If you turn in your Bibles to
John Solomon again. I had a fascinating and wonderfully
helpful word with Norm after the service last week and he
came up to me and he said, did you see the way Solomon talks? The scriptures, the Holy Spirit
talks of Solomon And this carriage, which we saw last week, is just
a beautiful emblem of the eternal covenant, that God's children
are wrapped up in this eternal covenant. Isaiah tells us twice
that the covenant is a person. The covenant is the Lord Jesus.
And Norm pointed out to me, it says, King Solomon made himself. a chariot. And it echoes Norm's thoughts
for Dead Right. It echoes that wonderful verse
from the Holy Spirit when Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac. And he says to the people at
the bottom of the mountain, he says, you stay here with the
donkey. and the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we,
I'm going up there to sacrifice Isaac, but Isaac and I are coming
back down this mountain. And then Isaac said, my father,
verse seven of chapter 22 of Genesis, and he said, here I
am, my son. And he said, look, the fire and
the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham
said, my son, God will provide himself. God will provide himself as the
offering. It's remarkable, isn't it? That
all that God requires of his people, he provides himself. And I thought just before we'd
recap some of what we looked at last week and I'd like to
look again at verse 11 of chapter 3. We might just read that and
then we're going to look at that and the first verse of chapter
4. Sometimes our verse chapter divisions and even sometimes
our verse divisions can be unhelpful. They are generally good. remarkably
good. But in Song of Solomon we have
this continual situation where the Lord Jesus is seen to be
glorious and His church looks at Him and looks at the things
of him, and looks at what he does in his person and his work,
and she is just in awe. And then he turns around and
he looks to her, and then she turns around and says, no, no,
no, it's not about me, it's all about him. Was it like that when
you first fell in love? We saw no blemish in the one
we loved. 3.11 Go forth, O ye daughters
of Zion, and behold King Solomon, with the crown wherewith his
mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, in the day
of the gladness of his heart. And that, in a sense, is our
topic today, the gladness of his heart. And the next verse
tells us what the gladness of his heart is. He says, behold,
thou art fair, my love. And just in case you might have
forgotten, he says it again. Behold, thou art fair. Thou hast dove's eyes within
thy lock. So in that last chapter, we've
seen that Solomon grows. In verse seven, he's Solomon. In verse nine, he's King Solomon. In verse 11, he's King Solomon
with a crown. A crown represents him as the
ruler and reigner of this universe, and it represents him. as the
king of his people, the king of his bride. And what is unbelief? What is unbelief but a failure
to see God in Christ Jesus as a king with a crown. People who will not have this
man rule over them. They do not believe, they despise
his commands, they neglect his ordinances, and they ascribe
their salvation in part or whole to what they do. The day of his
coronation is also the same day of His marriage. And it is in
the lives of believers, isn't it? When He opens our eyes to
see that He loved us in eternity, to see that He loved us and came
to the cross for us. To see that he bore all that
shame and reproach, for the joy set before him, he endured that
shame. He will see the travail of his
soul, and he will be satisfied. It's the day of His wedding and
we look forward as Christians, don't we, to that great day,
that great marriage supper of the Lamb, when what He has done
in us individually and what He's done collectively here on this
earth, where together we crown Him King. We say, this man is
God. And this man thankfully rules
this universe. And this man, this God, as we
read in Psalm 136, this God whose mercy endures forever, rules
in our lives, even though so often we can't see it. It's the day of his marriage. It's the day of the gladness
of his heart. And he says to her, and she says
to the others, she says, go forth. Look out from yourselves. Look
out from the world. Come away. Don't look at false
religion. Don't look at the world. Look
at Jesus. Look at him. Behold him. Look at Him with an eagerness
to see more and more of Him. To feel more of Him. To admire
Him more and more. To look on Jesus, to see Him
as He is, is to love Him. To look on Him is to believe
in Him. To look on Him is to wonder at
Him and His glory. That's what this book is about. That's what God's work in our
lives is about. To the praise of the glory of
His grace. I've often said it, but why does
eternity go on forever? Why can there be no end to eternity? Why would a hundred billion years
