Several years ago, sitting in
a conversation with several preachers, Brother Mahan was talking to
us. He was talking about preaching. He said this place here, the
pulpit, is the most blessed place in all the world when the Lord
is present. And he said it's the most lonesome,
lonesome place in the world. when you stand there by yourself. And that same thing is true with
regard to the gathering of God's saints for worship. Our Lord
has so graciously, manifestly, and constantly blessed us together
as a congregation. Most of the time when we meet,
he is pleased graciously to meet with us in a manifest way. and
to speak through his word to our hearts, through the songs
that are sung, through the prayers that are uttered. And for reasons
known only to him, in his adorable, wise, and good providence, he
has graciously condescended to allow this congregation to have
a significant place of influence in his kingdom around the world.
But let us never, ever, ever presume upon his goodness. He said, and we must ever remember,
without me you can do nothing. It does not matter how well I
prepare to preach. It doesn't matter how diligent
I am in study. It wouldn't matter if I was real
smart. Those things are insignificant. Unless God is to speak through
these lips of clay to your heart, I will be a sounding brass and
tinkling cymbal. So I ask that as you prepare
to come and hear the word, that you don't come to hear me. If
that's all you hear, you're not going to hear much. But pray
that God may be pleased to speak through me to you. by his word. As we prepare to
come to the house of God, let us make it our resolute business
to seek, by prayer and supplication, to prepare our hearts and seek
to bring Christ with us into this place that we might worship
him. Oh, how sweet, how blessed, how
delightful is the assembly of God's saints, where brethren
meet in the house of God, dwelling together in unity, hearing God
speak, having Christ revealed in our hearts by the power of
his grace, by the work of his spirit through his word, enabling
us to worship him. Now let's turn to the Song of
Solomon chapter 8. The Song of Solomon chapter 8. The burden that I have on my
heart tonight is found in verse two. The church, Christ's chosen bride,
the believing heart, makes this earnest expression, this ardent
desire known. I would leave thee and bring
thee into my brother's house. I would leave thee and bring
thee into my mother's house. Now, in these first four verses,
I want to call your attention to four things. You'll be able
to follow me easily. The four verses of the text will
be my outline for the message. First, in verse one, we see here
the request of love that is expressed by the church, the bride of Christ,
his people, to the Lord Jesus himself. In this last chapter
of the Inspired Song of Loves, There is this ardent desire expressed
publicly. The bride of Christ earnestly
pleads for the Lord Jesus to meet her heart's desire. The
request is just this. Oh Lord, give me constant, intimate
communion and freedom with you. Let me always Know your presence. And let's see if that's not what
you see in verse one. Oh, that thou work as my brother. That suck the best of my mother.
There could not be two people more able to freely express love
and tenderness to one another than a brother and sister who've
nursed at the same breast. You can meet your sister on the
streets and you can kiss her and nobody thinks a thing about
it. You can meet your sister anywhere you want to and take
up right where you left off before. She says, all that thou wert
as my brother, that sought the breast of my mother, when I should
find thee without, I would kiss thee, yea, and I should not be
despised. The prayer is much like that
found in Psalm 14. Listen to this. Oh, that the
salvation of Israel will come out of Zion. When the Lord bringeth
back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel
shall be glad. Now, I see three things in this
request. First, it is a word of prophecy.
There's no question about that. Many of the Jewish commentators
in ancient times themselves understood this to be a prophecy of the
coming of Christ, the Messiah. This is a prophetic prayer of
the Old Testament Church for the incarnation of Jesus, who
is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Our Lord, you see,
by means of his incarnation, has really and actually become
our brother. He has become one of us. He is
not ashamed to call us his brethren. He is made to be the elder brother
in the family of God, the firstborn among many brethren. The scriptures
speak of this plainly in Romans 8 and in Hebrews chapter 2. You
and I have been adopted into the family of God. Behold what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, such things as
we are, that we of all peoples should be called the sons of
God. Oh, that's wondrous, amazing love. We have been adopted into
the family of God, but he's the son of God by nature. He's the
Son of God from eternity. He's the everlastingly begotten
Son of the everlastingly begetting Father. He is the second person
of the Divine Trinity, one with God, but now, by virtue of his
incarnation, one with us. His Father is our Father. He
said, I go to my Father and to your Father. I go to my God and
to your God. We and our Lord are now of the
same nature and the same disposition. Now that might seem a little
strange to you. You say, Pastor, you talk to us all the time about
our sin and our corruption, and yet you say we are of the same
nature with Christ and the same disposition? How can that be?
