Thank you Jeanette and John. Song of Solomon is our text,
chapter 1, but first go to Ephesians 5. Ephesians chapter 5. The apostle Paul tells us a secret. a mystery revealed about this
song of Solomon we're going to look at. Verse 25 to the end
of chapter 5 Ephesians says, Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it that
he might sanctify, set it apart, cleanse it with the washing of
water, by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that it, the
church, his people, should be holy and without blame. So ought
men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his
wife loveth himself. No man ever yet hated his own
flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. But we are members of his body,
one with him, of his flesh and of his bone. For this cause shall
a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his
wife, and the two, they too, shall be one flesh. This is a
great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless,
let every one of you, in particular, so love his wife, even as himself. And the wife, see that she reverence,
respect her husband. Now go back to the Song of Solomon.
So this is what this book is about. This whole book, Song
of Solomon, is about marriage. It's about the marriage of Christ
and His people. Christ and His church. Marriage
is the union of a man and a woman, united in love, in deep affection,
with desire toward the one they love, and devotion. That's true
marriage, real marriage. And this is a beautiful picture
of Christ and His church, the way He loves her and the way
she loves Him. It's a love song between Christ
and His people. And only those who know Him and
love Him can really enter into them. This is for believers. And with that being said, I don't
want to discourage anyone. I want to only encourage to faith
and love for the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to read one other
Scripture, 1 Corinthians 16. Go over there quickly, 1 Corinthians
16, because this is such a A serious and vital verse goes with this. 1 Corinthians 16 verse 22 says
this. Paul concludes this whole long
epistle with these words. 1 Corinthians 16 verse 22, If
any man love a woman, person, love not the Lord Jesus Christ. Let him be anathema maranatha. That's how serious it is. Let
him be accursed when the Lord comes. So, I hope that we can
ascertain whether or not we truly love the Lord and He loves us. Okay? If we can find that out,
it would give us great peace. You know, a little child, and
love is by degrees. And a little child loves its
parent, doesn't it? But how much? I mean, there's just this affection
there and then they grow and it goes by degrees, doesn't it?
And they really don't know that parent and really appreciate
and really deep down love that parent. with the deepest affection
until they're older. That's just the way it is. Now
the parent loves that child before it's born. When that child is
in the womb. That's a good picture of Christ's
love for His people. He said, I foreknew you. Before
I formed you in the belly, I knew you. Loved you with an intimate
love of a parent for a child, not yet born, and of a husband
for a wife. But as we grow, hopefully, well,
it will. This love will grow. This is
a song of love and desire. You know that a lot of old time
preachers and people wouldn't even read this book.
They wouldn't even read it because it's very graphic. You go through
there. graphic about the love between a man and a woman, it
actually will teach us how to love one another, husbands and
wives, especially the husband who the greater responsibility
lies on his shoulder as it did our Lord, as it does our Lord.
But this is a love song between Christ and His people. It's a
song of love, a song of desire, a song of intimate communion,
like true marriage. True marriage is a union. I hope
this study will cause husbands and wives to love one another
more. And, you know, this love must be nourished. It must be
nurtured. It must be worked at. God's love doesn't have to be.
Christ doesn't. Ours doesn't. He did say this
in one of the epistles, provoke one another to love. And hopefully
we can enter into this and hopefully it will arouse our love and feelings
for the Lord Jesus Christ and each other. And each other. Verse
1 says, The song of songs, which is Solomon. is the writer, but
the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who told him what to write.
He's the one that inspired him. No Scriptures have any private
writing or interpretation, but the holy men spake as they were
moved by the Spirit of God. And the Lord Jesus Christ told
him to write them. And Solomon, the Scripture says,
was a man of more wisdom than any man who ever lived before
him or after him except. the greater than Solomon, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it was said of Solomon, when
the Lord gave him wisdom, he also gave him largeness of heart,
more than the sands of the sea, meaning he loved. And if there's any reason why
he had that many wives, it's for this reason, as a type and
a picture of Christ, how he could love so many as one. And none of them feel slighted.
