I've just loved Song of Solomon. I've loved what it's taught me
about the Lord. I just love the fact that His
Word speaks so powerfully. His Word speaks so wonderfully. I'm thankful that our God loves
poetry and he loves pictures and he draws this amazing picture
of him and his relationship with his bride in Song of Solomon.
It is just remarkable to think and remarkable to ponder the
things that he says about us. As Simon said, the Christian
life is is one of ups and downs and one of trials and struggles
and through many difficulties and trials we enter the Kingdom
of God. Song of Solomon and the rest
of the scriptures are just plain and open and honest about the
fact that we have struggles, that we are people who like the
shulmite are made to lean on the Beloved. And here at the
very end of the song we have the Lord calling upon her As
we saw last week, he gives her her last title, he says, Thou
that dwellest in the gardens. A description of who she is,
a description of where she dwells, and of course the gardens are
the gardens of his planting, the churches where he gets glory
for himself. And there she is with companions,
the companions hearken to Thy voice. And then he says, Cause
me to hear it. I want to hear your voice." And
so the Lord Jesus' wish, the Lord Jesus' commands come with
all the power of God and He just elicits these words from her.
And as I said earlier, I think they in such measure encapsulate
the prayers of God's saints. so often. Make haste, my beloved,
and be thou like a roe, which is a gazelle, or a young heart,
a young male deer, upon the mountains of spices. Make haste, my beloved. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we Thank You
that You have written Your Word and Your Word is true and You
are perfectly faithful to it. And Father, we do thank You and
praise You that You cause Your words to be words of light and
life and comfort and instruction for Your people. And they are
only so, Heavenly Father, if they are blessed. We are blessed
through the precious work of Your dear Son and the dear Holy
Spirit to make them real to us, to make them speak to us, speak
to our hearts, to speak to us of He who has loved His Church
everlastingly and He who loves Her freely. and heals her backslidings and
draws her to himself. We thank you and praise you for
this shepherd that's revealed in the scriptures and this shepherd
that all of your children will come to know in this world. As a reality we praise you that
that shepherd searches out his sheep and he goes over hills
and dales and he finds every single one of them. He's never
had them out of his sight and he carries them home and there
is great rejoicing. Our Heavenly Father we pray that
you would grab us with grace. of delighting again in your son
as he's revealed to us in the word that you have given to us
for our comfort and our instruction in this journey that you've taken
us all on our father. We pray your blessing on us today
and bless the many of our friends who are absent from us and their
absence causes us to remember them more fondly and remember
them before your throne. Heavenly Father bless them where
they are and bless their return to us. We commit ourselves into
your hands. We thank you that the Lord Jesus
said that without him we can do nothing. And we pray that
something might happen here this morning, our Father. For we pray
in his precious name. Amen. As I said, this is a responsive
book, isn't it? He speaks and she speaks and
we have this remarkable interaction of a bridegroom for his bride. I got a heck of a shock a few
weeks ago while I was reading something of J.C. Philpott who
is a remarkable, remarkable English preacher from the 19th century
and he said, I just don't feel confident enough,
knowledgeable enough to speak on Song of Solomon and I thought
this man has the most remarkable insights into the scriptures
and I'm glad I read that at the end and not at the beginning.
