If you turn in your Bibles to
Song of Solomon, as I've often said, as you spend,
as I do, time in the scriptures and books of the Bible become
very familiar and they become like comfortable old friends like
a nice well-worn shoe you put on and find comfort in and then
when we have time away from them I sort of miss them. But also
like close friends there are parts of them because of the
relationship we have with people that we're in contact with often.
There are times when it's just a little bit too close to the
bone. They know too much about us. Too much has been exposed. And here we have this remarkable
book of the Bible, this book of the Bible that the Hebrews
call the Holy of Holies. This book that speaks so amazingly
and so beautifully. I'm not sure that anywhere in
all of the scriptures are there descriptions of the Bride of
the Lord Jesus as sweet as they are in Song of Solomon. What
amazing things, he says. Thou art fair, my love. Thou art fair. And yet, in the midst of all
of this, we have the reality of life. The reality of life
for us in this body that the scriptures talk about being a
body of death. With this flesh, And we have
in Song of Solomon, as clearly as anywhere else in all of the
scriptures, graphic pictures of what it is for us to be, as
she describes herself in chapter 1, verse 5, black. I black, she says, but comely. At the end of the book, the description
of The bride is, what do you see, he says, O Shulamite, when
she's finally named. And it's good to remember, isn't
it, that the word Shulamite is just the feminine of Solomon. She bears his name. And he says,
return, O Shulamite, return, return, return, that we may look
upon you. And what will you see in the
Shulamite? What do you see in her? As it
were, the company of two armies. We are in this world. like the
Shulamite, we are those who are in the company of two armies. We have, as God's children, experienced
the most extraordinary blessings and in this book, this remarkable
little book of scripture, we have again and again these amazing
descriptions of what He does to her. At the beginning of chapter
1, verse 2, she says, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his
mouth, for thy love is better than wine. The savour of thy
good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth. Therefore
do the virgins love me. Then she says to him, Draw me,
we will run after thee. The king has brought me into
his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in
Thee. We will remember Thy love more
than wine, the upright love Thee." And then she describes herself. She's black and she's comely. And then It seems as if she's
lost in verse 7. Tell me, O thou whom my soul
loveth, where thou feedest, where you feed, and where do you make
your flock rest at noon? She'd been into his chambers,
and now she says, where is this flock of yours resting? And he gives her great and wise
advice. Go your way by the footsteps
of the flock and feed thy kids by the shepherd's tent. Be with
the flock. You'll find him with the flock."
And then down to the end of chapter 1, he describes her so beautifully,
doesn't he? And she describes him and there
is this mutual delight. And then he finishes by saying
in verse 2 of chapter 2, As the lily among the thorns, so is
my love among the daughters. And then she describes him, she
said in verse 3, I sat down under his shadow, with great delight
and his fruit, the fruit of his activities, was sweet to my taste. He brought me to his banqueting
house and his banner over me was love, that banner which is
the Gospel, that banner which is Christ and Him crucified,
that finished work. And then she describes this intimacy
of relationship. His left hand is under my head
and his right hand doesn't embrace me. Chapter 2, verse 6. And then,
believe it or not, after all of this, by the time we get to
chapter 3, she says, by night on my bed I sought him whom my
soul loveth. I sought him but I found him
not. I will rise now and go about
the city and the streets and the broadways. I will seek him
in my soul, lovers. I sought him but I found him
not." She'd gone from a banqueting house to a bed, and she who had
his arm under her head, his left hand under her head
and his right hand embracing her. Now she couldn't even find
him. Am I describing something of
what you believers have experienced? this extraordinary joy as the
Gospel comes, as God takes this Word and shows us the Lord Jesus,
and shows us that He loved us from everlasting, that His love
for us has never changed, that like that great high priest when
he went into the Holy of Holies, he had our names And He carried
our names on His heart, and He carried our names on His shoulders,
and He had them engraved on His hands, and we feel the warmth. We're overcome by the beauty
of the Saviour, by the beauty of Him and what He does. He doesn't just sit there as
an idle God, it is He throughout this book who is active. And yet we find her again and
again looking for Him and losing Him and saying, where can I find
Him? And by the time we come to Chapter
4 we have the most beautiful descriptions In verse 7 he says,
Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee. And he calls
her to come with him, come with me from Lebanon, my spouse. He names her as his wife. And then in verse 9 he has these
remarkable words to her, Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister,
my spouse, Thou hast ravished my heart with one of Thine eyes,
with one chain of Thine neck. And then he says of her, how
fair is your love, my sister, my spouse, how much better than
wine. He talks about the words, she
says, thy lips, O my spouse, drop as honeycomb. Honey and
milk are under thy tongue, and the smell of thy garments is
like the smell of Lebanon. And then he describes her as
a garden enclosed, enclosed by God, planted by God, protected
by God. a spring shut up, a fountain
sealed, and then they have this mutual delight. She says at the
end of verse 16 of chapter 4, let my beloved come into his
garden and eat his pleasant fruits. And then he says, I am come into
my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with
my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends.
