Our precious churches, what a
remarkable thing it is that God has ordained that it is in gatherings
like this, hearing the foolishness, the foolishness of preaching,
a sinner preaching to other sinners, that you and I have the opportunity
just to be with God, to meet with God, to
come before God, to talk to God. It's one of the reasons why church
is not a dialogue meeting. It's a meeting where the Lord,
when the Lord blesses, our time, He takes these words, He takes
the experiences of His saints in time, these experiences that
the Holy Spirit has given us this record of, and He takes
them and He applies them to our hearts, just as I am. without one plea, just as I am,
and waiting not, just as I am, though tossed about with many
a conflict, many a doubt, just as I am, poor wretched blind,
just as I am, thou wilt receive, wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse,
relieve, because thy promise I believe. There is no other
situation like it. And God has ordained that this
is the way, this is the means by which he gets great glory
for his son in this world. It is the one place where he
has promised to get great glory for his son. And he says his
glory is great. in Thy salvation. His glory is
greatest, expressed of course in what He did on the cross,
expressed of course in what He does again and again in the lives
of His people. Salvation is an event. Salvation is a promise. Salvation is a process. And here in Song of Solomon,
in chapter 6, we have the Shulamite in discussion, as it were, with
her beloved. He calls on her in verse 13,
to return, O Shulamite, return, return. He says, return, O perfect
one, return, O one peaceable one, she who has been tossed
about, that we may look. In fact, the word is to gaze,
to stare upon her. He wants to have her in his presence. even though He has orchestrated
His absence from her and He's orchestrated her distress in
those absences, as she cried out and couldn't find Him, looked
for Him and couldn't see Him, asked others and still couldn't
find Him. And then there is this question,
What will you see in the Shulamite? What will you see in the Shulamite? The question, I believe, can
only be a question of two people in the context of this story.
It is just she and her husband. So the question is, what? O great God, O great lover of
souls, what do you see in me?" The other question, it can equally
be, is, what do I see in myself? What an amazing thing it is when
those two things coincide. He is great, our God. Great,
our Lord, of great power. His understanding is infinite. You see, He sees absolutely everything. He sees all of your life. In fact, all of your life, from
eternity past to eternity future, we say, but it really is just
one, is laid out before Him and He sees it perfectly. He sees it with absolute perfect
clarity, with those eyes that are set, those eyes that are
as fair as doves. He sees everything. And what
does he see? Again, possibly for the third
time in Song of Solomon, she has again been in a situation
where she has been taken into the most remarkable place, the
most remarkable experiences of God. of her beloved, of the Lord
Jesus himself taking her into a banqueting hall, the Lord Jesus
himself taking her into his chambers, the Lord Jesus holding her with
his arms, the Lord Jesus speaking the most extraordinary words
to her, she who knows herself to be black but beautiful. She's told by him that she's
all beautiful, my love. There is no spot in you. And in chapter 5, verse 1, she's
been brought to this place where he is eating his honeycomb with
his honey, drinking his wine with his milk, and he says, eat
and drink abundantly. And yet, here she is. in a situation where she's come
through the most extraordinary time of trial. And she now says, what do you
see in the Shulamite? What do you see in her? It's
as it were the company of two armies. It's a remarkable phrase. And really what it is most clearly represented
by is that there is of course two warring parties, but it really
means the company of two armies, the company of two armies that
are in rings. And the closest I can think of
to it was at a funeral. Some of you might have remembered
hearing of a fellow called James who was taken by the Lord in
great mercy out of that situation that developed in India. In his
funeral, the Hindu people were really upset that he was a Christian
and his father used to say to him that since you've become
a Christian you are no longer my son. James used to go to his
father's house with the customary gifts that Indian sons would
take to their father and he would throw the sweets on the ground
at his feet. and say, you don't belong to
me, you're not my child. And when James died quite suddenly
of a brain tumour and the family came angry and distressed to
the church and they insisted that the funeral be back in their
village. So there was a short service
at the church where he was the pastor but then we all went back
to the village which was about 40 minutes away and It was the
first sort of Hindu funeral that I've been to in that situation,
and they bury people on the same day, so the grief is raw and
the emotions are raw, and in mixed in with all that emotion
is that there's a strongly Hindu village with one of the leaders
of that village, his son, who was a traitor, and we met there,
and there was a crowd. Everywhere in India there were
crowds, but the crowds were thousands that day. and we were at the
gravesite and I was standing on the dirt as it were and the
Hindu women especially gathered in these huge masses together
and they all wailed. It was a grieving thing to hear
them just wailing, but they wailed and moved, and one lot sort of
moved in one direction, another lot moved in another direction.
