I recall 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 pleased 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 gonna 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 when 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 2. The church, Christ's chosen bride,
the believing heart makes this earnest expression, this ardent
desire, no, I would lead thee and bring thee into my mother's
house. I would lead 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 wert as my brother, that sucked the breast 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, oh, that thou wert
as my brother, that suck the breast of my mother, when I should
find thee without. I would kiss thee, yea, and I
should not be despised. This prayer is much like that
found in Psalm 14. Listen to this. Oh, that the
salvation of Israel were come out of Zion. When the Lord bringeth
back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel
shall be glad. And 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 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 begatting 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 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 in the church. We are members of his body, bone
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, 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,
oh 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 says.
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 to me and 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 it's 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 this 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 ready 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 us-ward, 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 for 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 kissed her beloved brother
without shame and without fear. Look at verse two. 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 cause thee
to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. Now
here the church, the believing soul, makes a 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 a 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, bring him home. I want mama and daddy to
meet this fella. This is the fella I'm gonna bring
home for dinner. Mama and daddy gonna 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,
to 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, that I
may know Him. In the fellowship of His suffering,
that I may know Him in the power of His resurrection, or that
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. Just plays games. Church is nothing else but a
Poor man's social club. It's all on earth it is. 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. They
have no interest in worshiping God. In this place, our business
is to make him know. And that's all. That's all. Just make him know. 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
know, 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? 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. Lazarus is Gary and says, Lazarus,
come forth. He's the only one. His is the
only voice that can awake 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. Be not dismayed for I am thy
God. I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. Well, 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 to him, 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. Can't force
it. Don't have any rights. Can't
compel him. He doesn't need you. What can
you do? You can greet him with the 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, well,
I'm so tired. I couldn't come this morning.
I'm so tired. I had a little sleep this morning. Why don't
you go to bed earlier? Makes good sense, doesn't it?
If it was important, it would. That's right. Take care. Take care to seek him. Come together
in his name. Hey, 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. Oh, 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 is 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. And here 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 Wormuth, sitting back there,
had 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 Sam, 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. Look at the next line.
I would 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 inhiberating 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 beauty 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 3. 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 Spirit,
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,
oh, 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.