If you will, turn back with me
in your Bibles this evening to the Song of Solomon, Chapter
5. In this book, we have the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is set forth as the Beloved, and His Church,
of course, as His Bride, the fairest among women. In the New Testament, in Ephesians
chapter 5, where the Apostle Paul gives instructions to husbands
and wives, he concludes that passage by saying this, this
is a great mystery. The fact that when two marry,
they become one. This is what our Lord said in
the very beginning. The two, the husband and the
wife, they become one. Paul said, this is a great mystery,
but I speak concerning Christ and His church. Mystically, we
are in union with Him. Those of us who know Him as our
Lord and Savior, it is a great mystery that He is our husband
and we are His. wife, who he refers to as the
fairest among women. Now two times in this book, the
Song of Solomon, we have the bride making this declaration. She says, my beloved is mine,
and I am his. That's wonderful, isn't it? When
a child of God is able to say my, not thee, but my, beloved
is mine and I am his. In this chapter, chapter number
5, the church, the bride appears to be sleepy, to be sleepy, to
be sluggish in condition and therefore she neglects the presence
of her beloved. We see that in verses 2 and 3.
I sleep, but my heart waketh. Well, are you asleep? Are you
awake? Are you awake? Are you asleep? She seems to be in that condition,
I think, of the church in Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3. Neither
hot nor cold, but lukewarm. I sleep, but my heart waketh. That's a sluggish condition. That's a condition sometimes
we all, as God's children, find ourselves in. A condition of
lethargy, of slothfulness. And so she neglects her beloved
when he asks for entrance. I sleep, but my heart waketh.
It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to
me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. How he uses these
words of endearment for his church, for his people. We see ourselves
as she does in the first chapter. But he sees his bride as he speaks
to her as his dove, as his undefiled. Sometimes we may wonder about
the fact that he refers to her first as his sister and then
as his love, but remember when he refers to her as his sister,
we are to understand that he is a man with us, our brother,
our sister. He is a man and we are his brothers
and his sisters, but we are his spouse, his wife, his bride,
his beloved, his undefiled, his fairest among women. But here
in this condition she says, I sleep, but my heart waketh. I hear the
voice of my beloved who's knocking, saying, Open to me, my sister,
my love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew
and my locks with the drops of the night. But notice how she
responds. Shameful. Shameful. And yet all
of us would need to confess that we do the same sometimes. When
he would come and fellowship with us, but we have other things.
Other things that distract us and keep us away from entertaining
him, inviting him in. I have put off my coat. Oh, that's
really something. I've put off my coat. How shall
I put it on? You mean I've got to get up and
put on my coat and answer the door to let you in? That's a
lot of trouble. You see what I'm saying? The
church, the spouse here is in a sleepy, sluggish condition
of lethargy. We might even say of backsliding. I've washed my feet. I'm going
to have to wash them again if I get up. and open the door? I've washed my feet. How shall
I defile them? But notice, her beloved, He in
grace causes her to desire His presence. Even though she's got
these objections and it's going to trouble her to allow Him in,
but He gives her this desire by putting His hand if you will,
in the hole of the door. We lived in a house in Mexico
and I remember years ago a pastor was visiting with us and he was
sitting in our living room on Sunday morning. We had a worship
service there and he said the door, I can't remember if he
was speaking from this passage or not, but he said the door
was just like that door that you have there, your front door.
It had shutters on it, up at the top. And you could open the
shutters or close the shutters. And there were some bars, I think,
in that open space, but you could easily reach through and pull
that latch. And that's a picture here that
we see my beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door.
Now, when he does that, she says, my bowels were moved for him. Now she desires his presence,
his coming in. I rose up to open to my beloved,
and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet-smelling
myrrh upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved,
oh, I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself
and was gone. My soul failed when he spake. I sought him, but I could not
find him. I called him, but he gave me
no answer. And then it is to the daughters
of Jerusalem. In verse 8, she says, I charge
you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, if you
find him, that you tell him that I am sick
of love. But notice the question that
the daughters of Jerusalem put to her. This is what I want us
to think about tonight. They do not ask who. They do
not ask who is our beloved. And that gives us a hint as to
who the daughters of Jerusalem must be. They don't ask who is
thy beloved, but they ask what is thy beloved more than another
beloved? Many believe that the daughters
of Jerusalem in this book are young believers, believers who
have just recently come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their
Lord and Savior, because they don't ask Who is thy beloved? But they do ask, What is thy
beloved more than another beloved? And tonight I want us to look
at the description which the bride, the undefiled, the wife,
gives of her beloved. And it can only apply to one
person. You don't have to be All that
educated in reading the Word of God to know that this can
only apply to one person. And that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Speaking of Him. Metaphorically,
yes. But it is speaking of Christ. And my message tonight has two
parts. First, we have a general and
a comparative description of the Church's Beloved in verse
10. My Beloved is white and ruddy, and the chiefest among ten thousands. First, a comparative, or a general
description, and then second, the comparative. But first, she
says, My Beloved is white and ruddy. He is both white and ruddy. Now the word ruddy means rosy
or red. Well, we might ask, is he white
or is he ruddy? He's both. He's both. And this, of course, speaks to
us of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is both God and
man. Remember the angel of the Lord
that appeared to the parents of Samson in the book of Judges. He appeared first to the wife
and told her that she was going to have a child. And she told
her husband, and her husband said, did you get his name? And
she said, no, I didn't. And so he appeared a second time,
and she ran and got her husband. And when he came, the angel of
the Lord, they asked him, what's your name? What's your name?
