Song of Solomon, chapter eight.
Her lesson will begin in verse 11 this morning. I've entitled
the lesson Christ's Vineyard. In verse 11, it begins, Solomon
had a vineyard. And we know that Solomon represents
our Lord Jesus Christ. He's our bridegroom. Throughout
this song, that's what we've seen. This is not speaking of
Solomon. One greater than Solomon has
come, the Lord Jesus Christ. And thank God, Christ has a vineyard. The vineyard is God's elect. The vineyard is the people that
God has given to his son. Christ is divine, and we who
believe are the branches, so we are the vineyard of Christ.
And thank God for that. You think what this world would
be like if it wasn't for Christ's vineyard in this world. This
world would just be a vast wasteland, just nothing but dry, lifeless,
dead desert where nothing lives if it wasn't for God's vineyard
as an oasis in the middle of this desert. Now, God didn't
create the world this way. God created the world perfect.
He put a garden in it, so he put man in it to dress that garden.
It was a good place for man to live. God saw that it was good,
but man sinned. And he fell and he plunged the
whole world into sin and into death so that all of us are born
in this world spiritually dead. And this whole earth is a dry,
barren wilderness full of people whose hearts are a dry, barren
wilderness. But in God's grace, he elected
a people unto salvation. He made those people his vineyards. In the fullness of time, the
father sent his son into this world to redeem those people
that he gave his son in the covenant of grace. They're under the curse
of the law. He sent his son to redeem them
from the curse of the law. They're born dead. So God sent
his son in this world to give them life through his death.
And those people are God's fruitful vineyard in the middle of this
dry desert of a world. And Christ claims ownership of
them. He says, They're mine. Solomon
had a vineyard. These people belong to Christ.
They belong to him because the father gave them to him in divine
election. They belong to him because Christ
came. He purchased them with his own blood. He purchased his
people. They belong to him. They belong
to him because he's joined himself to them. He's in them and they're
in him. They belong to him because he
sent the gospel to them. He sent the gospel of Christ
to them and wooed them. He won their heart through the
preaching of the gospel. Just like a young man wins the
heart of a girl and she wants to become his wife. God sent
his gospel to his people and he won their heart so that they
want to be joined to Christ. Now they belong to Christ. Well,
you reckon he's ever gonna take his eye off of them? Not on your
life. His eye of protection and care
is on his vineyard. He's not going to let it become
overgrown with weeds and blight and disease and wild vines. His care is always on his vineyard. And there's a few things I want
us to learn this morning about God's vineyard. And the first
one is this. God's vineyard is a vast vineyard. The fruit of
this vineyard is innumerable. Verse 11 says Solomon had a vineyard
at Baalhamon. Now Baalhamon means multitude. Christ has a vineyard. He has
a people that are a multitude of people, a multitude no man
can number. Now I know at any one time they're
just a remnant, just a small remnant in all these different
cities around the world where God has his local church, they're
just a remnant, just a few, you know, spread here and there.
But don't look at that and be mistaken and think Christ just
has a small vineyard. In all things, Christ must have
the preeminence. He has saved a people no man
can number. We talk about the doctrinal point,
the limited atonement of Christ. The blood of Christ is not limited
in its power to save. The blood of Christ is limited
in its scope of who it saves. Christ shed his blood for his
elect and those elect people saved by his blood are an innumerable
host. Don't ever let the doctrine of
limited atonement or God's electing love keep you from coming to
Christ. Don't ever think that the truth
of election means that God is rejecting many people who desire
to be saved on God's terms. Don't think election means that
there are many people who desire to be saved by Christ alone and
God's rejecting them because he didn't choose them first.
No. Election is the only way a sinner can be included in God's
salvation. The only way we can be included
in God's vineyard is by God's election. God saves sinners by
his electing love. So no sinner is excluded. If
salvation were by our decision, We'd be excluded because we often
make bad decisions, don't we? If salvation were by our knowledge,
many would be excluded because we don't know much. If salvation
were by our good works, all of us would be excluded. We don't
have any good works. But since salvation is by God's electing
love, there's no sinner that's excluded because of his sin.