Drink, yes, drink abundantly, oh beloved. You would think that
now everything is fine. There is no going back from this
beautiful situation of love and delight. And yet we read these
next words that you have before you there in chapter 5 verse
2. Let's just read them all. Let's
read them all and ask God the Holy Spirit to show us us in
them, but most of all ask him to show us our Saviour in them. She says in verse 2, chapter
5, I sleep, but my heart waketh. It is the voice of my beloved
that knocks, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove,
my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew and my locks
with the drops of the night. And she replies, She replies
to that one that we've just been reading about. I have put off
my coat, how shall I put it on again? I have washed my feet,
how shall I defile them? The beloved acts again. My beloved
put in his hand by the hole of the door and my bowels, the inner
being of me, my heart were moved for him. I rose to open to my
Beloved and my hands dropped with my fingers with the sweet
smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my Beloved,
but my Beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. My soul failed when he spake. I sought him, but I could not
find him. I called him, but he gave me
no answer. The watchmen that went about
the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me. The keepers
of the wall took away my veil from me. I charge you, O daughters
of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love. It is a remarkable picture. And as I said at the beginning,
this is a word from our God, written by the Holy Spirit, purposed
in eternity that we would be in this place at this time. And it's a word that is so revealing
of what we are. I was just going to briefly look
through these verses and explain some of it and then touch on
some important things. Because I think there are times
in the scriptures when the message of the scripture is so personal
that it is really between you and the Lord. And these are things that are
deep, and wonderful, mysterious. But it is good, isn't it, that
our God has given us pictures like this. Pictures like this
so that we can say, there I am. He has written my story in His
words. He's written them 3,000 years
ago and they are as fresh as a daisy. They are written as
a rebuke of what we are in our flesh. They are written as a
comfort, because they reveal our Saviour in the most extraordinary
activities. They are written as a challenge,
because how often have you been like the Shulamite, I sought
him, but I could not find him. I called him, but he gave no
answer." Is that something that you have experienced? I read
those other verses at the beginning of Song of Solomon, because in
reality We only miss and we only long for the things that we've
had delight in already. And many of us can chart our
history like the history of the Shulamite. What heights of delight
have we been taken to? How often have we, in our Christian
pilgrimage, felt like we were in the banqueting house and the
banner over me was love? How often have we felt like we
are a garden enclosed? How often have we felt the wonder
of the Gospel which says to us, Thou art all fair, my love, there
is no spot in Thee. How often we need to hear the
Gospel again and again and again. We need to be reminded that all
our sins are put away, and put away perfectly and completely
by the work of our Saviour, or none of them are put away at
all. We also need to hear again and again that Christ is our
only righteousness. If He is not all of our righteousness,
100% of our righteousness, We have none at all. We either have
Him as all of our sin-bearing and all of our righteousness,
all of our access to God, all that we need before God is in
the Lord Jesus. And yet we look in our flesh,
we look at our activities, we look at the things that we do
and, brothers and sisters, we groan. We groan so often. We might not express it as clearly
as we might, but we do. And I think one of the reasons
the Lord exposes His people to what they are in the scriptures
so often is that we will see again and again that the Lord
