But we're going to look, instead
of verse chapter 5, let's look at chapter 4. Specifically, we're
going to look at verse 12. And he says, a garden enclosed,
this is Christ speaking, is my sister, my spouse. He's the groom, we're the spouse.
A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. A fountain sealed by
plants, an orchard of pomegranates, pleasant fruits, camphor, spikenard,
spikenard, saffron. pound this cinnamon with all
trees and frankincense, myrrh, aloes, with all the chief spices,
a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, a stream of
leaven. Awake, O north wind, and come
thou south. Blow upon my garden. The Holy Spirit come into the
garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. And it's only until
God, the Holy Spirit, quickens us that we begin to appreciate
the grace of God, the gospel of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's only then that we'd be able to actually do what we were created
for, back in the garden, honor and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits. He says in verse 5, this is Christ
speaking, I am coming to my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have
gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with
my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends,
drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. Let's look at the
first phrase of this chapter 5. Christ speaks to his church
as a garden. These are those who are planted
by grace divine, and they're cared for and developed by Emmanuel
himself. He says in verse, chapter five,
verse one, I am come into my garden. I am into my, who is
speaking? Well, we know it's the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's the owner of the said gardens,
the owner of this garden. He's styled in scriptures the
head of the church, the first begotten from the dead, the firstborn
of every creature, Colossians 1.15. He is our groom, our elder
brother, our kinsman redeemer. And it's not by accident or just
happenstance that the first word, I am, he is the great I am. Moses said, who should I tell?
The Egyptians, who should I tell? I spoke to. He says, I am that
I am. And he says the same thing in
the garden. When he turned, when they were out, they were coming to
get him. And they said, you know, I am. And he turned and the Roman
soldiers went backwards, went backwards. So he says, I am this
one whom in songs of Solomon 5 verse 16, to us he is altogether
lovely. This is who is speaking, I am,
the great I am. Notice also he says in the second
phrase, I am come. And I will say this, if God in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, aided by the Holy Spirit,
does not come to us, There is no salvation to be had. You can't
conjure up salvation. You can't walk an aisle for it.
You can't earn it, do anything for it. He says, I am come, the
sovereign, I am come. For we are dead, graveyard dead
in trespasses and sins. A dead person can't do anything
because that would require life. Well, we noticed that in the
Old Testament and I think the valley of I don't want to say
acorn, I'm not sure. When the prophet says, you know,
when the Lord says to the prophet, can these bones live? He says,
yea, Lord, you know, prophesy, preach to them. And that's what
we do, we gather up, we stand up here, we preach the living
gospel to dead sinners, or perhaps those who are made alive, but
that's what they want to hear. They feast upon the words of
life, the truth of life. So he says, I am come. As David
says, we cannot come, he must come to us. He was brought forth
from the womb in iniquity. That's in Psalm 58 verse 3 and
Psalms 51 verse 5 is that particular quote. He was brought forth from
the womb in iniquity. How can eternal life be had unto
such as we are? Well, the answer is here. The
first two words, I am come. I am come. Salvation is of The
Lord says, Jonah, he found that out as well. God by sovereign
mercy and irresistible grace comes to the sinner. He quickens
and replaces our stony heart. We are awakened by the truth
of this gospel regarding the Son of God and his work for the
undeserving and unjust. He comes as the light. He comes as the way to God. No
other name given among men whereby we must be saved is what the
New Testament Acts says. He comes often, as we see in
Matthew 11 and 12 he comes often by force and power because he
says and from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom
of heaven suffered violence and the violent take it by force
and he he often comes you and that's a lot of times when we're
in religion and not the truth and we find the Lord finally
gets a hold of us And it's almost violent. It's almost like, I've
been trusting mama, and I've been trusting daddy, and I've
been trusting these things I've done for years, and now you're
telling me I can't do anything? And the gospel challenges all
the time. It's a saver of life unto life,
or death unto death. And we saw a couple weeks ago,
it doesn't come back empty. It does not come back empty.
His word does not come back void. And none can interrupt him or
hinder his will. Therefore he captures the heart,
the soul, and being, and gives new life, new desires, new principles. That's why we're called new creatures,
or new attitudes. As he walked by Zacchaeus that
day, looked up at a tree and said, Zacchaeus, come down. And he couldn't resist him. Zacchaeus came down. That's found
in Luke chapter 19. But I want you to notice, nextly,
in this phraseology that we're looking at, I come into my garden,
my garden. Consider this, that we are his
by election. We're his by election. He chose
us, the scripture says, we did not choose him. We are his by
predestination. Whom he called, he chose, And
it just goes on. He will be called. He justified.
He chose. This is all the predestinating work of the grace of God in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Consider that we are His, my
garden, by supreme mercy and grace. It's undeserved. We're undeserved, but we're favored.
