I have just one verse of scripture
to read in chapter 8 of Songs of Solomon in verse 5. I want
to use this today, this morning, and this afternoon. I want to use it this morning
in a more general way, using this church here as an example
to us in our day. And then tonight I want to use
it in a more particular way. I want to look at this church
compared to myself and compared to yourself as individuals. But
I want us to begin here in verse 5. Who is this that cometh up
from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? And that's our text for today.
Who is this? Well, I don't hesitate at all
to answer the question for us. This is the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ. These are those who have been
called out of the wilderness. Did you notice that about her?
Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness? When you see
the word wilderness in the scriptures, it often depicts this world. Look with me to see that over
in a very familiar passage of scriptures over to your left
in Psalms 107. In Psalms 107. And while you are
turning there, I want to read you a passage in Ezekiel Chapter
20. While you are turning to Psalms
107 concerning the wilderness. Here is what the Lord said to
his people of old in Ezekiel chapter 20. As I live, saith the Lord God,
surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and
with fury poured out, will I rule over you. And I will bring you
out from the people, and will gather you out of all countries
where I have scattered with a mighty hand and with a stretched out
arm. And I will bring you into the
wilderness, and there will I plead with you face to face, and you
shall know that I am the Lord." He says there that I will bring
you into the wilderness. And as we read Psalms chapter
107, what we realize that means is that It's not so much God brings His
people into the wilderness to save them, to convert them, which
He does all of His elect people. But what the meaning of that
is when He says, I'll bring you into the wilderness, I'm going
to make you know that's where you are. And what is it about
the wilderness? Well, He tells us here in Psalm
107. And as you read this entire psalm, what you realize is this,
that these are metaphors to show us how the Lord saves His elect
people. The Lord Jesus calls them, and
He breaks them when He brings them to Himself. He shows them
where they are. And where are they? Well, he
tells us here in verse 4 of Psalms 107, they wondered in the wilderness. What is it about the wilderness?
Sometimes we don't realize what these wildernesses were. The
Sahara was a wilderness, but not like our wildernesses. We
go out in the wilderness and we find trees and we find streams
and we find springs of water. But that wasn't the wilderness
that he's speaking of here. These wilderness were barren
places. There were no waters. There were
no streams. It was a solitary, lonely, dangerous
place. They wandered in this place in
a solitary, in a gloomy place where no company was. And look
at this. They found no city to dwell in. A city was a place where people
used to go to find work and to get gain and to sell and buy. It was a place you went to for
protection. It was a place where you could
relax and feel safe. But here they found no city to
dwell in. And look in verse 5. Hungry and
thirsty, their soul fainted in them. No bread to eat. no bread
of life to eat, no water of life to drink. And then in verse 6,
what happened? Then they cry unto the Lord in
their trouble, and he delivereth them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the
right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. In verse 9, He satisfied the
longing soul, and He filleth the hungry soul with goodness. What is this? This is when the Lord begins
to lead one of His out of the wilderness. And He makes them
to know they are in the wilderness, where there is no bread of life,
where there is no water of life. And they get in such trouble,
they begin to call upon the name of the Lord. And he hears them,
and he's merciful to them. And then what does this church
do? He joins each individual to his
people. And then what do you find her
doing in our text? She's coming up from this wilderness. And what's she doing? She's leaning
on her beloved. She is leaning upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. She has her back to the wilderness
now, and she's headed toward the city of habitation. Is that
not a beautiful picture, if you'll study and meditate upon that,
of each elect soul that God brings from the wilderness of this world? That was this church. That was
this church. And she's headed to a city of
habitation. She's left this world and she's
headed to heaven. She's looking for a city which
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. God hath prepared
for her a city. She says, I have no continuing
city. But she seeks one to come, therefore
God is not ashamed to be called her God, for he has prepared
for her a city." This is the church. Who is this? This is the church. But it's
not just the church in any age that you find it. Often, if you
read the history, the Christian history, sometimes you don't
find the church like this. This is the church during the
time of her awakenings. This is the church during the
time when the Lord visits her and sends a revival among her. I say that for these two reasons.
You notice the text here back over in Songs of Solomon and
verse 5, and here's what's said of her. Who is this that cometh
up from the wilderness? From the wilderness. Somebody
was observing this woman, this woman that the Songs of Solomon
calls the Shulamite woman, and she was coming up from the wilderness. In other words, she had her back
to the wilderness. There was no doubt in their minds
the way in which this woman was walking. She had her back to
the wilderness. Something had attracted her.