will take away the props of our lives and the Lord will take
away the things that we will find in this world that we want
to make our nest in and He will remove them from us and it will
be painful. It will at times be extremely
painful but His purpose always is that we would find ourselves
resting in the arms of the Lord Jesus and not finding our comforts
anywhere else. We are exposed in the scriptures
to God's children being weak and frail. and failing. Again and again, the best of
men are men at best. We are to see their faults, that
we would not follow after them, but we would see that they were
led by God to rest on Him. Peter could walk on the water,
until he looked at what he was doing and looked around him and
he sank beneath the waves. And the Lord picked him up and
restored him. And Peter fell again and was
picked up and again and was picked up. Such is our story. Failure is not final, brothers
and sisters. are searching after Him, a feeling
that He is gone from us, a feeling that the heavens are like brass
and prayers don't get through and nothing seems to happen as
we like. Failure is not final. It's a reminder, as I said again,
that salvation is entirely by the grace of God. We will thank
God for His grace and we'll be caused by the experiences of
our life to thank Him for His grace. The other thing is of
course that when we see this and we see this woman exposed
and we see people in the scriptures exposed, Great people exposed
for the weakness of their flesh. You just think of them. Find
me one in the scriptures that isn't. There are so few, aren't
there? The Gospel writers are men like
us. And it means that we can be honest
with God. We can be honest with ourselves. We can be honest with our brothers
and sisters. We can be honest about what this
world and its entanglements are. And Lord willing, He will take
these things and He will cause us to be more understanding,
to be more sympathetic, to be more loving, and to be more careful
of judging. You see the watchmen, this woman
came to these watchmen after all of this distress. And what
did they do? They saw this woman, they saw
her out there in the streets. They saw her in her distress. And then what did they do? They
smote her, they wounded her. She was wounded already. and
they took her veil away from her. They exposed her before
that city as a loose woman like a prostitute. You see, all they
saw was what was on the outside. See, we look and that's all we
see. We don't see the hearts of people
and we are especially bad at judging people, which is why
in the church, We preach the Gospel and wait for God, because
if it was left to me, I would become very good at herding goats
and calling them sheep, and I'd be very, very good at running
the sheep away, just like these watchmen did here. Let's just look. at our situation, which is so
often the case, isn't it? This bride who was so loved by
her bridegroom, so amazingly provided by her bridegroom, she
who had just feasted with him is now on a bed of slumber. what beds there are for us to
sleep on in this world. We can sleep in the comforts
of this world, can't we? We can be rocked to sleep in
the wealth that we enjoy, and we really do have amazing wealth. We can be rocked to sleep in
all sorts of carnal securities. We can be rocked to sleep thinking
that our doctrine saves us, that because we can dot the I's and
cross the T's on the five points of Calvinism or reform doctrine
or something else, and that we are better than those wicked
and lazy Arminians, we think that we're better off. We can
be asleep in all sorts of situations. But here is a sleep. It's not
the sleep of unbelief. It's not that dreadful sleep
of spiritual death. It's a sleep that's confessed. You see, she knows she's sleeping. She knows she's slumbering. It's a sleep that's recognized. It's a sleep that's complained
of and not delighted in. It's a sleep the sleep that she
is woken from. Like all of the activities here,
we'll see her activities but we need to see Him. He is the
prime mover, He is the first cause in all things and He is
the first cause in all spiritual things. I sleep but my heart waketh."
