Let's open up our Bibles to the Song
of Solomon.
The Song of Solomon, chapter four.
Before we read our text, I'd like to
go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, I
thank you for this day and special, wonderful
sense, the presence of your son, special fellowship
and special reality of him being God with
us.
I thank you so much for what you
have done thus far, Lord, and getting glory
for yourself.
And oh, Lord, I would so wish tonight
to speak in your power.
You would vindicate your truth.
You would move in the hearts of men.
But oh, God, if you would get greater
glory for yourself by stepping back and turning
me into nothing more than a babbling fool,
if you would get glory for yourself, Lord,
by destroying this building and removing this church,
then, oh, Lord, get glory for yourself.
Oh, dear God, we acknowledge that apart from
you, we are nothing.
We have nothing.
We acknowledge, Lord, that you rightfully take the
center throne of the universe and you share
that position with no one.
We rightfully, Lord, acknowledge your sovereignty, that you
do whatever you desire in the heavens and
the earth and under the earth, that if
you raise your hand, no man can put
it down.
And if you put your hand down on
the table, no man can pry it up.
And you are God.
And oh, Lord, you know, this week I
have plowed.
But oh, Lord, I pray that your people
tonight would rejoice, that they would rejoice in
the God of their salvation.
Oh, God.
Oh, Lord, you know, I am so afraid
to open my eyes.
I am so afraid to end this prayer.
I would rather stay with you, Lord, who
is who is able to speak about your
love toward your people.
Lord, we've never seen anyone like you.
We search as far back in our history
as we can go.
We've never seen a love like yours.
Oh, Lord, only by your spirit can these
things be revealed to men.
Be gracious to us, oh, Lord, do not
give us what we deserve, but give us
your greatest, Lord, a revelation of you and
your glory.
Oh, God, help us, help us.
And, Lord, I pray for wisdom, the power
of the Holy Spirit, the filling of the
Holy Spirit in Jesus name.
Amen.
It might seem unusual that I'm actually going
to begin a sermon with a smile, but
I am so filled with joy.
Over my God and his goodness, his love,
I have plowed hard this week.
I have preached hard against things that should
be preached against superficial evangelism in the Southern
Baptist Convention, the promotion of men, the counting
of heads and the damnation of souls because
we are building churches on the bones of
unconverted church members.
I have preached hard against the manipulating use
of the sinner's prayer, getting men and children
to blindly and superstitiously repeat a prayer and
then to popishly declare them to be born
again.
I have preached against the idea of a
continuous carnal Christian, that a person can truly
be a Christian and yet live in carnality
the days of their lives without God's discipline.
We have spoke about the need of repentance
and faith.
We have spoke about something more than a
romantic gospel that shares the physical sufferings about
Christ and then manipulates men to come to
him.
Instead, we have preached a gospel of the
Son of God bearing the sins of men
and dying under the wrath of God to
satisfy justice, to take away sin, to appease
the wrath of God and to reconcile men
to himself.
I have plowed hard.
I have told many of you that you
are not Christians, but some of you are.
Some of you are.
And last night we went through the test
of 1 John, a book that was used
throughout Baptist history to bring assurance to true
believers.
Some of you were stricken in your heart
and you began to see that it was
not well with your soul.
Others of you rejoiced because for once in
your lifetime, your assurance rested upon something more
than a prayer that you repeated, hopefully sincerely.
Or some evangelist who told you the right
to write the name and his name in
the back of your Bible along with the
date of your conversion and show it to
the devil every time you doubt.
No, we went to the Bible and we
found for you biblical assurance that he who
began a good work and you will finish
it.
And tonight I am so weak, not with
regard to strength and not even necessarily spiritually,
but I'm so weak because I want to
do, I want you to see so many
things about you.
Now the spiritual mind here tonight will hear
these words and say, let us be holy.
Let us run to him.
Let us obey.
Let us seek him that we might find
him.
The carnal mind will hear these same words
and say, let us sin that grace may
abound.
Let us keep doing what we're doing because
the love of God will permit it.
But if you have been here all the
nights, you will know that is not true.
That is not true.
I am here to tell you tonight that
if you are regenerate, if your conversion is
true, if you were born in Zion, if
you belong to him, that you can rejoice.
You can rejoice more than you ever dreamed
of rejoicing.
That God's love towards you is greater than
anything you will ever begin to comprehend.
You say, well, what about heaven?
Won't we comprehend it there?
Not even there will you comprehend the love
of God, for it will be there that
you will begin an eternity of chasing it
down.
What makes heaven something other than boring?
Streets of gold, gates of pearl.
After a while, streets are just to walk
on and gates.
Well, I suppose if you're a child, you
can swing on them for a long time
and enjoy it.
How can we spend an eternity in heaven
and it not grow weary?
Because every new dawn, if you could say
such a thing, and as the pastor said
this afternoon when we were speaking, every new
dawn in eternity will just bring greater and
greater measures of the glory of God, which
will send you into greater and greater depths
of ecstasy, of worship and of joy.
And that's why we're going to look at
the song of Solomon.
Now, some literalist, and I interpret the Bible
literally where it should be interpreted, but there
are places where it should not be interpreted
literally.
Let me give you an example.
Jesus said, I am the door.
