Look back with me in Song of
Solomon here and there's a question asked
here in verse 9 as we continue Old Testament pictures of Christ.
What is thy beloved more than another beloved? O thou fairest
among women. What is thy beloved more than
another beloved? That thou dost charge us so. Now in the Song of Solomon is
the love that the Lord Jesus has for his church and his church
has for him. And it's very intimate, a lot
of intimacy between the two of them. And the church of the Lord
Jesus here is the one that people are asking her, asking the Shulamite
maiden, who represents the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
they ask this question, because where's my beloved? Well, what
makes your beloved more than my beloved? What's so special
about your beloved? What's more about him than anybody
else's? that you charge us so, tell us
where he is. And he calls her, O thou fairest
among women. He referred to her like that
in chapter one, in verse eight, thou fairest among women. Now
everybody, every soul has a beloved. Every soul does. Every soul has
a beloved. Every soul has some object that
they worship. Something or someone and make
glory in. Everybody does it. There's things
they rejoice in, there's things they rejoice in and enjoy very
much. To some it's the world and all
of its honor and all of its wealth and all this materialism. With
others it's pleasure. Paul told about the women lived
in pleasure. Dead while they're living in
pleasure. And they love pleasure, love
to be bragged on of men and the applause of men. And other people, their beloved is their family,
family and friends. And that's obvious. But with others, it's religion,
just religion. And they do works of righteousness,
and most of all, The thing that they love more than anything
else is themselves. The Scriptures tells us that.
Men are lovers of themselves. Lovers of themselves. But I'll
tell you what, but a believer, a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ, worships Him, loves Him, rejoices in Him, and glories
on in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him and Him alone. He's truly
our beloved. He is truly our beloved. Christ,
those who know the Lord Jesus, Christ is preferred above everything
else in this world. Preferred before anything in
this world we ever could possess. He is all in all to us. I'm telling
you, He's what we possess, He's the one we pursue. We're like
Paul, we want to be found in Him. We're pressing forth the
mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
We worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
don't have any confidence in the flesh. And all by all the
possessions we have in this world, our relationship with the Lord
Jesus Christ is the most precious, the most powerful and the most
blessed relationship we'll ever know on this earth. Now ain't that right? I really
believe that's true. And the world and all the professors
of religion, they don't understand this. They don't understand this. They're ignorant of Christ and
all the things about him and how precious he is, how glorious
he is. And so they asked the church,
what is your beloved more than our beloved? Well, the church
answers them right here. We answer them when they say,
what's our beloved more than anybody else's beloved? Well,
look what he said here in verse 10. Now here's the first thing
I want to say about my beloved that's better than your beloved,
more than your beloved. My beloved is white. What does
that tell us? That he's pure. That he's holy. That he's glorious in holiness.
And that's his nature, his divine nature, his God nature. He's
the brightness of God's glory, the express image of his person.
He's white. Oh, he's white, he's pure, he's
white and glorious in his apparel. And I tell you what, full of
grace and full of truth. And that's why the scripture
says, he knew no sin. Then it says, not only is he
white, but he's ready. And you know ready, what it means
is red. Ready means red. When we talk
about him being red, that's what Adam means, man of the red earth.
And he so identified with us in his humanity, that's his human
nature, refers to his human nature. He came here and partook of our
flesh and partook of our blood, identified one with us. And because
of his human nature and because of his Glorious as God-man, our
Lord Jesus Christ was able and had the strength to suffer. Oh, how he suffered. And when
he offered his body as a bloody sacrifice on the tree for the
sins of his people, he was able to bear the sins of his people.
He had the ability in his human nature to carry the sins of his
people. And I can't, I don't know if
it's my age or whatever it is, but when I think of the Lord
Jesus Christ, bearing my sin, my sin, and I couldn't, I got
more than the hairs of my head. The more than the moments that
I've lived on this earth. And He took them all. He took
them all. Took them all to Himself. Made
him his. Made him his. And oh my, he's
white, he's God. And he's red, he's ruddy, he's
a human, he's a man. And between the two of them,
I read John Gill's Body of Divinity. He got two great big volumes
of it. And I told Scott one time, I
read through that thing, and I said, Scott, I read something
today that really, really blessed my heart. He said, what was it?