be short-changing the people of God? Why is it not enough? Because He is so unbelievably
magnificent and so awesome that it needs eternity. It needs forever
to comprehend something of His beauty. Eternity will be just a constant
and growing, I believe, delight in Him and what He does. We will
see Him and it will be amazing. We will see His creation renewed
and it will be glorious. We will see His people that He's
recreated and they will be glorious. If you could see John Newell
from eternity's viewpoint, you would be stunned. You would be
absolutely stunned. And then in verse 1 of chapter
4, he turns this gaze, as he's carried her in this chariot of
his love, His chariot of his protection, his chariot with
that gold foundation, absolutely solid. He says, behold, thou
art fair, my love. Behold, thou art fair. He looks to her as she looks
to him. And one look at him creates a
thirst for more in her. And remarkably, remarkably, God
looks at us and looks at His bride and He feels the same. He says that she has dove's eyes. And we saw that in verse 15 of
chapter 1. Eyes of meekness and innocence. eyes that behold him as a dove
does, the most beautiful and soft of birds. For these eyes,
it says in chapter 4 verse 1, you have dove's eyes within thy
locks, as if he is picturing her viewing
him through these locks of her hair. And it's just a sign, isn't
it, that we have in this body of flesh an imperfection in our
light and our knowledge. There is still a great deal of
darkness and obscurity. As Paul says, they know in part
and we prophesy in part and Paul's desire even though he'd met with
the Lord Jesus and he knew him and he loved him and he knew
that he was loved by him in Philippians 3.10 he talks of his desire to
know him more. We have a view of the Lord Jesus
in the scriptures. And as Norm showed me last week,
we come back to the scriptures and we look again and we see
more. And we say, why didn't I see
that before? And then we look again and we
see something else that's more beautiful. And we say, why didn't
I see that? It's so plain, it sits there
on the surface of scripture, and I hadn't seen it. It's good
for us. to be like that and to be treated
like that by God as we come to His Word. It creates modesty
and humility in all of us, but especially in people who stand
behind pulpits. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians
3, is sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient to stand here
and tell people about God, to be God's ambassador, to be God's
ambassador to your souls, to your eternal souls? It's humbling. At the end of the day I think
We serve best behind these pulpits as we're being crushed by the
Lord and the juices flow out. We are humbled again and again.
We are humbled by our ignorance. We are humbled by the fact that
there is so much in His Word that we don't know. And we are
continually humbled by the fact that no matter how high we lift
up the Lord Jesus, no matter how greatly we try and make Him
esteemed, at the end of the day, it is just prophesying in part. and God's ministers are humbled
and God's people are humbled because all the fruit of all
the activities of God's people is ascribed, attributed to God. But also these locks, they set
forth the beauty of the eyes. They might be more alluring and
more beautiful behind these locks. The Scriptures talk about eyes
of our body, but it also talks about eyes of our understanding,
the enlightened eyes of our understanding that Paul prays that we would
see more and more clearly. We have, despite all these things,
an imperfection in our faith, haven't we? As the apostles cried
out, Lord, increase our faith. As the man said, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. Faith is a great grace gift of
our God. It's the evidence of things not
seen with these eyes, but things seen with the eyes of faith. We see, as it were, through a
glass, darkly. And these enlightened eyes are
humbled eyes, aren't they? The humble, soft eyes of a dove. They look alone to the Lord Jesus. They live on Him alone. They
look to Him for all they need. and they give to him all the
glory, and they ascribe nothing of their spiritual life to themselves. God's children are humbled. All boasting, says Paul, is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, by the law of faith. And I think also these eyes are
shown to be beautiful. The beautiful eyes of faith. The child-like faith that receives
the Father's affection and appreciation. If you turn down to verse 9,
He calls her, My sister, my spouse. Thou hast ravished my heart,
my sister, my spouse. Thou hast ravished my heart with
one of thine eyes. You see, there is in the Lord
Jesus, there is in the Lord Jesus, again in the grain the scriptures
show us, there is a remarkable delight. in His people. There is this gladness, this
gladness in His heart. There is the day of the gladness
