I invite your attention to the
book of Proverbs, chapter 5. Proverbs, chapter 5. I'm going
to expound a good bit of the latter half of this chapter,
and the subject is Jesus Christ, the ideal husband. The book of Proverbs. If you'll
notice that In the very first verse of this book of the Proverbs,
the name of the book is given. And what is the name of this
book? The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. Solomon wrote at least one or
two of the Psalms in the book of Psalms. He wrote hundreds
of proverbs and three books that are in the Holy Scriptures. He
wrote the Song of Solomon. Probably as a young man, it is
a love story about a young man and his beloved. And more than that, it is the
love story of Jesus Christ and his church, his bride. It is
said that in his middle years he wrote the book of the Proverbs. They speak of wisdom. But this
man Solomon sought happiness in this and that and the other
and found the frustration of everything in this world and
in this life and then he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes and
said it was all vanity. It was all vanity. Here we are
in the book of the Proverbs, beginning in chapter 5, verse
1. This is Solomon speaking to his
son. My son, attend unto my wisdom,
and bow thine ear to my understanding, that thou mayest regard to discretion,
and that thy lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman
drop as in honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil, but
her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her
steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldest ponder the
path of life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them. Hear me now, therefore, O ye
children, now consider He started out talking to his son, now he's
talking to all of his children. Hear me now, therefore, O ye
children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove
thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house,
lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years unto the
cruel. Lest strangers be filled with
thy wealth, and thy labors be in the house of a stranger, and
thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
and say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof,
and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined
mine ear to them that instructed me? I was almost in all evil
in the midst of the congregation and assembly. Drink waters out of thine own
system, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains
be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let
them be only thine own, and not strangers with thee. Let thy
fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving roe
and pleasant roe. Let her breast satisfy thee at
all times and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be
ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before
the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings. His
own iniquity shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden
with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction,
and in the great nefes's folly he shall go astray." Now, consider
that Solomon began this chapter by saying, my son, this is a
father giving instruction to his son. He's serious. It's a very serious matter of
which he here will speak. Bow thine ear to my understanding. Meaning, listen carefully. I've
got something to say and you need to listen carefully. I'm
concerned for your soul. This is a father giving instruction
to his son and he instructs his son regarding marriage and the
duties to his wife. Solomon undoubtedly gave this
instruction to his son or to his sons, he speaks of them also
as children. But I want us to consider here
today that in the subject of Jesus Christ, the ideal husband,
that he received this instruction too. He received this instruction
undoubtedly from Joseph, his legal and stepfather, because
the Bible says Joseph was a just man. Luke chapter 2 says Jesus was
subject to his parents and increased in wisdom and in his stature
in favor with God and man Undoubtedly, Joseph taught Jesus. What is here in this book? Undoubtedly,
God the Father did. For Jesus in His incarnation
said, I have come, and the volume of the book it is written of
me. I delight to do your will, and your law is in my heart. God the Father instructed Jesus. regarding marriage, fidelity
to his wife, and faithfulness. So we're going to consider today,
and as we look at this, I want us to see especially Jesus Christ in this chapter. Jesus Christ, the ideal husband. He is the wife of her, he was
here called, the wife of your youth. She is his church. He married her in his youth. And she is his wife, his youth,
for two reasons. First, she was predestined for him before
the foundation of the world. Second, he became her husband in his
incarnation. He died at the age of 33 years. He's a young man. He's a young
man. The Church of Jesus is the wife
of his youth. We're going to consider here
that also that she is his only wife. He has only one. Only one. She has only one husband. And
we're going to consider here that Jesus obeyed every admonition
in this chapter. I find seven of them. Aboard
the immoral woman, drink water from your own cistern and running
water from your own well. Let your fountain be blessed.
Rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her be to you as a
loving dear and a graceful dove. Let her breast satisfy you at
all times and always be enraptured with her love. Consider the first
point. That is this. Avoid the immoral
woman. Who is she? She's an adulteress. She is a harlot. She is probably charging for
her hire. And Solomon says, stay away from
her. Stay away from her. In the spiritual realm, she is
anti-Christian seduction. The book of the Revelation of
Jesus Christ calls her Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots
and of the abominations of the earth. Avoid that woman. Listen, folks. Avoid anything
that seduces you away from Christ. whether it be false doctrine,
false teachers, whatever, whatever it is, it all belongs to Babylon. She is the mother of all harlots
and of all the abominations of the earth. Stay as far away from her as
you can. Now, Jesus was merciful to adulteresses. He was kind and gracious to them.
In fact, that was one of the charges made against him. He's
a friend of sinners. Yes, he was. But he never had
an illicit relationship with one. Never. Let us also learn
to be kind and gracious and merciful to even the lowest of people,
even the vilest. If they'll listen to you, tell
them the gospel of Jesus Christ. We never enter into an illicit
relationship with such a person. Second, drink water from your
own cistern and running water from your own well. Now what
is a cistern? A cistern in Israel would probably
be in some lobe spot and they would dig a place out of the
rock that would catch water and then the water when it would
fall from the sky would drain down to it and if nothing else,
they built channels so that the water that fell on the hillside
would come into this pool, this cistern. What is a well? It is a shaft, probably a deep
one, that goes below the rocky surface and then until it finds
living water, running water that comes through the strata of the
rock. And so if a man had a cistern, he was blessed. If not, he dug
a well. But you drink water only from
your own. If you have a cistern, you do
not go get your water out of some other man's cistern. If
you have a well, you drink the water of your own well, and you
do not appreciate someone coming to your own cistern. Now, Jesus here would drink water from his own
cistern and from his own well by slaking his thirst only with
his wife, only with her. Drink water from your own well,
from your own sister. He speaks of her in such terms
when he says, a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse. He's
made a garden. A sister, or a garden enclosed. He put a wall around it. That's
to keep unwanted people out. He says that A garden enclosed
is my sister, my spouse. He says she is a spring shut
up, a fountain sealed. This garden is for him only,
and it is his church. The church of Jesus Christ is
for him and for him alone. The fruits that grow in this
garden are for him and him alone. The well and the cistern that
is in this garden is for him and for him alone. She desires it to be so. She
says, let my beloved come to his garden and eat its pleasant
fruits, Solomon 4, 16. And Jesus grants her desire in
replying, I have come to my garden, my sister, my spouse. Drink,
yes, drink deeply, O beloved ones who are the members of this
church. Jesus brings the members of this
church and says, here is the water that God has provided. Drink deeply. Do not drink the
water from that man's cistern or from that religion's cistern
or from that well. Only hear. Only hear. He's speaking
not only in the spiritual matters but also in the physical as well. A man is faithful to his wife.
A husband is faithful to his wife. He does not spend his time
with someone else's. He gives a reason, or Jehovah
gives a reason why this should be. Let your fountains be dispersed
abroad, streams of water in the streets. Let them be only your
own and not for others with you. These fountains and streams are
the offspring of a man and a woman. The faithful husband will ascertain
that all his children come from his wife. and from no one else. They'll be found in the streets.
They'll be found dispersed abroad, meaning what? They will go forth
to do good in other places. They will go forth declaring
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let your children be dispersed
abroad. Let them go forth for the good
of mankind and for spreading the gospel. Jesus will ascertain
that all his children are legitimately his. He has no children in Babylon. I repeat, he has no children
in Babylon. We come now to the third point,
let your fountain be blessed. Now notice that earlier he said
he spoke of fountains, but now he speaks of a singular fountain. The fountains, plural, were the
offspring. Here is a singular fountain. Let your fountain be blessed.
A fountain is a spring from which water flows. And here, this fountain
is the husband's wife, the formerly sited fountain seal that was
in that garden. She is not only his cistern and
his well, but also for the fountain from which his children come
forth. And that is true not only in
physical marriage, but true also in the marriage of Jesus Christ.
He ascertains that his fountain is indeed blessed. He blesses
his fountain. There is no happier woman in
all the world. than the woman who is married
to Jesus Christ. And there should be no happier
woman in the physical world than she who is married to a godly
husband. He ascertains that she is blessed
with children and that her children have every blessing from him
as well. He blesses her by keeping himself
to her, to himself, He blesses her by keeping Himself to her.
