OK, Song of Solomon Chapter 8.
I suppose this chapter division is not in a very good place.
It's right in the middle of the bride side of the conversation
where she's speaking to her bridegroom. We ended last week looking at
how the bride she was talking to her beloved and saying how
she wanted a time of close communion with him. And she goes on this
ardent desire for him in verse one of Chapter 8. She says, oh,
that thou wert as my brother, that suck the breasts of my mother.
When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee. Yea, I should
not be despised. Now the bride says, this seems
kind of odd when you think about it, her ardent desire is that
Christ be her brother. But she's speaking to her bridegroom. A woman doesn't marry her brother,
so what does she mean when she says this? Well, at the time
Solomon was writing, a man and a woman would become betrothed
to one another. It's like an engagement period
today. And during that time, the bride and the bridegroom,
they couldn't be alone with each other. They could have no private
conversations. There could be no signs of affection
between them. If they saw each other on the
street and gave one another a peck on the cheek or a squeeze on
the hand, it would be scandalous. No hand-holding, no just staring
longingly into each other's eyes, and certainly no kisses of any
kind. It'd be such a scandal. So what the bride is saying is
during this time of this betrothment, I wish you were my brother so
we could be together. That wouldn't be a scandal, and
we could be with each other like a brother and a sister who really
know each other, and we could talk to one another, and encourage
and help one another. Now what she desires is the experience
of Christ's love for her. And she desires the sense of
Christ's love for her. And she doesn't want to have
a moment without his love. Christ's love for his people
is like no love that we know of here on this earth. So scripture
uses many different kinds of love to describe Christ, the
many different facets and the strength and the depth of Christ's
love for his people. Now believers certainly desire
Christ to be our husband. We want that love, his love to
us as a husband to the bride. We'll see more of that in a minute.
But we also desire the love of Christ, our big brother. We desire
Christ's love of protection. His love of watching over us
like a big brother does for his little sister. When I was in
high school, by the time I got to be a junior, my little sister
came to high school. She's a freshman. There's somebody
watching out for her. Nobody better look cross-eyed
at my little sister. Somebody's watching out for her.
I don't know whether this is good or bad, but there were times
I'd go out and follow her on dates. Look at this jerk she's
going out on a date with. I don't like him. And I'd follow
him. Me and my buddy, we'd follow
him. I don't know what we were going to do, pull him out of the booth at
Giovanni's and beat him up. I don't know. But we followed
him. We watched him, you know. A believer desires the love of
a big brother like that who's going to watch out for us, who's
going to protect us. We desire the love of that big
brother. He goes before us and he smooths the way, comes back
and teaches us the ropes. That's what we desire. The desire
and the great need for sinners is that Christ become our big
brother. The literal translation of the
opening lines of chapter eight is, who will give you to me as
a big brother? Who's gonna give you as a brother?
If sinners are going to be saved, God's got to become a man. He's
got to become our brother. He's got to take on our nature
so he can be our representative. And if Christ becomes our brother,
then we're part of the family of God, aren't we? If the Son
of God's our brother, then we're part of the family of God. If
sinners are going to be saved, we've got to be born again with
a new nature. with the nature of Christ so
we can be his brother. We've got to be born into the
family of God. And if we're born into the family
of God, then Christ is our brother. If sinners are going to be saved,
we've got to be adopted into the family of God. If the father
adopts us into his family, then Christ is our brother. And God
in his mercy has granted this ardent desire of a believer to
have Christ as our big brother. Look over at Hebrews chapter
2. Now this is good news, that God the Father gave his son to
be the brother of his elect, so that he could redeem his brethren,
so that we could be made what he is. Hebrews 2 verse 10. For it became him, for whom are
all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons
unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
suffering. For both he that sanctifyeth
and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise
unto thee. And again, I'll put my trust
in him. And again, behold I and the children which God hath given
me. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not
on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of
Abraham, Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like
unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high
priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for
the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered,
being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. Christ became our brother. He
took on our flesh. He took on our nature. so that
he could be our brother, he could be our representative, he could
be our substitute, and that we could be made what he has given
his nature so that we're brethren. And she goes on, oh, that thou
wert my brother that sucked on the breast of my mother. Now,
why does she ask that? Well, there's a couple reasons. First of all, because only a
real baby can do that. Only a real baby can nurse at
the breast of his mother. And our Lord Jesus Christ became
a real man. I love to think about, it's a
mystery. There's God nursing at Mary's
breast. What a mystery. God, who gave
Mary her life, God who sustained Mary's life, has to nurse at
her breast in order to sustain his human life. What a mystery. And God did that. God the Son
humbled himself to do that for this reason, so he could redeem
his brethren, so he could redeem his people, all those little
brothers and sisters that he loves. Christ came in our nature
so that we could be made what he is, so we could be given his
nature in the new birth. If you look over Galatians chapter
four, all those little brothers and sisters They come to nurse
and get the sincere milk of the word from all from the same place,
from the same breast. And the Apostle Paul shed some
light on this about the mother of the church or the mother who,
you know, of the church, who is the church. Galatians 4 verse
24. Here he's been speaking about Sarah and Hagar, which things
are an allegory. For these are the two covenants,
the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage. That's
Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth
to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
But Jerusalem, which is above all, is free, which is the mother
of us all. Now, Sarah is a picture of the
church, the church where Christ is preached. That's the mother
of us all, the mother of every believer. All of God's children
are birthed, they're given birth through the preaching of Christ,
through the preaching of the word that happens in the church.
