Well we come back to Song of
Solomon and chapter two. I want to look this morning at
verses eight to the end of the chapter and I've called this
message a spring day call. Seems very appropriate for the
time of year but also in the spiritual context of what we're
looking at here in Song of Solomon. When we looked at Ecclesiastes
we saw that life without God, life with just living this life
for pleasure and all of those other things Solomon came to
the conclusion that he was utterly futile it was absolutely pointless
there was no point in living if that's all there was and it
seems so clear that that is absolutely the case you look at the the
futility of life and its pointlessness and the very best of people when
they get to the end of their life what can they say that it
is actually amounted to We need an intimate relationship with
God if we're to know him. And in the first chapter in the
first half of chapter two of Song of Solomon, we saw something
of that. These are the words of love.
These are the words of a love affair. But this is a love affair
between the one who is saved and God. God. God who is all
glorious. There's so little thought of
God, of the true God, of the God of the universe, God who
is all-glorious, who is majestic in his holiness, glorious in
his power, who has created all things, who has made all things.
You know, they've decided that one of the moons of Saturn, it's
so likely to have life on it, we almost might as well not go
there to find out, it's just, it's got the right conditions,
I tell you, nobody has a clue, not the cleverest, not the brightest,
not the most outstanding evolutionary biologists, none of them can
explain how on earth the first living cell came into being.
It's about as likely as an explosion in a brickyard forming a beautiful
furnished mansion. It just doesn't happen. All that
happens is that life begets life, and you look all around. This
teeming life that we see everywhere, especially at this time of year,
speaks of God, who is all glorious in doing this. This is the God
with whom we have to do. He's glorious in power. As Peter
said in his prayer, he is the one who upholds all things. They don't just happen to be
upheld. He upholds all things by the
word of his power. And the word of his power is
the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who speaks. He
is the one who is the word of God, the voice of God. That when
God said in the beginning, let there be light, that was the
second person of the Trinity that was speaking that, that
was verbalizing. He is the one by whom we know
God. And in him, we know that this God is a God of grace and
of mercy. He's also a God of unflinching
holiness. You know, there's a common term
that law authorities like to use, zero tolerance. Well, I'm
telling you, God has zero tolerance of sin. To many religious folks,
the God of the Old Testament had zero tolerance, but the New
Testament God, oh, he's all right is this one. He lets people off,
don't worry too much. No, no, no. Our God still is
a consuming fire. It still is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God. He is a God of absolute
justice, absolute justice. He must punish sin, and the soul
that sins, it shall die. But yet, He is just. He doesn't violate His own law
in saving sinners. How? He saves them in His Son,
who satisfied the law. But he's not distant, like some
aloof civil power. You know, you think of great
states people who have led their countries and done great things,
but yet, although they're known in a way, they're known distantly.
In the Second World War, lots of people admired Winston Churchill
for his leadership of this country. But how many actually knew him?
Very, very few. He was aloof, he was distant
from them in that sense. but not this relationship with
the living God. He's not aloof. The words of
scripture speak of him being married to the people of his
choice. Married. Not just their God,
not just their king, not just the one who sets the rules and
judges them, but married to his people. And not only that, one
who is intimately in love with his people. This God, look around. God who created and holds all
things intimately in love with his people, a God who communes
with his people, a God who comforts his people and guides them and
blesses them and chastises them, yes, at times, and fills them
with a good hope. What is a good hope? It's a good
hope of eternity, of eternal life. Do you have any experience
of this? Or is it just, you know, you
talk to an unbeliever and they would say, ah, well, It's alright
if they want to believe that, but it's just the delusion of
religious fanatics. Are you conscious of interacting
with the living God? Have you heard His voice? Do you remember that verse, was
it last week or the week before I pointed you to? John 5, 25,
Jesus said, verily, verily, I mean this, I mean this, verily, verily,
I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, He said, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear shall live. The hour is coming, and now is
when the dead, you say, I'm not dead. Oh, you're dead in trespasses
and sins by nature. You're dead to God. You have
no life from God. You have no spiritual life by
nature. When those who are dead in trespasses
and sins hear the voice of the Son of God, Jesus said, let him
that has ears hear, listen, listen. They that hear shall live. Is that your experience? In the
second half of the Song of Solomon, chapter 2, we have a poetic account
of that voice of God coming and being heard. And The words use
an allegory or an analogy, if you like, of spring to portray
the feelings and the emotions and the eternal truths of salvation
and communion between God and his believing people that are
revealed in his grace in the gospel. It's a picture. Charles
Spurgeon said, the works of creation are pictures to God's children
of the secret mysteries of divine grace. Is it not true? You look
around you and you see what's going on as all the life is bursting
up from the ground and new leaves and the leaves on the trees and
all after the winter when it's been so dreary and gray and cold
and barren, and the trees have been bare, and you see all these
buds bursting open. The works of creation are pictures
to God's children of the secret mysteries of divine grace. So
let's think for a moment about seasonal pictures of spiritual
experience. If you're one of God's true believing
people, one who worships, what are they? Philippians 3 verse
3 tells us, who are the true people of God? We worship God
in the spirit, We rejoice in Christ Jesus and we have no confidence
in anything of the flesh, none whatsoever. All our confidence
is in the one who is our substitute, the one who stood in our place.
