I please God to bless us together
as we meditate in his word. Let us turn to the Song of Solomon
and the first chapter and we'll read the fourth verse. The Song
of Solomon and the first chapter and we'll read the fourth verse. Draw me, we will run after thee. The king hath brought me into
his chambers we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will
remember thy love more than wine, be upright, love thee. The Song of Solomon is not an
easy book to understand, but really it is an analogy which
sets before us the Church of God and their desire for the
Lord Jesus Christ, and then also, as it were, the individuals in
that Church of God. And they are really described
as the bride, and of course the Lord Jesus as the bridegroom. So that's really the simple analogy
of the Song of Solomon. And it is a book, I suppose,
which is not read very much, and in fact, in old days, the
Jewish people reckoned that the young people would not be able
to understand it, and it was only, therefore, for older people
to read it. Well, we can bless God that we
have it today, translated, and we are able to read it, And although
it may be difficult, I hope that our young people can understand
the truths in it. And I hope this morning we'll
be able to explain this fourth verse, so that we will have an
understanding of what it really means. Now, the first clause
speaks like this, and it's the church, we may say praying, in
this way, draw me, we will run after thee. Draw me, we will
run after thee. What does it really mean? It
means that we need the Spirit of God to draw us unto Christ. And we may think, well why is
that necessary? Well it is necessary because
naturally we would have no desire after God. We would want to continue
in our life and occupy ourselves with all the things in this world
and that the things of God would not be important to us, they
would not be attractive to us and we would try and ignore them,
try and put them out of our mind, try and ignore the fact that
there is an eternity before us and try and just concentrate
on the poor things of this world. And so here we have Solomon speaking
in this way, but with this prayer, draw me. Now we may wonder how
is something drawn? Well just try and think of perhaps
an animal and we're trying to get the animal nearer to us and
perhaps lead it away and to bring it into a more convenient place. And really the way to do that
would be to perhaps get a rope and put it around its neck and
encourage it to follow us and to in the way that will be good
and right for that animal. Well, Hosea, one of the prophets
at the end of the Old Testament, gives us some interesting comments. And it speaks like this in the
fourth verse of the 11th chapter. He says, I will draw them, again
this is the Lord speaking through the Prophet Hosea, I drew them
with cords of a man with bands of love. Now what that really
means is that we can imagine as it were the Lord putting round
us ropes to draw us to himself. those were spoken of like this,
they are ropes or bands of love. And it's really, it's only the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ that will draw us unto him. Now, unless the Lord does that
to us, we won't really have any desire, any consideration, any
realisation of what it is to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, this prayer is
really a very good and a very important prayer for all of us,
to pray to the Lord that he will draw us to him, draw us to him. Well, I wonder if we have prayed
like that, to be drawn to the Saviour, or perhaps we've just
been ignorant, or perhaps obstinate or perhaps not have any desire
at all after the things of God. Well, here was the Church of
God with this cry, as we might say, draw me and the wonderful
blessing it is if the Lord does come and draw us. We read together that part of
that very wonderful chapter in the Gospel of John and In that
chapter, the Lord speaks about drawing. And again, it gives
us a little information as to what it means. Jesus was speaking
to the disciples, and you remember, to the multitude, it wasn't just
his disciples, and he was speaking to them about the great need
to feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking about himself. And of course they didn't really
understand. And Jesus therefore answered and said unto them,
murmur not among yourselves. No man can come unto me except
the Father which hath sent me draw him. See how necessary it
is that you and I benefit from the drawing power of the Saviour
unto himself. Many people perhaps imagine they
have some right or they have some ability to actually draw
themselves, but no, we need the Saviour to draw us to himself. And he draws us to himself because
of his love toward us. If there was no love, just try
and imagine it, if there was no love, why would the Saviour
draw us to himself? Just think of that. Because what
is that in ourselves? What are we? Are we good people?