God did not choose an elite few to save. First of all, there's
nothing about them that's elite. They're all sinners. God chose
a host of sinners to save in his son. And the Lord Jesus Christ
came and redeemed every last one of them. And they are Christ's
vineyard. He will have every last one of
them. This thing's not left to chance.
It's not left to the sinner's choice. Christ will have every
one of them because he owns them. They're in his heart and he owns
them. Verse 12 says, my vineyard which is mine, is before me. Christ claims ownership of them. He will have his vineyard and
it's an innumerable fruitful vineyard. Second, I want us to
learn this, that Christ has given his vineyard. He's given his
church to pastors and elders and teachers to take care of
the vineyard. Verse 11, Solomon had a vineyard
at Belhahmon and he let out the vineyard unto keepers. Now, the
first thing we think of when we read that phrase is we think
of God's pastors, God's under shepherds, that God has given
the commandment to feed his sheep and to care for his sheep. We
think of pastors that God's given the commandment, you go tend
to my vineyard to make it fruitful. And that's true. I have no doubt
that that's the first application that we see here. God's pastors,
his teachers, his elders, they tend to the vineyard by preaching
Christ, simply by preaching Christ. Everyone in the vineyard is given
life in the new birth by the preaching of Christ. The vineyard
grows when it's watered. It grows and is lush and full
when it's watered with Christ, the water of life. The vineyard
brings forth fruit when Christ is preached to them. God's pastors
don't own the vineyard. They're not lords over God's
heritage. They don't have any way to give life to the vineyard.
Christ does that. He owns the vineyard. He's the
one that gives life to it. But the word keepers here, it
means to guard. God's pastors carefully guard
God's vineyard. They work hard in that vineyard
so that Christ will have his harvest. They guard the vineyard
from wild animals that would come in and destroy the vineyard.
They carefully tend to the garden so blight doesn't come in that
would destroy all the fruit. They're careful to make God's
vineyard a well-watered vineyard so that it's fruitful and it
grows and will produce much fruit. If you look over Matthew chapter
20, all the keepers are the same. They all have the same job, they
have the same commission, they're all on the same level, one's
not above another, they're all the same. In Matthew 20 verse
one, for the kingdom of heaven is
likened to a man that is a householder, which went out early in the morning
to hire laborers in his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the
laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing
idle in the marketplace and said unto them, go ye also into the
vineyard and whatever's right, I will give you. And they went
their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour,
and did likewise. In about the eleventh hour he
went out and found others standing idle, and said unto them, Why
stand ye here all day idle? They said unto him, Because no
man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also
into the vineyard, and whatever is ripe, that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord
of the vineyard said unto his stewards, Call the laborers,
and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
And when they came that were hired about the 11th hour, they
received every man a penny. And when the first came, they
suppose that they should have received more, but they likewise
received every man a penny. See, all the keepers are the
same. And it doesn't matter where you
serve. It doesn't matter how long you serve. They're all the
same. They're all servants of God.
Now I grant you, it seems to us, that some men have greater
gifts. Some have more success or less
success. You know, by the way, we count
success. Yet they're all the same. They all bring in fruit
worth 1,000 pieces of silver. It says here at the end of verse
11, everyone for the fruit thereof was to bring 1,000 pieces of
silver. They all bring in the same. They all bring in God's elect
that were under their care. And these keepers, these pastors,
they're to be honored, not because of who they are. They're to be
honored for the work's sake. Now look over 1 Thessalonians
chapter five. They're to be honored for the
work that God's given them to do. They're not to be considered
more special than any other believer, because that's not so. They're
to be honored for the work that God's given them to do. 1 Thessalonians
5 verse 12. And we beseech you, brethren,
to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the
Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love
for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves.
