Well, let's turn in our Bibles
to the Song of Solomon. I've printed off some more copies
of it for you maybe to follow along, but more importantly for
you to take home and spend time in yourself. just in God's Word,
scribbling on it, playing around with a highlighter, underlining
things. It would be a great exercise
to go through and just highlight in your copy of it the most extraordinary
descriptions of our Lord Jesus. the Song of Songs. It is claimed
by those who know far more about literature and poetry. It is
claimed by them to be the greatest work of poetry that this world
has ever seen. It is, of course, more than just
the work of human hands. It is a word from God to us. And like all of God's Word, as
Hebrews 4 says, it is sharp and it cuts and it divides. And I've often thought along
with you, why has Song of Solomon fallen into such disrepute? And if I quoted you some of the
things that some famous modern preachers had said from Song
of Solomon, you would not believe me that people could take this
Word of God and extract the things they do from it. It is playing
games with holy things. We have in our hands a word from God, a word which
is pure, a word which is perfect, a word which reveals Him to us,
and it reveals us to ourselves. It is the Song of Songs. Why don't we read all of chapter
4? I'm just looking at those few verses. in 6, 7 and 8, but let's just
read it so that we can get something of the context of it. In 311 we have the day of his
espousals, the day of his marriage, and then we have these words.
Behold, thou art fair, my love. Behold, thou art fair. Thou hast
dove's eyes within thy locks. Thy hair is as a flock of goats
that have appeared on Mount Gilead. We must remember that this is
a song and this is poetry and all of these elements are symbolic. and they are all meaningful descriptions,
and we must look beyond what we see on the surface, and look
to the Lord Jesus, and then look to what He does in the lives
of His people. Thy teeth are like a flock of
sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing, whereof
every one be as twins. None is barren among them. Thy
lips are like a thread of scarlet. Thy speech is comely. Thy temples
are like a piece of pomegranate. Within thy locks, thy neck is
like the Tower of David, builded for an armory, whereon there
hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two
breasts are like two young rows that are twins, which feed among
the lilies. Until the daybreak, and now Solomon
is speaking, until the daybreak and the shadows flee away, These
are the words of Solomon, the words of the Lord Jesus. Until the daybreak and the shadows
flee away, I will get me to the mountain of Myrrh and to the
hill of frankincense. Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee. Come with me from Lebanon, my
spouse, with me from Lebanon. Look from the top of Amarna,
from the top of Shenear and Hermon, from the lion's dens, from the
mountains of the leopards. 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. How fair is thy
love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than
wine, and the smell of thine ointments than all spices. 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. A garden enclosed is my sister
and my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy plants
are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, campfire
and spikenard, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the
chief spices. A fountain of gardens, a well
of living waters and streams from Lebanon. Awake, O north
wind, and come, O south. Blow upon my garden, that the
spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his
garden, and eat his pleasant fruits. I had a break from Solemn Solemn
for a couple of weeks. It's been good for my brain,
both to rest and to think afresh about it, because it is just
an amazing, amazing word from our God. And he pictures, as
the scriptures do in Ephesians 5 and many places, he pictures
this marriage relationship. a marriage that the Lord Jesus
entered into in heaven. The bride, as brides do on this
earth, belonged to the Father, and she was the Father's to do
with as he saw fit. He gave this bride, this beautiful
bride, to the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus looked at her
and was amazed at her beauty. And he he espoused himself to
her. That is the eternal covenant
which is unfolded again and again throughout the book of God. All
that happens in time, all that happens in history is but the
outworking and the unfolding of that beautiful, beautiful
marriage relationship. What sent our Lord Jesus to this
world? It's love for His bride. What
sent Him to the cross? It's love for His bride. What's
going on in heaven right now? 1 Corinthians says, the angels
are here with us. What do they witness in heaven?
