All right, go back to Solomon. As said before, and as you know
by now, this is a love song. This is called the Song of Songs,
meaning the greatest love song ever written. Solomon wrote a
thousand and five songs, and this is called his best. The
Lord said so. And I thought of all the love
songs that have ever been written, some I liked. But really, if
someone doesn't know God, who is love, doesn't know the Lord
Jesus Christ, if He is not their beloved, they don't know anything
about love. This is the song of songs. You
don't hear people singing this today, do you? You want to sing
about love, this is the song. Our Lord is really the author. This is the song of our Lord
about His bride and He's singing to her and she's singing to Him.
He sings of her. We're going to see tonight just
how much he thinks of her and later. He speaks to her, she
speaks to him. That's the nature of love. If
his voice is heard by her, she will respond. If there's no communion
between two people, there's no love. There's no love. If there's no love, there's no
communion. That's what it means to love, is to communicate. Communion. And you'll find the little word
union in the midst of that. Communicate when you're united. Communicate. And where true love
is, their voices are heard and adored by each other. Verse 8
is where we left off. She says about Christ, the voice
of my Beloved, The voice of My Beloved, she says this, you see
that? With an exclamation mark. Like someone you love who you
haven't heard from for a while. The voice of My Beloved, she
says, with great excitement, enthusiasm, great joy and rejoicing. That's love, isn't it? That's
love to hear your loved one's voice and rejoice upon hearing
it." This is what John said. He said, he that hath the bride
is the bridegroom. And the friend of the bridegroom
which standeth and heareth him rejoiceth greatly because of
the bridegroom's voice. John said, this is my joy. This
my joy therefore is fulfilled to hear his voice, to hear his
word, to hear his gospel. Those who love Christ love to
hear his word, love to hear his gospel. Love to hear His voice. Never tire of it. In fact, if
you love Him, really, His voice, His word, His gospel will grow
sweeter with time. It won't grow faint. It will
grow sweeter with time. That's the nature of true love.
But His voice and His presence is often fleeting and it's mysterious. You want to hear from Him. all
the time, don't you? Do you? No, you don't. You want to feel His presence
often, don't you? Do you? No, you don't. It's fleeting. It's mysterious,
like the wind who bloweth where it listeth. The Lord does as
He pleases. He comes and He goes as He pleases. She said in verse 8, it's my
beloved's voice, Behold, He cometh leaping upon the mountains and
skipping upon the hills like a roe or like a heart, like a
deer. It's mentioned often in this psalm. He comes leaping.
Behold, He cometh. And that's the heart's desire
of all who love Him. Come quickly, Lord. Come like
a deer or a roe. Come quickly. David one time
in the Psalms said, Make haste to help me, O Lord of my salvage. Hurry. I need you now. You reckon he would come to someone
who is really badly in need of his presence? He always does. That's the desire of those who
really love Him and look for Him. Come to us. Come, Holy Spirit,
we sing. This is why we sing that song.
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, with all Thy quickening powers. He's going to say to her, rise
up. Come with all Thy quickening powers and kindle a flame of
sacred love in these cold hearts of ours. Come in Your Word. Come speak to my heart. Come
in Your presence, because His presence is salvation. His presence is salvation. And
our Lord has come to those that ask for Him, those that need
Him the most. He will come to those that look
for Him, like Simeon in the temple. Old Simeon said, I'm not leaving
this place until I see the Lord. And he came. Like the disciples
in the upper room in Galilee, our Lord said, go before me,
go into Galilee, and I'll be there. He didn't tell them when.
But He came, didn't He? They were all waiting. He came.
So as He came, He comes leaping and skipping. That's quickly,
silently. Have you ever seen a deer in
the woods? Amazing, isn't it, how they leap
and skip through those woods and do it fairly silently enough
and certainly quickly enough, leaping like a roe, like a heart.