Well, we are born in sin, the Bible tells us, and shapen in
iniquity. And also the Apostle tells us
that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. So what
is there attractive in us? What is there in ourselves that
should make the Lord want us naturally? Surely we must conclude
there is really nothing in ourselves of any value. We are just a sinful
being, no good thing in our flesh. And so how wonderful it is then
that the Lord should put his love upon us and draw us to himself. It's therefore not anything that
we can do, and it's not something which is naturally attractive
in us, We cannot say, well, I'm a good person, really, I'm sure
the Lord wants me, and I'm sure the Lord will want to draw me
to him. Naturally, no, it's only because
of his great, wonderful love and mercy. And so how true it
is, no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me
draw him. So it's the love of God which
he puts to us, as it were, putting a rope around us and drawing
us to himself. Well, we ought to perhaps just
ask the question, do we know the effect of that in our spiritual
lives? Do you and I know anything of
this wonderful drawing power of the Lord? Because it is a
wonderful power. And it's not something which
you and I possess, it's something which God possesses, and He exerts
on our behalf. And He exerts on our behalf because
of His love toward us. And of course, Jeremiah gives
us a little indication of that in the third chapter of his prophecy
when he speaks and tells us the great truths when he says that
he does indeed love us with an everlasting love and therefore
with loving kindness hath he drawn us. You see it's his loving
kindness which has drawn us to himself It's not something which
you and I have done. No, it's that which God has done. And so what a glorious truth
it is as we read those words in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah. He says, the Lord hath appeared
of old unto me saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. Therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. Well, it's the love of God to
us. And as the Spirit of God may
shine into our hearts and reveal to us that in fact we don't deserve
it at all. And yet what a wonderful thing
if the Lord has come to us in that way and has drawn us to
himself. Because we wouldn't want the
Saviour naturally, but when the Lord shows us his great love
toward us, then he draws us draw me, we will run after thee. And therefore it is a favor to
understand something of the great drawing power of the Savior. And there are those scriptures
in the Word of God which do encourage us to consider the wonderful
truth of these things. The word goes on and instructs
us and it says, draw me. Now the desire was, if we are
drawn, if we know something of this love of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we won't near want to walk away. We won't near want to go in an
opposite direction. And here was the result, draw
me and we're told we will run after thee. Why would we do that? Why would we run? We would do
that because we see there is a wonderful attraction in the
Lord Jesus Christ. By his grace we would understand
that his love to us was so wonderful and he is such a great and glorious
God. His love is so strong that we
desire therefore to be with him and to have communion with him
and to speak to him and therefore this statement is given to us,
we will run after thee. We will run after them. Again,
it's not something where we are dragged. As the Lord puts these
ropes of love around us and draws us to himself, then you see,
we view this great love, we feel this great love in our hearts. And the effect is that we recognise
that this great Lord Jesus has done so much. His love was so
great, that what he's done to redeem our souls, to deliver
us, from the wrath to come to deliver us from the effects of
all our sins. What has he done? He's brought
about that great and wonderful blessing of salvation, the saving
of our souls. And therefore, there is then
not that turning away from God, but there's a turning to God,
and there's a running. Draw me, we will run after thee. It's a very important consideration,
isn't it, this morning, to be able to analyse in our spiritual
lives whether we know something of the love of Christ and whether
we are desiring to run after Him. That means to follow Him. That means to be with Him, wheresoever
He leads us. Not to try and just organise
our own lives, just go in our own path. but to be made willing
in the day of his power. Yes, to run after him. The psalmist in the 119th Psalm
and verse 31 it says, he tells us, I have stuck unto thy testimonies,
O Lord, put me not to shame. I will run the way of thy commandments
when thou shalt enlarge my heart. Now, I believe If the Lord has
drawn us to himself and given us some little understanding
of his great love, surely our heart has been enlarged. We haven't just got a little
view. We've got a view of the great
God. And it's very wonderful to think
that this God is so great, so powerful, so almighty, and yet
to think that he condescends to look upon us. He condescends
to meet with us. He condescends to show us that
He has loved us with His everlasting love. Draw me, we will run after
Thee. Well, this morning I wonder,
have we got that evidence in our hearts? Have we got that
desire that because of His love toward us, we want to run after
Him? We will run after Thee. It's not something which we are
dragged there, we don't dawdle. We see the greatness of God,
we see his wonderful mercy, his wonderful compassion, his wonderful
grace. So what's the result? We desire
to run after thee. Well, we have the example here,
don't we? And it's good to think that this
is so true. And it's wonderful to see the
church of God, the people of God, running after the Lord. They don't want anything else
to hinder them. They don't want anything else
to stop them. They want to run after the Lord. And the King, King Solomon, goes
on to tell us what happens. The great blessing of these favours
of the Lord's love toward us. It's not as though there's just
a word spoken and then we're left, as it were, in a vacuum. The Lord comes and he deals with
us in love to our souls, and as he deals with us in love to
our souls, we're told, the King, the King is of course the Lord
himself, the King hath brought me into his chambers. What he's brought us into those
