Paul finishes that letter that
we read, 1 Corinthians, with a remarkable statement.
He says, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him
be anathema, which means cut off, separated from God, cursed. If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, and then the next word is Maranatha. The Lord is coming. He is coming. He is on his way. The challenge of course for us
as we sit here today with God's word before us, eternity ahead
of us. And we here have in Song of Solomon
this remarkable book which pictures the intimate and dynamic relationship
of love between the Lord Jesus Christ and His bride. A love that He brings, a love
that He grows, a love that He nurtures. a love that he sustains,
a love that he finds delight in. It's of all the books of
the scriptures, it's one that causes us to personally examine
ourselves, to look again and afresh at the Lord Jesus, and
look again afresh at our own hearts. And yet in this verse
we have before us, these two verses, we have this remarkable
description of the love of God. We have the remarkable description
of its strength, the remarkable examination of it as a zeal,
a zeal that is equivalent to the cruelty of the grave, a zeal
that gets its own. It's a love that burns with a
vehement flame. It's a love that waters can't
quench, nor floods drown." And then at the end of this verse
she says these remarkable words, and I believe they're words of
great comfort. to God's children and great encouragement
to those who know that they are not God's children. to join in the things that the
children of God and to join in the things that the Shulamite
has. This is a prayer as she comes
up out of the wilderness. She comes up out of the wilderness
leaning. She doesn't come out of the wilderness
marching triumphantly. She comes out of the wilderness
leaning. And she says these words, if any man would give all the
substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contempt. That means to be treated with
contempt. And it's one of those words in the original where the
same word is repeated twice. If any man would give all the
substance, all the wealth of his house for love, it would
utterly be scorned with scorn. It would be despised despicably." Serious, serious words. But what seriously wonderful
words of encouragement. There are two simple and profound
lessons in this, aren't there, just on the surface of it. One
is the value of the love of Christ for His church is beyond estimation. And secondly, any attempt to
buy it or extract it as a reward A reward for something that we
do is contemptible in God's eyes. You cannot buy it. It's received
as a gift of grace or it's not received at all. Let's pray before
we begin. Heavenly Father, you have written
these words, these words that are now 3,000 years old and yet
we are here gathered as a testament to the truth of those words. The waters and the floods of
sin and rebellion and heresy and enmity against your people
have threatened throughout time to drown and to quench that love
of the Lord Jesus for His Bride, the Church. And yet, Heavenly
Father, here we are, 3,000 years after these words are written,
here gathered by You, gathered in the name of Your dear and
precious Son, seeking, we pray, Heavenly Father, that You would alight our hearts again with
love, that you would create love where there is none, that you
would fan flickering and sometimes even dormant love into flames
again. Heavenly Father, we pray that
you'd cause us to love your dear and precious Son. and to love
Him from our hearts and to love Him sincerely, and to love Him
for who He is, for the glory of His being as the Husband of
His Church. Father, grant us Your grace as
we hear your words and grant us grace as we speak your words,
our Father, this morning. We pray in Jesus' name for your
mercy upon us. Amen. Isn't it a remarkable thing? A man in the garden had a righteousness. He had a righteous standing and
he had a communion with God. And ever since he's left the
garden, He's gone about seeking to establish his own righteousness,
a righteousness that would cause him to be commended and brought
back into the presence of God. Ever since he lost communion
with God, he's endeavoured to make himself suitable for communion
in his own eyes with his Creator. given the wickedness and the
deceitfulness of the hearts of men. We live in a world where
we want to adjust what the scriptures say about the love of God. And I am really struck by a statement
that Huntington, our friend William Huntington, in one of his sermons
250 years ago, he said, people change the scriptural love of
God, which is a love of God which is in Christ Jesus, it's a love
of God which is specific and powerful and purposeful. They want to make the love of
God as broad as possible. And his reasoning was that if
I make the love of God a love which is big and covers everyone,
then I'm loved. I fit into that love. I make
the death of the Lord Jesus as big and as broad as possible,
that the death of the Lord Jesus is a death for all. So therefore
I can say he must have loved me and he must have died to me. Huntington's summation of the
deceitfulness of the hearts of people is that if they've never
experienced the particular love of God, they'll invent a love
which is broad enough to include them. If they've never experienced
by the grace of God the particular redeeming love and the particularity
and the purposefulness and the successfulness of the death of
the Lord Jesus, they'll modify it. They will create idols. We are idolaters by nature and
practice. And we want for God to desire
my salvation. And they're the great lies that
infect religion around us today, don't they? God loves everyone. His proof for loving everyone
is that the Lord Jesus has shown His love by dying for everyone. And now God has this longing,
hungering desire for the salvation of all. The Shulmite speaks of a love
