The Song of Solomon, specifically chapter 5, to reveal the multifaceted loveliness of Jesus Christ. The examples highlight how the bride's description of her beloved, from his "white and ruddy" purity and passion to his "chiefest among ten thousand" uniqueness, serves as a profound portrait of Christ. The sermon details various symbolic descriptions, such as his head like fine gold representing deity, his eyes like doves showing pity, and his lips like lilies signifying his sweet preaching, ultimately concluding that Christ is "altogether lovely." The message encourages believers to meditate on these aspects of Christ's character and to share their love for him with others, drawing parallels to the Old Testament's divine ordering of books and the New Testament's allusions to this song.
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Now tonight, please, we want to look at the little song, the song of Solomon, the song of songs, and to read that great central portion, that great portrait of the Lord Jesus in chapter five, the song chapter five. Now it's lovely when a believer has asked a question like the question of verse nine. What is thy beloved more than another beloved? And when the world asks you, what do you really find?
What do you really see in him? Then it's lovely to be able to answer that. And the portion that we're looking at now, that question, an expanded answer to the question as to what he is more than any other. So verse ten. and the spouse, the bride says, My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold. His locks are bushy and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers.
His lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling nerve. His hands as gold rings set with the barrel, his inwards as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires, his legs as pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold, his countenance as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, yea, he is altogether loveliest, is my beloved, And this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. And it is no surprise that having so subscribed him that the daughters of Jerusalem now reply with another question.
And they say, Whither is thy beloved gone, O thy fairest among women, whither is thy beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with thee. And the Lord will bless now that reading. from his word. I'm sure we all know that there is a divine arrangement in the order of the books of our Bible. The books of the Old Testament are very specially ordered in a very intriguing way, and I trust that none of us think that These are simply a collection of writings haphazardly thrown together because they're not.
And I sometimes wish that earlier in my Christian life I had learned that there was a divine order. I think that for me it would have made an approach to the Old Testament a little bit easier. And I trust the young believer in the meeting this evening will see this divine arrangement and find it indeed a very thrilling order, divine order in the way the books are put together. The book of Genesis, of course, is not the first book to be written. I think we can be fairly sure of that. The book of Job would be older than the book of Genesis. But nevertheless, the book of Genesis is first, and from that beginning, that intelligent beginning, there is an orderly setting out.
Now there are thirty-nine books, of course, in our Old Testament, and they are divided, actually, broadly speaking, into three groups. There are seventeen books at the beginning. There are seventeen books at the end. And that means, of course, that there are five books in the middle. Now, the seventeen books at the beginning are seventeen books of history. Generally speaking, they are historical records, seventeen books of history at the beginning. But the seventeen books at the end are seventeen books of prophecy. a variety of prophetic writings but they are all books of prophecy the seventeen at the end and right in the very heart between those two blocks of seventeen there are five books of poetry five books of poetry between the historical and the prophetical now it's not our purpose tonight but it's interesting to see that the seventeen are divided again very intelligently And the other seventeen at the other end are equally divided very intelligently.
And they, like the books of the poets, they begin with a series of five. The first five books of our Bible, of course, they go together so much that we refer to them as the Pentateuch, which means the five books. And the five books of Moses, they are the first of the first seventeen. When you come to that other block of seventeen, they begin with what we call the five major prophets. And again, they're distinct in character from the other prophets. So the five major prophecies from Isaiah through to Daniel, they begin that other block of seventeen. Now, between these two blocks, as we have said, we have five books of poetry.
And the greatest of these books of poetry is the Book of the Psalms. And again, the Book of the Psalms, was originally five books. So you see that the five is very predominant, and I think that most of my brethren will agree, that the number five seems to be always linked with grace. There is a showing of grace somehow every time you get this number five, and I'm sure that we can see that somehow, but that's not our purpose this evening. Now of the five books of poems, the five books of poetry, this little book from which we have read tonight is the fifth one. It is the last of them, and in some respects, I suppose, it is very, very sweet, and I trust that we are able to encourage you this evening to a reading of this lovely little song of songs.
