I want to talk to you today about
love calls, the love calls of Christ to his church, his bride,
his chosen, the love calls of Christ to our souls, and the
love calls of our hearts to our Savior. You'll find my text in
the Song of Solomon, chapter 4, beginning of verse 16 and
going through verse 8 of chapter 5. Here are these love calls. It is a sad, sad fact, but a
fact nonetheless that we're in a constant state of spiritual
fluctuation, we who are God's own children in this world. No
sooner are our hearts awakened than we're languishing again.
No sooner does the Lord grant us sweet reviving grace than
we're again lethargic, cold, hard, dead. The Song of Solomon was written
to show us this constant state of spiritual fluctuation and
to give us instruction concerning it. The Song of Solomon is not
to be read. It is not to be read. It is not
to be read as a picture of a carnal relationship between a man and
his wife. to read the book as a picture
of that relationship is to misinterpret the whole book. It is written to be written and
given to us and is to be read by us as a picture of the relationship
between Christ and His church, an altogether spiritual thing. In this beautiful song of loves,
This, the greatest of all love stories, we see the tender love
of Christ and the relationship of Christ with his bride, the
church. The marriage union that exists
between our souls and the Son of God. What a wondrous, wondrous
thought. God, our Savior, has chosen to
take us sinners as we are, as his bride, his church. He has married himself to us
and he marries us to him in saving grace and brings us thereby into
blessed marriage union with himself. The only real, perpetual, eternal
marriage union that ever exist. The only one. For this call shall
a man leave his father and his mother and they too shall be
one flesh. And indeed a man should leave
his father and his mother when he's married to a woman and take
the woman as his wife and she take him as her head. But they
too shall never become one flesh. That's not possible. Paul said
this is a great mystery, the union of a man and his wife,
but I'm talking about Christ and his church. We are really
and truly one with him. Our marriage union with him is
an eternal and an everlasting marriage union. He betrothed
us to himself and wed us to himself in eternity. He comes in time
of love and weds our hearts to him in the experience of grace.
And this union is a perpetual, immutable, everlasting union. And it only increases in the
experience of it day by day and at last, at last soon, soon,
or soon. When the wedding's feast is spread
and the marriage supper of the lamb is set, the Lord Jesus shall
take his people into perfect, complete union with himself with
nothing parting us. This song of loves tells us of the union that exists between
Christ and his church. between Christ and our souls.
On his part, the union and the love are without fluctuation. His eternal love for us knows
no change. His heart's devotion to us is
without variation. His high esteem of his people
never varies. Behold, thou art all fair, my
love. Behold, thou art all fair, he
says in the opening verse of chapter one. Or chapter four. He says, you're all fair. You're all fair. He repeats it
because he wants us to be assured that his high esteem and love
for us never, never, never varies, no matter what the circumstance. no matter what we experience,
no matter what we think. Look at Chapter 4, Verse 10. I can't imagine the Savior saying
this to me. I can't even imagine Him saying
this to you. How fair is thy love, my sister,
my spouse. What? Does he look upon our love
for him as perfect love? Indeed, he does. For the love
with which we love Him is the love He's created in us, making
us a holy new man, created in righteousness and in true holiness
by His grace. He says, How much better is thy
love than wine, and the smell of thine ointments than all spices? Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as
the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under thy
tongue, and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of
Lebanon, like the sweet, fragrant smell of rich cedar perpetually. He says, all the ornaments of
grace, they're yours and they're really yours. I've made them
yours. They smell perpetually sweet
and fresh in my nostrils. Blessed be his name forever.
