Turn with me to Psalms of Solomon,
chapter 1. Psalms of Solomon, chapter 1. Obviously, this book is penned
by inspiration of God through the person of Solomon, David's
son. Its contents are echoed by all
the Church of Jesus Christ. Every one of his elect echoes,
sometime or another in their pilgrimage, the things that are
said in this book. It's interesting that Solomon
wrote three different books. Proverbs, which Matt just read
out of, is full of short sayings of wisdom and knowledge, instruction,
and it's also full of Christ. And then we've recently, through
Bruce's teaching, looked at Ecclesiastes. It's a little more sober, a little
more somber. There's heavy lessons in life,
work, duty, and all is vanity. But Christ is also in there.
Now, he puts his attention, Solomon that is, into this next book
which is a full-blown melody, song and high stanzas of the
believer's union with Christ. This book is a love letter, is
a love relationship that Christ has to His chosen people and
their undying love for the Redeemer. And I have suggested this many
times. Read it through. There's no commentary. Just read it on its own. And it can get kind of confusing
the way it goes back and forth between Christ speaking and the
church, It is just marvelous. Absolutely marvelous. Well, before
we look at this first chapter, the first four verses, turn with
me to 1 Kings 4. 1 Kings 4. And verses 29-32.
1 Kings 4. And God gave Solomon, verse 29
of chapter 4, 1 Kings, wisdom and understanding exceeding much,
and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled
the wisdom of all the children of the east country and all the
wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all men." And I'll skip
these names. And Solomon's fame was in all
nations round about. And he spake 3,000 proverbs. And his songs were 1,005. A lot of songs. But when your writing or being written
about your love relationship between you and your spouse,
that may not even seem enough. But let us look at the first
four verses of Psalms of Solomon, chapter one, and I hope that
you will get as excited as the parents. It cannot help if you're
a child of God to read through this and weep with joy, weep
with sadness, weep with just excitement, just total excitement.
He starts off in the first verse, the song of songs, which is Solomon's. The song of songs. Now we sing
this one song here. We haven't in a while, but we
do sing it occasionally. Redeemed. I sing For I cannot be silent. His love
is the theme of my song. He who lovingly guardeth my footsteps
and gives me songs in the night." Now that's a specific reference,
songs in the night. We saw that years ago. The believer
in the midst of persecution, trial, temptation, whatever,
hardship, he has a song. And God makes it so. He has a
song in the night. So, the first verse here, the
song of songs, which is Solomon's. Well, I ask myself, and I ask
you, why wouldn't a vile sinner, saved by the free and sovereign
grace of God, found in Jesus the Messiah, have a song? Why wouldn't he have a song of
songs? How can we exhaust the great
I Am? How can we exhaust the Alpha,
the Omega, the Ancient of Days? How can we not be thankful? Paul says, rejoice, again I say
rejoice. We of all people who know what
we are, who know a little bit about God, and know a little
bit about God in the face and the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, Do we not have songs to sing? I don't think it's very
becoming of a believer to have a sober, unhappy face all the
time. All the time. He says a song
of songs, which is Solomon's. He specifically says, this is
my song. And I ask myself and I ask you,
do we have songs in our heart as well? And I say all who have
been bought by the Savior's blood, and have been brought to the
Savior's feet, we do in humble repentance, and we shall have
songs of songs. Look at the second verse. Let
him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Let him kiss me with
the kisses of his mouth. God is the initiator of all things
good. Let him. I'm here. I'm undone
in trespasses and sins. I am dead in trespasses and sins.
And I cannot even take the first step towards God. Let Him. Let
Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth. We do not initiate
salvation or faith or belief or repentance. He must come to
us. He seals our justification with
the kiss of eternal love and full atonement made by the shedding
of His own blood on the tree. And I like it how it works. The
words in Scriptures are exact. With the kisses. This is not
a peck here, or a peck there, or it's not a singular sign of
affection, but this kisses, like the Scripture says, line upon
line, precept upon precept. He showers us with mercy and
grace and keeping grace. Daily we ask for bread, daily
He provides us with love and affection, most tender and sweet. Our cup truly does overflow.