I said that Christ offers his humanity upon the altar of his
divinity. As a man, he offered his own
soul up on the altar of his own Godhead. And I said, and I read
all that. He said, well, if you got that
much out of it, you got all that you needed to know. That's plenty
to get out of it. Yeah, he offered this humanity
upon the altar of his divinity. And that's why it was accepted.
Oh, my. And I tell you what, and then
look what else it says about him. Not only is he white and
ready, he's the cheapest among 10,000. You know, he uses a different
number here to give you an indefinite amount. It's kind of like, you
know, if your brother silly gets you seven times, how am I gonna
forgive him? Seven times? Seven times 70. He's giving you a definite number
to say no matter how much you have to be forgiven, and that's
how much you do it. And that's what he's doing here.
I tell you, he's the chiefest among 10,000. You think of any
creature that's on this earth. Think of any amount of angels
you can think of. Think about any man you can think
of. He's exalted above every one
of them. And all by their kings, but he's the king of kings. Their
priest, but he's a high priest forever at the order of Melchizedek. And there are names, oh, there's
some big names in this world, but His name is above all the
names. Isn't that right? Remember, He's
the cheapest among 10,000. Oh, everybody's gonna bow. Everybody's gonna confess one
of these days that Jesus Christ is Lord. And you know why they're
gonna do it? For the glory of God. God said,
I'm going to make everybody bow their knees to my son one of
these days. He said he was crucified to be made both Lord of the living
and the dead. He said that's spiritual living,
spiritually dead, physically living, and physically dead.
He's Lord over whether you're dead or living. He's Lord. And everybody's going to acknowledge
that one of these days. And guess what we're going to
say when that happens? Hallelujah. The Lord God omnipotent
reigneth. And then look what he says there
again in verse 11. His head is as the most fine
gold. Now he's not talking about his
head here. He's not talking about his hair here because we'll see
what his hair is in a minute. But his head is of the most fine
gold. That's talking about the crowns
that sit on his head. He got every crown. He got the
crown of life, the crown of righteousness, the crown as the king, the crown
that God gave him. I mean, on his head is fine gold,
this glorious, glorious crown. You know, I've seen kings, and
you look at the crown jewels that Queen Elizabeth has in England.
She's got a crown that sits on her head. that she can't hold on her head.
It's too heavy. Too much gold, too many silvers
and too much diamonds and rubies and all that stuff in it. That
ain't nothing to his head. Absolutely ain't nothing. Oh
my. But oh, that means that he's
sovereign. That means he's almighty. He's
the king. He rules over all. God gave him
power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as
many as thou hast given him. He's before all things, and by
him all things consist, and by him all things, whether it's
the throne somewhere in this world, But if it's a dominion,
we sing them songs from sea to shining sea. That's the dominion. Christ is over every dominion. There's principalities, that's
governments, that's powers. Christ is over every single one
of them. He's before them, by they, him,
they consist. Oh my. And our Lord's not gonna
be king. He's king right now. Oh, He's
king when He created this world. People act like, you know, something
special happens when they'll say, boy, that's God's providence.
Everything that happens in this world is His providence. They
say, boy, that God really, you can really tell His providence
in that. You know what His providence for you was today? You'll know
when you go to bed tonight. Ain't that right? Everything,
you know, they act like something special happened because something
happened in their life. Well, God and His prophet has
done that. There's nothing that God doesn't do in this world
that's not His prophet. That just means providing and
carrying it out. His government. Well, and then
I tell you what, He's King over salvation, Lord over salvation
too, ain't He? And I tell you, He's that way
because God decreed it to be so. And then look what it says
there again in verse 11. So his head's the most fine gold,
sovereign, eternal, immutable. His locks are brushy and black
as a raven. You know, next time you see that
picture of Wild Bill Hickok, that's what Tim James called
him, Wild Bill Hickok. He said when you see that picture
of Wild Bill Hickok, that blonde hair, remember this right here. Remember this right here. His
locks are bushy and black as a raven. And I think what this
means here is His beauty, His eternal youth, hair as black
as raven. I used to have dark hair too,
but I don't, but the Lord, He's immutable. He'll never change.
