Greetings to Johnny. We never
call her Mrs. Cross, so it's just Johnny. Bruce
and Jackie said to say hello. And as I said this morning, they
said to say hello, but not to Scott. So that makes sense. It's wonderful. Like I said,
when we were on the way up here, Melinda and I were talking. And
I love family. Don't get me wrong. They're my
mom. my brothers and all that, but
they don't understand the truth. They're in religion, they don't
understand the gospel. So this is the most important
thing. We've been down here since Thursday
and enjoyed the water and sun and all that kind of stuff, but
this is the most important thing that we're going to do for this
week. And the rest of it, it's veneer.
It's simply veneer. It's just a covering. And the
Lord gives us these things to enjoy, but there's no place I'd
rather be than the house of the Lord. And I ask that you pray
for Bruce Wortman and Nathan Carroll back at Sovereign Grace
Church in Jackson as they are speaking this morning. Turn with
me, if you would, to Songs of Solomon. Songs of Solomon. The older I get, the more I enjoy
this love letter. It's a passionate conversation
going on between Christ and His church, His bride, His elect.
And it is just, every time I look at it, it just amazes me. This passage I would like to
preach to you all, the Lord enabling, and His Holy Spirit would guide
and direct the words. I want us to look this morning
at Psalms of Solomon chapter 5. We're going to look at this
beautiful relationship Christ has towards His Bride, the Church
of the Living God. Before I start in chapter 5,
I'm just going to look at the first verse. Let's look at chapter
4, verse 12. A garden enclosed, this is Christ
speaking, a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse. A spring shut up, a fountain
sealed. Now chapter 5 and the first verse. I am come into my garden, my
sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with
my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. I have drunk my wine with my
milk. Eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink
abundantly, O beloved. And as you get older in the grace
of God, as the Lord matures you, I would recommend you read through
Song of Solomon, and don't read any commentary. Don't read, just
look at it as you're looking at a love letter somebody's sending
to you, and you sending it back to your love. In verse 12 of
chapter 4, and again in verse 1 of chapter 5, Christ is speaking
of his church as a garden. He specifically says, I am coming
to my garden. He makes this reference in more
than one place in Song of Solomon. He's referring to his church
as a garden, one planted by grace divine, cared for and developed
by Emmanuel himself. I want us to notice verse one.
And we're just going to walk through the first phrase of this
and then just see what it says. Like I said, there's just so
much here. But I'm just going to go through the first several
phrases. I am come into my garden, my
sister, my spouse. I am come. Who is this? Who is speaking? Who is speaking? Well, he says, I am. And we know
who the great I am is. God told Moses to tell Pharaoh.
He wants to know who he's talking to. He says, tell them I am that
I am. The pre-existent, the eternal
Son of God. This is who's speaking. I am
come. The owner of this said garden
is speaking, the head of the church, as he's styled in other
places in scripture, the first begotten from the dead, the firstborn
of all creatures, is what Colossians 1 tells us. Our groom, our elder
brother, our kinsman redeemer. In the 16th verse of this chapter,
the church says in verse Sixteen his mouth speaking of Christ
is most sweet. Yeah, he is all together lovely
This is my beloved. This is my friend Oh daughters
of Jerusalem, so this is the one who's speaking I am so we
need to find out first of all the context who's speaking. It's
Christ Christ The great I am of his people notice also the
second phrase I am Come I am come If Christ does not reveal
himself to you, salvation cannot be had. There's many religions out there
and there's many false religions. Legalistic or unlegalistic, whatever
name you want to call them, you've got to do something to earn your
salvation. You've got to feel this way.
You've got to look this way. No, Christ says, I am come. I am come. If He doesn't come,
and He often does this through the preaching of the truth. which
we can see in Romans 10. You don't have to turn there.
How can they believe unless somebody doesn't send them? And the Ethiopian
eunuch, the wonderful passage. We just had a baptism the other
day, and I just preached through that, and then I did some specific
teaching on what the Bible says about baptism. But that Ethiopian
eunuch, he's in that chariot, and he's reading, and it says
the place where he read was this, Isaiah 53. I think verse 7 or
8 or something, come in his judgment, and this and that. And Philip,
the spirits told Philip to get close to the chariot, and he
heard where he was reading. And then he engaged with this
person, and he said, the eunuch, Philip said, do you understand
what you're reading? And he said, how can I accept
some man? Tell me. Now I'm not saying that
you have to be, you have to listen. to an ordained minister behind
the pulpit. And some people get that specific.