That doesn't mean he swings on hinges.
Some would say that the song of Solomon
was written only about a man and a
woman, the love affair between a man and
a woman.
But I would answer them this way.
The story of the man and the woman
was only written to give us an illustration
of the glory of God.
Some would say this is only about marriage
between a man and a woman.
But why did God create marriage except for
it to be a revelation in some way
of his goodness to his church?
So we're going to hear theology.
Yes.
Doctrine.
True.
We're going to talk about passion tonight about
God's passion for you that I hope will
give birth to a passion in you for
God.
I start in chapter four, verse seven.
I want you to imagine this as it
is.
This is God speaking to you.
If you are his child, if you belong
to him, if you are part of his
church, this is God speaking to you.
You are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there
is no blemish in you.
We hear these preachers today who have bad
ecclesiology.
They don't understand the doctrine of the church
nor the new covenants.
We hear these preachers today who say the
church is just as full of pornography as
the world.
The church is just as full of immorality
and carnality and worldliness and all sorts of
things like that as the world.
The church is going through a horrible period
of time in this country.
Well, that's absolutely ridiculous.
The church of Jesus Christ is altogether beautiful.
The only problem is this.
What is being called the church today is
not the church.
And God's name is being blasphemed among the
Gentiles because of preachers that don't know the
difference between the church of God and unregenerate
carnal church members.
But here he's speaking to those who truly
know him, and he says this, you are
altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no
blemish in you.
But the most sincere among us, the Christian
most devout among us would almost balk at
this.
They would step back and they would say,
well, but what about my sin?
What about my failure?
What about my striving to be holy and
looking in the mirror of God's Word and
seeing that I just never seem to measure
up?
How can he say such things about me?
He can say such things about you because
of the work that he has done on
your behalf.
God made him who knew no sin to
be sin on your behalf so that you
might become the righteousness of God in Christ.
One of the things that's very important, as
I've said over and over this week, if
you only share half truths, it's better that
you would keep your mouth shut or just
out and out lie.
And with the gospel, it's the same way.
It's not enough to share part of the
gospel, even if that part you share is
true.
You have been told, and rightly so, that
we are saved, that we are forgiven through
the death of Christ on a cross, and
that is true.
But in order to get to heaven, you
must be more than forgiven.
Did you know that?
In order to get to heaven, you must
be more than forgiven.
You must be perfectly righteous.
It's not enough that Christ simply carries your
sin and takes them away, but Christ must
give you his righteous life.
And that is why we are saved not
only by the death of Christ, and we
are saved not only by the resurrection of
Christ, but we are saved by the life
that Christ lived on this earth under the
law as a man.
That when he walked on this earth, I
know you say he died for you, and
he did.
But I want you to know that he
lived for you.
All the days of his life, he lived
for you.
He lived a perfect life before the Father.
There was not a blemish in him.
There was not a flaw.
He was always the darling son of God.
And every time God looked down at his
son, he said, this is my beloved son
in whom I am always pleased.
When you believed in Jesus Christ, when God
through his sovereign grace regenerated your heart and
gave you repentance and gave you faith, and
you believed in Jesus Christ unto salvation, you
were forgiven by virtue of the cross where
he died, but you were declared perfectly righteous
before God.
Not only forgiven, but declared perfectly righteous.
That life that Jesus lived for 30 some
odd years on this earth, that life of
perfect obedience was placed on you so that
when the Father looks at you, if you
are a true believer, when the Father looks
at you, he looks down at you and
he forever and always says, this is my
beloved son in whom I am well.
You have heard that Jesus is a greater
than Moses.
You have heard that he is a greater
than Aaron.
But did you know that he is a
greater than Joseph, his father?
No.
The patriarch, Joseph.
Remember Joseph?
What distinguished him from the rest?
The love of his father.
But what else distinguished him from the rest?
That multicolored coat, that beautiful coat.
And what did he do with that coat?
He hoarded it, he held on to it,
and he made it a thing of envy
and strife between himself and his brothers.
But we have not been redeemed by a
Joseph.
We have been redeemed by someone greater than
Joseph, who takes that coat of multicolored righteousness
and he lay it upon your shoulders.
He dressed you in him.
Listen to me, believer, you know what the
problem is?
You do not believe me yet.
I'm talking about a love so big, a
righteousness so strong, something you have never seen
before that it is so hard for you
to believe it.
Charismatics, love them.
I just, I have live friends that are
charismatics and they'll always tell me the greatest
act of faith is raising the dead.
If you can raise the dead, you've got
faith.
And I always tell them, I go, raise
the dead.
That's nothing for a Southern Baptist.
Raising the dead, that's an everyday occurrence.
And I look at them and I say,
you want to know something that requires faith?
And I'm going to tell you.
The thing that requires the greatest faith, my
dear brother, my dear sister.
Those of you who are beloved of God,
the greatest demonstration of personal faith is when
you and I look in the mirror of
God's word and we see all our flaws
and all our failures and all our sin
and all our apathy and all our lack
of devotion.
And yet we believe that God loves us
as he says he does.
That's the hardest thing to believe.
And why is it so hard to believe?
I'll tell you why it's so hard to
believe.
We've never seen a love like that anywhere.
No one.
