Address—Dave Spence
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Opatient Spotless 1.
Our hearts in meekness train.
To bear thy yoke, and learn of thee that we may rest, obtain 174.
Could we read Song of Solomon?
Chapter 5.
Song of Solomon, chapter 5.
Those of you who have not read this book before.
Maybe there are none that haven't read it.
The Son of Solomon is called the Song of Psalms.
Because it is a song of love.
And we all love to read songs about love.
But the songs about love in this world to be compared with this song or nothing.
Not worthy to be compared with this song because this song is a song of Christo's love for his people.
Whether it be Israel.
In the coming day, whom he will call back to himself, and pour out the treasures of his love and glories to them.
Or the Church today.
We can see revealed within the lines of this blessed book.
The Song of Solomon, these wonderful things, the treasures of his love to us.
It is a song of Christ's love and that's why it is called the Song of Songs.
Greater love hath no man than this, the Bible says.
And that a man lay down his life for his friends. So this is a song to the Church, so to speak, perhaps primarily to Israel, but to the Church concerning one who has laid down his life for us.
And what he desires to have from our hearts as a result, that reciprocal affection.
And it is the discovery, beloved friends, of the infinite worth of this Blessed One.
That will change our lives.
FC Blount said that he is infinitely higher than doctrine. Now we need doctrine for our pathway.
John rejoiced that his children walked in the truth, and if we don't walk in the truth, we can't walk in fellowship with him. But he is infinitely higher than doctrine.
It is possible to go on in our lives with doctrine and be cold in our souls, not having fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and maybe kind of an outward way keeping the customs and traditions that are familiar with the brethren.
Such was the case in my life.
And not be in fellowship with him and have Christ as the object before our hearts.
He is the object of faith. He is the object of hope. He is the object of love.
All objectivity go to him and not necessarily to doctrine.
God's desire is that he will be magnified to our hearts while we're here this week.
And he has sought to do that as he reveals Christ by the Holy Spirit to our hearts from cover to cover in this blessed book. It is the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and His glories and His love that will win our hearts.
And here we will read about.
The exalted bridegroom picking up the shulamite of low degree.
And she said, I am black, but comely because it was what Christ had made her accepted in the Beloved. 1 so to speak. It is what Jesus has done for you and me to bring him to himself, and what He has made us in himself, clothed in the best robe, put a ring on our finger, and choose on our feet. It's what He has made us, not what we could ever make of this mess, this ruin of our lives.
It is the enjoyment of the love of Christ.
00:05:05
That is the key to all true.
Devotedness.
Worship and service. It is not keeping the letter of the word. It is only having Christ as the object. And as this book begins, she asks for the assurance of His love. But His desire was to bring her into the enjoyment of His love. And Oh dear young people, it is only as we have His love filling.
And thrilling our hearts.
That we will be on fire for him. It cannot happen from our own natures. We cannot say well today I am going to live for Jesus. That's what Peter said and he failed.
Failed miserably.
Though all offend thee, he said, I will not offend thee.
He ended up not only offending the Lord.
But sleeping in his presence, he, you might say, he who professed great love for Jesus in saying, I will never offend thee.
Professed little love for him while he was in the garden sleeping, when Jesus was in agony of soul contemplating the cross.
But no love for him when he denied him with oaths and curses. You see how far down we can go and confide in having confidence in our own strength, in our own love, rather than saying, Lord, I can't do this. You might say he lost Christ as the object.
Of his heart and of his strength as well.
So as we open up the the book of the Song of Solomon begin reading at chapter five, we find that something has happened. She who had had Christ revealed to her heart, you might say the right room revealed to her heart.
She was drifting a little bit in her soul. Did you ever feel like you're drifting a little bit and you've gotten a little bit away from the Lord Jesus? You've become a little bit indifferent.
In your spirit and the affection is not there. You have not been enjoying His love. That's where she is as we begin reading, especially in verse 2.
Let's begin reading with verse one.
I am come into my garden. This is the groom speaking, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh.