And what does she wake to? It is the voice of My Beloved
that knocks. The Beloved had come, there she
is on her bed of ease, in a sense taking her rest, enjoying her
comforts, and He comes He comes and He does two things. He knocks
on the door of her life and He speaks. And it's the voice that
she hears, that voice, that unmistakable voice of the Lord Jesus, which
is spirit and life, that unmistakable voice of the Lord Jesus that
His people have all heard. And once we have heard that voice,
We long for that voice, that voice that comes from Him alone. And He knocks. He knocks again and again, doesn't
He? Every Gospel promise is a knock. Every Gospel providence is a
knock. Even the afflictions in the providence
of God are nox, they're all nox, aren't they? And he speaks. You see, the answer to the spiritual
lethargy, that spiritual dullness, That spiritual sleep, which those
who have experienced the joys of God and the wonders of redeeming
love, they know that they are sleeping. They know, they know
that that sleep is not where they wish to be. God must come and God will come. God will come and he'll wake
up his people, he'll wake up his church. Sleep is a time of
vulnerability, isn't it? And sleep is a time of danger. This is not a sleep that she
delights in. And look at the words that he
says to her. opened to me my sister, my love,
my dove, my undefiled." What amazing descriptions he has of
her. You see, in her sleeping state
he could have come with a rebuking word. But again and again we
find in the scriptures it's the goodness of God, the mercy of
God, the grace of God which brings repentance. He calls her, my
sister. next of kin to him, bone of my
bone, flesh of my flesh, born of the same mother, the seed
of the woman as we are. He's one with us in our humanity. He's so closely related to us,
like a kinsman redeemer. He says to those disciples gathered
around him in Mark's Gospel, here is my mother, here is my
sister, here is my brother, those that believe are his family. Isn't it an amazing contrast
that he comes and he knocks on the door to gain entrance and
he speaks a word to gain entrance. What amazing depths our Saviour
goes to, to gather His Bride back to Himself. And what sadness
that He should need to ask of her what should be her delight. Remember her delight when she
was called, My Love. See, she called, Jesus calls
us, what we claim to be, those in love with Him. We do claim
that, don't we brothers and sisters? And yet He calls her that. And we do love Him. As Peter
said after his that embarrassing failure in
front of that little maid girl. And he called back and he says,
in answer to the Lord's questions, do you love me? Do you really
love me? He said, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. It's amazing, isn't it? We have
this remarkable contrast between his calls to her and her indifference
to him. He calls her, my dove, my gentle
one, my favourite, my innocent, just like one dove pines for
its missing mate. My undefiled, he calls her. The problem is not in how he
sees her, but in her response to him. He says to her, you are
all fair my love, there is no spot in you. So he pleads with
her to open to him, but he pleads acknowledging what she is in
his sight, and yet the door is locked. And then he goes even
further and he says, for my head is filled with dew and my locks
with the drops of the night. He says in Hosea, I will be as
dew unto Israel. He shall grow as a lily and cast
forth roots as Lebanon. Give ear, O heaven. and I will speak and hear, O
earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine, my teaching shall
drop as the rain. My speech shall distill as the
dew, the small rain upon the tender herbs and showers upon
the grass." He has the dew of his youth,
the dew that he earned, when his head was wet with that crimson
stain in that garden. You see, he makes his appeal
even more earnest, doesn't he? Because he pleads to her, not
just what she is in his sight, he pleads to her about how he
has achieved it. and this to a slumbering woman
with the door closed. He pleads his finished work,
his own real personal sufferings, which were the only means that
he can call her, my love, my dove, my undefiled. What depths of defilement he
went to that he might call her those things. What grace is required
to heal such as her and such as us. This scarlet dew, these
crimson drops, this sweat as it were, these great drops of
blood falling down to the ground. What an exposure of the heart
of man, that we should shut out the heart of the crucified one.
And it's worse, it gets worse, doesn't it? When she's exposed
and she hears these words, listen to her excuse. She says, I have
put off my coat. How shall I put it on again? I have washed my feet, how shall
I defile them?" She's saying to him, your calls
to me are not enough inducement for me to get out of bed. Open to me, my sister, my love."