They witness this Lamb who was slain, this husband, surrounded
by his bride, rejoicing with her in the songs of heaven. As I said earlier, Song of Solomon
exposes us, exposes us to this love relationship and it asks
the question of us, a deep and serious question. that it's good
to ask. It's good to ask, and it's a
good question for you to deal with personally with God in your
quiet times. It's in chapter five, verse nine. What is thy beloved more than
another beloved? The world has so many beloveds. So many beloveds of religion. Lynn was asking me about Muhammad
last week. What is thy beloved more than
another beloved? To meet with the Lord Jesus,
to know Him in this love relationship, to know Him in His character,
answers that question. in the presence of His glory,
in the presence of His love for His own, all the issues and all
the controversies which have dogged the church throughout
the ages find their true resolution. That's the issue, isn't it? All
the great emblems of the gospel have been fought over and argued
about. and abused by men who debate
the things of God as if the one person that they're talking about
is absent. We are not talking about philosophy,
my friends. We're talking about a real and
living God. The cross of the Lord Jesus has
been debated. Simple questions. Why did he
come? Why did he suffer? Why did he
die? Why did he rise? Did he succeed? Did he come with a purpose? Simple
questions, but the answer is, what does the glory of God, what
does the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus, what
light does that shine on that? Baptism, being debated for the
last 2,000 years, It's a beautiful picture of the Gospel. We are buried with Him in baptism. We can't be buried in a shell.
We're buried with Him in baptism. It pictures our life united and
perfectly at one with Him. All the debates over the Lord's
Supper. What a simple, simple thing that
He has left us to remember Him by. unleavened bread and wine,
just picturing that sinless unleavened body and that blood that was
shed for us. All the issues of the church,
all those issues melt away in the presence of the glory of
God. is thy beloved more than another
beloved? Where do you find your place
of rest? Where is your hiding place? As the psalmist said to us a
little while ago. Let's go back to these beautiful
verses in Song of Solomon. In verse 6, He's now, in verse
11 of the previous chapter, espoused to this bride of his, the bride
who is but a representation of all of his people from all of
time. And now he has described her
in those beautiful pictures that we read in those first five verses. He describes all the features
of her and He looks and He looks around creation to find things
that can signify how beautiful all the aspects of her are to
Him. And then He says something remarkable
in verse 6. He says, Until the daybreak and
the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh
and to the hill of frankincense. The Daybreak The Ephesians in Revelation are
challenged by God. You have forgotten your first
love. Tell me what it was like. Don't
tell me. Talk to yourself for a minute.
What was it like when you were first converted? When the glory
of God in the face of the Lord Jesus shone upon your life? Nothing in this world mattered. Nothing else mattered. I don't
think Norm and Beth would mind me saying that they still go
for walks. I warn you not to go with them.
It's exhausting. They walk around those streets
of Bombardier as if they're practicing for the jolly Olympic Games.
I've only done it once. Meet them halfway on the way
home. But they had walked for years
and been passionately involved in all sorts of activities, zealously
involved. But a few years ago, someone
entered their lives and those conversations on that walk became
about one person. It's just about him, isn't it?
What is the joy of us gathering together? He's here, he said. He promises to be here. This
word shines a light on him. And we love to talk about Him. I'm not interested in talking
about doctrine and talking about what denomination or other things
that we belong to. Only one thing matters, Him. But there is a day that breaks
in our lives and all of those shadows flee away, that day that
Ezekiel 16 says is the day of love, the day of His love, the
day that He has ordained from eternity, when He comes in mighty
saving revelation and He reveals Himself to your hearts. The people of God, the children
of God, have met with Jesus And they have never changed. They have never got over it.
Their flesh continually lusts against the Spirit. They struggle
and struggle and struggle. And honest believers will be
honest about their struggles and their failings and sins.
But there was a day There is a great day when God comes. That day breaks and the shadows
of darkness, the shadows of ignorance, the shadows of self-righteousness,
the shadows of all the things that we thought were important
in this life The things that we'd collected, the reputation
that we'd gained, all of those things are just darkness and
shadows, and they flee away when the day breaks. Of course, there's
a day breaking in the Bible, isn't there? That great day that
these Old Testament prophets saw and looked forward to. They
saw the Lord Jesus. Isaiah met with Him. But all
of them looked forward to this great day of incarnation. That day when He came. And the shadows of the Old Testament
were no longer needed. You didn't need a temple. Here
was the temple. You didn't need a sacrifice.
Here was the sacrifice. You no longer needed a prophet.