Mer speaks of Grace, how he comes to his people seeking a response.
A gracious response. Worship, communion, the joy of fellowship.
I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, oh friends, drink, yay, drink abundantly, oh beloved. The descriptive terms that he uses only conveys to your heart.
The deep desire in his soul.
Of having you.
In the good of walking with him, enjoying his company and having his love filling your hearts.
Verse two I sleep. What a change of events.
One who now was, one who was.
Used as the instrument of blessing to the heart of the groom is now sleeping.
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.
For my head is filled with dew and by locks with the drops of the night.
I have put off my coat. How shall I put it on?
I have washed my feet. How shall I defile them? My beloved put in his hand by the whole of the door, and my bowels or affections were moved for him.
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, but my beloved have withdrawn himself and was gone.
My soul failed when he spake.
00:10:04
I sought him.
But I could not find him.
Called him, but he gave no answer. The Watchmen that went about the city found me. They smoked me, They wounded me. The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.
I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love or love sick.
Then the question comes from the Daughters of Jerusalem.
What is thy beloved?
We need to be asked this question, beloved friends, what is thy beloved more than another? Beloved, oh, thou fairest among women.
What is thy beloved more than another beloved that thou dost so charge us?
My beloved is white and Ruddy, the cheapest among 10,000. The daughters of Jerusalem did not know relationship with the groom, the bridegroom.
They see one who who is trying to find the one whom her soul loved. But she was not with him. That was a very strange thing.
And so they ask her, What is thy beloved more than another beloved? This question probed their hearts to the very depths. Probed her heart to the very depths.
It searched her motives as to what had come in him in her life to create the complacency, the lethargy, the indifference.
Could we ask ourselves that question, beloved friends?
Do you remember a time in your life when your heart burned?
With the love of Christ.
Maybe it never has.
And I was older in my life when I ever got a taste of anything, as we speak of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Could it be that we are passing through this world onward to our eternal home without the slightest idea of what it means to have a burning heart like those two that went back from a mass to Jerusalem? Their hearts burned within us as He spoke with us, by the way.
It is possible to have a burning heart.
As important as it is to walk in the good of the truth, it is more important to have the burning heart, so to speak, to be in the enjoyment of the truth that we're walking in. That is what will keep us. The truth will never keep us. Is that not right? The truth will never keep us.
To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. And she woke up to this after it was too late. She was sleeping, and after she had heard the voice opened to me, my beloved, my love, my sister, my undefiled.
And when she woke up.
He was gone.
What really woke her up is when he put his hand through the hole in the door.
And we could say in the language, spiritual language, she perhaps noticed the print of the nails.
It might be just a fragment of something of Christ brought before you here in these meetings, that will awaken your and my spirits to that wonderful love that we once enjoyed. And if you've never enjoyed it, He wants you to come into all the blessed fullness of His love.
And now to show that she was once in it, because in chapter 2 she said the same thing. I am sick of love or love sick.
His left hand is under my head and his right hand embraces me and she says I am lovesick.
That's what will happen when you sit at the feet of Jesus, a sister told me on the way here, she said.
You know, I've read my Bible just as a matter of getting some information.
Is that how we read our Bible?
Other than allowing it to bring us into His presence, to sit us at His feet as Mary of old did sit at the feet of Jesus, she said. But when I stop and consider who it is it speaking and what He is saying to me personally, oh, my heart is filled.
With such a response to him because it's just as though he was speaking to me personally, and that's how much he wants your heart. That's why his language in this book is very personal. He's speaking to that bride that he loved, that bride of low degree, to bring her into such an enjoyment of himself that nothing else in this world will really preoccupy her.
00:15:20
It's like Rebecca, who was returning home.
With Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, What did he occupy her with? He is a picture of the spirit of God. He no doubt occupied her with Isaac, her coming bridegroom. And that's what the Spirit of God is seeking to occupy us with in the ministry.
Is the bridegroom that's soon coming for us? But, oh, how is it with us now as we are in this world? Are we passing through, indifferent to such claims?