Now, an interesting thing about it is that, so far as I know, it is never specifically quoted in the New Testament. I don't think that it has ever... directly quoted or referred to even in the New Testament. But there may perhaps be quite a number of allusions to it. And here and there throughout the New Testament, it would be easy to see allusions to the song of Solomon. For instance, some think that the well of living water in John chapter four might well be a reference to the song. We read in Ephesians five of a bride, a spotless bride, a bride without spot. And it might be that there, perhaps, is a throwback to the song of Solomon.
When we go to James chapter five, we read there about the precious fruits, and that almost seems like language from the song that James is using. And in first Corinthians thirteen, we read about unquenchable love, and you would nearly think that that chapter had been actually taken from the song. When you go to John chapter twelve, you read about ointment being poured forth, and again it's very, very like the first chapter of the song, that John chapter twelve. In John chapter six, we read about the Father drawing us, hearts being drawn to the Savior, and it reminds us of the draw me, and we will run after thee that we have again in chapter one.
Over and over again in the New Testament, we have the Lord Jesus as the shepherd, and we have him, of course, as the shepherd leading his flock in John ten, and that language is very, very often in the song. And then when we go to Philippines, we read that expression, the fruits of righteousness. and that again is very like the vocabulary of the song. So if it is not specifically or directly quoted, well, it certainly seems to be alluded to very often in the New Testament, and so I don't think that we have any problem in finding the Lord Jesus in the little song. Now, we have all sorts of ways of referring to this song.
Sometimes I hear it put into the plural and people talk about Solomon's songs and the songs of Solomon. Well, it is only one song, of course. It is the song of Solomon. And the song of Solomon is quite correct, but it's not full enough and it's not true enough. The title of this book is in the opening verse. It is the song of songs. And if Solomon wrote it, well, that's true. That's a secondary thing, but its true title is that it is the song of songs. Now, that means that it is not only the greatest song that Solomon ever wrote, but it's the greatest of all songs that ever have been written.
And the greatest of all songs, it so happens that Solomon wrote it, but it is the song of all songs. Now, to put that little expression into my mind, to fix it in my mind, I often think of other expressions that are very similar to that in structure, the song of songs. You remember that back in the book of Daniel, in chapter two of the book of Daniel, you'll find that God, Jehovah, is referred to as a God of gods. Now, those people of Babylon, of course, they were very familiar with other gods. But here was a god who was a god of gods. He was, you see, the supreme among all the gods.
He was different. He was greatest among the gods. So that is a similar structure, the god of gods. Remember when Solomon was praying at the dedication of the temple, and he's talking about the greatness of God, and he remarks that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, much less, he says, this house that I have built. But he uses the expression, the heaven of heavens. Now, in our Bible, perhaps we have three heavens. Some of the old rabbis used to think that there were seven. Well, at any rate, the heaven of heavens would seem to be that heaven, which is the very immediate presence of God, that is the greatest of the heavens, the immediate presence of God.
And so the God of gods, the heaven of heavens, and the song of songs. But there are more expressions like that when you go to the book of Exodus. And we were speaking of this the other afternoon, Lord's Day afternoon, was it? You read there about the holiest of all, and very literally translated, that is, of course, the holy of holies. And there were two holy places, and I suppose the court was holy also, but this was the most holy of all the holy places, the very inner shrine, and the holy of holies is the holiest of all. And of course we all know that in Solomon's previous book, the book of Ecclesiastes, the theme of that book is vanity of vanities.
And he searches earth for the many vanities that there are amongst men. And then concludes the vanity of vanity. Searching for satisfaction down here, that is the greatest vanity of all vanities. Vanity of vanities, he says, in the book of Ecclesiastes. When you go to the New Testament, the Lord Jesus is called King of Kings. And in the same chapter in Revelation, he's called Lord of Lords. And there is another little expression which does not refer to the Lord Jesus directly, but sometimes I think it almost might. And away back in the book of Genesis chapter nine, you read about a servant of servants.
And he certainly did become that voluntarily in the days of his humility, a servant of servants. Now you can see then that this little song that we're concerned with tonight is a song that has to do with one who was actually the God of God. Not only that, but he lived in the heaven of heavens, and even that could not contain him. He is the answer to the holy of holies. He is the answer to the vanity of vanities. One day he will be king of kings, and one day he will be acknowledged as Lord of lords. And when he was here in the days of his flesh, he was the servant of servants.
