The God of the scriptures, the
God who we will meet in a short, short time is so different in
so many ways to the gods, the gods that are proclaimed in this
world. How many of us can read that
passage of scripture and see how the Lord sent a deceiving
spirit. He sent a lying spirit. from
heaven to deceive 400 prophets so he could kill Ahab and no
doubt send those 400 prophets to their eternal doom. Also as much as our God is so
different from what we think in Those ways is also so much
different than what the average person and especially the average
person in religion thinks in terms of the other side of it,
in terms of the beauty of his love and his care and his protection
of his people. There's some beautiful articles
about him being a friend. He says, John MacDuff says, he's
a true friend. He's a loving friend. He's a
powerful friend. He's a faithful friend. He's a seasonable friend. He's
an unchanging friend. My friend who sticks closer than
a brother. A friend who loves at all times. a friend who brings access to
Him, a friend who sits upon a throne, but it's the throne of grace.
And we come boldly. We come boldly, brothers and
sisters in the Lord. We come boldly. We come with
confidence. We actually, according to 1 John
4, we look forward to the day of judgment. with boldness and
confidence. What a great, great friend for
sinners. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that you would continue to guide us into your truth,
that we would be caused to grow in grace and knowledge of our
Lord Jesus, we'd be caused to grow to see how much we are in
need of your grace and mercy. and what remarkable gifts of
grace and mercy You pour upon Your people, Heavenly Father.
From eternity You have loved Your people. You love them throughout
this world. You love them despite the activities
of their lives, the things of their hearts. And we praise You,
Heavenly Father, that You are a God who speaks. And we pray
that like Jehoshaphat and others in the scriptures, we would rejoice
at your promises and find comfort and rest in the things that you
say. Heavenly Father, again, we thank
you that we can come into your presence, not because of anything
that's in us, but we come entirely upon the merits of your dear
and precious son, upon his promise that He will never cast out those
who come to Him. And Heavenly Father we pray that
as we come to Your Word again this morning, Heavenly Father,
that it would be You who speaks to us and it would be You who
reveals Yourself to us again and again as You have promised
our Father, that we might be found to be worshipping Your
dear and precious Son, to be found at rest in Him and who
He is and what He is doing in this world. We praise You, Heavenly
Father, for Your dear and precious Son, and we praise You in His
name. Amen. I was just going to read briefly
those verses in Song of Solomon, in Chapter 5 and into Chapter
6. And of course it's a remarkable
thing. She has been willfully wicked in her absence from Him. She, like Jehoshaphat, had gone
down. She'd gone down to her place
of comfort. She'd gone down to a place where
she couldn't even be bothered to put on her coat, to get out
of bed. She didn't even want to dirty
her feet. And yet He comes to her and moves
her heart and in faith she worships Him in those beautiful descriptions
of Him that we have seen. And then she says in verse 16,
Yea, He is altogether lovely. Then she says, This is my beloved,
this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. What a great word,
isn't it? This is my beloved, this is my
friend. Then they ask, Where is your
beloved gone, O the fairest among women? Where is your beloved
turned aside, that we may seek him with me? with you. You see,
after this description, she doesn't even have to go find him. She
knows where he is. Why does she know where he is?
Because that's where he was when he was last with her. He was
in the garden. I've come into my garden, my
sister, my spouse, chapter 5, verse 1, I've gathered my myrrh
with my spouse, I've eaten my spice, I've eaten my honeycomb
with my honey, I've drunk my wine with my mjölk, eat, oh friends. Drink, yes, drink abundantly,
oh beloved. See, my beloved has gone down
to his garden, he's gone to his church, that's where he is, he's
with his people, isn't he? That garden that he describes
so amazingly, a garden enclosed, a garden surrounded, a garden
shut off from the world, a garden that is a fountain of gardens,
verse 15 of chapter 4, a well of living waters and streams
from Lebanon. He's gone down to his garden.
into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens,
and to gather lilies. And then in verse 3 she says,
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He feeds among the lilies. And then what does he turn and
say to her? The Jehoshaphat was rebuked for his wicked disobedience
to God. He's joining himself with the
enemies of God and yet what does God turn and do to Jehoshaphat?