Now I've seen something here this week, that line just never
entered my mind like it should have. And be at peace among yourselves. Now, I'm not saying this for
my own benefit, trying to get more honor. The Lord's given
you a heart for that. I don't have to say that for
my own benefit. I say this for your benefit,
for the benefit of us as a congregation. I want you to listen to a statement
Don Fortner made about this verse 13. He said, where God's servants
are honored, Not just the pastor of that congregation, but where
God's servants from all over the place are honored, that congregation
walks in peace. But where all of God's servants
are not honored, when they're constantly being picked at and
drugged down, there'll be constant turmoil. And in verse 13, and
be at peace among yourselves. See, that's why I say that for
our benefit as a whole. And it is your attitude. I'm
very thankful God gave it to you. It's our attitude to honor
these men. As many men as I know that are
faithful preachers of God's gospel, I want them to come here and
preach so you can know them. You can't pray for them if you
don't know them. You can't care about them if you don't know
them. I want that. And they receive honor from God's
people. That's our attitude about the
gospel that they preach. But This does not just apply
to God's pastors. You know, you're thinking they're
thinking, well, Frank, that's just, you know, that's for you or,
you know, Eric and Dale, John, what, no, this, this applies
to all of us, to every believer. All of us are responsible to
keep the field, to keep the vineyard that God's given us. The vineyard
of our own heart. We're responsible to keep that
vineyard. We're responsible to God's church
as a whole. We're responsible to Christ's
vineyard as a whole. And we're responsible to the
congregation, the field, the vineyard, the local church that
God's put us in, that we're a part of. Now, I know all of us aren't
called to preach, but every child of God, without exception, is
called to service. Every one of you here, you have
special gifts and talents to do things, to do something in
God's surface that no one else can do. Now go do it, go do it. Don't think it's not important,
it's important. I promise you, you just go do
whatever it is that God's given you the ability to do, you go
do it with all of your mind. Don't think it's not important.
Don't think, well, you know, it really doesn't matter. Somebody
else will do it. No, don't ever think somebody else will do it.
You do it. If God's given you the ability to do it, do it. Look for ways to serve God with
the ability that he's given you. Every person in this congregation
can do things for the furtherance of the gospel. You can do things
for the good of God's people who are in the vineyard. You
can clean the building. People need to be able to come
and have a place where they can worship and in comfort that looks
nice. You can clean the building. When
it's your month to clean the building, buddy, make it spotless.
I mean, just make it spotless. That's service. You can give. If you go out and work and you
earn a paycheck, you can give. So the bills keep getting paid.
So we can support missionaries. Vineyard, the vineyard and other
places. You can keep the nursery. So we can worship here in calmness. Now I want to tell you what an
important service. I'm confident of this. We don't
thank the ladies keeping that nursery often enough. Let me
be the first. If it hasn't been said in a while,
ladies, thank you. Thank you. Sometime, look in
your bulletin and see on the nursery schedule who's keeping
the nursery and go tell them thank you. Thank you. I mean,
it's just, you know, you can't worship with a six-month-old
in here crying and carrying on. Go thank him. What an important
service. And I can just imagine that that
service is a drudgery. I mean, you don't want to come
and, you know, you have to go to the nursery and miss a service,
but what an important service. Thank you. It's an important
service to God's vineyard. All of us can't sing a special.
But want me to tell you what? You can sing out loud when the
congregation sings. Mike, do you appreciate when
the congregation sings? You feel like I'm singing a special? We
can worship the Lord together like that. You just sing out
loud and it encouraged someone else. My grandmother, she's a
young woman, got in a car wreck and something poked through her
throat or something damaged her voice boxes. She had a very,
very gravelly voice. She's embarrassed of her singing
voice. One of the first times she ever came to Ashland to service,
she sat in front of Cecil Thornberry, and she said, I wanna sit in
front of him every time I'm here, because he sings so good, he
drowns me out. I can have the confidence to
sing out when I sit in front of Cecil. All of you, see how
that's, you didn't even realize it, but it's encouragement to
someone else. That's taking care of God's vineyard. Every one
of us here can visit the sit. We can send them a card. We can
call them, let them know, I care about you. I'm praying for you,
holding you up before God. We can invite people to come
to church. You're out in the workplace or places where you
are with people, you know, and the subject comes up. And people
ask me about witnessing. How do you witness? Well, very
simply, you don't have to preach a message to them. Tell them
what God's done for you. Tell them what Christ means to
you. Sometime when you read the bulletin, there's just an article
you think is just really good, just really touched your heart.
