Right, the power and love of
Christ. You know, several times in going through the Song of
Solomon, we've seen that there are some of these passages where
it may not be crystal clear who is speaking and who is responding. Sometimes it's the bridegroom,
Christ, speaking to the bride. Sometimes the bride speaking
to the bridegroom. Sometimes it's the daughters
of Jerusalem. All of this, most of the time
I think it's pretty clear who's speaking and who's not. But probably
in these last verses of chapter eight, I found in studying for
these messages, you have more disagreement among biblical interpreters
about who's talking. And so when you look at verse
five, just the first part of it, it says, who is this that
cometh up from the wilderness? And it says, leaning upon her
beloved. Well, it's clear there who's
talking and who he's talking about. And the question is asked,
who is this who comes up from the wilderness? Well, that's
the bride of Christ in this world. The wilderness, if you sometimes
just go over and read Revelation 12, it talks about how the church,
the woman was chased into the wilderness, and there she found
solace because she found solace in the word of God. But the wilderness
represents the wanderings, the pilgrimage, and also the church
in a sinful, cursed world. You can think about the children
of Israel, for example, who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years
before the Lord brought them to the promised land. And so
that's what we're doing as a church, collectively, and as individual
believers. We're wandering in this wilderness.
but the Lord keeps us and he preserves us. And it says, it's
a difficult journey. It's a sojourn. We're pilgrims
in this world. We're not citizens of this world.
We're citizens of a heavenly kingdom. And this is a difficult
journey. So how do we survive this difficult
journey? How can the church reach her
destination When there's so much against us, our battles with
the world, the flesh, and the devil, the world hates us. And the issue is this, the answer
to that is this. Look at the phrase, leaning upon
her beloved. There's how we survive. We lean upon the everlasting
arms of Christ. We look to him, we come to him
constantly. We're under his wing. We're protected by him. And the
scripture says, I've got cited in your lesson, Romans 8, 31,
if God be for us, who can be against us? Who can be against
us? We're leaning upon Christ. How
do I know that God is for me? leaning upon Christ. Is Christ
my only hope of salvation? Is he my only hope of forgiveness? Is he my only ground of salvation? Is he my only righteousness?
That's how I know that God is for me. If God be for me, who
can be against me? It doesn't matter. There's no
victory of our enemies if God is for us and he's for everyone
who's leaning upon Christ. who believes in Christ, who pleads
his blood in righteousness. And her beloved is Christ, the
Lord of glory. And the Lord God brings her through
this wilderness, not in her own power, not in her own goodness,
but in the power and the goodness of Christ. Listen, think about
it. We're totally dependent. I'm gonna talk about this in
the message today. We are always totally, 100% dependent. upon the power, the goodness,
and the grace of God for our spiritual and eternal well-being.
We're never dependent upon ourselves. We never look to ourselves for
this power, this goodness, to bring ourselves through. And
I thought about the issue here is the assurance of salvation
that comes from a revelation and a realization that He is
able to save to the uttermost them that come unto the Father
by Him. He is able, it's His ability. So being in Christ and
looking unto Him and leaning on Him as the author and finisher
of our faith, we can be assured that God is for us. In Him we
know that God has freely given us all things all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places, all things that pertain to salvation and
eternal life. Being in him, we're assured that
God will not lay one sin to our charge because he laid them upon
Christ. Christ is our surety. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's law? In him, we can be
confident that we cannot be condemned. In Christ Jesus, there is therefore
now no condemnation. And we're counted righteous before
God in Him. That's what we can be assured
of. And He intercedes on our behalf right now. At all times,
Christ is our mediator. He's our intercessor. And by
God's grace, we trust and lean on Christ and not to ourselves
and not to our own understanding. We'll look at the second part
of this verse, verse five. It says, I raised thee up under
the apple tree, there thy mother brought thee forth, there she
brought thee forth that bare thee. Now this last half of this
verse is where Bible interpreters really disagree over who's the
speaker here. Some say it's the bridegroom
responding to the bride. And if that's the case, then
it's, and we can see this. I mean, there's truth on either
side of this thing. Whoever's doing the speaking,
you can see something of the glory and power of God in salvation.
If it's the bridegroom responding to the bride, then it's simply
a declaration of his power. and his work, the work of God
to save and bring forth children who make up the church, the bride
of Christ. You know, when you talk about,
I raise thee up under the apple tree, the tree in the scripture
that describes life given. from God. And then the apple
tree would represent Christ himself. We saw an example of that back
in the second chapter of the Song of Solomon, verse three.
