Thank you. Well, it's lovely
to be here and it's lovely to be gathered with the Lord's people. I love what Isaiah 57 says of
the Lord's servants. They lift up the voice together. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publishes
peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publishes salvation,
that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth. Thy watchmen shall
lift up the voice, and with the voice together they shall sing,
for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion. I'm thankful to be here, I'm
thankful to God for the fellowship that we've had in the gospel
of our Lord Jesus. We were a fellowship that was
began and we felt as if there was no one in Australia that
believed the things that we did and we found that to be the case.
And then we thought that other than some of our Long gone heroes
of the faith, like Huntington and Hawker and others, there
were very few left in this world. And it's on account of New Focus
coming to us through a book that was given to me that we've been
in touch with Peter and we've had fellowship with him and fellowship
with other people and fellowship with our brother Don. And we're
here gathered by our great shepherd today. We're here gathered to
rehearse the wonders of redeeming love, his work of grace in the
lives of his people. I wanted to talk to you today.
Don spoke so wonderfully about our great shepherd last night,
and I want to talk some more today out of the Song of Solomon,
about how he gathers his people from the wilderness. But before
I go there, let's just read some glorious verses out of Ezekiel
34. We love proclaiming a sovereign God. We love proclaiming a God
who makes promises and keeps promises. We love to proclaim
a God who from eternity set his heart upon a particular people.
and set his face like a flint and has never flinched and will
gather them. He must gather them. They are
perfectly secure in his hands and no one can take them out
of his hands. Let's read some verses from Ezekiel
34, verse 11. For thus saith the Lord God,
behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep and seek them
out as a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day when he
is among his sheep that are scattered. So will I seek out my sheep and
will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered
in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from
the people and gather them from the countries and bring them
to their own land and feed them upon the mountain of Israel by
the rivers and in all the inhabited places of the country. And I
will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of
Israel shall their fold be. There shall they lie in a good
fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains
of Israel. I will feed my flock. And I will cause them to lie
down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost,
and bring again that which was driven away, and bind up that
which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick. But I will
destroy the fat and the strong, and I will feed them with judgment.
As for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord God. Behold, I
judge between cattle and cattle and between rams and the he-goats. Seemeth it a small thing unto
you to have eaten up the good pasture but you must tread down
with your feet the residue of your pastures, and to have drunk
of the deep waters, but you must fowl the residue with your feet.
As for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your
feet. and they drink that which you
have fouled with your feet. Thus, therefore, thus says the
Lord God unto them, behold, I, even I, will judge between the
fat cattle and between the lean cattle, because you have thrust
with side and shoulder and pushed all the disease with your horns
till you have scattered them abroad. Therefore will I save
my flock, And they shall no more be a prey. And I will judge between
cattle and cattle. And I will set up one shepherd
over them. And he shall feed them, even
my servant David. He shall feed them and he shall
be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their
God and my servant David, a prince among them. I, the Lord, have
spoken it. And I will make with them a covenant
of peace. and will cause the evil beasts
to cease out of the land and they shall dwell safely in the
wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make them, and the
places round about my hill a blessing, and I will cause the shower to
come down in his season, and there shall be showers of blessing.
And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth
shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land,
and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the
bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those
that serve themselves of them. And they shall no more be a prey
to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour
them. And they shall dwell safely,
and none shall make them afraid. And I will raise up for them
a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger
in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.
"'Thus they shall know that I, the Lord, their God, "'am with
them, and they, even the house of Israel, "'are my people, and
ye are my flock. "'The flock of my pasture are
men, "'and I am your God,' saith the Lord God.'" What a glorious
passage of scripture. What glorious evidence we have
of the faithfulness of God to his word, gathered from America,
gathered from Ireland, gathered from Australia, fed. We have
the same Lord, we have the same word, the same spirit, and we
are united together. And we walk, we walk through
this world as if it's a wilderness. And we walk through this world
led and guided and directed and under a sovereign hand of our
God who reigns. We're here to proclaim a glorious
God who reigns, a glorious saviour. It's the one purpose of coming
to England. Why travel all that way? Why
does Peter come to Australia? It's wonderful to see his son.