What amazing words he says, what amazing activities, what amazing
things he's done, and what an extraordinary response from her. She who had delighted in his
presence now turns from his word and from his pleading with the
most pathetic of excuses. She's left a holy labour for
carnal rest. I don't need to speak to you,
I need to speak to myself, don't I? What pathetic excuses do we
make? What shocking exchanges do we
make? What little baubles this world
dangles before us? And we grab a hold of them and
we exchange them for fellowship and relationship with the living
God. how much of my life, what an
amazingly privileged position to be in. When all around this
world is following after false Jesuses and following after this
world, entrapped and evidently entrapped by Satan in all sorts
of powerful delusions, God has sent God has sent his Son and
opened those prison doors and let the captive go free, caused
us to know the real Gospel, and yet how often do we say to him,
How often do I say to him, I've put off my coat, how shall I
put it on? I've washed my feet, how shall
I defile them? What pathetic excuses I make. What trifling things can take
up my time instead of time with him. There is just one solution, isn't
there? There is just one solution, and
these verses give it to us so beautifully and plainly. He comes, he knocks, he speaks,
he declares what she is and how he's made her that, and then
he does something remarkable. He says, my beloved put in his
hand by the hole of the door. And the doors that they're talking
about were doors that they had on houses those days. And the
master of the house reached in and inside somewhere that he
knew and not many other people knew was a pin that you could
pull out. And so you could pull the pin
out, unlock the door and go in. It's a remarkable picture, isn't
it? How much of Christendom has been damaged by that shocking,
shocking painting of Jesus standing outside the door. That painting
where he's standing outside the door with his lamp and this pathetic
look on his face and the door is closed and the locks on the
inside. And they say that he stands at
the door and knocks, and he can't get in, because inside is someone
who's bigger and stronger than him, someone with a mighty free
will, someone sitting on a throne. Dear oh dear, isn't it wonderful,
isn't it wonderful that he comes and he speaks and he knocks and
he puts his hand inside the door and he unlocks the door from
the inside. And what happens to her when
he's done this? My bowels, my whole being were
moved for Him. Now she's been moved. Why has
she been moved? Because He's done the moving.
What was that hand that she saw? What was on that hand that she
saw? The hand that she saw is that
wounded hand of our Saviour on the cross. And she rose up, verse
5. She rose up to open to my beloved,
my hands dropped with myrrh. that beautiful spice that's mentioned
so often and we've looked at so many times in our journeys
through Song of Solomon. It means and speaks of repentance, it speaks of the sorrows of the Lord Jesus,
it speaks of the sweet savour of His sacrifice upon the cross. My hands dropped with my fingers
with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers
with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my
fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with
sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with
sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet
smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling
my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my
fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers
with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet
smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet smelling
my fingers with sweet smelling my fingers with sweet And it may be, as some commentators
say, it may be the mirror that he had left upon the handles
of the lock. It may have been the mirror that
she had quickly gathered to bring to him and she opened to her
beloved. Now she's moved. Her heart, her
inner being is moved. And now she opens, and then she
is shocked. She's opened, and she's been
stirred. Her heart's been moved, and then
she finds that my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. He had gone, says the Hebrew.
He had gone, and it's repeated twice. He has gone. He had gone. And she remembered those words,
doesn't she? My soul failed when he spoke. She remembered those words. Open
to me, my sister, my love, my dove. Now that he'd come and
opened that door, now she had been moved by him. She now sees
that her soul had failed. And she sought him, but I could
not find him. I called him but he gave no answer. I don't know about you brothers
and sisters. Is that something, do you share something of my
experience in those things? We hear so much about triumphalistic
Christian life and we hear about these people who can, by their
own activities, work themselves up, become more and more righteous
and more and more holy and look like they're virtually at the
doors of heaven and ready to go in because they are so good
and so godly. And they make sure that you know
about it. And God's saints are weeping, and God's saints have
a reality. I sought Him, but I couldn't
find Him. I called Him, but He gave me
no answer. Brothers and sisters, that is
just the reality of Christian life. These aren't special things,
they are just emblematic of what it is to walk in this life. How often do we find that he's
absent? How often do we find that we've
called for him? And how often do we find that
we have no answer? And instead of pretending that
we do, let's be honest that that's what's happening in our lives.