It's an extraordinary scene that I have never forgotten. The Shulamite
is saying, in a sense, if you can imagine two rings, she's
saying that in me, in what I am, There are these two warring armies. There is a battle within her. A battle is within her because
she is the Lord's and she belongs to the Lord. And that is why
there is a battle. The scriptures over and over
again talk about that battle, that war between the flesh and
the spirit. It's so easy for us when we deal
with this doctrine of the two natures of man, that standing
before you is someone who does nothing but sin, is sinning right
now. It's exactly what Paul says in
Romans 7, when he would do good, when he does anything, sin is
right there with him. We are sinners in Adam, we come
forth from our mother's womb speaking lies and we remain sinners. In this body and flesh, we are
but sinners. But living inside of God's people,
coming at the time of regeneration and rebirth, is a new man that
lives inside. And when the new man, Christ
in you, the hope of glory, takes up residence in God's people,
there is a war that continues. in a sense the warring of two
armies. Paul calls one the flesh. The flesh lusts against the spirit
and the spirit against the flesh, Galatians 5.17. And these are
contrary one to the other. so that you cannot do the things
that you would, you cannot do the things that you wish. But the battle for the Shulamite
and the real battle for the Christian is a battle inside the heart. You see, religion, no matter
what sort of religion it is, is wanting us to polish the outside,
to polish the outside of the cup, to get rid of terrible acts
of immorality, of wickedness, of open wickedness. They're always
saying, do, do, do. Do this and you will be better. Do this and God will save you. Do this and you'll get some reward
in heaven. Do these things and you'll more
clearly honour God in this world. You see, the problem is always
that if the standard If the standard is a standard that men can attain
to in any way, at any time, in all of their lives, then it is
not God's standard at all. You see, they see, and it's so
easy for people to see, sin, to see the biggest problems that
you have in your life as external activities. And it doesn't matter
whether you join the Masons, or Alcoholics Anonymous, or Rotary,
or Lions, or any church in almost all of the world, any religious
organisation, what does Hinduism do? Polish your life and you
will be rewarded. Islam. Polish your life and you
will get to heaven. Do some acts. Be a martyr. and the glories of heaven with
all those sensual delights are yours." The Zoroastrians from
Iran and there's a lot of them in India and we dealt with them,
they actually had this remarkable thing where you actually, they
had a thing called the Sinvat Bridge where your life is narrowed
down to a razor blade. And whether you go to heaven
or to hell depends on the weight of your good deeds or your bad
deeds. Such is the religion, isn't it? They always set the Abba for
obedience at a level they can jump over. And then from their
little holy hill they can look down on the sinners of the world. We always want to talk about
and show their good deeds, their sincere efforts of morality,
living the Christian life, the rubber hitting the road, steps
to holiness, progressive sanctification, rewards in heaven. And they're all strangers to
the real problem that we have. is the sin, not the sin that
we do, brothers and sisters, but the sin that we are. Religion talks much about morality. Religion, as the Lord Jesus said,
polishes the outside of the cup. They take a cup and they're continually
washing the outside and inside is full of maggots and putrefying
flesh. God looks on the heart. He looks into the heart of the
Shulamite. He is looking right now into
our heart. See, religion, whatever name
it bears, is merely the swapping of external
moral sins for sins which are much, much deeper and much, much
more grievous and far more dangerous. Unbelief is the sin of sins. If you think, if you believe
that you have kept one of God's commandments just one time, if
we or I believe that or you believe that, we prove by that that we
are completely ignorant of God in His holiness and His law as
spiritual, and we are completely ignorant of ourselves. Such is the state, such is the
state that causes us to be here gathered, brothers and sisters,
isn't it? That causes our Gospel to be the only Gospel, the Gospel
that magnifies the glory of God, but at the same time the Gospel
that deals honestly with who we are and what we are. Such is the state of the Shulamite. You see, the struggle for the
Shulamite is a struggle that is at war in the hearts of all
people in the world who are the chosen children of God. See, they have come to know things. Lord willing, next week I want
to look more closely at Romans 7. But in Romans 7, Paul says
he knows, he knows that the law is spiritual. The law is not
just about external activities. The law is about your spiritual
obedience, the perfect obedience, the perfect spiritual obedience. to look at someone lustfully
is to commit adultery. To be angry with someone is to
murder them. So what do we know, brothers
and sisters in Christ? We know that the law is spiritual,
verse 14 of chapter 7 of Romans, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For I know Verse 18, I know that
in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. Do you know that about yourself,
brothers and sisters? I know, says Paul, that in me,
that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. Every believer, every
born again child of God knows that. They know it. They know it because God has
made them to see it. He is and has promised to be
the teacher of his people. All of his people know those
things. They know them, as the Shulamite
does, by the experience of their dealings with God. If you don't
know them, if you don't know those things, you are a stranger
to Paul's God. You just don't know him. They just don't know him. Paul
says he knows. God has taught him. He's seen
it in his own life. So the struggle that the Shulamite
has and the struggle that Paul has and the struggle that she's
talking about here is a struggle that's an internal struggle in
the hearts of people. It's a struggle that is much
bigger and much more powerful and much more important than
the struggle of the things in your flesh. Giving up obvious
sins is a relatively easy matter. Alcoholics anonymous can do it.