But if we have opportunity together to lift up the Lord Jesus, there's
a bond of fellowship. I've been with the brothers here
for this last few days and I've met some people a few days ago
who I'd talked with 10 years ago in India and we'd worked
together closely for five years through all sorts of trials in
India. And they have a different gospel. And I come and I meet
someone like David Burrows from Ireland and we are as one. We are as one in what we believe
and we have an intimacy of fellowship, a union, a spiritual union that
God alone brings into the hearts of his people. He gathers them
together, he gathers them as a flock. We have similar experiences
and there's no book in the scriptures which speaks, I believe, more
intimately of the extraordinary dynamic love relationship between
the Lord Jesus and his people than Song of Solomon. for a few brief minutes to look
with you at a verse toward the end of Song of Solomon. As I
thought about this message that I was to bring and a couple of
weeks ago I wasn't going to be coming and it was an on again,
off again time until I had some surgery done and now I'm here
and every time I thought about what message, what message can
I bring? I was drawn to this verse in
Song of Solomon. I trust it's from the Lord. In
Song of Solomon, chapter eight, verse five, there is this question and this
statement. Who is this that cometh up from
the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved. I just wanted to take some thoughts
from that verse and share them with you today. And our desire,
our desire always is that you would see the beloved. What a glorious title for our
Saviour, the Beloved, the Beloved. Song of Solomon is replete with
it, more than any other book of the Bible. He's described
there as the Beloved. And more than that, He's described
personally, again and again in Song of Solomon, He's my Beloved,
He's my Beloved. He's her beloved. My beloved
is mine and I am his. What a beloved we have. What a beloved we have to talk
about. What a great shepherd we have
to talk about. What a great God we have to talk
about. All those promises we just read
in Ezekiel 34, every I will and every shall signed and sealed
and stamped with the blood of the Lord Jesus. It's wonderful
to think about it, isn't it? That cry on the cross, it. is finished. A little word, isn't
it? Two letters, I and T. And you can spend eternity meditating
on the it. It is finished. All of those
covenant engagements, all of those promises, all of that revealing
of the glory of our savior, all on that cross. We see him and
we see him with clarity if God would allow. So it's interesting
in our verse. It's before us. It actually begins
with a question. It's an interesting question,
isn't it? Who is this? Who is this? Believers are strangers
in this world. We are not only strangers in
this world, we're strangers to this world. This world cannot
possibly ever understand us. They can't understand our joys,
they can't understand our sorrows, they can't understand our heartache,
they can't understand our destiny, they know not our God. The dead
cannot understand life, the blind cannot see. We are as strangers
in this world. Don't expect the world to understand
you. They can't understand. They can't
understand a spiritual supernatural birth from heaven. A life from
God. The life of God in the soul of
man. Extraordinary isn't it? Almighty
God. dwells in people like us. The God of this universe is here
amongst us now and with us and in those who are his, in those
who can say he's my beloved. We have a life from above, we
believers, and the world will never understand us. We are different. As 1 Corinthians 4 says, who
maketh thee to differ? We are different. What hast thou
that thou didst not receive? We actually have something that
the world doesn't have. and why dost thou glory if they
had not received it? We have, as believers, received
something. Believers are a wonder to this
world. They'll never understand us.