If you know him, you're one of his people, you will have experienced
a spiritual winter. You will. In your experience,
you will have experienced a spiritual winter. Some experience a very
severe spiritual winter, others a relatively mild spiritual winter,
but we all experience a spiritual winter, by which I mean a time
of increasing awareness of God. Do you know the Philpot daily
devotional that our sister Rose sends out each day, very much
appreciated, but this morning's one, I don't know if anybody
read it, but there's There's a little bit about, or was it
yesterday? It might have been yesterday. Light making light
manifest. Light making light manifest.
Ephesians 5, 13. And the light comes in, the light
of the truth of God comes in. And is manifested to you, is
made known to you in feelings. You actually feel it, you really
do. An awareness that there's a God. An awareness that if there's
a God, he must be holy. An awareness that he's just and
righteous and he has a law and an increasing consciousness when
you contemplate who God must be you contemplate what you know
you are more and more consciousness of sin remember that hymn a sinner
is a sacred thing the Holy Ghost has made him so and being conscious
of sin how God who is just must condemn you and you look for
the currency to pay your own ransom and to get you out of
that condemnation and you find you are utterly, utterly bankrupt. You don't have a solitary penny
piece that will do anything to purchase your redemption by the
living God. You can't turn over a new leaf.
You can't resolve to be a better person. None of it, none of it
will earn you favor with God. And conscious of that deadness
of soul, that spiritual winter, your distance from God, Increasingly
conscious of your mortality. The fact that you are going to
die. You are frail. You may feel strong, but oh,
how temporary is that strength. Your frailty, your fear, and
your growing dread of death. Just like a winter garden. You
look out on the winter garden on a really cold day. I know
it looks pretty when there's snow everywhere, but I'm thinking
of one of those barren days of which we had a few this winter
where everything just looks tinged with frost and ice, but everything
looks wrapped up and dead in cold, frozen and buried. So it is, in that soul, becoming
more and more conscious of God, is buried, is buried, as far
as any spiritual hope is concerned. But then a voice is heard. Look
at verse 8. The voice of my beloved. Behold,
he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. The
voice of my beloved. Look at verse 11. For lo, the
winter is past, as we've just been singing. The rain is over
and gone. It's spring. And how we've seen
that happen in the last few weeks in nature, in that which is a
picture of spirituality. And I wander around my garden
and I look and it just delights me to look, the green shoots
that are everywhere. If you could have seen the dead
dahlia tubers, for anybody listening, dahlias are beautiful flowers
that flower in June, July, August into September. And in winter,
they look like dead old potatoes in fact they look more dead than
potatoes they just look like a bunch of big fat dead fingers
and there's not a sign of life and you wonder are these finished
or not and so anyway I put them in some nice peat compost and
watered them and put them in a place that wasn't cold in the
greenhouse to get them to and guess what green shoots green
shoots and now there's about four or five inches foliage on
those things that were dead. Spring! And what else? We hear
birdsong outside. We hear the dawn chorus. We hear
all these things going on. It's light at five o'clock in
the morning, and you hear the birds singing. And this is a
picture of the gracious voice of God speaking the words of
eternal life in that winter of the soul. The voice of Christ,
the Good Shepherd, calling his sheep. He is the Good Shepherd
and he said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. And
he speaks the words of life and not of death. The words of life,
the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live. The words
of life and not of death and condemnation. Words of grace,
words of the law, that offended law, that broken law that must
be satisfied, that it be satisfied in his coming and his dying when
he paid sins penalty for his people on the cross of Calvary.