And those hills and mountains he speaks of are surely Mount
Zion and the hill of Zion and the hill called Golgotha. Come,
speak to me from these mountains, from these hills. poem. This is a song. This is a beautiful
song. We can't fully understand this. This man, Solomon, was the wisest
ever to live. And he wrote it in a language
we don't use and with a prose and a beauty that we rarely use,
plus beside the fact that it's a spiritual song. I'm doing the best I can and
so are you in trying to hear this. But it's too beautiful
for words really, too beautiful to understand. Leaping and skipping like a doe,
like a roe, like a heart. Leaping for joy. The Lord Jesus
Christ, does He come leaping for joy and skipping to see His
people? Do you? If you greatly delight
in someone, you will leap for joy when you see them, especially
if you haven't heard from them or seen them in a long time.
I tell you this all the time because it's so sweet to me.
These granddaughters of ours, and even my daughter, they just
literally skip and leap when they see us. This last few days
we had Sophie and we went and picked her up. And on the way
there, we knew pretty much when we would be there. And when we
were just about a couple of minutes, we told her, start counting.
We called her, start counting to fifty. And we'll be there. And so she was on the phone.
And so we pull up and their house is in a place where they can
see the car coming from about a block or two away. And she's
standing at the door. She's standing at that glass
door. Forty-nine. Fifty. And there she is. She
just starts leaping. Leaping. And running out the
door to meet us. And Hannah comes running. And
Isabella comes running. And you know what? I do too. I can't get out of that car fast
enough. The Lord Jesus Christ loves His
people far more than they love Him. Can you believe that He
delights so much to see His people? that He comes leaping and skipping
with joy to see them. Does that make you ashamed? It
ought to. As a roe or a heart, verse 9,
these deer, roe, hearts, they are hidden, aren't they? They're
camouflaged. My beloved is like a roe or a
young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall. He looketh forth at the windows. He shows himself through
the lattice. This is a verse that speaks of
our Lord being hidden in the types and the pictures and the
shadows of Scripture. We have a checkered view, if
you will. We don't have a clear view of
Him, a little ray of light, like a lattice. We see through a glass dimly. We know in part. We preach in
part. Oh, someday we'll see Him as He is. But until then, we
have a sketchy view at times. And as a row where a heart is
hidden and then revealed, hidden and revealed. That was amazingly. You know, the Lord doesn't give
us signs per se. The Word of God is a sign to
us. It's the only sign we need. Yet,
all the world is a sermon. And in the two or three days
or more that I spent preparing this message, one day I was standing
at the kitchen window and just doing dishes and looked out the
window and something moved. You know, the woods are brown
right now. It was a deer. It was a doe.
A deer. A female deer. Ray. But there she was, okay? And
then, she's gone. Hidden. I thought I saw her,
but there she is. There she is. David said, Thou
art a God that hideth thyself. Is it any wonder? And she's going
to talk about this all through this song. Chapter 5 is what
made me want to deal with the song of Solomon because he came
to her and she didn't get out of bed to see him. And he left
and she thought, he's gone forever. And we'll get to that, Lord willing.
That's what made me want to deal. But she's going to deal with
this all the way through here as we do. The next chapter, she
sought him, couldn't find him. Isn't it a wonder? that He hides
His presence from us since we're so easily distracted, since we
so quickly forget Him, since we spend so little time thinking
about Him. Isn't it a wonder? You know,
love wants the undivided attention of the one you love most. Have
you ever talked to someone you love and they're not paying much
attention to you? Not a good feeling. What do you
do? I know what I do, I clam up. I leave. Is it any wonder that our Lord
hides Himself at times, huh? But this is the sense of what
He's saying. Now, the Lord is always with
His people. Always. He said, I'll never leave
you. But He hides His face. He is
a God that hides Himself. In chapter 3, verse 1, I just
told you, but it says, By night I sought Him whom my soul loved.