They'll never understand our joys and our heartaches. They never understand the things
that motivate our lives and never will. Believers also are a wonder
to themselves. I don't know about you, brothers
and sisters. I'm continually amazed. I'm continually left,
as the Shulamite said of herself, with confidence, extraordinary
confidence. She says in chapter one, verse
five, she says, I am black. I'm black. And she can say with
exactly the same confidence and the same sense of assurance,
But I'm comely, beautiful, beautiful, black, but beautiful. We are a wonder to ourselves. Your friend, Mr. Spurgeon, once
said that faith is like a little candle kept alight in a storm
at sea. Faith. Faith, true faith, is
the gift of God. His gifts are irrevocable, they
are without repentance. But it's His gift, and His faith,
and His life. that keeps us, keeps us in the
way. That great shepherd, shepherds
and shepherds and shepherds his people. And we are like wandering
sheep, straying and straying. So we are strangers. Who is this? Who is this that cometh up? He's continually coming, continually
coming in his care up. Believers are on their way up,
aren't they? Continually coming up. What a
fall, what a fall. What happened in the garden?
There are big questions of life, aren't there? What happened in
eternity? And what happened at the garden? And what happened
at the cross? And what's happening in heaven
right now and what will happen in the future? Only God's children
have some glimpse of how deep the pit was, how black the entangling
mire was, how powerful the fiend of hell was. how deceiving and
captivating and attractive his lies were. He is a liar and a
murderer. It was a deep, deep pit. Modern
religion keeps telling us again and again several things which
are so blasphemous. The first one is that our God
doesn't reign. Our God is a pathetic wimp like
Santa Claus, trying his best and failing. But also it's telling
people over and over again that salvation is in the hands of
a man. God has done the best he can. He's loved everyone. He's loved them unconditionally,
they say. And he's proved his love for
them all by the Lord Jesus dying for them. And now he runs around
as a beggar. trying his best and failing. No wonder in this land of yours
and in this land of mine, his name is blasphemed, blasphemed
continually, blasphemed because of religion's portrayal of him. What a fall, what a fall. Turn in to Ephesians and just
look again with me at those verses that you know so well. You hath he quickened, chapter
2, verse 1, who were dead, dead, dead in trespasses and sins,
wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh, continually worketh in the children
of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others, wrathful children. Over in chapter four, We live in a world today that
prides itself on its achievements and looks with hopeful expectation
that no matter what the problem that lies before them, somehow
we can tweak the knobs on the dial and get this machine called
society and economy to work. What does God say? This, verse
17 of chapter 4, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that
you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity,
the vanity of their mind. What a great description of this
world. What a great description of this
world in its religion and all its other forms. having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them. It's a big, big deep hole. To come into the presence of
God, you must come up. You must come up. Behold, who
is this? Who is this that cometh up? Continually coming. Where did
he find his bride? Where did he find this Shulamite? He found her in the wilderness. He went to her in the wilderness. He went to her and found her. She was dead. She was lost. She was like that girl in Ezekiel
16 that you know so well. Cast out, kicking around, as
it were, in her own blood. As Ephesians says, without hope,
without God, without Christ, alienated. He found her in a
wilderness. Where did he find you? He found you in a wilderness. He found me in a wilderness. He found me in the wilderness
of the world. And then, many years later, he found me again
in the wilderness of religion. And he came. What a faithful
shepherd we have, who finds his own. He goes to the place where
they are. He goes to them in the wilderness. Where will he find his lost ones?
He'll always find them in a wilderness. The pictures in the Gospels of
the Lord Jesus' miracles and his parables are pictures of
salvation. glorious pictures of our sovereign
saviour being that great shepherd, finding his sheep. The story
of the Good Samaritan is a beautiful picture of it, isn't it? We need
to come up because we fell so far. The Samaritan, I mean the
man was lost. He was going down from Jerusalem. Jerusalem means vision of peace. He was going down from that city
that was named that. He was going down to Jericho
to a cursed place. And there he was, just like you
and I, unable to help himself, stripped and naked and dying. And religion walked by. and left
him exactly as he was before. But a shepherd came. A shepherd
came to a wilderness. A shepherd came to that wilderness
and he was called in that wilderness, he was called a Samaritan. He
was called as one who had all of that blasphemy heaped upon
him. That blasphemy that he does the work of Satan. What a wilderness
He came to. What glories our Saviour left
in heaven. What remarkable glories. What
remarkable love drew our Saviour to a wilderness. She's coming up. She's coming
up. Brothers and sisters in the Lord,
we are coming up out of the wilderness. Out of the wilderness. Australia
has much wilderness. Wildernesses just imply barrenness
in Australia. It's thirstiness. Just barren
desert. You fly over Australia and it's
thousands of miles of desert. It's unproductive. It's hostile. It's hostile. And man seeks in
so many ways to patch it up and to make it seem less like a wilderness. We have no one to blame but ourselves. What does Deuteronomy 32 say?
