I'm gonna read the whole chapter
and then bring you a little message if the Lord would be pleased
to bless it. I am the rose of Sharon and the
lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so
is my love among the daughters of men. As the apple tree among
the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I
sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit
was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting
house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons,
comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love. His left hand is
under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. I charge
you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the rows and by the hinds
of the field. that ye stir not up nor awake,
my love, till he please. The voice of my beloved, behold,
he come leapeth, he come up on the mountains, skipping upon
the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a
young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through
the lattice. My beloved spake and said unto
me, rise up, my love, My fair one, and come away. For lo, the
winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear
on the earth, the time of the singing of birds has come, and
the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree put
forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give
a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away. Oh, my dove. Thou art in the
clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs. Let me
see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice
and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little
foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.
My beloved is mine and I am his. He feedeth among the lilies until
the daybreak. and the shadows flee away, turn,
my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young heart upon the
mountains of Bethar. Our blessed Lord Jesus Christ,
you're our God, you're our Savior, you're God-blessed over all.
You're before all things and by you all things consist. You
uphold all things by the word of your power. And Lord, when
you speak to one of your children, you see that they hear. You speak
to us and we listen. You speak to us in your word.
You speak to us by the Holy Spirit. You speak to us in chastisements,
you speak to us. You are our beloved and we are
yours. And Father, we ask for your presence
in this service tonight. Please enable me to speak to
your glory and the good of your people. And our Lord Jesus, we
pray for those that we love who are going through a great fight
of afflictions. You told us to remember our brethren
that are in a bound in afflictions, who have afflictions. And Lord,
we do remember them. You know who I'm thinking of,
who my heart's for, who my prayers go out to. And Lord, please have
mercy upon our children, upon our grandchildren. Lord, if you
don't, if you don't bring them to the end of themselves, they'll
never come. If you don't empty them, they'll never be emptied.
If you don't call them, they'll never come. If you don't make
them to be sinners, they'll never be a sinner. They'll always have
a refuse to hide in. Lord, take away every refuse
they have and do it for Christ's sake. Bring glory to yourself
tonight in this service. We pray for our dear brother
Gary. God bless him. Lord, may he have rest this evening.
May he get a good, nice sleep. May his body rest. We thank you
for him. And Lord, meet our needs again,
we pray for Christ's sake. Amen. Let's sing together hymn number
326. 326. More about Jesus would I know. More of His grace to others show. More of His saving glory. More of His love who died for
me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving fullness be. More of His love who died for
me. More about Jesus let me learn,
more of His holy will discern. Spirit of God, my teacher be,
showing the things of Christ to me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus, more
of His saving fullness see. More of his love who died for
me. More about Jesus in his word. for a communion with thy Lord. Hearing his voice in every life,
making each faith Oh, say, is mine. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving. More of His love who died for
me. More about Jesus on His throne. Riches in glory of His own. More of this kingdom sure increase,
More of His coming Prince of Peace. More, more of our Jesus, More of His saving fullness see,
More of His love who died for me. Look back here in chapter two
with me, and I wanna get my, continuing to speak about Christ
in the Old Testament. It says there in verse 16, chapter
two and verse 16. My beloved is mine, and I am
his. He feedeth among the lilies. You know, when he talks about
I'm his and he's mine, or he's mine and I'm his. That means
we're never ever alone. Never alone. This love affair
between Christ and his church goes two ways, but it starts
with him. It starts with him. And why do
we call him our beloved? Because the way he describes
himself in verse one. I'm the rose of Sharon and the
lily of the valleys. Oh, what a fragrance his name
is, you know. There's an old-fashioned rose,
and I'm telling you what, they smell so good, and they're so
hard to come by anymore. But he said, I'm the rose, the
rose of Sharon. And all these lilies, it's down
in the valley, and lilies are so pretty, and they're so beautiful,
and that's what he is. To us, that's why we call him
our beloved. And then look what else he says
about himself. And then says about us. And this
is what he talks about us. As the lily among thorns, so
is my beloved among the daughters of men. Now he calls us lilies,
but we're among thorns. We live in a world full of thorns,
and that's what he's talking about. He's in glory, and he's
among the, in the valleys, and then he talks about how the apple
tree is among, my beloved's as the apple tree among the trees
of the woods. So Christ is above the sons of
men. That's why we say he's so beloved.
He is so beloved. And I'm gonna talk about how
he is our beloved. Our beloved. Christ is our beloved. And I'll tell you what, you know
how we found out we was his beloved? Because he said there in verse, verse eight, the voice of my
beloved, we heard his voice. He called us, we heard his voice.