of God which is remarkable. It's remarkable as we've been
going through this book that this love is a love that draws
from her extraordinary confessions of intimacy with Him. And it
speaks of him taking her particularly and personally into a banqueting
house with a banner over her with love, to take her into his
garden, the garden of his creation. It's remarkable in Song of Solomon
how of all the rays of love which we hear so much about these days,
they are sort of centred and they emanate from Song of Solomon. Some of the old people said that
in the rest of the scriptures as if we go into the courts of
the temple and some of them take us into the holy place, the place
of sacrifice. And Song of Solomon takes us
in to the holy of holies, where there is the very presence of
God and there is Him revealing the intimacy of His love. It's
remarkable, the word beloved, which is the word that he uses
for her and she uses for him, it's 31 times in Song of Solomon
they call each other beloved. In the rest, of the Bible that
word is used just 17 times. Love is used in Song of Solomon
26 times, sometimes as a description of her, she's sick with love
when she's absent from him, sometimes a description of her by him,
my love, my dove, my undefiled. Only 26 times in Song of Solomon,
23 times in all of the Psalms. is that word love used. I was
talking to some people yesterday and there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 books of the Bible don't mention
the word love at all. They might mention the word affection.
One of the most remarkable ones which stuns people, I remember
talking to a guy who was a Bible teacher who was trained in America
and teaching the Bible in India. teaching pastors in India, and
I said to him, isn't it amazing, not once in all of the Book of
Acts, 30 odd years of early church history, given to us by the Holy
Spirit, sermon after sermon after sermon by the apostles themselves. How many times is the word love
mentioned in Acts of the Apostles? In all of those messages. The
answer is, it is not mentioned once. There's a good reason for
it, isn't there? When we come to the New Testament
letters, we again have this explosion of love, because the New Testament
letters are written to saints. They're written to the churches.
They are written to the members of the churches. They're written
to those who are loved by God from eternity. And she speaks
of him. And I pray that this would be
a word that could be on your lips. She calls him my love. Twelve times in Song of Solomon
he speaks to her as my love. It's personal, it's intimate. That expression is only used
seven times in all of the rest of the scriptures. Song of Solomon
is just this beacon describes the love of God for his people
in all of the scriptures. No wonder it has been such an
abused and misused book. Probably ever since, Solomon
tended. But certainly when you read any
of the commentators that see this as a picture of the Lord
Jesus and his love for his bride, they all talk about around them
are multitudes who don't see that in it at all. And so many
in our day just see it as a sexual activity. of love between a young
man and a young woman, as it were. They take what is spiritual
and they make it karma. But here we have love. She's
now saying, now that I'm in His presence, now that I'm leaning
on Him, now that I have Him with me, She just has this one request,
set me as a seal. Set me as a seal. And she gives
these reasons and this is the very last of them. And as I said
earlier, there are two simple messages in it. The love of Christ
is of value beyond estimation. and any attempt, secondly, any
attempt to buy or to try and put him under some burden, to
repay you for something that you have done according to him,
is utterly contemptible, despised with despising. We need to remember
the words of the Lord Jesus, whatever is highly esteemed among
men, whatever is highly esteemed, and he's talking particularly
about religion. Whatever you see according to
God, whatever you see is highly esteemed among men. Anything
that man can say, look, isn't that wonderful? Aren't those
people doing a great job? Anything that can cause man to
boast, even in the most humble way, everything that is highly
esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. The love of Christ is not for
sale. It is remarkable, isn't it, how
in the natural world we live with a desire for truth. If you
go to a lawyer, or you go to a doctor, or you go to an accountant,
or if you go to a mechanic, the one thing that you want from
them is for them to tell you the truth. And when they don't
tell you the truth, you have every reason to question their
integrity and ask for your money back and take them even to court
for deceiving you. When it comes to spiritual matters,
searching for truth is rare, isn't it? No wonder Paul thought
the Bereans were remarkable. They took what he said and they
opened their Bible and said, is this the truth? And they searched
and they were esteemed. And God says to test all things
and to hold on to what is good. Test what I'm saying. Open your
Bibles and find out whether I'm telling you the truth about who
you are, telling you the truth about who God is, telling you
the truth about how God saves sinners. And here we are, families
gathered, and it would be laughable to think how much Emily needed
to pay her grandmother for her love. It is remarkable, isn't
it? How much, June, do you have to
pay Graham? What's it worth? How do we put
a value on it? And yet, check for yourselves. Every church that we know of
in this area is wanting to put some value on the love of Christ. We don't do it in personal relationships,
just like we search for truth and except when it comes to this
we stop searching for truth. We couldn't possibly contemplate
buying the love of God. Just imagine it. What's he need?