There's no fluctuation with our Savior. But on our part, the
one thing that's constant is our lack of constance. We love Him, truly we do. But
our love for our Savior causes us to blush with shame. We trust
Him. Yes, we believe the Son of God,
but our faith in Him is more unsteady than words can
express. Look at the last verse of Chapter
4. Let's look at these love calls. Here's the first one. Awake, oh, north wind. Awake, oh, north wind. The north wind is cooling. In the summertime, it cools things
off. In the wintertime, it's chilling,
bitter, and biting. But the Lord Jesus, our beloved,
he who alone has the command of the winds, calls and commands
the cooling, chilling, biting, bitter north wind to awake and
blow upon his garden, upon our souls, his church. What? What? Does he call for the cooling,
chilling, biting, bitter north wind of affliction, adversity,
trial, heartache, pain and sorrow to come and blow upon his church? He does indeed. He does indeed. He does it to nip our corruption. to wean us from this world, to
try our faith, to prove our love, to make Him the more precious
to our souls. I often write to friends, I just
wrote to one last week, going through heavy trials, heavy trials. Brother Gary Shepherd's wife
was taken from him. Susan's dad taken from her. Many
of you have gone through the same sorrow. And I write this way, I am so
sorry for the trial, the heartache, the pain you're experiencing. I can't imagine I can't imagine
what you're going through. But I want to remind you, He
who loves you infinitely more than I can has done this for
you. Not to you, for you, for you. Awake, oh north wind, the Savior
says. And then he says, come thou South,
blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out. Come thou South. The South wind
is warm. The South wind is refreshing.
The South wind is reviving. The South wind brings serenity
and peace. The south wind brings the showers
that make the land fruitful. The south wind must, it seems
to me, refer to God the Holy Ghost who is compared to the
wind blowing where it listeth. You hear the sound thereof, but
can't tell from which it cometh or whither it goeth. Like the
south wind, God the Holy Spirit warms our hearts, falls our frozen
souls, Comforts us with fresh discoveries of Christ and his
mercy, love, and grace. And the south wind brings quietness
and peace to the soul. He who calls, awake, oh, north
wind, come and bring the affliction and the trial, says, come, south
wind. Come, blow upon my garden. revive and refresh and strengthen
and comfort and call her spices to bud forth. Our Savior calls
for the south wind, for God the Holy Spirit to blow upon his
garden that the spices thereof may flow out, that he may smell
the sweet fragrance of all the flowers in his garden. He calls
for God the Holy Spirit to come upon His chosen, His church,
upon our needy souls, that we may worship Him afresh with renewed
faith, and renewed love, and renewed grace, and renewed devotion. Now, here's the second call, the second love call given in
this passage. It is the love call of our souls
to our beloved, to the Lord Jesus. I hope this is the echo of the
cries of your souls as you were coming in here today. Let my beloved come into his
garden and eat his pleasant fruits. Oh, Lord Jesus. Come today into your garden and
feast upon your pleasant fruits, the fruits of your making, the
fruits you bring forth by your spirit in your garden. Here's
an earnest cry for Christ to come into his garden with the
stirring winds of his grace that he might draw out from us the
sweet spices of faith, love, praise, adoration and devotion.
In the next line, our Savior answers the prayer and comes
into his garden. Chapter 5, verse 1. I am coming
to my garden, my sister, my spouse. Where two or three are gathered
in my name, there am I in the midst of them. I'm coming to
my garden. I have gathered my myrrh with
my spice out of my garden. I have eaten my honeycomb with
the honey. I have drunk my wine with my
milk. Eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink
abundantly, O beloved. And there is the third love call. The Lord Jesus calls for you
and me to feast with Him, not upon the fragrance and sweet
spices of our faith and our devotion and our sacrifice to Him. but to feast with him upon his
sacrifice. Eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink
abundantly, O beloved." How blessed, how delightful, how sweet. The moment the church ask, the
moment we ask, the moment we ask, our wishes are complied
with by our Redeemer. Indeed, before we call, we read
in Isaiah 65, he answers us. He answers our hearts cries before
ever we cry to him. As we see in the next verses,
the fact is we will never cry to him. We will never call upon
him. We will never seek him. except
He first come to us and our calling Him, our seeking Him, our calling
for Him to come to us, our prayers to Him are the result of Him
having already answered the prayer for His come and He's with us. The honeycomb and the honey the
Lord so delightfully speaks of eating in this passage. is the
honey and the honeycomb of his own making. I got some help from
Mr. Hawker yesterday that blessed
me. Let me share it with you. He said, honey is in the flower
before it's formed by the bee. And so the mercy, love and grace
of the triune Jehovah was in his infinite heart and will before
it was brought forth to light by the Lord Jesus. As honey in
the comb is there made and prepared by the bee, so our adorable Redeemer,
our glory man, made and prepared and brought it out all by himself
for us by his incarnation, his obedience, his death, his resurrection,
and his exaltation. And as honey in the mouth is
known and enjoyed by all who eat it, so when God the Holy
Ghost takes the things of Christ and shows them to us. Then we eat and drink abundantly
as the Lord's beloved. Now understand this, that which
the Lord Jesus feasts upon with us is His own finished work for
us. The wine that he drinks is the
wine that he gives. And he calls for us to feast
upon him and drink the wine of his grace. Eat and drink abundantly,
he says. When we have such gracious visitations,
when the Lord comes, spreads the feast, or he comes and causes
our souls to feast upon his word, what blessed times they are.