They have corrupted themselves. God made man upright, good and
very good, but they have sought out many inventions. Ecclesiastes 729 and Isaiah says,
O Israel thou hast destroyed thyself. Man has sought out many inventions,
we see them all around us. The inventions of our wisdom
the inventions of human righteousness, the inventions of human work,
the multiple inventions of religion, the inventions of our supposed
righteousness, the inventions of our supposed free will, the
inventions of our supposed good works. I love how Romans 3, you
know those verses well, it gives that summary of the state of
man. And then he says, they are altogether
unprofitable. This is a wilderness, brothers
and sisters. It is a wilderness, but it's
only a wilderness. It's only a wilderness to the
Lord's people. The word Hebrews, as Don taught
us some time ago, means a people passing through, a people from
another place, a people with another destiny, a people from
another home. Only the Lord's hand of grace
and mercy can bring his chosen to see the wilderness, to see
that it is a wilderness. For this world and so many people
in this world, it seems so much like a paradise. I love how John
Newton spoke of his life. Maybe it echoes something of
yours. In evil long I took delight, unawed by shame or fear, till
a new object struck my sight and stopped my wild career. I saw one hanging on a tree in
agony and blood. who fixed his languid eyes on
me as near his cross I stood. Sure never to my latest breath
can I forget that look. It seemed to charge me with his
death, though not a word he spoke. My conscience felt and owned
the guilt and plunged me in despair. I saw my sins, his blood had
spilt. and helped to nail him there.
Alas, I knew not what I did, but now my tears are vain. Where shall my trembling soul
be hid? For I, the Lord, have slain."
A second look he gave, which said, I freely all forgive. This blood is for thy ransom
paid. I die that thou mayest live. Then thus while his death my
sin displays in all its blackest hue, such is the mystery of grace,
it seals my pardon too. With pleasing grief and mournful
joy my spirit now is filled, that I should such a life destroy,
yet live by him I killed. God's children know what it is
to be in a wilderness. God's children, by the grace
of God, know what it is for them to have been responsible personally
for the wilderness that this world is. They don't blame others. We do, in our flesh, blame others. But whenever we see sin in this
world, we have to say, that is mine as well. We are just like them. We are hewn from that rock. It is the grace of God that draws
His people out of that wilderness. Pure, sovereign grace. pure love of a sovereign God. A shepherd must come into that
wilderness. A shepherd must go to those sheep. He must carry them. He must carry
them up and out. But as I said earlier, Song of
Solomon talks in extraordinary terms about our beloved, about
our relationship with our beloved, about the dynamic reality of
what it is to live in this world, to live in this world as a Shulamite
did, to live in this world as black, to live in this world
as comely, to live in this world with a beloved. an intimate relationship. It's a beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful book. The Jews used to call it the
Holy of Holies. If you see the Lord Jesus clearly
in it, you'll find it a delight to go and spend your time there
again and again. You see, the thing that's interesting
about this verse, these words we've been reading, is that it
comes at the end of the book. It comes in chapter 8. So this
is the experience of someone who has had the most remarkable
relationship with the Lord Jesus. She says in chapter 1 verse 4,
The King hath brought me into his chambers, He's brought me
to His banqueting house and His banner over me is love. In chapter 3 verse 4 she says,
I found Him whom my soul loveth. I held Him and would not let
Him go. In chapter 5 verse 1, she's been
into that garden of delight and she's feasted She's feasted with
her beloved. Oh, friends, drink. Yea, drink
abundantly. Oh, beloved. In the context of the book, it
is just a beautiful picture. It is a beautiful and a comforting
picture of what we are, what we are in our flesh, but particularly
what our saviour is, and that's what I'd like to bring out in
this last part of it. You see, it's a wilderness. It's
described as a wilderness. The Lord's children see there
is a wilderness because she's had these remarkable experiences. She has had this intimate communion. She has known whom I have believed. She has been in His company and
in His presence. You see, brothers and sisters,
there is something deeply experiential that is essential, an essential
reality for the Lord's people. He promises on that day in John
chapter four, and He promises in that day, you will know, you
will know that I am in you and you In me, you'll know there is a
wilderness that we walk through so often, brothers and sisters.