Loveless I sought Him, but I found Him not. He hid Himself. The Lord is always with His people,
but He hides Himself so that we might seek Him with all our
heart. His love is not to be taken for
granted. His presence is not to be taken
for granted. He is found by those who seek
Him with all their heart. Would you court someone or give
yourself completely to someone that gave you half their heart?
No. And our Lord deserves it all,
doesn't He? The voice of my beloved, she said. Well, what does he
say to her? Here's what he says to her in
verse 10. My beloved spake, and he said
to me. Oh, that the Lord will speak.
May everyone in here say, Lord, speak to me. He's going to speak
to somebody. He speaks to someone. He always
does. where two or three are gathered."
This is not rhetoric. This is true. Our Lord said,
My words are true. Where two or three are gathered,
I am there and I will speak to them. If someone is seeking Me,
they will find Me. Our Lord spoke to her and will
speak to His people. He said, My sheep hear My And
if you have, I hope you don't have trouble
with me because I'm the messenger. Nevertheless, the Lord speaks
through men who preach His Word. And He said to me, my love, my
fair one, and come away." That's a beautiful love verse, isn't
it? Rise up, my love, and come away. Come away. Go to 2 Corinthians
6 with me. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Our
Lord not only said when He stood on that great day of the feast,
the last day, He said, All you that labor and are heavy laden.
If any man thirsts, he says, follow me. But as I said in my
text to many of you, I said a text to many of you. Some of you responded.
I appreciate it. But as I said in that text, this
message is an intimate and urgent call to close communion with
our Lord. I cannot think of a verse that's
meant more to me and done more for me in years than James chapter
4 verse 8 that says, draw nigh unto God and He'll draw nigh
unto you. And apparently it's been a great
blessing to many because many have said so. It meant a great
deal to me. I heard what he said, and by
His grace, endeavored to do just that. Well, a few Wednesdays
ago, we looked at 2 Chronicles 15-2, where he said, If the Lord
is with you while you are with Him. Remember that? And if you
seek Him, He will be found of you. But if you forsake Him, That did much for me too. The
messages on Daniel, when I heard about Daniel getting on his knees
and being with a heavy burden, those chapters, those messages
meant more to me than anything I've heard in years. And done
more for me personally, spiritually. Come away. This is what He's saying, my
love, come away. Our Lord said to His disciples
often, come ye apart, come ye yourselves apart into a desert
place and rest awhile. With who? With Him. With Him. But you just don't know what
it will do for your soul. But you don't like a little retreat
you take with your wife. Go off on a little retreat just
the two of you and rekindle that romance and that love and just
enjoy one another and just Rekindle and nurture that that you've
taken for granted. It will do wonders for you. How
much more do we need to do this? Come apart. Come away, our Lord
says to them. 2 Corinthians 6, and our problem
is this world and the things and the people of it take us
away from our Lord. That's just a fact. That's just
a fact. And this is why Paul wrote so
many passages on this subject. Look at verse 14. Be not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers. They don't know the Lord. And
your relationship with Him won't be furthered along, it will be
hindered. by being with them. What fellowship
hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with
darkness? What concord hath Christ with
Belial? That is, what do you possibly
have in common? What part hath he that believeth
with an infidel, an unbeliever? What agreement hath the temple
of God with idols? You're the temple of the living
God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them. I'll be their God. They shall
be my people. Wherefore, come out. from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a father unto you,
and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."
And he prayed in his great priestly prayer, Lord, they are not of
the world as I am not of the world. Keep them. Keep them from
it. If you don't keep them from it,
they'll be overcome by it, and they will perish in it. Keep
them from. Come away. Come out of the world
into His fellowship. That's what we do when we come
here. We come out of the world and
we come apart into a desert place, a solemn place and into His fellowship. The song, the old song, Jesus,
I come, says this, out of earth's sorrows and into thy balm, out
of life's storms and into thy calm, out of distress and into
jubilant song, Lord Jesus, I come today. Come apart. Look at verse
11 in our text. It says, Lo, the winter is past. The rain is over. It's gone. The weather is pale. Oh, the
seasons of our souls. Our spirituality is seasonal,
isn't it? Or at least our times of joy. David in Psalm 51 spoke of that. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation. Renew a right spirit and so forth.
