Let us turn again to the Word
of God, and seeking the help of God and your prayers, the
words to which I would direct your attention this morning are
found in the Song of Solomon, in chapter 8, and we'll read
verses 6 and 7. In the Song of Solomon, chapter
8, we'll read verses 6 and 7. Set me as a seal upon thine heart,
as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death. Jealousy is cruel as the grave.
The coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement
flame. Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it. If a man would give all the
substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. And in particular, those words
in verse six where we read, love is strong as death. Well, there's
many different kinds of death that we might think of. Of course,
there's natural death. the death that comes to a man
at the end of his life here on the earth. We might think of
eternal death, that death that the Bible speaks of as the ultimate
destination of all those who are not saved from it. But there
is another kind of death, isn't there? And it's a death that
we find Paul complaining about. In that well-known chapter in
Romans, when he complains of the body of death, he says, O
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? And there he's surely not just
talking about natural death, and he's not just talking about
eternal death, but he's talking about a spiritual kind of death. That death that we find the hymn
writer complaining about in hymn 279. when he speaks of himself
as stupid, secure, and hard, and blind, withered, and dead,
and rooted up. To endless death I seem consigned,
he says, so destitute of cheering hope. He speaks of himself as
withered and dead. Well, he wasn't dead in a natural
sense, and he wasn't dead in an eternal sense, but he's complaining
about that spiritual death that he felt within himself. Well, whatever kind of death
it is that troubles you this morning, Here is good news for
love is stronger than death. Here is something that is spoken
of as strong as death. And it's very beautiful language,
isn't it, that the Lord uses here through Solomon. Many waters
cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. Love is
strong as death. Well, what kind of love is Solomon
talking about here in this song? This is one of Solomon's many
songs. Elsewhere we read that Solomon
wrote many songs. But as we see at the beginning
of this one, this is the Song of Songs. It says in the opening
verse, the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Well, when we read
of the Song of Songs, really what's meant is the best of all
songs. Just as when we read of Christ as the King of Kings,
we are to understand that he is, of all kings, the highest.
And when we read of him as the Lord of Lords, we are to understand
that of all lords, he is the highest lord. Well, just the
same here, when we read of this song as the Song of Songs, surely
we are to understand that of all songs that have ever been
written, it is the best song, the highest song. And you're
familiar, I expect, with the way in which the book is laid
out. We have these two principal characters who speak in turn.
We have the bridegroom, who is spoken of as my beloved. And we have the bride, who is
spoken of in various ways. And as you read through the book,
sometimes it's very obvious which of them is speaking. Sometimes
you have the bride speaking to the bridegroom and sometimes
you have the bridegroom speaking to the bride. But you will be familiar, many
of you I expect, with the fact that this book is a controversial
book. There are two main screws of thought I suppose we could
say about it. I suppose in our circles the
common view, and in my opinion the right view, is that this
book is a picture of the relationship that there is between Christ
and his church. And so when we read of the bridegroom
in this book, it really is speaking to us of Christ himself. And
when we read of the bride, it's speaking to us of the church
of Christ, or of the individual Christian. And so when we read
of Christ delighting in the church, we have it reflected here in
this book in the love of the bridegroom to the bride. That,
I suppose, is the most common view in our circles, but you
will be familiar, some of you, with the other view, which really
is, it goes something like this. They say this book is really
just a picture of the natural love that there is between a
man and his wife. It's a song that Solomon wrote
in order to celebrate one of his many marriages. And it speaks
of the love that there was between Solomon and his wife. And those that hold that view,
they will say, well, it doesn't say anything about the Lord Jesus
Christ in this book. It doesn't even use the name
of God. They say this book is not quoted explicitly in the
New Testament. They say Christ never said anything
to give us permission to treat this book as a picture of his
love to the church. And so they represent it just
as a picture of natural love, a song about natural love, the
love that there is between man and woman in a natural marriage. And we have to recognize that
good men have fallen on both sides of this disagreement. But why is it that we maintain
that this book is a picture of the relationship between Christ
and his church? Well, the first reason is this. Even if this book was just a
picture of love in a natural marriage, we know from many places,
and especially Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, we know without
any doubt that that relationship itself is a picture of the relationship
between Christ and his church. No doubt you're all familiar