I think that's, we're limiting, we're starting to put God in
a box. He's not going to be put in a box. Take your theology,
what you think, and if it doesn't line up according to the scriptures,
just pitch it. I don't care how reformed it
is. It doesn't matter. How can I unless some man tell
me? And then Philip got up in the
chair with him and he says he began at the same text and preached
unto him Jesus Christ. He told him about, we used to
say the three R's, ruin, redemption, and regeneration. Ruined by the
fall. You cannot come. The bride comes. I'm sorry, the
group, Christ, I come into my garden. You cannot work your
way to heaven. You cannot You cannot twist God's
arm. He is God on the throne. He's
the Sovereign. He's the King. He's the Lord.
We pray for our children. We leave them in the hands of
God. We pray for our parents. We leave them in the hands of
God. We pray for our co-workers. And we speak to them. So he gets
up in that chariot and he begins at the same text. Preaches unto
Him Christ. Well, Christ said himself, you
search the scriptures, but they are they, everything here, are
they are they which testify of me. And I told you, I think I
told you this example one time. a young preacher, he's preaching
at a church, and an old faithful preacher was in the back and
he noticed him. And he preached it from the text and gave an
illustration, an example, and then when he got done with the
message, the old preacher was trying to get out before the
young preacher could get him because he knew he was going
to ask him. And he caught him by the arm and pulled him back
in and he said, what did you think of my message? And he's
just kind of insane. He said, I really want to know.
He said, I didn't think much of it. What? You didn't think
much of your message? Of course, we're too polite.
We don't want to offend anybody. I didn't think much of your message.
Did I give proper illustrations? He says, your illustrations were
perfect. Didn't I give the text to support?" He said, no, that
was fine. And he said this, it was fine. The euphemism's fine. He said, so what was the problem?
He said, you did not preach Christ. And the young man was a little
perturbed. He said, pardon me, Christ was not in the text. And
the old man said, son, Christ is in every text. Your responsibility
is to find Him and tell Him. We don't add anything, we're
just telling back. That's what preaching is. It's
telling back what's already here. And I say, it doesn't need to
be an ordained minister. Everyone here who understands
the gospel, you can tell them what you know. You can tell them
who you know. And if you can't do that, we got little cards
printed up. The name of the church, we preach
Christ, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. That's what
we put on there. It tells when we meet. It tells
the call in number. And again, because we're not
all. We blow it a lot of times. We
have an opportunity to, oh, here's his card. Come and see us. He'll use the out speaking of
the Word. If you know him, well, you know,
the Lord saved that woman, the woman at the well. Go back and
tell. No, you can't do that. You just got to be in ordain.
No, you go back and tell what great things God has done. So,
back to our text. I am come. We are dead in trespasses
and sins, as one old preacher said, we're graveyard dead in
these sins. And as David said in Psalms,
he was brought forth from his mother's womb speaking lies.
So how can eternal life be had to such as we are? I am come. And like I say, most often he
uses the preaching, the full sense of preaching. to save them
that believe. I am come. He, by sovereign mercy
and irresistible grace, comes to the sinner. He quickens and
replaces our stony hearts. We are awakened by the truth
of this gospel, which is specifically regarding the Son of God and
His work for undeserving and the unjust." Are we undeserving
and unjust? Well, politically in this country,
we're in an age of entitlement. It's probably been there a long
time. Entitlement this, entitlement that. God, He's not beholden
to any. He's not beholden to any. He
comes as the light, the way to God. He comes as no other name
given among men, says Acts, whereby we must be saved. He comes often
by force and power. In Matthew 11, you don't have
to turn there, it says, And from the days of John the Baptist
until now, the kingdom of God suffereth violence, and the violent
taketh it by force. Sometimes the gospel comes in
and just, like Paul, knocks you off your horse. And other times,
I need to hear that again. I'm going to come back here,
because I know the gospel is preached here. I'm going to come back,
and you may have a Berean attitude, I'm going to come back and listen,
and search the scripture, Lord, take our preconceived notions
and just shatter them. If it's not found in the Word,
it's rubbish. It just needs to be getting rid of. And I mean,
I'm talking about us grace preachers, grace people. We have a lot of
baggage, as I said this morning. We have a lot of things that,
it's just, we need to search the Scripture. And we
need to find Christ. And speak Him, and preach Him,
and love Him, and live Him. He comes by force sometimes.