Cut it out and have it with you. And somebody, so here's this,
read this. Don't give them 10 bulletins,
give them one article to read. Just read this. Sometimes you
hear a message that just, Oh, God spoke to your heart, enabled
you to worship. Get your CD of it. Don't get
10 of them, get one. And somebody asks you a question,
listen to this. This will bless you. This will
tell you how God saves sinners. All of us can forgive one another. All of us can show compassion
and love to one another. Those things matter. And those
things all contribute to the furtherance of the gospel. So
whatever it is that God's given you the ability to do, the only
thing God requires of you in it is faithfulness. That you do, you use the gift
that God's given you. Now that certainly applies to
pastors, but it applies to everyone God saves. Now we've seen this
in our study, Song of Solomon. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's
singing, isn't it? Sometimes it's clear. Well, that's
Christ singing and that's the bride. Sometimes we don't know. Maybe they're singing together
in harmony and that might be the case in our text this morning.
But I think in verse 11, this is Christ singing. In verse 12,
it's the bride singing. In verse 12, the bride says,
my vineyard, which is mine is before me. Now, certainly that's
Christ. Maybe they sang that in harmony, but the bride is
singing that. She said, this is my vineyard.
I want you to look around you. This is the vineyard that God's
given to you. This is the vineyard that God
puts you in. This is God's church. And these
are your brothers and your sisters. This town is your town. This
tri-state area is your home. Now treat it like it's yours.
Take care of it like it's yours. And do it for the glory of Christ
and for the good of the vineyard, where God's put you. The vineyard
is mine, just like the gospel. The gospel's God's, isn't it?
God's the author of it. Christ is the subject of it.
But yet we say with the Apostle Paul, this is my gospel. This
is the gospel of my salvation. This is the gospel that God's
given me to preach. So in that way, I take ownership
of it. I do. I study it. I preach it
to God's people with everything I've got. Now, no one will ever
be saved by the amount of study that I put in. Nobody certainly
is going to be saved by any gifts that I've got. Nobody will be
saved by my enthusiasm. But God's gospel deserves the
very best I've got every single time I preach it. And the same
thing applies to us when we listen. God's gospel deserves the very
best we've got every single time God gives us the opportunity
to hear it. The gospel that's preached from
this pulpit, from the pulpit, on the internet, on the radio,
deserves your support. It deserves our best effort.
So you support it with whatever ability God's given you. And
the sum of all that is this, just honor Christ with everything
you've got. Just honor Him. Third, Christ's
vineyard is a fruitful vineyard. He says here at the end of verse
11, everyone for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces
of silver. Now Christ's vineyard always
bears fruit. And it's the exact fruit that
God planted. The father's the husbandman.
He's not making any mistakes. He's not planting the plants
too late or too early or he's not, you know, he's given them
everything they need, just exactly what they need. So they will
bear fruit. There's never a year of drought
that causes God's people to die on the vine. Never. It always
brings forth fruit. There's never a blight that comes
in and kills God's fruit. He always has a crop. And the
reason for that is Christ. The death of Christ is never
in vain. The blood of Christ, not one
drop of it was shed in vain. It is always fruitful. It always
saves everyone that Christ died for. This is a fruitful vineyard. And fourth, the fruit of Christ's
vineyard is valuable. The fruit of God's vineyard is
so perfect that every piece of fruit is worth a thousand pieces
of silver. That's one expensive produce
stand. That's one Janet wouldn't go to twice. She knows where
all the best prices are. Every piece of God's fruit's
worth a thousand pieces of silver. That's the value of one of God's
children. Just one of God's children is
so valuable that Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood to save that one
child. That's how valuable someone is
who's been washed in the precious blood of Christ. The fruit of
his vineyard is valuable fruit. And then fifth, Christ has a
vineyard. And he must have all the people
that he purchased. He must have them all. Christ
will have every soul he purchased at Calvary. He'll have every
one of them. Now you think about this, just us. We demand to have
what we pay for, don't we? Well, you think Christ is any
less demanding than us? Janet went to Lowe's yesterday
evening, and they charged her wrong. And she didn't realize
it until the transaction was done. And she waited 20 minutes
to get that fixed for $5 or $6, you know, just because on the
principle of things, she demands to have what she paid for. Well, you think the Lord Jesus
Christ is any less demanding than that? He's not talking about
a few dollars now. He's talking about his own blood. He gave his life for his people. Was he going to let any of them
go? No. Verse 12, my vineyard, which
is mine is before me. And this is the bride speaking
thou O Solomon must have a thousand and those that keep the fruit
thereof 200. The bride is in full agreement with our Savior.