He pours out the most remarkable blessings upon Jehoshaphat. A
humbled Jehoshaphat. A Jehoshaphat now who took God
at his word in the most beautiful ways and worshipped him. What's he say? And what does
this friend say to a wayward, backsliding friend of his? Thou art beautiful, O my love,
as Terza. Comely as Jerusalem, terrible
as an army with banners. Turn away thine eyes from me. They have overcome me. Thy hair
is as a flock of goats that have appeared from Gilead. Thy teeth
are as a flock of sheep that go up from the washing, whereas
every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among
them. As a piece of pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks.
There are three score queens, four score concubines, and virgins
without number. My darth, my undefiled, is but
one. She is the only one of her mother,
she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters
saw her and blessed her, yea, the queens and the concubines,
and they praised her. Isn't it remarkable, isn't it
lovely, that sinners, wayward sinners, return to the great
shepherd of their souls. the one who took away their sins,
and when they return what do they find? They find him saying
the same extraordinary things about them as they were before
they wandered away. What a friend! What a friend,
she describes. What a remarkable declaration
by the Shulamite. Friends, it's a great word, isn't
it? It's like so many words in our language. It's become as
shallow as the thousand friends that people have on Facebook
these days. Fancy calling them friends. How do you get to be
friends with someone on Facebook? You press a button on your computer
and all of a sudden you have another friend. I've got friends
who've got thousands, tens of thousands of friends. It's a
nonsensical term, isn't it? It's a nonsensical term. Like
so much that is so good, it's so often diminished in our world. But true friends, what a blessing
friends are. What a great blessing friendship
is. This side of heaven, it's a remarkable
thing that God causes His people to be friends. What are some
of the descriptions, some of the characteristics of friends? Firstly, a friend is someone
with whom you can be yourself. You don't have to pretend to
be something that you're not. Someone you don't have to guard
yourself against what they might take from the things you say
or take from the things you do and use them and twist them against
you. Someone that you know loves you. Someone that's not out to hurt
you. Someone that you like. You like the way they treat you. Someone whose presence enriches
your life. Even when they're absent, the
thought of them is appealing, isn't it? It's nice to know that
we have friends, someone who is honest with you. As Solomon
said, he wrote some remarkable things in Proverbs about friends,
and no doubt the echoes come out of Song of Solomon and into
that book because really it's about the Lord Jesus, isn't it?
Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Faithful are the wounds of a
friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Another
translation of that is that faithful are the wounds of a friend, but
enemies multiply kisses. Ahab seemed to have a great ability
to gather around him people who gave him what he wanted to hear.
Now the sooner he had 700 destroyed at Mount Carmel, then he had
another 400 who told him what he wanted to hear. Faithful are
the wounds of a friend, but enemies multiply kisses. A friend is
someone you can be honest with, someone you can confide in, someone
who will confide in you. You trust their words. You believe them. You don't want
to cause any harm to come to them. They are there for you. They watch your back. Proverbs
17, 17 says, A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is
born for adversity." What a great description of our Lord Jesus. A friend loveth at all times. But friendship involves relationships,
and it's not a relationship that's based on a master servant. boss, slave sort of situation,
there's a sameness, there's something that binds them together, they
are peers. There is a similarity in their
interests, their goals, their likes, their dislikes, their
motivation. A friend is someone that you
love to spend time talking to. You love to have fellowship with
them. Friends are loyal. They want to please, they don't
want to disappoint. And they care about what each
other thinks. and they value the opinions and
they care about the thoughts of their friends. Thank God for
friends. Many of us here and throughout
history have borne testimony to the promise of the Lord Jesus,
isn't it? He says in verse 21 of Luke,
and you shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren and kinsfolk
and friends. and some of you they shall cause
to be put to death." It is such a good thing that God has given
us friends and God gathers His people. He gathers them into
fellowship, fellows in the same ship, with a fellow interest
in the Lord Jesus. It's so sad, isn't it? So many
of us have people that we just long to talk to them about the
Lord Jesus and we have these fractured and failed relationships
where there are so many things that we can talk about and spend
hours talking about it, we have to accept the Lord Jesus. He's like an elephant in the
room, isn't He? He becomes an embarrassment to
them. They want to talk about everything else. They want us
to be in their lives in every way except with the Lord Jesus. It's like my brother and sister
told me when I was so excited about being saved many years
ago. Eventually they got sick of me
talking about Jesus and they said, we're very happy to have
a relationship with you as long as you never mention the Lord
Jesus. Thank God for friends. Thank God for tested, tried,
proven friends. One of the great characteristics
of a friend I think in this day and age of busyness is that a
friend has time. A friend has time to spend with
people because they value the presence of that person. Our
world in its busyness keeps pushing and pushing and pushing away.