In the Incarnation, the Son of God assumed our nature, in the
totality of our nature, except for sin. He assumed everything
that we are. He became what we are in every
detail, except sin. And when he assumed our nature,
he became one of us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. I couldn't help but to notice
as I was reading at the wedding yesterday, Ephesians chapter
5, the Apostle Paul writes concerning the husband and wife relationship.
And he spends a good bit of time talking about it, and indeed
it is an excellent, excellent passage giving instruction to
husbands and wives. But Paul speaks plainly. He said,
now fellas, if you think I'm talking about a man and his wife,
you're mistaken. It's a great, great mystery how
a man and his wife come together and they're no more two but one
flesh. But I'm talking about Christ and the Church. We are
members of His body, born of His bone flesh, of His flesh,
truly one with Him. In the Incarnation, He assumed
our nature. And in Regeneration, He gave
us His nature. The Apostle Peter says, we are
by the divine power and promise of God, made partakers of the
divine nature. Made partakers of that nature,
which Jesus Christ, who is God, in his humanity, lived in this
world in holiness and in righteousness. He's planted his Spirit within
us, his seed in us, a holy seed, born of God, so that it is of
his disposition as well. His love toward us, In Proverbs
18 24 is compared to the love of a brother. The wise man says
there is a friend. Oh, but this friend sticketh
closer than a brother. Like a brother he sympathizes
with us in all our afflictions. Like a brother he is touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. Like a brother he helps us in
all of our trials. Like a brother he's tender, compassionate,
and caring. The Lord Jesus is a brother indeed. For he is a brother at hand,
and a brother willing, ready, and able to help. Here's the
second thing I see in this request in verse one. This is truly the
desire and prayer of every believing heart. Those who know Christ
and love him, all who love him, desire uninterrupted, intimate
communion with him. Every believer does. John Newton,
years ago, back in the 1700s, that man who wrote Amazing Grace,
How Sweet the Sound that Saves a Wretch Like Me, he was saved
in his mature adult years after being a slave trader and just
a rogue of a man. He wrote a sermon one time, preached
it, wrote it out, on his religion. And he said, my religion presses
upon me. These three great concerns, I've
given them to you many times. He said, I long for perfect conformity
to Christ. I long for perfect commitment
to Christ. And I long for perfect uninterrupted
communion with Christ. Now I can't have them here, but
I want them more than life itself. More than life itself. This,
then, is the desire of every believing heart. In essence,
the prayer is this, O Lord, when I find you present with me, I
will embrace you, and kiss you, and show my love to you, like
a sister would show her love to her brother. Without shame,
I'll own you, acknowledge you, confess you, and love you, even
in the presence of your enemies, and I will publicly avow my love
to you. I would kiss thee, she said.
You see that? I would kiss thee and continue
to kiss thee. In the Song of Solomon chapter
1 verse 2 she says let him kiss me. Now she says you come, you
come in I'll kiss you. The word is like this. He gave
me the kiss of forgiveness. I'll give him the kiss of faith.
He gave me a kiss of peace. I'll give him the kiss of praise.
He kissed me with a kiss of his grace. I'll kiss him with a kiss
of gratitude. He kissed me with a kiss of acceptance. I'll kiss him with a kiss of
adoration. He kissed me with a kiss of redeeming love. I'll
kiss him with a kiss of returning love. We love him because he
first loved us. And if we're his, we love him.