And when this something attracted her, she turned her back upon
the willingness. She turned her back upon the
temporal advantages and the pleasures of this world. Her faith, her
hope, and her affections are set upon something above this
world. She came out from, from the willingness. I think she could sing with dear
Jane Bonar the song that we often sing, Fade, fade each earthly
joy, Jesus is mine. Break every tender tie, Jesus
is mine. All that my soul has tried left
this dismal void. Jesus only has satisfied. Jesus is mine. That's this church. And we know that it's in the
time of an awakening for her. It's in the time of a revival
for her soul because she has turned from the wilderness. And something else about her. She is leaning upon her Beloved. Now, who is that? That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. Who but the Church leans upon
her Beloved. We are accepted in the Beloved,
and here she is leaning upon Him. In other words, she is so
near Him that she can lean her weight upon Him. just like Julie
is leaning upon Brad. She is leaning upon him. She must be near to him to lean
her weight upon him, resting upon his strength, abiding in
his affections, walking near to his heart. And both of these
things are mentioned in the present tense. It's not that she had
her back turned. It's not that she's leaning upon
Him with her face towards the wilderness. But these are present
tense. She is coming up from the wilderness. That's present. She's coming
up from it. And she is leaning. It's not
that she was leaning, but she is at this present time leaning. And this is why the question
was asked, who is this? Somebody took notice. Without
her saying a word, somebody noticed what she was doing. And what
was it? They noticed she had her back
to the world. And they noticed that she was
leaning upon her beloved. And that got someone's attention.
And they said, who is this? Who is this? You know, one of the most disheartening
things for the church is when the world never considers
that she's there. The world never sees her. The
world never hears her when she speaks. Ain't that a disheartening thing?
I was talking with one of you the other day, and we were talking
about in our day, in the church in general, I'm not talking about
this church, I'm not talking about any particular church,
but the church in general. When you look at the professing
church in our day, isn't it difficult to distinguish the professing
church from the world? Isn't it? I can hardly distinguish it.
The world certainly can't hardly distinguish it, if they can distinguish
it at all. Some people seem to be coming
out from the world, but then they're not leaning upon the
Beloved. I have a dear neighbor, bless
her heart, and met her talk almost every day. And she seems to have
her back to the world. She doesn't even have a TV. She
doesn't even have a radio. She goes to bed about eight and
gets up at a quarter to four and reads her Bible and prays. She seems to be so separated,
and is. In her practice, she reminds
me of what we often read about the old Puritans. But talk to
her about leaning upon the Lord Jesus. She often talks about
her will. It was up to her. It was her
choice. And it makes you wonder. Yes,
you seem to have your back to the world, and that's wonderful,
that's good. But are you leaning upon the
Beloved? You ask some people today, is
Christ and His work enough to save you? And they won't admit
it. You ask them if they're leaning
all their weight upon Him and His redeeming love to save them,
and they won't admit it. They have to add something to
it. They're really not leaning upon
Him as much as He is leaning upon them in their profession. But it's not so with this church
here in our text. The beloved was not waiting or
leaning upon her. It was her waiting and leaning
upon him. The world loves the doctrine
of separation. But the world cannot abide when
the spouse, when the church begins to tell about leaning her weight
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a common doctrine to the
world, free will is. It originated with a natural
man. And when they hear it, when they hear it, you go telling
the world God loves you and Jesus died for you and God's done all
He can and the rest is up to you. The world knows that. That's what the world believes.
That originated in the heart of the natural man. But that
does not make the world set up and say, Who is this? Who is
this? Did you ever notice the Apostle
Paul, when he went preaching, sometimes they would stop everything
and they would say, What new doctrine is this? We've never
heard this. And what was the new doctrine?
Christ alone was his doctrine. And when Paul went somewhere
to preach, they may have got mad or they may have got glad,
but there's one thing about it. When he went preaching the sovereign
free grace of God in Christ, they took notice. Somebody may say, I don't like
your old doctrine of election. And the reason is this, it's
not of man. It's not of this world. It's
of God. I don't like that old particular
redemption. I don't like for Him dying for
a particular people. It sounds so unkind. I don't
like effectual calling. Well, you know why? You know
why people don't like that? It strips them. It strips them
of their natural abilities It strips them of their hopes and
their faith, and it leaves them weak. And the only way then they
can make it is cast themselves upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You
know one of the things that is very telling about the free will
doctrine? No matter how separated they
may seem, you know one of the things that is very telling about
it? Here it is. They cannot rest
in Christ alone. They'll tell you that. But see who they're leaning upon.