Oh, the winter time of our soul is a terrible time. There are
changes we go through. Scripture says those that have
no changes don't fear God, don't know the Lord. But there are
changes we go through, aren't there? Seasons of the soul, like
winter. Often we go through these seasons, hot, cold, dry, wet,
dry, moist, dry, up, down, in, out, often because of trials
and troubles, tribulations, but most often it's our own faults,
because of sin, because of covetousness, idolatry, worldliness, As I said,
chapter 5 is what this is about. And she goes through a tough
time there in chapter 5, trying to find the presence of her beloved
again. But she does. But it's a miserable
time. But we go through these cold
times. It's better to be cold. You know
what? It's better to be cold than lukewarm. Isn't that what the Lord said
to the Laodicean church? I would that you were hot or
cold. You know, cold is a sign of life.
If you're ever really cold, feel the cold. That means you want
to be warmed, doesn't it? And if you ever feel apart from His presence. That's
good. It's a sign of life. Wintertime
is... I don't much like the winter.
I don't know about you. When it snows, it's pretty and
sometimes it's enjoyable to get out and walk in it, especially
if the sun shines. The sun is shining. It's always
good. But the wintertime generally
for me is a cold and bleak time. I'm just waiting for the spring. and don't get much comfort. The older you get, that's just
the way it is. David, I love that story of David
who got no heat. When he was an old man dying,
he could find no heat and they found a young... I've been meaning
to preach from that for years. But wintertime is a cold and
bleak time and so are the seasons of our soul. Rain. Rain. I love rain. I'm thankful for rain. But rainy
days to me are most times dreary. It's generally a cloudy day,
isn't it? And it's overcast. And when it's overcast, I'm generally
downcast. That's just the way I am. And
perhaps you are too. This is why the gospel is so
vital. This is why what we're doing
here is absolutely vital, vitality, life-giving, quickening power. Give life to a seemingly dead
soul. Give warmth to a cold heart. Sunshine to an overcast one whose
clouds obscure him. This is why the gospel is so
vital. We need to hear his voice. And
there's only one who can cheer us up in times like that. Only
one. Only one. We'll probably sing William Cooper's
song before this is all over. Oh, how tedious and tasteless
the hour. We'll sing that with chapter
5. When the Lord Jesus no longer I see. Oh, he says in that song,
he says, Oh, drive these dark clouds from my mind. And turn winter into spring.
Well, he says in verse 10, rise up, my love, my fair one, and
come away. Lo, the winter is past. The rain
is gone. It's over. It's gone. Winter's past. The rain's over.
It's gone. Your sins are gone. His frown
is gone too. Oh, if you can see his smile.
You can just see his smile. I just read Psalm 27 before coming
up here. It was a little bit dreary for
some reason. I don't know why, but I just
read that. It says, I had fainted unless I had believed to see
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. If you'll
just wait. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage. He shall
strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. So he says to us, come away. And your winters will be past. And the rain will be over and
gone. And the flowers, there will be a springtime. The flowers
appear on the earth. Bonnie and I were just talking
about this. She was talking about how she rejoiced in the springtime.
It's perhaps my favorite season. I know it is. My favorite time
of the year. Read on, verse 12, the flowers
appear on the earth, the time of the singing of the birds has
come, the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land, the
fig tree put forth her green figs, vines with tender grapes. Let the tender grape give a good
smell. Can you just smell it? Don't
you love to smell the spring air and see the new life coming
up? Arise, my love, my fair one.