And he is the tree of life. He sends forth his spirit to
give life and produce fruit of God's grace in them. Romans 8,
10. If Christ be in you, then the body is dead because of sin,
but the spirit is life because of righteousness. And so by the
righteousness that he accomplished by his death on the cross, which
God has imputed to us, that's our ground of salvation, and
it's the source of spiritual life. But now other interpreters
say, well, this is the bride speaking of our lifting up Christ. Look at it again. I raised thee
up under the apple tree, there thy mother brought thee forth,
there she brought thee forth that bare thee. If this is the
bride speaking, it would be the bride lifting him up in worship. That's what I'm doing when I
preach the gospel, I'm lifting up Christ. And I thought about
this, I got this outline from an old preacher years ago, who
said this, he said, you know, when the Lord said in John chapter
three, he said, that the son, or it's spoken of him, that he
must, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so
must the Son of Man be lifted up. And so, and then in John
12, the Lord himself said, and I, if I be lifted up, will draw
all men unto me. And this outline went something
like this. Christ must be lifted up for our salvation. First,
he must be lifted up on the cross to redeem us from our sins. That's
the ground. And then he must be lifted up
in his resurrection, because in his death he established righteousness
by which God justifies his people. And then he must be lifted up
into glory to be seated at his father's right hand to make intercession
for us. And then he must be lifted up
in the preaching of the gospel, whereby the spirit gives life
to the ones whom he redeemed. lifting him up, and then he must
be lifted up in the regenerate hearts of his people whereby
God gives them faith to believe and brings them to repentance
of dead works. And then we spend our lives lifting him up in worship. And in either case, when he talks
about the mother in here in verse five, thy mother brought thee
forth. In either case, whether it's
Christ speaking to the bride or the bride speaking to him,
the mother here refers to the church as an instrument of preaching
the gospel whereby God calls his sheep into the fold. It's
not anything like the Catholic heresy of Mary being the mother
of God and all that stuff, no. What he's talking about is the
church in this world, is used as an instrument to preach the
gospel, whereby Christ, through that word, gives life to his
people and brings them into the fold. And so that's what I believe
he's talking about when he talks about she brought thee forth
that bear thee. That is, as an instrument of
preaching the gospel. The power of it, the life of
it, comes from him, not from the church. Because you see,
the church, what is the church? It's made up of sinners saved
by the grace of God. Sinners who are by nature dead
spiritually, but who've been given life from the dead by the
Lord Jesus Christ. Well, look at verse six. It says,
set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for
love is as strong as death, Jealousy is cruel as the grave. The coals
thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement fire. A
vehement flame. Now again, if you go read some
gospel commentators, they'll say, well, this is Christ speaking
to the church. And he speaks of how he has sealed
his people. sealed in the grace of God, sealed
His grace and love upon the hearts of His people, sent His Spirit
to give life, to bring us to salvation, to believe in Him
and to love Him. Look over at Romans chapter six,
just for a moment. Let me show you an example of
what that might be talking about. In Romans chapter six, verse
17. Here he says in Romans 6, 17,
but God be thanked that you were the servants of sin. You were
spiritually dead. You were in unbelief. But you
have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered
you. Now that word form there is like
a seal. It's like a stamp. I don't know much about this
kind of machine work and all that, but you've heard of the
tool and die, and the die is cast, and therefore everything's,
that's the kind of form that it's talking about here. It's
talking about the gospel. You believe from the heart that
form of doctrine, and you were sealed, you were stamped, which
was delivered you, which you were delivered to, and being
then made free from sin, that is, in Christ, and from the deception
of sin that kept us in unbelief, you became the servants of righteousness,
you became the servants of Christ. And then over in Ephesians chapter
one, there's another example of what I believe this could
be talking about. In Ephesians when he's talking
about the work of the father and the work of the son and the
work of the spirit And when he gets down to the work of the
spirit Ephesians not Galatians bill.
All right Here we go He says in verse 12 of Ephesians 1 that
we should be to the praise of the glory of his glory who first
trusted in Christ in whom you also trusted after that you heard
the word of truth and the gospel of your salvation, in whom also
after you believed you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,
which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession under the praise of his glory. And so you were sealed,
the Holy Spirit changed us. He gave us a new heart. He entered
into our lives. He indwells every one of God's
people and we're sealed unto that glory that Christ has brought
us to. And that establishes, to have
this divine seal upon our hearts is to be given a new heart. That's
what the new birth is all about. We're given a new heart. We're
given new spiritual life. And then to have this seal establishes
within us the godly motives of grace, love, and gratitude for
obedience. He said, I'll give you a heart
to obey God, to obey Him in newness of spirit, to have this divine
seal upon our hearts. And go back to Song of Solomon
8. He says, set me as a seal upon
thine heart, the heart, the mind, the affections, as a seal upon
thine arm. What does the arm represent?