places where we will be instructed, instructed in the truth of God. We read further on in this same
book in the Song of Solomon where the word tells us he brought
me, where? To the banqueting house, and
his banner over me was love." Now, it's very clear, is it not,
that we understand, I expect, what a banquet is. A banquet
really is a very sumptuous meal provided on special occasions
for special people. You know, there's the Lord Mayor
of London, he has a banquet once a year, a Lord Mayor's which
important people are invited to. Now, in a spiritual sense,
all of God's people are important people. And they're all important
because they've been redeemed with the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And what does he do? He brings
them into his banqueting house. He brings them into his chambers. And as we can recognize that
a banquet is a time of feasting, naturally, so to be brought into
these spiritual chambers is a time to feast and to be fed upon the
great truths of God. And of course, as we read together
in that sixth of John, to be fed by the Savior as we partake
of his flesh and blood in a spiritual sense. And let's just recognise
that what that is, is the Lord then directs us in these chambers
as he's there to teach us and to instruct us, remember what
it is, it's to those who have been drawn to him who then run
after him, they're brought into these chambers, and he instructs
them, and he reveals to them the great truth of the word of
God, he reveals to them the great plan of salvation. And it's a
wonderful occasion. Surely it's that occasion when,
as we might think, we are converted, the Lord brings us out of the
darkness that we were born into, into the glorious light of the
everlasting Gospel and has been produced in our heart, the desire
of the Saviour will draw us to Him and then our desire that
we will run after Him and the Lord brings us then into these
chambers where He then instructs us and then He teaches us of
the great truths of the Word of God. Now, we of course, when
the Lord first comes to us, we're ignorant, are we not? We're ignorant. the great truths of God. We may
know something of them in our mind, we may know something in
our head, we may know perhaps a theory, but there's a great
difference between theory and practice, or I might say theory
and experience, because the difference is that the theory just moves
our head. We're impressed perhaps in our
natural mind about the blessing of God when it comes then and
moves our heart. It's then that we really appreciate
the great blessings of the truth of God. And the result is this
really, when God gives us, as we read in Ezekiel, a new heart
when I give you. He gives us a new heart. And
that heart then longs after the things of God. We still possess
of course our old nature, but bless God we've been given this
new heart to be concerned about the truth of God. And then you
say, Lord, how wonderful it is, isn't it? This great God, the
almighty God, takes you and me, as it were, individually, and
brings us into these chambers, and reveals to us his love, reveals
to us what he's done for us, and shows to us what he's going
to do for us, what he's prepared for us, a home in glory. Well,
what a wonderful occasion it is then when this great God again
lets us realise He condescends, He comes down to us and then
He begins to teach us. We're very ignorant. We're very
ignorant. And my friends, we don't know
very much and of course I suppose we might say we never do know
very much because the truth of God is so great we can never
comprehend the wonder of it. But nonetheless, Lord brings
us into these chambers and as it were he teaches us we might
say the ABC of this great alphabet and there is a beginning and
it's applied to our hearts and again the theory is no longer
just a theory. It is still a theory, but it's
more important than that because our hearts are moved by the gracious,
glorious Spirit of God. And we recognize that the Lord
indeed has loved us. And you know what the result
is of that? Well, we read this, not that
you loved God, but that he loved you. And my friends, it's when
we know, when we know in our hearts, and it's a great blessing
and it's a wonderful favour, and we must have it, that God
has loved us, then our heart responds with love to God. We're amazed, amazed that this
great God should look down upon us. We're amazed that this great
God should have loved us with everlasting love. And therefore
we're brought into these chambers, these places where we're taught
and shown the truths of God. And the Lord perhaps then directs
us, he may bring us right back perhaps to the days of Adam and
Eve. And we see there the tragic occasion
when they listen to the words of Satan and they possess that
heart of unbelief and they believe The liars of Satan, they were
liars, and they believed them. What happened? Sin entered into
the world. And sin entered into, therefore,
the world and all man, all mankind was affected by it. Everyone
who was born in this earth, therefore, was affected by that terrible
sin. We realize, yes, I was affected
by that. But if you think again of the
truths of that occasion in that Garden of Eden when the Lord
came and spoke to Adam and Eve and he told them the situation
that which they were in and yet there in those early days there
was a wonderful truth of the gospel preached to Adam and Eve. Oh my friends what a God we have
what a wonderful compassionate God and these are the words he
preached And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. And so it came to pass, because
down through the generations, eventually, the Lord Jesus Christ
was born of a woman. He was born of a woman. And how
true it was, he did bruise, he did crush the head of the serpent,
the head the devil, and thou shalt bruise his heel.' And it's
wonderful for us today to recognise that those words of prophecy
were fulfilled. And so as the Lord perhaps brings
us into the chambers, he shows us our fall, he shows us where
it stemmed from, and he shows us therefore how we needed a
saviour And then perhaps he may direct us right through perhaps
the great truths that are contained in the Old Testament, as we see
the wonder of redeeming love demonstrated so clearly in the
shed blood, so necessary to save the Church of God. And again,
just go back to that time in Genesis 3. What did God do? There were Adam and Eve, naked. They realised they were naked.