The thing that tells me is none can interrupt our God or hinder
Him or hinder His will. Therefore, He captures the heart,
the soul, and brings and gives new life, new desires, new principles
were set in the Corinthians were new creatures, new attitudes. I was religious, Methodist, mainstream. And then I kind of got a little
Calvinistic, you know, it's like four points. Four point Calvinist,
like there's no such thing, but I thought I was. And then I realized that, you
know, there was no change. There was no life to live. There was
just, it was all head knowledge. And then one fine day, took it
and dropped it. Like when I send you that the
message of Henry's funeral. One thing Paul Mahan says, he
said, when Ralph Barnard came to Ashland, Ashland was never
the same. And when a sinner, when God comes
to a sinner, you're not the same. Now we still have the flesh,
we still wrestle with the flesh, but our desires, our attitudes
are different. They're different. We talk a
lot of hockey. St. Louis Blues, Stanley Cup.
But I told my brother, and I told Matt, and they just looked at
me. Now Matt understood what I was saying, but my brother,
he just looked at me. I said, I've been waiting for
this Stanley Cup since the Blues played in the Checker Dome, which
is a long time. And I said, they won it. It was
so beautiful. The people were friendly. And
the parade, 500,000. There was no turning over cars. It was just everybody. I was
like, am I in St. Louis? Am I in a big city? Because I don't like
big crowds. It was beautiful. We went back home. I told them,
I said, I could care less about sports. I'll root for the Cardinals. And if you guys would ever beat
the New England Patriots, I may root for the Kansas City Chiefs.
And I root for the blues, but I really don't care. It's all
veneer. I really don't care. I mean, as far as spending time,
spending money, I mean the money, I just, I could walk away from
it. My attitude's changed. I finally
realize what I've been wanting to realize. Well, it's a poor
example, but you know, you see what I'm saying. You think you
know who Christ is and then somebody tells you who Christ is? When
you think you're a sinner and you really are a sinner? When
you really realize you're handcuffed and you're in prison and jail
and He's got to set the captives free? When you really realize
that? Shit, you change. Because He's done all the work.
So, I come. I come. No one can interrupt
him. He walked by Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus
was up in a tree. Zacchaeus, come down. In Luke
19, what happened? Effectually, he came down. The
third thing. I come into my garden. Consider that we are
his, we're his garden, by election. He chose us, we did not choose
Him. If there was no election, people
get all upset about it. If God does not make selection,
heaven is shut up. There's nobody in heaven. If
God doesn't elect the people from before the foundation of
the world, we're not afraid of it. We love it. We are His garden
by election. We are His garden by predestination. Whom He knew, He called. Whom
He called, He justified. Whom He justified, He glorified.
It's all together. It's like a spider web. You can't
hit one thing without seeing the glory of God. It vibrates
back to Him. And through election, through
prestination, predestination, by supreme mercy and grace, mercy
we get something that we don't deserve, And grace, His unmerited
favor, were Him, by full redemption, He bought us back. That's the
word redemption. I go back to the store, you know,
coupon, you ladies get a coupon, you cut it up, you take it to
the store, they redeem it. They take it back. They had it
printed. It's theirs. We're redeemed. We were His from
before the foundation of the world. A number that no man can
number. He redeemed us. He came for a
specific purpose to call and quicken and save Matthew 121
sinners. And He accomplished that. He
knew us by name. We were sheep. And He called
us. And we wouldn't come. So, He's
like that one in 99. He's got to go, come, finds us, throws us over his
shoulders, and walks us back. And I don't know about you, I
don't understand sheep much, but I know myself, I'm glad to
be there, I'm singing, I'm happy. Like Donny Bell said, once I've
heard the good news, I've never really had bad news. And I'm
serious, when you think about that, we get cancer, we get sick,
We get all these things that this body is subject to, but
in it all and through it all, the believer is happy. Oh, how we love Jesus because
He first loved us. We know it. It's got to be that
way. And by and by complete satisfaction
he the father said to the son This is my beloved son and whom
I am well pleased Matthew chapter 3 so we're his by election by
predestination by supreme mercy and grace by full redemption
and complete satisfaction We are his And He cannot lose even
one of His sheep. It's impossible. Now if you have
a Savior who's got to wait on you, and got to wait for you
to say yes or no, or walk it out, or do this, it's not secure. But it's sure, which we saw this
morning in Bible class, because He's superior in every way, shape
and form, to the Old Covenant. He is the body of the New Covenant.