Here was the prophet. You no longer needed a priest
or a king. You no longer needed Jerusalem
itself. You no longer needed to belong
to that physical nation, Israel. All of these Old Testament types,
as Paul says, who was more as it had imbibed them and lived
in them and delighted in them, they're all a shadow. They're a shadow. Let no one
judge you in food or drink regarding a festival or new moons or Sabbath,
which are a shadow. of things to come, but the substance
is in Christ. Until the daybreak and the shadows
flee away, they look forward in delight at the Lord Jesus'
coming. And we look back in delight that
He has come. And there is another day that
will break. Maybe very soon. We should look
forward to it. Peter Meaney's wife is a straightforward
and honest woman and she said, I've got one criticism of your
preaching, Peter. You don't talk enough about the fact that he's
on his way back and he might be here any minute. This may
be the last time we meet together here, brothers and sisters. It
may very well be. It just might happen. We should be on the tiptoes of
expectation, shouldn't we? He might just be over the mountain.
He might just be coming. There will be that awesome day,
and he will return in glory, and all of the shadows will flee
away. How did our friend Peter describe
it? And so we have the prophetic
word confirmed, which you do well to heed. As light that shines
in a dark place, there is no other light than this book we
have before us, if God will illuminate it to us. Until the day dawns
and the morning star rises in your hearts. He's talking about
that great day. that great day when the shadows
will flee away. And then he moves to what he's
going to be doing during that time. That time until the day
breaks and until the shadows flee away. I want to spend a
bit of time just looking at what it means for Him to say, I will
get me to the mountain of Myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. Turn in your Bibles. We'll spend
a little time back here in Exodus chapter 30. It's good to look
at how the Scriptures relate these things. As I was studying this yesterday
or the day before, I found something delightful in that that great
picture of the Lord Jesus, Joseph, was carried down to Egypt with
people who carried these very spices. And when Jacob, his father,
Israel, his father, sent down gifts to Egypt, to his son in
Egypt, He sent down these very same spices. They are emblematic
of our Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Let's just look at how
myrrh is to be used in Exodus 33. Verse 23, the Lord spoke to Moses
saying, take for yourself quality spices, 500 shekels of liquid
myrrh, half as much sweet-smelling cinnamon, 250 shekels, 250 shekels
of sweet-smelling cane, 500 shekels of cassia, according to the shekel
of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil. And you shall make
from these holy anointing oil. an ointment compounded according
to the art of the perfumer. It shall be a holy anointing
oil. With it you shall anoint the
tabernacle of meeting and the ark of testimony, the table and
all its utensils, the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar
of incense, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils,
the lather and its base. you shall consecrate them, that
they may be most holy. Whatever touches them must be
holy. And you shall anoint Aaron and
his sons and consecrate them, that they may minister to me
as priests. And you shall speak to the children
of Israel, saying, This shall be a holy anointing oil to me
throughout all your generations. It shall not be poured on man's
flesh, nor shall you make any other like it according to its
composition. It is holy, and it shall be holy
to you. Whoever compounds any like it,
or whoever puts any of it on an outsider, shall be cut off
from his people. It was an oil that's used for
anointing all of the holy things, all of the tabernacle. It's never
to be used for common purposes, and it's never to be used or
imitated by people. See, it's holy. It's holy because
it's set apart for the use of God. Our friend Mr. Hawker says, it's the striking
type of the Holy Spirit in His divine offices and the awful
consequences of attempting anything which bore a resemblance to the
holy unction of the Spirit. We are involved in something
which is profoundly more significant than I can allow myself to ponder
so often. We are actually touching holy
things. We are gathered as a people who
claim to be here worshipping God. It's dangerous. It's one of the
great dangers of religion in this world, is it not? That it takes the things, the
holy things of God, and treats them as a common thing. You can read about the danger
of it in Hebrews 10, verse 29, when they take the blood of the
Lord Jesus and they make it a common thing, just a common thing. It's worse to do that, says God,
than it is to die under the Old Testament. So these elements
and these things are not just sweet smelling sap from trees. They are things set apart for
God and His purposes. The Lord Jesus is pictured in
it. Jesus Himself is the sweet-smelling, scented myrrh of His gospel. A bundle of myrrh, Song of Solomon
describes Him as. And in 5.13, He's described again
His lips, are like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. The words from his mouth drop
sweet-smelling myrrh. Holy Spirit words, God's words. He's a bundle of myrrh, the fullness
of divinity and the fullness of humanity. Everything about