And he told them, and of course this was one of those pre-incarnate
appearances of Christ in the Old Testament. He said, my name
is secret or my name is wonderful. And the Lord Jesus Christ, He
is wonderful. He is both God and man. He's both white and He is ready. Now see this because John the
Apostle in the New Testament tells us God is light. and in
him is no darkness at all. That's the reason she refers
to him first as white, as light, and in him is no darkness at
all. But he's not only white, he's
also ruddy. He's not only God, he's not only
God who is light, but he is also ruddy. The word ruddy, as I said,
means rosy or red. The first man, Adam, his name
actually signifies red, because remember God made his body from
the earth, which was red earth. Red earth. He was a type of Christ. The first man, Adam, he was a
type of Christ. The apostle Paul tells us this
in Romans chapter 5. So he was ruddy. He was white and ruddy. This
is my Beloved. He's God and He's man. And I thank God tonight that
I'm able to stand before you and say, This is my Beloved.
He's God and He's man. Yes siree. Jesus Christ the Lord. He is God, a very God. And yet He is man. He is bone
of our bone and flesh of our flesh. But notice the description
in a comparative sense. My beloved is chiefest among
ten thousand. He is the chiefest of all of
creation, of all creatures, whether men or angels. He is the creator
of angels and the object of their worship, and he is the Lord of
lords, Lord of all, King of kings, Now, the Septuagint version of
the Scripture has here, He is chosen out from among 10,000. Instead of chiefest among 10,000,
they translated this to be He's chosen out of 10,000. And I would
just remind us of the Psalm which says, I have laid help. This is God speaking. Psalm 89
and verse 19. have laid help upon one that
is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out of the people." God
chose him. He's the chiefest among 10,000,
the chiefest among all, because God chose him to be the one and
the only mediator between God and men. Think of how many men
have walked on the face of God's earth. in these thousands of
years. And yet there's only been one
man who walked on God's earth that God chose, that God appointed,
that God anointed to be the savior of sinners. He's the chiefest
among 10,000 and thousands of thousands. Now that's a general
and a comparative description in that one verse. My beloved
is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. Now the second
part of the message from here to the end of the chapter, we
are given a more, she gives a more detailed description of her beloved. And the church here describes
her beloved in ten particulars. First of all, beginning with
verse 11, his head. his head as the most fine gold. She begins with his head as of
gold because she knew of nothing more glorious, more precious. I thought about this as I just
recently read through the book of Daniel. When Nebuchadnezzar
had that drain, And he couldn't recall his dream and he was going
to kill all of the diviners and soothsayers and magicians and
all of those people in Babylon unless they could give him his
dream and then give him the interpretation. And of course all of his men
said, no one's ever asked for this before. This isn't fair. We've got to tell you the dream
and the interpretation. You tell us the dream. We'll
make up something. No, he said, you tell me the
dream too. And so Daniel was brought before
him. And Daniel, remember he went
to his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Belteshazzar, and
he said, let's pray. Let's pray. God knows the secrets
of man. And he revealed to Nebuchadnezzar
his dream. He had dreamed that big image,
and it was made out of four types of material, remember? It was
made out of gold, and then silver, then brass, and then iron, and
clay. And Daniel told him, you are
the head. church here, she says, My beloved,
his head is of most fine gold. Of these four kingdoms, the kingdom
of Babylon, the kingdom of Persia, the kingdom of Greece, and the
kingdom of Rome, this first kingdom, Babylon, was the greatest of
all of these kingdoms, the most powerful of all of these kingdoms. And when Daniel gave the interpretation,
this is what he told Nebuchadnezzar. He said, Thou, O king, art a... I like that article a. Thou, O king, art a king of kings. He didn't say, Thou art the king
of kings. Thou art a king of kings. For
the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength,
and glory. His kingdom was the greatest,
and it was pictured by gold. It was the greatest of those
four kingdoms. But His kingdom could not compare
with the kingdom that was cut out of the mountain, the stone
that was cut out of the mountain without hands. The kingdom of
Christ, His kingdom, is a kingdom that was compared to a mountain
that filled the whole earth. My beloved, His head is of fine
gold. The church's beloved is king
of kings. He's not a king of kings. He
is the king of kings. And all things, the Scripture
says, the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 1, verses 22
and 23, all things are under his feet. And he is the head
over all things to the church, which is his body. He is the
federal head and representative head of his church or his body. And when we think of Christ as
the head, his head is a fine gold. When we think of Christ
as the head of the church, of his body, of believers, we think
of the head, the head is where Our eyes are located, and yes,
my friends, He has eyes which are always open, always seeing,
always watching over His people. And the ears are upon the head,
and His ears are always open. to the cries, the pleas of his
people. His head is a fine gold. Now next, second she says, his
hair. His hair is bushy and black. Now some suggest that by bushy
we are to understand the number, the multitude of believers who
are chosen in Christ. as the hairs of our head are
many, so those that were chosen in Christ from before the foundation
of the world to be saved." Remember, John saw a multitude which could
not be numbered. Many people think if you believe
in God's sovereign election, and we do because the Scriptures
declare it, that God chose His bride before the foundation of
the world and gave His people unto Christ as our head, as our
representative. But many people assume if you
believe that, then you believe just a very few people are going
to be saved. No, no. We believe that everyone
that God chose is going to be saved, however many that is.