Come away. Enjoy this. You know, the Lord
is good, the Lord is merciful, the Lord is gracious, the Lord
is ready to pardon. We ought to wake up believing
that and get up out of our dole drums. Springtime is a wonderful time
and so is when the Lord first gives life to a new believer. The Church's Kingsport is going
through it right now, what we went through years ago in the
beginning. Someone knew all the time. It's
just wonderful. The preacher is just full of
enthusiasm. And the people are too. They're
hearing the Gospel through new ears and through new eyes. It's like babies being born.
Springtime. Life through a barren soul is
wonderful. It's wonderful. And you know,
it's equally wonderful when the Lord quickens you when you go
through a dark time. It's equally wonderful. The gospel
appears brand new to you. When you hear words like mercy
and grace like you heard them for the first time. Oh my Lord, come, come quickly,
like a deer or a roe, revive us again. Let us hear your voice
as it were the first time. Springtime is a time when everything
is full of life and the gospel is just that. And all of these
things, this is Christ in all this. This is His Word, all of
His flowers. It's called the lily, isn't it?
The fairest of ten thousand. The singing of the birds has
come. Our Lord's voice is said in the song that
birds hush their singing, but yet, can't you hear them singing
to your Lord when you wake up in the morning? The voice of
the turtle doves in our land. Turtle dove, cooing. Is there
anything more beautiful than a cooing turtle dove? You know
what they're cooing? Who they're cooing to, don't
you? Their mates. You see, these doves, we call
them mourning doves, and there's a reason for that, because if
they lose their mate, they'll never be joined to another. You'll
never see one without the other. The other one is close by anyway. But if you see one without the
other, something's happened to their mate. It's kind of a sad and mournful
tune. The mourning death, turtledove. Another sign, I was sitting in
my study down here and I loved that window looking out of that
little courtyard. Kevin fills up the bird feeder
and it's full of all kinds of birds. Well, I was preparing
this message and looked up and lo! On the back of that bench
was a turtledove and her mate. Him and her mate. It was the
most beautiful thing. They were standing right beside
each other and they were just preening each other. Have you
ever seen it? Each other's feathers, you know,
they were just caressing one another. And then they literally,
mouth to mouth, beak to beak, they were kissing. Yes, they
were. They did this for the longest time. I sat there and I said,
thank you, Lord. Do that to me. That's what this
song is about. My love, my dove, come away. And then they joined. And they joined, those two doves. What a sweet thing that is. And
as I said to the pure, as our Lord said, to the pure, all things
are pure. Lord, come into my heart. Come into my heart. Plant your
seed in my heart. Verse 14, He says to her, O my
dove, thou art in the clefts of the rock. Yep, that's where He put us in
it. Like He said to Moses, The same that said to Moses, there's
a place by me in the cleft of the rock, that's where I'm going
to put you, like Elijah. And in the secret place of the
stairs, I thought about this, you know, Psalm 91, he that dwelleth
in the secret place of the Most High and the stairs, I believe
this means By degrees, we read these Psalms. If you'll read
the Psalms, I believe it's Psalm 140, I didn't write it down,
140 through 148. Let me find it real quick. Psalm 140, where is it? I didn't rush you. I wrote it
down. But there's several. Here it is. Psalm 120 through
120. Psalm 120-134 says psalms of
degrees. You know what that means? If you read them, they escalate.
They start perhaps low and they get high. And that's where the Lord finds
us low, and He brings us high by degrees. And love is by degrees
too. He finds us low and brings us
high, and that's what we look for. That's what we wait for.
That's what we want also. Also. This also means that she,
like a dove, is timid and meek and easily frightened, and you'll
find her hiding. That's the reason we sung that
song, Hiding in Thee. Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm
hiding in Thee. But he says, come out. He doesn't
need to hide when I'm around. Nothing to fear. No one to fear. Come out. And out from under
the stairs, I thought of old John Warburton. Oh, I love that
book, Mercies of a Covenant God. He had a place that he prayed. And the Lord tells us to do this.