He blesses her so greatly that she will seek intimacy with no
one else. Only with Him He blesses her.
He exalts her. He praises her. Some years ago, a certain man in a church that
stressed what they called the woman's place, And it was not
a good place. They thought the woman should
be subservient. But he asked me, he says, what's
your position on the woman's place? And I knew what he believed.
He thought she should be subservient. And I replied, if this woman
is like the women in the church I pastor, and that church was
in Louisville, Kentucky at the time, If this woman of whom we
speak is like the women in the church I pastor, or if she is
like my wife, if she's a Christian woman, godly
in her conduct, faithful to her Lord and to her husband, to her
children and to her friends, what is her place? I'll tell
you what it is. Put her on a pedestal. My remark was not very well received,
but put her on a pedestal, and not just any pedestal. That's
not like the pedestal you find at the Olympic Games where there
is the highest spot on the pedestal for the winner, and then the
runners up are a little lower. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. When
I say If your wife is a godly woman,
put her on a pedestal. I'm saying she gets the high
spot and nobody else is there with her because she has no contenders,
no rivals, and there are no runners up. Put her on a pedestal. Now you folks pray for me because
when I get home this afternoon, I'm going to get scolded for
saying that. She's smiling now. When I tell
her in private that I'm going to put her on a pedestal, she
says, oh no, you won't. Jesus puts his wife on a pedestal.
Read the last chapter in this book of the Proverbs of the virtuous
woman. Her husband praises her in the
gates. He praises her in the gates. Let me tell you, a Christian
husband, you should endeavor, we should
endeavor to make our wives as happy as we physically can. Jesus
does. He blesses her. He blesses her. We come now to the fourth point. Rejoice with the wife of your
youth. To rejoice is to be glad. Now
consider first We're told to rejoice with the wife of your
youth. Christian marriage is not just
for the satisfaction of the man, it is for her satisfaction as
well. Rejoice with the wife of your
youth. Jesus rejoices over his wife. He says, Jehovah, your God in
your midst, the mighty one, will rejoice over you with gladness. He will rejoice over you with
singing. Zephaniah 3.17. Jesus rejoices
over his wife, sings to her. I recall when I was a wee lad,
probably preschool age, well maybe Yeah, about maybe five
or six years old. My father was a fireman in the
city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And I can recall him
coming home in his uniform. He worked in the Fire Prevention
Bureau. I can recall him coming home
and opening the door. And my mother would meet him
at the door. And they would hug each other. And then my father
would sing. You are my sunshine, my only
sunshine. And I can recall saying, oh my,
what is? He rejoiced over her. You are
my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies
are gray. Jesus rejoices over his wife. He's glad for her. He praises
her. And furthermore, she rejoices
in him. She says, the king has brought
me into his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in
you. We will remember you. Your love
more than wine rightly do. They love you. When Jesus and
his wife get together, there's a whole lot of singing going
on. He's singing to her. In the midst
of the congregation, I will sing praise. And she sings with him. Rejoice with the wife of your
youth. He will never divorce his wife. He will never leave her. He will never desert her. He will love her to the very
end. Fifth point, let her be to you
as a loving dear and a graceful dove. The female deer is a fitting
emblem of Jesus' church for various reasons. First, her graceful
form. What is more graceful than a
deer? Over here is a pig, over there is a squirrel, and
over here is a deer. Now watch them when they run.
If you could watch a running pig in very, very slow motion,
it would be almost a revolting sight. Now, is that squirrel
grateful when it runs? Sandy has a refrigerator magnet
that reads, my decision making skills are like those of a squirrel
crossing the road. And look at it. Squirrel decides to cross the
road, and here he looks, and here comes a vehicle, and he
takes three steps in this direction, looks up, changes direction,
looks up, changes direction, and he's just, he's not graceful
at all. He's changing directions, going
in this way and that until, splat. Not very graceful, was it? Look
at this deer. Have you seen deer running across
a field? What is more graceful than deer
running across the field? This doe is a fitting emblem
of the wife of Jesus Christ. She is graceful in her form, her gentle nature. Gentle nature. I am told that when you are in
Glacier National Park, you should bear in mind that most of the men and probably
a good number of the women are packing a weapon. Why is that? Because of one big animal in
that park. Now there are two big animals.