Go to the most devout spouse, the most
devout father, the most devout child.
You can search through the world with a
lantern, but you will never find anyone who
loves like God loves you.
Another thing that you need to see, and
I'll just for a moment, husbands love your
wives just as Christ also loved the church,
loved the church, not an institution, not a
membership role, an organism, living, breathing members.
Christ loved you.
And how did he demonstrate that love for
you?
By giving himself up for you.
I want every believer in this audience tonight.
I want every believer in this congregation to
think this.
I want you to repeat this in your
heart.
Christ gave himself up for me, for me,
for me.
He bore the guilt, the sin for me.
He died under the wrath of God for
me, for me, for me.
And when did he do this?
When you were a sinner, when you hated
him with every ounce and fiber of your
being.
He loved you so much.
He loved his elect people so much that
he laid down his life for you.
When you would have been the one who
nailed the nails and thrust the spear.
So now tenderhearted believers who would never lift
a hand against the Christ.
How much does he love you now?
And he says.
So that he might sanctify her, having cleansed
her by the washing of water with the
word.
That he might present to himself the church
in all her glory.
Now, when we say church in all her
glory, we lose something.
Why?
Because when we think about this big group
of people, we think about something impersonal.
Any believer I could pick out right now,
I could tell you to stand and I
can say to you that one day before
all of creation, God will call your name
and tell you to come front and center
before every principality and power and might and
dominion.
He will tell you to come front and
center and he will present you to all
creation in all your glory.
All the glory that he has given you
and he will present you there will not
be a spot or a wrinkle or any
such thing.
The future that awaits you, believer, goes so
far beyond the tongue of a preacher or
the pen of a writer.
So he says here, you are altogether beautiful,
my darling, and there is no blemish in
you.
You say, but Lord, how can this be
so?
The Lord looks back at you and says,
child, doubt not the power of that cross.
My dear friend, sometimes there is a great
deal of false humility among true believers, a
great deal of false humility.
Well, I just don't see how he could
ever love someone like me.
Well, then you haven't seen the cross and
you haven't understood the love of God.
Doubting God's love is not a sign of
humility.
It is arguing against what he has declared
about himself.
You're not proving yourself humble.
You're saying you don't believe God.
God has declared over and over and over,
as I said in my preaching a few
days ago, I said that the cross was
a vindication of God, that it demonstrated that
he is righteous.
And if you want to know how much
God hates sin, look at the cross, because
when his son bore our sin, God crushed
him.
But also, if you want to see how
much God loves his people, look at the
cross, because on that cross, his son bore
our sins and was crushed.
So many people think that somehow Jesus Christ
came and saved us from the wrath of
the father.
And what they don't understand, it was that
very father who sent his son in love
to die for you.
He loves you.
Sometimes when I'm preaching this, I just want
to give up and I want to just
look at the congregation and say over and
over again, he loves you.
And to every objection you throw forth at
me is to repeat again, he loves you.
He loves you.
And then he says in verse eight, come
with me from Lebanon, my bride.
May you come with me from Lebanon, journey
down from the summit of Amana, from the
summit of Senir and Hermon, from the dens
of lions, from the mountains of leopards.
Now, now, with the risk of being
risque.
Have you ever thought about Adam and Eve?
There they are in the garden, bare and
yet without shame.
Bare, yet without shame.
I've often asked myself, why?
Why were they without shame?
Because there was no sin.
But it's more than that, you see.
For the same reason there was shame after
sin entered into the world.
You see, when there's unconditional love, when you
know the person you're standing before unconditionally loves
you, no matter who you are, you can
stand before them without shame.
You see, it's unconditional love that makes you
strong.
It's unconditional love that brings you out of
that hole.
It's unconditional love that sets you free and
gives you peace.
And when sin entered into the world and
Adam no longer unconditionally loved Eve and Eve
no longer unconditionally loved Adam, then what happens?
But look at me.
I'm not perfect like a bride who
fears her wedding night because she's afraid that
she will appear unseemingly to the groom.
And so she stands in the shadows, hoping
not too much light, looking for a covering.
What if I'm distasteful to him?
She thinks, what if he's sorry?
What if I don't measure up?
And so she hides in the darkness and
desires no light.
I see so many believers like that today.
But he says, come here in verse eight,
he says, come, but he doesn't tell you
to come until first he says to you,
you are beautiful, my darling, and there is
no blemish in you.
And you say, but Lord, I've got blemishes
everywhere.
And he says, but love covers a multitude
of sins.
I only see you with my eyes.
And my eyes see you as darling and
beautiful and with no blemish whatsoever.
I will guarantee you, sirs, that your wives
can understand what I'm saying far better than
you can.
Oh, isn't it wonderful to finally walk through
a door where we really are loved?
Isn't it wonderful to finally walk through a
door where now the blemishes and all those
things just no longer matter because the only
thing thundering in our ears is beloved, beloved,
beloved, beloved.
And that's what you are.
And so when he says, come, come.
When he says, follow, follow.
When he says, draw near to me, draw
near to him.
You know, one of the things the devil
uses more than anything else in the life
of a believer, when a believer fails, when
a believer falls, when a believer stumbles, Satan
enters in, into their mind, making them think,
you've done it now.