He says, you find your closet. You find your secluded place.
You find a place where you won't be disturbed. Literally. And
you go there. And you commune with Me. That's
what He said. Commune with your Father and
He'll come to you. But old John Warburton, it was under his stair.
He had 14 children. And a little house. And you know,
where are you going to get away? from 14 children. We found this
little cubbyhole under the stairs. And that's where he would go
and pour out his heart to God. And if you don't think the Lord
visited that fellow, read that book. Come out from under the
stairs. You're hiding. Come out. Let
me see thy countenance, verse 14. Let me see thy countenance.
Let me hear thy voice. Sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance
is coming. This is him speaking to her. Are you with me? He says, I love
the sight of you and I love your voice. Now, we say that, don't
we? Could the Lord Jesus cry, can
God say of His people, I love the sound of your voice? That's
what He said. Do you? Do you love the voice
of your Beloved? Do you love the voice of your
spouse, your parents, whoever you love, your brother, your
sister, do you love to hear their voice? Let me see you, the Lord says. Let me see you. Come. The Lord delights when His people show
up to see Him. That's amazing, isn't it? What
is man that thou art mindful of him? And yet he delights. His delights, the Scripture says,
were with the sons of men, rejoicing in the habitable parts of the
earth. And he runs to be with his people. And they show up.
And it's good to see you. Can you believe that? That's
what he says. That's what he says. But, folks,
if that doesn't cheer your heart and smite your
heart, nothing will. He says, let me hear your voice.
Sing to me. Sing to me. Sing to me. I don't have a very beautiful
voice. That's not Him at all. That has nothing to do with Him. Do you think any human being
has a good voice to the Lord? No. Do angels sing too? Do perfect beings sing in perfect
pitch? In perfect timing? In perfect
key? An angelic choir? You think it? It's not it at all. It's a joyful
sound from the heart. Sincerity. I love thy kingdom,
Lord, the house of thine abode, the church our blessed Redeemer
saved with His own precious blood. music to his ears. I'm no singer, really. I do the
best I can. He says it's beautiful. Beautiful. That's why he says,
sing to me. Sing to me. Sing to me. That's
what he says all through the psalm. Sing unto the Lord. Sing. David hired people to sing, and
He told everyone to sing, and they loved singing, and they
all sang. And that's the type of our Lord Jesus Christ and
His church. And I love that verse where it says, after they had
the table together, they sang a hymn together. The Lord led
the singing. I also love that, Jeanette and
I love that verse in Zechariah, don't you? It says, He will rejoice
over thee with singing. When we get to heaven, everybody's
going to be singing the song unto Him that loved us. And you
know what? He's going to be singing it with us. He's going to be
singing it with us. Let me hear your voice, he said.
Let our voices then. What does that mean? Let our
voices be more thanksgiving than complaining. Let our voices be more praise
than murmuring. Huh? Do you want to be around
someone who is always complaining and bitter and discontent and
critical and cynical and sad and distressed? Do you want to
be around someone who is always downcast all the time? Do you?
Neither does our Lord. Or as a spouse, you know, I'm
guilty, I'm the worst. Do our spouses hear more words
of love to them or discontent? More praise to them and thanks
to them or fault finding and demands? We don't have any reason to murmur
or complain. Not one. Not one. When I get down, and I do often,
I'm sorry, I'm not a very good example of this, but I know it's
true. But when I do, and Mindy's cheerful
most of the time, and she says to me, it's going to be good.
She says it's going to be great. She reminds me. And David, and
I love that psalm because it says so often, "...prieth thou
downcast within me, O my soul. Hope thou in God." How yet, praise
the Lord for His goodness, His countenance. He'll be there to
help you and it will be all good. It's going to be good. It's going
to be good. Look at verse 15. So he says to her, he's still
talking to her, and she answers in verse 16. But he says to her,
take us the foxes, the little foxes, the spoil of vines. Our vines have tender grapes.