Isn't it remarkable that God has given us friends? It's the
lonely, lonely life for people without friends, one of the great
tragedies of our rich, rich world, western world that we live in.
is that so often you hear of people who die and have been
dead for years and years in their house and no one has come to
see them and they've just gone. This mummified body has been
sitting in a house for years. What a terrible, terrible tragedy
to be lonely. Thank God that he promises to
put his lonely ones in families. Families that love and care for
each other. But what a remarkable thing that
she says, this is my friend, this is my friend. What an even
more remarkable thing is it in the scriptures, again and again,
The Lord God talks about friends. We read in 2 Chronicles about
Abraham, my friend. Three times Abraham is mentioned
as a friend. But there is one instance I'd
like you to turn with me to where we have another friend, another
person who is called a friend of God. And he was a friend and called
a friend of God. And he met with God in the most
wonderful of circumstances, the most difficult of circumstances. As Proverbs says, a friend loveth
at all times a brother born for adversity. What adversity poor
Moses had. The context of course is that
God had with a mighty hand rescued his nation out of Egypt, something
that no other nation on earth had ever had happen to them.
And with signs and wonders he brought them out and he brought
them to the Red Sea and there they were with enemies before
them and nowhere ahead. And he said the same words as
he did to Joshua, you stand still, the battle is not yours, you
stand still and you will see God work. And he opened up that
sea. Nine miles of sea and they walked
across on dry ground, didn't even get their feet wet. And
God swallowed up that Egyptian army behind them. And then He
fed them with manna and He fed them, He turned the bitter waters
into sweet. Again and again He displayed
His ongoing goodness to them. and they come to Mount Sinai
and Moses is away and in the earlier chapters just prior to
33 they actually make themselves a golden calf. They take off
their ornaments at Aaron's direction and they make themselves a golden
calf. And Moses comes down from the mountain And he says these
people have, in verse 31 of chapter 32, these people have sinned
a great sin and have made them gods of gold. The gods that they
said were the gods that brought them up out of Egypt. And he
prays a high priestly, an intercessory prayer. He says, yet now if you
will not forgive their sin and if not block me out, I pray thee,
blot me, I pray, out of thy book which thou hast written, and
the Lord sent unto Moses, whoever has sinned against me, him I
will blot out of my book. Therefore go, lead the people
unto the place which I have spoken to you. Behold, my angels shall
go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when
I visit, I will visit their sin upon them." And the Lord plagued
the people because they made a calf. and Moses is told that
God's not going with him. He's going to send his angel
with him. He's still going to take them
up into a land of milk and honey, but Moses was asked to take his
tabernacle, verse 7, and take his tent, not the main tabernacle,
it wasn't built at that time, but pitch that tabernacle outside
the camp. Now come on in you guys, we can
have a seat. It's lovely that you are here. We're in Exodus chapter 33. A
few friends of ours have arrived. And we're just looking at the
story of Moses after the terrible incident of the golden car in
verse 7 of chapter 33 of Exodus. Moses took the tabernacle and
pitched it without the camp, far off from the camp, and called
it the tabernacle of the congregation. It was just a small tent and
it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out
under the tabernacle of the congregation which was without the camp. And it came to pass, when Moses
went out unto the tabernacle, and all the people rose, and
stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses until
he was gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, as Moses
entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended,
and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked
with Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy
pillar stand at the tabernacle door, and the people rose up
and worshipped every man in his tent door. And the Lord spoke
unto Moses face to face." This is the Lord Jesus. This is the
Lord Jesus speaking to Moses. He spoke unto Moses face to face
as a man speaks to his friend. What a great description. Moses'
concern of course is, how's all this going to happen now that
this disaster has come upon us? And God spoke to him face to
face as a man speaks unto his friend. And he turned again into
the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nine, a young man,
departed, not out of the tabernacle." And now there are some great
things. This is in a sense where I'd like us to spend some time
contemplating this morning, if the Lord would open his word
up to us. You see, when someone has been
in the presence of God and they have spoken face to face with
