Son of Solomon chapter 2, and
we're going to begin in verse 8. You remember from last week,
the bride is remembering a time of communion that she had with
her well-beloved bridegroom. And she hears his voice in verse
8. She says, the voice of my beloved. Behold, he cometh leaping
upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Now the bride
hears someone speaking and instantly she knows this is the voice.
of my beloved. This is her Lord. No other voice
can make her heart burn like the voice of her beloved. You
don't have to turn here. You know it well. Let me read
it to you. John chapter 10. Believers, they know and recognize
the voice of their Lord. In John 10, our Lord here speaking
of himself as the good shepherd. He says, but he that entereth
in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter
openeth, and the sheep hear his voice. And he calleth his own
sheep by name, and he leads them out. They know the voice of their
shepherd. A stranger, he says in verse
5, will they not follow? But they'll flee from him, for
they know not the voice of strangers. They know the voice of the Lord,
but they don't recognize the voice, the message of these false
prophets, these false shepherds. Now, how do we hear the voice
of Christ? Well, it's not audibly, is it? So how do we hear Christ
speak? If we don't hear him audibly,
how do we hear Christ speak? Well, he speaks to us in his
gospel. He speaks to us through the preaching
of his word. These are his words. This is
what we hear. This is how we hear him speak.
Now, there are many people who open his book and claim to speak
from it. They claim to be preaching the
gospel. Most of them don't. So how can I tell if they're
speaking for Christ or not? Well, it's very simple. Does
what that man says match this word? This is the word of God.
This is how he speaks to us. If his message comes straight
from the word of God, then he's speaking for God. This is the
voice of our beloved speaking. But if not, then it's the voice
of someone else, a stranger. When someone tells you, let me
give you a couple of examples, they say Jesus wants to be your
Savior. He wants you to be saved if you'll just accept Him. If
you'll just accept Him as your personal Savior, He wants you
to be saved. Well, now that's not the voice of our Beloved
speaking. You can't make that statement to everyone without
exception and that be the voice of our Beloved speaking. What
does the Word say? What does our Lord say in His
high priestly prayer? I pray not for the world. He's
not praying for everybody in the world, but for them that
Thou hast given Me. I'll tell you this, I despise
this statement that God wants something. If the Lord Jesus
Christ wants, or purposes is a better word, if he purposed
someone to be saved, they will be saved. He died for them. He put their sin away and he'll
call them to himself. Then if someone tells you, now
Jesus died for everybody. He died to give everybody a chance
to be saved if they'll just choose him. That's not the voice of
our beloved speaking. Salvation is a choice of God. God died, sent his son to die
for his elect and they will believe on him. Now I want you to turn
over here to John chapter 10. Christ died for his elect. They'll
believe on Christ and no one else will. No one else will believe
on Christ, only those that the Father chose, that Christ died
for. Look at John 10, verse 26. Our Lord here is speaking to
these Pharisees. He said, but you believe not. Well, why don't
they believe? Because they haven't seen enough
evidence? Because they didn't see the miracles?
Because they didn't hear him speak? No. You believe not because
you're not of my sheep. You're not one of my elect. That's
why you don't believe. The elect will believe. And people
who do not believe, they don't believe because they're not God's
sheep. He didn't choose them. But when
someone says, God has a people, he chose those people out of
Adam's fallen race. The father sent his son to this
earth as a man to produce a perfect righteousness for those people
that they could not produce for themselves. And then God's son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, he was made sin for his people. He took
every last one of the sins of his people into his body on the
tree, and he suffered, and he bled, and he died to put those
sins away. And those people, they're going
to believe. Every last one of them, they're
going to be saved, they're going to be born again, and they're
going to believe when they hear the gospel preached, when they
hear the gospel of Christ preached. And there's no chance any of
them will perish. Now, they'll be tried, but their
faith will never fail. They must remain in Christ. They must awake in glory, in
the likeness of Christ, because the Father purposed their salvation. The Son purchased their salvation. And the Holy Spirit supplied
that salvation to their heart. That's the purpose and will of
God. God cannot fail. They must awake in the presence
of Christ in glory. No matter what else happens,
the salvation of everyone that Christ died for is sure and certain. And you say, the voice of my
beloved. That's the voice of my beloved. I know it is because that's his
gospel. And the bride here, she hears the voice of her beloved
and she knows he's coming before she ever sees him physically.