He's eternally young. Who can describe the perfections
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that glorified man, as he sits in
glory? Who can describe him? Who can
describe him? John, when he gave his fish in
old Patmos, and he saw him standing there with that white hair that's
white, and in that golden girdle, and feet like brass, and golden
arms, and all the things that was precious about him. He said,
oh my, here we have a glimpse of our Lord Jesus Christ. His
beauty, beautiful, beautiful, bushy hair. Young, eternal. Unchanging, infinite, immaculate. He is the very image of God's
brightness, glory, and holiness. And one of these days, we're
gonna be just like him. Gonna be just like him. Then
look what it says there then by verse 12. His eyes are as the eyes of doves. Oh my. You know, we got a pair
of doves that started on their third family right there on our
porch. And I think a dove's one of the
most beautiful birds that there are in the scriptures. Everything
it says about a dove, he compares that to us, he compares it to
Christ. And you know it was a dove, the Holy Spirit came down in
the presence of a dove when our Lord was baptized. But his eyes
are the eyes of a dove. Now to the rebel, to the disobedient,
those who don't know unbeliever, when they look at the Lord Jesus
Christ, When they see Him, all they're gonna see is the fierceness
of His eyes, the condemnation and the power of His eyes. But
to His elect, to His beloved, oh, His eyes are gentle. His
eyes are clear. His eyes are precious. He looks
on us. When He looks at us, you know
what He looks like us with? Love. Love and tenderness and
gentleness. Kindness, oh my. His eyes are
gentle and look what it says, they're washed with milk. Now
that means that he got these dark eyes and right around it
just pure white. Pure white, huh? And I tell you
what, he's got these blessed eyes. These eyes of a dove and
he's got them set in this wonderful, glorious whiteness. And he looks
upon us in absolute love. Forgiveness, acceptance, oh my. You know, everybody's heard about
the eyes are the windows of the soul and reveal some through
thoughts. Well, I can tell you this, the
eyes of the Lord Jesus Christ, I can rest and rejoice for His
eyes are gentle and compassionate. And his thoughts toward me and
toward all his people is love. And look what it says there.
And fitly set. That means he's got them set
right on us. Fitly set. Set where? On everybody in this building
right now. You on his? Fitly set, right on you. Unchanging
towards us. Unchanging towards us. Oh, I
tell you, what is our beloved? I'm telling you. Then look what else he says now
in verse 13. His cheeks are as a bed of spices
and as sweet flowers. Sweet flowers, flowers of perfume. This to us, I believe, tells
us about the rest, the comfort and assurance we have in the
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, John leaned upon his
breast. John the beloved, always, he's
the disciple whom Jesus loved. And what we feel in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ, you know, Paul said he's a sweet
saver. He's a sweet saver unto God and
a sweet saver unto us. Christ has this most wondrous
fragrance to us. In the gospel he has a wondrous
fragrance, in his word he has a fragrance, as he describes
himself and as the scriptures describe him. And when we lean
upon his cheek, rest in his everlasting arms, it's like lying down in
a bunch of spices and flowers. Oh my, Shirley bought her some
roses the other day. Beautiful roses. And they're
white. They're white. Boy, they smell good. And when
you think about the Lord Jesus Christ, when you're laying on
your bed at night, and you wake up in the middle of the night
and you're calling on Him, ain't He sweet? Ain't he sweet? Ain't you got some comfort and
assurance in him? Don't he smell sweet? Don't he smell precious?