So in that sense, the church is the mother of us all. And
all of God's children, they come and they're fed the sincere milk
of the word where Christ is preached. So in that sense, the church
is the mother of us all. And all the children come to
be fed and be nourished because Christ came as our brother. And
God puts a desire. You know, that newborn babe cries
for the sincere milk of the word. That's the desire that God puts
in the heart of every believer for Christ. We desire him. And the believer will search
for him because we long for him. And when we search for him, she
says here, I should find thee without. Now we always find Christ
without. We find Christ without, outside
of ourselves. We find Christ outside of Adam's
nature. We find Christ without the human
aid. This is a supernatural thing.
We find Christ, he finds us. If we find Christ, I'll tell
you where we're gonna find him. We're gonna find him without
the can. We're going to find him outside of man's world's
religion. That's where we're going to find
him. And when we find him, we'll be like Mary Magdalene. We'll
follow his feet, grab a hold of him and kiss his feet. When
we find him, we'll run right up to him, throw our arms around
his neck and kiss him right on the cheek. We'll kiss him right
on the mouth. Look back at chapter one of Song
of Solomon. That sounds kind of brazen to
kiss the Lord right on the mouth. Well, that's what the bride does
with her husband. Song of Solomon one, the song of songs, which
is Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth for thy love is better than wine. The bride longs
to be kissed by Christ and she longs to kiss him too. Christ
gave his people the kiss of his grace. And in return, we give
him the kiss of thanksgiving. Christ gives his people the kisses
of the forgiveness of sin. And in return, we give him our
kisses of thanksgiving. Christ gives his people the kisses
of peace. So we give him the kiss of faith.
He gives us the kiss of acceptance. We give him the kisses of our
praise and of our worship. Christ gives us the kiss of his
eternal, redeeming love. And in return, we give him the
kisses of our return love for him. See, what the bride is talking
about here is a public demonstration of her love for Christ. This
love of a bride and a bridegroom, that's not something secret.
It's a public display of affection. And you know, when we do find
Christ, our bridegroom, and we kiss him, We won't be despised. Not by Christ our bridegroom,
we don't. Now you imagine you're out somewhere and there's a homeless
person. They see you. They come running
up to you and they want to hug you and they want to kiss you.
Well, they stink. They haven't bathed in weeks.
Their clothes smell bad. They haven't been washed in forever.
They're just rags. Their breath is bad. They haven't
brushed their teeth in weeks. Now you imagine that person running
up to you, what would you do? Turn the cheek. You despise their
kisses. You imagine what we are by nature,
the filth and the sin and the ugliness of our nature, our fallen
nature in Adam. But Christ, our bridegroom, never
despises the kisses of his people. He didn't despise us in our sin.
He loved us while we were yet sinners. He's not gonna despise
our kisses. He doesn't despise his people,
because you know what? There's nothing to despise. His
blood has washed away all of our sin. That blood and water
that flowed from the side of our Savior washed away everything
that's despicable about us. There's nothing to despise. He
sanctified us and made us holy and made us smell good in Him.
He'll never despise the kisses of His people and nobody else
will either. The Father and the Holy Spirit,
they're not going to despise us when we kiss the Son. Scripture
told us kiss the Son lest He be angry when His wrath is kindled
but a little. then the Father and the Spirit
aren't going to despise us when we kiss Him. The angels watching
in wonder will not despise us when we kiss the Son. And no other believer will either.
The world may. We'll see something about that
in our lesson next week. The world may, but believers
won't. They know it's good and it's
only right that we show these public displays of affection
for our Savior, the one who loved us first and washed us in his
own blood. And she goes on in verse two,
she said, oh, if I'd find you, I'd give you kisses. And then
she says, I would lead thee and bring thee into my mother's house
who would instruct me. I would cause thee to drink of
spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. And here she says,
when I would lead thee, I would lead thee into my mother's house.
What she means is I'd take you to my mother's house and I'd
go before you. I'd go before you like those
heralds would go before a king and I'd announce your coming.
