I love the way Paul spoke in
Philippians chapter 2, the very heart of Christianity. The very heart of it is chapter
3, I beg your pardon. I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, Philippians
3.8, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I do
count them but done that I may win Christ and be found in him,
not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering being made conformable
unto His death, if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection
of the dead." He wants to know God. He wants to know Jesus. Did he know him beforehand? Did
he meet him on the Damascus road? Was he taken into heaven? He
knew him and he wants to know him more. Our bride here knows
her bridegroom. She knows him. She's experienced
him. He's taken her into his banquet
house and his banner over her was love. He has cared for her,
he has loved her, and yet in this beautiful, beautiful Song
of Solomon we see that there is this continual drawing, there
is this continual real personal interaction between the two of
them. And he, in verse 16, calls on
the wind, the north wind and the south. The north wind, as
we saw last week, the north wind that brings trials, that brings
troubles, that brings disturbances. and then come, O South, that
warm wind of consolation and comfort and blow upon my garden
that the spices thereof may flow out." And then she says, let
my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits.
Let him come into his garden. This garden which we have seen
is, in verse 12, a garden enclosed, a garden that he has planted,
a garden, a garden set aside for the owner's use. You Dunbar's
have a garden out there, don't you? How did that garden come
to be, Miss Jennifer? Did one day you just walk out
the door and out there was a garden with things growing in it? You
see, when God gives us these pictures, He wants us to see
in the most simple things the most beautifully profound things. You can talk to Jennifer a little
while later on about how that garden was formed. It was planted,
wasn't it? There was a decision made. There
was a purpose in mind. There was a place, a specific
place set aside for it, not underneath the trees, but out in the sunshine. It was a specific place for a
specific purpose, with specific plants in it. Are there all the
plants on your farm growing in your garden? Not all those plants
are there, Miss Jennifer. There are just some plants that
are growing there, specific plants, and they are grown in order,
and they are planted in time, and they are planted for the
owner, for his pleasure. I don't know if you're like me,
but I like gardens. Gardens are remarkable and they
are beautiful. And it's not for nothing that
we have in the scriptures a beginning in a garden, an end in a garden
and at the very centre of it we have two remarkable garden
experiences of our Lord Jesus. One in that garden of Gethsemane
which was his favourite place. where he anticipated in the next
morning what was going to come upon him and his soul was distressed
and as it were crushed under the weight of becoming seen. He sweated blood. But it was His favourite place,
a place that He went to often, a place of His delight. And then
there was another garden after those terrible events, those
amazing events, a garden wherein there was a tomb. And in that
garden on that amazing Sunday morning the Lord Jesus met with
His bride, that most remarkable of meetings. She went looking
for a body. She went looking for some flesh
to honour. She went to see one who she would
have called her beloved. And yet she got, as this Beloved
does here, she received far more than she could imagine or ask. Not only did she have a body
to hold on to, she had a resurrected Lord Jesus. She had proof, she
had proof standing there before her that her sins had been dealt
with, that God was at peace with her. And this great God, this
great Lord Jesus, grows this garden. He encloses this garden. He keeps it. He protects it. He seals it. He puts walls around
it. So inside the garden is an environment
that's separate from the rest of the world. It's the garden
that He's creating. It's the garden, the place for
His pleasure. And she calls on Him, doesn't
she? Let my Beloved come into His
garden and eat His pleasant fruits. And remarkably what's happened?