He owns absolutely everything. He can create a universe by speaking
a word. What can you give him? What can
you give him? He has everything. He says, I
am, that's his name. It means he's self-existent,
but it also means that he's perfectly satisfied. He speaks and reality
comes into existence. He's not troubled by anything
at all, isn't he? Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world. He's not like us. He's Almighty
God. He's huge. He's sovereign. Don't bring him down to the level
of human beings. He condescends to talk about
his arm and he condescends to talk about his eyes. And they're
called anthropomorphisms. He gives himself, he says the
heavens are like a hand breadth to him. It's just saying that
something that we cannot measure is something that's within the
grasp of God. He's just using those things. But we make a big mistake. You
think, he says, you think that I am altogether like you. He's not altogether like us. He is Almighty God. What do you
suppose you might do for the Lord Jesus to win His love? To put the Almighty under obligation
to reward us. The number of people who said
to me when I came back from India, you're going to get extra jewels
in your crown. Isn't that a nice thought? Extra
jewels in your crown. A sinner. does nothing but sin,
getting some reward for doing something." Augustus Toplady said, Christ
loved money so little that he had but one thief and he made
him his purse bearer. He doesn't need our money. Countless
multitudes are leaning the weight of their eternal souls upon works
they do, upon gifts that they believe that they have, experiences
that they have felt. They are, according to Isaiah,
a refuge of lies. In Isaiah 28 you can read about
it. It talks about when this overwhelming
flood comes. There is an overwhelming flood
comes and it will sweep away every refuge of lies. So often we've been challenged
people and people will say, well how do you know that these people
lean so heavily on their works and their decision? And the answer
has been something which is horrifying at times, is just see how they
react when they're taken away from them. Just see how they
react when you read Isaiah to them and say to them that their
righteous deeds are filthy rags before God. That we are all,
Luke 17, we are all unprofitable servants. Take those things away from them
and remind them and just point to them about a God who is absolutely
sovereign and loved his people from eternity. And he put them
in the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus took them as his precious
gift from his Father from before the foundation of the world.
And he took at that moment, before the foundation of the world,
absolute, complete responsibility before God to present them wholly
spotless and blameless, that there is a particularity to the
love of God, there is a successfulness to the death of the Lord Jesus.
And you find two things, don't you? You find when their righteousnesses
are taken away, their decisions and their prayer, their sinner's
prayer, all these other religious things they've done, when that
is taken away from them, And the Lord Jesus is proclaimed,
as this book proclaims him, they rise up in enmity against the
only thing that can save them. The value of the love of the
Lord Jesus can't be bought, and any attempt to buy it is contemptible. Don't cling to it. May God cause
you As you sit there, to look away from yourselves, your wisdom
and your works and your worth and your deed, look away to the
Lord Jesus. For sinners, for real sinners,
for lost, bankrupt sinners in poverty, for sinners who are
like the Shulamite in a wilderness, coming up out of a wilderness,
leaning. These are the most encouraging
verses, isn't it? If a man would give all the substance
of his house, what have we got in our house? A house of our
works. What's it worth? You've got nothing
to give, brothers and sisters. What a great comfort that we
who have nothing are caused to lean. Our works, our efforts,
it's remarkable in Matthew chapter 25, the Lord Jesus is dividing
the sheep from the goats, and the people of God are there
before him. And he says, come, verse 34,
come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world. And then he says, for when I
was hungry, you gave me meat. When I was thirsty, you gave
me drink. I was a stranger, you took me
in naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me.