And therefore, being such a person, any little song that sings of him must be the song of all songs. And that's what we're concerned with tonight, a little song which has to do with that glorious person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in this fifth of the books of poetry, there might be five very distinct portraits of the Lord Jesus. There might be more, but I think there are at least five. I think that you see the Lord Jesus very clearly, and you can see him as the shepherd. You can see him right through the song as the lover, and you can see him ultimately as the bridegroom.
And then you see him in one chapter as the gardener, interested in his people, as one would be interested in a garden of fruit. And it's interesting again that when you come to look for him as the king, that five times in the song, there's that number again, five times in the song he is actually referred to as the king. So you see then that this song is most interesting and of course the interpretation of the song is very difficult. The interpretation of the actual story behind this song is a most difficult story and our brethren would disagree quite a little bit as to the exact meaning, the story behind the song.
Now, whatever the details might mean, I think that perhaps we can see that there are three chief persons in the song. There is one who is a king, no doubt about that, and there is one who is a shepherd, and there is another one whom we refer to as the bride, or sometimes we call her the spouse. Now, do we see three persons then, or are we entitled to see that the king and the shepherd are the one and the same person, but seen under a different guise? Now, that's the way that I would look at it, that the king and the shepherd in the song are the one and the same person. and that sometimes, for his own reasons, the king presents himself to his bride as a shepherd, and in other parts he is seen in all his glory as the king.
But I put it to you, that the king and the shepherd are the same person, and he is, or they are, the bridegroom. and the other person, of course, is the bride. Now, again, by strict interpretation, I don't suppose that we are entitled to find the church here. Perhaps this bridal figure is wider than the church. I can certainly see that the church is the bride in the book of Ephesians, but it might be that in second Corinthians chapter eleven, it is the local assembly that is seen as the bride. And perhaps here it might be a remnant of Israel. And I think we would have to remember just that it is a figure that is being used, and the bridal figure can be used in different ways.
And in this little song, the bridal figure is originally used of the remnant of his people. That real Israel within Israel, that remnant of a coming day, I'm sure, will make much use of this little song. But then, of course, we must be very careful. We mustn't restrict ourselves because if we had restricted to strict interpretation all the language of the Old Testament, then you know some of us would have missed out in Isaiah fifty-three. It might well be that Isaiah fifty-three has a different, strict interpretation to what I saw in it the night that I was saved. For when I came that night as a boy looking for a Savior, I knew that Isaiah fifty-three and five meant so much to me.
He was wounded for my transgressions, I said. And I had no idea that what I heard afterwards was probably correct, that it was, as our brethren say, the very passionate song of Israel to be sung by a remnant in a coming day. I didn't know anything about that. But what I had done was this. I borrowed the language of a remnant. And if that language exalted Christ, then that was all right. I could use it. And it doesn't matter whether he's the Messiah of the nation, whether he is the beloved one of the remnant, or whether he is the bridegroom of the church. If I can find language anywhere that exalts the Savior, I think I'm entitled to use that language.
And that's how I read the song. And it might be that we are, as some of our brethren have twently remarked, It might be that we are sucking honey from Israel's flowers. Well, I'm sure we can do that, and it's very sweet indeed. Maybe Israel's language and the language of the remnant, but at any rate, it's language that exalts the Savior, and so we are entitled to use it. Now, you know, I'm sure, that the first song in our Bible is in Exodus fifteen. And the last song in our Bible is in Revelation fifteen. And there is a great similarity between these two songs. Both of these songs are connected with redemption, and both of them are connected with a slain lamb.
But when you come, of course, to the Revelation chapter fifteen, the redemption is complete, and the lamb slain is alive again, and he's glorified now. But nevertheless, the first song is very characteristic. and it is the song of redemption and the song of the lamb. Now, what lovely language is this then in this song that sings up about him who is the lamb of the other song? And right through this lovely little poem, this lovely song, we have so much beautiful language that really does extol and exalt the person of the Lord Jesus. Now, in this chapter five, as we have already remarked, the bride is asked the question what is thy beloved more than another beloved and I trust that the young believer feels very free and that the Lord will give you courage in your place of work or study or whatever you might be to speak for the Lord Jesus when opportunity presents itself and if you do that it will each time of witness will strengthen you for another time of witness and then eventually it will become a joy now some of us perhaps are a little bit reticent by nature, and for some
of us it has been quite, I suppose, quite a struggle to try in our places of business or study to speak of the Lord Jesus. Nevertheless, I trust that you live for him and when the opportunity arises to speak for him. I used to work for a man, or with a man rather, and he was a very, very ungodly man, a very wicked man with very, very bad language, and no love at all for the Christians. And he used to torment me, especially in a Monday morning when I would come in, and I was just a very young believer at the time, and his favorite way of jibing was that he would begin to bring out to me the faults of the Christians.