and so that his people are forgiven. What, just let off? No, justly
forgiven, because the sins have been paid for. And being justly
forgiven, what do those people have, who know that they're in
him, for whom he died? They have peace with God. Peace
with God. What it is to have peace with
God. What it is to know that you're dying, and to know, that's
good, that's alright. I have peace with God. I have
peace with God. It's as if God, there's the everlasting
open arms to welcome you into his peace, eternal peace. You
have acceptance with him. You have hope of heaven. Not
just a, oh I hope it's going to happen. A certainly, it's
happening, it's coming, definitely. Comforting, assuring, words of
grace. And then, just to continue the
analogy, we experience a season of full summer, spiritually,
at times, at times. Heaven seems open. God, there
are times in the believer's experience when God feels immediately at
hand, when his word is full of fruitful food, where you pick
it up and it's just dripping with wonderful promises of salvation
accomplished, where your soul feeds on meat and wine, and you
delight in what you read in his word, and you've got the long
days of light and sun, spiritually speaking, a spiritual summer,
You experience God in everything around. Like that hymn that we
used to sing, you know, sky above is deeper blue, earth around
is sweeter green, something shines in every hue Christless eyes
have never seen. Something like that, I've probably
got it wrong. And prayer is easy, and promises flood out of the
word. And then maybe also we experience an autumn season at
times, with its abundant harvest of spiritual fruits before the
cycle repeats. But our focus this morning is
on spring, like this time of year, like it is in the garden
at the moment. Have you been in a winter of
spiritual cold and darkness? Do you hear the voice of the
believer's beloved? Are you hearing the voice of
the Son of God and living as a result? Look at verses 8 and
9. the voice of my Beloved. Behold,
he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My Beloved
is like a roe, or a young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall. He looketh forth at the window, showing himself through
the lattice. What we have here is a picture
of agility. Have you seen, if you've been
up in the mountains, have you seen the goats, the mountain
goats or the sheep and the precarious places that they can get into?
Nothing seems to stand in the way of them. They seem to be
able to, on some of these wildlife programs you see the wild goats,
and they're jumping down this most perilous cliff face as if
it's just like an ordinary set of stairs that you might walk
down. No trouble at all. That's the picture here. Now
what is it speaking of? It's speaking of being unimpeded
by barriers. When the beloved comes, what
might stop his progress? Ah, your stubborn heart. Your
heart of unbelief. Your determination not to hear
his voice. but that cannot block his path
because he's like an agile young deer or a mountain goat who's
able to get, your stubborn heart cannot stop him. If he's calling
you, he will call you and you will hear him and you will know
life, spiritual life in hearing his voice. Maybe he has come
and you're not fully aware. Look at verse nine. Behold, he
stands behind our wall. He looks forth at the windows,
showing himself through the lattice. Fleeting glimpses. Have you had
fleeting glimpses, perhaps? when you've heard a sermon preached
or something like that, or you've read a portion of the scriptures,
you get a fleeting glimpse behind the wall, maybe behind the wall
of the law. There are pictures in here that
we could develop, but we won't now, of like the Old Testament
church waiting for Christ to come. And in all of the ceremonial
types and sacrifices of the temple, there were glimpses of Christ,
of the reality of Christ. In the lambs there were glimpses
of Christ. In the temple and everything
that went on there, there were glimpses of the reality of what
he would accomplish at Calvary, fleeting glimpses, but also it
applies to your heart now, fleeting glimpses, behind the wall of
the law, peering through the lattice of spiritual pictures
and ceremonial types. But then we hear his call, verse
10, my beloved spake This is to the, you know, we've been
through a winter and all seems dark and consciousness of sin
but we hear this word my beloved spake and said unto me rise up
my love my fair one and come away for lo the winter is past
the rain over and gone awake spiritually open your eyes and
ears to that which the natural man finds foolishness in and
of ourselves we will never work out that there is a God and that
we ought to believe him but when he speaks by his spirit through
his word You hear his voice. The natural man finds it foolishness,
but you hear his voice. Hear his voice. He speaks to
you and you can only see your own unfitness, but he speaks
to you and he says, my love, my fair one. Not you vile sinner,
my love, my fair one. Awakened to your spiritual reality,
you might well say with Job, when Job saw God, Job who thought
he was so righteous, but then Job saw what God was, who God
was, and Job saw what he is, and he said, I abhor myself,
I am vile, I repent in sackcloth and ashes, knowing who God is. You might well say that, knowing
what you are as a sinner, but God, in Christ, calls his people,
my love, my fair one. And the child of God who is conscious
of sin and hears that voice says, how? I don't understand. And
he says, I'll tell you what, come away with me. Come away
with me. Leave your doubts behind. Don't
bother packing a bag. Just come away. He says, rise
up my love and come away. Come away. And here he gives
his reason, verse 11. Why? How can I come away? How
can you call me my love, my fair one, when I know I'm vile? The
winter. The reign is over and gone. The
winter of the law's condemnation is finished. The reign of the
judgement of God is over. It won't come near you any more.