I was in prison, and you came to me. And the righteous answer,
it's a lovely answer from the righteous, isn't it? Lord, when
did we do any of these things? I didn't do them. I didn't do
them in any way that causes me to think that I've done anything. I'm an unprofitable servant. What can a man give in exchange
for his eternal soul? There's a very challenging verse
in Micah 6. I'll just read it to you. Wherewith
shall I come before the Lord? What will I bring before the
Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come to him
with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be
pleased with thousands of rams? or 10,000 rivers of oil, shall
I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the
sin of my soul? We have nothing. We have a house
that's empty. We have nothing to give. And the love of God is not for
sale. The love of God is a reflection
like all of God's other attributes. We divide them up to examine
them. But when we do divide them up
to examine them, we need to put them all back together again
as quickly as possible and hold them all together in the Lord
Jesus as one. See, God's love must reflect
His character. It's sovereign. He's under no
obligation to anyone. He always acts according, as
Arthur Pink says, to his imperial pleasure. He always acts according
to the counsel of his own will, according to his good pleasure.
And therefore when he loves, he loves whom he pleases. Romans 9 is a challenging chapter
of Scripture, but a delightful chapter of Scripture. It's God's
Word. And there in Romans 9 is a description
of these two twins. Twins, same mother, same father,
same time of birth. Jacob have I loved, but Esau
Have I hated the same? Why? Why? Because God is God and God has
the right to do with his own as he sees fit. He says to the
people of Israel, in Deuteronomy 7.7, he said, The Lord did not
set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in
number than any people. For you were the fewest of people.
You were just a tiny tribe. You just was one man and his
wife originally, and then one again, and then one again, and
then twelve. You were the fewest of all people,
but Because the Lord loved you. Because the Lord loved you. He
loves his people because he loves his people. And it goes on in
verse 8 to say, and to keep the oath which he has sworn to your
fathers. He's a God who loves his people
because he loves them, and he loves his people because of an
eternal covenant that he's made. So God's love is sovereign. The
love of God is eternal. It's a delightful thing, isn't
it? But once fixed, it's fixed forever. His love like himself has no
beginning. Isn't it remarkable, children
of God? If you are loved by God, you are loved before there were
stars in the sky, before there was an earth and before there
was a moon. His love is everlasting, says
Jeremiah. In fact it can be translated
very adequately. I have loved you everlastingly. Therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn you. His love is sovereign. His love
is eternal. His love is unchangeable. The
word we use is immutable. It just means that it doesn't
change. He doesn't change. Our God does
not need to change. Everything in this world is changeable. Haggai says everything in this
created order is shakable. God can shake it all. But God
himself changes not. I change not. Therefore you sons
of Jacob are not consumed. In the Song of Solomon we've
seen the Shulamite wander. and sin and cause herself great
grief, but His love, His delight in her beauty, His delight in
her companionship, is completely unchanged by her sin. In chapter
5 she sins most grievously against him at a special time and when
he is returned he causes her to go through this whole process
and he brings it back to her and he speaks again when he meets
her again with exactly the same sense of delight that he did
beforehand. I don't know if you're like me,
brothers and sisters, but so many of us think, don't we, that when
we sin, God, in a sense, falls out of love with us. And now
I must do something to get it right again. The love of God
is unchangeable, it is eternal, it is infinite. Like himself,
his love, he fills heaven and earth, his knowledge is infinite.
Did he know that you were going to see him before the foundation
of the world? God's knowledge is absolutely
infinite. There is nothing that ever has
happened to you, there is nothing that ever will happen to you
that God doesn't know with absolute perfection and in His sovereignty
and control. for His glory and for your good. His love, as we saw her confess
last week, is powerful. Nothing is impossible with our
God. Those He sets His love on, He
will love them. He will draw them to Himself.