What our Lord is saying here, and you know, we had foxes on
our farm. We had a problem with foxes,
and I had to do it. I hated to do it, but I had to
get rid of some of them. They're a beautiful animal, and they've
got to eat too, but I just didn't want them eating my chickens.
And at any rate, foxes, I know something about foxes. I'll tell
you this, they're the slyest, most subtle, tricky, conniving,
scheming. You can't see them. They hide
in the dark here and there. At night time, have you ever
seen a fox at night time in a light? It's eerie isn't it, Rick? Their
eyes are like red laser beams. It's the eeriest thing you've
ever seen. One of the, you know, the slyest, the subtlest. Our Lord called Herod a fox,
didn't He? Well, Satan is the great fox
and his demons. And we are easy prey to him. And we are full of these little
foxes. that spoil the vine. Oh, how
subtle and sly and sinful are our thoughts and our words and
our attitudes and our moods that can spoil it all. That's what we're doing right now. I
knew a preacher years ago that ended every single message with
the words of our Lord. It said, pray that the word,
the seed doesn't fall on stony ground where the fowl come down
and pick it away, or among thorns that choke it out. It prayed
that after every single message. Lord, don't let little worldly
thoughts and cares and worries and, you know, all of our wickedness,
all of our sinfulness and all of our worldliness. Don't let
those little foxes come. These grapes are so thin. This
word is so thin. Don't let anything or anyone,
don't let me steal it away from somebody. It's a precious time. Precious time. Oh my, take the
fox. So he says to her, he says to
her, get rid of these little, take no anxious thought, take
no care. This is the one thing needful. Get rid of these things,
these little subtle, subtle things. Be rid of them. Get rid of them.
Things that ruin our worship and fellowship and our friendship,
care, the tongue that James has been talking about, the world.
Get rid of it. Verse 16. Now she ends this, and I think
the Lord left her for a little bit. She says, My beloved is
mine, and I am his. He feedeth among the living.
My beloved is mine. Can you say that? I hope you
can. I hope you can now. I hope, if not, you will someday. My beloved is mine, and I am
his." What a message. What a thought. He feedeth among
the lilies. We're going to see over in chapter
4 how that she herself is like a lily to him. That's where he
feeds, where his people feed. He feeds on her. Can you believe
that? That's right. We'll see that
in chapter 4. He feeds on her as we feed on
Him, one another. And until the daybreak, 17, verse
17, she's gone back into a little darkness. And she says, until
the daybreak, this is a prayer, a closing prayer, and the shadows
flee away, turn, my beloved, Be thou like a row or a young
heart upon the mountains of Bethlehem. Until the day breaks, the day
dawn, the day star rise in your heart and the shadows flee away. Be like a row, come quickly.
Dear Lord, let me read this in closing to you, this song that
we sing so often. It says, Abide with me. Fast falls the evening tide.
The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide. When other
helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide
with me. I need thy presence with every
passing hour. What but your grace can foil
the little foxes? The tempter's power, who like
thyself my guide and stay can be through cloud and sunshine.
Oh, abide with me. Hold thy word before my closing
eyes. Shine through the gloom. Point
me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks. Earth's vain shadows flee. In
life, in death, O Lord, abide with me." Stand with me. Our Lord, thank You for this
song. Enable us to enter into it. May it be music to our ears and
may our singing and our prayers be music to Thine. We thank You. Your blessed Word. Lord, we don't deserve it, but
we sure do need it. And we ask that you would continue,
as the song says, hold it before us. Speak, Lord. Oh, may we be
excited at the voice of our Beloved. May we truly say, be able to
say from the heart, and my beloved, and he is mine. Make it so for
someone you've not yet revealed yourself to. Forgive us, Lord. Forgive us for our unfaithfulness.
Forgive us for our faint and cold love. So thank you for yours
toward us. It's in Christ's name we pray.
Amen.