with the words of Paul, often read at weddings, in that fifth
chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians, where he speaks of
the responsibilities of husbands and wives. And so he speaks of
wives and the need for them to submit themselves unto their
own husbands, He speaks to husbands of the need for them to love
their wives. And then he says in verse 32
of that chapter, this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning
Christ and the church. And so whenever there is a marriage,
whenever a man and a woman are brought together in that way
and they make those vows to each other and they commit to love
one another and to care for each other, That really is a very
wonderful picture of the relationship, says Paul, that there is between
Christ and the Church. And so even if this book were
just a picture of a natural love between Solomon and one of his
wives, we have explicit permission in the New Testament to see in
that relationship the picture of the relationship that there
is between Christ and the Church. Even if it could be proved that
this book is not a picture of that relationship itself, it
is without doubt a picture of a pictoronic, if you see what
I mean. And then secondly, if this book
is nothing to do with Christ and nothing to do with the Church, what's it doing here? If this
book is just a picture of a love that Solomon had to one of his
wives, Well, it would be quite wrong for it to be placed here
in this book. It would be quite wrong to read it in a service
like this. No, it speaks to us of Christ.
And you remember what we read in that closing chapter of Luke's
Gospel. You remember the occasion of
the two on the way to Emmaus. and how they talk to each other
and they're sad as they journey away from Jerusalem on that day,
the day of the resurrection of Christ. And then Jesus himself
draws near and went with them, but their eyes were holden and
they didn't recognise him. And Jesus says to them, what
manner of communications are these that ye have one to another
as ye walk and are sad? And so they explain to him the
things that had happened in Jerusalem. how that one that they had trusted,
all that he represented and all that he stood for, it seemed
to have come to nothing. The chief priests and the rulers
had delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him, and
they speak of the rumors that they had heard concerning his
resurrection, and they say, we don't understand. We thought
that it was going to be him that was going to redeem Israel, and
now it all seems to have come to nothing, and we don't really
know what to think. And he says to them, O fools,
and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into
his glory? And then it says, and beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all
the scriptures the things concerning himself. And it's very explicit,
isn't it? It says in all the scriptures,
not just in some parts. It wasn't that he just turned
to a few of the Psalms and said, well, these speak of Christ.
No, he opened up all the scriptures and expounded to them the things
concerning himself. Well, no doubt, that included
then this book of the Song of Solomon. It speaks of the love that there
is between Christ and his church, and the love that there is, and
it flows both ways, that love, doesn't it? Christ loved the
church, and the church loves Christ. Well, who is speaking
here then in this eighth chapter? Very obviously the first four
verses, they're spoken by the bride, aren't they? And the bride
is speaking of the desire that she has to be close to Christ,
to kiss him, to bring him into her mother's house, to embrace
him, to have his left hand under her head and his right hand around
her. And then in verse 4 she speaks
to the daughters of Jerusalem and charges them concerning her
beloved. And then we come to verse 5,
and again verse 5 is a verse that you will find different
views on. You turn to your commentaries
and you will find some people and they say, well this without
a doubt is spoken by the church concerning Christ. And then you
turn to the next commentary and you find the author saying, well
without a doubt this verse is spoken by Christ concerning his
church. It's no doubt a picture of Christ and his church coming
up together out of the wilderness. It's the church that leans upon
Christ. We sang about that in our first
hymn, didn't we? But who is it that is speaking
at the end of verse five? I raise thee up under the apple
tree. There are those that speak of Christ raising up the church. And they say that this is a reference
to the new birth. And there are those that speak
of it as the church raising up Christ, as raising up Christ
by her prayers and calling him forth as it were. Well, here in verse 6, it's very
clearly the words of the bride. And she speaks of her desire
to be set upon the heart of Christ. Set me as a seal upon thine heart,
as a seal upon thine arm. What does she mean when she talks
about a seal? Well really she's talking about something like
a signet ring. You know in the olden days when
you wrote a letter you would seal it with wax and then you
would stamp it with your signet ring and it would show that it
came from you. And those signet rings, those seals, they would
be very precious. They would be really the proof
of your identity. I suppose they would be a little
bit like a passport and you know how much care you take over your
passport. When you go on holiday, you're at the airport, you get
your passport out to show to security, and then I'm always
paranoid that I'll put it somewhere and not be able to find it, or
I'll drop it or put it in my pocket and it will fall out.