And that's the way it is for believers. Faith is not seeing
is believing, is it? Faith is hearing his believing,
whom having not seen, you love. And she says, I hear him. He's
coming. How does she know he's coming?
Because she knows he's faithful. Our Lord comes to us, comes to
his people, because by nature, we cannot and we will not come
to him. So he comes to us. Now, when
Adam fell, there was a great gulf fixed between God and man. It's a gulf of sin. And God's
holiness will not allow man to cross that great gulf of sin.
It's a gulf of unbelief. So man and his sin and his unbelief,
he doesn't even want to cross that great gulf. It's a gulf
of death by sin. Man's dead in sin. So he's completely
unable to cross that gulf. So God sent his son as a man
and the God-man came and he crossed that bottomless chasm that man
could never cross so that he could bring all of his people
to God. He came as a man and when he came there were many
mountains that stood in his way. She says here that he's leaping
upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills. Our beloved came
to these mountains. He's so strong. He's so full
of life. He just leaped over them like
they're nothing. Our beloved is so full of joy
at seeing his people redeemed. He just leaped and skipped over
every obstacle, over every mountain. He came to the mountain of the
law. Now, we read scripture or we read this, you and I can't
even touch Sinai. We're not even allowed to touch
it or we'll be stoned. So we certainly can't keep the
law and climb over Sinai, but Christ came in his holiness and
he kept God's law perfectly. He just leaped over that mountain
of the law that would have been impossible for us to cross. Then
he came to the mountain of sin, the mountain of our sin, each
of us individually. The mountain of our sin is so
great, it just dwarfs Mount Everest. We can never cross that mountain
of sin and come into the presence of the Holy God. So the Lord
Jesus Christ, our beloved, came. He came where we were. And He's
so powerful. And He's so strong. He took that
entire mountain of sin. He took the entire mountain of
sin from each one of His people. And He bore that mighty mountain. He took the sin of his people
away. He just leaped over it in victory. And he flattened that mountain
of sin by covering it in his blood as payment for the sin
of his people. He leaped over the mountain of
sin. Then there's the mountain of God's holiness. This is a
mountain that must be met. Without holiness, no man can
see the Lord. And you and I can never cross
that mountain. We don't even have a pebble of holiness in
us, so we certainly can't cross the mountain of God's holiness.
Everything in us is sin. But the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Beloved, came in His personal righteousness, in His personal
holiness and obedience, and He skipped over that mountain of
God's holiness. And in His righteousness, in
His holiness, every believer is brought to see God. Then there
is the mountain of God's wrath against sin. Now, none of us
can ever cross that mountain. Eternity in hell will not pay
for one's sin. That's the proof that we can
never cross this mountain of God's wrath, because even after
eternity in hell, not one of our sins will be paid for by
our own suffering in hell. But Christ came, and in joy,
he skipped over that mountain. He suffered all of the eternal
wrath of God for all the sin of his people in just a matter
of hours. And he can do that because of
his divine, holy nature. And he did it with joy, skipping
over the mountains. He did it for the joy of seeing
his people redeemed. He did it for the joy of seeing
his Father honored. He skipped over the mountain
of God's wrath, and because he did that, That mountain is no
more. There is no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus, because he suffered for sin until the
wrath was gone. You see, before every mountain
could be made low, before those mountains could be made flat
so you and I could just walk over them easily, Christ had
to cross every one of those mountains. And he did, leaping and skipping. So she says, behold, he cometh. I know he's coming because he
promised that he would. I know he's faithful. Behold,
he cometh to each one of his people. One by one he cometh
to his people, just like he promised he would, bringing righteousness
and peace. But when he comes to his people,
he meets a mountain that's Adam's nature. Now, this is a mountain
you and I can't move. Adam's nature is dead. It's contrary
to God. The nature that we receive from
Adam will not and cannot come to God. It's dead. It's unable
to do anything. So Christ came in his life and
he leaped over that mountain in joy, giving life to his people. There's the mountain of unbelief.