I'm thankful that when we do as we
just did a little while ago, we read those chapters out of
Revelation and I stand here with a promise from God. God says
that book is to be read out loud in the congregations of His people
and He's promised to bless that reading. And I trust that He's
promised to bless the reading of His word and our study of
it because As I said, without Him we can do nothing and the
job of the preacher is to stand out of the road and shine a light
on the Lord Jesus. And if you have seen something
of the Lord Jesus and you go out from our time together just
gazing upon Him in wonder and adoration, then I'm a happy little
gumnut baby. So we're in His hands. We are thankful. We're thankful
for this amazing book. As Simon said, the Jews called
it the Holy of Holies. It was considered precious and
it had good reason to be precious because in Song of Solomon we
enter into a book of the scriptures which just gives us something
of the intimacy of the emotional life of God. It is remarkable
how God feels and how God cares and how God loves. He's not just a machine that
sort of winds up a universe and it ticks away. He really does
have feelings and those feelings are expressed in the most remarkable
way. in this glorious book that we've
been privileged to look at. And of course it began, she finishes
with a request, doesn't she, make haste my beloved, and it
began with a request. She says, let him kiss me with
the kisses of his mouth. Let him speak. Let him speak
in ways of love and adoration." And then she says why. She says,
for your love, thy love is better than wine. That whatever might
gladden the hearts, whatever might bring joy and satisfaction
to people in this world, his love is better than all of that. his love. To know him, to know
his love and his company is to be valued above all other pleasures. And as we've seen in Song of
Solomon, that as he gives her of his company and he takes her
into his banqueting hall and he calls to her to come with
him again and again, the giving her of his company and the giving
her of his love and him speaking sweetly to her, it only creates
a greater hunger in her for more, doesn't it? And especially when
he might seem to be absent. So he speaks of her in this dwelling
place, he says, Thou that dwellest in the gardens, as if he for a short time is going
to be away and he sets these gardens in place, he sets these
congregations in places, places of nurturing and places of care,
places of communion, places where he promises to meet and to be
gathered with his people. and to delight in their presence. Angels are here. Heaven is watching
on in church. It's remarkable, isn't it? Just
the promises of God about what a gathering like this is all
about. They are just beyond human understanding,
but they're not beyond our wonder and they're not beyond our love.
And he has a request, doesn't he? He calls me to hear it. He
says those remarkable words in Isaiah 57, he says, I create
the fruit of lips. He creates the fruit of lips. Peace, peace to him that is far
off and to him that is near, saith the Lord. And what's peace,
peace? In the context of this verse
he says, and I will heal them. He asks for us, he asks for the
bride, to cause him to hear her voice and hear her reply. It's a prayer, isn't it? It's
her prayer, her final words to Him. And what a remarkable description
she gets of Him. As I said a few weeks ago, this
is a responsive book and so less than half of it is her speaking
to Him. So in these four chapters of
her words to Him, 23 times she calls Him, My Beloved. my beloved."
You see, even in His absence, He is still my beloved. She goes through many ups and
downs, sin and despair, longing and loneliness, looking and not
finding, and yet He remains the same. He's eternally unchanged,
isn't he? He is a rock. He is a foundation
stone. He's tried and tested and pressured
and buffeted, but he's sure and he's stable and he's fixed. I
have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving kindness
I have drawn you." Therefore with loving kindness he has drawn
these words out of her. One of the things that's challenging
about Song of Solomon is, as it is an examination of a love
relationship between the Lord Jesus and His bride, it's an
examination of our love relationship, isn't it? And I have to confess
that there are lots of times, sadly in my flesh, when I don't
feel like I want Him to make haste. And the only reason For me, I
don't want him to make haste, is that I found my pleasure in
something here. I don't know if that's your story. There are things that we want
to achieve, we feel like we have something that we'd like to get
done. Or we've got things that we see and we enjoy and we want
to enjoy them more. And we've lost sight, haven't
we? May God cause the Song of Solomon to be something that
stirs up in us what the Ephesian church in Revelation 3 had lost.
They'd lost their first love, but He'd fan that love into flame
again. The true saving religion, true
saving living relationship with God has many facets, doesn't
it? there are so many serious practical
aspects to it. There is a life to be lived in
this world before other people and before our brothers and sisters
and before God and it involves things to be done, stands to
be taken on things. Truth saving religion is doctrinal
as well. It's based on truths, isn't it? It's based on a truth about who
God is and it's based on a truth about who we are. And true saving
faith is a faith that's historical in the sense that it's been mirrored
throughout time, isn't it? Paul says it is a pattern of
believers. You must be knocked off your
proud horse on your road to Damascus with your religion under your
hand. And we will see, we will see
ourselves written in the scriptures. We will see the experiences of
our own hearts written there again and again. So it is, there
are practical moral things and there are doctrinal things and
there are historical things. And true saving faith, as we've
seen in Song of Solomon, is incredibly personal, isn't it? The one thing that rides over
all of it is that true saving faith causes there to be in the
hearts of God's people a real love for the Lord Jesus. Love, real love, love that is
founded on the truths of who He is and how He saves sinners
by substitution and by representation and by sovereign decree and by
covenant love. All of those things are so incredibly
important. But there are things that we
are to love. because we love Him. The truths
of scripture are just reflections of this sort of gem who is our
God and as we turn the facets around we see light shining and
reflecting back to us and we see another aspect of His character,
that we love Him. God's children love Him and we
love Him as the scriptures remind us over and over again. We love
Him because He first loved us. He creates the fruit of lips,
but He creates love in His people, and it's real love. All God's people love the Lord
Jesus. His love, His love for His bride
produces a love for her in the hearts of His people. We love
Him because He first loved us and all of God's children see
so much coldness and so much barrenness in their love that
they'd never want to boast about it. They'd never want to go around
telling people how wonderful it is. But it is real. There is a real love. It's a love that stirs passions
in us and it's love that stirs activities and action in us. He becomes precious. What does
1 Peter 2 say? And to you therefore which believe,
He is precious. And Paul finishes that remarkable
letter to the Corinthians by saying, if any man love not the
Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. It's remarkable, isn't
it? You can read Chapter 13, that
amazing chapter about love, and he said, if anyone doesn't love
him, let him be anathema, let him be without God. Then he says, Maranatha, the
Lord is coming, the coldness of men's hearts to our Lord Jesus
is not going to stop Him coming. He's on His way and He's coming.