God and they have met him, then the things that Moses asked and
the things that Moses was granted and the character of God that
was revealed to Moses will be the character of God that's revealed
to that person. Just listen. Listen to Moses'
pleadings and his prayers and listen carefully to God's promises
to him. They are just beautiful words
of scripture. Verse 12, And Moses said unto
the Lord, See, Thou sayest unto me, you say to me, bring up this
people that thou hast not, and you have not let me know whom
you will send with me." So this is Moses' problem now. God says
he's not going with him. Yet you have said, I know you
by name and you have found grace in my sight. So Moses quotes
God's words back to him. Now therefore I pray you, if
I have found grace in thy sight. If you have found grace in the
sight of God, he asks these things. He says, show me now thy way. show me your ways, not let me
walk my own way as Aaron and the others had done, as a Shulamite
resting on a bed, show me your way. And then the end result
of that of course is to show me the way that I may know you,
to meet God face to face. is to say those things, isn't
it? You want to see His way, you want His will to be done,
and you want to know Him, that I may find grace in Thy sight. See, to find grace, to seek grace,
to be a recipient of grace, involves some really simple things, isn't
it? you have absolutely no merits in yourself at all. Grace presupposes
that you are like a Shulamite, that you are black. As our song
says, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. People who are recipients of
grace have no good works that they have done, they have no
good works and no good deeds and no good worth that they have
now, and they have none into the future. That's what it is
to receive grace, isn't it? You have to be empty and He must
fill. You have to have no ability and
He must have all ability. You have no power. He must have
all power. You have no resources. He has
all resources. He wants to find grace. He wants
to know God's way. He wants to know God. He wants
to find grace in His sight. and consider that this nation
is your people. These chosen people are the people
that belong to God. And God said, My presence shall
go with thee, and I will give you rest. What a great promise. My presence shall go with you,
and I will give you rest. And he said unto him, If thy
presence go not with me, Carry us not up hence. If you are not with us, do not
let us continue at all." What a great prayer for us to pray
as a church. If God's presence is not with
us, stop us right now. There are no shortages of churches
around here. They are a dime a dozen. If God's
presence doesn't go with us, carry us not up hence. We want to know God's way. We
want to know Him. We want to find grace in His
sight. We want to know Him as the electing
God. This nation is thy people. For wherein shall it be known
here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? How do we know that we have found
grace in thy sight? Is it not that thou goest with
us? God will go with them. And what
shall we do? So shall we be separated, I and
thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the
earth." A separated people. And the Lord said unto Moses,
I will do this thing that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found
grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And what a beautiful answer to
prayer. And he goes on, and I'll just
do this because Jamie wanted to have that song sung this morning. And he said, I beseech thee,
show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all
my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will
be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. Mercy and grace are sovereign
acts of a sovereign God. They are not common. There is
no such thing as common grace. Common grace achieves nothing. It's like common love or a common
death and common blood. It goes nowhere, achieves nothing. God's grace is powerful and effective. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show
mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see
my face, for thou shalt no man see me and live. And the Lord
said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon
a rock. and it shall come to pass, while
my glory passes by, that I will put thee in a cleft of that rock,
and I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by." And I
will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back part, but my
face shall not be seen." Of course the rock, as 1 Corinthians tells
us, the rock that followed them in all of those journeyings was
the Lord Jesus. What a beautiful picture of salvation
Moses was given. He was put in the cleft of the
rock. He could be in the very presence
of God Almighty, hidden, hidden in the Lord Jesus. So let's just
go back and look at some of those things. To see God face to face is to say to Him, show me your
way. It's a desire to know Him. It's a desire that I might find
grace in his sight. It's a delight in the fact that
he has a nation, a chosen people. It's a delight in the fact that
his words of promise are true. My presence shall go with you.
