Alright, if you take your Bibles
and turn back with me to Song of Solomon, chapter 8. Song of
Solomon, chapter 8. We'll be looking at verse 12 as our
main text this morning. The title of the message is,
The Vineyard of Christ and His Church. the vineyard of Christ
and of His Church. The Scripture says, My vineyard,
which is Mine, is before Me. Thou, O Solomon, must have a
thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof, two hundred. When we read the Song of Solomon,
We must always read this song with an eye to Jesus Christ and
His church, His elect, His bride. In this book, throughout this
book, you'll read of two people conversing with one another.
One is the bridegroom, the other is the bride. One is Solomon
and one is the Shulamite bride. And Jesus, we know, is our beloved
Solomon. As we read of the description
of the bride in Song of Solomon 5, she says, He is white and
ruddy. Well, this speaks to us of our
Savior, His humanity and His deity. And He is the chiefest
among ten thousand. He is altogether lovely. Is that not a description of
your Lord and Savior who believe in Christ? Yes, it is. He is
our Bridegroom. He is our Solomon. And everything
about the Lord Jesus is precious to His Church. He is our God. He is our Mediator. He is our
Substitute, our King. He is our Deliverer, our Captain
of our Salvation, our Brother and our Friend. Every one of
these attributes, every one of these characteristics of our
Savior is appealing to us. He is our beloved husband, our
beloved. And to Jesus, His church is the
Shulamite bride. In chapter 1, she says, I am
black but comely. This speaks to us of our dual
nature, that in every believer we have the new nature of Christ,
that He has given us by the Spirit, and yet we still have the old,
black, Sin-tarnished nature, born with the stains of our sin,
but because of His faith and obedience, because of His righteousness
and sacrifice, we have the complete forgiveness of sins and righteousness
of God, so that we may say in His eyes, we are comely, beautiful,
beautiful before Him. Therefore, believer, behold our
Savior and what He says to us in Song of Solomon 4, 7. He said,
Thou art fair. Thou art fair. My love, there
is no spot in thee. I love to hear that. I love to hear that. Now, that
don't come much from me or anyone else, but when it comes from
the lips of the Holy Savior, it means something. This is how
He sees us, who are His bride. When you hear of marriage and,
you know, the bride, why do you suppose that the bride takes
her husband's name? That's not popular today, is
it? No. They always want to keep their
name. And most of the time, I don't blame them with probably the
husband that they're getting, but maybe they should have chose
better. They don't want to blame themselves,
they're going to blame their husband while they're keeping their name.
But this is why we do it, because it's a picture of Christ and
His church. The bride takes the name of the
husband. And guess what? You, believer,
have taken the name of your Savior, your husband. And what is His
name? The Lord, our righteousness. That's His name. And guess what
your name is? In that day in Jeremiah chapter
33 it says, In that day she shall be called the Lord our righteousness. That's His church. His church
shall be called by His name. He's our husband and we are His
bride. This book is a blessed book only
if you keep that in mind. If you read this book for any
other reason, you won't find anything in it but confusion. You'll be confused. if you see
it any other way. Now, this book is a responsive
poem. That's what type of literature
it is, a responsive poem. In other words, it's just the
husband and his bride talking. They're talking and conversing
with one another. But what makes this book difficult
is that we can't sometimes tell who's talking. If you've read
through this book, you get confused as to who's speaking. And such
is the case in our text. If you were to read this chapter
in its entirety, you'll find out that when you get to this
text, you can't tell whether it's the bride talking or it's
the bridegroom. And I've read commentaries that
are split down the middle on this. They're both good. They're both
good. I've read both sides of this,
and both are good, and that's what I'm going to do this morning,
is I want to present both of them. Because I think both will
profit us. We can profit from both seeing
this as the bridegroom speaking, Christ, and we can profit from
this as the bride, as you are speaking from your soul to your
Savior. So first of all, let's look at
this as Christ speaking to His church. He says this, Picture
this. This is the Lord Jesus speaking.