Or after we have fallen, after we have
sinned, after we have broken promises and everything
else, then we spend three, four, five, six
days, maybe weeks or months getting back in
the good graces of God before we appear
before him again.
Well, I've done that, but now there is
a, well, probation period.
I can't think about praising him now.
I mean, after all, look at what I
just did.
I can't think about coming into his presence.
I can't think about telling him I love
him.
I mean, after all, look at me.
I mean, I should have to wait some
amount of time, shouldn't I?
And he's constantly looking at you saying, I
love you.
I love you.
It's a whole nother sermon, but I just
want to kind of throw this out tonight.
So many people have an Old Testament, Old
Covenant idea of our relationship with God.
Let me give you an example.
Let's say that God wants me to read
my Bible.
He's leading me to read my Bible, but
I decide that I want to go out
to my woodshop and work.
Now, there are preachers, and you would expect
me to say this because of the things
you've heard me say this week.
There are preachers who would say, well, you
just go on out to that woodshop.
God's not going with you.
That's not true.
Not only is God going out to that
woodshop, God's going to protect my fingers from
the saw and he's going to hand me
the boards.
And every time I look across that saw
that I'm working on, he is going to
pour forth love on me and say, Paul,
I love you.
Now, come.
I love you.
You're not where you ought to be.
Come.
I love you.
Paul, Paul, I love you.
I love you.
There's a lot of legalistic people that love
to hear me preach until they hear me
preach this, but I'll not find myself in
any man's camp.
I'll preach the judgment of God.
But when we filtered through and we found
the true believers, let's bring on grace.
Let's bring on love.
He goes, come down.
And that's what he's telling you tonight, church.
Church at Muscle Shoals, that's what he's telling
you to do.
He's saying, come down, come down from where?
Come down from those mountains.
Come down from haughtiness.
Come down from pride.
Come down from all these things that the
world boasts in and get away from those
high places because they're dangerous.
Come away from the world and those spiritual
dangers.
He tells you, he says there are leopards
and lions up in those high places.
Get away from there.
Come and follow me.
Walk humbly before me.
That's what God is telling you to do.
Now he's already satisfied your heart.
He's already made you strong.
He's called you darling.
He's found no flaw in you.
He's taken care of that.
And now that you're secure in his love,
he says, come, come away with me.
Come down, come down.
The most beautiful and the safest place to
be on the face of the earth is
humbly and in childlike way.
Stumbling after your God and seeking to follow
him.
That really only one thing is required of
you.
So many of you men that I have
listened to.
You are so busy.
You are so trying to catch his eye,
to have him smile at you.
You are so busy to have him just
lay a hand on you and say, okay,
you're okay.
But he's already done that.
He's not wanting performance out of you.
He's not wanting things out of you.
He's just saying, come, come.
The greatest title that's ever been placed on
a mortal man.
I believe was given to Abraham, a friend
of God, a friend of, I decided a
long time ago, I wanted to concentrate on
more on living the Christian life than preaching
it.
That you can get so caught up in
preaching and teaching the Christian life that you're
not living the Christian life.
I don't want to be a great preacher
and I don't want to be big and
I don't want to be important.
I would rather go fishing with my God.
I have nothing to prove.
I have no hoop to jump through.
And why is that?
Because I used to jump through all the
hoops and I used to work 18 hours
a day and I used to do everything
other than just impale my body upon a
cross in order to please my God.
And why don't I do that anymore?
Because I am loved.
It's over.
I don't have to be anything.
I don't have to prove anything, even to
you, dear people.
I do not have the power to start
a revival.
I do not have the power to keep
one.
And if someone were to give it to
me, I'd turn it down.
I have nothing to prove.
Why?
Because I'm loved.
Are you loved?
Do you know the love of God?
And he goes on in verse 9.
How does God respond to you?
Look at verse 9.
You have made my heart beat faster, my
sister, my bride.
You have made my heart beat faster with
a single glance from your eyes.
Now, you want some theology?
I've heard people say the whole week, all
he's done is given us lectures on theology.
Well, then let me give you some theology.
Every time, every time my eyes turn
towards heaven, God's heart beats faster with anticipation.
You say, well, brother Paul, I have trouble
praying.
I just don't think God hears me.
The only reason I would think God hasn't
heard me is because his heart's beating so
loud he can't hear my voice.
You say, I like it better when you
talked about God is holy, holy, holy.
Well, I want to give you the full
counsel of God.
And I want to tell you that my
Christianity is not just theology, it's childlike faith.
And when the Bible tells me that with
the very glance of my eye upward towards
the face of God, that his heart beats
faster, that gives me such encouragement to pray.
That gives me such encouragement to pray.
I hear people praying all the time.
Oh, it's like there's a bronze ceiling over
me.
Oh, it's like God, you know, is not
listening.
What do I do?
I need to purify myself.
I need to do this and I need
to do that.
No, you need to hear this word.
Every time you turn your eyes in an
upward glance to the face of the father,
his heart beats faster.
Since you have made my heart beat faster,
my sister, my bride, you have made my
heart beat faster with a single glance of
your eyes.
And then look at this with a single
strand of your necklace.
Now, why is that important?
Why are you so beautiful?
Is it because of yourself?
No.