We're like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration. We want to
pitch camp and stay right here. This is where we'd like to be
all the time, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you like 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to walk with Christ in
sweet fellowship? To speak to Him and hear Him
speak to you. To have him order your step.
Wouldn't you like that? But that's not best for us here. That's... Brother John, I don't
understand that. I don't see how that couldn't
be best for us. If it were best for us, that's the way it would
be. If it were best for us, that's
the way it would be. But our Lord Jesus calls for the north
wind to blow. and quickly things change. Look
at verse 2, chapter 5. I sleep, but my heart waketh. I sleep, but my heart waketh. Here is a sad picture of God's
church, of Christ beloved. of his bride in our most lamentable condition. She's slothful, negligent, and
indifferent. How I wish it were not so, but
I am compelled if I speak to you with honesty, I am compelled
to tell you this is the state in which I most commonly live.
I don't know much about living on the mountain underneath the
starry sky. I've had a few sweet experiences
on the mountain. But I, while I was not raised
a mountain boy, I spent a lot of time in the mountains in North
Carolina. And every year, I at least twice
a year cross the high mountains There's the Aramadres. And I'll
tell you what I have noticed in the mountains. The air is
always thin. And if you get up high enough,
do you know what you find growing there? Nothing. Nothing. We drove across the
mountains the other day with Judy Harmon and they call them
the badlands for a reason. There's nothing there but rocks
and dirt. Nothing there. But the air is kindly thin and
you just feel good. But things grow in the wet, deep
valley. That's where God has put things
to grow. In other places, the bride speaks
to Christ, but here she speaks of Him. because now he's withdrawn himself
and all she can do is talk about him. She can't speak to him because
he's gone. I want to show you both the cause
and the result of the spiritual indifference. I can tell you
something about the cause. Yes, it is arranged by God's
providence and by God's purpose, but the cause is always our sin,
our neglect of Him, our unbelief, always. Find me a place in this book where the Lord ever hid His face
from anyone who didn't first hide their face from Him. Where
He ever refused to speak to anyone who didn't first refuse to speak
to Him. where he ever shut the door against
anyone who didn't first shut the door against themselves.
The cause is always with us. And I can tell you something
about the result. I know a lot about that. The result is that Things are just the way they
most of the time are with us. Nothing moves us. Nothing affects us. Nothing touches
us. Nothing. But I'm afraid I can't
prescribe any remedy. What do you do when the Lord
seems far off? And the heavens are brass. And
you pray, but you can't pray. And you read, but you can't read.
You come to the house of God, but you hear nothing but the
preacher's voice. And the songs you sing are just
repeated words. And the prayers you hear and
the prayers you utter are just repeated words. the results we
know very well. But the remedy, the remedy. When
our fellowship and communion with Christ is broken, because
of our base ingratitude, because of our base neglect, because
of our base indifference, the only remedy is that the Lord
himself graciously returned to us. and revive our hearts according
to His own sovereign purpose of grace for us. Look back in
chapter 1. Back in chapter 1, verse 4. Draw me, and we will run after
Thee. Oh, blessed Savior, Draw me,
and we will run after thee. But except you draw, there'll
be no running after you. Look at the next line. The king
hath brought me into his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in
thee. We will remember thy love more
than wine. The upright love thee. this lethargy,
this callous indifference, this icy coldness spoken of in Chapter
5. This hardness of heart is something
with which I'm afraid we're all too familiar. You who are gods,
who confess the blackness of your own hearts, I'm black like
the tits of Cedar, she says. Well know by bitter experience
the base notes of Huton's hymn. How tedious and tasteless the
hours when Jesus no longer I see. Sweet prospects, sweet birds
and sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me. The midsummer
sun shines but dim. The fields strive in vain to
look gay, but when I am happy in Him, December's as pleasant
as May. I'm saying nothing new to you,
nothing deep, nothing profound, nothing mysterious to you. To
you who know God, this is nothing mysterious, this is common everyday
experience. I simply remind you of those
things that most afflict the hearts of God's children. There
is within us a terrible tendency. to become
negligent, indifferent, and lukewarm toward Christ and the things
of Christ. Is it or is it not so, Lindsay,
prone to wonder? Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave
the God I love. Here's my heart. Oh, take and
seal it, seal it for thy courts above. Here is our very common
sin, I sleep. The wise virgins commonly sleep
with the foolish. It's not the same sleep. But
the wise virgins commonly sleep with the foolish. Ours is not
the sleep of death. It's the sleep of indifference. Ours is not the sleep of death.
