He's building his church on a
firm foundation. What a remarkably firm foundation
it is. A foundation of the very personal
presence of Almighty God. If you note in your bulletin,
if you get a chance to read that delightful article, you will
find that almost all of the old commentators that I've read have
expressed the same concerns that so many in our present day have
expressed, that Song of Solomon It's called by the Jews as the
Holy of Holies. This precious, precious book
which not only describes the glories of the Lord Jesus in
the most beautiful of language, but describes the intimacy and
the dynamic intimacy of a real and living relationship with
the God of this universe. James Smith talks about people
saying, the carnal man does not understand the things of the
Spirit of God, neither can he know them. And the carnal-minded
believer has little sympathy for the contents of this most
blessed and precious portion of God's Holy Word. It is a remarkable
thing. an amazing thing that we actually
get in the scriptures, a glimpse into the mind and remarkably
in this book into the emotional life of our God. The relationship is real. The relationship is living. The relationship has, as I said,
has dynamic elements to it. And if God would grant us the
grace of salvation, that grace of fellowship with Him. It will
come because He will do the things spiritually and really in our
life that He promises to do in this Word. He likens in chapter
7, He likens His bride to a palm tree. And then he says in verse
8, he says, I will go up to the palm tree. I will take hold of
the boughs thereof. And he says he will. He will go in to the presence
of his people. He will take hold of them and
then their breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and He
will bring into her life the smell of her nose. That smell,
that fragrance of the Gospel will be sweet and delightful.
The roof of her mouth will be like the best wine for my beloved,
the best wine, that remarkable wine of the Gospel that goes
down sweetly. pausing the lips of those that
are asleep to speak. I'd like us to go back in Song
of Solomon and set the context yet again because it's been some
time. We have again and again these
remarkable descriptions of the bride. Him describing the one
that he has loved for eternity. Him describing she who was given
to him by his father in a covenant of love before the foundation
of the world. He says in verse 7 of chapter
4, she's all fair, my love, there's no spot in her. He describes
her as his spouse. He describes how she's been,
she has, verse 9, she has ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse. You have ravished my heart with
one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck. And he talks about
her being a garden enclosed. He describes her in the terms
of a garden planted with pleasant fruits and delightful spices,
a fountain of gardens for, verse 15. a well of living waters and
streams of Lebanon. In verse 1 of chapter 5, he says,
he says, come into this garden, my sister, my spouse. I have
gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. I have tasted, and I have seen,
and I have delighted, I have drunk my wine with my milk. And
then he has this remarkable invitation, eat, oh friends, drink, yes,
drink abundantly, oh beloved. And here in chapter 5, and in
chapter 5, we find her asleep, woken by him He's come
to her with his head filled with dew. Think of what he was like
in Gethsemane. And he's here with the drops
of the night. And she says, I'll put off my
coat. How can I put it back on again?
I've washed my feet. How shall I defile them? He comes
and he puts his hand in the hole of the door. And then we have
this remarkable passage of scripture where she searches for him and
she can't find him. Verse 6. I opened to my beloved,
he's withdrawn himself and was gone. How often, brothers and
sisters, have you felt like that in your Christian life? Where
is he? He's gone. I sought him, she
said, and I couldn't find him. I called him and he gave no answer. And there she is. Smitten, beaten
by the watchman, her veil removed, and she tells others, if you
find him, tell him I am sick with love. The one thing I desire,
the one thing she desires is his presence. his presence with
her, his companionship, that delightful companionship that
she'd spoken of so often. And then she's given this opportunity,
she's asked that extraordinary question, isn't he, what is he
to you? What is he to you? It's a great question, a searching
question. What is he? And then she describes
him. She describes him from head to foot, talks about Him being
so delightful, and in describing Him, she has uncovered to herself
where He has gone. Verse 2 of chapter 6, He's gone
down into His garden, and He feeds among the lilies, is exactly
where He's always promised to be. He's in that garden enclosed. He's in the company of his church
and he's feeding there. And she comes and he talks to
her again in the most extraordinary ways. are put away, all of her defilement
is put away by His work and His sacrifice and His calling. That great work on the cross
manifested what it had done in eternity. They were clean. How can he have relationship?