If we'd be really honest, if we'd be really honest with God,
and the gospel allows us to pour out our hearts and to state what
we are in reality in so much of our lives. We've known Him. We've known Him in His glory. We've seen Him high and lifted
up. We've seen Him on that cross
bearing our sins. We've experienced Him as someone
who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He knows
his people, he lives in intimate union with them, and yet, and
yet, for much of our lives, for much of our lives, if we're really
honest, it would seem like a wilderness. It would seem like a wilderness. She has experienced much. If you go back and read this
book at your leisure, you'll find that she's been extraordinary
places. She's been searching for him
and she's lost him. She's gone looking for him and
hasn't found him. But our great shepherd, our great
shepherd, as David says, he restoreth my soul. Our souls are vexed,
aren't they? My soul is also sore vexed. But thou, O Lord, how long? We've cried those cries, brothers
and sisters, have we not? We've experienced something of
that wilderness. The psalmist said, I said, Lord,
be merciful unto me. Heal my soul, for I have sinned
against Thee. We groan, we groan within ourselves,
says Romans 8. The trials, the trials come from
a hand of a sovereign God and a hand of a just God. The trials cause us to lean. That's where he brings his people.
So much Christian growth is taught, isn't it? And you can go to courses
and you can go to conferences and again and again they flog
God's people with all sorts of rules and regulations. I was
part of that wilderness world. We'd actually parade our righteousness
before others and we'd think that we were encouraging them
and what we were doing is just deceiving them and deceiving
ourselves and beating them down and entrapping them in laws and
rules and various schemes and methods. You go to Christian
conferences these days and it's full of that sort of activity. When the gospel is lost, Men
seek after many inventions. Those who have the gospel have
a simple and delightful task. We just proclaim the gospel. We tell people of the glories
of a great shepherd who has shepherded our souls. And we're honest. We can be honest. Black. Black,
but gorgeous. Black, but beautiful. The trials
come. so that we can lean. We can lean. It's amazing how the Lord describes
his people in so many ways as weak things, don't they? Doesn't
he? A vine, a vine leans. To have its strength, it must
lean on things. A sheep is a helpless, a helpless
animal. A lamb is weak and vulnerable. But to lean, To lean, as I said
earlier, he's come to that wilderness. She's in the wilderness. She
can only lean because he's come to that wilderness. There must
be, for us to lean, there must be a nearness. There must be
a touching and an embracing. I love that picture in the Last
Supper where John just leant his head back on the Saviour's
chest. What a remarkable picture of
intimacy. And it seems as if it was a regular
thing to lean on Him. There must be a nearness. She
can lean because He's there. That's why she can lean. Never, never leave you, nor forsake
you. I change not, says our great
God and Saviour. To lean, there must be a confidence
and an assurance. Faith is the substance, it's
the ground, it's the confidence of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. To lean, there must be confidence. We must, we lean on things and
we lean on people that we trust. There's a dependence, there needs
to be a dependence of the one that we lean on. Strength will
not lean, ever. Man left to himself will never
lean. He'll lean because he's been
weakened and his strength taken from him. We grow down to grow
up. Grow down to grow up. What did
Paul, how Paul described himself so wonderfully in 2 Corinthians
12. He says, when I am weak, then I am strong. We are weak
and frail and our weakness and frailty is a background against
which the Lord can display His glory. What did He say of us? The Lord Jesus says, without
me you can do nothing, nothing. We wait on Him, we wait on Him. We have in this world a brother
born for adversity. I love how Isaiah describes our
great Saviour and what He does in His shepherding of His people.