And in His, as we've seen in Song of Solomon, in His providential
care for every single individual member of His Beloved, this love
is a love that's exercised. It's exercised by our sin. It's exercised by the circumstances
of our lives. It's a dynamic, as I've so often
said. It is a moving, dynamic, real
reality to us. And it's a purposeful reality,
isn't it? As we see at the end of Song
of Solomon, she is leaning and she wants to be set as a seal
upon his heart. And she talks of this love And
she's seen so many instances of it, and we've seen so many
instances of it, where it can be quenched. It seemingly can
be quenched. There are times when it seems
as if it's drowned in floods. There are times when its flame
seems to flicker. so dully that it can hardly be
seen in this world, and yet we know that it's a flame that will
never burn out, and it's a love that will never be quenched,
and a love that will never be drowned. And His love and this
dynamic, ongoing relationship we have with Him, exposing our
sins, exposing His faithfulness, It's to reveal Him to us and
to cause us to cling to Him. A good work that He's begun is
a work that He will continue. And He creates love. He creates
the fruit and He creates that love. And we do love Him. We've experienced His love. And we've experienced the faithfulness
of His love as He comes back to us again and again and He
takes us to our knees and He causes us to call out on Him
and He takes us to places where we're utterly helpless and completely
dependent and we have no place to go and we have to say, make
haste. And in the scriptures we just
have so many pictures of it, don't we? Moses at the Red Sea,
where do you go? The greatest superpowers, greatest
army is at your heels, and in front of you is a sea, miles
wide, and you can't swim, and you're laden down. Where do you
go? Where do you go when you're a
Moses? Where do you go when you're a
Joe and you go through all of those extraordinary difficulties?
Where do you go? There's only one place to go,
isn't there? God puts his people, he hedges
their ways that we have no place to go. but Him. And when we have absolutely nothing
else, we find Him providing again and again. And then as soon as
we've been dusted off and put back on our feet again, we're in a place where we think
that we can get by without Him again. And we make our own way. And
His love, His great love, wherewith He loves us, won't let us go
our own way. He hedges us around and He sets
limits and He draws us back to Himself. That's why I love that
verse in Hosea 14, isn't it? I have loved them freely. His love, He loves His people
because He loves them. He doesn't love his people because
they do good things. He just loves them because he
loves them. He loves them freely and therefore
he heals their backsliding. So they do end up loving him
experientially and they do end up loving him with a sincerity. He creates honest love, doesn't
he, in the hearts of his people. It's not based on anything other
than His glory and our need. His people love Him and His people
love Him supremely above all others. Those remarkable words
in Luke 14 are a challenge, aren't they, to all of us, and we need
to be mindful of the context of the passage, the context of
what the Lord Jesus... But he says, If any man come
to me and hate not his father and his mother and his wife and
his children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, He cannot be my disciple and whosoever does not bear his
cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So likewise down
in verse 33 he says, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not
all that he has cannot be my disciple. So there are things
that are way beyond human beings, aren't they? He's not telling
people to hate other people. He's saying that His love, the
love for Him is supreme. And if something comes between
loving Him and honoring Him and us, then those things will take
a place of priority where He is supreme in the hearts of His
people. We love Him. experientially. We love Him sincerely and we
love Him supremely and we love Him in a way that is growing. As Simon said, we grow in the
grace and knowledge. We have an ongoing deepening
experiential knowledge. We have seen like Nehemiah is,
that he is faithful, he is righteous, and this word is true. And all of the words and all
the wisdom that men are nothing. He says, where is the philosopher?