Thou, O Christ, must have a thousand. You must have the full price. You must have every one that
you purchased with your own blood at Calvary Street. Thou, O Christ,
must have all the glory and all the preeminence. Now the bride
says here that Christ must have a thousand and the keepers must
get 200 of it. I looked and looked and looked
at that, and I read a bunch of writers on it, and they, almost
all of them said that these keepers are God's rent collectors, and
they must bring in all that belong to Christ, and they get a cut.
You know, their reward is a 200. And I reckon that that's true. I mean, I see what they're saying,
you know, that that's true. But I want to be mighty careful
about that. God's servants are not looking for rewards. Now,
the church is gonna supply their need, they're gonna support them,
they're gonna take care of them, but God's servants are not working
for rewards. I want you to look at Hebrews
chapter six. God's gonna provide. Hebrews chapter six. God's servants
certainly are bringing in the fruit that Christ has purchased. And they're doing everything
in their power to do it, Look at verse 10 here of Hebrews chapter
6. How does this apply to the rest
of us, you know? Why are you doing what you do?
Why are you supporting the gospel? Why do you do these things that
we just talked about in the furtherance of the gospel? Well, verse 10. For God's not unrighteous to
forget your work and your labor of love, which you've showed
toward his name, and that you minister to the saints and do
minister, that you make a sacrifice to do those things. God's not
unrighteous to forget that. You're not gonna go hungry because
you give to the church, you give to the poor, you give to someone
in need. You're not gonna go hungry because of that. God's
not gonna forget that. And we desire that every one of you
do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope and
to the end. that you be not slothful, don't be lazy, don't be indifferent,
but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the
promises. For when God made promise to
Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself,
saying, surely, blessing, I will bless thee, and multiplying,
I will multiply thee. And so after he had patiently
endured, he obtained the promise. After he patiently endured. Like I said, I'm not too thrilled
with this term rent collector. Rent collector's got a bad connotation,
you know, in my mind. They're out there charging people
too much, kind of like a publican, you know, and they're getting
their cut. All they care about is getting their cut. That's
not God's servant. But at the same time, don't be
slothful. Now, don't be indifferent about
serving God. God's never gonna bless laziness.
If we look at 1 Samuel 2, I'd like God to honor us, wouldn't
you? Well, if you honor Christ, God
will honor you. 1 Samuel 2 verse 30, let's see
if God's word doesn't say that. If you honor Christ, God will
honor you. Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed
that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before
me forever. But now the Lord saith, be it
far from me. For them that honor me, I will
honor. And they that despise me shall
be lightly esteemed. Now let me give you this in closing.
The important thing here about honoring God and he'll honor
you, the important Point that all this hinges upon is this,
your motivation. Why do you do what you do? If you're trying to serve God,
if you're trying to honor God so you'll get something from
Him, that's not honoring God. God was not going to bless that.
You're going to get nothing out of it. But if you serve Christ
with everything you've got for His glory, because you love Him,
out of a sense of love, out of a sense of a desire to see your
Savior glorified, to see his people get a blessing, you'll
be blessed. That's just so. And why don't
you look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. This is our last scripture.
1 Thessalonians chapter 2. I want you to see this because
this is the reward. Now this is the reward that we're
going to get for serving Christ. how this is my heart's desire. 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 19. And what is our hope or joy or
crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For you are our glory
and joy. Our joy, our crown of rejoicing,
the thing that we hope for will be to see everyone that Christ
purchased. with him eternally. Our joy now
is to see one of God's lost sheep come to him, isn't it? How does
that thrill your soul now? Think how it'll thrill your soul
there. All of heaven rejoices when one's sinner repents. Think
what it'll be there to see Christ have everyone he purchased with
him, worshiping him perfectly, eternally. That's all the reward
we want. Now, if we love Christ, that's
all the reward we want. And by His grace, that's what
we're gonna have. All right, the Lord bless you.