We're favored by the Most High, by Jehovah God Himself, but it's
undeserved. We're His By full redemption,
he bought us back. And I've used this illustration
many times. You go to the grocery store, you get coupons, or you
go to, you know, on the paper, the coupons are printed. Those
coupons, in order to redeem those coupons, you have to take them
back to the people who printed them or had, who paid for them.
And if you go to Countrymark, they're not going to, you know,
I guess they do it anymore, but it's like, no, this is not our
coupon. You got to go to Schnucks or somewhere. Redemption is a
buyback. We were His from before eternity. And in the fullness of time,
through His truth, He made us aware of our sinful nature in
His glorious grace, but He bought us back. We were always His.
We were always His. And lastly, we're His by complete
satisfaction. What does He say in Matthew chapter
3? This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. So we're His, He's come into
my garden. We're His by election, predestination,
sovereign mercy and grace, full redemption and complete satisfaction.
And I will say this, we are His and He cannot lose even one of
His sheep. It's impossible, absolutely impossible. Now, also reflect, lastly, I'm
gonna spend a little time here He says, I've come into my garden,
my garden. What a precious name. What a
precious name. He calls his dear people his
garden. Now, historically, Eastern biblical
gardens, and I was doing research on this and looking into different
scriptures, they were areas often enclosed by walls or shrubs or
hedges or roses. But this is what they were. They
were areas set aside. Now you think about this in salvation
and you think about this as pertaining to the church. They were areas
set aside for detailed care, protection, and special use. Isn't that Isn't that the church?
Isn't that each one of us? We have been set aside by election,
by predestination, by sovereign mercy and grace, by redemption,
and set aside by the grace of God, Lord Jesus Christ, for detailed
care, protection, and special use. They could be vegetable,
orchard, flower, aromatics, or exotic. And also, these gardens
often contain either a fountain, like you see now, or they were
near a stream and they were used to divert those streams for water
for proper maintenance and life. And if you want to look these
up, Psalms 92, 13, Ecclesiastes 2, 5, Psalms of Solomon 6, 2,
Psalms of Solomon 8, 13, Amos 9, 14 are but a few. But these talk about the gardens
of the Lord. Now here's where I want to stay
just a little bit. What is our, what are these gardens,
what's so unique about them? Just think about the garden,
if you garden, if you have a little vegetable garden. Just think
about this, or if you have a little flower garden, or whatever you
have. Remember, the church is his garden.
A garden implies several things. First thing is it implies separation. Now, if you've got a vegetable
garden, and you live and there's a bunch of rabbits, you're going
to make sure that they can't get in. So you're going to separate
this garden. Why? Because if it's vegetable,
if you like those tomatoes, you keep looking at them, and you
go, you look at them, and you look at them, and they're green,
and then if you do carrots or radishes, but you're setting
it aside, or you elevate it so the people, they can't get into
it. But it implies separation. And are we not to be a separate
people? This world is not our home. We're
just passing through. We are to hold the things of
this world with a loose hand because in the end we cannot
serve God and man. Matthew 6 is clear about that.
But a garden is a place implies separation. Now again, we're
not talking about monasteries. Because that's not biblical.
We're out in this world, but we're not of the world. We rub
shoulders with people at work or when we see them, when we
shop or whatever. And that's how, like Jean-Claude
said, compel them to come in. Talk to them. Tell them. Hand
them a business card. Whatever. Compel them to come
in. But the garden is a place set aside. We're going to be
set aside. Secondly, it implies a place of beauty. We are exotics
planted by Christ to honor Him, adore Him, and serve Him. Let
us obey and render unto Him our all in all. It's a place set
aside for beauty. Sometimes you just go out and
you just sit and you just, you listen to birds because certain
things you plant, they're going to attract birds or hummers or
these different things. You just sit. It's a place of
beauty. And so should we be. We are the planting of the Lord.
Thirdly, a garden implies growth. You don't plant it, especially
a vegetable garden, plant it and just walk away. It'll come
up. You know, we don't know how that
works, the germination process, you know, we cast our, we speak
the gospel, and then the Lord will do his work, his way. But
it implies growth. By his grace and doing, we bud
flower and fruit. If not, It's good to be severed and cast
into the fire. You cannot have life, put it
this way, and be under the voice of the gospel, publicly or privately,
because we do public worship and we do private worship. You
cannot be under the sound of the gospel and interact with
the brethren, call them during the week, visit them, whatever,
and not grow. Now, it's very difficult to see
it in yourselves, and we're not really supposed to look and see,
oh, look, I'm growing in gray. I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
We had somebody that was like that, and if the truth was he never
grew, he thought he was growing, and he wasn't growing. It implies growth. Water it. You take care of it. Fourthly,
a garden is a place of retirement and meditation. Go up to the
rose garden and the botanical garden, it's kind of separated.