And unfortunately, some of these things were all too true, and there wasn't much that... that I could say, and he seemed to delight in just parading the faults of the Lord's people before me, and then he would sneer and he would say, he's a Christian, you know, and he would talk like this. And it used to hurt me very much. I one day prayed very specially about it, and I was going in again on the Monday morning, and I made up my mind what I would do. So he began again, he made an attempt to begin, and I said, look, before you start this morning, I said, I want to ask you a question. I said, tell me, what do you think of Christ? What do you think of the Lord Jesus?
Oh, he said, I want to, and he tried to get on to the believers again. I said, Luke, now in all fairness, I'm not listening to you anymore until you tell me what you think of him. I said, what do you think of him? To use his own language, what think ye of Christ? What do you think of the Lord Jesus? And he made some evasive remark, and he left me. And that was it for a day or two. And then he came back again and he started again. And I said, look, I'm not entitled. I'm not prepared to listen to you until you answer my question. I said, what do you think of Christ? What do you think of him? What fault? Have you found faults in him too? What do you think of Christ now?
Tell me, what do you think of him? And again he evaded and they left me. Eventually, he didn't talk to me any more about the faults of the believers, and he had no answer for that question. What think ye of Christ? It was that that silenced his enemies, and it's this that silences his enemies still. But to ask the same question of a believer, oh, how different is that? And I wonder what joy we would have if we were to talk to each other and ask the question, what do you think of him? Tell me what you've thought of him today, what you found of him today, or what, as you have last been reading, have you discovered about himself? And to talk and converse together about the Savior, well, this must be the most delightful occupation down here, and we shall certainly go on doing that forever.
and not only talk to each other but converse with the father and as we said the other the other evening that is perhaps the highest ground that ever we shall reach conversing with God about his son now I once heard a brother say and it provoked me to some thought and exercise but if you wanted to really test or gauge how you were progressing how you're getting on this brother suggested Find out for how long you can talk to God about his son and nothing else. To get alone with God, to get into the quietness and the privacy of your own room and speak to the father, and speak to him about his son, only his son, and see for how long you can do that.
And what a lovely exercise that is, but how many of us perhaps, and we would have to acknowledge it wouldn't take very long. and we would run short of language. Well, of course, we shall gather the language as we keep reading our Bible, and as we keep getting little bits and pieces here and there concerning the Lord Jesus from all parts of our Bible, then this is the language that we shall use to the Father when we are communing with him about his Son. So I do trust that perhaps you'll search your heart and I'll search mine. And we'll ask, we'll discover for how long we can talk to the father about the son. And maybe we'll see now that this is exactly what the bride is doing.
Someone has asked her to speak of him. And immediately now she embarks upon this lovely description. and we have to be very careful that we don't let imagination run away with us we have to interpret this in a sane and balanced way and to see the loveliness of the bridegroom in this symbolical language that the bride uses now of course the Oriental, perhaps he does have a very picturesque way of saying things. And that's what we have here. It is a most beautiful, symbolical, picturesque language. We've got to try to determine what the bride is meaning and what the mind of the spirit is as in these lovely words she describes her beloved.
Now, I have found reading down it, and there are so many words that I think I would only have to just mention them perhaps very quickly and move on. But taking that expression at the end of the description, so well known to us, he is altogether lovely. I thought reading down this that really it was just little glimpses of different lovelinesses, if you like, of the bridegroom. And I thought I saw that in about maybe ten or eleven different ways, the loveliness of the bridegroom was brought out. And I just want to put a word to each of these and to leave it with you for your meditation to see these different aspects of the loveliness of the Lord Jesus, who is the bridegroom.