In verse 1, she asks Him to come and what does she find? He's
already there. As Isaiah 65, 24 says, Before
they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking,
I will hear. You see, our Father, as the Lord
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Your Father knoweth what
things you have need of before you ask Him. before we ask Him. She asks Him
to come and then she finds that He's already come into His garden. He's already there. Not only
is He already there, if you look down further in the verse you'll
see that He's already been there, He's already gathered. He's already
eaten and he's already drunk his wine. He's come into his
garden and he's feasted. While she's asking, he's gone
way beyond what she could have imagined. What an encouragement
to prayer, brothers and sisters, to be continually, fervently,
expectantly What does Ephesians 3.27 say? Now unto Him, having
prayed that great prayer, talking about the wonderful character
and nature and purposes and fulfilment of God's purposes in the Lord
Jesus. Now unto Him who is able to do, and listen to the words,
exceedingly, abundantly above. It's almost as if Paul's running
out of superlatives, isn't it? When he comes to speak of the
Lord Jesus, so often in the Scriptures he is captivated and carried
away, carried away as it were into heaven, exceedingly abundantly
above all that we ask or think. And the according to is wonderful,
isn't it? It's not according to our activities,
it's according to the power, to His power that worketh in
us. It worked in us in salvation
and it works and works and works. He gathered this garden together. As we've seen, it's a garden
of delight and He comes into that garden And the issue is,
in our church meetings, is this a garden? Is this the planting
of the Lord? If it's His planting and it's
His work, then it's His garden to protect. Numbers aren't important.
The place isn't important. Denominations aren't important.
We gather in His name, not just in those words, Jesus Christ. We gather in all of what it is
for Him to bear that name. We gather in the character of
God as it's revealed in this book. And just like the Beloved,
His fruits are pleasant to us. We delight in the fruits of our
God. We delight in the character that
He's revealed. of himself, but especially, as
we saw in Philippians chapter 3, we delight in the fact that
he says, I am come. It would be wonderful if he sent
a messenger. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he
sent an army of the angels of heaven? Wouldn't it be wonderful
if he sent a multitude of people to tell us? Not as wonderful
as what this verse says, brothers and sisters. He comes. He comes. He doesn't come to
the gate. He doesn't come to look over
the wall. He comes into the garden. It's remarkable, isn't it? She
asks him to come, but in chapter 4, verse 16, there is a command
to the wind, come. north wind and south wind and
blow. And yet we have, what's the response
to that request? The Lord Jesus himself comes. We read it in John 14 last week,
didn't we? That he's actually in his people,
he's amongst his people, he comes into his garden. For thus saith the High and Lofty
One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in a high and holy place."
We will know the high and holy place of our God. And then he
says a remarkable thing in Isaiah 57.15. a high and holy place, with Him
also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. And there is a
purpose, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the
heart of the contrite ones. He dwells with His people. He dwells in their midst. He gathers them together to be
with them. He looks to them, doesn't he?
For all those things my hand has made, and all those things
have been, says the Lord. But to this man will I look,
even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth
at my word. God dwells with the humble and
the contrite. And as we saw last week, we have
these spices. that she would like to see flow
out. And the spices come from humble
plants, insignificant looking plants. And yet when those insignificant
plants are crushed and broken, spices flow out, just like our
Lord Jesus. He breaks so that he can mend. He kills so he can make alive. He wounds so he can heal. He makes contrite. He makes contrite and he makes
humble so he can revive the hearts of these broken ones. And then
he says these wonderful words that we've looked at so often.
He calls her my sister. my spouse, my sister by a blood relationship. He and his children, the children
of God, are one. They have one father, but she
is more than that, isn't she? By the bonds of marriage, by
the bonds of promise, Thy maker is thy husband, says the Lord. She is his spouse. We are, as
Ephesians says, we are joined to the Lord Jesus. That's why
he comes into this garden. It's his. His for the delight
of him and his spouse. Wives, submit unto your husbands
as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even
as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the saviour
of the body. Therefore as the church is subject
unto Christ, so let wives be subject to their own husbands
and everything. Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present
it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing. no spot, no wrinkle, or anything
like them at all, but that it should be holy. What a remarkable thing, that
God who is holy makes his church holy and without blemish. So what men love their wives
as their own bodies, who that loveth his wife loveth himself.