He says, My vineyard, which is Mine, is before Me. Now, we know this, that all things
belong to Jesus Christ by right of creation. All things. All things. We know this, that
even the wicked that the Lord makes them for His own glory
and allows them to do or stops them from doing whatever it is
that gives Himself glory. He does all things for His own
glory. God says this, if I were hungry,
I wouldn't tell you. Why? I own it all. It's all mine. Why would I have to tell you
anything? God says it's all mine. He said, for the world is mine
and the fullness thereof. All things belong to the Lord.
All things physically belong to Him, and all things in providence
belong to Him. I know this gets in the way of
our flesh, but this is true. All things in divine providence
do not belong unto us, they belong unto God. Those things which
are secret belong unto the Lord. Do you know what's going to happen
next? Then that doesn't belong to you. That belongs to Him. All things in divine providence
belong to Him and His changeless decree. Changeless. What about our lives is changeless? Nothing. Everything changes. But in God's sovereign decree
and person, nothing changes. Nothing. Let's see this in Isaiah chapter
45. Flip over a few pages, Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45 and verse 5. See this, that all things in
providence belong unto God. Isaiah 45 and verse 5 says, I
am the Lord, and there is none else. There is no God beside
me. I girded thee, though thou hast
not known me. that they may know from the rising
of the sun, and from the west, and there is none beside me,
I am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light and create
darkness. I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things." Everything belongs to the Lord.
All creation, All events in providence and time and eternity are His.
But here, in our text, the Lord gives us a view of His special
possession, His bride. And He says, My vineyard, which
is Mine. My vineyard, this is the church,
and Jesus said the church is mine. My special possession. This vineyard is a special possession
of the Lord God. And what is in a vineyard? What do you find there? Vines. Vines. You find vines there. You know, there are other trees
that may be fruitless and useful. Isn't that true? Pine trees. In Texas, we've got full of pine
trees. Now, they're the most useless thing to me I've ever
had in my yard. Because all they do is throw
pine needles in my yard. Pine cones, they're useless to
me. But they can be made for firewood
or they can be made for lumber. So they have useful purposes
other than Just throwing pine needles. But a vine is a very
special type of plant because a fruitless vine is a useless
thing. A fruitless vine is a useless
thing. If the vine is not fruitful,
it's useless. And it's good for nothing but
to be burned. Rooted up and burned. The church is often in scripture
compared to a vine for a very special reason. Because of our
union with Christ. Because of our union with Christ.
Jesus said, I am the vine and you are the branches. If you
take a vine and plant it, and it grows, it expands, and it's
all one vine, but yet there are many branches. The church stems
from one vine, from Jesus Christ, and we are in union with Him.
And as long as the church is in union with Christ, we are
be fruitful. The church that is in union with
Christ is a fruitful vine. Now hear the voice of His bridegroom,
that we are His vineyard. We are His vines. And notice
that the Lord says this in our text twice. He says, My vineyard,
which is Mine. Mine. The church belongs to Jesus Christ. The church belongs to Jesus Christ. And as such, the Lord Jesus Christ owning
His church, the church is the object of His affection, the
church is the object of His care, and the church is His responsibility. The church is His responsibility.