And all just pleased. No jealousy. No envy. All just
to be glad to be the King's bride. That's the only reason I can
come up with why the Lord allowed Solomon to do that. But so it
is that with wisdom, true wisdom, comes love. A wise man. Full of wisdom will also be full
of love. You can't have one without the
other. And you'll even love your enemy. Christ is love, isn't it? Wisdom. Christ is wisdom. He's also love. God is wisdom. God is love. So, this is a song of songs,
it says. Solomon wrote a thousand and
five songs. He wrote 3,000 proverbs. But this is called the Song of
Songs. The Lord said, this is the best
one of them all. He wrote 1,005 and this is the
best. Do you like music? Do you like
songs? You know, a song is the most
powerful thing. A song stirs the deepest emotions,
can evoke long past memories, can it? Songs stay with you,
they're deep and lasting, they bring up memories of those you
love and events that happened through your life, don't they?
Songs, music are a powerful thing. The Lord invented music. And
he told David to write songs. Moses to write a song. They're
still singing it. They're singing it right now.
And Solomon to write a thousand and five songs. And he told us
throughout the Psalms, he said, Sing. Sing. It's good for you. It's medicine.
It's medicine. You know how you can remember
Scripture? Can you remember Psalm 121? Anybody? You've heard Gabe sing it fifteen
times. I sang it years ago. You can remember that. I will
lift up mine eyes, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. Every one of the songs. were
sung by David. That's how you remember. And
the Lord tells us, sing unto yourselves in songs and hymns
and spiritual songs, making music in your heart, melody in your
hearts unto the Lord. Sing! It's a good thing to sing. It will cheer you up. This is
the song of songs. This is the song. This is the
best one of all. Okay? This is the song of the
beloved Christ for His beloved bride and vice versa. All the
way through here, you're going to have a hard time knowing who's
talking about who. Because they have equal affection. And he tells of her beauty and
she tells of his. Verse 2 says, this is the bride,
this is the believer saying, let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth. Now, before I go any further,
Apologize for God's Word. It's beautiful language. The
song leads to that. A love song especially. An intimate
song. I'm not going to apologize at
all. I'm going to say it like the Lord said it. Unto the pure,
all things are pure. Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth. A kiss is the most intimate and
sincere display of human affection that we know of. That's the display. And no other creature on earth
does this but man. It's an outward display of inward
love. It's a tender and affectionate
thing. It's a wonderful thing. She says,
the believer says, let Him, let Christ kiss me with the kisses
of His mouth. What does that say? Christ is
in heaven. We can't feel His physical presence. He can't literally kiss us, but
He does through His Word. How does He show His affection
to us? How does He make known His love
to His people? It comes from His mouth. It's
His Word. And when He speaks these words,
David said this in Psalm 71, was it, John? Let Him say unto
my soul, I am thy salvation. Every believer longs for the
Lord to say to him or her personally, tell me you love me. Don't you? Because if the Lord loves you,
He'll love you forever. And if He loves you, it's all
good. This is a good sign. If you love
Him, you need for Him to love you. You want Him to love you.
And you want Him to tell you He loves you, don't you? You
need to be told by your spouse that they love you. Sure you
do. They need to hear it. You need
to hear it, don't you? You ever get tired of hearing
it? Oh, no. Let him kiss me. Let him tell
me that he loves me through his Word. He said in verse 2, it's
better than wine. His love is better than wine.
Wine, Scripture says, makes glad the heart. The love of Christ
will make glad the heart. If we can be sure of His love
for us, it will gladden our hearts, come what may, no matter what
happens. We know that He did it out of
love. Whom the Father loves, He does
what? Chastening. It's always good. You remember the story of Brother
Walter Gruber's adopted daughter, Chela, in Mexico? Maybe someone
hadn't heard it. It's a beautiful story. A little
Mexican girl they adopted when she was about three or four years
old. Took her out of abject poverty and brought her to live in their
house with them. Brother Walter and Betty had five children of
their own. And as good parents do, they
would chasten those children. They would not spare the rod.
They would spank those children. And little Chayla was so grateful
and so happy to be a part of that family that she was just
a model child. She never did anything wrong.
Betty would say, she never made a wrong move, said a wrong word.