He who is of two purer eyes than to behold iniquity, yet comes
and dwells. Not only comes and dwells, but
comes and dwells with delight in his people and amongst his
people. And it's a delight that's a knowledgeable
delight. We spent some time earlier in
the year looking at what it was for her to be, as it were, the
company of two armies. One, Adam in our flesh, rebellious
and sinful, ungracious, ungrateful, uncaring, as it were. And yet, in him, in him, in that
army that he is, perfect. It's remarkable, isn't it? She
had turned from him and turned from his calling to her by saying,
I've washed my feet. How can I get myself dirty again?
I put my coat on. He begins by describing her How
beautiful are your feet, O Prince's daughter. He summarises his delight
from her. He starts with her feet and he
goes to her head and in verse 6 of chapter 7 he says, How fair
and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights. And then he comes to these verses
that are before us today. You see, he begins by saying,
this thy stature, this who you are, isn't it? He's described
her feet as beautiful. The joints of your thighs are
like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman, thy
navel is like a round goblet which wanders not liquor, thy
belly is like a heap of wheat set about, the lilies thy breasts
are like two young rows that are twins, thy neck is as a tower
of ivories, like the fishpools in Tisbon, by the gate of Bathrabing. Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon,
which looks towards Damascus. Thine head upon thee is like
caramel, the hair of thine head like purple. The king is held
in thy galleries, You see, he describes her and then he makes
a beautiful summary statement of the emotional impact it has
on him. He says, how fair and how pleasant
are thou, O love for delights. How does he find delight? Those
words can be rendered and should be rendered. How art thou made fair! How art thou made beautiful! How art thou made pleasant! O love for delight!" She's made
that way. It's not how we are in Adam. It's not how we are Naturally,
not how we are as we are born, it's how we are as He describes
us. That's one of the reasons why
we want so much for the Word of God to be the thing that we
read and we talk about in church. You see, brothers and sisters,
When God spoke, reality happened. In the first creation, how did
he create these billions upon billions of stars? He just spoke
a word. He spoke a word, let light be
and light was. When we read God's word, we are
reading his reality, his truth. The great I AM speaks, and when
the great I AM speaks, he speaks with wisdom. He knows exactly
why he's speaking and the purpose of it. He speaks purposefully. He speaks powerfully. He speaks
truthfully. That's why for God's children
this book is a precious, precious book. God has taken these words,
as the Lord Jesus says, to those people, that multitude. He preached
to a multitude in John Chapter 6 and He described Himself and
He described His wills. They are spirit and they are
life. whether a multitude, as in John
6, leave him, and he's left with just twelve. And he says to them,
you can go too. You will not stop being God. And they say their words, don't
they, which are echoed in so much of Song of Solomon. Where
shall we go? Where can we go? You alone, you
alone have the words of eternal life. His words are spirit and
they are life. He has been, she is the gift. of the father. He finishes this
section that we won't be finishing today, but he finishes this section
again with one of those beautiful summary descriptions that she
can say, I am my beloved's and his desire is towards me. She belongs to him. Just let
me read for a few minutes the wonderful devotion that our friend
Mr. Hawker wrote. which is still
as wonderfully delightful now as it was when he wrote it 150
years ago or more. He said, Yes, dearest Jesus,
I am truly yours by every tie which can make me yours. I am
yours by the gift of God the Father. I am yours by you betrothing
me to yourself. by the Holy Spirit anointing
me in you and making me one with you and in you before the world. I am yours in the recovery of
the Church from Adam's fall and transgression by the sacrifice
of yourself. For you have bought me with your
blood and made me thereby the conquest of your Holy Spirit. And now through your divine teaching
I can and do discover that from everlasting Thy desire was towards
your redeemed one. And even when dead in trespasses
and sins, it was your desire to bring them to life, to give
them new birth, and to bring them to yourself. Even now, notwithstanding
all my backwardness to you, you restate your love. and you are calling me by your
grace and seeking continual fellowship." In the ordinance he's talking