What did they do? They tried to cover themselves. Well, they
weren't very successful. They just got some fig leaves
and tied them together. What did God do? He came and
he gave them skins. Skins of animals that he'd slain. The blood was shed. The blood
was shed. The skins were there for a covering.
What did it prefigure? great and glorious righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, what a wonderful truth
that is, isn't it? The Lord brings you and me into these chambers
and he reveals to us that the Lord Jesus Christ has died to
give us his great and glorious righteousness. It's spoken of
in the Word of God as a spotless robe, a white robe, a sparkling
robe, with nothing in it, purity, to cover us, to cover our nakedness. Well, bless God then if he brings
us to that position. And then as you trace it through,
as the Spirit of God comes and traces it through the great plan
of salvation, well, we can see Abraham, can't we? Abraham blessed
with that son Isaac. The Lord told him to go and offer
up Isaac, and there was all his hope. There was the promises
being fulfilled in the life of Isaac. And now told to go and
offer him up. Did he demur? Did he disagree? Did he argue? He willingly obeyed
the word of God. And then he went up Mount Moriah,
put his son on the altar and about to slay him. And the Lord
told him to stop. Yes, and to take that ram that
was caught in its horns in a thicket behind him and to offer it up
instead, what do we see there? The great and glorious plan of
substitution. The Lord Jesus Christ stood in
our place. Just think of that love, my friends. For you and me, so I'm worthy. This great God, don't underestimate
the greatness of it. The great God, almighty God,
who created all things, whoever lives, stood in our place, your
place and my place. He bore the punishment instead,
in our place, because of his love. Brought us into his chambers.
Well to think of that. And then of course we move on,
do we not, to a time of the Passover. Yes, there was the avenging angel
to pass through the camp, through Egypt, to slay the firstborn. How was there to be any safety?
How was there to be any deliverance? The Lord God instituted that
great occasion, that great feast, the Passover, the Passover. And there you see was the illustration,
the lamb taken, the lamb taken, the lamb slain. the Lamb slain,
offered up. And of course the Apostle John
speaks of it so very beautifully when he said, Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Now you see what
happened was, the Lamb was slain, the blood was taken, put on the
doorposts and lintels, and all those who went in to the dwellings
passed under the blood, They were safe, no safety outside
of being under the blood. And my friends today, there is
no safety unless you and I are under the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this brings us to that great
point that he died upon Calvary to shed his blood so that you
and I might receive the great gift of eternal life, the wonderful
blessing of salvation. Well, my friends, today it is
so important that you and I have the spiritual understanding that
we are under that blood and it means something to us. It's not
just a theory, but it's the application of that blood to our hearts. We realise, yes, the Lord's brought
me into his chambers and he's revealed to me, or is revealing
to me, the great truths of scripture and I rejoice in them. because
that's what we come on to. Here we read, we will be glad
and rejoice in them. Glad and rejoice does our heart
jump with joy as we read the great truths and the Spirit of
God directs us into them, the great love of the Saviour and
the wonderful plan as it's unfolded to our understanding. And we,
as it were, jump with joy for the realization that God has
come and revealed these truths unto us, has touched our heart,
we're moved by His Spirit, and we rejoice in it. You see, this
is beyond the things of this life. We can rejoice in many
things, can't we? And it's right to do so. Many
things the Lord gives us to rejoice and be glad in, and to be joyful
about, and to be glad. There's nothing greater the great
gift of salvation. There's nothing greater than
to know our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. There's
nothing greater than to know the Lord God has loved us with
everlasting love. But how essential it is that
we do know this. We do know this great truth.