The flowers of grace expressed in the gospel, the flowers of
justice satisfied in the death and the precious blood of Christ
are there. They're singing and rejoicing
at salvation accomplished and declared. Because God looked
on Him when He hung on that cross, when He bore the sins of His
people, when He cried out, it is finished, God looked on Him
and His law and His justice was satisfied for the sins of His
people. And He raised Him to newness
of life. And as He was raised to life, so His people are raised
to life in Him. In verse 13, we have, The promise,
the fig tree, putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with
the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair
one, and come away. Fruitfulness promised in spiritual
life. there is the fruit of the spirit
in the heart of the believer who believes, because the fruit
of the spirit is love, joy, peace, all of these other things. Not
the works of the flesh, but the fruit of the spirit. But I think
there's a looking forward to that heavenly fruit. Because
do you know in the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22,
we see that picture of the new Jerusalem, the city of God. And
there's a river in the midst of the city, and then in verse
2 of chapter 22, and by that river is the tree of life. The
tree of life, perpetual. Which bear twelve manna of fruits,
and yielded her fruit every month. There was never any time of fruitlessness. And it says the leaves of that
tree are for the healing of the nations. That's the picture of
eternal bliss in heaven. and fruitfulness with God. And
he says, arise, my love, my fair one, my redeemed sinner, my sinner
whom I have clothed with the garments of righteousness and
of salvation. I've clothed you with the garments
of salvation. You are therefore my love, my
fair one. He says, arise and come away.
Has he sent you a winter of conviction for sin? Of the fear of God? Of the dread of eternity? of
hell, if he has, if he has, then doubtless, listen, mark my words,
if he sent you that winter of conviction for sin, and the fear
of his name, and the dread of hell, it is doubtless to call
you out of the blessings, out of that condition, into the blessings
of his accomplished salvation. out of his offended justice,
into that justice being satisfied in what Christ has done. Into
a state of having your sins forgiven. Not overlooked, but paid for
and forgiven. Because he has a place for you.
Look in verse 14. Let's look at the place of communion. He has a place for you. Oh my
dove, he calls his people. Sinners saved by him. He calls
them, oh my dove. The dove is poetically the gentlest
of birds. It's a picture of innocence and
of tenderness. Oh my dove, thou art in the clefts
of the rock. The clefts of the rock? The cracks
in the rock, the gaps in the rock. That's where doves tend
to nest. You find colonies of doves resting in rocky places
in the clefts, in the breaks in the rocks. But he's speaking
of Christ, who is the rock. Christ is that rock, the New
Testament tells us clearly. That rock which when Moses struck
that rock in the wilderness and it produced water, that was a
picture of Christ, that rock was Christ. This is the rock. that is Christ, that he's speaking
of here, the broken rock. In Exodus 33, I tell you it often,
when Moses asked God to show him his glory, he said, you must
come and stand by me, you can't see my face, but he said, it
shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will
put you in a cliff of the rock, a crack in the rock. That's a
picture of Christ. Rock of Ages we sang, didn't
we? Cleft for me. Rock of Ages. The Rock of Ages
is Christ, our God, who was broken for me. Broken why? Because my
sin demanded satisfaction under the law. I will put you where
he has paid the penalty for your sin and will cover you with my
hand while I pass by. Isaiah 32. Here's another example. Isaiah 32. Verse two, a man,
a man, shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert
from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land. A man, who is that man? That is the man, Christ Jesus. Behold the man. Christ Jesus. Behold our God. Say unto the
cities of Judah, behold your God. He is that man who shall
be as a hiding place from the wind. You know, a cold wind.
We stood yesterday watching some racing cars and a wind got up
from the north and wow, was that wind cold. And those of you that
went to London were saying what a lovely spring day it was. And
as we came back here, the car temperature indicating the outside
temperature started to increase dramatically. But where we were,
there was a there was a barren plain behind us and there was
a northerly wind howling down it and wow it was what they call
a lazy wind it couldn't be bothered to go around you it went straight
through you and you could see the whole crowd first of all
put on one layer and then put on another layer and then put
on their hats and then put their hoods up and then decide I've
had enough of this I'm going home and so they all started
to disperse that's the kind of wind cold, penetrating wind. A man shall be as an hiding place
from the wind, and a covet from the tempest. This is Christ.
He's a picture of that. as rivers of water in a dry place.