That is a mountain of unbelief that's even today in the heart
of every believer. Christ just leaps over that mountain
by giving faith to the heart of his people. There's the mountain
of darkness. Christ just leaps over that mountain
by being our light. There's the mountain of this
flesh. You can't do anything with it. Christ just leaps over
that mountain, causing us to be born again. There is no discouragement. There's no obstacle that's so
great. Our Savior doesn't just leap right over it. because nothing
can stop the salvation of his elect. Behold, he cometh. Now, she hears him coming, and
in verse 9, she gets a glimpse of him. She says, 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. Now, she gets just a glimpse
of Christ. She's awed. She's awed at his
beauty. She's awed at his strength. She
compares him to a deer. Deer are beautiful animals. I
hate seeing them beside the road. Coming up here Wednesday night,
there was a whole family of them standing there on the road. And
I'm thinking, oh, I hated the sight of them. And Jane just
said, look how beautiful they are. Oh, look at them. They're
so pretty. Look at all their... Well, I hate seeing them by the
road, or I'll go shoot them. They're beautiful animals. They
look timid, but they're so strong and muscular and swift. That's
our Savior. He's timid, but he's strong and
mighty. He's swift. He's swift as a deer. She says, behold, I come, or
my beloved cometh. He says, behold, I come quickly,
swiftly. Our Savior leaps over these mountains
like a deer. The vertical leap of a deer,
it's amazing. They're standing there next to
a fence. You think they're trapped and just with what looks like
no effort to me at all, they just jump right over that fence
and just leap. That's our Lord coming, leaping
and skipping over all these mountains that would prevent our salvation. And she sees it, she said, but
I just get a glimpse of it. because he's standing behind
a wall. But there's some windows and a lattice in this wall that
gives me just a glimpse of him. Now, what's this wall she talks
about here? Well, it's two things. First, it's the ceremonial law.
In Ephesians 2, 14, Paul called the ceremonial law a wall of
partition, that Christ had broken down that wall of partition between
the Jew and the Gentile. But that ceremonial law was a
wall of partition. The ceremonial law is also called
a veil that's done away within Christ in 2 Corinthians 3. The
ceremonial law is a wall, but it required sacrifices, which
were windows. We get just a glimpse of Christ
in each of those windows, in each of those sacrifices that
were required by the ceremonial law. We just get a glimpse of
him in type and shadow. But we do see Christ pictured
in all those animal sacrifices. And those glimpses, all they
do is make us long for more. How those Old Testament believers
longed to get a glimpse of Christ. They long to see more of him,
just like they desire to look into these things that you hear
preached every week. Because just a glimpse of him
makes the bride long for a longer view, a more clear view of who
he is. And secondly, this wall is our flesh. The flesh is a
good wall builder. Our own sin, the sin of this
flesh is a wall that's separated between us and our God. Now,
believers have been given eyes of faith, but we're trapped behind
the wall of our sinful flesh, aren't we? We have eyes and see,
but this flesh is a wall between us and our God. So all we get
to see is glimpses of our beloved, but we do see glimpses of him,
don't we? He reveals himself to us in windows of the gospel,
through the preaching of his word. There's a window. Now, it's a frosted glass, but
we do see him through that glass starkly, through the preaching
of the gospel. If you don't see Christ in someone's
preaching, you're not preaching the gospel. This is how the Lord
is pleased to reveal himself, through preaching. I'll tell
you another window. Every time a new believer confesses
Christ in believer's baptism, there's a window in the wall.
We get a glimpse of the person and work of our Savior. We see
it pictured, his death, his burial, and his resurrection. It's a
window. I'll tell you, there's another window. We'll see it.
That window is going to be opened up to us on New Year's Eve when
we observe the Lord's table. There's a glimpse of the person
and work of our Savior, His broken body and His blood shed to put
away the sins of His people. We get glimpses of Him, don't
we? And what do those glimpses do? Just like our Old Testament
brothers and sisters, they make us long for more. How we long
to see Him more. Not just a glimpse, but just
a long view, just to sit and stare at His face. I know Him. But oh, that I might know him.