You got chairs, you can just sit. Japanese garden, same thing. The Chinese garden, same thing. The children's garden, same thing. They got places where you can
sit and repose. We should be thinking upon Him
Give us this day our daily bread. Turn to Philippians chapter 1. I just like this one, the way
this is worded because this is so true. Philippians, I'm sorry,
chapter 4. Philippians chapter 4. Philippians
chapter 4 verse 8. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,
think on these things. Now, it's probably been more
than five years ago, but I preached out of this text, and every one
of those is Christ. It's a place, the garden implies
a place of meditation and retirement. And we should be thinking upon
him. And we can think of any of the scriptures. Sit down,
scripture, meditation, or reading, or whatever. But the things,
think on these things that are true. He is the true and living
one. Things are honest. There was
nobody as honest as the Lord Jesus. And you could just go
through each one of these characteristics and think about Christ. We can
muse upon His many names. He's Alpha, He's Omega, He's
the Balm of Gilead, He's the First, the Last, He's the Bread,
He's Living Water. We can think on these things,
we can think on His attributes. He's Sovereign, He's Immutable,
He's Omniscient, He's Omnipotent. Go on and on and on. You can
muse. As lamentation says, morning by morning new mercies I see.
That's what I'm trying to get at. His daily morning mercies.
And that this will cause the believer to get his thoughts
and his mind off of this world because we live in this world
and we got to work and we got to raise our children, all these
things, got to feed the cats, we got to do all these different
things that we got to do. But this garden at what we are,
we are called to meditate and retire and muse upon Him. And
what this will do, this, can you get grumpy? wake up whatever
wrong side whatever you start thinking about God's grace and
what how marvelous it is and then those that cantankerousness
it gives way to a thankful attitude and heart. And especially in
times of trial, when trouble comes, you muse on him and it's
a time of peace. I struggled over some things
the last couple of days. I actually woke up, I was totally
mad. I couldn't sleep. Woke up this morning, had something
on my mind, couldn't get it, and I just started reading. And
just like that it was gone. And I thought, you know what?
He's going to take care of us. He's going to take care of whatever
we do at this church and this building. If He's with us, and we believe
He is, we believe the truth is preached here, we don't want
to be like in the Old Testament where they, you know, that cloudy
pillar, that cloudy pillar, that light, that kind of glory, and
when that moved, they moved. We don't want to go out. We don't
want to go out if the Lord is not with us. We do what we can,
look around, etc., etc., and the Lord, if He opens it up,
fine. If not, this is home. It really is fine. And lastly,
A garden implies a place of aromatics, which is fragrance. I was out
yesterday pulling weeds, and I got a hold of some balm, like lemon balm. I thought it was, sorry, I thought
I got a weed, but I got the, and man, oh, I mean, it just
perfumed, and I just smiled, because I knew what I was gonna
preach at, and I just smiled. And we got one of those, chimes
and the wind was blowing just ever so gently and it was like
the guys where they put their fingers and they go around, it
wasn't dinging, it wasn't going dong dong, I don't know how it
was doing it because I was looking at the clapper and it wasn't
moving but the chimes were moving and it was just making a beautiful
noise and there's that fragrance and I just had to smile. Because
to the spiritual all things are spiritual to the believer all
things are spiritual and I immediately thought about his garden and
his graces and for two or three minutes I It was wonderful. So this is a place that implies
aromatics fragrance And if our Lord is styled in the scriptures
as the lily of the valley the rose of Sharon should we not
also radiate and perfume such similar traits and characteristic
as our Lord We will. We will. Well, one old writer
said, one old writer or preacher, he says, the believer is like
the moon. And I know I've used this illustration before. We
have no light. The moon has no light. All it
does is reflect the sun's glory for all to see. This is what
the believer does. We have no light. which is full
of sin and wretchedness, but the light that we have is the
light that's been given us. May we reflect it upon all that
we see and all that we know, and especially those of the household
of faith. This song by Robert Murray McShane
says it well. When this passing world is done,
when has sunk yon glaring sun, when we stand with Christ on
high, looking o'er life's history, Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then, how much I owe. When I stand before the throne,
dressed in beauty not my own, when I see thee as thou art,
love thee with unsinning heart, then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then, how much I owe. Even on earth, as through a glass
darkly let thy glory pass, make forgiveness, feel so sweet, make
thy spirit help so meet. Even on earth, Lord, make me
to know something of how much I owe." And that's a thankful
heart. We are dressed in beauty, not
our own. We are His garden. He has come to us, saved us,
called us, redeemed us. Why? it was according to the
good pleasure of Israel. May we be thankful and rejoice
in Christ. Bruce, would you close us?