This is an honored guest coming to my house where my family's
gathered and I'd come announce your coming. She's not sheepishly
bringing in some bum of a boyfriend to her mother's house. She's
bringing an honored guest. She's bringing the king himself
who would humble himself to come to our house, to come to the
place where my family lives. And she's bringing him there
out of love and respect. Now that's coming to worship.
And all of us should bring the Lord to the house of worship.
We should pray that when we meet together, that the Lord comes
with us. If we don't bring the Lord with
us to worship, we've met here in vain. We're just wasting our
time if he's not here to bless us and to instruct us. Now, it
sounds like an odd thing to say, bring the Lord with you to the
worship, doesn't it? We can't bring the Lord to the worship
service, you know, like we bring our children. You know, our children
don't have a choice, do they? Never, ever, ever give your children
a choice about coming to worship service. No, we just, you come,
we're going. This house worships the Lord.
Don't ever give them a choice. So in that way, we bring our
children to church, whether they like it or not. The Lord may
save them in spite of themselves. That's the way he saved us, isn't
it? We don't want to give them a choice. But we don't bring
the Lord to the worship service that way, do we? We bring the
Lord to the worship service by spending some time in prayer.
Before the service, when you're still at home, get ready five
minutes early and spend a few minutes in prayer. Ask the Lord
to bless our service. Spend some time praising him. Praising him for his thanking
him, for his mercy and his grace, his forgiveness of sins, and
asking him. Lord, be with us. Are we met
in vain? Be with the preacher. Be with
those who sing. Be with us as we give us a hearing
ear. Make this a worship service.
If he doesn't come with us, it won't be worship service. And
be with us to instruct us. A very big part of worship is
being instructed. Lord, instruct me. That's what
she says here, who would instruct me? Let me come to the place
where you would instruct me, where you'd instruct me and you'd
instruct the family. Now the picture here, this is
the bride. She's bringing her bridegroom
to her mother's house. In the picture we have here,
she comes to her mother's house and a wise mother takes her daughter
aside and instructs her. She instructs her how to love
her husband, how to cherish her husband, how to treat her husband,
how to treat him with love and respect. And we come to the worship
service, a big part of that is coming to be instructed by God
the Holy Spirit. How I pray that God would be
our teacher. My constant prayer is that all
of you be delivered from here and me, but that God would be
our teacher. I pray that the Lord give us
a heart that would be instructed. I'd like to have the heart of
Mary, who despite everything else going on, would just sit
at the feet of the master. and be taught, be instructed
of Him, to learn more of Him, to learn more of His great love
for His people, to learn more of the power of His blood, to
learn more of His righteousness that makes us accepted, to be
instructed. Look at Psalm 32. Do sometimes
you ever wonder, where should I go? What should I do? I got
this decision to make, what should I do? I can tell you where you
find instruction. You find it right here. You find
it in the house of God and the word of God. Psalm 32, verse
eight. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine
eye. If we want instruction from the
Lord, beware his words preached. That's where we receive instruction.
You'd be shocked if you just spend some time in prayer and
you come to the house of the Lord, how often, without telling
anybody. Your question will be answered
from God's word. Look at 2 Timothy 2. We've got to be instructed
in the way of salvation. Because by nature, we don't know
the way. The way we describe those, this
is the way scripture describes those that don't know the Lord.
They're described as lost. When you're lost, you don't know
the way. We come here to be instructed in the way of salvation. 2 Timothy
2 verse 24. And the servant of the Lord must
not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. If God
perventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth,
and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil,
who are taken captive by him at his will. We come to be instructed
in the way of salvation. Maybe God will be merciful and
grant us repentance and give us faith in Christ. Look across
the page of 2 Timothy 3, verse 15. We come to be instructed. A believer comes to be instructed
in the way of salvation, and we come to be instructed in our
walk before men. 2 Timothy 3, verse 15. And that from a child thou hast
known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto
salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture
is given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all
good works. We come to be instructed. Solomon said, hear instruction
and be wise, and refuse it not. A wise man hears instruction. I tell you, when we find ourselves
in trouble, when we're too wise to be instructed. If we know
so much we can't be taught anymore, we're in trouble. We come to
worship to be instructed. And Christ, in his infinite mercy
and grace to his loved, his people condescends to meet with us and
to instruct us. He's the guest of honor, isn't
he? Well, we honor him in our worship. That's what this spiced
wine of the juice of my pomegranate refers to. The spiced wine of
the pomegranate was a rich, sweet drink. I read that it had a lower
alcohol content than other wine. I had no idea what that means,
but that's what I read. But this wine of the pomegranate
is the fruit of the Spirit, the sweet, rich drink that tastes
so good. It's the fruit of the Spirit
that God puts in His people. God puts in the heart of His
people love and joy and peace and faith and long-suffering
And that fruit of the Spirit, this wine, is pleasing to our
Lord. He put it in us, but yet it's
pleasing to Him. Don't you desire to please the
Savior? I long to live a life that would
please Him. We please Him by the fruit of
the Spirit that He put in us. I just can't help but think.
that this rich, sweet wine that's given as an honor is a picture
of the sacrifice of Christ. And I've told you this often
in our study, Solomon often refers to the pomegranate, and the pomegranate
refers to the sacrifice of Christ for his elect. But here, look
what she says, it's the juice of my pomegranate. Now, it's
the sacrifice of Christ. that put away the sin of his
people. That's his greatest honor. But here she refers to my pomegranate. We honor Christ, how? By giving
him all the glory and the honor of our salvation. We honor him
by proclaiming our love for him. She says this is my pomegranate.