The Mormons can do it. The Jehovah's Witnesses can do
it. The Pharisees did it amazingly well. In fact, Paul, who wrote
those words that we have just read, said that he was so perfectly
obedient to the law that he says that according to that law, according
to those moral standards of God's holy law, he was blameless. He was blameless. And when the
Lord Jesus came on that Damascus road and arrested him, Paul was
left a bit like our Shulamite was left. Paul was left wrestling
with God and wrestling with who he was for three whole days in
that house in Damascus. No light. No food, no water,
Paul and God. Like the Shulamite, how desperately
he must have searched for relief. There he was, like all proud
sinners, marching down that broad road, surrounded by those supporting
him, approved of by the religious world. And he met the Lord Jesus. And he met the Lord Jesus. And
he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying to him, Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute me? And he said, Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus,
whom you are persecuting. And he was trembling and astonished. And he says to the Lord, what
will you have me to do? And the Lord said to him, arise,
go into the city, and it shall be told you what you must do. You are to go into the city,
and you are to wait. And there he was, blinded. And
Ananias comes to him, sent by the Lord, a preacher of the gospel. comes to this man and he says
to Saul, he says, Brother Saul,
he now calls him a brother, Acts 9, 17. And put his hands on him
and said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto
thee in the way as thou came, has sent me that thou might receive
thy sight. and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from
his eyes, as it had been scales, and he received his sight forthwith,
arose and was baptised. And then Saul's war began. And all of that religious activity,
all that external, outward, extraordinarily moral behaviour, he counts them
all as loss. He says all of that religious
activity, all of that morality, all of that legalistic morality,
taking God's word and working out exactly what I had to do
and exactly when I had to do it and doing it exactly according
to this law such that I was blameless, he says, it was done. I know, he says, I know that
in me, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. You see, the struggle that Paul's
talking about in Romans 7, the struggle for believers, it does
include the big and external things. But let's go back to
our Shulamite and see where her struggle began. You see, her
struggle that we have here, as she says, within her is the camp
of two armies. See, it began in her bedroom.
There was no one else around. The struggle began in her heart. The struggle began from within
her. She heard his voice. She heard
him call, she heard him say these beautiful words and then she
says, I have put off my coat, I have washed my feet. Who else
heard that? It was just her and him. You see the struggle with the
two armies is a perpetual struggle. It's a battle, and it's an inner
battle that's hidden from the world. Brothers and sisters in
Christ, you know about it. You know that I'm talking about
things that are just an everyday, every minute occurrence in your
life. I can go home this afternoon
and I can pick up the newspapers and I can read them for hours.