about baptism and communion and the gathering of God's people
together around his word, gathered by him and gathered to him. You
are continually restoring and seeking fellowship by Your Word
and by providences. The very providences of our life
are ordained of God to bring us back into union with Him. Even like the Shulamite, even
her wanderings, Even her failings and her sin are used by God as
means to draw her to Himself. All of these things, says Mr
Hawker, prove that your desire is toward Me. And as to the everlasting
enjoyment of all your church above, your prayer to your Father,
revealed your desire when you said, Father, I will. Father, I wish that they whom
you have given me be with me to behold my glory. Are these then the desires of
my God and my Saviour, my husband, my brother, my friend? And shall
my heart be thus cold toward you. Oh, for the reviving influences
of your spirit, that I may cry out with the church, let him
kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better
than wine." What love he has for his bride. Love that is unchanging, love
that is everlasting, love that continues strong and fervent
despite the visible failings of the bride, and even despite
his withdrawals. It's remarkable what John says,
isn't it? We love him. We love him because he first
loved us. He loved us sovereignly. He loved
us creatively. He loved us knowingly. He loves
us purposefully. He loves us effectively. And it's all to reveal his character. that the reality of who he is
may be made manifest. He says, doesn't he, he says,
this people I have formed for myself and they shall show forth
my praise. Formed them for himself, they'll
show forth his praise. So when he describes her, as
we've read in those earlier verses in Chapter 7, is describing her
as she really is in His sight, beautiful. How she is made, how
fair, how beautiful are you made, how pleasant have you been made,
the very object of the Father's great love. that great object
of the Son's love, that one to whom the Holy Spirit, in wonderful,
powerful, regenerating, quickening, making alive grace, will come. He'll take the things of the
Lord Jesus and He'll show them to us. The things of the Lord
Jesus are the things of the Lord Jesus. delights in the things
that the Lord Jesus has done. Who he is in his true character
and who he is in his true character is revealed in what he does. And what he does is a stupendous
thing, isn't it brothers and sisters? thy stature, this thy stature,
this the way you stand, this the proportion of you, this the
way you bear yourself, this your height. your stature. This is how you stand before
me. This is how I see you." If you
turn just over a page in your Bibles, you'll see it's remarkable. In Isaiah chapter 1, we are described
in our sin, in Adam, It says in verse 6, from the
sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in
it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not
been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. All that sin, all that Satan,
all that the Fall has brought to us is now undone. We have been ransomed, we have
been redeemed, we have been saved and rescued, and we have been
delivered, brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus, from a deep
and a dark pit. He goes over and he says to his
people, come now, verse 18 of Isaiah chapter 1, let us reason
together, says the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet. Only God's children know sins
as scarlet. The world, unregenerate world,
has absolutely no idea of what sin is. They wear it as a badge
of honour. Occasionally they are repulsed
by it. Only God's children know what
sins are. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. from the sole of the foot and
to the head, all of what infected all of humanity is completely
and perfectly undone for the redeemed in the Lord Jesus, which is why He can describe
her in this way and be perfectly true. He's describing what he
has done. He's describing the work of God. And he describes the statue as like
a palm tree. We are much more comfortable
probably seeing ourselves as the scriptures describe us as
a vine, a vine that is dependent on others and cannot support
itself. Or as the scriptures in Song
of Solomon describe us as a herd, insignificant, devoid of obvious
beauty, that when crushed and bruised and broken, out comes
a sweet smelling savour unto God. But this palm is the date
palm. a palm that was famous for growing
in those dry and desolate lands. Jericho was famous as a place
of palms. When they came across the Red
Sea, they came to Elam and there were those ponds there, those
springs, and around them were those date palms. They grow to
be big trees in that part of the world and it's remarkable.