Believer, we belong to Christ even as a wife belongs to her
husband. A wife belongs to her husband. If this sounds sharp in your
ears, then you've not seen Christ arrive. Because it's a joyful
thing to belong to Christ. We who belong to Him, gladly
belong to Him. We gladly belong to Him. He says
in Hosea, He said, Thou shalt no longer call Me Balali, Master,
but Thou shalt call Me Isha, Beloved Husband. Beloved Husband. We are His wife and He is our
husband. We belong to Him. And just as
a husband is to have affection for his wife, love for his wife,
care for his wife, and to be responsible for his wife, how
much more so Jesus Christ, our husband. In Isaiah chapter 43 and verse
1, it says, But now thus saith the
Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not, For I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy
name, thou art mine. Thou art mine. Jesus says, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love. The love of Jesus Christ is an
eternal love. It's a full love that never fails. If you were to try to stand on
your love for Him, you will fall every time. But if the ground of our salvation
rests upon His love and affection toward us, then we have something
to stand on that's firm. May the Holy Spirit show us and
reveal the preciousness of this, that you are His. You who believe, you are His. You belong to Him. And He has
loved you. He said, I created you. You who
were Jacob, supplanter, trickster, sinner, I have named thee Israel,
Prince. He has given us His name. And
He has redeemed us. He paid for our sins by His free
and sovereign grace. He paid for our debt that we
owed to God. And He called us to Himself by
an effectual call, by a loving call. He wooed us unto Himself. He manifests His great love for
us in that He died for our sins, He rose again for our justification,
and now sits at the throne of grace ever living to make intercession
for us. He shows and manifests His love
to us every day. How? Do you believe still? Do
you trust still in Christ? Is that not a manifestation of
His love and care for you? Yes. Why? You belong to Him and
He loves you. He cares for you. Second of all he's not on the
object of his love, but we are the object of his care The vineyard
of Jesus Christ. He says my vineyard Which is
mine is before me We are the objects of the Lord's
care Christ has always cared for his vineyard All that Christ does, all that
the Lord Jesus Christ has done from eternity has been for your
benefit, for your good. Everything that happens to you
in providence is done by the divine hand of the Vinedresser,
Jesus Christ, who cares for you. He is constantly present with
us. He walks among His golden candlesticks. Does He not? Scripture reveals
that to us. He walks among His garden, and even now, we are before Him. We are present with Him. You
remember when the Lord Jesus Christ left His disciples to
go and pray, and He told them to go across the sea. And they
came into a storm. And the Scripture says that He
saw them toiling and rowing. He saw them from the mountain.
He saw them. His eye was on them. He knows
what they have need of. And He comes to them. Many times we feel that the Lord
has left us. We feel that we have been lost
in the shuffle as though somehow He has forgotten about our troubles,
about our cares, about our concerns. No, that is a lie. Don't believe it. You who believe
on Christ, you belong to Him and He cares for you. He cares for you. He says, Fear
not, mine eyes engaged always to do thee good. In Isaiah chapter 41 and verse
10. It says, Fear thou not, for I
am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee. I will help thee. Yea, I will
uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Behold,
all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be as nothing, and
they that strive with thee shall perish." Do you not suppose our brother John
found that to be true? All those cares and concerns,
have they not vanished? Are they not as nothing? So it
shall be with you who believe. The same shall be true of you.
These things will appear as nothing. Can you recite all your troubles
that you've ever experienced in your life? Can you remember them all? What are they to you now? Are
they not as nothing? How many times have we fretted
and worried and been concerned about so little things, and to
us it was huge, it was large, it was very big, and then when
it's passed, we look back and say, what did we worry so much
for? Why so much concern? Were we not before the eyes of
our Lord? Did He not deliver us once again
from our troubles? Yes. Again and again and again
and again. He is faithful to care because
you belong to Him. You belong to Him. In Jeremiah 23, He says that
His purpose for you is to do you good. Now, do you believe
that? Do you believe that what he's
doing to you is good? Hard to see, isn't it? He never
asked you to see it. He told you to believe it. Whatever it is, is good. And
it couldn't be any better. It couldn't be any better. Why? He cares for you. He cares for
you. Believer, our beloved vine dresser
is always with tender eyes beholding us. He planted us. He waters
us. He prunes us. And He destroys
the weeds that would choke the Word from us. He pulls up the
stones out of the ground so that we may root deep into His Word
and love and affection. He's plowed up our cold dead
hearts and given us a heart of flesh so that we may love and
tenderly serve Him. Peter says, cast all your cares, all your cares. How many do you keep for yourself?
How many cares are you supposed to keep for yourself? Cast all
your cares. all your cares upon Him. Do we think so little of His
strength that we wouldn't cast our cares upon Him as though
it would break His back? Oh, no. He careth for you. He careth
for you. Cast all your cares on Him. And
Christ is not only affectionate toward His possession, not only
caring about His affection of His possession, but He's also
responsible for His vineyard. This is comforting to His vineyard. Let me ask you, will there be
one tender plant in His vineyard that would perish? You who have been planted by
faith in Jesus Christ, do you suppose He would root you up
and cast you out? No. Will there be one of His plants
that will be fruitless or barren? I didn't say feel fruitless or
barren, because I know we do. We feel fruitless. We feel barren. But I know this, that he that
abides in the vine shall produce fruit unto righteousness, unto
God. He shall produce the fruits of
the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance,
faith, all of these are fruits of the Spirit. I'm so glad they're
not fruits of us, but they are fruits of the Spirit, that He
produces them in us. Not one of His shall perish or
be fruitless, because Jesus is all their salvation. There will
be not one soul for whom Christ died that will be lost. Not one.