There are none that mean anything at all. His word is true. and he is faithful to his word
and we find his word describes us and describes him in ways
that are just profoundly true and it describes this world that
we live in with such extraordinary accuracy that the only reason
we can't see it clearly is because we know so little of his word.
If we knew his words better we would see this world with a greater
clarity. But He gives us all that we need
for the time and the circumstances and the place He's placed every
single member of His Bride. We do love Him. We do love Him. Was it for crimes that I had
done, He groaned upon the tree. Amazing pity, grace unknown,
and love beyond degree. Love beyond degree. That's why she calls to Him in
this prayer, isn't it? She's my Beloved. She's my Beloved
and she calls, she just has this one request of Him. She says,
just make haste, my Beloved. She said to her, preach the Gospel. Preach the Gospel to yourself,
preach the Gospel to your companions. This is the one object of the
Church in this world, is the proclamation of the Gospel, the
glorious Gospel of God, the glorious Gospel of the glorious Saviour,
the glorious Gospel of a sovereign reigning King. who saved his
people. He says, calls me to hear it,
and she says, if you will, we shall. She's saying, we'll preach
this gospel if your presence is with us. And without Him, we can do nothing. As the Apostle said, speaking
of the ministry that he was put in, he said, and who is sufficient
for these things? Who is sufficient? Who is sufficient
as a sinner to proclaim the glories of the Gospel? And then he says,
our sufficiency is of God. He makes His people sufficient. Preach Him, is what He's saying
to the Church, isn't it? Preach Him again and again. Speak
wonderful things about our Saviour. Speak about His glory, speak
about His truth. And here the Church is exhibiting
the true faith, longs for Him. True faith looks around and it
looks over the horizon and it looks for Him to come. It longs for His return, but
it longs for Him and it longs for His glory. and longs for
his vindication in this world. I don't know about you, but I
just find my heart pierced by the blasphemy that is so rampant
in our society. I just hardly ever hear it without
this awful sense of shock that these people are taking. a precious
name of someone who's become incredibly precious to me, and
it's just treated like dirt. There's coming a day, isn't there,
where the glory of the Lord will be over all this earth, and God's
children in faith They long for Him and they look for Him. We
read those words in Revelation 22, where the last words of Him
is that He's coming. And then the last words of her,
He says, surely I come quickly. Amen, truly. And then she says even so, come
Lord Jesus. He says at the beginning of Revelation,
I died and behold I am alive forevermore and I have the keys
of death and Hades. And this is the Lord God who
is and who was and who is to come. He is the Almighty. In all of God's people from the
fall to the Incarnation, to the second return, there's a longing
and a looking for this promised coming Redeemer, this seed of
the woman that would crush the serpent's head. When Eve had
her first baby, she says, I've got me a man from the Lord. She was thinking that the promise
that he'd made, that you'll have a son, and this son will crush
the serpent's head, was going to be fulfilled very, very quickly
and very, very simply. She was very, very mistaken.
His name was Cain. The Old Testament saints, just
longing for his coming, they were looking and looking and
looking again and again. When Solomon built the temple,
he was looking for Him to come. Is it in 1 Chronicles 6? I have
a feeling it's 2 Chronicles 6. It is. 2 Chronicles 6. Solomon,
as we do today, day by day, witnessed the Lord being faithful to his promises. Solomon witnessed that God has
been faithful. These voices were lifted up.
And they said, they praised God in chapter 5, that He is God
and His mercy endureth forever. And the house was filled with
a cloud, even the house of the Lord. So the priests could not
stand to minister by reason of the cloud. And he says in verse
4 of chapter 6, he says, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who
has with his hands fulfilled that which he spoke with his
mouth to my father David. He's fulfilled his words and
Solomon was a witness through his father David to these words.