And I pick up my Bible and within minutes it's a chore. I go to pray and before my knees
I've hit the floor. I'm thinking about things which
are absolutely irrelevant to anything at all. We cannot do the things that
we want to do. Sin is there with us as if there
is this circling army all around all the time. That's the battle that Paul has. It's the battle that every Christian
has had. John Bunyan was locked up in
jail by God and he wrote two books. One was called Pilgrim's
Progress and it's a battle, isn't it? There's not a page in Pilgrim's
Progress which is not Christian battling with something. Times
of delight and times of battle. He wrote another book called
The Holy War. It's the book where he discusses
the internal struggles, the fight of this company of two armies,
this perpetual war. Sibbes wrote a book called The
Souls conflict, so much for triumphal Christianity, so much for progressive
sanctification, that you can take these dirty
hands and wipe with a dirty mop the dirty floor of your life
and make yourself clean and make yourself acceptable with God. What does Paul say? He says,
it's not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who
shows mercy. This perpetual war, if it's in
you, is a war that God has begun in your life. And just as the
Shulamite was taken through her struggles by the sovereign hand
of God to bring her to Himself, and to show her again the wonders
of saving grace, the wonders of that love of His, which is
a love that doesn't vary. She's returned to Him and He
speaks the same words of her as she did when she treated Him
so wickedly. He has a purpose in this perpetual
war. and it's an internal war. So there is a new creation in
God's people, but the old is still there. What's born of flesh
is flesh. Isn't it wonderful? It is wonderful
that the scriptures deal so honestly with God's people. Why do we
have laid before us the sin of Noah? What a remarkable gift
God had given to Noah. A preacher for a hundred years
saved he and seven other souls when millions, possibly billions
around him died. in that ark which represented
the Lord Jesus. All the wrath of God fell on
that ark and inside he was marvelously and wonderfully preserved as
in the Lord Jesus. And he sacrifices, honours God
when he comes out and receives those remarkable promises. And
what does he do? plants a vineyard, gets drunk,
curses one of his sons. Abraham, what a remarkable man. What amazing privileges Abraham
received. Just think of those promises.
He was given a nation. He was given a dynasty. He was promised that his children
would be like the stars of the sky. The father of the faithful,
all he needs is a little tiny bit of pressure and he'll lie
about his dear wife and put her in a place of potential shame
and danger to protect his own skin. The list goes on and on throughout
the scriptures. It is wonderful, brothers and
sisters, isn't it? that the people who wrote this
book, that we would have both the comfort and the patience
in this battle, and we would have hope, says Romans 15.4.
Those people who wrote it were sinners just like us, exactly
like us. Sinners by nature, sinners by
practice, sinners by confession, and saints by grace. You see, Romans 7 is talking
about a holy man, isn't it? A holy man, a saint, says, I
know the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold unto sin. A holy man says, I know that
in me, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. That's the confession of a saint
of God. It's all through the rest of
the New Testament, isn't it? It's littered through the Old
Testament in type and picture. And in the New Testament, James
says, from whence comes wars and fighting among you? Come
they not even from your lusts that war in your members? Peter talks about fleshly lusts
which war against the soul. the hidden man of the heart. There is a war that's begun. As the Lord Jesus says, that
which is born of flesh is flesh, and it will never get better.
That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit, and it will always
and forever remain the same. The old man can be put off, but
he's never cast out of the heart for good. Thanks be to God that
flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither does
corruption inherit incorruption. The victory is won, but the victory
is won by our representative, by the Lord Jesus on the cross. What a Saviour! What a Saviour! You see, He led this this Beloved
of His, through this time, nurturing and caring for her at every moment,
through all of her falls, through all of the difficulties, through
all of those wanderings, He withdrew Himself for a time and for a
purpose. He seemingly hid himself for
a time and a purpose, to bring her to himself in a way which
would remind her of his covenant love and faithfulness, which
is bigger than all of her sins. Think of those apostles on that
night. The Lord Jesus was crucified,
betrayed. They'd made the greatest promises,
hadn't they? Doesn't matter where you go,
we'll go with you. You go to death, we'll be there
with you. We won't leave you nor forsake
you. Such was the desire of their
hearts. Such was the purpose of God that
Peter cursed. To prove especially that he had
nothing to do with this holy man, he swore and cursed, and
the others all fled as cowards. And the Lord Jesus loved them. As He said at the beginning of
that last sakhara, He says, He loved His own to the very end. He brought them through that
to humble them. He brought them through that
to show them that salvation is entirely by grace. If you're
going to be saved, brothers and sisters, God must do something. God must come. And the fact that
you, my brothers and sisters, have struggles is not a sign
that there is no life. The struggles are a sign that
there is life. Paul had exactly the same struggles. The apostles had the same struggles.