Oh my. I tell you something. Ain't no
rain storm gonna mess this up. No storms gonna mess it up. No
wind can disturb our rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. He cares
for you. He cares for you. Then look what
it says. His lips like lilies dropping
sweet-smelling myrrh. You know, over in, I think it's
Psalm 45, it says, you know, that grace poured forth from
his lips. Well, his lips are like lilies,
beautiful, these beautiful lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh,
this wondrous fragrance. And what comes out of his lips
is grace and mercy Compassion, forgiveness, justification, everything
that comes out of His mouth is right and just and good for us,
like a lily, like a beautiful flower. And they flow from His
lips continually to us. And I tell you what, He's sweet
to our ears, and oh, the taste of His words, oh, how precious
they are. His promises are precious. His
promises are sure. And you know what? When His lips
come, they'll call my name. He's going to call my name one
of these days. And He's going to assure me of
His love and how He intercedes for me. He never has a word of
condemnation. Not a word of rebuke. Just words
of life is all we get from our Lord Jesus Christ. Just words
of life. Then look what it says here now
in verse 14. His hands are as gold rings set
with beryl. Now let me tell you something
about hands. We use our hands to do things with. We use our
hands to do actions. Do actions. And we use our hands
to give things out, to give things away, and to work and give things
away. Well, His hands, set with this beautiful barrel, His hands
are full of action, and you know what they are? They're full of
gifts. He just throws them out. Here's you some grace for today.
Here's you some strength for today. Here's you some mercy
for in the morning. Just keeps throwing it out. Oh
my. And I tell you, he gives them.
He's rich and he's generous. That's no wonder the apostle
says, you know, that we can do all things through Christ who
strengthens us and gives us all that we need, all that we need. And I tell you what, I don't have a need that he hasn't
supplied. And I don't have a spiritual
blessing that he hasn't already given me. Don't have anything
that don't come from him. Not anything whatsoever. Then
look what else it says here now. Now down there, and he said his
hands are his gold rings. His belly, Luke says his belly,
verse 14, is bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. You know, when you talk about
the belly in the scriptures, he's talking about the innermost
person, the person inside, that's what he's talking about. And
his belly, his belly's got just like ivory, just white like ivory,
beautiful white. And then on top of that, he's
got all these beautiful jewels, these sapphires. And that describes,
I believe, the overall beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ. of
His whole body. Before they mutilated His body
on the cross, before they mutilated our Lord Jesus Christ's body
was perfect. Do you know why it was perfect?
Because it had no sin. It had to be perfect. It had
to be beautiful. It could not have a mar on it. Nowhere. Because it was perfect. Perfect. And I tell you what,
maybe it refers to his garments, priestly garments, I don't know.
And I tell you, all I know is this, that I know He's beautiful,
He's white, He's glorious, and I tell you, He's got every jewel
that anybody could want. I hear people talking about,
you know, Christ is the pearl of great price. I'm going to tell you what I
believe about it, and I'll preach on one of these days to show
you. If he's the pearl of great price, what do we do to get him? How can we buy him? How can we
purchase him? I'll tell you what's the pearl
of great price. It's his church, his people. And you know how a pearl is formed?
It's formed by a foreign object. in an oyster. And that foreign
object in that oyster starts that oyster crying. And that
pearl starts crying and starts suffering. And then it has to
be broken open and that pearl, and that's where it is with the
Lord Jesus Christ. He brought us with his suffering.
And I tell you, we could never buy Him. I don't know, no matter
how much repentance we had, how much faith we had, how many tears
we shed, we can't buy Him. He's, we're the pearl of great
prize. He's the one that suffered. He's
the one that had a foreign body in His body. Sin, He's the one
who paid the price. He's the one who had this thing
that brought Him down to His sins. My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? He is the one that, boy, I see
in his own body on the tree. Oh my, I tell ya. Well, let's
look at his legs now. We're gonna start with his head.