But we take great care of our passport, don't we? It'd be very
inconvenient to lose it. Well, it's like that with these
seals that the church speaks of here. What she's praying for
is for Christ to take care of her. She wants him to watch over her. She wants to experience his love. She wants to be close to his
heart, set as a seal upon his heart, set as a seal upon his
arm. And you remember, and perhaps
this is a reference back to the way in which the high priests,
how they would have the names of the children of Israel engraved
upon their breastplate. You remember how the high priest,
he wore a breastplate, and in it there was these jewels, and
each jewel had a name of one of the tribes of Israel engraved
on it. And so when they went into the holy place, it was as
if they carried the Israelites with them, and they represented
the Israelites before God in the most holy place. Well, the
church here is seeking for something similar from Christ. She wants
him to hold her upon his heart, to hold her upon his arm. And she wants to know and to
experience his love. We were just singing about that,
weren't we, in that second hymn. How the hymn writer prays to
the Lord, he says, love me freely, seal my peace, and let me rove
no more. And how he repeats that at the
end of each verse, it was something that he wanted, something that
he prayed for, and we're going to sing about the same love in
our closing hymn. When Charles Wesley speaks of
the love of Christ as a love divine, and he prays, when shall
I find my willing heart all taken up by thee? He says, I thirst
and faint and die to prove the greatness of redeeming love,
the love of Christ. to me. She wants to experience
the love of Christ. And then she speaks of the power
of that love. And it's very strong language,
isn't it? When she says love is strong as death. Love is strong
as death. Death is a strong thing, isn't
it? You think even of natural death. You look back over the
history of the world and what you find, well, people may live
for many years, and we know people nowadays, they live for 100 years,
perhaps even 120 years. But one thing that all men and
women have had in common, or almost all men and women, as
we look through history, is they have all died. And you can read
through those long chapters in the Old Testament, when it speaks
of the genealogy of a certain person, and it talks about the
way in which so-and-so was descended from so-and-so. And then it speaks
of someone and it says they may have lived for hundreds of years,
and then it says, and they died. And they died. Death is a strong
thing, a powerful thing. It's something against which
man really is powerless. I know you might think of many
ways in which men can, as it were, fight against death today. And we have very strong medicines,
don't we? Yes, man can fight against death by treating certain
diseases and living in a healthy way. Well, you can fight against
it and you may win the battle, but you can't win the war. Man can fight against death.
And he may win an occasional battle, but he cannot win the
war. Death will have the last word.
And we know that's true of each one of us. Unless the end of
time comes first, we will all die. Each one of us. The wages
of sin is death. There's no escape from that.
There's no avoiding it. It's a strong thing, a powerful
thing. Something that we cannot fight against. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon uses
a very striking expression concerning death, doesn't he? In the eighth
chapter, he speaks of the way in which
death comes upon all men, upon the righteous and upon the wicked.
And he says in the eighth chapter of Ecclesiastes at verse eight,
there is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the
spirit. Neither hath he power in the
day of death. And there is no discharge in that war. There
is no discharge in that war. And you see what the word discharge
really means in the margin. There is no casting off weapons
in that war. You think of wars here below,
you think even of the greatest war. You think of the First World
War, the Second World War. They were terrible wars, weren't
they? But there was a time when the men, the people involved,
they cast off their weapons. The war came to an end and we
celebrate it every year, don't we, on the 11th of November,
when we have Armistice Day, we celebrate the end of the Great
War. But here Solomon speaks of a
war in which there is no casting off weapons. There is no discharge
in that war, there's no end to it. And we know that from experience,
don't we? Life is fragile. Our lives are
fragile. And we have to, as it were, fight
to stay alive, don't we? We're constantly having to feed
our bodies. And to eat food and to drink water. And to take care
of our bodies. Because life is fragile. And
life is a struggle. And many of you perhaps can think
back to times in your own life when you were well and then perhaps
it was a very little thing. Just a tiny germ gets into your
system and it brings you almost to nothing. And all your strength
is suddenly swept away. Life is a fragile thing, a struggle.
