As we read through a book like
the Song of Solomon, I believe there's a couple of things that
we always need to keep in mind as we're reading these verses.
And I've said them before, but I wanna emphasize this because
I think this needs to be at the forefront of our thinking. And
that's, number one, is that the Lord Jesus Christ is portrayed
here as the worthy bridegroom. He is worthy. Worthy as the lamb
to receive honor and glory. He's the worthy bridegroom. And the church is the unworthy
bride. Keep that in mind so that when
you come to a passage like here in Song of Solomon chapter two,
And you see language in this that the bridegroom, for example,
describing the bride as fair or comely or beautiful. We understand that that's the
language of salvation and blessing by God's grace. It's not something
that we, there's nothing about us naturally that could be said
to be comely, beautiful, or fair. We are sinners saved by grace.
So keep in mind, he's the worthy bridegroom. Worthy because of
who he is, worthy because of what he has accomplished on our
behalf. In his death on the cross, he
was elevated to a position of sovereign lordship over all as
our mediator. He's the worthy bridegroom, and
we're the unworthy bride, sinners saved by grace. The second thing
that I think we need to keep in mind is when it speaks of
the bride of Christ, or the wife, which is often portrayed in scripture
in that way, that is talking about the church collectively
which Christ redeemed with his own blood. The church. And the word church means not
only is the church redeemed, but the word church itself means
called out. We've been given life from the
dead and called out of the world to Christ. And I put it this
way, this is the whole church, every believer Every sinner saved
by grace is included in this collective body called the church,
the Bride of Christ. This is not some special elite
group of believers. You know there's a denomination
that teaches that. That if you're a member of our
church, you're a member of the Bride. They call it the Baptist
Bride. Now you can be saved and in another church somewhere,
but you're just a child of God. You're not a member of the inner
circle. Well that's a lie. That's not, that's elitism. The
bride of Christ is every individual sinner saved by grace. Collectively
called the bride, collectively called the church, but each one. And they'll make a, like that
denomination I was telling you about, they'll make a difference
between the bride and the children. They'll go to passages like in
the parable of the King's Supper. Can't remember what, in Matthew,
where that is, you know, where the guest was found and all that,
they'll use parables like that to establish doctrine. But first
of all, you know as well as I do, you don't use parables to derive
doctrine. Parables illustrate doctrine.
And so, but they say, well, the Bible makes a distinction between
the bride and the children. No, the Bible has many names,
many descriptions, many illustrations of the church. of sinners saved
by grace. Sometimes we're called children
of God, sometimes we're called the bride of Christ, sometimes
we're called the sheep of Christ. So I mean, we could go on and
on with that. So keep those two things in mind, that he's the
worthy bride, groom, we're the unworthy bride. So anything that
is said positive about his bride, it came from him by grace. It
wasn't in her naturally. She's a rebellious prostitute,
spiritually, in herself, just like Hosea's Gomer. And so anything
that is said about a right relationship with the bridegroom, about what
she is and who she is and how he sees her, it's all of grace. It's nothing. Even when we talk
about this one, rise up and come away. She didn't rise up on her
own. and come away on her own of her
own free will, she hunkered down and ran, that's what, ran away
from him by nature, okay? So let's look at this, verse
eight. Starts out, the voice of my beloved. Behold, he cometh leaping upon
the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Now who's it talking
about here? He's talking about Christ coming
to save his bride. Salvation is of the Lord. And
the Lord himself is the first cause of all things, especially
in salvation. I put in your lesson, he's the
prime mover. And he's always successful in
the salvation of his people, his chosen people. He will not
lose one of his children. And what this is teaching is
before we can be saved, before we can be brought into a right
relationship with God, Christ must come to us. He's got to
come and do his great work. I love that passage over in Isaiah
46 where the Lord speaks of, he says, hearken unto me, you
that are stout-hearted, that means proud and unbelieving,
stiff-necked, He says, I bring near my righteousness. It shall
not be far off, and I will place salvation in Zion for my glory. That's all the work of God. That's
not some kind of a synergistic, cooperative work between the
Father, God, and his people. No, he says, I bring it near.
Religion teaches you to reach for it as if it's far off. You've
got to attain it. You've got to work for it. You've
got to get to it. You may get close, but then some sin comes
in your life, and you scoot on back. I had a Presbyterian tell
me that one time. He was talking about progressive
holiness. He said, it's like this, we go
up, up, up, up, and then some sin gets us, and we're locked
down. I said, good night. What a life. Had another Reformed
Baptist, he was saying that salvation's like walking a tightrope. And
you know how tightrope walkers, they have that bar? And he said,
on one end of the bar is the imputed righteousness of Christ,
and on the other end of the bar is our works of righteousness.