Nextly, reflect upon this. I am coming to my garden. Now, what a precious name. He
calls his dear people a garden, my garden. Now, in Bible gardens,
and I did research on this in Eastern gardens, the areas were
often enclosed by walls, shrubs, hedges, or roses. They were specific areas, now
this is so, I just, I just get like a school boy, I just get
giddy. These were specific areas set aside for detailed care,
protection, and special use. Can you say that about yourself?
I have been set aside and made meat, says the scriptures, for
the master's use, detailed care, Everything, all things work together
for good. And the way that's mean is every,
it's not just this random acts. It's like a cog, like an engineering,
like gears. Every single thing. So when somebody,
when Christine goes to work and she says something, she says
a gospel. You tell them, you leave it alone. You don't try
to coerce them, make a decision. That may, with this in Ecclesiastes,
you cast your bread upon the waters, it's going to come back.
So we don't know what we say or the kind of act that we have
towards somebody, what that may do to them and for them. But
these Bible gardens were specific areas set aside for detailed
care, protection, special use. They could be vegetable, orchard,
flower, aromatic, spice, or exotic. Also, they often contained a
fountain source, or they were near a stream, to divert the
water for proper maintenance and for life. If you want to
look these up, I just have a few, Psalms 92, 13, Ecclesiastes 2,
5, Psalms of Solomon 2, Psalms of Solomon 8, 13, and Amos 9,
14. These are examples of viable gardens. And the Lord, Garden
of Gethsemane, it's a place set aside. Now, what does a garden
imply? Now, we love the garden. We've
got a butterfly garden, a small vegetable garden, we've got a
few things. But what is a garden? When you think of a garden, if
you like to get your hands dirty, what does a garden imply? Biblical
gardens, but our gardens. It's a place of separation. You till it. If you got a lot
of rabbits, you put chicken wire, you know, you get, it's a place
of separation. Are we as believers not, are
we to be, are we not to be a separate folk? Come out from among them. Come out from among them. Be
separate. But remember, if somebody's going
to hear the truth, you're going to tell them. So I'm not saying
we do monastery. We don't do that. That's anti-Scripture. But a place, a garden is a place
of separation. We're just passing through this
world. Hold on to the things of this
world with a loose hand. We cannot serve God and mammon
as well. Matthew 6. It's a place of separation. It's a place of beauty. We are
exotics. Now, we're kind of more into
native plants, but there's exotic plants like begonias and petunias
and stuff like that. And when you go to the store,
Wal-Mart, Kmart, or Wohl's, you buy these things and you're putting
them in this garden. This would be a flower garden,
but you're doing it specifically. You bought the flowers, you own
the flowers, God and Christ, us. And He's planted us, we're
called the trees of planting, the trees of the righteousness
planting of the Lord, as Isaiah says. So, you plant these exotics. We're planted by Christ to honor
Him, to adore Him, to serve Him. Let us obey and render unto Him
our all in all. And I love this because it's
exotics. native plants. You drive down
the road you see that light purple flowers called chicory or Indian
coffee, made coffee, used to make it years, eat a lot of coffee,
the roots. I'm sorry, carrots. You pull them up and they smell
like carrots, wild carrots. But I don't think I'm going to
dig up any of those, that chicory that grows on the side southwest
and a little bit southeast. I'm not going to dig them up
and put them in my garden. No, I want something that blooms
all year round. And what does he call us? I think
it's in Romans, we're grafted contrary to nature. I used to
work at a garden center, and we used to have hybrid tea roses,
floribundas, and climbing roses, and those were all hybrid. They
were all exotic. They were all grafted. And that's
what we are. We're grafted into the grace
of God, contrary to nature. But boy, Fragrant and lovely
to smell. Another thing a garden implies
is growth. Growth. By his grace and by his
doing and dying, we bud flower and fruit. If not, he severs
and is fit for the fire. He casts it in the fire. We've
had some trees that we've nurtured, nurtured, nurtured, and they
die. I don't just leave them sit there. I cut them out and
throw them away. Fourthly, a garden is a place of retirement or meditation. Our daughter recently got us
a Membership to the botanical garden.
