For this evening, the 7th of
November, we're going to be in Songs of Solomon, Chapter 2,
and verses 14 through 17. We're going to close out this
chapter, Songs of Solomon, Chapter 2. I pray that God would allow us
to get to enter into this, what's going on here. Of course, we've
talked how this whole book is a beautiful love relationship
between Christ and his spouse, which would be his elect, would
be us, the church. But we have the church in verses
14 and 15, which is called his dove. Christ calls us His dove, we
are entreated to fellowship. Verses 14 and 15, we are entreated
to fellowship. And my prayer as I was writing
this up, and for you and for me as well, is that we may lose
ourselves in the blessed tones and language of this Solomon's
song. These verses here are just outstanding,
they're incredible. He says, O my dove, Christ is
speaking, O my dove, thou art in the clefts of the rock, in
the secret places of the stairs. He says, let me see thy countenance. And he says, let me hear your
voice, for sweet is your voice and thy countenance is comely. Let's just stop there. Our blessed,
adorable Redeemer calls for us. He beseeches us to fellowship
and converse with Him. Now, as I was looking this over,
and I've been looking this over for quite some time, and I don't
really have it written down here in my notes, but the reason why
this is absolutely so amazing to the believer is because we
know whom we have believed. We know By the spirit of grace,
the spirit of grace and supplication, he has revealed himself to us.
So we know whom we love. We know whom we believe. This
is a relationship, as I like to call it, that's eyes wide
open. He knows us and we know him. He who is sovereign, he who is pure, he who is absolutely righteous,
no error, no fault, no spot or blemish upon him. This is the
one who speaks these things to us. Sinners, vile, God-haters
at one time, but now in love with him. Why? Because he first
loved us. But it never ceases to amaze
the believer. It never ceases to amaze me that
he desires to see us, he desires to hear from us. Because you
know as well as I do, right now when you're listening to this
message, five minutes before you came in here, sometime in
the middle of the day, sometime last night, You know that sin
is ever present with you. You know and I know what I am
capable of. I know that if God does not hold
me by His grace, I'm going to fall as fast as I can. I'm going
to dishonor Him. I'm going to, you know, I feel
over and over again like Peter, Lord, I believe, but help my
unbelief. So taking all those things into account, we look
at this passage again. And seeing, he says, he calls
us his dove. And he says that we are in the
clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs. He says,
God Almighty says, let me see your countenance and let me hear
your voice. And if that wasn't enough, he
goes one step further and says, for sweet is your voice and your
countenance is comely. Now we know that such things
could not be said about us naturally, upon our own merit, our own worth.
These things are said because we are in Christ. And that's our first thought.
We're in the cleft of the rock. We are in Christ. Christ is that
rock. And we are tucked in with Him. We are in Him. We are His people. He calls us His dove. We're in the cleft of the rock.
That means we are safe and secure in Christ Jesus. We are hid and
protected by His righteousness, by His sovereignty, by His majesty. Turn with me to Exodus chapter
33. Exodus chapter 33. How can it be that a sinner sinners
such as you and I, transgressors, full of iniquity,
how is it that we can see God's face and not die? Well, it's
the same way Moses was able to do so and God not kill him instantly. Look at Exodus chapter 33 verses
18 through the end of the chapter. Moses is speaking with God in
the burning bush. He's speaking with him. Up in the mouth. And he says in verse 18, he said,
I beseech thee, show me your glory. Exodus 33, verse 18, Moses
said, I beseech thee, show me your glory. And he said, I will
make all my goodness pass before you. I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee, the name of the Lord, everything
about him. Everything about him, who he is, what he's done, what
he has done, what he will do. That's how we know who he is,
by his name. And will be gracious. Here's
his sovereignty, his sovereign mercy, sovereign election, sovereign
grace. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
You can't separate these things from the name of God. And he
said, Thou cannot see my face, for there shall no man see me
and live. Because he's holy. And the Lord said, Behold, verse
21, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock,
and it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will
put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand
while I pass by, and I will Take away my hand and thou shalt see
my back parts, but my face Shall not be seen but my own emphasize
verse 22. I'm what he says. I'm going to
take you And I will God says God Almighty. I will put you
in the cleft of the rocks now back to our text He Christ says oh my dove that
Are in the clefts of the rock you're You're in me. That shows protection, that shows
safety, that shows mercy, that shows grace. But my statement,
my thought here is the only way that any sinner, that you or
I can behold the glory of God without being annihilated is
to be placed in Christ Jesus. in the cleft of the rock, to
be set in Him. We sing that song, He hideth
my soul in the cleft of the rock, and He covers me there with His
hand. We're in Christ Jesus. The only way that we can behold
God in His glory, the only way we can understand Him as He's
preached in the Gospel, the only way that we'll ever be able to
adore Him, come to Him, worship Him, desire Him is to be placed
in the rock. Do you want to know what salvation
is? Do you want to know what is involved in honoring God and
satisfying His holiness? Do you want to know what it takes
to go to glory? It is to be placed by grace in
the cleft, the bosom of the Son of God Himself. And the way it's
worded is so beautiful in Exodus that he says, I will place you.