Asleep in our hearts awaits how the sleep is, the Bible said. And arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.
He can awaken these hearts. The Bride here was a woke suddenly to realize the one that she had loved so much and been in the enjoyment of that love so very much was gone.
And he only withdrew himself to draw her after him.
In fact, in the first chapter it says draw me and we will run after thee. So he seeks to do that by vanishing out of her presence, as it was with the two on the way. Or I should say, who were enemies, and he vanishes from their presence to make them seekers of himself.
We can't live without him, beloved.
We can't, no matter what we say or do.
You can't get on in your school life. I can't get on in my business life. You cannot get on in your married lives together, in your family lives together without it being Christ and only Him. You can't. Something else will come in.
Some other object from the world will come into that home and rob you of that enjoyment of he himself. And it was so with her. She fell asleep on the desert on the way home, so to speak.
And the daughters of Jerusalem who never knew relationship, they never knew intimacy with the bridegroom.
They ask her what is thy beloved more than another, and it prompts not a premeditated response, not a rehearsed recitation.
It prompts that which she had.
In her heart that she had lost the good of.
Other things came in and replaced that burning love.
That she once enjoyed for her bridegroom.
And now she pours forth this blessed tenfold response.
In the previous chapter, he had spoken of the bride, that is, the bridegroom had spoken of his bride.
In A7 fold description here it is 10.
And she pours out her heart.
In response to the query, what is thy beloved more than another?
And the first thing she comes to is my beloved is white and Ruddy the chiefest among 10,000 That was the first thing upon her. Who is so white, Who is so pure? Who is so righteous as the one that the word of God speaks of, who is wholly harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners?
One who did no sin, one in whom there was number sin.
One who knew no sin.
He made him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. This is what was brought before her in type.
He is white. He is pure. He is holy.
All of his ways, all all of his thoughts, all of his speaking, perfect holiness and righteousness. And then she says, white and ready. David was of a ready countenance. You know what that means.
He was in the bloom of rosy cheeked.
Youth.
Red.
The blood of Jesus Christ his Son.
Cleanse of us from all sin. What is so red?
00:20:03
So beautiful to the heart of the believer.
In one sense.
The blood that he shed at the cross.
Without the shedding of blood there is no remission, and in her general description of him of her bridegroom, it is white and Ruddy, the chiefest among 10,000 He as the Redeemer, so to speak, is brought before her soul.
We have not been redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.
Is there one in this company that has never been redeemed? You have never trusted the coming bridegroom, the one who had come into this world, Christ Jesus came into the world to save you.
Have you never trusted that precious blood? And we might say she has seen him, and has believed in Him, so to speak. You have seen Him, so to speak too. In what you've heard about Him and in the scriptures have you believed in the one that you have seen?
This one that was transfigured before them.
On the Mount, the Lord Jesus Christ that is saving faith. When you come to that point where there is no other rescue, there is no other means of salvation. Neither is there salvation than any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It's only Jesus, and it's only Jesus for enjoyment and happiness in your life. Only Jesus. That's it.
Nothing more, nothing less. You can't get more. You can get a whole lot less in this world.
But you can't get more than him because he is everything.
His head is as the most fine gold.
Did you ever stop and think, beloved friends? I know you have.
About the head.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
O head once full of bruises.
So full of pain and scorn.
Mid other sore abuses.
Mocked with a crown of thorn.
The head here, the most fine gold speaks of divine supremacy.
But man did that very thing to Jesus, crowned him with thorns, that very blessed head of his.
And finally the wrath of God was poured out on him.
Have you ever owned him as your Lord?
The head of your life.
The beloved apostles on the way, that is Saul on the way to Damascus, who became Paul, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
That's accepting his Lordship over your life. Have you done that?
You'll never be happy.
Until you do that, you can never be brought into His divine fellowship.
And company, and the sweetness of his love without that.
Never.
You must make him Lord.
Martha, as she stood at the sepulchre, she said. They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where where they have laid him.