She just was so grateful to be there. But one day, Chayla pitched
a fit, just totally out of character for her, just went off. And so Walter warned her, Chayla,
what's wrong with you? And he reprimanded her first,
you know, with his word. That's what the Lord does. And
she did it again and he said, I'm going to have to spank you. So he took her back in the back
and he wore her out. And while he was doing that,
she had a big old smile on her face and tears running down those
dark cheeks. And after he said, Jalen, what
are you smiling about? She said, now I know you love
me like your other children. Like a real child. If you can
find out that He loves you, just chase Him. It's good. He doesn't
chase them. David said about the people of
the world, they're not in trouble like God's people. They don't
have troubles like we do. Their waters of a full cup are
wrung out on God's people. Why? He's taking us out of this
place. Taking away our love for it.
And putting our love on Him. And showing us that He loves
us. Because He doesn't do that to anybody else. He gives them
the world. Gives them everything they want. But not us. Not good
for you. Well, I'm only on verse 2. My take 10 message. I did one
time. It was back in 2002, I think,
the last time we looked at it. His love is better than wine.
You know, wine has a soothing quality about it. It has a sedative
effect. It will soothe your worries and
your fears. And His love will do the same.
Verse 3, the savor of thy good ointments. Thy name is that ointment. Therefore, do the virgins love
thee. His good ointments, that's his personality. That's his character. We're going to see in Solomon
that his cheeks, the bride describes him, his cheeks as a bed of spices. My grandfather, I used to wear
Old Spice cologne. I've told you that. And one year
I told you that, and several of you bought me a gallon of
Old Spice for Christmas. I still have it. I'll never use
all of it. Anyway, my grandfather used to
wear that Old Spice, and to this day when I smell it, I think
of him, Granddaddy. My mother's dad. Don't you, Mom?
And he was a sweet man. His character was sweeter than
Old Spice to me. I have such fond memories of
Granddaddy. Well, anyway, our Lord, His character
to God's people is like savory good ointments, His holiness. If you love His holiness, that's
a good sign, people. That's a good sign that He's
put something in you. There was a time when you didn't
want anything to do with holiness, right? Righteousness? Oh, that's our Lord. Isn't that
what you love about Him? His purity, His loveliness, His
mercy, His grace, His gentleness? There was a time some of us didn't
care about being a gentle man. I'm going to be a tough guy,
you know. Oh, no, no. Not anymore. I want
to be just like Jesus Christ. Don't you? Don't you love that
about Him? It's like ointment. His name is like ointment in
it. The Lord. He is Lord. He's not a figurehead.
He is Lord. That means He really does reign
and rule. He's not a figurehead. A figurehead
is on these old wooden ships. You know, he'd have this figure,
this head out there on the bow of the ship. And it was an old
tradition and superstition that some god or some woman would
protect them and keep them safe out to sea. There's no power
in that. That's an idol. Our Lord is no
figurehead. He is the pilot of this ship. You see, He's our Lord. He's
our Savior. Savior. If you've ever been lost,
that name means a lot, doesn't it? Savior. Savior more than
life to me. Christ. He's the Christ. Shepherd. If you're a sheep, He loves the
name of Shepherd. Redeemer. If you're worthless,
not worth a plug nickel, and the Lord lays down His life for
you, oh, what a Redeemer. the intercessor, the substitute,
the advocate, if you're guilty and on death row, boy, you've
got a good lawyer. Husband, if you're a forlorn
woman, if you've played the harlot, old Hosea means a lot to you. Our Lord. Brother, friend, oh
my, the virgins do love thee. Verse 3. The virgins do love
thee. Brother Paul, I'm no virgin,
no spiritual virgin. I'm a sinner, the worst kind. Well, He's able to present us. He's going to present us all
as chaste virgins. And we're virgins in this sense,
that the Lord puts His love in us for the Lord Jesus Christ
in such a way that from then on, when the Lord does this work,
from then on we want to save ourselves for Him. We want to
be married to Him. We want to be devoted to Him.
We want to be made pure. Do you not want to be made pure?