Before we go to it, can I mention one thing, and to me it is the miracle of this day and the miracle of the gospel, and I trust that we never cease to wonder at the miracle of this, that we actually love a Savior whom we have never seen. The world can't understand that, but it is one of the evidences of the power and the genuineness of the gospel that there has been begotten in our hearts a real love for a Savior whom we have never seen. Now, in the East, and still it applies today, as it did in those days, in certain parts still, the custom still prevails, but the marriage procedure, the wedding procedures in the East, they're a little bit different to what we have here.
And the wedding procedure really was divided into three sections or three parts. There was, first of all, what they called a betrothal period, and that still applies, and the betrothal period, that betrothal was actually as binding, as legally binding as marriage was. That may have lasted for a year, it may have lasted for longer, and the betrothal was a very, very binding arrangement. Now, the interesting thing, of course, to remember, as we have said already, that sometimes during that betrothal period, Many an Eastern bride to be had never actually looked on the face of her bridegroom to be.
And there was many an Eastern bride. And during that betrothal period, she must have wondered what she could have been like. And she wouldn't see him actually until the day of the wedding, till the day of the marriage. Now, we are in a sense like that. We are betrothed to a bridegroom whom we have never seen. But the miracle of it is that we love him. Though we have never seen him, we love him. That is the wonder of it and the miracle of it. The day has yet to come when we shall see his face for the first time. But we love him nevertheless. And so we're in the betrothal period today. Now, when the day of the marriage arrived, when the day of the actual wedding came, the next stage or the next step, if you like, in the marriage procedure was this, that the bridegroom left his house, his father's house, and he made his way to the house of the bride, and personally he collected the bride at the bride's home.
And having collected her there personally, he brought her back to the father's house. and in the privacy and quietness of the father's house the marriage was solemnized the wedding ceremony took place that was the second stage well you can see that we wait for that we're in the betrothal period and we're waiting for him coming and he'll come from the father's house and he'll collect us personally and he'll take us home into the father's house and somewhere there in the father's house the marriage will be enacted the wedding ceremony if you like will take place the marriage of the lamb now after that the next stage or step was this that the marriage over now the bride and the bridegroom they came out together and they went around the district and they collected the guests for the marriage supper And that's what you have in Matthew twenty five.
Behold, the bridegroom cometh. I suggest that the marriage is over, and the bride and the bridegroom are now going round and collecting the guests. And then in great procession, they went in to the marriage supper, and the doors were closed. And you know, they celebrated sometimes for a week and sometimes for a fortnight. And I think that we shall do it for the millennium. We shall celebrate that marriage. that in which we ourselves are involved as the bride. But now the wonder of it is that we are betrothed to a bridegroom whom we have not yet seen Is it then anything to be wondered at that we shall want to know more about him?
And every description that we can find of him, every little word picture that we can find of him, we are anxious to peruse it and to meditate upon it and to see what kind of person he is to whom we are betrothed and whom we have not yet seen but whom, I repeat, we love. Well, someone asks the bride then, here in this chapter, tell us, what is your beloved more than another beloved? O thou fairest among women, what is he more than another beloved that you talk to us like this? And then she gets into her description and her first expression, she says, my beloved is white and ruddy.
White and ruddy. Well, I would suppose that that is very simple among all the symbolic language. And here is that whiteness that we might say is the loveliness of his purity. And here is that ruddiness which seems to be the devotion that has taken him through his passion into deep suffering, the ruddiness of the Savior, the man of Calvary. And I think as we see the white and ruddy one, that we are seeing the loveliness of his purity and the loveliness of his passion. Here are then the opening remarks of one who is describing in great detail now her beloved one.
And I leave that because we have spoken on past evenings about the moral glory of the Lord Jesus. And I would think that if the young believer is going to speak about the Savior to the unbeliever, that here is one of the basic things that you've got to say about him, that my beloved is white. pure, morally glorious, and because he was that, he is qualified and fitted to be the ruddy one going into passion and death at Calvary. Perhaps, my beloved is white and ruddy, is just... the meal offering and the burnt offering that we were talking about the other evening and in Leviticus chapter two you can write my beloved is white in all this moral glory and in chapter one you can write my beloved is rabbi and you see the passion and the purity of the Lord Jesus so there are two aspects of his loveliness now she says he is the chiefest among ten thousand And she's going to show now the greatness, the loveliness, not of his purity, not of his passion.