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and
cherishes it even as the Lord the Church. For, because we are
members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." What a remarkable
union. We are members of his body, of
his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and the two shall be joined unto his
wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery. But he's not talking about men
and women. But I speak concerning Christ
and the Church. He's talking about that union. He comes to her. He comes into
his garden. He calls her my sister, my spouse. She is united to him. She is
joined with him. I love that little line of poetry. And this do I find, we two are
so joined. He'll not be in glory and leave
me behind. He won't go to that garden in
heaven and leave us behind. You might also have noticed as
I read through this remarkable verse that nine times, nine times
in one verse He says that wonderful word, mine, that possessive,
Pronoun. He comes into my garden, my sister,
my spouse, my myrrh, my spice, my honeycomb, my honey, my wine,
my milk. They are mine. The church which
he has bought with his own blood, it's mine. It was his in eternity,
it was his. He can say it's mine by divine
purpose. It's mine, as Acts 20.28 says,
by loathful purchase. He purposed it, he purchased. It's his by sovereign power. And it's his, and you can call
it mine, as we see in the Song of Solomon, by the delightful
surrender that he brings her to. He comes again and again
in this beautiful song, doesn't he? He says, come with me. He shows her the lights and then
he says, come with me. He comes into his garden, his
garden. As Isaiah 61 says, that we are
The trees of righteousness, who created this garden? Who made
this garden? The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. The Lord God is upon me because
the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He
has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that abound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, the day and the day of vengeance
of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to appoint unto them that
mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of
joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,
that They might be called trees of righteousness, the planting
of the Lord, this garden that he calls his own. And the purpose
of it is, at the end of that verse, that he might be glorified. He comes into his garden, he
talks with his beloved, he responds to her, my sister, my spouse. And isn't it wonderful? Isn't
it wonderful when you see what he's gathered? Look what he's
gathered, my friends. So often we think that you gather
the work of our hands and we will stand before him with our
crown which has got extra sparkling jewels on it because of our activities. And that we might get a higher
place in heaven, be a little bit closer to the throne. Have
you heard those people say those things? That we might be in a
little bit better place because of our activities. That we might,
with the help of the Holy Spirit, thanks very much, We might just
be able to make something more of this gift that God's given
us than others. I just love what he says here.
We know that these fruit are the things that he delights in
and that she delights in and they delight in together. But
you see his fruit is he gathered. Look what he says. I have gathered
my myrrh and my spices. I have eaten My honey came with
my honey. I have drunk my wine with my
milk. Isn't it beautiful? The fruit
that God expects from us is the fruit that God produces in us. Don't you sinners love Sovereign
Christ? Isn't it great that He is everything
and we are nothing? Isn't that great? Just let me
read some of these promises from the Scriptures. It's not just
hidden in the Scriptures, it's all through the Scriptures. Isaiah
57, 19, I create the fruit of lips, peace, peace to him that
is far off and to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will
heal him. Isaiah 26, 12, Lord, thou will
ordain peace for us. What a joy to have peace with
God. You will ordain peace for us,
for because Thou also hast wrought all our works in us. When we pray, I will cry unto
God Most High, unto God that performeth all things for me. I love Sovereign Grace. I love
the fact that as I get older, I become more and more aware
of how great a sinner I am, of being led by God to see that
all that He ever asked for us has been provided by the Lord
Jesus. My life is hidden with Christ
in God. Thy God hath commanded thy strength.