Chased for your beloved? Wait to be joined with Him? And
boy, if you fall in love with Him, you have fallen in love
with a good man. A good man. Verse 4, the believer
says, Draw me and we will run after
them. Draw me. This is personal. Every believer
has a personal desire toward the Lord and it's mutual. Draw
me and we will run. No man is an island and no believer
is alone. We're in a flock. We're sheep
in a flock. And what we desire for ourselves,
we desire for one another. I want us to run together. Draw
us, Lord, and we'll be drawn. Turn us and we'll be turned.
Turn us. Draw us. What I desire, you desire. We desire for each other. Draw
me. You know, the Lord has to draw
us. He has to draw us, woo us. He has to make us fall in love
with Him. We're enemies by nature. by our wicked minds and evil
work. That's what Colossians and Ephesians tells us. Romans,
he has to draw us. Our Lord said, no man cometh
unto the Father but by me. He said, no man can come unto
God but me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. And he draws us with cords of
love. He draws us. Those whom He loves,
He lassoes, as it were. He ropes and ties and draws them. At first, they don't want to
come. But buddy, when the Lord does a work, draw me. Don't turn loose of that rope.
Don't let go of that line. Don't give me my head. Don't
let me run with the bit. You all know what I'm talking
about. Don't let go of me. Keep a tight rein on me. Don't
let the reins fall on my neck. Lay hold of me. Draw me. Draw
me away from the world. Draw me to thyself. Draw me. And we'll run after you, old
Boaz. I'm going to have to preach on that sooner. Been trying. Boaz, when he told the Reapers
to get Ruth, tell her to come up and sit at the table with
the rest of his maidens, his workers and laborers, Ruth came
up and sat there and Boaz came by. She didn't know him. He knew all about her. And he
came by and he said to her, he said, oh shoot, I don't want
to misquote it and find it real quick. He said to her, he was
wooing her, he was flirting with her. He's drawing her. He's causing
her to fall in love with Him. And this is what He said to her.
He said, Boaz sat under her. He came up to the table where
she was sitting. And that's where you'll find,
that's where the Lord will cause you to fall in love with Him.
Right here, sitting at His table with the rest of His maidens. And it says, at mealtime He came
up and He said, Come thou hither and eat the bread. Come over
here and eat this bread. And dip thy morsel in the vinegar
as she sat beside the reaper. And he reached her parched corn.
He reached a special portion. I bet he brushed up against her
and said, here, this is the best bread. Eat that. Bonnie, she's smitten. Right there and there. And when
the Lord, through the preaching of the gospel, draws you, you're
His from that day forward. And then from that day forward,
you keep saying, draw me, draw me, draw me. And He has, verse
4 says, He hath brought me into His chambers. His chambers, His
private dwelling place. All through this book, He's going
to talk about the king's bed. And this is that secret place
of the Most High that few people know about. All of His people
know about it. It's a private place, a secret dwelling place,
the innermost place where the hidden thing... You husbands
and wives, you talk about things with each other you don't discuss
among other people, do you? Sure you do. And you do it in
your bedroom. That's exactly what this is talking
about. That the Lord has hid these things from the wise and
prudent, but all that He loves, His bride, His wife, His children,
His people, He brings them into His chambers, as it were, His
secret chamber, and tells them things that He doesn't tell other
people. He reveals His love to them like He doesn't anybody
else. These signs, you know, that say
that Jesus loves you. I'm over here on Woodlawn. I've
got it right now on both sides. Jesus loves you. Nowhere in the
Bible does it say that. I despise that. And I'll tell
you why. Because number one, it doesn't
say that. Number two, it cheapens the love of God. Number three,
it's just not so. Number four, it makes the love
of God of no value to anybody. If God loves everybody and somebody
goes to hell that he loves, what good is the love of God? Would you like it if somebody
got a letter that you wrote to your spouse, a private letter,
and you said you loved her, and somebody started displaying it
everywhere? He loves us. He loves us. You're lying on me, and you're
lying to yourself, and you're lying to other people. No. But
Jesus Christ does love His people. And how you know is, well, many
ways. Many ways. You love to hear His
voice. You love to hear His gospel.
You love to hear His truth. You love to hear about Him. You
love to be with Him. You love to be with His people.