This is giving him, giving Christ, the sacrifices of our heart.
It's the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving for his sacrifice
for us. Now the bride, she desires the
presence of Christ to be with her. She doesn't want to live
a moment without his presence. She desires to honor him and
to please him. But now this engaged couple,
they can't be alone. It would be a scandal in their
society. They're not allowed to give each other expressions
of their love. And this is why she says, I want
you to be my brother so I could give you expressions of my love.
But the love of Christ goes much deeper than that, doesn't it?
She also longs for the love of Christ, her husband. Look at
verse three. His left hand should be under
my head and his right hand should embrace me. This is what she
longs for, for her husband, to hold her in a loving embrace.
This is the way a husband holds his wife, his left hand under
her head, his right hand embracing her around her waist, around
her back. This is the way Christ our Savior embraces and holds
his people up close to his chest, up close to his heart, What a wonderful thought to be
held in such a loving, close embrace with the Savior. Well, I'll tell you what, there's
nothing bad gonna happen there. In His embrace, the embrace of
His arms, you're safe, you're secure, you've got close communion
with Him, there's nothing bad that's gonna happen in that embrace. Now, we may not always enjoy
a sense of this embrace, But every believer is always held
in this embrace, held close in the loving arms of the Savior.
This left hand, from what I read, a lot of the writers think this
refers to temporal blessings. All the blessings of this life
is in his left hand, holding up our head, giving us what we
need to live in this world. In his right hand are all the
spiritual blessings that God has for his people, that right
hand is around her, maybe around her waist or maybe around her
back, up close to her heart. That's where he's holding her.
In this right hand is the blessing of the forgiveness of our sin,
the blessing of being washed in his blood, the blessing of
his righteousness imputed to us, the blessing of faith in
him he's given us, the blessing of eternal life embracing us
in his bosom. Now, can you picture her being
held in that embrace? She's longed for it, and now
she has that embrace. Well, she never wants that to
end. Verse four, that's what she says. I charge you, O daughters
of Jerusalem, that you stir not up nor awake my love until he
please. This is what the bride is saying.
She said this before. that this time of close communion
with Christ, this time of close communion being held in His loving
embrace is so precious to me. It's such an enjoyment. Don't
you dare do anything to disturb this communion. She tells the
daughters of Jerusalem that, and she tells her own self that.
Don't do anything to disturb this close communion, this time
of, finds its joy and peace and rest in Christ. If He's going
to stir, let it be when He pleases, not because I provoked Him to
go away. Now, how do we grieve the Holy Spirit? How do we stir
up the Savior and displease Him so that He would withdraw Himself?
Well, there are several ways. Lack of love to Him, lack of
love to His people, a harsh, critical spirit. going to drive
him away, going to interrupt this time of communion and worship
of the Lord. You cannot worship the Lord with
a harsh, critical spirit. There's lack of faith, lack of
trust in him. How can we worship the Lord without
faith? We displease the Lord after he
has proven himself so faithful to us. We don't believe him.
We don't trust him. That's grieving him. We grieve
him, drive his presence away. We sever this time of close communion,
fellowship by not preaching Christ. If there comes a time that we've
got our own agenda and our sole purpose for meeting here is not
to worship Christ, he won't meet with us. We'll not have this
time of close fellowship and a sense of his love, a sense
of his embrace. How about the spiritual stupor
we read about, where in chapter 5, the bride said, oh, she said,
I just got under the warm covers. I washed my feet. I'll get my
feet dirty if I come up and let you in the door. The time of
spiritual stupor. What happened? The Lord withdrew
himself. Oh, he stuck his hand in the
hole of the door. She got a smell of him. It stirred up her desire
for him. She went looking for him, but
she couldn't find him, could she? He'd withdrawn himself because
of a time of spiritual stupor. God help me. God keep me from
falling into a lack of love, a harsh, critical spirit. Always critical, what everybody's
doing. God help me to have an attitude
of faith and trust in Christ. And God help us, God help us
to always preach Him. To come here seeking Him. to seeking to hear of Christ
and being instructed of Him. The longer we have that, the
longer we'll enjoy this close, loving embrace of the Savior.
All right, I hope the Lord will bless you.