It's the sleep of carnal ease, carnal security, carnal peace. Peace, ease, and security that
simply is a carnal thing. And I honestly don't know how
to explain that. When we indulge ourselves in
this carnal ease and security, our hearts become neglectful,
drowsy, callous. Religion is just a routine practice. Devotion is lifeless. Service
to the Redeemer is a drudgery. Worship is formal. Zeal is gone. But then there's a hopeful side.
I sleep, but my heart waketh. Oh, it's a hopeful side of grace
in the heart when the heart struggles against sin. I repeat, ours is
not the sleep of death. There's life within, life struggling,
struggling hard against sin. What see ye in the Shulamites,
as it were the company of two armies? I know that in me, in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing. But I see another law in me,
warring against my flesh. I see the Spirit warring against
the flesh, and the flesh warring against the Spirit, so that I
never can do the things I would. And then the Lord Jesus does
something. It is the voice of my beloved. All does not go. Though my heart
sleeps so foolishly, yet Christ is my beloved. Though my love
is so fickle, so shameful, So unworthy of Him, I do love Him
and what is more, I still hear His voice and know His voice.
Turn over to Revelation 20. I want you to see this. You've
heard it many, many times. Revelation 3, I'm sorry, verse
20. The Lord Jesus tenderly knocks
to awaken us to come to Him and open to Him. My beloved knocketh
at the door. The Lord Jesus here stands at
the door of his church. And he said, behold, I stand
at the door and knock. This is not Christ standing outside
the sinner's heart's door, begging for the sinner to let him in.
This is the Lord Jesus. See that door there? The door we shut. And he comes and he leans hard
against the door. And he says, honey, open the
door. Open to me. Behold, I stand at the door and
knock, and if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will
come into him and will sup with him and he with me. How does
he knock? By his word. by His Spirit, by
His providence. He continually says, open the
door. Open the door. Open the door. But open, we never will. So let's
look at this fourth love call in this portion of Holy Scripture.
Open to me. Our ever-gracious Christ, our
all-glorious Redeemer, our beloved, not only knocks for entrance,
He graciously calls for us and woos us to himself by his grace. It is the voice of my beloved
that knocketh. Who is it that he knocks and
calls to? My sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. He comes, knocks at the door,
friend, he says, my sister. my love, my dove, my undefiled. But He can't be talking about
me. My sister, my love, my dove,
my undefiled. And this is what He calls for,
open to me. Open to me. Now, how is it that
it tugs at our hearts. How does it tug at our hearts? My head is filled with the dew
and my locks with the drops of the night. Open to me. I'm the one who in Gethsemane's
dark garden wept three times and cried to God as your substitutes
until my heart broke within me and I sweat drops of blood fall
into the ground. Oh my God, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, thy
will be done. Open to me. I'm the one whose
head was filled with the dew that night, and I'm the one whose
head is filled with the drops of the night when they pierce
my brow. I was bearing your sin in my
body on the tree, and God's sword of justice awoke against me.
Now, open to me. Open to me." How could anyone resist that? I don't have a clue how, but
I know I do it all the time. Look at the horrid response.
Verse 3, I put off my coat, how shall
I put it on? I've washed my feet, how shall
I defile them? I'm in my bed and everything's
comfortable and going just fine and I got these issues settled
a long time ago. Because of her carnal ease, she
refuses the Lord's gracious call to communion. She didn't want
to trouble herself. She didn't want to be troubled.