Not one. Not one. Because He is responsible
for His vineyard. The Scriptures are very clear.
Jesus shall save His people from their sins. In Isaiah it says,
He shall not fail nor be discouraged. To believe in universal atonement
is to blaspheme the offering of Jesus Christ. To believe that
Jesus is not responsible for His vineyard. To believe that
Jesus Christ's blood was shed in vain for one person is to
blaspheme the holy, offering of Jesus Christ. Beloved of Christ,
we are His vineyard. He loves and cares for us, and
He Himself has become our surety. Guaranteed. I'm guaranteed heaven. Because of my works? Because
of the good things that I'm doing? Absolutely not. I'm guaranteed
because Christ has guaranteed it. He is my surety. He has become responsible for
my guilt, for my sin, and He has bore it away on the cross. He cares for us. And He will
not fail to bring us to Himself as the choicest of His fruits.
Notice how valuable you are to Him. Go back to your text and
look at this. See how valuable you are to Christ. Look at verse 11. Solomon had
a vineyard. Well, we know who Solomon is. And he led it out to the vineyard
to keepers, every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a
thousand pieces of silver." Imagine that. One piece of fruit, a thousand
pieces of silver. I know you think groceries are
expensive, but... No, no, this is much more than
just regular fruit from a normal physical vine. This is the fruit
of the Spirit. This is the fruit of His people.
He says it's worth a thousand pieces of silver. Believer in
Christ, Jesus is absolutely acquainted with all our concerns. There's a sweet thought here
for all who love Christ. You are His church. And you are
preserved by Him. You are kept by Him. We are the objects of His love
and under His present care. He is our surety and He will
provide for the cause of His church. He will provide for the
needs of His church and the success of His church is sure because
we are His and He is ours. Jesus said, You, My vineyard. You are My vineyard. You were
ever before My eyes. That's what your husband says
about you. That's what Jesus Christ says
to you who believe. Next, I want to see this from
the church speaking, briefly. Let's see this as the bride speaking
to her Lord. You who believe. These are your
words. These are your words to Him. My vineyard, which is mine, is
before me. As surely as we belong to Him,
He belongs to us. He is our vineyard. And as we learn of His love,
And His grace for us, even so, does it not move us to love Him
more? When we learn of His care for
us, does it not cause us to grow in the grace and knowledge of
His love and care? Do you not want to know more
of His care for you? And as we learn of His surety,
we are also moved to persevere. That precious doctrine The preservation and the perseverance
of the saints are one and the same. Those who are preserved
persevere, and those who persevere are preserved. We know that this church belongs
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet we are taught in His Word
that He has entrusted His vineyard to the care of chosen men. In Matthew chapter 20, Matthew chapter 20, verse 1,
Jesus says this, For the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man
that is a householder, which went out early in the morning
to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the
laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And we know this from Ephesians
chapter 4 and verse 11, that God has given His church apostles
and prophets, pastor-teachers, evangelists, for the edification
of the church. This church of Jesus Christ has
been led out to God's chosen preachers, to
preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. to bring forth fruit unto God. Jesus says in John chapter 15
verse 16 that He chose His disciples for this express purpose, that
they should bring forth fruit. And what is this fruit worth?