Outside of ourselves, I, God, the father in covenant mercies
through the son. Will place you. Where there will
be fellowship, where there will be the holding of my glory, God
doing all the work for us because we could not do a thing ourselves
in Christ. All is well in Christ. All is
well. I'll go back to our text in Psalms
Solomon and verse 14 again. He says, Thou art in the quest
of the rock in the secret places of the stairs. He says secret
places, that is places which are hidden from the world, hidden
from natural reason and wisdom, because we by our own ability
and by our natural thought process and by We cannot be raised in
the truth and therefore absorb the truth. We do not have dormant
or latent faith and then all of a sudden it's there and it
gets watered and inactivated. No, it's a supernatural act of
God Almighty. It's being placed in the rock. Being put in a place where we
were not before. That is the secret place Places
that are hidden from the world. The world doesn't understand
this gospel. The world doesn't understand Christ and Him crucified. It does not understand the substitutionary
work of the Lord Jesus Christ for His chosen people. It doesn't
understand how God can be just and justify the ungodly. The
world doesn't understand the depravity of man, how vile and
corrupt we are from birth. No, everybody thinks there's
something good in us and it's just waiting there to be cultivated.
He says the secret places, that's because it's hidden from the
world, it's hidden from natural reason, it's hidden from our
wisdom. Yet, to the believer, it's plain, it's open, and it's
clear, all in the face of Jesus Christ. God has nothing to do
with any sinner, in mercy, apart from Jesus Christ. God cannot
be understood. This book cannot be understood.
Except in Christ in Christ and then continuing on verse 14 notice
the entreaties Let me see your countenance Let me hear your
voice. Let me see you Let me hear you
oh When I see that Today After I got done with work, which I
got done pretty early, doing some things and I thought to
myself, there's so much to be done. And yet my oftentimes I
do things without thinking of him, without giving praise to
him, without giving honor to him, without even thinking of
him. He says, let me see you. And let me hear you. Communion
and prayer and praise and song and, you know, see us as we are
gathered together in his name. And then he makes this astonishing
statement. He says, now, I want to hear
you and I want to see you. But your voice is sweet to him. And our countenance is comely,
sweet and comely is the church called his dove. the bride because
we are made so by divine supernatural mercy. Now, Melinda and I were talking
just a little bit ago and seemed to be more recently about getting
older. And no matter how much we doctor
things up, no matter how much we do, this body is decaying. This body is decaying. But Christ
doesn't look at this body. He sees the heart. He sees the
soul. And it is, and we are, sweet
and comely. Beautiful. We're beautiful because
we have been clothed with his perfect righteousness. When God sees us, he sees his
Son. It's just, it's truly amazing. Well, then in verse 15, we are
exhorted to remove all hindrances. That would, we are exhorted to
remove all hindrances to the fellowship and communion with
our God. Look at verse 15, we're exhorted
to remove these things. Take us the foxes, the little
foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes."
These times when we gather together, and I've heard John make this
comment, and Betty, and everybody, I've heard everybody, we talk,
and it's so, to this pastor, to me, it's so refreshing because
I know what we've gone through. I know what we've been through
before. And we've always reminded one another, never forget, what
God has done for us, because humanly speaking and worldly
speaking, this church should not be. This church was ripped
up, tore up, and left for dead. Couldn't find a pastor. All these
things were against us, but God was for us. Tender grapes, fellowship,
preaching the gospel, one another, Take us the foxes, the little
foxes that spoil the vine. Remove any hindrances, foxes,
those things which have a tendency to sneak up and rob us of our
peace and comfort. And your mind might be going
right now, you know what those are. World, riches, things, Promises
of grandeur, etc. Promises that the world makes
and can't fulfill. I'm so glad the election stuff
is over. Promises. Promises. We had a
whole new set of promises. We'll see. But you know what? I'm not going to let all that
stuff, as disappointed as I am on the outcome, I'm not going
to let all that stuff spoil what we have right here. I'm not by God's grace. May he
help us by the Holy Spirit to have a watch set at the door
of our hearts that we not allow envy, money, lust, promise of
comfort, promise of ease, They're not letting these things hinder
us or rob us of the peace and comfort that we have in Christ.