And I know this, it's going to be a great, great multitude. And we think of a man's hair,
of his head, and every hair is connected to the head, and every
member of Christ is connected to the head, Christ, in union
with Christ. There is no life, there is no
salvation, there is no hope outside of Christ. But we must consider that the
hair being black speaks of youth, of strength. As men grow older,
their hair begins to turn gray. I believe in one of the scriptures,
maybe in the book of Hosea, God speaks of the northern kingdom,
Ephraim. And he says he doesn't realize
that his hair is speckled, you know. There's signs of growing
old. And as men grow older, our hair
turns white and we lose strength. It's just so, isn't it? Men lose
strength as they get older. But our beloved, his hair is
bushy and black. He retains the strength of youth. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And he is mighty. mighty to save. God said, I have laid help upon
one who is mighty. Number three, his eyes. His eyes
as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters washed with milk and
fitly set. This reminds us of the fact that
he is all-knowing. He is all-knowing. He sees and
he knows his redeemed people. He came to seek and to save that
which is lost, to save his sheep. He said in Ezekiel chapter 34
and verse 11, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I, even I,
will both search my sheep and seek them. His eyes, the eyes
of doves. He sees. He sees all. He seeks His sheep. I am the
good shepherd and know my sheep. He not only seeks His sheep,
but He finds His sheep. The Son of Man has come to seek
and to save that which is lost. And two times He gives that parable,
doesn't He, of the shepherd who leaves the ninety and nine and
goes out to find that one lost sheep. And he searches till he
finds it. Not one, not one soul that God
chose in Christ from before the foundation of the world and gave
to him in this everlasting covenant of grace is going to be lost. He seeks till he finds. And he
seeks and he saves is on his eyes. As I speak of His knowledge,
the very hairs of your head are all numbered. I remember reading
many years ago a message by Charles Spurgeon on that text of Scripture,
and he pointed out that no mother, as much as mothers love their
babies, that no mother has ever been able to count all the hairs
on their baby's head. They haven't had the time or
taken the time or the ability, but God knows His people, the
very hairs of your head are all numbered. God said in Isaiah,
can a woman forget her sucking child? You think that's possible? That a woman who's breastfeeding
her child, that she may just forget about it? Forget about
her child? That she should not have compassion
on the son of her womb? God said, yeah, they may forget.
Not likely to happen. But it's possible. Yea, they
may forget, yet will not I forget thee. His eyes, all seeing, all
knowing. I was reminded yesterday in Revelation
chapters 2 and 3, those seven churches to whom the letters
were written. To every one of those churches
The Lord Jesus Christ wrote to the messenger and he said, I
know. I know. I know. He knows everything about
us, those who are part of this church, doesn't he? I know. I
know that works. I know. His eyes. or as the eyes of doves by the
rivers of water, washed with milk and fitly set. Now fourth, his cheeks. His cheeks as a bed of spices,
as sweet flowers. What are we to understand by
his cheeks? Well, I think it is best to understand
this of his face. His face. And how many times
do we express His presence by His face? Part of that blessing
that God gave to Israel of old, the high priest to put upon the
people of God was, the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and
give thee peace. I think his cheeks as a bed of
spices, as sweet flowers, His face, His presence, when we're
reading the Word of God. Sometimes, I believe you'll agree
with this, sometimes when we're reading God's Word, it's so real,
it's such a blessing, isn't it? His face, His presence. And sometimes when we're reading
it, it's hard to get through. Sometimes when we go to the Lord
in prayer, His face, we're seeking His face. And sometimes we know
He's with us. We experience that. And sometimes
we pray by faith, don't we? Sometimes it seems like our prayer
doesn't get up to the ceiling, much less to the throne of grace.