It is because God has adorned your life
with a necklace of grace.
Do you know why you're so beautiful?
Because he gave you the righteousness of Christ.
Every time he looks at you, it's a
reflection of his greatness and his power.
You see, when Christ said it is finished,
he meant it.
Would you grab a hold of that?
Would you believe it when Christ said it
is finished?
He meant it.
It's finished.
The enmity has been put away.
Sin is gone.
And you're free.
You're free.
Where angels in the throne room of God
bow their heads and cannot look him in
the face.
And yet you, you run between the folds
of his robe.
Why?
They have a righteousness of angels.
You have the righteousness of God.
And that's why angels right now here tonight,
angels are peering in.
In your life, when you go home, angels
will be straining to look in at the
righteousness and the grace that has been granted
unto you.
He goes on to say now
in verse 10, how beautiful is your love,
my sister, my bride.
Now, in verse seven, in verse seven, he
said that you were beautiful.
Now he's saying that your love toward him
is beautiful.
How beautiful is your love, my sister, my
bride.
How much better is your love than wine
and the fragrance of your oils than all
kinds of spices?
Now, wine, oils and spices, they represent the
finest things of this world, the finest things
that God has made.
Oh, and he has made some fine things.
I have seen sunsets that would take my
heart away.
I have seen ocean waves beating down on
the shore with a rhythm that seemed to
capture a sonnet.
And yet, God says of all the finest
things I have made on the earth, I
desire your love more.
Your love is more beautiful to me.
You don't believe me, do you?
You really don't believe me, because if you
did, well, you'd be dancing on the top
of these pews.
You say, but my love is so feeble.
Have you not read that he knows that
you're just dust?
And do you not know that every good
and perfect gift comes from him?
And if there is any love in you,
it's love he gave you to love him
back.
You think your love is so feeble.
Stop.
Stop thinking that way.
Yes, your love is feeble.
Yes, your faith is feeble.
But where we are feeble, his grace abounds,
his love conquers, his love controls, his love
takes it all.
And he goes on to say, how much
better is your love than wine?
And in verse 11, how does God respond
to our praying?
Your lips, my bride, drip honey.
Honey and milk are under your tongue.
And the fragrance of your garments is like
the fragrance of Lebanon.
Here we go back to prayer again.
So many believers today, I am convinced, do
not have a healthy prayer life because they
spend most of their time grumbling and groveling
before God.
And why are they doing that?
Because they really are not convinced of what
he says.
I think the greatest heartbreak I would ever
know would be for my wife to doubt
the love of her husband.
What could be a greater reflection on a
man than that?
What would break my heart more than anything
to believe that my wife was unsure about
my love for her?
Groveling, mumbling, praying for 15 minutes, just hoping
to somehow crawl your way back to the
good graces of God so that he might
cast a glance your way.
I don't know where you learn such things,
but you did not learn them from God
because to him, your lips drip honey, honey
and milk are under your tongue, and the
fragrance of your garment is like the fragrance
of Lebanon.
Now, let's go back again.
Here we go with garment again.
Do you see that?
Garment again.
Why are you so attractive to God?
The garment he has given you, a garment
of righteousness, a garment of holiness.
My goodness, dear brother, my goodness, dear sister,
God has done good things for you.
Accept them.
One of the hardest things for a man
of God to do who's not securing himself
is accept gifts from someone else.
Let me give you a perfect example.
The apostle Peter.
Jesus said, Peter, I'm going to wash your
feet.
Peter said, No, you're not.
Jesus said, OK, then go to hell.
Because, Peter, if you can't receive from me,
then there's only one other option.
Damnation.
Well, then, Lord, wash my head, wash all
of me.
Can you not receive these things?
And then again, that demon's head pops up
in your heart and says, but I'm not
good enough.
I'm not right enough.
I'm not smart enough.
Yes, we know.
We've already got that behind us, haven't we?
Like if the devil were to walk in
here tonight, he might be here.
I don't know.
If the devil were to walk in here
tonight and take center stage and begin to
rail on me, Paul Washer, you're not worthy
to preach.
Paul Washer, you're not worthy to pray.
Paul Washer, you're not worthy to be standing
before these people.
Paul, I would just have to literally sit
here and just yawn.
And when he got done, I would just
have to say, you know, haven't we gone
through this before?
You're right, I'm not worthy of this and
I'm not worthy of that and I'm not
worthy of this and I'm not worthy of
that.
But that's really not the issue.
Have you seen my older brother standing over
my shoulder, the one who's made all things
new, the one who said it is finished?
Oh, and when he said it is finished,
that had something to do with you.
So I would suggest you run out of
here.
I don't know if you could have been
beaten down in your heart any more than
I was when I was a child.
There were times I would take a knife
and stick it into my stomach until it
broke the skin, because the only thing I
wanted to do was die.
And I spent most of my life trying
to get love I never got.
And then when I became a Christian, I
spent a great part of my Christian life
trying to win the love of a father
until I literally drove myself almost insane to
the point of the nervous breakdown as a
very successful missionary.
And when all the pieces were laying there
on that stairwell in the third floor of
that old rickety church in Barranco, Peru, and
I had given up and I said, God,
I'm afraid to go to hell and I
don't want to go there, but I'm so
ashamed of all my failures and everything.