And I'll tell you, we heard his voice and then he told us to
rise up and come away. Rise up and come away, come to
me. And I tell you what, I, my beloveds, we're His, we belong
to Him and we was His, loved of Him before time ever began. Our Lord Jesus Christ loved us
before the foundation of the world. Gave Himself for us before
the foundation of the world. Before time ever started, Christ
loved us. He was our beloved. And I tell
you what, He loved us. And I tell you, the Scriptures
tells us There's the blessings of election. Oh, he chose us
in Christ, in himself, before the foundation of the Lord. You
know, he loved me before I was, and he loved you before you were.
And that's why he told Jeremiah, I've loved you, I loved you. We're loved of Christ, beloved
of Christ. He loved us with an everlasting
love. He told Jeremiah, before you
was ever formed in the belly, I knew you. And he said, before
I was, I was his. Wouldn't it please God who called
me by his grace, separated me from my mother's womb, called
me by his grace. And I'll tell you what he says
there in verse four. He brought me, listen to this.
He brought me to the banqueting house. We didn't come on our
own. We heard his voice and then he
brought us. We have to be brought. And he
brought us to this place, brought us to his banqueting house, brought
us where he is and what he is and what he did. And that's why
he said about Jacob and Esau, before either one of the children
was ever born, having done neither good or evil, that the purpose
of God, according to election, might stand. Jacob hath a love
that Esau hath a hated. You know, he named before Abraham
and Sarah had their son. God named him before he was ever
born. Our Lord Jesus Christ, God named
him before he was ever born. Before he was ever born. And
I'll tell you another way that we, that I belong to Christ and
I'm my beloved. I belong to him. And so do you. I'm his because the Father gave
me to him. Now who do you think Now you
think about this. Now, you know, you imagine who
he is. Describes him here. You go to
Solomon chapter five and it describes his physical presence, the glory
of his blessed person. And you think about who he is
and all of his glory and all of his majesty and all of his
love. And here He is, with all that
He is, and God turns around and gives Him people like us. You reckon you're worth anything?
But we're the people that He gave to Christ. Every one he
gave to Christ that he became the beloved one, every single
one of them, has nothing to commend themselves. No merit, no worth,
no works, absolutely nothing. And when God chose, and he said
it like this, when we were yet without strength, in due time
Christ died for the ungodly. And God commendeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Oh my. And you know you go through
the scriptures in John 17, let me count them, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
5 times it talks about us being given to Christ. All that the Father gives me,
what's gonna happen? We're gonna hear His voice. What's
He gonna do? He's gonna bring us to His banqueting
house. He's gonna bring us to where
we feast on Him. That's what He's gonna do. He
said, rise up, my beloved. Stop what you're doing, rise
up. And come away, come with me. And I'll tell you what, we
were dead, just as dead as Lazarus was. Just as corrupt as Lazarus
was. And he said, Lazarus, come away. Rise up and come away. Born blind,
he said, come here, I'll give you sight. Born in self-righteousness,
and he comes, and he done us like Zacchaeus, come down out
of it, come down out of it. Born in sin, shapen in iniquity,
but we got him. And when we got him, and when
we get him, we get everything with him. Oh, I am my beloved. I belong to him. I belong to
him. And then I'll tell you what,
here's another thing about Christ our Lord here, being our beloved,
and all the things it says here about him. Where he is because
he bought us and he paid for us. I know I'm not worth anything,
absolutely worth nothing, nothing. Nothing. But we were redeemed,
not with silver, not with gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ as a lamb without spot and without blemish. Being justified
freely through the redemption, through the payment price, through
the shedding of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know,
it tells us that we'll glorify God because you're bought, bought
with a price. Now, you and I go out here and
we buy something, we expect to get it. We expect to get it. If we don't, we want our money
back. Well, Christ paid for us, borrowed us and paid for us,
redeemed us by his own precious blood, paid our debt, released
us from our bondage and set us free and says, now you go and
do what you want to do. And we do exactly what we want
to do. We come to Christ. Every single
one of us come to him because we want to. We want to. And I tell you, We expect to
get it, and Christ's gonna get who he paid for. Mark that down. If he paid for you, he's gonna
have you. If he bought you with his blood,
he's gonna have you. If he shed his blood for you
and paid your sin debt, he's gonna have you. It's like Jacob. He loved Rachel. Oh, he loved
her. His father-in-law told him, said,
you labor for seven years and I'll give you her. He said, the
seven years was as nothing. And then old Jacob, old Aban, He said, it's not right. You
gotta take the harness before you get her. So he gave her Leah. Gave him Leah. And she said she
had eye problems. He said, now labor seven more
years and you can have Rachel. Fourteen years he labored because
he loved her so. He said, just like a minute.