The Lord Jesus says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Lo,
I am with you unto the end of the age. He will never leave
his people and I will give you rest. God's people delight in
the rest that God brings to their lives. and don't let us go. Don't let
us go into places without You guiding us and directing us. If Thy presence go not with me,
carry us not up hence." And God promises to go with them. They are to be a separated people
and they are to be a people who are known by name. What a great description. What
a great description. The Shulamite is remarkable, isn't it? The
testimony of the Shulamite is remarkable. In so many of the
things that we've looked at, her worship of God mirrors those
things. She sought His presence. She sought to see His face. She spoke delightfully of His
countenance, of His cheeks. She spoke most delightfully twice
in that tenfold description. She spoke of His mouth. His mouth is most sweet. His
words are most sweet. Yea, He is altogether lovely. a friend. What a remarkable friend. We are people like this Shulamite
in need of a friend. For those who like her and like
Moses who have been in the very presence of God and have spoken
with God face to face, there is just a longing desire to see
more of it. As we said, her description of
him, her friend, is a description that faith brings. And remarkably
she describes him so beautifully even though his presence is not
with her. But she remembers his words. She remembers his countenance. She remembers, as Solomon says
in 27 verse 9, ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, so does the
sweetness of a man's friend, by hearty counsel. Even when
she couldn't see him, even when he wasn't calling out to her,
even when he wasn't answering her pleas and he seemed hidden
from her, she speaks longingly and lovingly of him. So often
we misunderstand what worship is, don't we? In this polluted
time we actually think so little of worship. It's a light and
fluffy thing. Worship in the scriptures is
an amazing thing. She's worshipped God. She's described Him so beautifully. She has expressed her longing
for Him and remarkably she hasn't given the Shulamite at that time
what she asked for. Return with me to a couple of passages in Matthew's
Gospel. It would be just good to think
about her situation and think about our situation so often.
How often are we like the Shulamite, where God seems distant, when
we cry out to Him and He seems away. And in this world we think
that if he'll come and do something, then we worship him. True worship
of God is worship of him because of who he is, not worship of
him because of what he does. We don't need God to prove himself
to worship him. He is worthy of worship because
of his being. In chapter 8 of Matthew's Gospel,
Lord Jesus comes down from the mountain and great multitudes
follow him and behold there came a leper and worshipped him. Isn't that remarkable? And listen
to what worship says. It says, Lord acknowledges who
he is. See, this man worshipped him
before he was healed. He acknowledges the Lord for
who he is and he says, if you will. You see, he wasn't even
sure that God might heal him. He had no promise that he was
going to be healed, but he worshipped him. that he acknowledges that he's
the sovereign Lord. If you will, thou canst make
me clean. Lord, if you will. You see, he
worshipped the Lord for who he was before he received any blessings
from him. He worshipped the Lord because
of his sovereignty. He worshipped the Lord because
he is the one who can, if he will, do all things, and he hadn't
received the blessing. Is the Lord worthy of your worship
if he seemingly passes you by? Is he worthy of your worship?