I flew along that coast on the north side of Saudi Arabia and
it's a dark, grey, miserable, it's the most miserable landscape
I have ever seen in all of my wanderings in this world. Australia
has a starkness and a beauty of reds and yellows and greens
and blues and other things, but this was just this, it had a
dark, foreboding grey about it. No trees to be seen. And yet,
in the little valleys that ran from the coast, there were these
palm trees. And it was just remarkable. What
on earth are they doing there in the middle of this desolate
landscape? What would it have been for the
children of God to have come into that land, come through
those wanderings and come across these palm trees? They grow big. They grow for 70 or 80 years.
They can yield hundreds of kilos of dates in huge clusters about
them. He likens the statue to a palm
tree. The palm tree is an evergreen
tree and it grows in desolate places. The statue, it's a tree
that grows tall. It grows vertical and it grows
upright. It's a tree that is remarkably
strong. When you see those pictures of
those cyclones and typhoons that beat the tropical parts of the
world, you will see the palm trees bent over in the most extraordinary
way, but after the storm has been through, the trees that
are there often standing straight and true are the palm trees. The fibres are really strong
and they're elastic. One of the remarkable things
about them is that no amount of weight put on them seems to
hinder their growth. The statue of God's Bride. Our Lord Jesus' Bride is like
the palm tree. Evergreen, tall, strong to withstand
the buffeting of wild weather. Also it lives by its head. The palm tree grows up and you
can't see much of the roots of a palm tree and yet you know
they are big and they are deep and they are strong to sustain
something that might be 20 or 30 metres high. But up in the
head of a palm tree is a thing called the brain and unlike other
trees if you cut If you damage the head of a palm tree, all
of the tree dies. It grows by its head. It lives by its head. That brain,
as they call it, is actually sweet and edible. And all of
its fruits are in its head. They come out of its head. It's
a great picture. It's a great picture of the Church
of God, growing strong and tall by the growth of God in a wilderness
environment. Strong and fruitful. And in the temple, As Ezekiel
describes the temple in Ezekiel chapter 41, around the wall of
the temple was a palm tree and a cherub. A palm tree and a cherub. A picture. of the Lord Jesus'
work amongst the angels and amongst His own, gathering them together
as one. Turn in your Bibles if you can
to Psalm 92, and we'll read another description. I'll just read some of the verses
earlier on in the psalm. It says in verse 4, verse 4,
For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work, and I
will triumph in the work of thy hand, O Lord, how great are thy
works, and thy thoughts are very deep. He talks about the wicked
springing up as grass. But over in verse 12 he describes
the righteous. The righteous shall flourish
like the palm tree, you shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the
house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They
shall bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing. And the purpose of all this,
verse 15, to the show that the Lord is upright. The palm tree is upright, the
Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no
unrighteousness in Him. by stature. He's described her
beauty to him. He's described how she stands
before him. She's described to be like a
palm tree, fruitful, evergreen, upright, with roots hidden from
view, but a strong, strong tree. And isn't it remarkable to think
how trees live? They live because the sun produces
this remarkable reaction, which those of you who know more about
science than I do would be astounded by. The more you study photosynthesis,
the more remarkable it is, isn't it? Takes the seeming waste products
of this earth, carbon dioxide, and then with sunlight It breaks
down water to form sugars. There are some dates over there,
isn't it remarkable? In that dry and desolate and
miserable land these date palms produce the most beautiful sweet
fruit and the most extraordinary abundance of it. See the date
palm grows by its head. It's all drawn up, isn't it?
It's amazing how trees get water up to the top of them. How do
they get life up to the top so they can photosynthesise it?