Like no time at all. And our Lord Jesus Christ He
labored for us. Oh, how He labored for us. He
labored from the time He was born to the day He died on the
cross. He labored for us, labored hard
for us, did a great work for us to save us. And grace came
and gave us to the Lord Jesus Christ. God's justice, when He
satisfied Him, He paid for us. So in a sense, grace is if we
had no justice, and justice is if there was no grace. Oh, my
beloveds, bought me, bought me. And I mean, beloved, I'm tickled
to death that he did. I'm so thankful. Because I certainly
couldn't pay what he owed me. I couldn't pay what I, if I had
to pay, if I had to pay anything at all, I couldn't do it. Nothing,
nothing, nothing. And then let me tell you, I'm
my beloved's, I'm his by cause he conquered us. Cause he conquered
us. Uh-huh. Oh, he conquered us. And that's one of the most blessed
things that God ever does for a man is to conquer him. Conquering. And everybody has to be conquered.
They do. Everybody has to be conquered.
Has to be He conquered me. He conquered you. Well, how in
the world did He do it? He called us His beloved. How did He do it? He done it
by love. The greatest thing to empty you
of yourself is to see that He loved you when He was on that
cross. That He died for you when He was on that cross. that he
shed his blood for you when he was on that cross. Sunday I'm
going to preach on my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
There he was hanging between heaven and earth, forsaken of
God Almighty. And when he was there, he conquered
everything that was against us. Death was against us, he conquered
it. Sin was against it, he conquered it. God was against us, he conquered
God's justice and satisfied it. The law was against us, he upheld
it and honored it. And I tell you what, when he
arose again on the third morning, that shows you that God said,
yes, yes, yes, you finished the work. It's done. Now. Now. And I tell you, he fought
this battle by himself. He, though the battle that you
and I couldn't, he by himself purged our sins. Huh? He said, seek my face, arise
and come up after me. And we did. He said, seek my
face, and we did. I want you to see something over
here in Isaiah 63. Talking about our, oh, my beloved. My beloved. Look here in Isaiah
63. Oh, He conquers by love, by goodness. And it's easy, it's easy when
He conquers you. When He comes and makes you His
by His goodness, by His grace, by His mercy. You surrender so
willingly, because he wins our heart. But who is this that cometh
from Eden, without garments from Basra? This that is glorious
in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength.
I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Why then are
you red in your apparel, and your garments like him that treads
the wine vat? I have trodden a wide press alone,
and of the people there was nobody with me. And oh, I tread down
everything that was against them in my fury. Their blood shall
be sprinkled upon my garments, and I'll stain all my garments.
And listen to this, for the day of the vengeance is in my heart.
All that God held against us, he laid it on Christ. And the
year of my redeemed has come. I looked, nobody to help. He didn't need any help. I wondered,
there's none to uphold. He said, my own arm brought salvation
unto me, and my fury upheld me. He did it by himself. Everything
that was against us, he did it by himself. And if he did it
by himself, he still don't need no help. Still don't need no
help. And then let me quickly go on
and say this, that I'm his, I'm my beloved's, I'm his by relationship. He calls us his spouse. Ain't
that what he called us, his spouse? He said, I'm coming to my garden,
my sister, my spouse, in chapter five. He calls it that. He calls it my beloved, he calls
it how? He conquered us, and He conquered
us in such a wonderful way. Then we're espoused to the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, the only reason the
world, God has a marriage ceremony in the scriptures, and it's really
not a marriage ceremony, there's not a marriage ceremony in the
scriptures. But the reason that we have marriages
is to show us The relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ
and his bride. Do you know that? And when you
talk about wedding, talk about people getting married. Two becoming
one, that's what we did with Christ. Us and him became one. As a bride, it's a union of love. And as a member of his body,
blessed being made one, it's a union of life. We don't have
no union of life or love, either one, apart from him. Oh my, and
his people, they're called the bride. Look over in Revelations
19, 7. Look over here, 19, 7. Look what
it says over here. Talking about in our relationship,
we're a spouse to the Lord Jesus Christ. John said, you know,
said, are you him? Said, no, no, no. Said, the bridegroom,
he's the one that has the bride. Talking about Christ, members
of his body. Look what he said here in verse
seven. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come. And listen
to this, his wife has made herself ready. Well, how did she do it? It was granted to her, given
to her, granted to her, that she should be wearing fine linen,
clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of
the saints. So, oh my, we're gonna go to
a marriage supper. Oh my, you know they have these,
at these weddings, you know, they always have a reception
afterwards. They have all kinds of food to
eat. Listen, you wait till you go to Mary's supper, little lamb. It's called a Mary's supper.