I don't want to go to heaven and
see your face and be such a disappointment
as I always have been all my life.
It was then.
You don't have to preach another sermon because
I didn't save you to serve, as those
silly little preachers say, I saved you to
love you.
Now.
Rice, I command you, get your dog and
go run on the beach for a week.
That's exactly what I did.
And I've been running and hopping and skipping
ever since.
I had a man come to me one
time, one of those movers and shakers, you
know about them.
They're men who can make you very important.
And they said to me, you know, you
could have a national ministry, international ministry.
You could do this and do that and
be all these things.
And I let him go on and on
and on and on.
And then when he finished, I looked at
him and said, yes, I could.
But if I did that, I wouldn't have
any time to go fishing.
And they all looked at me like we
thought you were spiritual.
And then I got mad.
I said, look, and you listen well, I
spent most of my Christian life trying to
earn God's love.
I've spent most of my life outside the
inner circles of people, and I was convinced
that it would be the same way in
heaven, that God would have his children that
he really loved.
And I would just get in by the
by the by the very scrape of my
skin.
And I'll fight you tooth and nail, but
I will not go back into that circus
again.
God loves me and I don't have to
be anything.
God loves me.
So I'll come down from that proud mountain
and I'll walk humbly beside my God like
a child and I will be happy.
I see men that are exalted as great
preachers, and I say, well, I feel sorry
for them.
They've got to do all that stuff, and
yet I'm loved just as much as they
are.
And here I sit fishing.
Now, to a carnal mind, they will say,
well, great, let's just we get away from
obedience then.
But to those of you who know the
Lord, it is making you want to serve
him more, isn't it?
It is making you want to follow him
more and pray more.
When Jesus said the first to be last
and the last will be first, he drew
a rabbinical circle when the first is last
and last is first, there's no first and
last.
There isn't five men in the world who
can say that that fast.
Do you realize all of that first and
last stuff is demonic, earthly and worldly?
Most of you here tonight, you've never been
in the inner circle either.
You've just been common people.
There are places you can't go, places you
can't afford.
Most of you aren't the most beautiful.
You're not the smartest.
You're not number one.
You never have been, you never will be.
And so what does that mean?
A lot of those fundamentalist preachers will tell
us that that continues on into eternity.
Yeah, who's going to have the biggest crown?
To be honest with you, I don't want
a crown.
Can you imagine walking around with a 70
pound piece of gold on your head?
You can take your crowns because that's not
what Jesus is teaching when he's teaching that.
He's not teaching some sort of materialistic, demonic
pecking order that the guys who do the
best down there get closest to God.
He's trying to tell you that you're just
loved and it's because of him and that's
it.
Maybe we don't want that because of pride.
We want to earn something.
But I'm too tired now after 22 years
to earn anything.
The only thing I want to do is
receive.
And that's how God gets the greatest glory.
Do you honestly think that we are going
to glorify God in heaven one day?
All of us are kind of just all
grouped together.
And I walk over to your pastor and
throw my arm around him and call all
you to attention and say, hey, everybody, I
want to glorify God by telling you all
the wonderful things that Jeff Knoblet did for
him.
That's hellish.
Earthly.
You know what I can do, though?
I can put my arm around him and
say, hey, everybody, come here.
I want to glorify God by telling you
everything God did for Jeff Knoblet.
You see the difference?
And then he says in verse 12, a
locked garden is my sister, my bride, a
locked, a rock garden locked, a spring sealed
up.
What is this talking about?
Well, we have a garden locked and a
rock garden locked and we have a spring
sealed up.
What does that mean?
Oh, it's there are five or six sermons
in this passage, but I believe for us
it is speaking about holiness.
Holiness, not as rule keeping.
I belong to one person.
I belong to my wife.
I belong to her.
I experienced things with her.
I don't experience with anybody else.
She sees me in a way no one
else should ever see me.
I am my beloved.
My beloved is mine.
No one else.
I'm hers.
The true meaning of the word holy.
I'm cut off from the rest and separated
unto one woman.
For you young girls and you guys, that's
a wonderful teaching.
But for us and for a spiritual application
tonight, I belong to Jesus.
I belong to him.
I'm to be chased in a spiritual sense.
I'm not to prostitute myself with the world.
The one thing most beautiful to me about
my wife when I met her, all the
other girls and their flashy clothing and their
everything else.
But it was the the chasteness of my
wife.
It was the hiddenness of my wife.
When you looked at her, the only thing
you saw was her face.
She was saving herself.
She was covering herself.
No one else was to touch her.
No one else was to see her.
She was saving herself.
She didn't know it at the time.
Neither did I.
But for me.
And that was most beautiful to me.
Most beautiful.
And it still is most beautiful.
Believer, listen to me.
Do not marry the world.
Do not prostitute yourself to the world.
Do not give yourself to other loves.
And it is so hard.
I know it is so hard.
I'm an outdoorsman.
I would rather be waiting a swamp, hunting
deer than just about anything on the face
of the earth.
And I don't hunt with any of those
sissy compound bows.
I use a long bow.
I said that for a few of the
brothers here.
But you know what's amazing to me?
I take a tree and I cut it
down and I make a bow out of
it.