And you gotta balance them out. Well, I'll tell you, if you wanna
be more biblical about where our feet are, as far as salvation,
we're not walking a tightrope, we're standing on a rock. And
that rock is Christ Jesus. and we're clothed in his righteousness.
That's the bride's beauty. But it's all of him. Now the
gospel command says, come unto me all ye that are heavy laden
and I'll give you rest. But the fact of the matter is,
if left to ourselves, we will not come to him. In fact, we
don't even see ourselves as heavy laden and in need of rest until
the Holy Spirit awakens us to our situation. Who we are and
what we are. You know, I thought I was a pretty
good guy when I was in false religion. And when I did bad
things, all I had, I'd already been, I already walked out and
gave my heart to Jesus and been baptized. When I did bad things,
all I had to do was, remember what it was, guys? Rededicate. That was my, that was kind of
like, that's like the Baptist equivalent to the Catholic confessional.
You went out and did something bad, then you got to rededicate.
And I rededicated a lot. Maybe you did too. But here's
the point of it. If left up to us, we will never
come to Christ. He came unto his own and his
own received him not. But to as many as hath received
him, to them gave he the power, the right to become the sons
of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born
What, not of blood, it wasn't physical heritage, not of the
will of the flesh, which I believe means the works of the flesh,
and nor of the will of man. It wasn't by our own free will
that we did it. Born of God. The Bible says in
the command of the gospel, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
you shall be saved. But again, by nature, we won't
seek him, we won't believe on him. Not as he's revealed in his word
now. People will flock to this false Christ who admires them,
who rewards them by their works, because that gives them room
to boast. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're spiritually
discerned. In your lesson here, I put down
Romans 3 in the first paragraph there. I put Romans 3, 1 through
12. Go ahead and read all of those verses, but I meant to
put a zero after the one, Romans 3, 10 through 12. But go ahead
and read the others too. The Lord meant for me, meant
for you to read that whole passage. But what I was talking about
there where it says there's none righteous, no, not one. There's
none that doeth good. There's none that seeketh after
God. You cannot come to me. No man
can come to God. So what does it take? Well, the
first thing here, look at it again, the voice of my beloved.
First thing's got to happen, we got to hear his voice. And there's two problems there.
Number one, by nature, we don't have ears to hear. That's spiritual
death and depravity, isn't it? Remember what Christ told the
disciples when they asked him, why are you speaking in parables?
And he said of the Pharisees and the religious people, they
have ears to hear, but they don't hear. Oh, they can hear audibly. But hearing there means heeding. Hearing with an obedient, submissive
heart. We don't have those ears. We
don't have spiritual eyes to see the glory of God. You must
be born again, Christ said, or you cannot see the kingdom of
God. You can't understand these things.
And then secondly, unless we're under his voice. Now what is
his voice? Well, that's the word of God
in the Bible. the preaching of the gospel.
That's his voice. It doesn't mean that you get
it in a dream or hear an audible voice from the clouds or anything
like that. It means you hear the gospel. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first,
the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith, as it is written, that just shall live
by faith. So what he's saying here, the voice of my beloved.
I hear his voice. Now right now you're hearing
me. But if I'm preaching the word of God, it's in essence
his voice. And that's why you need to make
sure that I'm staying with the word of God. That's why we're
told to test the preachers. Check me out with the word of
God. I always tell people, listen
with a critical ear. Now, when I say a critical ear,
I'm not saying listen to find something wrong. Listen like
the noble Bereans. Am I speaking according to this
word? I've always joked about a lot
of preachers I know, and I hope I'm not in this category, but
I said every preacher brags about the noble Bereans until they
meet one. Who are you to question me? You
ever got that kind of idea? I've been in the ministry for
30 years. You can't question me. Is that right? Well, we're
commanded to. Now again, we're not just trying
to pick at preachers. We're not just trying to find
something wrong or anything like that. But I wanna know if a man's
standing behind a pulpit or a lectern preaching to me, I wanna know
he's telling me the truth. And this is the voice of her
beloved. And it is the voice of love in
the gospel. The love of God revealed in that
work of salvation that Christ accomplished on Calvary. A propitiation,
a sin-bearing sacrifice that brought satisfaction and worked
sovereignly in my salvation to bring me to himself. This is
the love of God, but it's not love without justice. This is
the truth of God, but it's not, the mercy of God, but it's not
mercy without truth. This is the righteousness of
God. But grace reigns through righteousness.
That's how grace comes. What is the voice of my beloved? It's come ye sinners, poor and
needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus Christ ready
stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. That's the call, and this But
this voice, if you hear the voice of this beloved, you'll see him.