We love him. We don't talk much about our
love for him. Because it's not worth talking about. But the
fact of it, we can never give up nor deny. Because if so, if
I'm his, I love him. And the reason I love him is
because he first loved me. His love for me has so overwhelming
power over me that I cannot but love him in return. Now then,
here's his third thing. This text will find its ultimate
fulfillment in that day when God's elect meet Christ in the
clouds. The bride, the Lamb's wife, will
never be completely red-haired until the time of his glorious
appearance. Our Lord Jesus declares to us
by the Apostle Peter that God is not slack concerning his promises
toward us, as some men count slackness. But as longsuffering
to usward, that is to his bride, his church, his chosen, his people,
not willing that any chosen by his grace, redeemed by his blood,
loved of him from everlasting, not willing that any should perish,
but that everlast whatever come to repentance and knowledge of
the truth. And when he has gathered in the last member of his church,
when he has completed his blessed bride, when he has brought his
body together in its entirety, when the last chosen redeemed
sinner has been called by his Spirit, then he comes. And the
Lord Jesus brings us into his perpetual, blessed, everlasting
fellowship. Then we will be admitted to the
nearest possible embraces of Emmanuel. With unspeakable pleasure,
we will embrace our Redeemer and enjoy Him eternally. Yea, when that time comes, I
shall not be despised. He'll not turn His face from
me when I reach out to Him. Not only that, when I kiss Him,
He will be delighted to be kissed of me. And those who now despise
me will despise me no more. They'll envy me forever. They'll
envy me forever. John Gill said the whole verse
then expresses hers, the bride's boldness in professing Christ
without fear or shame in the most public manner. Now here's
the request of love. Let me embrace thee and kiss
thee as a sister would embrace and kiss her beloved brother
without shame and without fear. Look at verse 2. I want us to
see and enter into the resolution of love. I would lead thee and bring thee
into my mother's house who would instruct me. I would call thee
to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. Now
here the church, the believing soul, makes the resolution to
improve the opportunity she would have for cultivating a more intimate
fellowship, knowledge, and communion with Christ. The resolution is,
I would lead thee and bring thee into my mother's house. The believing heart enjoying
personal fellowship with Christ, enjoying His communion, says,
I will bring you into the house of God with me. Now you might
say, well, Pastor, how do you know that's what it's talking
about? Because in Galatians chapter 4 and verse 26, Jerusalem, which
is above the church of God, is said to be the mother of us all.
Throughout the Old Testament scriptures, as well as in the
New, the church is described as a mother to those who were
born in the kingdom of God. We speak of our children. We
had two of our children baptized this morning. Two of our children
confessing faith in Christ. These are born in the family
of God. They're our children, our family.
And the church of God has spoken of in just that regard. A young
woman finds a man that she's just, she's just smitten with. She wants to marry him, or perhaps
she has married him. And first thing she wants to
do, first thing she wants to do if she has a good, healthy
family relationship, is bring him home. I want mama and dad
to meet this fella. This is the fella I'm going to
bring home for dinner. Mama and dad are going to sit
down and get to know him. And this is what the church says.
I'll bring him into my mother's house because everybody here
needs to know him. Some of you I trust. Children in the family of God
who have not yet been born. Chosen and adopted of Him from
eternity. Oh, you need to know Him. You
need to know Him. And every one of you who know
Him. Oscar Bailey, you need to know Him. Know Him. Sometimes I run across folks
who treat the ministry of the Word and the knowledge of Christ
As though, you know, well, I know him, let's go on. And I want to tell you something.
Such people have never met him. They've never met him. Oh, no. No, no. Paul said, oh, I may
know him. In the fellowship of his suffering,
I may know him in the power of his resurrection. I may know
him being made conformable unto his death. I want to know him. We who know Christ, therefore,
ought to bring him with us into the house of God, into the assembly
of his saints. Perhaps you wonder, Why is that
so important? I hope none of you here do. This
whole religious world in which we live plays games with God. It plays games. Church is nothing
else but a poor man's social club. It's all on earth it is.
Just somewhere where folks can go show off their kids and where
they can go have their social agendas and have to tolerate
somebody once in a while opening a Bible and pretending to say
something for God, but have no interest in worshiping God. In
this place, our business is to make Him known. And that's all. That's all. Just make Him known. People keep telling me, well,
they don't anymore. Even when I was younger, they
thought they could tell me something. You need to do something. You
need to do this, do that, do the other thing. Build up the
church of God. I found out a long time ago I
can't. I can't. Oh no, no, no. I can get folks
deceived. I can delude you. I can trick
you. I can deceive your soul. But
I can't bring you to Christ. Well, what are we to do? We pray
that as we come together, Lord God, Blessed Son of God, meet
with us and speak through your word. It is his presence that awakens
dead sinners. He's the only one who comes to
these tombs of his life. This is Gary. It says Lazarus
come forth. He's the only one. He's the only voice that can
wake the dead. His presence causes the harlot
to fall at his feet and kiss him in repentance, having her
sins forgiven. His presence speaks to the troubled
heart and says, peace be still. His presence brings assurance
to his people for when he's present he says, fear not, I am with
thee. Do not be dismayed for I am thy
God. I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. But what can we do to secure
the Lord's presence in our midst? How can we bring the Son of God
with us into our mother's house? How can James Jordan, how can
you, you, I hope you'll all listen in, how can you bring Jesus Christ
with you to this place? The same way you would take a
royal respected king and bring him to your house. Don't have any rights. Can't
compel him if he doesn't meet you. But what can you do? You
can greet him with a petition of reverence and lead him to
your house. Love it. Reverence it. Call upon him in prayer. Ask him to come. If you forget to wash your face,
ask him to come. If you forget to do all the things
that you hustle about doing, ask him to come. I hear people, you know, they
say, well I'm so tired, I couldn't come this morning, I'm so tired,
I'm a little sleepy. Why don't you go to bed earlier? Makes good sense, doesn't it?