He says in chapter 43 verse 2, He says, When thou passest through
the waters, not if, you'll pass through the waters. When thou
passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the
rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through
the fire, thou shalt not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee, because for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of
Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Sheba for thee, since thou wast precious in my
sight. Thou hast been honorable, and
I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for
thee and people for their life. Fear not. For I am with thee,
I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the
west. I will say to the north, give
up, and to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Then everyone,
even everyone that is called by my name, for I have created
him for my glory. I have formed him, yea, I have
made him. He's with us. The trials will
come, but He is with His people. To lean, to lean, brothers and
sisters, is to have the weight lifted off you and put on another. It's to find rest and comfort
in another. It's to find stability in the
strength of your weakness in another. You cannot lean too
much. You cannot lean too often. It's a synonym for faith. To
lean on Him who is faithful. Faithful is He and He will do
it. Cast all your care upon Him.
for he careth for you. She leans, we have to lean because
the way is long and the difficulties are many. We are in this world,
we are continually struggling with the flesh and the world
and the devil. She leans because the way is
long and the way is perilous. There is a straight gate and
there is a wide gate. There is a narrow way and there
is a broad way. Few find it. When Don came to
Australia a few years ago, one of the men came from about five
hours away to be at the conference with us. And he walked into the
room and we were gathering, maybe not quite as big as this, and
he looked around and he said, where are they all? He was shocked. We had advertised, Don had advertised,
Peter had, there'd been, people knew thousands of leaflets had
been put around. Where are they all? She leans, she leans because
there are few. We lean together. It's one of
the glories of church, brothers and sisters, isn't it? That we're
a leaning group, knitted together. We need each other. As Judah,
as Moses said in Deuteronomy 39, this is a waste, howling
wilderness. We need to lean. We need to be
made to lean by our Saviour. She leans, as I said earlier,
because she knows what it is to have His presence withdrawn. She knows. I don't have time
to expound it all, but it's remarkable to see her journey In chapter
4 he speaks glorious things of her and in the beginning of chapter
5 she's taken to this garden and she's there encouraged by
her beloved. She's called a beloved and she's
said to drink abundantly. And now in these last few chapters
we chart the shepherd's shepherding of his wayward sheep. She is
found in verse 2 of chapter 5. She says, I sleep, but my heart
waketh. It is the voice of my beloved
that knocketh, saying, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove,
my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew and my locks
with the drops of the night. And this is her response. I have put off my coat. It's a great word of sin, isn't
it? It's a great letter of sin, that perpendicular pronoun, I.
I. I have put off my coat, how shall
I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall
I defile them? And there she begins a journey. a journey which has been a wilderness
for her. He leaves. He leaves. He doesn't leave without
leaving remembrance of her. In verse 5, I rose to open to
my beloved, my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with
sweet-smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock. She had
treated him Appallingly, she had treated his love with contempt. And he had left, he had left
symbols of his love and his sacrifice there for her. And she searches
him out. She opened to my beloved in verse
six of chapter five, I opened to my beloved and my beloved
had withdrawn himself. and was gone. Have you experienced
that, brothers and sisters? My beloved had withdrawn himself
and was gone. My soul failed when he spake. I sought him, but I could not
find him. I called him, but he gave me
no answer. This is the wilderness that this
great shepherd brings her into and then comes and meets her
and reveals his grace. In the next verse, she's beaten
and wounded and her veil removed. There she is, sick with love. He doesn't answer her prayers.