But notice, she says, His cheeks are like what? They're like Beds
of spices and sweet flowers. I've told you this before, but
sometimes I've gone into these shops where they have a lot of
candles. And oh, they just smell so good,
don't they? And then you realize those candles
are pretty expensive. And so you can afford to maybe
buy one, take it home, set it on fire. It doesn't have the
The effect does it, maybe a little bit, but it's not like that shop
where they've got all those candles, all that beautiful aroma, the
presence of God, the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a
blessing, what a blessing it is. And then number five, his
lips, like lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrh. The words of
grace which come from Him. Words of comfort. Grace is poured
into His lips, the psalmist said. You know, one of the things that
was prophesied of Him and is mentioned in Matthew, I believe
it is, that He would not break a bruised reed. Here's a reed
out here in the field, maybe growing close to the water. edge
and someone just walking by so nimble and so fragile and it
just easily broken. The Lord Jesus Christ, here's
a sinner, here's a poor sinner, weighted down with his sin. Conscience
troubling him. No peace. Thinking if he were
to die tonight he'd be in hell. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
He won't break a bruised reed. No, no. He won't quench a smoking
flax. Words of grace pour out of his
lips. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If any man thirst,
let him come unto me and drink. Word. like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling
myrrh. And then number six, his hands
as gold rings set with the barrel. Hands are instruments of action. And I think of his hands, his
hands when they were nailed to the cross, when they were pierced,
nailed to the tree, when he was obtaining eternal redemption
for us. It was then that he finished
the work. Father, I have finished the work
which thou gave me to do. Yes, it was when his hands were
nailed to the tree. He established righteousness. He satisfied God's justice. His hands are like gold rings. And I think of his hands in which
he holds each one of us tonight who know him. No man, no one
is able to pluck us out of His hand. My Father which gave them
me is greater than all His hands. And then His belly. His belly
is described as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. Now
the Hebrew word which is translated belly is the same word in verse
4 above this that is translated bowels. B-O-W-E-L-S. Now the Hebrews, the Israelites,
we speak of the heart as the center of affection. We talk
about a woman stole his heart. She's got his heart. The Hebrews, they didn't say
the heart, they said the bowels. The bowels. And she says his
boughs are like ivory overlaid with sapphires. This speaks no
doubt of what we would today call his heart, his affections,
his love for his people. It's compared to ivory for its
firmness, for its constancy. Ye, I have loved thee with an
everlasting love. Who shall separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Nothing, nothing. And his legs, number eight, his
legs as pillars of marble set upon sockets of pure gold. A man's strength is in his legs. And this suggests to us his strength
to bear all the weight all the weight that is laid upon Him.
Our sins were laid upon Him. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree, the Scriptures tell us. He is the foundation of the
church. All of the weight, all of the
salvation, it all weighs upon Him. Think of this verse, let
me read it to you over in Zechariah. You'll remember it, but God said,
And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying,
Behold, the man whose name is the branch, and he shall grow
up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord,
even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear
the glory. He builds His, upon this rock
I will build my church, this spiritual temple He built, and
He is the foundation. He bears the glory of His church. And then number nine, his countenance
as Lebanon, excellent as cedars. Now Lebanon, some say was a mountain
or a mountain range with its massive cedars. And it speaks
of our beloved, our beloved's height. He is higher. than the
kings of this earth, higher than the angels of heaven, yes, higher
than heaven itself, being more glorious and excellent over all. And then number 10, his mouth
is most sweet. His mouth is most sweet, the
voice of the gospel is sweet. It is a joyful sound for it speaks
to us of his love, of his mercy, of his grace, of his peace, of
his pardon, of life, of reconciliation, of salvation. His mouth is most
sweet. And then the bride sums it all
up. Notice that last verse. He is altogether lovely. He is altogether lovely. When you think of the man Christ
Jesus, the God-man. It's hard, isn't it, to think
of him, maybe we've seen some picture, we know that's wrong
and that he's not going to look like those pictures that you
see, that's for sure. It's hard to think of him, isn't
it? But we see in this the speech
of the bride metaphorically speaking here. He's altogether lovely. This is my beloved. He's my friend. That's wonderful, isn't it? He's
my friend. There's not a friend like the
lowly Jesus. He's my friend. This is my beloved. Well, I pray the Lord would Bless
this word to all of us, and those of us who know him tonight, those
of us here, that we may be able to go away and say, this is my
beloved, my beloved. He's my beloved. My beloved is
mine, and I am his. He's altogether lovely. Let us
sing a hymn before we're dismissed.