of His heart. If you turn to your sheets, I've
got some, I thought it would just be good for us to go and
look at a few works of God. This whole business of faith
and belief and walking with the Lord is His work. And then we
can look, I've called them the sure mercies of David. It's mentioned twice in the scriptures. The mercies of God's people are
sure mercies. Isaiah 55.3 says, Incline your ear and come to
me. Here in your soul shall live
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies
of David. As we've been going through Song
of Solomon, I've been continually wondering why these beautiful
scriptures have fallen from their place that they were held by
the church in all ages. It's only in this last 150 years
that Song of Solomon has fallen from what the Jews called it
to be the holy of holies of the scriptures. And there are many sad reasons
for it. But one of them is that the church
has lost sight of who God is in his real character. The false
gospel presents a God who tries and fails. who is trying and
failing because the God of so much religion is presented as
a God who makes an offer. If you will then respond, God
will then save you. Salvation is wrapped up as a
beautiful Christmas present and what a tragedy it is for that
present to be underneath the Christmas tree and just left
there. You see, we have imbibed Satan's
poison. You will be like God. You can decide by your own wisdom
and your own work and at your own time. You can make the decision
to believe God. We have, by and large, lost sight
of the eternal covenant. When I went to India, I had been
on the school board at the Christian school for five years. I had
been an elder in the church for three years, two or three years. I had been to both the big Bible
colleges in Sydney, and I was zealous for God. And I wanted
other people to be zealous for God. That was the whole tenor
of my life for those years. And it wasn't until I went to
India that I realised two things within a matter of months. One is that shocked me enormously
is that the gospel that I went to India with has absolutely
no effect on sinners. It has a great effect on the
natural man. Spiritually, it has no impact
other than a completely negative impact. I went with stacks of
those little booklets, saying to people, here it is. This is
what God does. He loves. He's a creator. You
now make a decision. And at the same time, I was brought
to see in the scriptures by many things that God did. I was brought
to see the beauties and the wonders of the eternal covenant that
God has made with His people. And I was brought to see that
so much of what I was encouraging people to do in the Scriptures
is not attributed to men. It's attributed to God's work
of grace. And God, in His great mercy,
both humbled me and I trust, taught me and led me into the
truth. And it's good for us, as we live
in this body of flesh, to rehearse the gospel and to think about
grace again. Think about God's work in lives. We agonize over what people should
be doing and might be doing and according to God ought to be
doing. And religion appeals to men to
clean up your act and get yourself together and do the things that
I'm doing. God's people have been brought
to see that if any spiritual good is going to happen in the
lives of anyone, God will do it. And wonderfully, if God does
it, it'll be done forever, says Ecclesiastes 3. Let's read some
of these remarkable promises from God. These remarkable attributes
of God. These remarkable descriptions
of that chariot, which is that covenant. The remarkable descriptions
of what it is to have your life hidden with Christ in God. Psalm 52, 7, 2. I will cry unto
God most high, unto God that performeth all things for me. We just read that the Word of
God is pure and He sustains it. These are His promises to His
people. Psalm 68, 28, Thy God hath commanded
thy strength. Strengthen, O God, that which
thou hast wrought for us. We've been delightfully studying
Nehemiah and journeying with Nehemiah in those battles. But he says in verse 6, after
battle, after battle, after battle, opposition in all sorts of different
ways, he says, Now therefore, O God, Strengthen my hands. God is encouraging us to strengthen the things that
he has provided in us. Strengthen our faith. Strengthen our love for our brothers
and sisters. Strengthen your works of grace. For you have wrought them in
us. Psalm 87.7 as well. The singers as the players on
instrument shall be there. All my springs are in thee. The thee of the scriptures is
the Lord Jesus, isn't it? All the springs of grace, all
the springs of faith. all the springs of obedience,
all the springs of everything that we need, they are in Him,
our Lord Jesus. Psalm 138, verse 8. The Lord
will perfect that which concerneth me. By mercy, O Lord, endure
us forever. Forsake not will work of thine
own hands." It is God's work. Is He going to forsake His work?