He doesn't respond seemingly to her call. I love what the
psalmist says in Psalm 119, verse 75. I know, O Lord, that thy
judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted
me. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend, but the kisses of the enemy are deceitful. She is, in those next verses,
you'll read them with great delight. In her absence, she sends a message,
tell him I am sick of love. And then she's asked that question
in chapter five, verse nine. What is thy beloved more than
another beloved, O thou fairest among women? What is thy beloved
more than another that thou dost charge us? And there's a remarkable
picture. There's a remarkable picture
of a saint in travail and in trial in those next verses. I love how she describes him
from head to foot. She describes the glory of her
Saviour in his absence. In his absence, because of her
sin, she describes him. She describes his face and his
hair. She describes his legs. She describes his mouth and she
describes him in beautiful ways. When he seems absent, speaks
sweetly of him, brothers and sisters. He hasn't changed. His
mouth is my sweet. He is altogether lovely. He's not there. He doesn't answer
her prayers. She seeks him and can't find
him, but he's altogether lovely. She finds the beloved. She finds the beloved. She falls,
she calls, and she suffers. And if you turn to me in chapter
six, verse four, when he speaks again, when he speaks again to
his love, to his beloved, what are the first words that come
from the Savior's mouth? Thou art beautiful. Oh, my love as Terza, comely
as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. He's captivated
by her. What difference has sin made
to his relationship with her? What difference has her sin made
to his delight in her? He uses exactly the same words
to describe His love for her and describe His beauty and to
describe His passion. What does He say? He says in
verse 5 of chapter 6, turn away thine eyes from me for they have
overcome me. Such is the love of our Saviour
for falling sinners, for His bride. And what does he say in verse
9? Oh my dove, my undefiled, she
is but one. That's the glory of the gospel
brothers and sisters isn't it? Don spoke to us about it last
night. Our Saviour has taken away the sins of His people and
they are gone forever. He bore our sins in His own body
on that tree and they are gone forever. He cannot ever remember
them against His people or bring them up to their memory. They've
been placed on his dear and precious son. They have been taken away
altogether. And he brings, because of that
great work of redemption, he comes to that wilderness and
he draws the wandering and the lost and the sinful. He draws them back to himself. and he does it again and again
and again throughout this life. He sees no sin in his people. All he sees is their beauty. Thou art all fair, my love, he
says of her in chapter four, and there is no spot in thee.
After all this sin, she's undefiled. Thou hast ravished my heart,
my sister, my spouse." What did Paul say? Right now. There is
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We have a God, a great and glorious
God. He's loved his people from eternity. They were one with his son in
eternity. Our great mediator and our great
surety has forged this relationship and maintains this relationship
and takes his people again and again into wilderness experiences
and comes again and again and draws us out and we cometh up
out of the wilderness, but we come up leaning. To grow as a Christian is to
grow down and to grow leaning. Leaning because he's there. Leaning
because he cares. Leaning because he loves. Leaning
because he's come close to where you are. One of the wonderful things about
preaching the gospel is that we don't know what's going on
in the hearts of people. You've had your struggles and
you've had your trials, you're having them now and you'll have
them in the future. You will, you will like the Shulamite,
come into places where your sins will be grievous. and he'll seem
so distant, and it will seem as if it is a wilderness. Wait
for that shepherd, wait for that shepherd, and he'll come at a
time, a time of his choosing. Zephaniah speaks so beautifully. He says, sing. Sing, O daughter of Zion, shout,
O Israel. Be glad and rejoice with all
the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy
judgment. He hath taken away thy judgment. He hath cast out thine enemy.
The King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee,
and thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be
said to Jerusalem, fear not and desire on, let not thine hands
be slack. Why? The Lord thy God in the
midst of thee is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice
over thee with joy. He will rest in His love. He will joy over thee with singing. Undefiled, no spot in you. We wander in the wilderness.
We wander and stagger and stumble. But we wander leaning upon Him. What a glorious Saviour. taken
away all of our sin, sovereignly reigns and rules over all things,
for His glory, that His people might be given opportunity to
see Him as a gracious God and a Saviour. Amen.