There are deer and there are grizzlies. One of them has a
ferocious nature and the other does not. The other is gentle. If people are packing a weapon
in glaciers, it's because of the grizzly, not because of the
deer. The deer is a fitting emblem
of the church of Jesus Christ because of her gentleness. Furthermore, she has delicate
limbs and she's a clean animal under the law. She's fitting. His church here is loving, and
all her love is to her husband alone, not to any other man. She is here full of grace, not
only that of her spiritual beauty to Jesus, but because of his
unmerited favor to her. She is graceful or full of grace
because he has given her grace until she's full, and then she
gives it to others. When I was a missionary and we
would come from the field, my family of four, we would come
from the fields to the U.S. to visit, quite often I visited
in places I'd never been before. And all I knew was I was to drive
to this location, I would be staying there with my family,
so we would show up. complete strangers. But within
just a few minutes, we're the best friends we could imagine
ourselves to be. Why is that? I'll tell you why. Recipients of God's grace are
gracious people. They have received grace and
they therefore give it. Jesus' wife is full of grace. Number six, let her breasts satisfy
you at all times, verse 19. Now physical breasts contain
the mammary glands that secrete milk used to feed infants. What
are the breasts of Jesus' wife? It is the ministers in his church. A breast of the church of Jesus
Christ is standing in front of you right now. right now. What's he supposed
to do? They nourish her children with
the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby. And they
confessed to her children that I fed you with milk. That was
Paul the Apostle. I fed you with milk. A breast
of the church of Jesus Christ is standing behind this pulpit
this morning. I hope you're getting milk. I
hope no one walks out of the building today and says, well,
Moose gave us vinegar to drink today. No, let it be milk. What kind of milk? Well, undiluted
milk. Not going to put anything else
in it. It's going to be pure and sincere. It will not be fortified. I do not need to fortify it with
this or that or the other. Everything you need in it is
there. It's going to be whole milk because you're going to get all
the cream as well. I'm not going to take the cream
off the top and keep that for myself and give you what's left.
No, no, no. This milk is undiluted, unfortified. has all that you need in it.
It is whole milk, and you can drink as much as you want, and
you'll be healthy but never obese, spiritually speaking. Now, all the nourishment required
by infants is found in their mother's milk, and all the nourishment
required by babes in Christ is preached by Christ's ministers.
Here we read that Jesus says to his wife, your two breasts
are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Two fawns denotes
youthfulness. Jesus's ministers, they're youthful in their youth. And as long as they have youth,
they're going to keep giving out that milk. I am 75 years
of age. There are times when I get ready
to do some task and my body says, Moose, we do not do that anymore.
And after, you know, I've got limitations now. And I must tell you that every
time I step up into the pulpit and up these two steps, they're
not big. But I'm watching. Used to be
I didn't. As a very young man, I'd have
skipped that one and just taken one step. I don't do that now.
But I must tell you, when I get behind the pulpit, I'm a young
man. A young man. I hope it continues. I hope it continues. Notice that
Jesus also here speaks of, they are twins. Your breasts are twins. That means that they are symmetrical
and identical. They give the same gospel and
dispense the same milk. We have four men who have preached
to this church and who do preach. Four men in this church. Your pastor and three other men. Now have you noticed they all
preach the same thing? They're twins in their doctrine.