They might be old and about to meet Him in eternity and He will
save them. They might be babes. He'll save
them at the time of His love. His love is without limit. It's called in Ephesians 2.14,
the great love wherewith He loved us. The love of God, as I said
earlier, is a love that's based on promise. It's a love that's
based on God's character as holy. His love is pure. It's not based on passion or
sentiment. It's based on principles which
honour His character. And of course the love of God,
the love of God is revealed in Christ Jesus. In fact Romans
8 says, it's the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. I take that to mean that outside
of Christ Jesus there is no love of God for the people of this
world. His love, like his character,
is revealed most clearly in the Lord Jesus, and of course his
love is gracious. You see, John 3.16 is that wonderful
verse, isn't it? For God so loved the world that
he sent his only begotten son. For whosoever believeth in him
shall not perish but have everlasting life. I don't have time to go
into how that verse is so terribly abused, robbed of all of its
context and meaning from the rest of scriptures. But the point
I want to make is that Christ Jesus came to this world and
didn't die. He did not die to make God love
his people. He came because He loved His
people. The Lord Jesus didn't die to
create a possibility, to open some door that human beings can
walk through by their own activities. He came because the people were
loved, loved by His Father, loved by Him. to see Divine Love, to
see the Love of God, we must go to Calvary. That is the place
where we see all of the attributes of God on the clearest possible
display in all of this creation. If you want to know about God's
holiness, go to Calvary. When God had put sin, he made
his son to be sin. When he found sin on his son,
his holiness demanded that that sin be punished to the full satisfaction
of God's justice. He had to die. The love of God
is sovereign, eternal, unchangeable, infinite, It's powerful. As we saw last week, it burns
with a vehement, fervent flame. And it's revealed in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Self-sacrificial, redeeming,
saving love. A love that cannot be bought. A love that will not be sold. And as I read in Ephesians 3
earlier, the Apostle writes, and God the Holy Spirit wants
us to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that
you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Hereby we perceive, says 1 John
3.16, we perceive, we understand the love of God. Why? Because
He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our
lives for our brethren. No doubt there are some here
You might echo the words of a hymn written some considerable time
ago. It says, Pass me not, O gentle Saviour, Hear my humble cry,
While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by. See God's children in the scriptures,
like the Shulamite, know and experience the love of God. Do not pass me by. Saviour, Saviour,
hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Let me remind you what this verse
says so clearly. Give up any notion that you must
do something, you must pay something to get the love of Christ. It's
not bought, it's not sold. God's children receive the love
of Christ as a gift, a free gift. a gracious gift, a gift for which
you are utterly unworthy. Look unto Him. Look unto Him. Simply trust Him. Don't move
a muscle, but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." He says, He says in Proverbs
23, says, My son, give me thine heart. The Lord Jesus will never
accept any substitute for love. The world has seen and we at
this stage seem to have witnessed Esau's who are prepared to sell
the love of God, to sell their birthright, to sell the covenant
of God for a tin of beans, for a meal. It's a searching thing, isn't
it? It's a searching question. The question that causes us most
grief when we have discussions with people and we witness to
them is how much love, how much love the Lord Jesus How much
do you love him? Do you love him alongside something
else or do you really love him? Some of you will bear witness
to the time we were in a Bible study some years ago and there
were about ten of us sat round a table and we were discussing
the evangelism that goes into the high schools in this town.
And we discussed it over a couple of weeks and we all came to the
conclusion it was one of those remarkable times in my life where
you just have almost the hair standing up on the back of your
head. And you just wonder what's going to come of this, as around
the table, having seen from the scriptures that they're telling
lies to the children. The men around that table said,
that is a false gospel. And the next one said, that is
a false gospel. And the next one said, that's
a false gospel. And we went round the table and everyone with the
scriptures there before them said, that is a false gospel. It is telling lies to children
about God. It's trying to achieve something
by human wisdom and human activity, to try and manipulate the character
of God to make it more appealing to children. And I waited. as so many of us did. What is
going to be the impact of this? What is going to be the impact?
It's a stunning thing to have to say that many of them came
back the next week and they said, that's a false gospel, but I
am still going to support it. because it gets Bibles into children's
hands. The question is, the question
that the scriptures ask so searchingly is what sort of love is that?
I don't want to be loved by my wife like that. I don't want
to be loved like that. I don't want a love the Lord
Jesus like that? Why don't they just hire a great
big aeroplane, fill it up with Bibles, and just let them all
fall out all over the place? They'll get Bibles into the hands
of people. Why tell lies about God to achieve
something? is love of God. You see, God's
love is a love, as I've said, which is unpurchasable. It's
a love in Romans 5 which says that it's shed abroad in our
hearts. It's actually shed abroad. It's
a remarkable word. I was studying it the other day
and I was stunned to find what shed abroad means and if I'd
looked at the rest of the passage I probably would have known.