Look at verse eight. Behold, he cometh leaping upon
the mountains, skipping upon the hills. There's two things
here that you need to understand. He comes joyfully. Christ, the
book of Hebrews chapter 12 and verse two presents him as suffering
contradiction from men, which we understand that because here's
the Holy One of Israel. being persecuted and put to death
by sinful men, calling him cursed of God, calling him a criminal. That's a contradiction, isn't
it? Now obviously we know that that was all well within the
sovereign providence and plan of God because it pleased the
Lord to bruise him. We meant it for evil, God meant
it for good. But it also says there in Hebrews
12 that it was for the joy that was set before him. And what
was that joy? It's the glory of his father.
It's the salvation of his people. So he comes leaping upon the
mountains, skipping upon the hills. One commentator said the
mountains and the hills could represent all of the obstacles
that Christ had to overcome in order to attain our salvation.
Think about the mountain of God's law. There's no way we could
climb that mountain, is there? The law works death in us. By
deeds of law shall no flesh be justified. That's a mountain
we can't climb. Religion says try. The word of
God, the voice of our beloved says rest. He climbed that mountain
for us as our surety, our substitute, our redeemer. where Christ is
the end of the law, the finishing of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe. Think about the hills of our
sin. We couldn't get over that hill. Our sin would, remember
what he told Cain? If you do well, you'll be fine,
but if not, sin lies at the door. What was it to do well? Do what
Abel did, bring the blood of the Lamb. That's how you're gonna
conquer sin. You can clench your fist and
grit your teeth and plant your feet, but you're not gonna be
able to conquer sin. Even as believers, even as justified,
sanctified, and regenerated, we still can't conquer this thing
of sin in ourselves, can we? No, but who does? Who shall deliver us from this
body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ,
my Lord. That's what this is about. Look
over at verse nine now. He says, my beloved is like a
roe, that roe there is like a gazelle. Fast and strong, a young heart,
a young deer. Again, fast and strong. And behold,
he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the window,
showing himself through the lattice, flourishing. Now Christ, was cut down in the
prime of his youth in his strength. What was he, about 33 years old
when he was crucified? Like a roe, like a gazelle, like
a young deer in the prime. I know in the Passover feast,
they were to bring a young lamb of a year old without spot, without
blemish. And that's what this represents,
my beloved. He's not weak, he's not begging.
He's not, Brother Mahoney said, he's not hanging over the banister
of heaven just hoping you'll accept him as your savior. This
weak Jesus that's being preached throughout the world is not our
beloved. That's a counterfeit. Some people
think that's too strong, but I'm sorry. I know what God's
word says. He's like a row. He's like a
young heart and he standeth behind our wall. What does this mean?
It says showing himself through the lattice. Well, one commentator
said it's like, like Christ looking through the window, showing himself
through the lattice that could refer to the gradual revelation
of himself throughout the old Testament until he came in the
full revelation of all of his glory. That could be. But you know what I think it's
really talking about? It's talking about as we walk
through this world, he always has his watchful eye over us. He's always protecting us. He's
always directing things for his glory and our good, even when
our view is hindered of him. Even when we can't see things
as they really are, sometimes our view gets clouded. We get
sick or we have a trial and we lose sight of Christ. We do. We do. We start looking
to ourselves or within ourselves or we start listening to our
critics and we get down. But he never takes his eye off
of his beloved. He never removes his hand of
providence from off of his beloved. He's always there. He'll never
leave us. He'll never forsake us. He's
always looking, looking forth at the window, showing himself
through the lattice. And sometimes we'll lose sight
of him, but he never loses sight of us. No one can pluck him out
of my father's hand. He said, I am my father alone.
That's what I believe it's referring to. But he's had his eye on us,
and then look at verse 10. He says, my beloved spoke and
said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. That's
where I got the title. Here the bridegroom calls the
bride to himself. And it's an effectual calling.
There's no possibility that the bride will not rise up and come
away with him. He gives us life from the dead. And that's the thing about life.
Life is going to reveal itself. It will never remain dormant.
I thought about this, you know, when sometimes in comparing it
with physical birth. This is the new birth. Rise up.
You know the baby, when a baby is born, comes forth from the
womb, that baby begins to breathe, it cries. Do you all remember
that? I don't. You don't either. You don't either. But you still
breathe. You still cried because life
is going to reveal itself. It's not going to remain dormant.