Her heart's so cold that she prefers ease to fellowship. The ease of carnal Peace, the
ease of worldly care, the ease of things that don't matter,
the ease of nothing to the blessedness of Him who's everything. But
oh, how gracious God our Savior is still. In Hosea chapter 11, turn there if you
will, Hosea chapter 11. Hear the Lord speak. When Israel was a child, then
I loved him and called my son out of Egypt. As they called
him, so they went from them. They sacrificed to Balaam. It's
funny, it's what Lynch has been teaching about in the book of
Exodus. Israel was a child, I called them. They called to me, they
went out of Egypt. And then they sacrificed the
bailiff and burned incense to graven images. I taught Ephraim
also to go, taking them by their arms. Here, I'll show you the way.
Taking them by their arms, but they knew not that I healed them.
I drew them with cords of a band, with bands of love. I was to
them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid
meat unto them. Verse 8. How shall I give thee up, O Ephraim? How shall I give thee up, O Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, O Israel? How shall I make thee as Adonai?
How shall I set thee as Ziboam? My heart is turned within me.
My repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness
of mine anger. Yes, the Lord Jesus is gracious
still. Our Redeemer's love can never
be quenched. His long-suffering, patient,
and graciousness to his people. Even in our most sinful rejection
and denial of Him, He's undeniable. In our worst estate, in our worst
estate, He's still as faithful as ever. Now, look at our Savior's
persevering grace to us, verse 4. My beloved put His hand put in
his hand by the hole of the door. My bowels were moved for him." He reaches in and turns the tumblers
from the inside and pushes the door open. It causes our hearts to be moved
for Him. Oh, how I rejoice to tell you Christ will never leave
His home. When David was forced to confess, I have
said, Rex, the very next word out of Nathan's mouth from God
was, the Lord hath put away thy sin. It's the very next word. When Peter denied the Lord Jesus
three times and at last cussed and cussed and cussed and said,
I don't know that man. And he thought everything was
over. The Lord Jesus died for him. rose from the dead for him
and sent messengers after him. Go tell Peter I'll meet him in
Galilee just like I said I would. Nothing has changed. Nothing
has changed. He will never, never leave us
nor will let us quite leave him. His grace is immutable. It doesn't change. It can't be
changed. Not even by you. Not even by
me. Now, look at verses 5, 6, and
7. How does the Lord deal with us?
In verse 4, my beloved put his hand in by the hole of the door,
and my bowels were moved for him. He moves our hearts toward
him. And I rose to open to my beloved. I reached and grabbed hold of
the door just as he was cracking it open. And I opened to my beloved! But he was gone. He was gone. My hands dropped with the myrrh,
and my fingers were sweet-smelling myrrh upon the handles of the
lock. I opened to my beloved where
he had touched the door. I could smell it. I could smell
it. My heart moved toward him now.
I opened to my beloved, verse 6, but my beloved had withdrawn
himself and was gone. He goes and hides. My soul failed
when He spake. My soul failed to hear Him. My
soul failed to respond to Him. My soul failed to open to Him.
Now I sought Him, but can't find Him. I couldn't
find Him. I called for Him, I prayed. I
pray, oh, oh, Savior, come to me. But he gave me no answer. The watchman. That's the man
talking to you here. The watchman, God's servants
in his house. The preacher of the gospel that
went about the city found me. Oh, oh, here's a blessing for
your soul. Here's a blessing for your soul.
If God Almighty is pleased by the voice of this watchman to
find your heart today. If God by His Spirit, by the
voice of His watchman, exposes you to yourself today. They found
me. They found me. And when they
did, they smoked me. They wounded me. The Word of
God does that. Blessed are they who by the word
are smitten and wounded the keepers of the wall This is what they
did for them I've been walking around like
this Covering my shame the keepers of the door they took away my
veil from me They exposed me to me. They made me to understand
the whole trouble is me. Showed me my sin, my defilement,
my corruption. Now, look at verse 8. Here's the fifth love call. This
is a call of our souls to one another. Here I am, the watchman of family. My heart's broken. I'm wounded
in my soul. My sin, I confess. This is all
my doing, this coldness, this indifference, this lethargy,
this... Oh my God, this is my doing,
my doing. Now what do I do? I say to you,
my brothers and sisters, I say to you, and to you, and to you. I say to you, and to you, and
to you. If you find my beloved, do something for me. Tell him, tell him for me. Will you tell Him for me, I am
sick of love, sick in my soul for what I am
because of His love for me that causes me to say to Him as Peter
did, Lord, You know everything. You're the only one who knows
this. Nobody else can possibly know it. You know that I love
Thee. Amen.