They actually do it by the water evaporating out of the leaves
and the water is actually drawn up. Life-giving water, life-giving
water that ends up being broken down in a remarkable way by a
plant to produce sugars and energy and carbohydrates. It's drawn
up by the sun shining on it. You see God, as we see in the
scriptures, made date palms. and made trees so that we could
talk about him and his work. The righteous shall flourish
like a palm tree. They go strong and they flourish
in places where no one would expect them to flourish. He says
thy breasts tick clusters place of her heart's affection and
love to clusters. And as you'll notice in our translation
of grapes there is in italics. And it's probably much better
for us to see that as just clusters of the dates. The dates hang
in huge clusters from the head of the date palm. The clusters
are likened to her breasts. Her breasts of course reflect
that remarkable bond between the mother and child. Jerusalem above is called the
mother of us all, and there is just a remarkable bond, a bond
of life, a bond of consolation, a bond of comfort between a nursing
mother and her babies. In Isaiah 66, We have the Lord showing us again
that these things in creation are there that we might see His
work in the lives of His people. He talks about bringing to birth,
in verse 9 of Isaiah 66, Shall I bring to birth and not cause
to bring forth, says the Lord? Shall I cause to bring forth
and shut up the womb, says thy God? He says, Rejoice, you with
Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you that love her. Rejoice
for joy with her, all you that mourn for her, that you may suck
and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations, that you
may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her glory."
Why? For thus says the Lord, Behold,
I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the
Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then shall you suck, and you
shall be borne upon her side and dandled upon her knees, as
one whom his mother comforts. So I will comfort you, and you
shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when you see this, your hearts
shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like a herb, and
the hand of the Lord shall be known towards His servants, and
His indignation toward His enemies." It's likened to the breasts,
which bring comforting and consoling. The fruit of this palm tree,
the fruit of God's work in His people and amongst His people
is comforting and consoling, just like the bunches of dates.
They are sweet. They show the fruitfulness of
His planting. They show the signs of life.
and like the breasts they are the carriers of new life. We
are to desire the sincere milk of the word. Once a baby is born,
has first sucked at a breast, it doesn't need to be taught
again. Again and again they come back
and it's a natural thing, isn't it, for the child. When it needs
comforting, when it needs consolation, when it needs feeding and nurturing
and caring, it comes back to this word of God, this sincere
milk of the word. That's the prayer, isn't it,
of all of God's saints as they open up this Word and they describe
the Saviour and describe His work in preaching, in communion,
in baptism. If the Lord Jesus is there and
He blesses with His presence, there is going to be fruit. There
is going to be nourishment. And that breast milk of the mother
is both healing and protective of the baby in those early days. The sincere milk of the word
exposes the truth, and in exposing the truth it reveals the lies,
the blessed doctrines of the Gospel, the Blessed Doctrines,
which describe our God and describe us, and describe how our God
could be in this sort of relationship with us. She desires in Chapter
1 for him to lie. He says, she describes him as
a bundle of myrrh, is my well beloved under me. He shall lie
all night betwixt, between my breasts. She wants him to be
held close to her heart, heart to heart, in his arms, with his
arms around her. God's life becomes our life. It's a place she wishes to find
rest. And he comes to her and he describes
her stature and says that she's like this, she's like a palm
tree. The breasts, the fruit of the palm tree are like clusters. And then he says these remarkable
words, these great words of promise. You see, she's not left alone.
God's love for his bride drives him to fellowship, drives him
to communion with them. He said, I will go up to the
palm tree. I will take hold of the boughs
thereof. Now also thy breasts shall be
clusters of the vine. What a promise. What a promise
from our God. What a promise to a wayward bride,
a wandering bride. He says, I will go up. He says,
I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name and you are
mine. He promises to come. He promises
to come and have fellowship. He promises that He will come.