him Everything from him is sweetly scented to his church. Myrrh also is used in reference
to suffering. The Lord Jesus, when he suffered,
was offered myrrh with wine. It reflects the bitterness of
his sufferings. this precious sacrifice, a sweet
smelling savour to his father and bitterness to him. I have gathered my myrrh with
my spice, he said. He trod that winepress of the
wrath of God alone and then he gathered his myrrh the fruits
of his labour, of his body and soul anguish, he gathered them
together. How does Isaiah 53 describe it? 53 verse 11. He shall see the labour of his
soul and be satisfied. He bore our griefs and carried
our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God,
and afflicted. He gathered them in His suffering. Frankincense, if we turn back
in our Bibles to Exodus, we read on in 34, Chapter 30, verse 34. And the
Lord said to Moses, take sweet spices, stactic, onica, gabalam,
and pure frankincense, and these sweet spices, there shall be
equal amounts of each. You shall make these, of these
and incense, a compound according to the art of the perfumer, salted,
pure, and holy. And you shall beat some of it
very fine, and put some of it before the testimony in the tabernacle
of meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be most holy
to you. You see, when Aaron went into
that holiest of holies, if you go back to verse six of the same
chapter, and he shall put it, this incense, You make an altar
to burn incense, and you'll be put it before the veil that is
before the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is
over the testimony. There I will meet with you. Aaron
shall burn on it sweet incense. Every morning when he tends the
lamp, he shall burn incense on it. And when Aaron lights the
lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense on it. a perpetual incense
before the Lord throughout your generations. You shall not offer
strange incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering,
nor shall you pour a drink offering on it. Go back down to verse
37. But as for the incense which
you shall make, you shall not make any for yourselves according
to its composition. It shall be holy, shall be to
you wholly for the Lord. Whoever makes any like it, to
smell it, he shall be cut off from his people. keep saying is that we must be
so careful about playing games with God. If you read this in
its context, you will see that these sons of Aaron, Nadab and
Abihu, went through the most elaborate process of being dressed,
anointed, commissioned by God in this extraordinarily special
way. and then chapter 10 verse 1,
Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer
and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire
before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. So fire went
out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the
Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, This
is what the Lord spoke, saying, by those who come near me, I
must be regarded as holy. And before all people, I must
be glorified. Aaron wasn't allowed to grieve
for those two sons. Aaron held his peace. You know the story in numbers,
no doubt, of Korah and Dathan and Abihu. It is just extraordinary,
isn't it, how people throughout the rest of the Old Testament
and for this last 2,000 years have treated the things of God
with such common disdain, and yet God has warned and warned
again. These things are holy to you. It shall be most holy to you. This incense, of course, is a great
representation of our Lord Jesus and that offering, that sweet
smelling offering to his father, our great intercessor. He has
this everlasting gospel and he stands as we speak here right
now, he stands before his father, interceding for his people. You see, His bride is taken into
heaven's glories under this censer of Christ's incense, His righteousness,
His very person. So we come back to Song of Solomon
4 verse 6. What's the mountain? What is
the mountain? And what is the hill? Which mountain, my brothers and
sisters, and which hill? There is just one mountain in
all of the scriptures, that Mount of Calvary, where all of these
things come together, where these shadows flee away, where the
day breaks. He's saying, until that time,
I'm going there. I'm going to a mountain of Myrrh,
holy and anointed for God's purposes. Just like the tabernacle was
anointed, He was the true dwelling place of God on this earth. As Colossians 2 says, the fullness of deity dwelt in
a body. In him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And in him and in his sacrifice,
he takes his people and they become a sweet-smelling ointment
and a saver to our God. Now wonder he says in the very
next word, why can he say it? Why can he say to us, believers
in the Lord Jesus, why can he say to us, his bride, thou art
all fair. Thou art perfectly fair. Fair, beautiful it means. You are beautiful to Him. Where does our beauty come from?
It must come from Him. Why are we
seen as beautiful before God? Because He took that myrrh of
suffering and He bore that wrath of God. And he had all of the sins of
all of God's people put on him. And sins can only be in one place
at one time. All of the sins of all of God's
people for all of time were laid on him. And he suffered that
wrath of God. that appalling, holy, just wrath
of God. We need a place, brothers and
sisters, as our Psalm said, we need a place to hide. Thank God
we find a place in Him where we can hide with perfection.