But here I think simply the loveliness of his person as being the unique one and the chief one among ten thousand. Now, you probably know that many, a Bible, most Bibles actually give in the margin the standard bearer among ten thousand. Nearly all give that in the margin. And the meaning seems to be this. You imagine ten thousand uniformed men. Now, when men wear a uniform, they're all the same. That's what the word uniform means. They're all the same. So here are ten thousand men, and they're all uniform. There's a sameness about them. Ten thousand uniformed men.
But there's one person who in the midst of all that uniformity seems to stand out, and that's the person who bears the standard. And if you look at this mass, this ten thousand uniformed men, immediately your eye is drawn to the man who carries the standard. He's the man you see. He's chief among them, as it were. He stands out among them, different as it were, unique in the midst of all that sameness. And this is what the bride says. She says, My beloved is white and ruddy, and he's like a standard bearer in the midst of ten thousand men. Now, This word, this expression, ten thousand, is one that is used often in our Bible.
You remember a way back on that occasion when David wanted to embark upon a very dangerous mission, and you remember what his men said to him. They said, David, no, no, you can't go. They said, thou art worth ten thousand of us. You're worth ten thousand of us. And you see what they were doing, oh, they were exalting David all right. What they were doing was this. They were putting David on one side of the scale and ten thousand of them and the other, and they equated David with ten thousand men. David, you're worth ten thousand of us. Now, that was a very nice thing, wasn't it, to say about David, the rejected king. But I think the bride in her language goes a little bit beyond that. And she says, chiefest among ten thousand, meaning in the fact that he's greater than ten thousand, not just to be equated with ten thousand, but unique and outstanding and greater than ten thousand.
But even that is not enough. And when you come to the book of the Revelation, we find in chapter five that ten thousand times ten thousand And thousands of thousands after that, they all say, thou art worthy. And so he's the chiefest among ten thousand. All right. And ten thousand times ten thousand. And he's the standard bearer. It is, of course, then, the loveliness of his person. Now she gets into the description in more detail. His head is as the most fine gold. And if you have observed in the reading, then the gold is mentioned again in connection with his hands, and the gold is mentioned again in connection with his feet, his legs upon pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold.
And so, you see, there is gold connected with his head, gold connected with his hands, gold connected with his feet. And I wonder, as I look at it, And think of the man, think of the man in his entirety and in all his glory, that maybe I can see here something of the loveliness of his pathway, whose every thought, whose every deed, and his every step was somehow marked by divine beauty, by the divine character. Here is one who is the very revelation of divinity, of deity to me, all that I knew of God.
I have learned as I have looked at him. Every little thing that I learn of God, I learn it by looking at the Lord Jesus. He has become to us the exegesis of all that God is. No man has seen God at any time. But the only begotten which is in the bosom of the Father, he has become the declaration, the exposition, the exegesis of what the Father is. And by looking at the Lord Jesus, I can see the Father. Well, the Father, of course, is beyond our gaze. He is the fine gold, the pure gold. It is the gold of deity, and I can't look upon deity. But as I look at this blessed man, I see the deity shining out.
in what he thinks and what he is I see the deity shining out in what he draws his hands are as gold rings and I see the deity in his very movements in his walk because he's set upon sockets of fine gold and whether it be his head his legs or his hands it seems that everything is a revelation of what God is and so here is the the loveliness of the pathway of one who was, if I may call him so, and some of our brethren are not sure about the expression, but we sometimes call him the God-man. And what we mean is this, that here is a man who has become man but has not ceased to be God.
And as we look at this blessed one, who in one person, in one personality, in one glorious personality, unity there is indivisibly two natures there is deity and humanity indivisibly in one person I don't understand it but then that's not my business to understand something so big as that I'm glad I don't understand it I'm glad as we have said before that he's glitter than my little intelligence here is one then who was the very revelation of God to me and his head his hands and his legs His feet are linked with the deity, the fine gold of deity.