We will be glad and rejoice in thee. That means what it says,
glad and rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ as our great and
glorious Saviour. Well, this morning, can we agree
with that? Can we concur with it? From our
hearts, from our hearts, to be able to say, yes, this is true. Yes, I'm thankful. I am glad. I have been glad. I am glad and
rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. What does that really mean? I
believe it means this, that the Lord Jesus Christ is precious
to our souls. It's when the Saviour ceases
to be just an historical figure, but it's when He becomes a personal
Saviour to you and me, when His love is shown to us And our hearts
are touched, and we have love towards Him. As the hymn writer
said, very wonderfully, on such love, my soul will still ponder,
love so great, so rich, so free. Say whilst lost in holy wonder,
why, oh God, such love to me? What's the result? Hallelujah. Praise the Lord from our hearts. We will be glad
and rejoice in thee. And then he goes on to say, we
will remember thy love more than wine. Remember thy love more
than wine. You might think that's a bit
of a strange statement. Well, I believe we might think
of this and perhaps, I'm sure you children won't understand
that, but perhaps you can appreciate that sometimes there is that
wine which is very special and wine which has been well matured
and is a very special drink which people therefore look forward
perhaps to partaking of some special vintage of wine. And
they may taste it and they may perhaps remember that occasion
when there was this very special wine given to them that they
were able to drink. And they remember those occasions,
perhaps an occasion. But the analogy here is this.
We will remember thy love more than that. And what does that
mean? That means in our spiritual life,
there will be those occasions, perhaps an occasion which stands
out, when the Lord came to us, when the Lord made alive our
souls. And it's something which we don't
forget. We don't forget the work of the Holy Spirit. We don't
forget those things which He has done for us. And we don't
want to forget those things that he's done for us. Sometimes we
come across people who are old and their memory may be failing,
they may not be very clear on many things, but it's very wonderful
such people remember, even in perhaps their old age when they
haven't got much memory, they remember the things of God. What are they really remembering?
The love, of the Saviour, because it's ingrained in their heart.
The things in the mind may perhaps go away as it were, but those
things which God has done, when he's shed abroad his great love
in our heart, when he's shown us his mercy, when he's granted
that great grace toward us, when he's come and made alive our
souls, like the Apostle Paul said when he wrote to the Ephesians,
and you hath he quickened hath made alive, who were dead in
trespasses and in sins. It is the blessed work of the
Spirit of God, and we remember such occasions as that more than
anything else, more than those other perhaps occasions which
may be relatively important in our lives. But the truth is,
of course, they fade into insignificance because eternity is before us. And these truths which the Spirit
of God gives to us are eternal blessings. They won't fade away. We won't lose them. They are
eternal. We will remember thy love more
than wine. We'll have you and I those occasions
in our spiritual life that we don't forget. Oh, we bless God
for, we bless God for his great grace. We bless God for his great
love. We bless God for his great mercy. And so we're able to come and
agree with this word. And my friends, I hope we can
this morning, I hope we can come this morning and say yes, we
will, and say in the singular, I will remember thy love more
than wine. And then he says, the upright,
lovely. Well, of course, we're not upright
in ourselves. But we are upright in God. Our new spiritual life is upright. Our new nature is pure. It's
upright. And it's that, indeed, which
loves Christ. Loves Christ. So the great important
question is, do we, do you and I, love the Lord or no? That's a great question, isn't
it? That's a vital question. We might have a great knowledge
of everything. You might be able to recite the
whole Bible from beginning to end. But the great thing is,
if you and I love Christ, and we should only love Christ if
He has loved us. And He's loved us when we know
that He's drawn us to Him. And what do we say? It's all
of grace. We understand what John Newton
said, amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch like me. And we'll see on one side, ourselves
as wretched sinners, and the other side, the pure, glorious
savior. And we see how wonderful it was
that he said his love upon us, And He's shown us that love.
That's the truth. You see, it's not something which
is ambiguous or just theoretical. The Lord comes and He shows us
His love. Because when He shows us His
love, we return that love. And what do we desire to do? We desire then to run after Him,
to follow Him. Nothing's too hard, is it? No, nothing's too hard. Whatever
the cost, we understand the truth of those words. The Lord says
we are to every day take up our cross and to follow him. What a privilege to follow such
a savior who's been so gloriously compassionate and done so much
to redeem our souls. Indeed, he's given his life.
You and I might have life. So this morning, Let us go away
and ponder the great truth of these words. Draw me. We will run after thee. The King
hath 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.