Can you say, My Lord? You may be able to say Jesus as my savior, but can you say?
He is my Lord.
My Lord, can you go to school and say to your friends he is?
Jesus is my Lord.
You see how far we are from ever coming into this place of blessed enjoyment of Him, because there are little elements in our lives we will let slip and let go.
That have caused the effects of his love to be lost from our hearts and minds.
His locks are bushy and black as a Raven. That is the vigor and strength of youth. In this blessed one he never changes. He will fold the earth and the heavens up, as a vesture says in Hebrews chapter One. But thou art the same here. His years shall not fail.
He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
And yet he was cut off in the midst of his years.
00:25:00
In his youth, so to speak.
But His love will never change towards you, no matter whatever happens in your life. If you've been brought into the family of God, you are as secure today, even though you may have failed in your life.
You're as secure today as the very day you were saved, because nothing can ever change that security. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Not wonderful. Religion can't do that.
But of saving the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can.
He saves you, He keeps you, He will take you all the way home, but there is loss along the way.
If we allow things to come in, the little foxes spoil the vines.
But the little foxes grow into overwhelming giants.
And we find as we get older, we can't let go of some of these habits of life. It's true young people.
That little habit that you have in your life, it may be just the thoughts of your mind.
It may be something that you are allowing in your life to go on with.
Will become a giant someday.
And that giant someday may become idolatry someday.
And when it becomes idolatry, Satan's power is real to destroy and quench the love of Christ in your heart.
That most wonderful element that is missing so much today in Christianity in general, it's neutralized. Today we're living in days of Laodicea. Beloved, we can't pretend to be living in days of Philadelphia and but by that the scripture shows clearly what is meant.
It is the people's rights in Laodicea.
Indifference to Christ, Heartlessness towards the Lord Jesus Christ. He is dethroned from our hearts in laodicea.
And he was enthroned in Philadelphia.
That's when the truth was recovered.
The testimony of those gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he was owned as head of His Church, that blessed truth was restored. And Speaking of the head, have you ever come to that place, not only owning him as Lord of your life?
But head of the body his church.
He is the head over all things to the Church.
He is before all things and by all him all things consist or are held together. And then it says in Colossians 118 he is the head of his body. The church. Have you owned him as head? I don't mean I'm not asking you if you come to the assembly meetings.
I did for many years and never owned him as the head of his church. This was the blessed truth that was recovered, one of the truths that was recovered in the early 1800s. Man has displaced the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living head of his church, and he guides by the Holy Spirit when we come together, by His grace in the hour before us.
The Holy Spirit dwells in the house he leads.
He guides where man has misplaced his leadership, his headship.
We own. We have no head but him.
You can make that choice.
This morning.
And even though there are just two or three people where you meet or maybe four or five.
To own the truth and blessedness of he being the head of his body, the Church, When you see it in the word of God, it will mean everything to you. And you will say, I can't leave it, I can't leave the assembly. The truth of Christ in the midst and as Him being the head is so vitally important to my life because it's what He has brought before me as the truth of His work.
Make him your Lord. Own him as the head of his body, the Church.
And you will be blessed in a way that you have never, ever thought, even though there's just a small company. We don't need numbers to make us happy, beloved. We think we do. It's nice to have a wonderful group of of brethren brothers and sisters like this, to sing together, to have fellowship together, to rejoice in Christ together. Nothing like it. Think of what heaven's going to be like with the millions and millions of Saints all singing on key, in harmony together around the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:30:07
It'll be the same then as it as it is here, and it says in Thessalonians, I beseech you by.
The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him, That's it. That is at his coming. It'll be no different there except all of the Saints will be home, all the divisions will be gone, and the divisiveness of Satans efforts behind us.
Will have Christ in the midst. In that day no man will preside an eternal glory.
And may it be so with us now no man presides.
But him?
His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of water. Have you ever gotten close enough to a dove?
To look at the eye of a dove, I have a dove come and lay some eggs and a little flower pot I had hanging outside of my kitchen window.