It's a piece of wood.
That's all it is.
It's a piece of wood with a string
on it.
And yet I am so amazed how this
one little piece of wood with a string
on it can so captivate my attention that
it can take me off the things of
God.
Now, I love to hunt.
I love to fish.
I love to build things.
I love to work on my farm.
I love all those things God has given
them to me as gifts.
But I always have to be careful.
It is so amazing to me how I
am able to take almost anything and turn
it into an idol to prostitute myself.
We always need to be keenly aware when
the Bible says, blessed are the pure in
heart.
The word there means literally an unalloyed heart,
a heart without mixture, a heart that does
not have several loyalties.
And it's very, very hard to maintain the
balance, Church.
It really, it really is.
Because you're not a spiritual person just because
you can lock yourself away in a cave
and never receive a gift from God.
You're a spiritual person when you can take
the gifts that God has given you and
use them for your delight and his glory.
We're to be shut up to him.
I don't watch television.
Why?
Because, well, it has things that I'm not
supposed to look at.
It says things I'm not supposed to hear.
I guard my eyes.
Why?
I belong to only one, Jesus.
Constantly have to be in the word and
survey my behavior.
Why?
Because if my right eye offend thee, pluck
it out.
If my right hand offend or cause me
to stumble, cut it off.
Because he jealously and zealously loves me.
He jealously and zealously loves you.
Do not give yourself to the things of
this world, but give yourself to him.
Why?
I love it when I hear a girl
say, I am the handmaiden of the Lord.
I love it when I hear a man
say, I am the bondservant of Jesus.
I belong to him.
When you sing that song Adonai, that you
sing so many times, Adonai, that word means
so much more.
It's almost like a contractual covenant relationship.
When you say Adonai, you're saying that God
is my Lord.
He's my owner.
He's my master.
And you're saying, I am his slave.
I am his servant.
I am his property.
I belong to him.
And you know what else you're saying?
When you call God your Adonai, what does
a servant or a slave have to worry
about?
Did you ever think about that?
Do they have to worry about clothing?
No, that's their master's problem.
Do they have to worry about where they're
going to live?
No, that's their master's problem.
Do they have to worry about protection?
Who's going to protect them from the enemy?
No, that's their master's problem.
Food, clothing, shelter, everything.
It's the master's problem.
The only thing that the slave has to
concern himself about is the master's will.
He does the master's will and the master
takes care of everything the slave needs.
And I can tell you this, I have
walked with him for nigh on 22 years
and he has met all my needs according
to his riches and glory.
He has taken care of me every step
of the way.
Not one word of all the good words
he has spoken has ever failed.
He is worthy of all trust, honor, glory
and praise.
He is.
Lock yourself up unto him.
Oh, enjoy his goodness, enjoy his blessings, but
lock yourself up unto him.
Don't lock yourself up unto this church.
Don't lock yourself up unto this vision.
Don't even lock yourself up into revival or
feelings or anything else.
As the pastor said, unto him, unto him.
Now, it goes on and he says in
verse 13, Yeshutes are an orchard of pomegranates
with choice fruit, henna with nard plants, nard
and saffron, calamus and cinnamon with all the
trees of frankincense, mirth and alloys along with
all the finest spices.
We have spoken much this week about the
true believer will bear fruit.
If there is no fruit of righteousness in
your life, it's evidence that you're lost.
But at the same time, we had to
keep coming back and we'll do this again.
That fruit is not a work of your
own power.
That fruit is not a work of your
flesh.
That fruit is not a work of motivation
on your part.
That fruit, you know, how many of you
have ever seen an apple tree?
How many of you have ever seen an
apple tree?
A few of you.
OK.
Have you ever seen an apple tree in
the spring about this time of year?
Just twisting and crying and struggling and...
You haven't, have you?
They just kind of stand there.
Because an apple tree doesn't have to really
strive to bear fruit, does it?
It just bears fruit.
Some of you who have been converted and
you have so much desire to bear fruit,
you have so much desire to do things
that you almost drive yourself crazy.
I've talked to some of you.
You drive me crazy.
Oh, Brother Paul, I just want to bear
fruit.
I just want to bear fruit.
Well, just shut your mouth for a moment.
You belong to him.
You are his good tree that he has
planted by rivers of water.
You are his good tree.
He has planted you.
He will nourish you.
You will grow.
He will prune you.
And it will hurt.
But it will be done in love.
He will prune you.
And you will bear fruit.
And you will bear fruit that will remain.
You will.
You have.
And you're going to.
And it's not going to stop until the
day you enter into glory.
Because according to the book of Jude, he's
already seen to it that you're going to
stand before him with great joy.
You need to spend more time in worship
and less time striving.
You need to spend more time in childlike
speaking with your father than groveling before him
as though he were some cruel medieval lord.
Then he says in verse 15, You are
a garden spring, a well of fresh water,
and streams flowing from Lebanon.
From your innermost being will come rivers of
living water.
We as Baptists, one thing about Baptist theology
that you must understand is that Baptist theology,
and I'm Baptist, and I hope I have
a theology, but much of our theology is
reactionary.
It really is.
And church, if you'll learn this one thing,
if you'll believe it, you'll learn something.