Now she says, as locks are bushy and black as a raven, And I think that I can see here something of, we might call his permanence. You see, in another scripture, we find the complete reverse of this, and we find that his head and his hairs are white like wool, as white as snow. But here, his locks are bushy and black as a raven, and it seems to be the permanence of youth. Here is one who will never be linked with decay, who will never be linked really with growing old. I know that in those other scriptures that the white head is linked with perhaps maturity, experience, with eternity, with wisdom, and all that sort of thing.
But here certainly the fine, the locks which are bushy and black as a raven, they seem to bring out the beauty of that permanent youth and vigor of the Lord Jesus. And so it is the beauty, I think, of his permanence. Here is one who will be eternally abiding and will never, ever grow old at all. His eyes are as the eyes of doves, by the rivers of water, washed with milk, and fitly set. There's a tenderness here, and to preserve the alliteration, I think I see the loveliness of pity here in the tender eyes that are like dove's eyes.
And I think of those occasions when the Lord Jesus just looked upon people. How often his feelings were betrayed by his look as he looked upon people. And I think very specially of the case of Peter. You remember how when Peter had denied him? and he had done that with oaths and curses, and it was a sad and shameful lapse on the part of Peter. You know, I think we would have turned and lectured Peter. I think that's what we would have done. But not so the blessed Lord. He turned and looked on Peter.
And that looked, as we sing, That look that melted Peter, that sent him out with a heart broken, sent him out to weep, to weep, I would think almost uncontrollably it seems to be, that Peter weeps bitterly, and all the Lord did was to simply look upon Peter. I think as I try to intercept the gaze of the blessed Lord as he looks at Peter, that these are the eyes, as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters washed with milk and fitly set. There is tenderness, there is purity, and of course the eyes of doves. I understand that the dove has what they call a single vision.
It doesn't take in the broad spectrum of things as as we do but rather it fixes its its gaze its vision in a very individualistic kind of way upon an object in a very single vision and here it would seem as the Lord looks tenderly upon Peter that at that particular moment the Lord is concerned with Peter only and with nothing else and Peter feels it and it's a something between Peter and the Lord that breaks his heart and sends him out so Here is then that pity that ever characterized the Lord, and how often in other occasions too he looked upon people.
How much he must have said in just a look. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, and the margin of your Bible might say, as towers of perfume, towers of perfume, towers of sweetness I was thinking about this verse on one occasion towers of perfume sweet flowers towers of perfume and I I talked to a brother a very dear friend of mine who has now gone home to heaven but at that time he was a very dear brother and a very good friend of mine and he was totally blind and he said to me you know he said They've done a lovely thing for us in the Ormo Park.
He said, did you know that they have actually planted a bed of flowers, especially for us who are blind? Well, I said, I didn't know that. And for a moment, I couldn't think what the attraction would be, a bed of flowers, for someone who, like this brother, was totally blind. Well, he said, you know, it's a lovely place for us to go and sit. And he said, I go across there. Well, when the weather was fine, he was there just nearly every day. And what they had done was this. They had selected flowers with a beautiful perfume, with a very strong fragrance. And for this dear brother, totally blind, he said, you know, it's just lovely to sit there, he said, and to try to distinguish it.
the fragrances and the perfumes, as you would look at the flowers and try to see the individual beauty. He said, I can sit and try to appreciate the individual fragrances. He said, really? He said, you're just sitting in the presence of sweetness. That's what he said. And I thought, well, that is it, really. His cheeks... as a bed of spices, as towers of perfume, as sweet flowers. And I thought, here is that loveliness of his presence, the sweet presence of the Lord Jesus as we move along through life. And someone you know has written that very now famous book, and they have called it the practice of the presence of God.
how theologically correct that is, whether you've got to practice the presence of God or not, I don't know that the Lord helped us to go in for it anyway, this enjoyment of the sweet presence of the Lord Jesus. His lips like lilies, oh here is delicacy, on purity, again, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh, and as I think of lips like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh, I think simply of the loveliness of his preaching. And some of us were talking a little while ago, and we thought that perhaps this was a written neglect on our part, a neglect of the study of the words of the Lord Jesus.