They're symmetrical. They preach the same thing. We have two preachers coming
for our conference in June, God willing. They're going to come
preaching the same thing. Now they may be better preachers
than I am, but they do not preach a better gospel. And I feel confident
and God willing, in June or July, I'm probably going to be visiting
back east for a couple of weeks, and we'll probably have men of
the church filling in for me. I feel confident. Don't have
to worry, well, what are they going to be saying when I'm not
there? I'm not worried about it. The preachers in the Church of
Jesus Christ all preach the same thing. They preach Christ, not
themselves. The mammals develop breasts only
when milk is needed for their offspring, after which time the
breasts shrink away. God made woman in an entirely
different way. Her breasts develop before she
ever has children. If she never has children, she
still has them, and when the children have grown They're still
there. That is not true of any other
mammal. It's different. Why is that? It is because her breasts are
not only for the nourishment of her children, but that the
scripture here before us may be fulfilled. We here read that
let your church's breasts satisfy you at all times, meaning that
Jesus always find satisfaction with his ministers. They commune with him. Now granted, the demands of what I do are
quite different from yours. As many hours spent every day
in communion, reading the scriptures and prayer and studying, and
what is it? It is here Jesus enjoying intimacy
with his ministers. She says, my beloved lies all
night between my breasts. Do not stir up nor awaken my
love until he pleases. Jesus lies all night with his
ministers. It's a strange phenomenon. I retire before my wife does
every evening. And it's been that way for years.
But quite often I'll be studying, preparing a message or developing
some point and say goodnight and I go to the bed. Ten minutes
later I'm back up. She knows what's going on. I
go, and I've got to get this thought down. Something came
to my mind when I had laid my head on my pillow. Jesus is in
the bed with his pastors, with his preachers. They're thinking
about the things of the Lord, and quite often he tells them
something, and they say, OK, I've got to get up and go write
that down. It is said that Charles Spurgeon kept a pencil and paper
beside his bed because quite often in the middle of the night
and in a dream or whatever, he'd get a thought and have to write
it down and then he'd preach on it. Well, that's what happens
when the church here says, let my beloved lie between my breasts,
let him commune with my preachers, with my ministers, let him do
so even in the night season. And then the seventh admonition,
always be enraptured with her love. Well, this is a natural and blessed
result to the husband who loves his wife above all others, who
goes to her alone for the gratification of his thirst, who blesses her
with all she needs, who rejoices in and with her alone, who finds
satisfaction in her alone. His loving and graceful wife
will ravish him with her love, and that's the way it is with
Jesus. His church delights in confessing, I am my beloved's
and my beloved is mine, and his desire is toward me. Think about
it. Not only am I his, he is mine. We sing that hymn, love with
everlasting love, led by grace, that love to know, I am his and
he is mine. It's not enough to know that
I am his. I need to know that he is mine. It's not enough to know that
he is mine. I need to know, am I his? We
here read that always being raptured with his love. Her desire is
always toward him. She says, I found the one I love. I held him and would not let
him go until I had brought him into the house of my mother and
into the chamber of her who conceived me. And there she ravished him with
her praise, with her adoration, with her love, with her worship,
with her devotion, all of these things. What have we done this
morning? We have come in here and sung
these hymns, not half-heartedly. We're showing Jesus that we are
enraptured with Him. He with us and we with Him. Always
be enraptured with His love. Always know that He has been
pleased to show His love unto you. We are enraptured with Him. We
hope He is enraptured with us. He comes in to our worship services,
and I can see all of you who are here, but there is one whom
I cannot see. It is Him who says, where two
or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst. He's
sitting somewhere. Now I hope that when this message
is done, he will say, I was blessed. But not only that, I hope that
he will say of our worship, they worshiped me. They praised me. I love them and they are enraptured
with me. Their hymns were about me, not
about something else. I was raised in Appalachia. I
recall hearing some people, mountain people, had a song years ago
they would sing. If working and praying have any
reward, then surely some morning I'll see my dear Lord. I'm bound
for Mount Zion way up on the hill. If anyone makes it all
the way home, surely I will. Well, someone is enraptured,
but it is not with Jesus. It is with self. Our hymns praising
Him, adoring Him, and the Father has here, God the Father has
instructed His own Son regarding all these things. Son, why should you be enraptured
by an immoral woman? and embraced in the arms of a
seductress. Why, indeed, Jesus is no fool. He is faithful to his wife. His
wife is faithful unto him, and all God's adopted sons are like
the only begotten. There should be no better husband
in the world than a Christian husband, no better wife than
a Christian wife, no happier marriage than a Christian marriage,
and so it is with Jesus and his wife. Therefore, consider the
words, my son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear unto
my understanding. And O God, our Father, help us
to be the kind of husbands to our wives as Jesus is to his. We pray you do this to your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.