And that, this is so important to me. This is so important to
me. Because, and I see this when
I go to these conferences. And we have these preachers come
in. Not anybody, but these preachers who preach the gospel of God's
grace. They're not just talking it,
they live it. And they love you people. And
I love you people. And I don't want to see anything
come between that. And that's why if something happens
to me, I was telling this to a couple of pastors out of Cherokee. Something
happens to me, Bruce, John, Matt, you all know enough of these
preachers where you can pick up the phone and call them and
say, we need help. And they would do it. They would
do it. I know when we first got this
thing started, we thought God was in it and seemed to want
to stay together. Bruce and I were so concerned
about compromising. We didn't want to compromise the truth
because we were concerned about how much we knew of the truth.
We knew the truth, but as far as skills and teaching and all,
somebody could come in and make, you know, kind of... But my concern
is, one, to keep the truth, honor him in the preaching of the gospel,
but Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, not
allow anything to hinder that. To hinder that. Verses 16 and
17. We see the church's declaration
of unity and love. Verses 16 and 17. Now the church
says, my beloved is mine. and I'm his. He feeds among the
lilies. He feeds among where his church
is, where his gospel is preached, where two or three are gathered
together. My beloved is mine and I am his. And until the day
break and the shadows flee away, turn my beloved and be like a
roll or a young heart upon the mountains of Bethar. Don't leave
me. Don't depart from me. I don't
want this time of communion to ever be broken. Turn to Romans
chapter 8. My beloved is mine and I am his. What a love relationship between
us and the Son. I was thinking the other day,
if it wasn't by God's grace, I would not have a clue as to
what this is even talking about. Still be steeped in false religion,
thinking I was doing God's service, trying to win souls. Romans 8, look at verse 35. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? My beloved is mine, and I am
his. shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, famine, how about nakedness, peril, or sword? As
it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long,
we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. No, in all these things
we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life,
angels, principalities, powers, things present or things to come,
nor height, depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Why? Because John chapter 15
in verse 4 says, Christ says, Abide in me, and I in you, as
a branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the
vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. We're in him, he
in us. That's why the church can say,
my beloved is mine, and I am his. There is a union like nothing
else. the wedding that's coming up.
I'm thinking more and more about this. It is so set apart. It is so held in such high regard
in this book because it's a picture of what we're looking at right
here. The love that Christ has for his people. It's particular. It's precious. It's with purpose.
Forsaking all others. That's part of those vows. We've
been looking those over, retyping them up and everything. Forsaking
all others. Exactly. And will Christ demand
less? No, we would not want it so.
Because He stole our heart. He has our heart. We can say
with Solomon here, My beloved is mine and I am his. By covenant, agreement, by divine
purpose, by specific predestination, by union and resurrection in
Christ and with Christ. He says he feeds. He feeds among
the lilies. He feeds with us. He feeds his
people, his church, where he is spoken of and where he is
worshipped. That's why it's so important
to gather together as often as we can in remembrance of him. Because he feeds among the lilies. It doesn't have, there's no prerequisites,
specifically the size of the building, the shape, the color,
etc. We'd like to maybe try to do some improvements in the ad
nom, things like that. That would be great. But it's
all for naught if he's not with us. But by God's grace, we believe
he's here. His name is honored. And so we
go forward. And then he says in closing,
verse 15, he feeds among the lilies, he feeds with us until
the daybreak and the shadows flee away. Basically, what he's
saying here, I believe, is stay with me evermore. Do not depart
because my soul could not bear a departure from me. We couldn't handle it. There's
a lot of things that you and I can do without. There's a lot
of things that you and I could do without. I know we think we
need a lot, but there's a lot of things that you and I could
do without, but we cannot do without. Him. His gospel. And one another. The sheep got
to mingle, the sheep hear his voice, the sheep follow him. And where he's spoken of, that's
where they want to be. But one day we will be completely
united with him and without division. And I say, as the Apostle John
did in Revelations, hasten that day, Lord Jesus, come quickly. I and my beloved. And he's like,
we love him because he first loved us. And he gave us grace
to, as I said in my first comment, to enter in to what's going on
in this book. Whether I preach anything else
from the rest of these Wednesdays or not, may we see and read as
we go home and look at that relationship. and see how special it is and
how absolutely wonderful it is. It seems like time passes by
and troubles just, you know, troubles just pass by and all
these other things that we get so worried about, so caught up
with. We're cumbered about with much serving, but may we do that
needful thing. Sit at the feet of Christ and
worship Him. Bruce, would you close us please? Thank you.