It's worth a thousand pieces of silver. God's preachers are
called with the same mission, to preach the gospel. God's men
have different abilities, different gifts, different seeming levels
of success. Some men have great congregations
and some have smaller ones. But that's no matter, because
it all produces the same amount of fruit unto God. And the faithful discharge of
our work We are blessed by Jesus Christ. He has called us to His
ministry, and out of the preaching of His gospel, He brings a thousand
pieces of silver and makes us able and willing ministers of
the gospel. This vineyard of Jesus Christ
has been given to pastors and teachers, led out to them so
that they might bring forth fruit unto Him. And this is not only
language for preachers, but this is language for you who are believers
in Christ. You may say, my vineyard, which
is mine, is before me. And this speaks concerning your
love, your care and your responsibility. The responsibility of the church
to their Lord. You who are believers, do you
not know of your responsibility to love and serve Him? Well,
that's like asking a person who is breathing, do you know your
responsibility to breathe in and to breathe out? We love Him and we serve Him. And you know what He demands
of His servants? Listen. Faithfulness. It is required of a steward that
he be found, what? Faithful. Faithful. Believers, we are the light of
the world. You are the salt of this earth. We are the keepers charged with
the preservation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Believers, let us be faithful
keepers of our own heart and life. Proverbs tells us, keep
your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues
of life. Believer, you're responsible
to keep your own heart and life. We're to keep our hearts fixed
on Him. Set your affections on things
above, not on things beneath. That's our responsibility to
do that. The Lord told us to do that. Let us be diligent to
do that. Jesus taught Peter. You remember
when he told him that John was going to suffer and die? And Peter said, what about John?
And Jesus said, don't you worry about John. Follow thou me. We are responsible to follow
Christ and serve the Lord faithfully. Serve Him where you are. Don't serve Him where you want
to be. Don't wait to be somewhere else. Serve Him where you are. Be faithful
to Him where you are. Be faithful in what God has given
you to do. Now, all of us can do something.
Not all of us are called to preach, but all of us can do something. Right now, Carol's keeping the
nursery. Well, that's not for me, and
that's not for you. She does it for Him. At least
she should. Dust, you can paint, you can
take out the trash, you can mow the grass. There's a lot of things
you can do in service unto God, to be faithful to Him, to honor
Him. You can do all kinds of things. Can't
you visit the sick? Yeah, you can do that. Don't think little of these things.
Don't think little of these things. would rather be faithful in whatever
Christ gives you to do. Whatever it is. Seize upon every
opportunity to do good to His people and express the love of
Christ to His saints. Comfort and care for the fallen.
Cheer and encourage the weak. Embrace the weeping. Can you not do these things? Are these things beyond your
grasp? No. Then do them with all your heart
as unto the Lord, for your vineyard is before you. Look. Look at
all this work we got to do in the vineyard. Go to it. Go to
it. It doesn't have anything to do
with our salvation, but yet, because of our salvation, we
should be engaged in this faithfully. We must not look to another man's
work, but be faithful in the places that God has placed us.
This is my vineyard. This is my vineyard to preach
the gospel to you. And I should be faithful in this
vineyard. I should be faithful and set
before me. Here it is. Go to work. And so whatever the
Lord has given you to do in the vineyard He has given you, go
to it. This is my vineyard and I must
care for it. I must feed you. I must love
you. And always you are set before my eyes. And lastly, Let us give
all the glory to God. Look at this. This is my vineyard,
which is mine. It said before me, Thou, O Solomon,
must have a thousand. How much does a fruit produce?
A thousand. How much does God get? A thousand. All the work that I do, And all the success that it produces
is truly because an ode to His power and glory. Everything. All our labors in the vineyard,
Christ is to have the glory. But notice this, and those that
keep the fruit thereof, two hundred. Is that not gracious of Him? I tell you that any one of you
who serve the Lord, you will be definitely honored. The glory belongs unto God, yet
we know this, that God honors them that honor Him. You honor
God in all that you do, I guarantee you, God will honor you. It's what He says. It's what
He says. May God help us to be faithful
in the vineyard that He has given us. May we be faithful as a church,
a body of believers, that we would be faithful to serve Christ
where you are. Do you realize when you got up
and came that that was a testimony in and of itself? It's a testimony to everyone
around you, Be faithful in what God has given
you. And I know He'll honor it. If
it's for His glory, if you do it for His glory, He'll honor
it. He'll bless it. I pray that God would bless this
Word to your hearts. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.