We take it for granted, don't we, our strength and our health.
And when we're well, we think we'll always be well. And then
we become ill and suddenly all that health, all that strength
is taken away. Well, that's true of our natural bodies. That's
true of our natural lives. They're fragile things. We talk
sometimes about life hanging by a thread. And sometimes that's
very obvious. You take a tiny baby perhaps
born prematurely and you look at it as it lies there in the
incubator and it seems so fragile and the heart is beating but
it seems to be so vulnerable as if any minute it can just
be cut off just like that. Well it's very evident there
in that tiny baby but it's true of each one of us. Our lives
are fragile. It's true of natural death, but
the Christian, as I said at the beginning, there is a kind of
death that the Christian complains about, that is equally powerful,
equally strong. That body of death, again, that
Paul had to complain of and cry out concerning. He says, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
What's the implication of what he's saying? The implication
is that he can't deliver himself from it. The implication is that
it's a hard thing. It's something that he struggles
with and he can't cope with it. This body of death. That death again that the hymn
writer sings of in that hymn that I already mentioned when
he spoke of himself. as withered and dead and rooted
up. And he's got this death within him that seems to have such a
hold upon him. And it's always casting him down
and tripping him up. Something strong, something powerful.
And he doesn't seem to have any resources to call upon to deal
with it. Well, perhaps you have to complain
of the same thing as Paul. Perhaps you have to complain
of that body of death that you carry around with you. And you
have to say with Paul, the good that I would, I do not. And you
say, well, I want to do these good things, but I find the flesh
is weak. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Well, as I said, here is something as
strong as death. Here is something that can be
looked to in that struggle. Love is strong as death, able
to defeat death, able to overcome death, able to deal with death. Well, if you struggle with that
spiritual death, then this will be good news to you. Love is
as strong as it. What kind of love is the bride
speaking about? What kind of love is it that is as strong
as death? Well, it's not our love to God, is it? The bride
is surely not talking about her own love being as strong as death. It's true that the love that
the Christian has to Christ is a strong love. We have that represented
frequently in this book, don't we? You think about what we read
in chapter five. Here is the bride, and it's a
picture of the backsliding Christian, isn't it? And her love seems to be weak
and failing. And when her beloved comes to
the door and Christ knocks on the door and says, open to me
my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. Even though he
speaks to her in such a loving way and comes with such endearing
words. You look at her response in verse
three. I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have
washed my feet, how shall I defile them? She has a kind of love,
she speaks of him as her beloved still. But her love is imperfect,
isn't it? Her love is dim, it's cold, it's
almost decayed away. Surely this is what the hymn
writer complained of in that 25th hymn, when he speaks of
the coldness of his heart. And he says, dear Lord, and shall
we ever live at this poor dying rate? Our love so faint, so cold
to thee, and thine to us so great. He has a kind of love, but it's
a cold love, a faint love. And it's that same kind of love,
surely, that we see here in the bride in this fifth chapter.
I have put my coat off, she says. How shall I put it on? I've washed
my feet. How shall I defile them? I don't want to get up, she says.
I can't be bothered. I'm comfortable here in bed. Her love is cold, it's imperfect.
But then you look at the outcome. She eventually rises up to open
to him and she opens the door and she finds that he's gone. And now suddenly her love is
so much more powerful, isn't it? Suddenly her love is so much
more evident, so much more visible. Well, it would be true of us,
wouldn't it, in a natural sense? You can imagine if you're sitting
down in your comfortable chair in the evening and then the wife
or the husband, they come home and they knock on the door and
you think, oh, I've just sat down. And eventually you go and open the
door and they're gone. Well, you'd be worried, wouldn't you?