You love His salvation. You love His character. You love
His sovereignty. You love everything about Him.
You love His righteousness. You hate your own. You hate yourself.
You love Him. You love His gospel. You hate
the false gospel. You love His honor. You hate
anything that dishonors. So on and so forth. Draw me. The virgins do love
thee. It says, The king hath brought us into his chambers,
and we will be glad and rejoice in thee. We will remember thy
love more than wine. The upright love thee. If you
have a margin, it says the upright love thee. They love thee uprightly. They love him not for what they
can get out of him. Not, but would you marry a woman
who just wanted your money? They didn't marry us for that,
did they Dan? That's for sure. Would you marry a woman that
all she wanted was what she could get out of you? What you could
do for her? No sir. That's not upright love. That's
not pure love. That's not true love. You marry
the person. You marry, you love that person
whether you get anything out of them or not. In fact, most
of us got married when we were dirt poor. Dirt, not dirt. We weren't dirt poor, Sherry,
but poorer than now. And we loved each other. That's
why we got married. That's pure love. That's upright
love. That's true love. It's love.
It's not lust. It's a longing for the person,
not things, not heaven. David said, here it is. Here's the upright. David said,
Whom have I in heaven but thee? In other words, he said, and
David loved people. He loved his sons. He loved his
daughters. He loved his brides, his wives. He loved his friends. He loved
Jonathan more than the love of women. He was a dear friend of
Jonathan. Oh, he wanted to see Jonathan,
surely, but he said, there's none in heaven that I have that
I'm looking forward to seeing more than they, and none on earth
beside them. The upright love thee. Verse
5, I am black. Now this is the believer talking
about him or herself. And you know the thing that amazes
a believer more than anything? When they find out something
about Christ's love for sinners, something about what Christ did
for sinners. When they find that out, every
believer who loves Christ and His gospel, His salvation, they
wonder and they marvel at this more than anything else. Why
me? Mary Magdalene will never get
over it. Why me? The thief on the cross. Why me? Why not that other thief?
And every believer says, I'm black. And he goes on to describe his
beloved as white. He's white. I'm black. Meaning, I'm the chief of sinners. But comely. Well, I don't understand. How can you be both? Well, it's
a mystery, isn't it? A believer is an enigma. A believer
is a paradox. A believer is the chief of sinners,
yet he's without sin. A believer has an old man in
him who is a devil, and a believer has a new man who is unblameable,
unreprovable in God's sight, just like Christ. A believer
is accepted in the Beloved. The Lord told the child in the
field of Ezekiel 16 that He rescued who was lying in her pollution
when He found her in the time of his love. And He said unto
her, live. And He washed her and clothed
her and covered her nakedness and put gold and silver and all
that on her and bracelets. And He told her He loved her
and He said, You were made beautiful through My comeliness, robed in His righteousness. A
new creature created in Christ. And this is what the tents of
Kedar and the curtains of Solomon are. The tents of Kedar were
old, rough-hewn skins that were black from smoke. That's me. But the curtains of Solomon?
Glorious. Glorious. You don't see that
in yourself, do you? You see it in others. Well, that's
the believer. Look not on me, she says. I'm
black. Don't look at me. Isn't that
what we say? Don't look at me. Look to Him.
The Son has looked upon me. My mother's children were angry
with me." This is the enemies of God's people, of his own household. They made me the keeper of the
vineyard, a servant. We serve, but we don't serve ourselves. My own vineyard have I not kept. We deny ourselves to be a servant
unto others. Verse 7, "'Tell me,' and she
says to Her Beloved, tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where
thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon? Would
you tell me? She says, I want to feed with
your flock. I want to feed with your flock. I'll never forget,
as a very young believer working on the railroad, Oh, they'll
live a long day. And the Lord was dealing with
me. And I was reading and seeking Him
and reading His Word. I carry a Bible around in my
pocket. And you know, just feeling rotten and feeling like no way
He could love me. No way I could be one of His
own. No way. And I pulled out my Bible as
I was walking a train one time. And I turn to this verse and
it says, Fear not, little flock. It is your Father's good pleasure
to give you the Kingdom. It gives Him great pleasure.