Our hearts are filled with his fragrance and constant care. He floods us with his exceeding
great and precious promises, all for his dear people. Plural,
kisses. Kisses. Precious promises. He also says in this verse two,
for thy love is better than wine. I love His love, His particular,
sovereign, discriminating, rescuing love. It is not affected by the
sinner, it is not coerced because of the sinner, but it is freely
and omnipotently dispensed. I can't remember, we were just,
I can't remember where we were at. I guess it was, we were back
there. No, it wasn't in Judges. But
anyway, I got In the margin of my Bible, grace is uncoerced,
uncoerced favor. We say unmerited, it's uncoerced
favor. We have nothing in here, or out
here, and what can we give to an infinite God? He has everything
already. So God is not coerced to love
us, or as some would say, He chose because He saw that they
would choose Him. That's putting salvation, that's
the cart before the horse. That's putting salvation in the
hands of man. No. This love, for thy love, it's discriminatory,
it's sovereign, it's particular, and it's not affected by the
sinner, it's not coerced because of the sinner, but it is freely,
as I said, and omnipotently given. Now this word, I'd like this
next word, for thy love is better than wine. Now we've been looking
at Hebrews on Wednesday nights, and we've noticed there, as in
I think most of the Scriptures, There's only two things. It's
good and better. We have good, better, best in
this country. Food, that's good food. That's
better food, that was the best food. Not in scriptures. You
have good, you have old covenant, and new covenant. And again,
this suits me and my simple mind very well. Not complicated. We
have old, new. In the beginning was darkness
and God created You've got darkness and light. You've got heaven
and hell. I've always noticed the two,
broken down into two things. Heaven and hell. Works and grace. Law and love. For thy love is better. Well,
that doesn't sound in the scriptures. Better to the believer is best. So we can put it in 2020 terms,
it is best. There's only two divisions. So, old, new, good,
better, it's never best. But this is good enough for me.
Thy love is better than wine. Wine is the good fruit of the
vine, but it can only quench the body. Grace, God's love in
Christ Jesus, quenches the soul. Cleanses the heart. and shapes
the mind. Oh, bless God for His sovereign,
free love. And then we continue on in verse
3. Because of the saver of thy good ointments, thy name is as
ointment poured forth. Christ is God's good ointment. Always has been, always will
be. And there is none better or more
potent, more able to save than the Savior. our Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Remember in the holy ointment
in the sanctuary, two things, it was costly and very odoriferous,
very fragrant. To us who believe is our kinsman
most precious. One, both in what it cost to
redeem us and two, simply who he is that redeemed. Because of the savor of thy good
ointments, thy name is as ointment for the poor. Again, the Old Testament is written
in the Old Testament referring to that costly and fragrant ointment. The pure, sheer, voluntary death
of the Son of God. And this is something that I
can't remember. Maybe J.C. Philpott, he had a
book. Meditations on the Blessed Humanity
of Christ. And I remember when I read that
years ago, it just floored me. Because he kept bringing home
the point that the death of Christ was voluntary. Now, retired or
not retired, if I'm going to work, I'm going to get paid. I'm not going to do it for free.
But, the grandest work, the grandest scheme of salvation, of bringing
sinners to a thrice holy God, someone had to work. Yes, we
believe in one work, the work of Christ unto salvation for
all his elect, for all of his church. So somebody had to do
the work. The law has to be fulfilled.
Every jot and tittle of everything in Leviticus, you read that and
say, well, I don't understand that. Well, read it looking at it as
Christ fulfilling it. Every of these things, God's
ways are not our ways, but everything had to be fulfilled, every jot
and tittle, and he did. He's the only one that worked
His way to heaven. So, that's good enough ointment
for me. That's good enough ointment for
me. He did it, there was no other than as an obedient son to the
Father. Nothing within us. We are just
the pure recipients. And that's why I love in Proverbs
chapter 8 when you look at the relationship between the Father
and the Son before time. His delights were with the sons
of men. Why? Even after salvation, we sin
much more than we want to. And it grieves us. But He never
leaves us. He'll never leave us nor forsake
us. And I borrowed this phrase 30 something years ago. I've
always loved it. Nothing was ever so free that
cost so much. I don't know where I got it,
I don't know where I read it, but I'll appropriate it as my
own. Nothing was ever so free that cost so much. As he says
in another place in the Psalms of Solomon, truly Emmanuel is
altogether lovely. Well, let's continue on in verse
3. He says, therefore do the virgins Love thee, therefore
do the virgins love thee. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
11. And verse 2, For I am jealous, says
Paul, over you with godly jealousy. For I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Revelations chapter 14, and verses
1 through 4. And I looked, and lo, a Lamb
stood on the Mount, Mount Zion, with Him a hundred and forty-four
thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters,
as the voice of a great thunder. And I heard the voice of harpers
harping with their harps. And they sung." This is their
song. As it were, a new song, for the
throne and before the four beasts and elders, and no man could
learn that song but the 144,000 which were redeemed from the
earth. And these are they which are not defiled with women, for
they are virgins. These are they which follow the
Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among
men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb." Now who
that's specifically speaking of, I'm not sure. But I would
say that we are virgins in the sight of our God. He views us,
it's the church of the bride, He views us as chaste and pure
in His sight. For Christ, that is what He is
and will always be and therefore we in Him are chaste virgins. It gets better, look at verse
4. Draw me, draw me, anybody thinks that they can come in
and of their own, which John 6.44 and another passage in 6.45,
it's 65 or somewhere but he says you
will not come you will not come to me that you may have life
so we know ourselves we know that we have to be brought and
we saw that in verse 2 let his let his Kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth, but we have the same thing draw me and what happens
when sovereign omnipotence Draws someone we will run after thee If you begin with grace If you
do the Scripture justice, you'll have to end with grace. If you
begin salvation with God, in order to do the Scripture justice,
you have to end. If you begin with redemptive
love, you'll end with redemptive love. If you begin with particular,
discriminating grace, you will end! Because that's what the
Scriptures teach. Draw me, and we will run after
thee. Draw us! We, as His children,
always acknowledge our proneness to wander into sin and to bring
shame to our Lord. So we beseech Him, ever, draw
us, draw us, and we'll follow Him. It's not a one-time, you
come up walking high on, you get baptized, and then that's
it. No. We, like Peter, we keep coming. Unto whom coming? We
keep coming to Christ. We keep asking. This is the church. This is the love relationship.
The church says, draw me. Well, you drew me once. No. Keep drawing me. Draw me continually,
over and over again, because when I go to work tomorrow, I'm
going to hit George, and George don't like me, and George don't
like the gospel, so he's going to be spying on me. Draw me. And I'll run after you. What
did Christ say? We looked at that last week,
I believe. when he told Peter how he was
going to die. When Christ told Peter, the last
book of John, he told Peter how he was going to die. Now, if
I knew that, I would be upset. We talked about this, I'd be
upset. If somebody told me when and how, I would lose it. But
the believer, it's comforting. Because we say, you know what,
when I was in my mom's belly, you knew me then. When as yet
I had no members, no digits, nothing, He knew me. And then
He knew me before, when I despised the mention of His name and His
grace, and would not have that one reign over me. And then I
heard the truth. And then it smoked me and crushed me and
slew me and slew us. And then we followed Him. What did Christ say? After He
told Peter, After all this, he says, follow me, follow me. And that's what the believer
in love with Christ says, draw me and I will run after thee. Draw me and I will run after
thee. We love him because he first loved us. He calls, he
quickens, not we ourselves, for we would not come to him that
we may have life. We were dead in trespasses and
sins. We could not move one inch towards him. We must be drawn. unto salvation, after salvation,
often and constantly. And I've got scriptures here,
I'll just read them to you, the passages of scripture, and then
we'll turn there. But if you want to see what he's
talking about, draw me, we will run after thee. This is found
in Jeremiah 31, 3. He draws with everlasting love,
with lovingkindness, by drawing thee. Hosea 11, 4. Malachi 1,
3. and Titus 3, 3 through 6. And these are just a few scriptures.
We, the believer sees, draw me. And we will run after who? I'm going to follow a preacher.
No, be honest with you, even in grace circles, there's
too much preacher worship. No, don't follow me. Don't follow
me. after thee. Not doctrine, not traditions,
not ceremonies, but after Christ, the Christ of this book. Christ
of this book. I was talking to Wayne Boyd the
other day and we were talking about even Paul, when Paul was
speaking, the great Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul, a believer,
after he preached, The Bereans, they didn't come right up to
him. I know Henry used to aggravate Henry and I agree with him. I
prepared this message. I've researched, looked these
things over. Somebody come up and start challenging you, Henry
would say, I'm not going to talk, I'm not going to answer your
questions. You go home, pray about it, look over it, and then
come and we'll sit down. They searched the scriptures
to see if these things were sold. We're just men. We're just sinners
preaching to sinners. Draw me. And I'll run after Thee. I'll run after Thee." Again,
look at, he says, then, draw me and we'll run after Thee.
The King hath brought me into His chambers. It's just, it's
sovereign grace that's everywhere. Draw me, let Him kiss me first,
let Him draw me. Because of what you are, your
name is disointment poured forth. The King. the Sovereign, the
Monarch, the Omnipotent, King, hath brought me into His chambers."