Because of so many abuses with regard to
the Holy Spirit, we are so afraid of
the Holy Spirit.
When was the last time you prayed the
Holy Spirit would fill you?
Just fill you?
If you look in the book of Acts,
every time something had to be done, it
was preceded by the filling of the Holy
Spirit.
Church, if ever I could say this to
you, and I love you, if ever I
could say this to you, you have not
because you ask not.
You have not because you ask not.
And one of the reasons you ask not
is because you've never understood your righteous place
before God and Christ.
And you spend most of your relationship, now
listen to me, I love you, I want
you to understand this, you spend so much
of your relationship with God, wasting so much
good spiritual energy, wasting so much emotional and
physical energy, groveling before Him and trying to
make yourself right, that you never get on
to the good stuff.
Well, I don't know if I'm worthy.
Well, we've already settled that, haven't we?
Constantly be praying for the filling of the
Holy Spirit.
Constantly be praying for greater and greater measure
of His manifestation in your life.
Constantly.
And I mean it should be an all
-consuming passion with you, dear church.
Let's say that you work on a petroleum
line, or you work in a factory, or
in every task.
You're a medical doctor, or an engineer, a
lawyer, preacher, pastor.
You've got to go out and mow the
yard.
You should be crying out for a filling
of the Holy Spirit.
I used to tell young preachers, if you're
going to preach, you've got to preach with
the power of God on your life.
Now I tell them, if you're going to
tie your shoes, you need the power of
God on your life.
There is so much more spiritual life available
to you than what you would ever imagine.
And you need to go.
You need to stand on the righteousness of
Christ and then go boldly into the throne
of grace.
Is it not true?
Would you not stand up right now in
your heart and say, yes, yes, most of
my prayer life is nothing more than groveling
before God?
One of the things that I was sharing
at lunch today was one of the greatest
gifts God gave me.
The greatest gifts, my wife.
After that, the little monsters that came after
her.
And when my son was about a year
and a half old, he was in our
bedroom and he was up on the bed.
And I came around the door.
And the moment he saw me, his face
lit up like a light.
And he threw his hands out like this.
And there was not a doubt in his
mind what his dad was going to do.
He did not have a doubt.
He knew his dad was going to run
across that room, pick him up and dance
a jig.
He knew his dad was going to kiss
him.
He knew his dad was going to hug
him.
His dad was going to twirl around and
tell him how much he loved him.
There wasn't a doubt in his mind.
But when I came across that threshold and
I looked at him, I felt very impressed
of the Lord.
It was almost like in my heart, Paul,
you were like that once when you were
a little boy.
And it was stomped out of you.
But I am your father.
And that's the way I want to see
you every time I walk into the room.
I teach theology.
I travel all over theology.
Theology is extremely important.
But true theology will always lead to a
more and more childlike thing.
This is what he said about me.
And this is what he said about you,
church.
Dear Christian, many of you have surveyed your
heart.
You've gone over all these passages and all
the hard preaching that I've done.
You've been shocked.
You've been offended.
You've been worried.
I've said that men are wretched beasts, depraved.
That if it were not for the common
grace of God, the grace of God restraining
men, we would all make Hitler look like
a choir boy.
And that is true.
But once you have become a child of
God, do not, for the sake of grace,
do not be running around, groveling like you
were some wretched beast.
You have been made a child of God.
You have been redeemed.
Most Christians who really take the holiness of
God seriously, I think their anthem would be
something like this.
You are God, holy and firm.
Step on me and watch me squirm.
And they do not ever grasp the balance.
And the balance is He is holy.
And there are times when He manifests His
holiness and it will cast us to the
ground in awesome reverence.
And there are also times when He will
so fill our hearts with joy that we'll
dance a jig.
We'll dance a jig.
If you've never danced a jig, you're all
too proper.
And you need to get right with God.
Tomorrow night, you know, you say, well, where's
the revival?
Where's the weeping?
There is no weeping for me.
And do you want to know why?
I told you exactly what the Lord wanted
me to tell you tonight.
Some people, after they hear me preach several
times, they'll come back and when they hear
me preach like this, they get mad at
me.
They think I've compromised.
They don't realize.
We have to proclaim the full counsel of
God.
And those of you who are God's lambs,
oh, I would not lay a finger to
strike you.
Rejoice now.
Tomorrow night, I've talked about God's love for
you.
Tomorrow night, Lord willing, we're going to talk
about you and your romance with God.
I beg you not to come back because,
oh, there's something going on here.
Because you need to come back even if
there's nothing going on here.
Because the Word of God is going to
be open and the fellowship of the brothers
and sisters are going to be here.
I love you.
I love to say that that way.
I really do.
And God loves you.
God loves you.
My little boy, I'll finish with this.
My little boy, I don't know where he
learned this.
I think my wife taught it to him,
to be honest with you.
I'll be laying there in bed after preaching
all night and I'm dead.
It's seven in the morning and he'll walk
in the room and he'll get this close
to my face.
This close.
His nose is touching mine.
Now, he doesn't let me know.
He just sneaks up on me, puts his
nose right there and then he goes, Wake
up!
You know, that's why I have back problems.
I almost go into a convulsion.
But you know, I'd love to sneak up
on you and get that close and go,
Pastor?