You'd be concerned. You'd think, well, what's happened to them?
Where have they gone to? And suddenly that love, it seems
so much more active, so much more powerful than it did before.
And that's the case here with the bride, isn't it? Look at
what she says, I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn
himself and was gone. My soul failed when he spake.
I sought him, but I could not find him. I called him, but he
gave me no answer. And she doesn't just give up,
does she? She doesn't say, well, I'll go back to bed, perhaps
he'll come back later. No, she gets up, she goes out of the
house even, even though she's put off her coat and washed her
feet. Now it's almost as if she'll do anything to find him and she
even endures the treatment that she receives at the hands of
the watchman there in verse seven. The watchman that went about
the city found me, they smoked me, they wounded me. The keepers
of the wards took away my veil from me. She endures that. And
she opens her heart to the daughters of Jerusalem. I charge you, O
daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell
him that I am sick of love. She has a strong love, yes. And a Christian's love to Christ
is a strong love. But it's an imperfect love. It's
not always as strong as death. What is it that makes her love
him? What is it that makes you love
Christ? Is it the same thing that she speaks of here at the
end of chapter five? Look at the way she speaks of
him. The chiefest among 10,000, she says. And she describes him
in various ways, and each one of those descriptions no doubt
has a spiritual meaning. But she speaks of him as the
cheapest among 10,000 and the altogether lovely. She loves
him because he's lovely. It's not just that she loves
him because of what he does for her. It's not just that she loves
him because of what she wants him to do for her. That's a kind
of love, isn't it? But you would be you would think it a bad thing,
wouldn't you? If you went to a husband and you said to him,
well, why do you love your wife so much? You wouldn't be very
happy if he said, well, it's because she cooks for me and
she cleans for me and she does all these jobs that I don't want
to do. Or if you went to the wife and
you said, well, why do you love your husband? And she said, well,
he's very good at providing for me, always comes home with the
money every day and he does all these jobs for me. That's not the kind of love that
we would want a husband to have to the wife, would we? That's
not the foundation of real love, of true love. No, the foundation
of real love and true love is what we see here. The church
loves Christ because of who he is. Because he is worthy of love,
because he is in himself lovely. The chiefest among ten thousand,
the altogether lovely. She loves him. She has a strong
love. But it's not a perfect love.
There's something imperfect about it. That's why the hymn writer
in that hymn, he says, thy love to me, O Christ, thy love to
me. Not mine to thee I plead, not
mine to thee. This is my comfort strong. This
is my joyful song. Thy love to me. Love is strong as death. There are those times when the
Christian's love is as strong as death, aren't there? You think
of the martyrs that we read about in the Book of Acts, and the
martyrs that we can read about down through the centuries, who
have gone through flame and fire for the name of Christ. Why have
they done that? Because they love Him. Because they love Him
with a love that is stronger than death. Or they say, I would
rather die than deny Him. I would rather die than lose
Him. But surely this love that's spoken
of here is not so much the love of the bridegroom towards the
bridegroom. It speaks of the love of the
bridegroom towards the bride. It speaks of the love of God,
the love of Christ. You remember how the Lord puts
it before us, very strong language, isn't it, in that 49th chapter
of Isaiah's prophecy? When he says, can a woman forget
her sucking child? That she should not have compassion
on the son of her Wu? He puts before us what really
is the strongest love, isn't it? You think of it, the love
of the woman towards her child. And it seems unthinkable, doesn't
it? That she would forget about the
child, that she wouldn't have compassion on the son of her
Wu. That child seems to be everything
to her. I remember when our children were
small, especially when we had our first child. And you used
to go to bed at night and you'd dream about it. And you'd wake
up and you'd think, I'm sure I was holding the baby. And you
can't find it. And it seems to occupy your every
waking thought. Well, says Isaiah, the woman
may forget her sucking child, it's possible. But even if that
strongest of human love fails, they may forget, he says, yet
will I not forget thee? As if he says to the church,
my love for you is stronger than that love that the woman has
towards her sucking child. Behold, he says, I have graven