But I see him. But oh, that I might see him.
I won't be satisfied until I awaken his likeness and see him. Then
I'll be satisfied. See him with nothing between.
I get just a glimpse of him. I hear his voice. And she gets
a glimpse of him. And then he speaks to her. Look
what he says. The tender way that he speaks to his bride,
verse 10. my beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love,
my fair one, and come away." The bride hears the voice of
his beloved. What's he talking about? What does she hear him
say? Well, you notice he doesn't say,
What are you doing here behind that wall? What are you doing
there sitting here? I thought you wanted to be in
my banqueting house. You said you wanted me to stay with apples.
What are you doing sitting here? You just you're good for nothing.
No good woman. Didn't say that, does he? He
lovingly, tenderly calls her to him. And that's how Christ
comes to each one of his people. And he calls the heart of each
one of his people. And he does it in tenderness
and love. So you can't stay away. You just
cannot stay away because of his love for you. He calls her my
love, my fair one. You who believe. You're loved
by the Lord, you who believe are loved by God Almighty and
you're made fair. Now, we don't see ourselves as
fair, but he sees you as fair because he's made you fair in
his beauty. Now, you just spend a minute
to think about that. Sometime this afternoon, just
stop and think about this. The Lord loves you. Now, there's no love like the
immutable, infinite love of Christ that makes the bride feel so
fair and so beautiful and so loved. And it's that love of
the bridegroom that makes the bride rise up and follow him.
In His love, He calls her to come to Him. He says, you leave
where you're at, and you come to Me. We must come to Christ. Now, I don't know another way to say
it. Let me say it again so we make this so clear. We must come to Christ. But we'll never come until He
calls. And when He calls, We'll come. Well, why haven't I come
to Christ? He hasn't called. But when he
calls, you'll come. We must believe Christ. We must. But we'll never believe him until
he gives us faith to believe. And he comes to each one of his
people and calls and says, rise up and come to me. And we'll
come. He gives faith and we believe. And every time the Lord comes,
it's a time of revival. You know, we use the term, we're
having a revival. We mean a big meeting where a
bunch of people walk the aisles and things. A revival is simply
this. It's a time of refreshing. It's
a time of communion with the Lord. And that's what we have
in verse 11. He says that you rise up and
come away. For lo, the winter's past. The rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth.
The time of the singing of birds has come. The voice of the turtle
is heard in our land. The fig tree put forth her green
figs, and the vines, with the tender grapes, give a good smell.
Now rise, my love, my fair one, and come away." Now every believer
understands this time of winter. Before Christ revealed Himself
to our hearts, it was a time of winter, wasn't it? Everything
in us was dead. It was cold and stony. Dead heart is just like the ground
of winter, hard and cold. That's our heart. And just like
the ground of winter, nothing could grow in our dead, cold
heart of unbelief. It was deep winter. But the moment
Christ came, the winter was over. There was new life because of
the new birth. Our Lord appeared and suddenly
flowers appeared, began to grow. Suddenly the birds started singing.
Now, those aren't really as much bird singing as us singing. When the Lord comes, we begin
to sing. Why should the birds get to sing
alone? I'm going to sing too. When he
comes, we start to sing. And we hear the voice of the
turtle. That's a turtle dove. That's the Holy Spirit, the turtle
dove. Interesting thing about the turtle dove. The turtle dove
doesn't sing in the wintertime. The turtle dove only sings on
bright, warm days. Usually you hear the turtle dove
at the start of spring, when it starts to warm up, and you
hear the turtle dove through the summer. But when the Holy
Spirit speaks, winter's over. As soon as he speaks, winter
is over. Because what does the Holy Spirit
speak? tells us all the things of Christ, points us to Christ,
and winter's over. Christ comes, our beloved comes,
and the fig tree produces leaves and fruit. That's the fruit of
the Spirit that's produced in us. The dead are made fruitful
when Christ comes. When Christ is in us, winter's
over. The fruit's going to be produced.