And then the psalmist prays, strengthen, O God, which thou
hast wrought for us, Psalm 68, 28, even in John's Gospel. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be manifest, that they are
wrought, they are worked out in God. that famous verse in
Philippians 2.13, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
for because it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do
of His good pleasure. And we know those verses. May
God write them on our hearts. For by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It doesn't come, it's His murder,
it's His vice. It's not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For
we are His workmanship. It means masterpieces. When our God works, There are
no mistakes whatsoever. He is a master craftsman. We are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Do you think we are going to
walk in them, brothers and sisters? If God has ordained it, it is
done. We just have to wait in faith
to see the fruit of it. We are being built together into
a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. As we've seen in the past, this
myrrh and the spices, the sweet perfumes offered as incense to
God, My prayers and praises, they come up to God as a sweet
savour, because they are His, they aren't mine. They are His
myrrh and His spices, and God the Father finds them delightful. I have eaten my honeycomb. We
saw in verse 11 that honeycomb is what drops from her lips and
he feasts on what drops from her lips. What's the honeycomb
that drops from the lips of the bride to the bridegroom? It's words that honour him. We pray his words back to him. We take the words that he has
given and we just rebound them back to heaven. Our honeycomb. He's eaten, I've eaten my honeycomb
with my honey. I've drunk my wine, that wine
which brings pleasure. And in fact, it may be easily
translated and well translated Be drunken with laughs. The Lord is overwhelmed by love. Love for His bride is overwhelmed
by that amazing love that responds to His love for us. We love Him
because He first loved us. He comes in wooing love and makes
us willing on the day of His power. He takes us captive by
His person and His love. And then she speaks delightful
words about him as you go through Song of Solomon. You'll see that
she speaks delightful words to him and then immediately he speaks
them back to her. Thou art all fair, my love. Thou art all fair. I have drunken
my wine with my milk. That land that they were promised
to go into was a land flowing with milk and honey. And as you
Dunbars will know, honey comes when the flowers come. It's just
a sign of the fruitfulness of the Lord in that land to promise
to gather His people and to feed them with fat things and wine
on the leaves. He is joyful. His joy is fulfilled
when he sees that she is delighting in him. See he finds, remarkably
brothers and sisters, he finds joy and satisfaction in his church,
doesn't he? He sees the fruit of his labours
and that joy that was set before him. He is experiencing right
now as he is lifted up before us and he is esteemed. And he
sees the fruit of his work. He delights. He says in Song
of Solomon twice that he feedeth amongst the lilies. We are lilies
amongst the thorns. We are, as it were, separated
from this world, this world which is a howling wilderness. But
in amongst that wilderness he has his lilies, delicate, but
they are God's lilies, delicate yet protected by that great power,
seemingly weak and ineffectual, but with a power that comes from
on high. I have gathered my myrrh with
my spouse." As we know that myrrh is that sweet perfume and that
savour from putrefaction that they brought in abundance to
the Lord Jesus to honour that body. It represents both bitterness
and sweetness. In his work on the cross there
was great bitterness. and great sweetness. What joy
it is to know that my Saviour loved me so much. He loved me
and gave himself for me. What was pain and bitter for
Him is a sweet smelling aroma to me. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. He delights and he feasts. But there's another thing I'd
like you to notice before we go on to this remarkable invitation
to his friends. And it's really important. It's
important spiritual principles lie underneath it. and the point is that he is in
his garden. He has come to his garden, and
he has gathered, and he has eaten, and he has drunk, and he does
it first. If any of you seek friendship
with the Beloved, you must first commence by preparing Him a feast."
Just think of Paul in those letters. Just go to those letters in the
New Testament. And how did they begin? They
began by an amazing declaration of the absolute sovereignty of
God, His eternal being, His eternal purposes. We've just looked at
Nehemiah 9 on Thursday nights. And how do they begin? They begin
their prayers by honouring God who is above all things and who
controls all things, the creator and the sustainer of this universe,
the God of purpose, the God of power, the God who is omniscient,
knows all things, omnipotent, is all-powerful, the God who
has eternal purposes, And what He purposed in eternity must
and does come to pass in time. A God who is faithful, a God
who makes promises, seals those promises with the blood of His
darling Son, and then honours His Son and honours His promises. And He is seen to be righteous
because He is faithful. See, we only feast, brothers