If it was important, it was. That's right. Take care. Take care to seek Him. Come together
in His name. Say, let's go to church. No. Oh, God, let's go worship. Let's go trusting the Son of
God. Seeking his mercy, seeking his
glory, seeking his will, seeking to know him, to learn of him.
O Spirit of God, pour out your presence upon us and make Christ's
face to shine in our midst. And when Christ meets with his
people, then the ministers and ministry of his church is profitable
and effectual. I'll bring him to my mother's
house who would instruct me. My wife was a good mother. When
our daughter began to get of age to marry, she wisely instructed
her in how to be a good wife. That's what mothers are supposed
to do. How to meet her husband's needs,
how to find her fullness and fulfillment in her husband, how
to cleave to her husband, how to please her husband. The bride says, I'll bring him
into my mother's house. And when he comes in, she'll
teach me. She'll be my instructor. You
see when Christ comes into this house of his, he causes his word
to go forth with power. His preachers, his servants,
his missionaries, his pastors, his elders, they speak the word. And true instruction coming from
Him always has these characteristics. It's according to Scripture.
It's according to Scripture. Nancy Wilmer sitting back there,
been attending for the last several months, said to somebody, I forgot
who you said it to, it comes back to me. After just a few
weeks here, I said I heard more scripture in the last two or
three weeks than I heard all my life. Is that accurate? Gospel instruction comes from
this book. Men who preach truth aren't afraid to have you look
in this book. Those who speak for God speak out of His Word. All true instruction will come
through the ministry of God's servants. Pastors and teachers. This is God's promise to His
church. This is what He promised. And suddenly he's as good as
his promise. He said, I will give you pastors according to
my heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
I'll give them to you. And it'll be brought to your
heart by the power of his spirit. And if he doesn't bring it to
your heart, I can't. If he doesn't cause the word
to penetrate into your inmost being, I can't do it. When our
Lord meets with those people, those who know him, then offer
the sacrifices of their hearts to him. Read the next line. I will cause thee to drink of
the spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranates. The spiced
wine which was very, very rich and flavorful wine was delightful
to the taste, but less iniberating than other wines, I'm told. This,
of course, refers to the graces of the Spirit, and the exercise
of grace in the believing heart. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
faith, gentleness, meekness, temperance, all those things
which God the Holy Spirit puts in the hearts of chosen sinners.
These graces of the Spirit are those things that give pleasure
to our Redeemer, for they are His graces, His put upon us and
put in us. Matthew Henry wrote this, those
that are pleased with Christ must study to be pleasing to
him and they will find him never hard to please. Oh, I want to please the Lord. That's not difficult. That's
not difficult. Just love him, trust him, seek
his glory, extol him, make him known. Now then, here's the rest
of love described in verse three. What a picture. His left hand
should be under my head. His right hand should embrace
me. when we come to Christ and he
comes to us, then we enter into a blessed rest of love. And his rest is glorious. Here
is true Sabbath keeping. We rest in him. How do you mean, pastor? We rest
in his love for us. And being born of his taught
by his grace, never satisfied with it, yet we rest in the assurance
of our love for him. We do love him. If any man love
not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be damned, the scripture
says. We rest in the support he gives us, for underneath us
are the everlasting arms. We rest in the safety and security
that is ours in his arms. And we rest in blessed, confident
faith. I am my beloved's. I really am. And he's mine. He really is. Now then, here's the responsibility
of love. Look at verse four. Our Lord
has come to us. He's granted us his presence
in this place. His left hand is under my head.
His right hand doth embrace me. It is our great joy and privilege
in this place to rest in his love. Now then, I charge you,
O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up nor awake my
love till he is pleased. as long as he's pleased to dwell
in our midst. Oh, let us be careful to do nothing
to drive him away. Amen.