The branches bear fruit because they're joined to the vine. And
she says, the grapevines give a good smell. Now, I read several
commentaries about this, and this is, I don't know how they
know this, but this is what they said. That the good smell of
the vine drives snakes away. Well, the only thing that would
drive the serpent, Satan, away is the smell of the vine. Lord
Jesus Christ, I'm the vine, you're the branches. The smell of his
righteousness, the smell of his blood offers a sacrifice for
our sin. And that's what drives Satan
away. So our Lord says, everything's provided. It's beautiful weather. The winter's passed. The rain
has come and gone. So the earth has been replenished.
The flowers are growing. You hear the voice of the Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit's being produced. The serpent's driven
away. So come, my fair one. Now you
come from where you are. And you come to Christ. You come
away from self and you come to Christ. You come from sin and
you come to Christ our righteousness. You come from your need and you
come to Christ who provides everything that you need, who is everything
that you need. And a believer has done that. Every believer
has come to Christ. He's given you life, hasn't he? He's saved your soul. But every
believer also knows this. When we come to Christ, we see
Him. We're joined to Him by faith.
That does not mean that we're done with this flesh. It doesn't
mean that we're done with those cold, hard, dead winters. Because that old heart's still
there. When God saves a person, He gives them a new heart. But
that old heart, that heart of winter, it's cold and it's dead
and it's hard. It's still there. And we're not
done with winter yet. There are times when we seem
dead. We feel dead. Now, we're not. The root's under the ground.
The root's alive, but there's no life showing. We feel so hard
and cold and dead. There are times when a believer
sleeps. It's like a hibernating bear in the wintertime. We've
got life. But you don't see much evidence
of it. We're asleep. There are times we can't seem
to pray. We feel so cold and dead. Now, the Lord's still there.
The Lord still hears prayer. The Lord still answers prayer.
But I'm so cold and dead. I feel like I can't pray. There
are times when it's so dark. Oh, it's so dark. I don't know what to do. Janet
told me this morning, this is the worst day of the year. She
said, oh, it's the worst day of the year. It's more darkness
and less sun than any day of the year. We have those days. And it just is depressing, isn't
it? Oh, so depressed. The sun's still
there. But I can't seem to feel it's
warm. I can't seem to enjoy its benefits
like I have at other times. What's going on? In my misery, I cry to the Lord. And you know what? The Lord comes. He said, behold, I come quickly.
Now, winter seems so long. You know, winter is just as long
as every other season. But it seems so long. Summer
seems short. Winter seems long. But they're
just the same amount of time. It seems long to us. But our
Lord says, behold, I come quickly. Spring's coming. A time of refreshing
is coming for God's people. He's not going to leave you in
that time of winter and darkness. Everything's going to warm up
again. Everything's going to begin to blossom again. But then
why are my winters so long? Well, it could be the Lord's
removed Himself for a time, given us this time of winter to show
us how dependent we are on Him. It could be the Lord's removed
himself for a time to cause our love for him to grow, to draw
out our love for him. They say absence makes the heart
grow fonder. Just let the Lord hide himself
for a moment. And he comes again. Oh, your love for him has grown
and is drawn out from you. It could be the Lord's removed
himself for a time, so he'll cause our joy in him to grow
and just spring, you know, More than ever has before. How many
springtimes have you lived through? How many? It never gets old,
does it? We're all happy every single
year when springtime comes. It's just a joy to us. And we
enjoy it more after the winter. That's why our Lord sometimes
gives us those winters, so we enjoy his presence more when
he returns. Now, here's what I know. Springtime
can't come until Christ calls us to Him. So seek Him. Now, springtime can't come until
we're with Him. So seek Him. Call upon Him. And when it's springtime, make
provision for the wintertime. When you've got a time of refreshing
from the Lord, rejoice in that. Give thanks. and store up those
scriptures. When springtime comes and that
time of refreshing comes, it's always from the Word. Somebody
will preach from a particular passage or you'll be reading
and the Lord just makes some verse to jump out and come to
your heart and give you a time of refreshing. Store those verses
up. Store them up in your heart.
Mark them well and come back to them in the wintertime. Those
same verses that blessed your soul and gave you a time of refreshing
in the spring will warm you up a little bit and give you a sense
of His love when it's wintertime. Storm up and call on Him. All right. Well, the Lord bless
that to you.