And in the new birth, spiritually, life is going to reveal itself
in our breathing. And what is that breathing? Faith
in Christ. Knowing Christ. And so when he
speaks to a dead sinner and says, rise up, it's the same as when
he spoke to Lazarus. Remember in John 11? Lazarus,
come forth. Lazarus didn't turn over on the
other side and say, no, I'm just gonna stay here. No, he came
forth. He came out of the grave and the Lord told him to remove
those grave clothes. And all it took was Christ saying
these words, Lazarus, come forth. And that's the voice of the bride,
my beloved spoke. He just spoke the word of life. That's what it's talking about.
Begotten again by the word of truth. The gospel, which is the
power of God unto salvation. This is when the Holy Spirit
brings us under the preaching of the gospel, imparts life,
and brings us to Christ. Rise up, and he said, rise up
my love. Think about that. My fair one. My beautiful one. Now considering
what we know about ourselves and what God's word says about
us naturally, how in the world could he love us and how in the
world could he call us fair? Beauty, that's what it is, beautiful. It's only by his grace. His love
is unconditional towards us. Now his love is not unconditional
towards the father. There were conditions he had
to meet. He had to fulfill all righteousness. He had to put
away our sin. He had to honor the law of God,
the justice of God. But we didn't deserve it and
we didn't earn it and still don't. And his love, God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That's
the world of his people, his bride, his elect. His redeemed
ones, justified, based upon His righteousness alone. And that's
how we can be called fair. We stand in His beauty. We stand
washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness, given life
from above. And what do we do when He calls
us, when He speaks that word in power? We come away. We rise up and we come away. We come to Christ, we come away
from self, from the world. We come in faith in Christ, God-given
faith, and God-given repentance from dead works. We know that's all of God. All of God. Look at verse 11. He says, for lo, the winter's
past. The rain is over and gone. The winter here is indicative
of death. You know, the seasons. There's
a testimony of God in the seasons, isn't there? You see the spring,
and that's life and fruitfulness. The summer, living in that. The
fall, like the fall of man. Everything died, and then the
winter's death. Well, the winter of our death
is over. The winter of our decay is over. That's our natural spiritual
death and sin. In the state of death, all we
could bring forth is fruit unto death. And the rain here, a lot
of times in the Bible, the rain's symbolic of goodness and the
grace of God raining down upon us. But here, it's the cold,
icy, wintry, stormy rain that chills us to the bone, beats
upon us. And this coldness and this darkness
is totally gone as to our salvation and our right relationship with
God. Now even as believers walking in this world, we're gonna go
through times of coldness and trial and things like that. But as far as our standing before
God and our state with God, that winter's over. That rain is gone. We stand in Christ, who called
us to himself. And then look at verse 12. He
says, for the flowers appear on the earth. That's life. That's
the fruit of God. Christ is the vine. We bear fruit
from the vine. I always like to say that when
we talk about Christ being the vine and we're the branches.
We do not create the fruit. We do not produce it. We just
bear it. The fruit of the Spirit, the
time of singing of birds has come. The singing of His glory
and His grace, His goodness, praise to the Lord. Worthy is
the Lamb. That's what all that represents.
Life, see here. This is the springtime, this
is the time of rebirth. This is the time of life given
through the Son by the Spirit. And the voice of the turtle,
that's the turtle dove. is heard in our land, the turtle
dove, the dove speaks of peace with God, the peace that passes
understanding, that's what he gives to his bride. Fruitfulness,
life and fruitfulness and peace and understanding, joy and peace
in believing, looking to Christ, that's where our peace is. We
were talking about last Wednesday night on a Zoom meeting with
some other believers, talking about assurance of salvation.
And how do we gain assurance of salvation? It's not by looking
within ourselves. It's by looking outside of ourselves.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Looking
unto him. Coming unto him constantly. Not
just one time, but constantly. Coming to Christ. And then look
at verse 13, he says, The fig tree putteth forth her green
figs. You see, this is life. And the vines with the tender
grape give a good smell, a sweet-smelling savor unto God, because it's
through the mediatorial work of Christ, like that smoke going
up, and God says it's an aroma, a sweet smell. And he says, arise,
my love, my fair one, and come away. I believe what he's emphasizing
there is that we don't just come to Christ one time. You know,
I was brought up, you know, where you try to get people down the
aisle, and you get them down, and they get them saved, and
it doesn't matter really what they do afterward. I guarantee
you, you know, they could never darken the door of a church or
never reveal any of the fruitfulness of salvation, but when they die,
boy, they're gonna get them into heaven. No, we come to Christ
all the time. You know there in Hebrews chapter
4 when it talks about coming to a throne of grace in time
of need Well, what is our time of need? all time He has the bridegroom has a needy
bride And that's us and we need him all the time so come rise
up and come away. He says all right