You see, the absence of that fellowship and that communion
that we delight in is seen by the world as an absence of spiritual
life. In God's people it is just the
reality. Just read the psalms, read the
psalms and you will see their tears falling to the ground. They'll have both the joys of
great delight and the sorrows of him not being there. But then
he comes and he comforts. But he must do it. You see, she
goes about the city, this bride, this one who is called by him
as his love, his sister, his undefiled, his spouse. There
she is dressed. in her coat now, with her shoes
on her feet, with a veil honouring Him on her head. And then she comes across the
watchman. They found me. How often have you come across
watchmen? And what do they do? What do
they do when they find someone who is in spiritual agony? The advice? Nearly always, isn't
it? In fact, I don't know any exceptions to it. It's do, do,
do. They say, well, you must get
up and stir yourself up to find Him. And she already has. They would say, we must use means. Get back to reading your Bible.
Do this, do that. Put aside time for quiet times. All good things. But she would
say, I have used all of those. They would say, we must pray
and pray and pray. And she says, I've prayed. And they say, we must wait patiently
for him. But this lady will not rest. You see, they treated her as
a harlot. They saw her outside, they saw
her in the flesh and they took away my veil from me. They exposed her before them
and exposed her and treated her as a heart." Compare their actions
to his words. You see, how does the Lord bring
repentance? How does the Lord bring change? How does the Lord bring restoration
of fellowship? He comes and He speaks sweet
words. He comes and He knocks. He comes
and says, this is who I am and this is what I've done and this
is what it costs me on the cross. This is what you are in me. And he moves and puts his hand
into the hole of the door. And they smote. They wound. She's already been wounded. She's
already been wounded. She doesn't need their wounds
on top of it. The Lord calls upon his gospel
preachers to comfort my people. Comfort my people, he says. We comfort God's people by bringing
the gospel to them, just like he brought the gospel to her.
We comfort God's people by saying that he will come. He will come. So the goodness of God brings
repentance. And she will not stop. She will
not stop no matter who she sees. She says in verse 8, I charge
you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that if you find my beloved,
that you tell him that I am sick with love, she will use whatever
means she can to get the message of her prayer to him who is the
object of her love. She cannot rest. She cannot rest
in her experiences. What amazing experiences she
has had. What amazing delights she has
had. She cannot rest in her experiences
of His coming. She can't rest in the fact that
He's come and He's knocked. She can't rest in the fact that
He has spoken those amazing words to her. She can't rest in the
fact that He has shown her again what He did to make her undefiled. She can't rest in the fact that
she has seen His hand come in by the hole of the door. You
see, God's children can't rest until they have Him. It's not doctrine about Him. It's not experiences. God's people,
like Noah's dove, will not find rest until they find it in Him. She says that I am sick. My love, my love that is unrequited,
is making me sick. I must have that love furnished
and fulfilled. Her turning away, her pathetic
excuses, her sleeping has not stopped her loving for him. We love him because he first
loved us. As Jeremiah says, I have loved
you of the Lord, I have loved you with an everlasting love,
therefore with loving kindness will I draw you." You see, it's
His love, it's His activity, it's His grace, it's His mercy,
it's His coming. But it's His presence that all
of that points to. And that's what causes the Bride
of Christ to long for Him, to long for Him alone. Brothers
and sisters, it's a sad tale, but a real tale. I pray the Lord
will take these words of His and He will cause us to look
and to seek. He will cause us to move, be
moved by Him. that he will work in our hearts,
that he will show us what sleep is and how dangerous it is. He will show us what our excuses
really are. But most of all, that he would
come and show himself and reveal himself and call us to himself. and that we like her would go
searching, searching and searching like the Queen of Sheba until
such time as we find the truth and find the one whose soul we
have been caused to delight in. Let's pray.