and sisters, and people can only feast where He is honoured. Think of what's happening in
Heaven at this very moment as we sit here. What is going on? There on the throne sits a lamb
as if he was slain, and around about are the hosts of heaven,
and what are they declaring of him? Read those songs in Revelation
4 and 5 and 7 and following, and you will see that they start,
they always start, not with what I want, they start with who God
is and what He is doing. Seek first the Kingdom of God,
and all these things will be added unto you. How did the Lord
teach us to pray? Not what I want. We begin, Our
Father who art in heaven, hallowed, holy, honoured, holy is your
name. And it's the fruit of lips that
give praise to his name. He says to his people throughout
the Old Testament, honour me, those who honour me I will honour. We wander through this world
like Noah's dove, trying to find peace, trying to find satisfaction
in the things of this world and there is no resting place. And
I pray that the Lord never gives you one in the things of this
world. Many of us are at times of our
lives like Adam in the garden and we need the Lord to call
upon us, where are you? Where are you? We might be like
those disciples when the Lord was in that garden, sleeping
and slumbering as the Lord poured out His soul and sweated blood. You see, when He says, I am come,
it should be a wake-up call to us, shouldn't it? Like the virgins
in the Lord Jesus' parable, behold, the bridegroom comes. You see we must, if the Lord
allows us by His grace, it's to feed Him and to honour Him
and in glorifying Him as He really is, then we find the peace and
the satisfaction, then we find the things that we are hungering
for, that we go chasing down every blind and dead and dark
alley to find. And here this verse finishes,
we must conclude, with a remarkable invitation. It's an invitation,
as you see in that verse, an invitation to his friends. He calls her at the beginning
of this verse, my sister, my spouse, one with me, married
to me. Now he calls upon her as friends. We were ungodly. We were sinners. We were enemies. He now lays out a feast. Having feasted himself, delighted
in the fruits of his labour in his garden, he now calls upon
his people to come and feast. It's a feast for his friends,
it's a feast of fellowship, a feast of communion, a feast of life. And we know from the scriptures
that he says that we are friends. In John 15 he says, Now you are
my friends. You are my friends if you do
whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants,
for the servants knowest not what is Lord doeth. But I have
called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father
I have made known unto you. You have not chosen me, but I
have chosen you and ordained that you should go and bring
forth fruit. and what wonderful fruit this
is, that your fruit should remain. And whatsoever you shall ask
of the Father in my name, He may give it to you. These things
I command you, that you love one another." It's a feast of
communion, of fellowship with Him. And then he calls her, at
the end of this verse, Beloved. What a wonderful term. Beloved. Beloved in electing love. Beloved
in redeeming love. Beloved with that unchangeable,
immutable love. Beloved with the love that really
saved. and saves and continues to save,
a love that's a personal love, a love that is a preserving love,
a love in which all of the characteristics of God are displayed. And then remarkably, he calls
upon his beloved to eat, and to drink abundantly. This feast is laid out for us. We are asked to bring nothing. We are asked to receive everything. We are asked to receive because
there is a bounty, a feast of fat things, wine on the leaves,
says Isaiah 25. Drink abundantly, drink abundantly
this fountain of gardens, this well of living waters, these
streams from Lebanon, these unstoppable streams of grace upon grace that
flows to God's people. He's saying, and the Hebrew can be well translated,
be drunk. Fill yourself to the full. Trust Him with abundance. Love Him with abundance. Hope for Him with abundance. Look to His word. for an abundance
of grace. Rejoice in the Lord always."
She's really being called to come into this feast. She acknowledges that she's been
made by him. She's been brought by Him. She's
been gathered from this world into this enclosed garden by
Him. She's been given all this fruit,
all the fruit of His love and His work in her life, the fruit
of faithfulness, the fruit of repentance, the fruit of love
toward Him and joy and peace. And here in this garden, this
pleasant garden, you are now to have this feast, to drink
abundantly, to drink abundantly from Him. You see, His flesh is meat indeed. You can read about it in John
chapter 6. His blood is drink indeed. We feast upon the person
of the Lord Jesus in his incarnation, and we drink, we are sustained
by his sin-bearing death on the cross for us. We are sustained. And we have this feast We have
this feast that flows and flows and flows. What a feast our Saviour
has laid before us. What a feast of grace. What a feast of mercy. What a
feast of love. What a feast of His righteousness. What a feast of knowing the God
of this universe. What a feast of knowing that
He separates and protects and guards. What a feast it is to
know that He delights in His people. He rejoices over them
with singing and He rests in His love. May He allow us to
feast together with Him. Let's pray.