Little flock, little weak black sheep, fear not. You just don't know how that
cheered my heart and still does. I read it the other day with
you, Sunday, and it's like a song. It came back to me. Oh, my. Tell me where your flock is.
I want to be amongst them, where they're feeding your flock and
feed thy kids. I don't want to be one left out,
she says. I don't want to be one turned
aside. I want to be with the flock, don't you? If you've ever
been like David, a cast out, in exile for some reason. You
remember in Psalm 84, David said, Oh, I wish I was just a bird
in the rafters. He said, I envy a bird. She's
found a place to nest, to raise her young, the house of the Lord.
I'd like to be there. He couldn't. He was in his exile.
He was being chased. Oh, he wanted to be there worshipping
anything. Is that you? When you're away from the house
of the Lord? This is where the Lord is. These
are signs that God loves you and Christ loves you and you
love Him. You love His Word. You love His people. You love
His Gospel. You're not tired of it yet. This is the thing about true
love. It grows. That's what I was trying to say
at the outset. It grows. I love Mindy now more than I
loved her when we were married. When we were first married, I
was infatuated with her, you know. Infatuated. And I loved her, but such bad
love. But the longer we are together,
the more I love her. And that's the way it is with
God's people and Christ. You never get tired of hearing
this gospel. It gets sweeter. Precious. More precious. For you that believe, He is precious. More precious than gold. Tell
me where they are. That's where I want to be. Verse
10. I've got to hurry. Verse 9. Verse 8. If you know not, this
is our Lord saying to her, to us, if you don't know, if you
know not, O Paris, to my women. I thought I was black. Not to
him. Not to him. You wait until you hear what
he says. The way he describes her, you think, that's not me. Oh, that's what he says. If you know not, O fairest among
women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock. When
you hear their feet run after them, where they feed their kids,
their shepherds' tents, you go wherever they are. And you pitch
your tent there and you'll be one of mine." And when he compares
her to a company of horses, oh my love, he says, you're like
a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. Your cheeks are comely
with rows of jewels, our neck with chains of gold, borders
of gold with studs of silver." He's alluding here to these big,
beautiful horses that make up a team where they put all that
finery on. If you've ever seen the Budweiser
team in person, you've got to see it in person. Or the Percherons
from Southern State. Have you ever seen that in person?
I mean right up next to it. That big team of horses with
all that beauty, all that silver or gold or whatever, and those
traces of jingle, it sent chills up my spine. I saw them go by. Beautiful, got them decked out.
And who are they pulling? Like those two milk cows in a
cart. Our Lord says of His beloved, brideall, his church decked out
with a silver, beautiful, made comely by his righteousness and
his beauty, decked out by him. What are they pulling? Who are
they serving? Their Lord, their Master. And
he has the reins. He has hold of them. And he bought
them. Solomon had 40,000 horses. He went all the way to Egypt.
He bought the finest from everywhere. But I bet you he bought some
mags, you reckon? He bought some poor ones and
made them look good, didn't he? Oh yeah. And he paid 150 shekels
for a horse. Now folks, you horse lovers,
I'm sorry, but a horse in reality is not worth much at all. Not
worth much at all. You can find an old nag and train
it and all that and teach it to be just as good. A mule. There
you go. You can get a mule and he'll
serve you as better than the finest stallion you've ever purchased
for thousands of dollars. That's a fact. But our Lord paid
a big price for His people. A big price. And we weren't worth
anything. But when he paid a big price,
he's not going to let anything happen to him. Well, the last
few verses say this. In verses 12 through 17, this
is an expression of love to him from the bride, from the believer.
While the king sits at his table, I spiked and sendeth forth the
smell thereof. Do you remember the story of
the woman The guilty woman, the sinner Mary, who came where the
Lord was eating with the Pharisees and said she had a box, a spike
in her precious ointment. She broke that box open. She'd
been saving it. It was her dowry or something. Maybe her children were going
to have it. Somebody she loved. Somebody she loved was going
to have it. And she found whom she loved. And she broke that
precious bucket. It didn't mean anything anymore.