He hath brought me into His chambers. My King, Jehovah King, King Jesus,
brought who? Me. Those whom He foreknew, those
whom He predestinated unto adoption. Ephesians 1. It's all together. It's congruent. It's not a bit
here and a bit there and a bit there. It's all in harmony. And that harmony is found in
the Lord Jesus Christ and only in Christ. The King hath brought
me into his chambers. Chambers, it could be into his
church to hear his gospel. It could be into a prayer closet. It could be a time of public
worship, private worship. The thing is, is that the King
is bringing his people. He's conforming us to his image.
And I'm so thankful. I am so thankful that He is doing
so. And because He is bringing us
into His chambers, because He has, we shall therefore, in the
next phrase, we will be glad and rejoice in Thee. It's a two-for-one here. Gladness
begets rejoicing, and we rejoice in a person, in Thee. Now I rejoice
in the doctrine. I rejoice in continued revelations
of not nothing new, revelations of the Scripture. But it's about
Him and Him alone. In Thee, in His work for us. The things He's done in our room
and in our place and in our stead. The doing and dying for us. For
we could in no wise ever satisfy God and His holy demands. And
then next he says, we will remember thy love more than wine, the
upright love thee, or they love thee uprightly. We will remember
thy love more than wine. We remember the Lord, we'll do
that Lord willing next Sunday in the table and the bread and
the wine. Do this in remembrance of Me. Because we're His children. Because
He commands it. Because we want to. Rather, because
we love Him. Now, Melinda and I were discussing
some things yesterday, and this stuff comes over me, and I have
these epiphanies or whatever, and I've got to share it with
somebody, bounce it off her to see if I'm crazy, losing my mind
or what. But there's often been a phrase
I've never, never liked. And I understand it. I understand
the context, like it's saying by somebody in the 1600s. I understand
it. It says about feelings come and
go. We don't trust feelings. And I agree with that. If you
feel like you trusted Christ, but you don't have the warrant,
I would say you better be careful. But here's why I don't like that
statement. When God in Christ saves us, He saves the whole
man. Even Peter. Peter was rash. I don't like a lot like him.
Rash. I see things, I react, instead
of stopping and thinking about it. Emotional. You want to tell
me, I mean, I'm just going to be honest with you. You read
this whole thing, no commentary, just read it. Is there anything
more emotional, more feeling than love? Define it for me. I can define it for you out of
the Greek. I can tell you what John Gill says about it. Thomas
Manton. John Bunyan. So, it's got to be here. That's why
we don't preach, that's why we don't badger you when Bruce said
something this morning about whips. Tim James has a message,
whips and biscuits. And that's what preachers do,
whips and biscuits. They either whip you, you've got to do this and get
in line, or they're going to reward you. That's why we don't do that. By the grace of God, it's easy
to do, but I pray that I don't do that, because if you don't
serve Him, because you love Him, there's nothing I can do. Now,
you can look religious, and you can keep coming to church, and
doing this and doing that, and fool a bunch of people, but you're
never going to fool Christ. It's a love relationship. And
this word is used a lot just in these four verses. Thy love
is better than wine. Therefore do the virgins love
thee. We will be glad and rejoice in
thee. We will remember thy love more
than wine. The upright love thee. We love Him first, last, and
everything in between. And I ask myself, and I ask you,
can this be said of us today? Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?
Do we truly love our blessed Savior, Redeemer, and Friend? Is this my song of songs today
and tomorrow? We must learn of Him and follow
Him. For there is salvation in no other than Messiah. Love. By this shall all men know
that you are Christ's disciples. And we can't conjure it up. But
I do say that love is an emotion. It's an emotion, but it's a knowledgeable
emotion. It's an emotion of knowledge.
We love Him because... We honor Him because... I was talking to Bruce Crabtree
the other day, and I said something, and he goes, well, I can't argue
with that. Because I was quoting the Scripture. He said, I cannot
argue with that. And he wasn't trying to, we were
just talking about stuff. Absolutely. His love, and I know
it's been abused, and I know it's been fornicated in this
religious world, and it makes me sick. But don't let a false
prophet, don't let false teaching, don't let what the world thinks
about love destroy what you know is right in this book. And let
us go forth and have song of songs. And say, this is Solomon. Say, no, this is my song. He's
put this song in my heart. Even songs in the night. And
it's easy for me to stand up here and say this, and then if
tomorrow something happens, I'm going to be going crazy, but
yet may God give me grace and give us grace in 2020 and tomorrow
and the next day to have song of songs. And that song is the
upright love thee. Come what may, he loves his people
and his people love him. Bruce, would you close us?