He says, I will not leave you without comfort. He says to His
disciples on that night when they were to go through some
of the deepest darkness that human beings have ever been through
in this world. He says, I will not leave you
comfortless. I will come to you. Her desire. What was her desire? Her desire
is to find Him. Her desire is to be with Him. Her desire is to have fellowship
with Him. What a desire, brothers and sisters.
Is that a hunger and a thirst that the Lord has given you? It's remarkable those promises
that the Lord Jesus made to all of us in that Sermon on the Mount. He taught them. Blessed are the
poor in spirit. for theirs is the kingdom of
God. Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst after righteousness." There's only one righteousness.
There is only one righteousness that God accepts, an everlasting
righteousness. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. They won't be given just some
scraps. they will be filled. Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are
they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men shall
revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad,
for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you. He creates a hunger and a thirst
and a desire. And what He creates, He alone
can satisfy. And until He is satisfied, that
hunger and thirst will be there. What a tragedy. What a tragedy
that there are so many around us and so many that we meet so
often. His hunger is not after those
things. He doesn't thirst. He does not
thirst after those things. He is satisfied. He is satisfied
with the religion that they have made. I sat with a woman at a dinner
the other night in Sydney and for 40 minutes or longer I talked
about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus to her. She works for a
church. She works for a pastor who looks
after three churches in Sydney and she prints out the bulletins
and she writes out the Bible verses that they recite each
week. And I talked much to her about
who God is. And I talked out of the scriptures
to her. And not a single word, not a
single word of all that I said mattered to her one tiny little
bit. And her Jesus, fortunately at
the end she saw that her Jesus was different. Her Jesus accepts
absolutely everyone. Her Jesus is just as happy with
a Hindu in the sincerity of his faith. Just as happy with a Hindu
who rejects the Lord Jesus as he is with one of his bride. So there was nothing of a delight. for her in His person. There was nothing in her at that
time, and may the Lord have mercy on her, that caused her to hunger
and thirst. It mattered nothing to her. His death was a little thing. As the Lord Jesus says, is it
nothing to you, all you who walk by, to her that death on the
cross was as nothing. It was as meaningful for the
pagans as it was for the Bride of the Lord Jesus. There's no
distinction between the Bride and the rest of humanity. And throughout our discussions,
she was wanting to say, we're all the same. She said, it's
lovely. You've got your path to God. The Hindus have got their path
to God. I've got my path to God. And
isn't it lovely that we can go into our church and we can delight
in the incense and the bells and the smells and the robes
and the ritual. I pray God would cause you to
hunger and thirst. What blessed communion this hungry
and thirsting bride of the Lord Jesus found. What amazing promises. He goes up to the palm tree. That palm tree that's waved,
the branches of that tree are waved in heaven. You can read
about it in Revelation 7 verse 9. Those palm branches were waved
and strewn on the road as the Lord Jesus marched into Jerusalem. See, it's His delight to be in
the presence of His bride. It's His delight to come to her. What a remarkable
thing when Almighty Holy God touches people. They must be perfectly righteous,
perfectly holy, as holy as He is holy. That's what these miracles
are about in the Gospels, aren't they? When He touches someone,
Either he is defiled or they are perfectly clean. He can't
be defiled. What is it? They are perfectly
clean, brothers and sisters. That's why he can say, I'll go
up to the palm tree, I'll take hold of the boughs there, I'll
take hold of the heights of it, I'll take hold of the fruit of
it, I'll take hold of it where fruit and life is there. He says to his bride, I'll take
hold of her and I'll take full responsibility for her. I'll
take hold of her personally. She's mine. As any faithful husband
will do, he takes full responsibility for her. Imagine marrying a bride. What does she owe? Imagine she's
in debt. What would the husband do? What
does she owe? Who does she owe this to? He pays that debt perfectly and
completely. Who speaks against her? I'll
answer for them. I'll answer for them. I'll go
for the depths of hell to bear her punishment, that I can take