We're gonna start with his complexion and his head and his eyes and
his cheeks and now his hands. And now look at his legs. I mean,
we're going over his whole body. Start at the top, we're gonna
go to the bottom. Start with his whole body. Look what it
says, his legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of
fine gold. You know what legs are for? Hold
his body up. You know what Christ's legs are
for? To support this body of believers. Can he carry us? Oh, His legs are powerful and
all the strength and they set on fine gold. And I tell you,
our Lord Jesus Christ has the power to bury up and carry us
and lay us upon His own shoulder. I'll tell you what, His legs,
it was His legs and His power that supported the covenant of
grace in Christ before the foundation of the world. It's Him, beloved,
that's got the strength and the ability to carry on His mediatorship
in this world. Oh my, and He's the only Lord
who can redeem His people and reward them. Oh, He's able to
save, He's able to keep, and He's able to comfort. And then,
oh my, look what it says then about His countenance. Verse 15, his legs are as pillars
of marvel, set upon sockets of fine gold. His countenance is
as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. Now, Lebanon and the
cedars of Lebanon was on a mountain outside Jerusalem. Bruce and
I was talking about this one day, because you hear about the
Cedars of Lebanon all the time. Like the Cedars of Lebanon, mighty
like the Cedars, tall as the Cedars of Lebanon. So evidently,
them Cedars of Lebanon must have been some kind of a very, very
impressive tree. I mean, it must have been something.
And when you looked at it, you said, oh my, look at that, I've
never seen anything like it. Well, that's what he's talking
about here. There he is, nothing like him, excellent as the cedars.
Oh, that the cedars of Lebanon were the choicest, choicest,
and preferable above everything else. That's what, when Solomon
built his house, he built out of cedar. When Solomon built
the temple, he put a little cedar in it, and then he laid gold
on it. And I tell you, here he is, Christ's appearance, And
his person, oh, how glorious, how stately, how blessed, how
durable, like the choice of cedars, present to the eyes. Oh, he's
more excellent than anything else in this world. Now watch
this now. Now we're gonna go to his mouth.
Start out with him. Now look at his mouth. His mouth
is most sweet. Oh my, this, you know, this comes
again from verse 10. Oh, his mouth is most sweet.
Verse 13, his mouth is most sweet, dropping sweet smell and sir.
You know, I think his mouth and the words,
when he talks about his mouth, he's talking about the words
that come out of his mouth, the sweetness that comes out of his
mouth. All that proceeds from his mouth, for his people is
sweet, sweet. His gospels, oh my goodness,
how sweet it is. His promises, how blessed they
are. His doctrine, who can tell how
precious it is, how precious it is. And then look what he
says. Yea, I tell you what, in case
I left something out, in case I didn't say everything that
I needed to say about this, is what he's saying. Just in case
I left something out. Yea, he is altogether lovely. Just in case I left something
out. I'm going to tell you something about it. He's altogether lovely. Oh, there's nothing about him,
nor his person. that's not glorious, exquisitely,
blessedly, absolutely beautiful and precious. And then look how
he closes out. This is my beloved. You ask who
he is? What's so special about him?
This is my beloved. I just described him to you. This is my beloved.
Listen to this now. This is my friend. Not only my
beloved, but he's my friend. One that sticks closer than a
brother. Rich, powerful, faithful, everlasting, unchangeable friend. Oh, what's your beloved? Well,
you try to describe it. We cannot, we just can't. You
try to tell somebody how Christ is to you, even from one believer
to another. But you try to tell somebody
who don't know anything about Christ, how glorious He is and
how precious He is, and they don't have a clue. But oh to
us, He's altogether lovely. This is my friend. Father, thank you. Thank you
for your wonderful grace, for your great mercies you give us
in Christ. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for your gospel. Thank you for this wondrous description
you give us of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we ain't even touched
the hem of the garment, but Lord, we keep coming. We keep wanting
to touch it over and over and over, because I know with every
touch, with every time we come, We find more precious about him,
more things about him. Our need of him more and more.
Father, thank you. And God bless these dear saints.
Bless the ones that's tried among us. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. Jesus Christ is made to
me. All I need. All I need. He alone is all my plea. He is all I need. Wisdom, righteousness, and power. Amen. Well, see you Sunday. God will it.