To be shed abroad is to be poured out like blood is poured out. to be poured out like a drink
offering is poured out. See, the love of God is shed
abroad where? In our hearts, by the Holy Ghost
which is given unto us. And then it talks about what
we are. We have nothing. What are we? The next verse,
we were without strength, absolutely none. We were without strength
and Christ died for us. We were ungodly, ungodly. We were sinners. We were enemies. We have nothing. We have nothing
to offer for His love. God commendeth, it says. He commends His love. toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And then he goes on to say, much
more, as if that wasn't enough, much more than now being justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies,
We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Remember
who's writing these words, brothers and sisters. God the Holy Spirit
took the pen in Paul's hand and wrote these words. What was Paul
doing? What was Paul doing when God
saved him? He was on his way to murder Christians. on His
way. He knows what it is to be an
enemy. He knows how much more, being
justified by His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through
Him. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. By the
death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved
by His life. And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received
the atonement. See, the love of God is shed
abroad. The love of God is known. Give heaven no rest, my friends,
until you know it, until it has been shed abroad. to know the
love of Christ which passes knowledge that you might be filled with
all the fullness of God. And just before I close, I just
wanted to say something. We along with all of our brethren
throughout this world have come to love what are called the doctrines
of grace. We love the fact that God declares
us totally depraved because we can be honest with ourselves,
honest with God and honest with others, that we have nothing
and everything we do is touched by sin. Every good deed we do
is touched by sin. We love that there is just unconditional
election. It doesn't rely on any conditions
within me. It all relies, the conditions
are all in God. We love the fact that the atonement,
death of the Lord Jesus was a real atonement, a particular atonement.
It was limited to His people. but it was perfectly successful
in doing everything that it was designed to do, as we've just
read in Romans 5. We love the fact that the grace
of God is irresistible. When we look out on people that
we love and are seemingly lost, We have reason to pray and reason
to hope, because if God's grace comes upon them, their resistance
is about as powerful as Paul's is, about as powerful as you
and mine were. And we love the fact that God's
saints persevere. They persevere to heaven. Why? Because He has made a promise.
He's made a promise to present the likes of us, worms of this
earth, wholly spotless and blameless before Him. And we love what
we've just read in Romans 5, the blessings of grace, isn't
it? Now for being justified by faith we have peace with God. We love the fact of being reconciled
to God. We love the fact of sins forgiven
completely and perfectly. We love the fact of His assurance
that He brings to the hearts of His people. We love the doctrines
of grace and the blessings of grace and the promises of grace. What amazing promises God has
set out before his people. We do not die. Death is finished. We just go upstairs as it were. It's no more difficult for a
child of God than falling asleep and when we wake, we wake in
the very presence of God. And that is just the beginning.
of a time of remarkable communion and fellowship. Resurrection
glory. new bodies that are able to live
in the presence of God, we will be able to see Him as He is. Why? Because in our resurrection
bodies we will be like Him, a new creation where we will be able
to delight in the presence of God and delight in the presence
of all of His wonders and His character for all eternity. All these things are delighted
in, and may they be precious to us. But these things are only our
delight if He is our delight. These adorn, as it were, his
majesty and glory. But God's children love him. The Shulamite spoke much of his
attributes. She spoke so gloriously of his
sovereignty and his character and his achievements. She spoke
delightfully of what he was able to provide. But when she was
absent from him and he withdrew himself, what did she say? She
says, I'm sick with love. She's sick with love for him,
love for his presence. Having him is what she wants. She wants to have him, she wants
to be sealed on his heart, engraven on his heart, engraven on his
hand, sealed because of his love. She longs for him. She just longs for him. May God work in us a longing for Him. May God work in us a love for
Him. Throughout time God has loved
His people in such a way that they love Him in return. And their love for Him, His children's
love for Him, is a love that cannot be bought. It cannot be
bartered, and it cannot be bargained with, and it cannot be compromised
with. We don't want Him, plus the things
of this world. God's children long for Him. Let's pray.