Nobody ain't gonna have to prepare anything. He's already got it
prepared. Oh my. And then, oh my beloved,
I belong to him. Belong to him. And then he says
there in verse 16 again, Chapter two and verse 16 again. My beloved
is mine and I am his. My beloved is mine and I belong
to him. Not only is he mine, but I belong
to him. And oh my, he gave himself to
me. He gave himself to me, for me. And he gave us by this gracious,
gracious union. And we're His, we're His by His
indwelling. You know, Christ lives in us.
Paul said, Christ lives in me. Christ in you is the hope of
glory. Our Lord Jesus Christ said it like this, I'm the vine,
you're the branches. Apart from me, you have no life.
If you're not joined to me, you're gonna wither and die. But he
also says this, without me, you can do nothing. Without me, you
can do nothing. And that spiritual life, this
is how we know that Christ is in us. That spiritual life that
we possess, that life that's in us, that life that makes us
seek the Lord, desire the Lord, understand his word. and seek
to knowing more and knowing better and be found in him. The reason
that is, is because Christ is in us. Christ himself is our
life. And then I say that he is ours,
he's ours personally. Everybody in here, everybody
in here, has a personal relationship with the Lord. I can't have a
relationship for you and you can't have one for me. We all
have our own relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
why Thomas says, my Lord and my God. He looked at all those disciples
that walked away, looked at the 12, said, I guess y'all gonna
leave too then, ain't you? I guess you're gonna leave too.
Guess you're just gonna leave. Lord, to whom shall we go? Who shall we go? You've got the
words of eternal life. I can't go away from you. And
I'll tell you, evidently people find it very easy to leave the
gospel. People find it very easy not to need Christ very much. Evidently people just find it
very, very easy. It's easier to watch on a computer
screen or watch on a television screen than to go and have a
relationship with the Lord's people and with Christ Himself. Our Lord Jesus, He said He feeds
among the lilies and He comes down, He's with us. And let me
tell you something, all He is, all He is, is ours. All He did is ours. Everything he did is ours and
all mine. And I tell you something else,
he's always ours and we're always his. We're never more his at one time
than another. And he's never more ours at one
time more than another. You say, well you don't know
how I feel. That ain't got nothing to do with nothing. You just don't know how sinful
I am. Oh yes I do, and so does he. But that didn't stop him.
That didn't stop him from loving us. That didn't stop him from
giving himself to us. That didn't stop him from saying,
you're mine too. I'm yours, but you're mine too. You know, you're mine. Oh my. And I tell you, he doesn't come
and go. He's always ours. He doesn't come and go. He doesn't
come and go, come and go, come and go. He don't come and go
because of our feelings. We feel bad, we feel high, we
feel joyful, we feel depressed, we feel despair. Get up some
days and you just feel so empty and you don't have any reason
to walk. You cannot explain why you feel the way you do. It just
happens. And now what if he just left
us, just left us to ourselves? But he doesn't come and go the
way people do. He doesn't come and go by our
feelings. He doesn't come and go by our temperament. You know
what our Lord said? I'll be with you all the way
to the end. That's a long time. And oh my,
Christ is mine and I am his. He is my beloved, and I am his. That's faith. I believe what
he says. I don't feel much like it sometimes,
but we believe what he says. I am his and he is mine. Oh,
this is faith working by love. And I'm certainly thankful that
the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, my beloved, come away. Come away. Come away. Arise and come away.
Arise and come to me. Come to me. Our Father, in the precious name,
blessed name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for your word. Thank you for being ours and
making us to be yours. this precious union that we have,
this blessed, blessed union of love and life, hope, joy, peace,
that you're our life, that you're in us, you're our hope of glory. And it's such a mystery, Lord,
that how you could dwell in us and how we can dwell in you,
what a mystery. But yet, Lord, you teach us that
in your precious word. And we find it to be so encouraging,
so blessing to our hearts. God bless this word to the hearers
tonight. Keep them as they go in and go
out. Give them a good night's rest.
Bless their hearts, bless their minds, bless their bodies. That's only you can do. We ask
these things in Christ's name. Amen.