thee upon the palms of my hands. As if the hands are graven with
the names of the church and wherever Christ looks, it's as if he can't
forget them. This is the love that's as strong
as death. It's the love of God, it's the
love of Christ. The hymn writer speaks of it as a love that is
rich and free, fixed on his own eternally. John speaks of it,
doesn't he? He says God is love. As if the strength of God's love
is the same as the strength of God himself. As if that love
can only fail if God himself fails. Love is strong as death. Well, this is the love that the Church
glories in and rejoices in. This is the love that the Church
depends upon. Not her love to him, but his
love to her. What's the ground of that love? Why does Christ love the Church? Well, it's not because the church
is an especially good church. It's not because Christians are
especially good people. He doesn't love them because
of what they do. You remember what Moses has to
say to the children of Israel back there in Deuteronomy? And he says to them in the seventh
chapter, be careful that you're not proud. Be careful that you
don't begin to say to yourselves, well, we must be very good people
because God has loved us and treated us in a very special
way. No, says Moses, the Lord did
not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more
in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people,
but because the Lord loved you. That's the only ground, that's
the only foundation of that love that he had to the Israelites
back there in the Old Testament, because the Lord loved you. The
grounds of love are in himself. The cause of love is in himself. If that wasn't the case, his
love wouldn't be as strong as death, would it? If his love was built
upon who we are, or what we do, or the kind of people that we
might be, Well, his love wouldn't be as
strong as death. It would only be as strong as we were. If his
love was built upon our faith, it would only be as strong as
our faith. If his love was built upon our good works, it would
only be as strong as our good works. If his love was built upon our
honesty, or our sincerity, or our love to him, it would only
be as strong as our sincerity, or our honesty, or our love to
him. It wouldn't be as strong as death. This love is an unchangeable
love because it's built upon the character of God, the nature
of love he loves, because he will love. That's why his love is as strong
as death. And it's a love that's seen in
actions, isn't it? Isn't that true of all love, to some extent? How do we know that God loved
the world? Because, as John says, he gave his only begotten son.
That's the proof of his love. That's the evidence of his love. You remember how the, I think
it was John Berridge speaks of it in that 149th hymn, when he
speaks of that strange method. He says, a method strange. This
friend has known of making love divinely known to rebels doomed
to die, unasked. Unasked, he takes our humblest
form and condescends to be a worm to lift us up on high. And so
he speaks of the way in which he gave his blood, gave his life,
a ransom for many, how he toiled through life and panted through
death and cried, with his expiring death, tis finished and complete.
That's the proof of his love. That's the evidence of his love
because of what he did. And as we look at him, do we
not see in a very obvious way that his love was as strong as
death? Because he went through death because of his love. He
didn't come, as it were, to the judgment hall. He didn't come
to the foot of the cross and then say, well, my love isn't
strong enough to go through with this. Though his love was as
strong as death, it overcame death. He passed through it. His love is as strong as death.
Well, do you desire to experience this love? Do you ask the question,
well, is this love directed towards me? Does he love me in this way? What's the evidence of it? What's
the proof of it? Well, if he loves you, you will love him.
There's no doubt about it. There's no uncertainty about
it. Yes, says John, we love him because he first loved us. If
he loves you, he'll show himself to you. And if he shows himself
to you, then you'll love him. just as he showed himself to
the bride there in the fifth chapter, the chiefest among 10,000,
the altogether lovely. And so her heart goes out after
him and she's willing to go through almost anything to get near to
him. Well, do you know that same love,
that same attraction, that same affection? If you do, it's an
evidence that he loves you, that he's shown himself to you in
a way that he doesn't generally to the world. with this love that is strong
as death. And you look at him when he was
here. Who was it that was attracted
to him when he was here? Who was it that his love, as
it were, reached out to and drew to himself? Well, it was the
publicans and the sinners, wasn't it? It wasn't the Pharisees.
It wasn't those who thought themselves righteous. They saw him as well. They heard his words as well.