And he was. She was so protective of those eggs, I could get within inches of her and just examine the eye of that dove.
It was a picture of gentleness.
That's the eye of Jesus.
Gentleness.
Compassion.
In fact, the bridegroom says in chapter one, thou hast dove's eyes. He says that to the bride, one that languishes for her mate.
Attachment.
Languishing after that relationship.
There is no I.
No eyes like the eyes of Jesus.
And he thinks about you, beloved, and he thinks about me every day of our lives. His eyes are upon us.
He is of pure eyes than to behold iniquity.
He looks at us in Christ. Oh, he knows our failures, yes, but he deals with us accordingly in perfect love, faithful love, Sometimes faithful love, but the eyes of a dove. Then it says.
By the rivers of water there were tears that ran down the face and the cheeks.
Of Jesus.
John 1125 The shortest verse in all the Bible. Jesus wept.
Oh, what eyes he has for you, beloved. You fill his vision.
His delights are with the sons of men. He is going to have you and me with him forever, and all of the bride of Christ.
Gathered around him to shower his affection and his love and compassion upon us forever.
All Do you realize how much he thinks of you? How much does a bridegroom think of his bride before that?
Wedding day. Every moment of the day he is occupied with her. He is occupied with you and me, anticipating that day of glory, of course, but he wants that affection reciprocating now towards him.
Washed with milk. Purity of vision.
And fitly set he has an eye for you.
Unlike, maybe an eye for your friend who is in Christ.
He has a purpose for you.
He may order differently for you than he does for your other brother and sister in Christ.
His vision is always perfect towards his own and knows exactly what to give them and to order for them.
We are to be guided by his eyes. Psalm Chapter 37. That Eye of perfect.
Holy vision.
His cheeks are as a bed of spices.
Oh beloved, when we think of the face of Jesus.
It was so marred more than any man.
There is no beauty before the people of Israel that they should desire him. There was no beauty in him that they should desire him.
00:35:01
The natural eye does not see beauty in Christ. And have you ever thought, how could they ever crucify and murder the Son of God, so to speak?
Because of his loving kindness and the gracious acts of love all for his pathway, how could they take one like that and do that to to him?
There is no connection in the heart, the human heart, with Jesus. It must be through being born again that you'll have any desire for him, or that you will ever see any beauty in Christ.
If you belong to him, you see beauty in him.
To the world, he is detestable.
Detestable The human heart is an enmity with.
Christ.
And they only reveal the enmity of the human heart. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.
Shown out of the cross terrible. The cheeks are an emblem of sweetness and attractive beauty. There is no attraction like his. There is no beauty like him, like with him.
When the world says there's no beauty that we desire him, to the believer he is the only beauty that the only one I'll find true beauty and glory.
Attractive beauty and sweetness.
And what did they do to his cheeks?
His face was so marred. More than any man, they blindfolded him.
And smote him on the face. They smashed him on the face. How many times?
Until his face.
Was sworn no doubt.
And bruised.
And they spit upon that lovely face, crowned him with thorns.
And spit upon him.
Judas kissed him with a kiss of betrayal, treachery.
On the cheek.
His lips.
Like lilies.
Dropping sweet smelling myrrh.
Mer speaks of grace. There is no lips that ever spake like him.
At the outset of his ministry in this world, it says, they marveled at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.
And when the officers went to arrest him, they said, never man speak like this man. And then on the cross of Calvary, when he was crowned with thorns, no doubt with blood flowing down his blessed face and the spittle running down his face, his hands and feet nailed to the cross, what does he say?
Father, forgive them.
For they know not what they do. He looked at his mother and he said to John, take her to thine own home.
Do we know the heart of Jesus?
Do we?
There is no heart like his. There is no love like his.
In all the world, And again I repeat it, is the discovery of the infinite worth of this blessed One that will give you the assurance of His love as well as the enjoyment of His love, and will keep you from all the alarms in this world, Beloved.