We are witnesses, brothers and sisters, to God speaking and
God being faithful. I have chosen Israel, I have
chosen Jerusalem." In verse 16 he says of God, he
says, you have kept thy servant David my father, you have kept
your word to my servant, you have kept it. You have promised
him and you spoke it with your mouth and you have fulfilled
it with thine hand as it is today. And then he says in verse 18,
at that dedication of the temple, when God himself came and lit
the fire on that altar, he says in verse 18, he says, But will
God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, the heaven
and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this
house which I have built. Will God dwell? Our Testament
saints were looking forward to God coming. Will he dwell? They finish that great Old Testament
chapter of history with Malachi saying he'll come quickly. The
one you're looking for will come quickly. Behold I will send my
messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord
whom you seek. The Lord whom you seek shall
suddenly come to his temple even the messenger of the covenant.
whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, says the
Lord of hosts." And they waited 400 years. Got a word from God,
400 years, generation after generation, By the time of the Lord's coming,
they were still looking, weren't they? They were looking. When
those men came from the east, they knew where He was to be
born, and they knew the time, and they knew that the time was
near. He's coming. Come, Lord Jesus. He's coming. God's children today, like their
Old Testament brothers and sisters, They are looking for and they
are hastening the coming day of the Lord. And like Isaiah,
they call out, O that thou would rend the heavens, that thou would
come down, that the mountains might flow at thy presence, that
you would come. You would come, Lord Jesus. You
would vindicate yourself. You would bring glory to yourself.
in your care of your people. Make haste, my beloved," she
says to him. She says, be thou like a roe
or a young heart upon the mountains of spices. Be thou like a gazelle
or a young stag. Song of Solomon has many pictures
of mountains, doesn't he? The mountains of division, mountains
of bethar in chapter 2 verse 17. That mountain, there is that
mountain that divides God's children. When we left the garden, God
put outside of the garden those angels, the cherubim with the
flaming sword. And there was, they drove out the man and they
placed at the east of the garden of the Garden of Eden cherubims
with flaming sword turning every way to keep the way of the tree
of life." To have eternal life you must have these mountains. These mountains of sin, the mountains
which are the very character of God, must be come to terms
with. Our God is holy. How do you get
back in to get to the tree of life? How do you get in there? If you don't get to the tree
of life, all you have is eternal death. It was God's holy sword,
wasn't it? It's a sword of justice. It's God's righteousness and
it's our sins. Our sins have separated us from
our God and those mountains of division. They must be made a
plane. They must be made level, and
we cannot do a single thing about it. Someone from outside, from
inside of the garden, must come out and then take his people
back in to the garden. There were mountains of leopards,
and lions' den in chapter 4, verse 8. and our great Christ
is the conqueror over all of those enemies, both deceitful
and openly opposed to us. Satan and evil and death and
hell. And then there is that mountain
of myrrh, that myrrh, that herb which speaks so amazingly of
our Lord Jesus and his death. It's both fragrant and it's bitter. It's a fragrant offering to our
God and it's bitter for the one who took it. And that was the spice that they
anointed our Lord with at His burial. That mountain of myrrh,
that bitterness of the garden, that bitterness of the cross,
that burial in the tomb. It speaks of substitution, doesn't
it? It speaks of His suffering and
His sacrifice. It speaks of His death and His
burial. And it speaks, of course, of
His amazing resurrection. Here we have mountains of spices. It's where the Lord is now, a
King on His throne. His glory seen and all that fragrance,
that fragrance of who He is, that fragrance of what He's done,
the fragrance of His glory, the fragrance of His prayers. Right
now the Lord Jesus has the names of His people on His heart and
on His shoulder and He in His omnipotent and omniscient knowledge
of all things, is praying for people right now. He's interceding
at this very moment for every single one of his own, mountains
of spices. And there around that throne
are our brothers and sisters, his bride. Part of his bride
is there singing, you are worthy You are worthy, is what they're
singing, for you redeemed us with your blood and you brought
us out of every tribe and nation. The Song of Solomon is full of talk of spices, isn't it? Spices that anoint the air, spices
that come from plants that seem so insignificant. She says in
verse 3, the savour of thy good ointments, your name is ointment
poured forth. She says again, while the king
sits at his table, my spikenard sends forth the smell thereof. Again and again she speaks of
him and his spices. Who is this that comes from the
wilderness like pillows of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense? Again she says of him, until
the daybreak and the shadows flee, I will get me to the mountain
of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. He comes into his garden and
he says, I've gathered my myrrh with my spice. Again, when he
comes to her in her rebellion, he comes and there is just dripping
myrrh from his hands. And when she touches the lock,
she finds that her hands are dripping with myrrh. And he speaks,
she speaks of him in terms of spices. He speaks of her in terms
of spices and the bundle. of myrrh is my beloved unto me."