Have you ever been dead thirsty in a dry place and there's nothing
to drink? And oh, how appealing is the
thought of rivers of water as the shadow of a great rock in
a weary land that is being beaten by the sun, the shadow of a great
rock in a weary land. This is our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh my dove, you are resting in Christ. That's where you are,
in Him, in union with Him. united to him, in him, in the
secret places of the stairs. What could that be talking about?
In the secret places of the stairs. All I can think of is Jacob's
ladder. Do you remember when Jacob left
his home and he had nowhere to sleep so he lay down and he just
made some stones to be his pillow and in his dream he saw a ladder
between heaven and earth and the angels of God going up and
down that ladder. What was that ladder? that ladder
was a picture of Christ you read the end of John chapter one is
it or two where Jesus calls Nathaniel, is it Nathaniel? Sorry for getting
my facts wrong but never mind this is just coming of the spur
of the moment and he saw him under a fig tree and they went
and got him and told him to come we have seen the one who is the
Messiah and coming Jesus looked at him and said, here is an Israelite
in whom there is no guile. And Nathanael said to him, was
it Nathanael? Nathanael, he said to him, how is it that you know
me, seeing, you know, never seen me before? He said, when you
were under the fig tree, I saw you. And he said, thou art the
son of God. Only God can do that. And Jesus
said, have you seen that much? You shall see the angels of God
ascending and descending on that ladder from heaven. That's Christ.
That's Christ. For Christ is the ladder between
this fallen earth and the heaven of God and perfection. That's
it, in the secret places of the stairs. Let me see thy countenance. This is Christ speaking. Let
me see you. Let me commune with you. Let
me hear your voice, for sweet is your voice and your countenance
is comely. Why is your countenance comely?
Because he has clothed us with the garments of salvation. But
look, while we live in this life, verse 15, there are things that
are called here the foxes, the little foxes. Speaking of gardens,
we get plagued from time to time, fairly regularly, with foxes.
We have visitations from foxes. They live in the trees down at
the end of the garden, and when they do get in, they can do quite
a lot of damage, and they're a real nuisance, and we try and
keep them out. Some people like to feed them and think that they're
lovely, cuddly things. They're wild animals that cause
all sorts of problems, and that's the picture here. Because there
are foxes in the relationship. There are little foxes that,
you know, they spoil the vines. Just as the farmer's vines are
budding and the little grapes are there, the little foxes come
along and bite them off and eat them, and they spoil them. He
says, take them away. Take those little foxes. What's
he talking about? Let's spiritualize it, the evils
of our continuing fleshly nature that disturb the relationship
between the believer The love, the dove of the Lord Jesus Christ. They disturb that relationship
with him. Those little foxes of anger and
of schism and of strife and of what we are by nature that spoil
the intimate communion between the believer and Christ. Take
them away. Take them out. Help us to subdue
them. Help us to subdue the flesh. And then verse 16. my beloved
is mine this is the believer speaking now my beloved is mine
and i am his he feedeth among the lilies until the daybreak
and the shadows flee away my beloved turn my beloved and be
thou like a roe or a young heart upon the mountains of betha this
is speaking of a settled confidence This is the believer's testimony.
I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Where
is that communion with Christ most comfortably felt and experienced? My beloved is mine and I am his. He feedeth among the lilies. What is it for Christ to feed
among the lilies? What is it? Look back at verse
two. You know the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible, don't
you? It always is. Look back at verse two. He says,
verse one, I am the rose of Sharon and the lily, he is the lily
of the valleys, but then he says of his people, you're like, because,
remember what I said to you last week, As he is, so are we in
this world. As Christ is, so are his believing
people in his eyes in this world. And if he is the lily of the
valley, his people are a lily among thorns. So is my love among
the daughters. He feeds among his people. He feeds among the lilies. That's
his people. That's where he feeds, in his
church, amongst his believing people. who hear his word of
grace preached, who feel his spirit's blessing in its application
to the conscience. Let it continue, they say, let
it continue until the day of his second coming break and he
take his people to be with him for eternity. That's what verse
17 is saying. Now then, I'm not trying to coax
anyone and everyone to be converted. as some people seem to think
you have to do. I'm not trying to do that. But I am saying this,
to any who are weary and heavy laden with sin, to any who thirst,
what does Isaiah 55 say? Ho, everyone that thirsteth. Not everyone, full stop. Ho,
everyone that thirsteth. any who are weary and heavy-laden
with sin, to any who thirst for fellowship with the living God,
Christ is graciously calling to you, and these are his words,
Rise up, my love, and come away. Will you hear him?