And He can say to us, and His justice can say to us, you are
all fair. You are all fair. The fair one,
the fairest among women, justified by His righteousness. Perfectly
just before the courts of God. No sin. God's children in the
Scriptures look forward to the Day of Judgment. They look forward
to that day of meeting with God. And John says in 1 John 4, 17,
they actually have boldness. They have confidence on that
day. Because, says 1 John, as He is,
so are we in this world. and amongst the people I look
out on are people God sees as perfectly holy, perfectly fit
to enter Heaven's glories, all fair, washed in His blood, sanctified,
separated and made holy by His Spirit, In Jesus' eyes, His bride
is all fair, always. Just go down a little in Song
of Solomon. We'll impose on some verses we'll
look at soon. He says, Thou hast ravished my
heart, my sister, my spouse. Thou hast ravished my heart with
one of thine eyes. How fair is thy love, my sister. My spouse, how much better is
thy love than wine, the smell of thine ointments than all the
spices? She has his ointments on her
now. All their acceptance, all of
their righteousness, all of their position before God comes only
because of who He is and what He has done. And then he describes
her again as my love. It's a common description throughout. this book in verse 9, chapter
1, verse 15, chapter 2, verse 2, 2, verse 10, 2, 13, 4, verse
1, and here we've only got halfway through the book. My love, my
love, my dove, my fair one. She is beautiful to him. And then to make sure, As I said
earlier, why does God repeat things in his Bible again and
again? Because we forget things again
and again and again and again. We go out from here and we stumble
and fall, or we stumble and fall while we're sitting here and
we think, oh dear, oh dear, he can't be talking about me now.
He can't be talking about me. I saw very well for those other
people who look holy and righteous, but not me. Here I am on my face
again. He says, there is no spot in
you. There is no spot. God pleads
with His people, doesn't He? He says, come, let us meet together. Let us reason together, says
the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet,
they deserve death. They deserve a bloody death. Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red with crimson,
they shall be as wool. He has taken all of the sins
of all of his people. He's not only purified our bodies. He's purified His people perfectly. I love how the Apostles describe
the Gentiles in Acts chapter 15 verse 9. That God knows the
heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as
He did to us and made no distinction between us Jews and them. Purifying
their hearts. Purifying their hearts by faith. He's taken all of our sins. Taken
all of our sins. And we go free. What does Colossians say? And
you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your
flesh. has made you alive together with
Him, having forgiven you all your trespasses. for us to just turn and just
think what it is for a holy God to come and deal with us sinners. One of the things that's remarkable
in the scriptures is that we see the only holy man that ever
walked on this earth. And he touched people. The thing
that's remarkable about it, is you can read it in the book of
Numbers, that if you are in contact with a dead person,
or a leprous person, or a bleeding woman, you become defiled. It is remarkable. We've been just through Mark's
Gospel. Now a leper came to him in chapter
1 verse 40, came to him, imploring him, kneeling down to him and
saying to him, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Then Jesus moved with compassion,
stretched out his hands and he touched him. When Jesus touches that leper,
One of two things must happen is that Jesus becomes defiled
and has to go through a process of cleansing, or the leper becomes
holy. Has Jesus touched your life? You see, he must touch us in
that intimacy for us to be saved. We turn over the pages and we
come to the Lord Jesus and he meets with that bleeding
woman in Mark chapter 4. And she touched him. She touched
his clothes. Who touched me? He said. She touched him, really he touched
her, and she was clean. And he went in. after that remarkable
event, having been distracted. And the people come out and say,
don't trouble the teacher any further. She's dead. Jairus,
your daughter's dead and gone. And Jesus heard the word that
was spoken. He said to the ruler of the synagogue,
do not be afraid, only believe. And he went in and he took a dead girl by the
hand. It takes a week to purify yourself
under the law. An elaborate sacrifice the red
hair for sacrifice and that washing and cleansing for a whole week
before you can have anything to do with holy things again. Just touching a dead person.
The Lord Jesus comes and he touches death. We are dead. and he touches, and what happens?
Again, two things must happen. Either he is unclean, or she
is alive. The day breaks, and the shadows
flee away. God's children rejoice in being
touched by a Saviour. and cleansed, touched and purified,
touched and loved, touched by Him. Let's pray.