She speaks of him being a cluster of campfire. She speaks again
and again of him. The smell of vine ointments is
more than all the spices. And he speaks of his church as
being this garden of spices. But here we have mountains of
spices and the picture of course is him on those mountains of
spices skipping like a young heart, young gazelle. Have you seen those antelopes
and those goats that can dance almost around these rocky crags? And what seems impossible to
us, to encompass are just things that he can dance over and he
can overcome with just the grace of these. She says, My beloved
is like a row or a harp, behold he standeth behind our wall. And he looks forth at the windows
and he shows himself again and again. She says, Behold, my beloved,
he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, and
now having leapt upon those mountains of sin and those mountains of
God's justice and His holiness, he now is at peace, isn't he? Be like a roe, young heart. Heaven
is what she's talking about. He's there, and his bride is
there with him, and he and she are on high, aren't they? That
is that great place where every snare and every enemy is gone. That amazing place of safety
and security. that mountain. It's high, isn't
it? We have an inheritance reserved
in heaven, a hope laid up for there, a prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus. We have a city which has foundations,
the building of God. It's eternal in the heaven and
we read in Revelation 21 of that city coming down. See at the
moment the Lord Jesus' bride is divided. There are some in
heaven rejoicing around that throne, what glories they see,
what peace they have, what hopes fulfilled, what joys they have
as they look upon Him, what amazing songs they sing to each other. And some of His bride is here. and some of his bride is to come
at this time. But there's coming a great day
when all of that bride will be brought together as one. That great day of resurrection.
You can read about it all through the scriptures. I was thinking
of printing out a sheet with all of the descriptions and the
expectations just from It's simple looking at the Scriptures. There's
just too many pages of it. They're just looking forward.
They're longing for Him to come. They're longing for that great
day of resurrection. They're longing for that great
day when He will be revealed in His glory. I love what John
says in 1 John 3. It's amazing to think and to
meditate on what it will be like. But the one thing that John is
captivated by in 1 John 3, he says, This battered and bruised bride
around Ephesus, attacked from outside, attacked from inside
their church, torn asunder, these little congregations that he
was looking after. Timothy had pastored, Paul had
planted these churches, and by the end of this old man's life
they are battered and torn about. It is just remarkable. Then he
says in chapter 3, he says, behold, he says, look, look, what manner
of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us
not. Don't expect the world to know
you and don't expect the world to applaud you and don't expect
the religion of the world to give you any acknowledgement
whatsoever. Therefore the world knoweth us
not because it knew him not. It will treat us like it treated
him." And then he says, "'Beloved, now we are the sons of God and
it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that, when
He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him
as He is. Beloved, now, right now, we are
the sons of God. And it does not yet appear what
we shall be. But we know that, when He shall
appear, We shall be like Him. It's remarkable, isn't it? It's
almost inverted that verse. You would think that you'd be
like Him and then you'd be able to see Him. But we shall see Him as
He is. We shall be like Him. And every
man that has this hope in Him purifies himself. It's her prayer,
isn't it? She finishes with a prayer for
His return. She's looking for him to come
back and it's the result of true love. A longing wife longs for
the return of her husband. We love stories of return and
reconciliation and consummation and completion and vindication. There's coming a great day, brothers
and sisters. It's coming in great day. He
who has promised is faithful and he will do it. He creates
the fruit of lips that sing praise to his name. He speaks and reality
happens. This is real because he's spoken
it. This creation exists because
He has spoken. The new creation is as much real
and will be as much real because He speaks it. And during this
little time we have here may He cause us to be like the Shulamite
in the midst of all of our struggles. May we find ourselves leaning
on a beloved, and in the times of trial may we, like her, long
for him and search for him, and speak sweet words about him. That's what he says, doesn't
he? He says, cause me to hear your voice. He loves the voice
of his beloved. And our prayer is, make haste,
my beloved. Be thou like a roe or a young
heart on the mountains of spices. Let's pray.