me. Lord, come again. Lord, I've messed it up. One
more time. Please come and have mercy upon
me. Lord, I've been entangled in
the wilderness. Come. Come, Lord Jesus, and make this
world a wilderness. Come, Lord Jesus, and make me
to see that I'm a pilgrim and a stranger here. He is the way. I've tried all
the other ways. Solomon had, hadn't he? You read
Ecclesiastes and you'll see that Solomon tried everything that
this world could give him. And eventually he says this is
just all vanity. It's emptiness. Emptiness. I've tried my own wisdom and
understanding and I just got lost in the wilderness. I've
tried my own strength and I've fallen into the pits. Who is
this? May it be said of us. Individually,
and may it be said of us as a church, may it be our portion that he
comes to where you are in the wilderness. He comes so close
that he bears all the weight. He comes so close that he determines
the path that you take out of the wilderness. He determines
the pace that you take out of this world. He determines the
circumstances. Enoch walked with God. Isn't that lovely? Enoch walked
with God. We want to run ahead sometimes,
but mostly we lag behind, captivated by this world. But he determines
the coming. He determines the closing. you take. Lean not on your own
understanding. In all your ways acknowledge
Him and He shall direct thy path. It's not in man to direct his
steps. This is the wilderness. Moses was led about. Lean, lean on He who is worthy
and honoured. on him and lean together. You'll find in his company all
the Church of God are doing exactly the same thing. They're leaning. May the Lord cause you to lean
together on him. You'll find a closeness and a
sweetness. We never rise above being needy. Let's pray. Our blessed God,
we thank you for your mercy. We thank you for sending your
son into this world. We thank you that the son was
sent and delightfully came into this world to save all of his
bride that you'd given him from the foundation of the world.
And Heavenly Father, we thank you that the paths through this
wilderness have been trodden by your dear and precious Son,
our glorious Saviour. And we thank you, Heavenly Father,
and praise you that not only did He come and walk through
this wilderness, but He triumphed over it. And we overcome by simply
trusting in Him and leaning upon Him. We praise you, Heavenly
Father, that he has overcome this world, he's overcome our
sins and Satan and all that stands opposed to us, that now all things
must work together for the good of those who are loved, those
who are called according to your purpose. Keep calling us, Heavenly
Father. Please keep sending your Spirit. into our hearts and revealing
the Lord Jesus Christ, revealing how close he is, revealing how
comforted his people always are in his company. We praise you,
Heavenly Father, that his bride is bought by his blood and washed
in his blood. and now is presented by him wholly
and unblameable and unapprovable in your sight. Heavenly Father,
give us eyes to see our brothers and sisters in Christ, those
that we love as you see them. And may we help them in their
leaning, Heavenly Father, to just continually show them the
glories of your dear and precious Son. who's done all these things
and done them well. It is finished. Bless Ben and
Tegan and their marriage together and bless all of us, Heavenly
Father, as your people, as we care for each other.