They heard him speak of himself as the bread of life. They heard
him inviting to himself those who were weary and heavy laden,
those with a thirst. They heard those words, but there
was no attraction for them. But publicans and sinners, they
drew near, didn't they? And they were drawn to him. Again,
you read about it at the beginning of this book. Draw me, says the
church. We will run after thee. And he does draw. And they do
run. And they gathered themselves
around him, didn't they? And they sat at his feet and they heard
his words. And you remember the words of
Peter. To whom else shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life, and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ,
the Son of the living God. He draws them with this love.
He draws them, he doesn't force them. They're not, they don't
come to him against their will as it were. The will is changed.
The will is changed because they see him as he is. And there's
an attraction. Well says the Lord through Solomon,
many waters cannot quench this love, neither can the floods
drown it. It's impossible for this love
to be quenched because God is love and God, excuse the expression,
cannot be quenched. It's impossible for this love
to be drowned because God is love. It's unquenchable. It's undrownable. Well, perhaps some people might
say, well, if his love is so strong, it doesn't matter what
I do then, does it? Can't I just live as I want? And if I commit
sins, if he loves me so much, won't he just forgive me? Well,
Paul had to come against that, that same objection, didn't he?
He had to deal with that same question, what shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And Paul says,
God forbid. As if he would say, if you think
in that way, you haven't even begun to understand what I've
been saying to you. If you can speak in that way, There's no love in that kind
of attitude, is there? There's no real love in the child
that says, well, the parent loves me so much that I can do what
I want. And they'll always let me off, always forgive me. Where's
the love of the child if they speak like that? That's not the
relationship that the church has to Christ. That's not the
relationship that we see here in this book. Oh, she wants to
be near him. Love is strong as death. This love is seen in the gift
of Christ, isn't it? For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son despite all the hundreds of years
of rebellion, despite the way in which even his chosen people
had turned their backs upon him, despite the way in which men
and women had tried to live without him. And we, if we're honest,
are guilty of the same thing. That his love is strong as death.
It overcomes all those things, it lives in spite of all those
things, and it still lives today. His love is the same today as
it ever was. And his Gospel is the same today
as it ever was. It's still preached, isn't it?
It still comes. You still have it here in this
book. It's not being taken away. He still delights in mercy. And
he still is able to save. And he still says, doesn't he,
time and time again throughout the Gospels, he still speaks
of that coming. He still uses that little word,
whosoever, when he says, whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him
might be saved. He still says, seek and ye shall
find. He still says, knock and it shall
be opened unto you. He still says, if any man thirst,
let him come unto me and drink And we still have the wonderful
invitations of the Gospel scattered throughout Scripture, but especially
there in that closing chapter of Revelation, when it speaks
again of the water of life. Let him that is a thirst come,
and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Why is that water given freely?
Why is it that the thirsty soul is invited to come and drink?
It's because of this love, this love that is stronger than death.
And as it's stronger than death, it must be stronger than sin,
stronger than all your sins. Isn't this again what the hymn
writers see and rejoice in? When the hymn writers say, nothing
but sin I thee can give, nothing but love shall I receive, it's
because they've seen what the church has seen here, that this
love It cannot be defeated by sin, it cannot be overturned
by sin, it cannot be undone by sin. Set me as a seal upon thine heart,
says the church, as a seal upon thine arm. I want to know experience. Taste this love, for love is
strong as death. Jealousy is cruel as the grave.
We think of jealousy as something negative, don't we? But this
jealousy isn't. There is a good kind of jealousy. Jealousy as cruel as the grave,
something hard, something unbreakable. The coals thereof are coals of
fire which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench
love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man would give
all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be
condemned, it can't be bought, it can't be paid for, it can't
be earned. Love is strong as death. Well,
may God grant us a knowledge of this love, a desire to know
more of it, a desire to experience it, a desire to do what the Church
did here in this book, to go out seeking it, to go out seeking
this One who is love. Not to be complacent, not to
be half-hearted, not to be sleepy. but to be stretching out the
hand after him, because he is the chiefest among ten thousand
and the altogether lovely. May God bless his word to us.
Amen.