He will not. Isaiah 26.12, O Lord, Lord thou
wilt ordain peace for us. And if you read the great confessions,
you will find that your peace comes from your obedience. You do and do and do and your
peace will flow in direct proportion, in a sense, to your obedience.
God's peace comes to God's children in a different way. Lord, thou
wilt ordain peace for us, for thou hast wrought all our works
in us. What a remarkable God we have. Isaiah 14.8 Ephraim shall speak
for himself, saying, What have I to do any more with idols?
I have heard him and observed him. I am like a green fir tree. From me, the Lord Jesus, is thy
fruit found. John, at the end of John chapter
three talks about unbelief. Unbelievers will not come to
the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But he who doeth truth cometh
to the light that his deeds may be manifest, that they are wrought
in God. That word wrought is the word
that we use for wrought iron. It means that the works of God
are wrought under difficult and trying circumstances, not for
God, but they are wrought in God. That great Praise to God's
grace and sovereignty in Romans 11 finishes with this remarkable
statement, isn't it? For of Him and through Him and
to Him are all things. They come from God. They are
through Him and they will rebound to Him and to His glory. We know
those great verses in Ephesians. For by grace you are saved through
faith. And that not of yourself is the
grace of yourselves, not of yourself, is the faith of yourselves. not
of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any
man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. If God ordains an activity, will
His people walk in them? If His people are not walking
as we think they ought to be walking, We go and talk to our
God. A great verse that we have on
our bulletin every week. We are so familiar with it, but
it's good to be reminded of it again, isn't it? But of Him,
God the Father, are ye in Christ Jesus, in that beautiful carriage
that we looked at last week. Who of God is made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according
as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Colossians talks about the fact
that we give thanks to God the Father which has made us meet. It means perfectly prepared,
perfectly qualified to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light. And God goes on to say that we
are complete in Him, perfect in Him. We are as complete in
Him as the Lord Jesus is completely the fullness of the Father. And
to go back to this eternal covenant, we need to keep thinking about
it. Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
This is what the blood of the everlasting covenant will do.
It will make you... What a remarkable thing to say
about sinners like us. Make you perfect in every good
work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing
in His sight through Jesus Christ. To Him be glory forever and ever. The saints in heaven are singing
this amazing song now, aren't they? Thou art worthy to take
the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain
and hast redeemed us to God by the blood out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God,
kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. You see, why is God the Son saying,
Behold, thou art fair. Behold, you are beautiful, my
love. Behold, thou art fair. Because
it is His work. It is His work of grace. Romans
11, 29, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Repentance is a gift from God. You can read it in 2 Timothy
25. Peter talks about this precious
faith. Simon Peter, a servant and apostle
of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith
with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied
to you through the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ our Lord. According to his divine power,
he has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Thou art fair, my love. Behold, thou art fair. We've been given these things
as gifts from God. 1 John 4 talks about verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect. that we may have boldness in
the day of judgment. We have confidence in the day
of judgment. Bring it on. It's a great day. It's the marriage day. It's the
crown, the coronation day of our Lord Jesus. Why do we have
this confidence? Because as He is, so are we in
this world. and we love him, verse 19, because
he first loved us. He'll gather his people, Isaiah
says, I'll say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep
not back. Bring my sons from far and my
daughters from the ends of the earth. And all thy children shall be
taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. Hebrews says in Chapter 8, And
they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his
brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know me from
the least to the greatest. For I'll be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember
no more. Behold, thou art fair, my love,
says the Lord. Our great God sits on a throne. He rules. He rules our lives,
brothers and sisters. We are thankful that He has a
crown and we are thankful for His marriage. Ezekiel 36 is a
part of scripture that we looked at a lot when I came home from
India. And it's remarkable to think
again, isn't it? That God is doing all this to
sanctify His great name, which was profaned among the heathen.