All of them. All of them. It will deliver your heart. It will deliver your mind. It will deliver your feet, your pathway from going off in the fields of sin and pleasure.
But it's only his love as it fills your heart. You won't want the world. It's not a question. Christianity is not a question of making rules and regulation for your life. And while I can do this, but I can't do that when you have the love of Christ filling your heart and know that it were more so with me.
You won't want anything.
To disturb or awaken love as it is mentioned in chapter 2.
That's how he frames it. You will not want anything to disturb your fellowship with such love. It has so won your heart.
And yet we try to discipline ourselves. We need to judge ourselves, no doubt, with all of these issues. But the greater power in your life is going to come from fellowship with this blessed. 1 Knowing him that I may know him in the power of his resurrection, and the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, that I may win Christ or have his approval for my life.
00:40:20
His hands, all beloved. His hands. He had put his hand through the hole in the door. She no doubt had seen the nail prints.
His hands now, she said, are as gold rings. Divine love rings on his finger. I have fought and I'll just suggest this. Does this not speak of his commitment of love to his bride?
That he is going to be married to an earthly bride, no doubt too.
You are going to be escorted, as our brother put it one year escorted past the great ones of the Old Testament.
Moses and Elias, all of those that we read of David.
To the very place of greatest nearness to the Lord Jesus Christ. You are part of that company He calls His bride, and you will be introduced to Him, and He will claim you as His Bride. Those rings on His hand, no doubt pointing forth to that day that He looks forward to.
And what did the world do to those hands?
And that divine love that he showed.
The barrel that is the gem in the gold ring.
Is crystallite. My father had some of that in his collection. It's a yellowish stone in the gold ring that takes on a yellow cast.
And what happens as we are in such?
Fellowship with him, with his love, we take on that very character.
Of gold will never be, of course, like him.
We will be conformed to his image partially here, but completely there.
But that gem that he has is like a reminder of you.
The treasure hid in a field which when a man hath found, he taketh and he hideth it, and he goes and sells all that he has that he might buy the field. You're the treasure, you're the gym, but he's going to change your life.
You can only change it as you get close to him.
The daughters of Jerusalem didn't know anything about intimacy. She did. And as you know something about intimacy, it will change your life.
God hates familiarity. Judas was familiar. My non familiar friend, he said. Jesus said, has lifted up his heel against me. He knew something about familiar arity. We used familiar expressions about and to the Lord sometimes, but do we use intimate expressions as he does?
Towards us.
His belly as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires that speaks of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The deep affections.
He said I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint.
And my heart is melted like wax in the midst of my bowels.
Were affections.
I have a baptism to be baptized with before he got to the crosses. I have a baptism to be baptized with. And how am I straight until it be accomplished?
Deep within him was that reserve until the work of the cross was finished, and then the love of God flowed out through the whole world.
He offered up prayers with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him out of death.
And he was heard, and that he feared.
Tears feeling deeply within him.
The agonies of the cross that were before him, and in the garden he sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground. Oh, deeply within the depths of his soul he felt the suffering ahead of time, and when it took place his heart was melted like wax pits to his bowels.
Overlaid with sapphires, bright ivory out of the ivory palaces. That's where he is today.
00:45:05
Sapphires are bluish cast. Steve and I were walking up the path this morning and we were saying, oh, the blue, the blue sky. And I noticed that John made these verses in blue.
We have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
But was in all points tempted, like as we yet without sin.
He is there exercising that divine love as High Priest towards us, to help us through this life, to keep us in communion, and to play the Part 2 of the Advocate when we fail to cleanse us from those defiling elements that do come in.
His legs are as pillars of marble.
Set upon sockets of fine gold.
How did he walk in this world, beloved? Well, let's think of a scripture. He left us this example that we should follow his in his steps, who did no sin. Neither was guile found in his mouth. When he reviled and reviled not again when he suffered. He threatened not, and even at the cross not a word of rebuke.
He reduced the penalty from first degree murder.