It represents our walk, our works. It's not that we're working for
our salvation, but he set us as a seal that we work for his
glory. What is it? Matthew 5 and verse
16, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good
works and glorify your father which is in heaven. And so we
work for his glory motivated from our hearts by grace, love,
and gratitude, and that's a seal. And then here in verse six, he
talks about love is as strong as death. What he means is this
love overcomes death. Death cannot stop this love.
Death cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ, Romans
chapter eight. Who shall separate us from the
love of God in Christ? Death cannot do it. Tribulation
cannot do it. Nothing can do it. And jealousy
is as cruel as the grave. What does this jealousy involve?
It's a zeal for the glory of God. And it's as strong as the
grave. It's as hard as the grave. That's what this word, when it
says cruel, it's talking about it's adamant. It's aggressive. It's such a
zeal that the grave cannot stop. Oh death, where is thy sting?
Oh grave, where is thy victory? That kind of thing. And so it's
a jealousy, it's a zeal for the glory of God that cannot be stopped
by the grave because Christ overcome the grave. And the coals thereof
are coals of fire which hath a most vehement fire. You may
realize I've said this a lot. that once the Holy Spirit seals
us into the life of faith, looking to Christ, you cannot deny it,
you cannot ignore it, you cannot leave it. And that's because
of this vehement flame. You can't get away from it. Yeah,
I'd almost say if we would try, we couldn't get away from it
because he sealed us into this. So that, from the viewpoint of
speaking of the church, but now think about this, Christ speaking
to the church, his suffering unto death, think about him in
his zeal. He set his face as a flint to
do the work that he came to do. And he was spot on. When they tried to stop him,
even his disciples, they'd say, don't go here, don't go to Jerusalem. And he'd tell them, he said,
that's the reason I came here. They knew that he'd be arrested.
They knew that he'd be killed. And he said, that's the reason
I came here. But it was his zeal for the glory of his father and
the salvation of his people that kept him looking intently in
his love for his people, a love that's stronger than death, a
zeal that's stronger than the grave. Death cannot destroy this
love. And he's also made us jealous
for that glory. So that's the truth that's set
forth here. Look at verse seven. He says,
many waters cannot quench love. Waters here meaning like the
floods of trouble, trial. Remember what old Job said, Man
is a few days and full of trouble. Troublesome days. We all experience
them, and there'll be more. We may have moments of joy and
peace, but trouble's coming. You know, Brother Shepard said,
you know, he's staying on the shore. You watch that wave go
out, but another one's coming back in. But it cannot quench this love,
the love of God for us. And it cannot quench our love
for him. Now I know that our love can grow strong, it can
grow weak sometimes. The Lord speaks of those who
the love of many has grown cold. He speaks, remember the church
at Ephesus in Revelation chapter two, they lost their first love.
But I don't believe it can, if we've been sealed like this,
if we've been brought to Christ by the power of the Spirit, this
love cannot be totally extinguished. There'll be times when it might
burn a little brighter than others, you know, and that's our problem. Because we get distracted, we
get down and all of that. But many waters cannot quench. It certainly cannot quench Christ's
love for us. Certainly cannot. But neither
can the floods drown it. The floods cannot drown it. And
here's the thing about this love. The point I believe that's being
made here is this. This love of Christ towards his
people is free and unconditional and you cannot buy it. You cannot
earn it. Look at the last part. If a man
would give all the substance of his house for love, it would
be utterly contemned. it would be utterly corrupted. In other words, when we experience
this love of Christ for his people, we realize immediately that it's
free and unconditional, that he's the worthy bridegroom, we're
the unworthy bride, and we can't buy it. And man's attempts to
buy it or earn it is a slap in his face. It dishonors the Lord
God for sinners to try to work their way into his favor. It's
utterly condemned. You can't buy it, I don't care.
How much money you've got, you can't buy it. And to try to do
that, it's utterly condemned. He rejects it. Herein is love. Not that we love God. but that
he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. And it's his love for us that
seals us in permanently without any possibility of failure. It's
his love, God's love for his people that sent his son to fulfill
all the conditions and requirements of the righteousness which he's
given us. And all of that out of his free
unconditional love that cannot be bought. Okay.