What a world we live in today, which you have profaned in the
midst of them, and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord,
says the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their
eyes. For I will take you, this is
how he will be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I
will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of
all the countries and bring you into your own land. Then I will
sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all
your filthiness. And from all your idols will
I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give
you and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of
flesh, and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk
in My statues, and you shall keep My judgments and do them,
and you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers,
and you shall be My people. And I will be your God. I will also save you from all
your uncleannesses. I will call for the corn and
increase it, and lay no famine upon it. And the result of all
this, isn't it? The result of his work, that
he's going to present this bride, present this one who is fair,
the One who is His love, present you holy and unblameable and
unreprovable in His sight. It's His promise, isn't it? It's
His work of grace to confirm you unto the end that you may
be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Come now,
says Isaiah, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. David, after his
great sin, he says to God, purge me with hyssop and I shall be
clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. He's going to present to himself
a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Verse 7 of the chapter 4 of Psalm
of Solomon, Thou art fair, art all fair, my love. There is no
spot in thee. I suppose I'm trying to lay scripture
on scripture that we might see that it is God's work of grace
to declare this and to work this in the lives of His people. And we are carried by Him in
these things. 1 Thessalonians 3 verse 13 says,
To the end that ye may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness
before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, with all his saints, and the very God of peace, sanctify
you wholly. And I pray, God, your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. and we'll sing Jude in a little
while. We are sanctified. We are made
holy and separated through the offering of the body of Christ
once for all. You can keep reading in Hebrews. It is beautiful to hear what
God says about us. He says, in Isaiah 43, he says,
since you are precious and honored in my sight, I have loved you,
therefore I'll give men for you and people for your life. And
we come to this day of gladness. You see, it's hard, isn't it,
so often for me to think that my God smiles upon me. I don't know about you, but how
often How seldom in much of our lives do we look at the things
around us and we look at the things that we'd love to happen
and they don't happen and we look at our sin and we see those
things happening. It's so hard if God didn't write
it in his word and seal it with the blood of his son and then
write it again and again on our hearts. God's causing us to believe is
a great, great gift, that He is glad, He is glad, He is joyful,
and He's satisfied, and He's satisfied right now. I will make, says Jeremiah, an
everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from
them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts that
they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them
to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with
my whole heart and with my whole being. What a pathetic counterfeit it
is to think that man's will and man's decision and man's activity
and man's believing and man's repenting, man's anything can
be put in the place of these things that we've read about
our God and his love for his people. I will betroth thee unto
me for ever, yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness,
and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth
thee unto me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord. You see, Hosea's love for Gomer
is typical of the Lord's love for his people. What Gomers we
are. What Gomer's village we've come
from. What Gomer's activities have
we come from. Then said the Lord unto me, Go,
yet love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress. according
to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel. And he bought her for 15 pieces
of silver and an omer of barley and a half omer of barley. Not even the price of a slave. She was almost worthless. Isaiah says, for as a young man
marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee. And as the bridegroom
rejoices over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. This is the gladness of his heart. He looks, as we go through chapter
4 of Song of Solomon, he looks at the object of the gladness
of his heart and he's delighted in her. is delighted in her who sees
herself as black, who sees herself and knows herself as sunburnt,
and wandering and straying. Zephaniah 3.17 The LORD thy God
in the midst of thee is mighty. All of these promises are backed
up by He who rules this universe, wears the crown as king. He is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. And where does he find his rest? He rests in his love for us. He finds a bed of rest, a place
of repose, and a place of comfort. He rests in His love. He will
joy over thee with singing. What a mighty God we have. What an amazing husband the Bride
of Christ has. What a great king. Let's just pray.