He meant everything to her. And she poured that ointment
on His feet and on His head. And it says, the smell of that
ointment filled the room. And our Lord loved it. He loved
it. Somebody said, oh, we should
have saved that Judas. Say, we should have saved that
to feed the poor. Our Lord said, you let her alone.
They're going to read about this from now on. What she's done.
She's done a good work. She's anointed me for my burial.
She's proved her love to me. These things didn't mean a thing
to her. I mean everything to her. You let her alone. And our
Lord loves the praises of His people. He loves to hear His
people sing. Not the finest voices, that doesn't
mean anything. A trained voice doesn't mean
a thing to the Lord. Oh no, it's the one, it's the
joyful noise that comes from the heart. It's the voice of
a sinner saved by grace. Of a black Shulamite maiden to
the Lord Jesus Christ and coming to save her. With all her heart
singing. Maybe she's out of key. Maybe
she just knows one key. The key of C. And she's singing with all her
heart. And the Lord loves it. He loves it. And the savor of
that, the sweet smell of that fills the room. I've got to go
on. A bundle of myrrh, that's what he is to me, she said. My
well-beloved is unto me. He'll lie all night betwixt my
breast. That's Christ in the heart. Christ
in the heart of the believer. A bundle of myrrh. We looked
at that. Myrrh, you know, was that medicinal, savory, wonderful
smelling herb that was ground as part of the precious ointment
that was poured on the head of the high priest. And it was part
of the ointment that they used, the spices they used to our Lord's
burial. He's the great high priest. Remember
the myrrh tree? It wasn't cut down, it was wounded.
Remember that? And it bled. And that blood-like
substance, myrrh. My beloved, verse 14, is unto
me as a cluster of cypress, evergreen, his leaf never withers. Oh, don't
you love the smell of evergreen, Christmas tree? Oh, don't you
love it? Do you love the smell of this
gospel? These things that I'm saying
about our Lord Jesus Christ, the vineyards of En Gedi were
known to be the most beautiful in the world. Behold, thou art
fair, my love. Behold, thou art fair. Thou hast
dove's eyes, innocent, pure eyes, washed in milk, she said. Behold,
thou art fair. How fair, O Shulamite maiden. And I'm going to tell you before
we get to it. What is your beloved among the
other beloved?" She said, he's the fairest of ten thousand. Oh, he's so pleasant. Our bed
is green, ever green, ever new, the Gospel, ever fresh, ever
fragrant, this Gospel to the lover of it. The beams of our
house are cedar and our rafters are fir. That sounds like Well,
Solomon's house was made of cedar and was of fir, but so was the
temple. So was the temple. Cedar. Do you like the smell of cedar? Rick and I cut down a cedar tree
in his yard when they lived over here. And it was blood red, wasn't
it, Rick? Just blood red. And the sap was
bleeding out of that stuff for months to come. There's a reason
for that. There's a reason why the temple
was made out of cedar. It's red. It's blood red. It's impervious to decay. It
has this sap that oozes out of it. It's a healing balm. It's
pitch. That sap out of the evergreen
trees is pitch. That's what Noah pitched the
ark with. It's the blood of Christ. And
the smell, the aroma of cedar, Ah, you know, I've still got
a few pieces of that. And Mindy said, next time we
go camping, make sure you bring some of that cedar. Well, Christ is like that tree
of life, evergreen beside the planet by the waters. The smell
of the hidden people. Now this is just the first chapter.
This is the song of songs. Okay, stand with me. Our Lord, this is Your Word,
no doubt. No doubt. No men speak privately
of their own volition choice or will, they spake as they were
moved by the Holy Spirit who takes the things of Christ and
shows them to Thy people. And oh, they are beautiful, a
savor of His ointments and His name. How we love to hear of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that read of Him in the Scriptures. Oh
Lord, but we don't love Thee as we ought. Our love for Thee is so cold,
so faint, Thy love to us so great. But, O love, kindle a flame of
sacred love in our hearts, in these poor hearts of ours. Cause
us through Your Word, through the preaching of Your Word and
the reading of it, to fall in love with the Lord Jesus Christ
more and more. It's in His name we pray and
give thanks. Amen. Very good.