Here, this woman was coming up from the wilderness. She had
her back to it. But that wasn't all she was doing.
She was leaning hard upon her beloved. If you're leaning upon the Beloved,
the Lord Jesus Christ, you love His grace. And you're not an
enemy of it. You're not. You may not know
anything about election, but I tell you this, when you hear
it, you'll say, that just suits me. That just suits me. T'was not, but I did choose thee,
for Lord, that could never be. This heart would still refuse
thee. but thou hast chosen me." That's
leaning upon Christ, isn't it? That's leaning upon the Beloved. But then we have the other side,
do we not? We have that side that, in general,
and that's what we're looking at this morning, just in general,
the church today compared in general to this Church in the
text, in general, we have that group in the Church, we have
that aspect of the Church that seemingly has her back upon the
world, but she's not resting and leaning upon the Beloved.
But then we have this side also, I'm sorry to say. We have this
side that is leaning upon the Beloved, but it's difficult to
tell that her back is to the world. I saw a Christian the other day,
and I'm just convinced that they're a Christian, as much as you can be. And they
can articulate the grace of Christ. They know something about it.
They seem to rejoice and lean upon the Lord Jesus, have such
a high estimation of Him. But I saw this very person give
the middle finger to another person. And it broke my heart. I thought, what are you saying
by that? Would you say that to that person? Yet by your actions
you did. I heard another fellow, and this
man is a preacher of the grace of God, and he used the word
S.O.B. Only he didn't spell it out. We have so many divorces and
remarrying now in the grace churches. We can almost go to the movie
house and spend the money that God has given us and sit and
listen to our God's holy name blasphemed and yet never be grieved
in our hearts about it. These are things that you can
see in those churches that profess, and rightly so, to be leaning
all the weight of their salvation upon the Lord Jesus Christ. But
it's difficult to tell if their backs are towards the world and
the wilderness. And what's happened? I sometimes
wonder if the church in general in our day isn't described in
the statement that the Lord Jesus made to the scribes and Pharisees
when he said that you are as graves that appear not, and the
men that walk over them are not aware of them. Isn't it heart-wrenching? when those around the professing
church are not even aware that she's there. When she's lost
whatever moral authority that she had. And this is the sad
part, when the church doesn't even realize it, or when she's
confronted with it, she's almost offended by hearing about it. It used to be I was more strict
than I am now. I thought, you cannot be a Christian
and do certain things. You cannot be a Christian and
give somebody the middle finger. You cannot be a Christian and
drink yourself to sleep almost every night by strong drink. Now, I don't know. It's got so
common among us. And when you read in the scriptures
of the Corinthian church, how immoral they became in certain
aspects. And look at the doctrine of the
Galatians. They so erred from the grace
of Christ. Paul, the great apostle, said,
I stand in doubt of you. That's why I say when we look
at our text, this is not just the church, but this is the awakened
church. This is the church that God has
visited. We know that because she has
her back to the world, and she's leaning hard upon the Beloved. She's correcting her practice,
and she's correcting her doctrine. And those around her are made
to set up. and say, Who is this? You and I talk a lot about politics
in our day, don't we? We need a new president. Well, I prayed for our president.
I prayed for this one. I prayed for the last one. Probably
the worst two presidents we've had as far as running our economy
into the ground and bankrupting us. And this one, bless his heart,
is going to bankrupt us financially and morally, too. But I would contend this, brothers
and sisters, a new president is not going to make any difference. Let some other party get control
of Congress. Let our school system get straightened
out. There is one thing that is going
to restore the moral authority and condemn this nation and make
it ashamed of its open and profane sins. That's when God visits
the church in a revival. And so works in her heart that
she turns her back upon this world and is leaning upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. Then God will say, then God will
say to those around her, do you want to know the way of salvation?
Look at my people. Do you want to know the truth?
Look at her. She has the truth. You want to
know what it is to walk with Christ and live the Christian
life? Look at my church. And then this
nation will set up and say, Who is this? Who is this? These people aren't like us.