The saints throughout all time had the same struggles. I love the fact that when in
chapter 7 the Lord comes to speak again to the Shulamite. What
does he say in verse 1 of chapter 7? It's remarkable. She had said
to him, I'm not going to get out of bed and defile my feet. And he speaks to her again in
chapter 7. He says, how beautiful are your
feet. Everything's the same. Return,
he says. The Lord said to those apostles
who were going to fail, fail him and fail themselves most
miserably. The battle between the flesh
and the spirit. These are saved men. They have
the Holy Spirit. These are the activities of chosen
choice believers. The Lord Jesus rose up from the
supper and lay beside his garments and took a towel and girded himself.
And after that he poured water into a basin and began to wash
the disciples' feet and wipe them with the towel wherewith
he was girded. Then he came to Simon Peter and
Peter said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered
and said to him, What I do now you don't know, but you shall
know hereafter. Peter said to him, You shall
never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash
you not, you have no part with me." Simon Peter said unto him,
Lord, not only my feet, but my hands and my head. Jesus said
to him, he that is washed need not save to wash his feet, but
is clean every whit, perfectly clean. How are people cleaned? How are you cleaned? He says
in Chapter 15, He says, Now you are cleaned, verse
3 of Chapter 15, Now you are cleaned through the word which
I have spoken to you. I repeat the words in Acts 15.9
often to you. How do you purify your heart? God looks at the heart. The external activities of the
flesh of men do not impress the Lord Jesus. The external activities
of the flesh of men do not impress those who have the knowledge
that Paul has of external religious activities. We need hearts to be pure. He put no difference between
the Gentiles and the Jews, purifying their hearts by faith. He must speak a word. He must
come in power. bring faith, he must bring repentance. He brings a knowledge of who
you really are and he brings with him a knowledge of him in
saving love and saving mercy. He comes because of covenant
love and covenant promises. As he came back to the Shulamite,
who came to her? She was drawn to him again. A sinner, a failed sinner. an evident sinner, she comes
back and everything's exactly the same. That's grace, brothers
and sisters. That's the love that sinners
who see no good thing in their flesh, see no ability in them
to do anything good at all, that's the love that the Lord Jesus
loves them with. He came into the world to save
sinners, of whom I am the chief, the least of all of the saints. As the publican said at the temple,
he stood afar off, didn't look up his head to heaven, and he
looked and he said, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. He suffered the scorn of that
man beside him who was religious and righteous and lost. But he
went home. He went home right. He went home
righteous. He went home justified. He went home from that temple
a holy man. the chief of sinners and a holy
man. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do thank you that you call upon us again and again. to come quietly and come by ourselves
and deal honestly with you. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that you are the God of all grace and you are the God of comfort
and you are the God of mercy. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that your people, your failing, your fallen, your sinful, your
servants who see no good in themselves, come and receive the bounty of
the gifts of your grace. Heavenly Father, we pray that
you would help us to be honest with ourselves. Heavenly Father,
we pray that you'd protect us. from believing that we can do
things in our flesh which can add to that perfect and finished
work of your dear and darling son, that perfect and finished
work which is presented in heaven right now. as our substitute, as our representative,
as really who we are. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
that we can be protected from this religious world that wants
to deal in external activities. and yet fails to see that the
sin that we are is far, far more dangerous than the sins that
we do. And especially, Heavenly Father,
the sins that we are that cause us to think that we might have
some righteousness of our own in any way at all. We praise
you, Heavenly Father, that that blood was shed, and shed with
a purpose, We praise You that Your people have clearly laid
out before them in the scriptures, Heavenly Father, that we are
like the Shulamite, with the company of two armies, that are
at war. And we feel the weight of that
war so often, Heavenly Father. And if it wasn't for Your grace
and Your word of promise, We would despair, we thank you Heavenly
Father that you lift up the downcast and the broken hearted and you
bring and come to us with healing in your wings. We pray Heavenly
Father that we find ourselves sheltering under those everlasting
arms again and again and again that you draw us to yourself.
We praise You, Heavenly Father, and thank You for Your dear and
precious Son, for gathering us together, for giving us another
opportunity to deal personally and privately with You. May You
have mercy on us, Heavenly Father. May You call people today and
this hour to come and would you cleanse them as you promised
with your word and cause them to be purified in their hearts
by faith just simply looking to the Lord Jesus who said, look
unto me all you ends of the earth and be you saved. We pray, Heavenly
Father, that you would bless us and keep us, protect us and
watch over us and guide us, and do unto us the things that you
have promised our Father. We pray these things in Jesus'
name. Amen.