To 2nd degree, which was forgivable by saying Father forgive them for they know not what they do, but the marble would remind us of continuance, steadfastness and continuance in his reign.
Oh, what a day is coming today. He stepped back from the scene. And yet he is ruling providentially, and he is ruling providentially in your life and mine. Do we allow him to rule to order?
Providentially, you say, Why did this happen to my friend? She was a Christian, and look at she's she's crippled.
She's in a wheelchair.
Or there are those that lay on a sick bed most of their lives. Why does he do that?
It's the strength of his purpose in governing our lives. We need to yield to His purposes because As for God, his way is perfect, and we will see it in the coming day when all are gathered together in that day of glory, His perfection of divine love and wisdom in suiting us.
To be just like Jesus, all having a place.
Little baby that died has a place. Everyone in their place in perfect order.
We may not understand today. We may not ever understand till we get home.
But he has a purpose of love. Yield to him, that's all. Just yield. Submit unto his way. It's perfect.
Set upon sockets of fine gold in Daniel chapter 2. The image was of fine gold in the feet iron and clay. There was deterioration, but not with Christ.
His walk was perfect.
And in perfect purity and righteousness his countenance as Lebanon, excellent as the Cedars, He is the blessed and only potentate. The word of God, says King of Kings and Lord of Lords, is the entire aspect of his person, the bearing of his person. And this world is going to see him in his appearing.
And every eye shall wail because of him, and they will look upon him whom they pierced.
And they'll say, what are these? What are these wounds in my hands?
And he will say, the wounds with which I was wounded in the House of my friends.
Oh, what a glorious person we have before us. The greatness of his glory. We can't fathom it.
What dignity is associated with him as a leader, as the Cedars of Lebanon?
Speaking of his.
Exaltation in glory.
His mouth. And now she comes down to this, his most sweet.
The mouth is a little bit different than the lips. The lips speak of, of course, with myrrh, that divine grace that flowed ever from his blessed speech. How do we speak to one another graciously? Do we?
00:50:06
Or do we speak harshly, abruptly?
Dogmatically.
Or kindly let your your speech be all the way with grace, seasoned with soul.
As you behold the Savior in His love or in the enjoyment of it, you'll be able to do that.
And it'll change the effect of your friends reactions to you, believe me.
His mouth, however.
Is that which is sweetness.
In chapter one we already mentioned, she said Let him kiss me. With the kisses of his mouth, she won the assurance of his love.
And that is a key to having assurance of someone's love to give them.
A kiss. Beware though, beloved young people, beware of.
That element in your life.
It's a confirmation of true love to someone.
His mouth is most sweet.
She only needed his love, not someone else's love.
Ephraim had strangers that were devouring his strength, and Gray hairs were upon the head of Ephraim.
He had let out his affections to other things.
Yeah, he is altogether lovely altogether.
Altogether, you found other loves in this life that will never.
As she wasn't tired of speaking, it was as though she said. I can't say anymore. I can't say enough. He's altogether, altogether lovely.
This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. She was not an observer.
She was not just a witness to this person, this love.
There wasn't just attachment, she said. This is my beloved. Like Martha, who said he is my Lord, this is my beloved and this is my friend.
Beloved speaks of one who is adored.
Friend is one who you can tell all of your problems to and share your heart. Bury your heart to.
Not wonderful.
So all the way through.
You have a wonderful picture of Jesus.
This is the one that we're going to be in wrapped with for all eternity. But here, beloved, we have the opportunity.
We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. That is our present wonderful privilege to not just be an observer.
To not just look on.
But to say he is mine?
He is my beloved. He is my friend.
Vine Jesus Thine.
Can you say this no more? This heart of mine shall find its joy apart from Thee. The world is crucified to me.
And I belong.
To thee I am yours.
I don't want any other loves in this life.
I want one that is perfect.
Thou art my beloved and my friend.
Could we sing together number?
76 in the back of the book.
Jesus thine no more this heart of mine.
Shall seek its joy apart from the world is crucifix.
To me.
And I am born.