Some time ago, as a younger Christian, I thought it would be interesting to go through the New Testament, begin at Matthew, and to underline all the words of the Lord Jesus with a colored pen. And I started, of course, I went to the Gospel by Matthew, and the first words of the Lord are in chapter three. I think the first thing he says is, suffereth it to be so now, for thus it be cometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Most of the first recorded words of the Lord Jesus in the New Testament. So I got a colored pen and I started to underline. It was all right in chapter three. That was all there was. Chapter four wasn't too bad.
There wasn't very many in chapter four. There was a little word to Satan, a couple of words to the devil. And then the Lord Jesus preaches, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then he calls these men and says, follow me and I underline those. But then... I came to chapter five. Chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven. These are all the words of the Lord Jesus. Entirely, completely. These chapters are absolutely nothing but the words of the Lord Jesus. And you go to chapter eight and it's there again. And well, eventually I gave up. And I thought of myself, you know, this is a bit of a misrelay that we don't more often study the actual words of the Lord Jesus.
how much he has said. What an example he has left us for preaching, for conversing. Examples of how he behaved and carried himself in controversy, in adversity, in the midst of his people and in the midst of his enemies. And to study just the words of the Lord Jesus is a very fruitful study. Well, no matter where you find him, his lips are like lilies. dropping sweet-smelling nerve, the loveliness of his preaching. His hands, we have mentioned, under deity shanes out in what he does, His inwards are as bright ivory, overled with sapphires.
Well, there's no problem with interpreting this symbol, because the inwards, of course, are the pure motives and the inner feelings of the Lord Jesus, and these are rich, as rich as bright ivory, overled with sapphires. I tell you, there's some wealth there, bright ivory, overled with sapphires, and here are the rich, pure motives of the Lord Jesus. And I thought that here, perhaps, was the loveliness of His preciousness to God. Because here is one so precious to God that His motives are always right. You know, we can do right things with a wrong motive. That's a sad thing and a strange thing.
Doing right things, but doing them with a wrong motive. But the Lord Jesus never was like that. He always did right things, and He always did the right things with right motives. and his motives are as rich as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. And his motives can be summed up in his own little word. He says, I do always those things that please the Father. And indeed, far earlier than that, he gave expression to those pure motives, and he said, I must always be about... my father's business it was always his father he said again my meat is to do the will of him that sent me to finish his work it was always his father's his father's delight and joy that he was about the rich motives of the Lord Jesus his inwards as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires then you have the greatness of his power his legs are as pillars of marble Here is the immutability, the immovability of the Lord Jesus.
Here is one who remains, I think as I read it, his legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold. I think I can write across it the language of Hebrews one. Thou remainest, thou remainest. Here is that permanence that we saw earlier in a different symbol now. Here is that power that makes him the immutable, the unchangeable, and the remaining Christ when everything else has shifted and gone. His countenance, says the bride, she comes now to an end, to a close, she says, his whole countenance, his whole bearing, his whole demeanor, it's like Lebanon, here is dignity here, excellent as the cedars, and I think it's just, in fact, His preeminence, it is the loveliness of preeminence, and his mouth is most sweet.
Might go back again to the loveliness of his preaching. And here, then, the preeminence of one who is excellent as the cedars. I think, perhaps... Three times in the Hebrews epistle, which is filled with Christ, you get that expression, more excellent, more excellent. He's got a more excellent name, a more excellent ministry, a more excellent sacrifice, more excellent. Here is the excelling preeminence of the Lord Jesus. He's like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. And then, as our brethren often remark, She runs out of language, her vocabulary exhausted.
And she says, yea, he is altogether lovely, altogether lovely. She says, this is my beloved. This is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. She has spoken of the loveliness of his head, his locks, his eyes, his cheeks. his lips, his hands, his inwards, his legs, his countenance. She has brought out in symbolic language the loveliness of purity, of passion, of his person, of his pathway, of his permanence, of his pity, of his very presence, his sweet presence, his preaching, his preciousness to God and his motives, his power and his ultimate preeminence.
She says, this is my beloved. And if I could talk perhaps to a worldling like that, I should not be surprised to hear him say, Whither is thy beloved gone? I'd like to find him with you. Oh, the Lord help us, that we shall be able so to speak of him, and so to represent him, that others will be attracted to him, like the daughters of Jerusalem are attracted here. The Lord bless our little meditation. Shall we pray?