So we've been driving up there and they got separate guards.
They got Japanese garden they got the Chinese garden they've
got the Rose garden they got all these exotics and it's just
you just go there just close your eyes and especially the
roses and just It's a place of meditation We should be thinking
upon Him, our Lord, and He says, He asked the disciples, asked
them how to pray, He said, give us this day our daily bread.
Not weekly, not monthly, daily. The believer needs to grow and
be maintained and sustained daily. We think we're too, oh, I don't
want to bother the Lord with this little problem. No. He wants
us to come. We're His garden. He's coming
to us and continues to come. And He wants us to keep coming
to Him. It doesn't make any difference how little or big we think it
is. It's a place of retirement and
meditation. muse upon his many names, his attributes. I recommend Arthur Pink's book,
The Attributes of God. It's a small book. It's got like
10 or 12 or more attributes and it's just loaded with scripture.
It's just boom, boom. The sovereignty of God is a little
bit more intense. I like The Attributes of God
better. It's a small book. Just look at it and your mind
just starts thinking and musing upon his names. He's the Bauman
Gilead. He's the Rose of Sharon. He's
all these different names, and you could just go indulge yourself,
immerse yourself in who He is, in His name. The lamentation says, His mercies
are new every morning. And may we be thankful and be
at peace. You go to this place, your garden,
you go to a special spot and meditate, it may bring back really
good memories. And you're at peace. And you're
at comfort. And there's those times when the Lord gives you
such faith that nothing said can shake you or cause you to
be distressed. That's because you're His garden.
And He's going to make sure He waters you and nurtures you and
takes care of you. Lastly, a garden is a place of
aromatic or fragrance. It's talked about in the scriptures
where there's spice, different spices. He is styled in the Scriptures,
is He not the lily of the valley? And should we not also radiate
and perfume such similar traits and characteristics as our Lord? We ought to be like our Lord.
He's the lily of the valley. Fragrant. Aromatic. So you wake
up in the morning, get, you know, they say the wrong side of the
bed. I'm not a morning person. I am, but, you know, they say
that. grouchy, mean. Who would want
to talk to you? And then you go to work and you
always complain about the weather or this or that or something.
We're not honoring Christ. We're to be aromatic. We've got some lemon, the herb
in our butterfly garden. And it's just kind of there,
it's green. But if you step on it, which I happened to do one
time, or crinkle it up, oh. And often times our Lord will
press us, press us out of our comfort area. Trials and tribulations. David said, I wouldn't have went
astray if I hadn't been afflicted. These afflictions, they're a
burden, they're problems. We want ease, but if you're His,
Life will not be easy. This world is not our friend.
It never has, it never will be our friend. But, I, great I am,
am coming to my garden, my sister, my spouse. We, said one old preacher, were
just like the moon. The moon has no light in and
of itself, but it only reflects The sun's glory for all to see. You can't look at the sun without
issues. But you can look at the moon.
We were looking at it the other day. My mom says, oh, that's
an Ozark moon. I thought, what? Because we're in the Ozarks?
And she explained to me. But it was just pretty. It's just pretty. But it reflects. It doesn't have any light. It
reflects the light given it by the sun, in this case, our case,
the S-O-N. He's called the Son of Righteousness,
which that's spelled S-U in the Bible. He's the Son of Righteousness.
So, may we reflect His beauty, His glory, not so people can
praise us, but we can turn their eyes like somebody loved us and
was concerned enough for our soul to tell us about the Redeemer.
Let us speak to Him. Speak about Him. Because in the
end, if you're under law, do this and do that, you're not
going to tell anybody. But if the love of Christ constrains
you, you'll do it. Look at these spouses. Why are you all still together?
Why are you staying together? Oh, when somebody says, show
me your love for your wife, you go get that marriage certificate?
I got it, here, right here. No. No. No. The love of Christ constrains
us to live for Him, to love Him, and to worship Him. May this
be said of all of us here today. Oh, to be more like Christ, our
precious Redeemer.