Like the Shulamite, in the times of darkness, Is he worthy of
your worship when you're in the comforts of the world or you
find the comforts of the world, as she did, are the cause of
you being beaten and abused? Is the Lord worthy of worship? Is he worthy of worship when,
like her, she is misunderstood and her veil is taken away from
her and she is exposed and shamed? Because of him and because of
our searching after him, is he worthy of worship when we suffer
and we have no comfort? He's worthy of worship because
of who he is, brothers and sisters. He's told in that same book,
chapter 21, they have another great description of someone
who came and worshipped him. Chapter 15 verse 21 And Jesus went and departed into
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan
came out of the same coast and cried unto him, saying, Have
mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David. My daughter is grievously
vexed with the devil. And like the Shulamite, he answered
her not a word. And his disciples came and besought
him, saying, Send her away, for she cries after us. But he answered
and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. She had every right in human
thinking to say, This is not fair. How dear God, just have one particular
people. I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel." Not even all of the house of Israel, the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. Then she came and what did she
do? She worshipped him. See, her
daughter was demon-possessed. She had no promise of healing. In fact, she stayed there and
faith drew her to stay there. And then she remarked, she says
to him, Lord, help me. That's what someone in need of
grace says. Lord help me, I can't help myself. The situation is
too big. It's beyond my control. There
is only one person I can turn to. Lord help me." But he answered
and said, even to her plea, you would think that he might have
softened. But he answered and said, it's not right, it's not
meek, to take the children's bread and cast it to their dolls. He says, it's not right to take
this bread which belongs to the lost sheep of the house of Israel
and give it to the dogs. And she said, what did she say? She said, truth Lord. Instead of rising up from her
throne and saying, how dare you speak to me like that. She actually
acknowledges that this Lord, who is absolutely sovereign,
and this Lord that she pleads for, this Lord is right in what
he does. Yet, she says, she still calls
him Lord, and she says, yet, the dogs eat of the crumbs which
fall from their master's table. I'd like a crumb. I'd just like
a crumb, Lord. The table is full and bountiful. Here I am as a dog, a begging
helpless dog at your table." And Jesus answered and said unto
her, this worshipping woman, this worshipping woman who like
the Shulamite had gone searching and couldn't find him, had spoken
and he didn't answer. who had been in a sense beaten
and humbled, answered and said unto her, this
friend, a woman great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as
thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole
from that very hour. She worshipped him. God's people,
like this Shulamite, they worship him for who he is, and they keep
worshipping him, and they keep looking to him. He alone can
provide. And as we go through in the weeks
ahead, we'll see that this is a glorious homecoming for her,
a glorious returning. What a friend, what a friend
we have in Jesus. What a friend, what a friend. And that's what he calls us,
doesn't he? That's what he calls his people. I want to be friends. I want to be God's friends. Do
you want to be God's friend? Do you want to be known as his
friend? Named as his friend? The Lord
Jesus says, greater love has no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friends. You see, all of his friends acknowledge
that he lays down his life for a particular group of people.
And you are my friends. If you do whatsoever, I command
you. If you do whatsoever, I command
you." And his commandments are not burdensome, and his commandments
are not grievous, and his commandments aren't a heavy yoke. Take my
yoke upon you, it's a light yoke, it's an easy yoke. What do you
have to do to do the work of God? John 6.29, this is the work
of God. that you believe on Him who He
has sent. Do you believe the Gospel? You are my friends. Believe the
Gospel. Henceforth I call you not servant,
for a servant knows not what his Lord does. But I have called
you friends. Because all things that I have
heard of my Father I have made known unto you. To be a friend of God's is to
have him revealed to us. I know you by name, he said to
Moses. You have found grace in my sight. Show me your way that I may know
you, that I may find grace in thy sight. Are there people here
in need of grace? What a gracious, gracious God
we have. I know you by name. Let's pray.