They're not walking as we walk. They don't love the things that
we love. Look at her. Her back's towards us. And she's
leaning on this Lord Jesus Christ whom she calls her Beloved. I want you to look with me in
Psalms 51. You sometimes find a prayer And you think probably this is
a good prayer for the church, especially in our day. And Psalms 51, I think, would
probably be a good prayer for us as individuals and for us
as a church and for the church in general. David here was under
the rod of God because of his sin. His little infant had been
taken away. The judgment of God had fallen
upon David and he had taken his little child. David had committed
murder and adultery and lied and had been a hypocrite. And
here in verse 4, he felt the sense of God's displeasure. Look
what he says in verse 4. and thee only have I sinned,
and done this evil in thy sight." David realizes here, I have grieved
the Lord. I have offended Him. David thought
for a while that surely he had his sins covered. That he had
done it all in secret. Nobody would find out about it.
Can a Christian get in a condition like that? Can he so deceive
himself? David did. But now, he comes
to this knowledge that God was watching me all the time. Brothers and sisters, how would
we live? How would we think? What would our attitude, what
would our motives be if we lived in the light of this? That God
is present. He is looking on. He sees my
thoughts. He sees my words before I speak
them. He knows my actions. This is
one of the things that they become to realize. This awful sin that
I've committed, it was right in the face of God. And then
he goes in verse 8, and he was so grieved he lost all of his
joy. He lost all of his gladness that
he had felt before. Look what he says in verse 8.
Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast
broken may rejoice." And here in verse 10, I want you to notice
how conscious David was of his sin, and how conscious he was
that his conscious, his mind was defiled, and his spirit was
grieved. He says, "...create in me A clean
heart. What's he saying? My heart's
dirty. My conscience has been defiled by my sin. Oh God, renew
a right spirit within me. And then in verse 11, he had
this awful fear creep into his heart. And one man said, this
is not a just fear because this could never happen. It may not
be a just fear, but David had it. When we fall into sin and we
continue in sin, we experience a lot of things that may not
be just and may never happen. But we think they may happen.
And what is that? Look in verse 11. Wouldn't this
be awful? Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your
Holy Spirit from me. Here David was full of fear and
doubt that the Lord may cast him away. and take the spirit
of adoption from him, whether that's justified or not. This
is the condition he was in. Now, let me ask you a question,
brothers and sisters. Could David have worshipped in
a grievous condition like this? Could he make melody in his heart
and sing to the Lord in this condition? I doubt it, don't
you? Do you think he could have got
up and preached Christ? And what a joy it was to know
the Lord! Oh, how much gladness I'm experiencing
in being a Christian! He's not going to go tell his
neighbor what a wonderful thing it is to be saved. All this man
can do is grieve over his sin. That's all he should have been
doing at this time. He was guilty. He should have
been on his face seeking the Lord for mercy and forgiveness. But what other use was he? What
other use was he? He was now so grieved and had
this guilt in his conscience. He was fearful that the Lord
was going to cast him away. What else could he do? And that is where the church
must confront itself. As the professing church lost
its joy, as it lost its moral authority
in this nation. So David just stops and he said,
Lord, I'm fit for nothing but to lay here at your feet and
seek for mercy. And then he comes to this in
verse 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation. Not thy salvation. He began to
realize, I've never lost your salvation, but I've lost the
joy of it. And uphold me with your free
spirit. He realized he was now in bondage. In bondage to guilt. In bondage
to this knowledge that he had offended God and sinned against
His people. And look in verse 13, and here's
what I want to get at. You do this for me, he says.
You restore me. You wash me. You forgive me.
Then, then will I teach transgressors thy way. I can't teach them the
shape I'm in. That's what he said. And then
sinners shall be converted unto thee. I think you would agree with
me this morning If we compared the professing church of our
day, and just take a broad brush and just paint all the professing
church, how does she compare to this woman, this church that
had her back to the world and leaning upon her beloved? How
does the church today compare? We're worried about politics,
we're worried about our school system, we're worried about our
legal system. But we should be concerned with the church. And the reason she has lost her
moral authority goes back to these two simple truths. The
church in general does not have her back to the world. And she is not leaning upon her
beloved. And therefore, nobody is saying,
Who is this? Who is this? Her practice and
her doctrine are not in agreement in the day in which we live. Well, I'll stop there, and I
hope that you can come back this evening, and I want to apply
this to myself and yourself, and maybe see if I can better,
by God's grace, turn my back upon this world and find out
if I'm truly leaning upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe if it
starts with me, if it starts with you, maybe it won't be long
until those around us will say, wait a minute, who is this? Who
is this? Let's see what this person is
doing. Let's see what this person is saying. Let's pray.