her to the courts of heaven, perfect and delightful in his
sight." The Great Shepherd delights to find his sheep. He delights
to carry them close to His heart. He delights to bring them into
His fold. He delights to care for them
forever. And it's all, as we saw at the
beginning, it's all of His making. See, He finds delight in the
things that He creates. He looked out on that creation
and he said, it's good, it's good, it's good. He saw the creation
of Adam and Eve and he said, it's very good. When he creates,
those are to be his forever. He creates them with delight
because he thought of delighting them. So the question is, brothers
and sisters, God's children see themselves in those words of
Isaiah chapter 1, don't we? From the sole of our foot to
the top of our heads, we so often and only God's children do really
see themselves devoid of any righteousness, devoid of any
good. What this remarkable passage
of Scripture and what this remarkable book is saying, and what our
remarkable husband and saviour and God is saying, is this is
how I see you. I see you as delightful. I see you as made beautiful. I see you not only just made
beautiful, but in relationship I see you as made pleasantly
delightful." You see, he says, doesn't he, how fair, how pleasant
are thou, O love, for delights. How many delights does he have
in his children. They shall no longer be called
forsaken, neither thy land any more be turned desolate, but
you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah. For the
Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married." Hephzibah is what she shall be called.
It means quite simply, my delight is in her. My delight is in her. Bula is married. He's married to someone he delights
in. Let's finish with Zephaniah 3.17.
The Lord thy God in the midst of you is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice over you with
joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over you with singing. Simon, would you like to come
and pray for us? Come up here and pray for us and then we can
have communion. Thank you. Heavenly Father, we're
so often afflicted and surrounded by the fall and sinfulness of
this world, so overwhelmed by even the sins of our own doing,
Heavenly Father. We thank You that You show us
our frailties, that You take us to a place where we see just
how futile our righteousness is. Filthy rags, and You show
us that, and You convince us of that. But amazingly, Heavenly
Father, when You do work that way in us, You continue that
process and You show us just how amazing our Saviour is, how
full and finished His perfect work is on our behalf, how satisfactory
that work is, and You supply all our needs through it, Heavenly
Father. You show us again and again and again. just how sufficient
our Saviour is for us. You provide all that's necessary
for us, and in our fallings You show us a need, and then You
satisfy that need, and You bring forth praises from our lips.
What an incredible process it is, Heavenly Father. It is something
that the carnal world or the carnal mind can't understand,
but You show Your people, and You show us again and again and
again just how amazing and how deep and how infinite Your love
for Your bride is. We thank You for our Saviour
and we thank You for the new, refreshing views that You give
us, Heavenly Father, and our prayer must be that You will
just continue to cause us to look to Him, that You would faithfully
never leave us and never forsake us. Our prayer is Your promise,
Heavenly Father. We just thank You for them, and
we thank You that even when we're unable to pray, You intercede
for us by the power of Your Spirit. And You work so mightily in our
hearts to cause us to remember our Saviour, to cause us to long
for Him, and to hunger and thirst for Him. And I thank You that
by Your grace, Heavenly Father, You bring us together and You
show us that our Saviour is in our midst and He is here to meet
with His people and He does minister to them through the power of
the Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel. Heavenly Father,
cause us to have ears to hear Your Gospel. I pray as we come
to Communion that You would just bless us with these new refreshing
views, that we would remember that our Saviour, His body was
perfect. He established our righteousness.
He obeyed His Father perfectly from the womb to the tomb, Heavenly
Father, and in doing so He established that everlasting righteousness
on our behalf. But that body was broken. Again,
suffering a punishment that was due and owing to us, He took
our sins and He took them and He satisfied the wrath of God
on them. And we just praise you, Heavenly
Father, that the full and finished product of our Saviour's work
is the wonder of His Church. I pray that we have eyes to see
that. I thank you again, and I pray
to you in the name of our Saviour and our King, the Lord Jesus
Christ.