At least, our Lord would have it so,
though I'm sure that you are aware, as
I am, that it is possible for what
is meant to be a communion season to
be anything other than real, deep communion with
God and with one another.
That is a possibility.
But where there is faith and hope and
love, it ought never to be so.
And my text this morning is taken from
a portion of scripture which describes the ardent
yearning of one who loves and the response
of the lover to the beloved.
I want to take as the basis of
our meditation the closing half of verse sixteen
in the Song of Solomon, in chapter four,
and then the first half of the first
verse in chapter five.
These chapter divisions are all sometimes topsy-turvy,
and here is a case in point.
There should be no division here.
Chapter four closes with this word of invitation.
Let my beloved come into his garden and
eat his pleasant fruit.
The beginning of the first verse goes like
this.
I am come into my garden, my sister,
my spouse.
I am gathering.
This is how it ought to be translated,
I gather.
I am gathering my myrrh with my spice.
I am eating my honeycomb with my honey.
I am drinking my wine with my milk.
Two main thoughts come before us then.
First of all, a bride's request, and then
the bridegroom's response.
We look at them in turn.
The bride's request.
Let my beloved come into his garden and
eat his pleasant or his precious fruit.
I want to notice two things in this
connection.
First of all, a possession that is gladly
acknowledged.
Let my beloved come into his garden.
Strange language, you might say, because what is
implied is this.
The bride looks upon herself as a garden.
The property of her beloved.
She looks upon herself as the claimed property
of her king lover, her kingly lover.
And this, of course, is essentially a picture
of the Christian church.
The Christian church has invariably understood the message
of the Song of Solomon in terms of
the love of the heavenly bridegroom for the
church, the earthly bride.
And we understand it as such this morning.
And therefore what we have reflected here is
what ought always to be an acknowledgment of
the bride of Christ.
Namely this.
We are a claimed property, the property of
another.
I don't propose going into the details of
how this young lass in the song was
sought by her kingly lover.
I don't want to go after those details
this morning, but let me remind you of
how the bride of Christ was sought.
He came out of the ivory palaces.
He was conceived of the Holy Ghost in
the virgin's womb.
He was born in obscurity and he lived
the loneliest of life, though sometimes in large
companies.
And at last he lay down his life
to purchase our redemption and to procure our
pardon and to woo us and whim us
to himself.
And the church of Jesus Christ is a
people that belongs to him.
He has bought us.
The price of blood is upon every redeemed
child of God in this service this morning.
So that the preacher in the pulpit, whoever
he may be, can look into the face
of every believer and say, man, woman, boy,
girl, you have been bought.
You are the claimed property of another.
Let my beloved come into his garden, his
property.
But you notice, she doesn't stop there.
Along with that, the other part, the other
side of that same truth takes us further.
She looks upon herself not only as his
claimed property, but as his cultivated territory.
Let my beloved, she says, come into his
garden.
Now a garden is a garden.
And I don't need to pause to explain
what a garden is.
It's not common ground.
It's not an ordinary field.
It is a piece of land that has
been hedged around by someone to whom it
belongs, and then he has put a gate
there and possibly a fence that's pretty high
to keep everybody out, and he's begun to
till.
A spade has gone into the soil.
Seed has been sown.
Something has been cultivated.
And a garden is a very beautiful place.
There is fragrance in the properly cultivated garden.
There is beauty in the garden.
There is fruit in the garden.
The church of Jesus Christ, the true church,
is never a wilderness.
It is never common property, unfenced, unclaimed.
The true church is a cultivated territory, claimed
by the Redeemer himself, who by the word
of the gospel and the coming of the
Spirit has put his spade into the soil
of the heart, turned us upside down, taken
the stones out, given us new hearts of
flesh, taken out the weeds, sown his word
there.
And there is some measure of order and
some measure of beauty in the garden of
the Lord.
And this dear bride of the text, she
looks to her beloved and she says, you've
made something of me that I wasn't before.
When your love came into my heart, things
began to happen.
Things began to bloom.
Hopes began to show themselves that were never
there before.
And I'm a different person.
Do you acknowledge yourself today to be the
Lord's claimed property, his cultivated territory?
But along with that there is something else
here, a presence that she earnestly desired.
Listen again.
Let my beloved come into his garden and
eat his pleasant fruits.
Apparently there is a distance that distresses the
bride here.
Now, I know as you read this, as
I read it, and I'm sure as you
will read it, you'll find there's a little
bit of contradiction here.
Apparently she's speaking to him, and yet she
indicates that he's outside the garden.
He's within the range of her voice, but
he's not within the range of her touch.
He's not far because she can speak to
him and she can hear him speak to
her, but there is a distance.
And you see, this is one thing that
love cannot tolerate.
It's distance between the lover and the beloved.
The least distance betwixt is a chasm.
And love can't tolerate that distance.
And it is evidence of the bride's real
affection for her bridegroom that she wants him
near.
He must be in the garden, not outside.
It's not enough to hear his voice.
She wants him.
I have no doubt at all that in
days of yours as today, this bride would
have had her portrait of her beloved, of
her lover, perhaps as they did in those
days, scribbled with a pen on a slate,
I don't know.
At any rate, she had her image of
him in her mind, in her heart.
But what's an image?
She wants him, himself.
Do you know anything of this?
Oh, my friend, do you know anything of
the inflamed, impassioned heart of love for Jesus
Christ today?
That the least distance betwixt you and him
grieves you, worries you, hurts you.
You may hear his words.
It is here in the scriptures.
And you may see that word illustrated in
the broken bread and in the outpoured wine,
and you thank God for it all, and
you say it's all so very wonderful.
But it's just like having a photograph of
my beloved.
A photograph is also cold.
I want him, himself.
There is a distance that distresses her.
There is a delight that demands him.
Nothing short, nothing less, nothing else, and there
can be nothing beyond this, to have him
in the garden of my heart, communing with
him, sharing with him, and he with me.
If God were to give the real Christian
who bears this kind of love in his
heart, if God were to give a Christian
like this all the riches of the ages,
and say to him, look here, go into
the millennium and enjoy yourself and have a
good time, I believe that with all the
riches of the world in his soul, he
would turn to the Almighty and say, except
thy presence go with me, don't let me
go.
For heaven to the beloved is Jesus, because
God is in Christ.
Do we know anything of this?
We used to sing in my young Christian
days, if I have Jesus, Jesus only, then
my sky will have a gem.
He is the sun of brightest splendor and
the star of Bethlehem.
He is the lily of the valley.
He is the rose of sheer unfair.
He is everything, and if he is not
in communion with me, I cannot rejoice.
But where Jesus is, it is heaven there.
My friend, would you know if he were
present here this morning, would you be satisfied
simply to hear a sermon based on Scripture
and see the elements on the table and
partake of them?
Or is your soul so much in love
with Jesus Christ that great and wonderful and
necessary as all this is, you would be
dissatisfied if you did not put your arms
of faith around him and know that he
has his arms around you.
My beloved is mine, and I am here.
And that brings me to this, a pleasure
which the bride is eager to impart to
her beloved.
Why does she want him?
Why does she invite him?
Well, says she, according to the record, let
my beloved come into his garden and eat
his choicest fruits, or his special fruits.
Now, let's not miss this.
It is no selfish reason that inspires her
request for the presence of her beloved in
the garden of her life.
On the contrary, she wants him to come
because there is something she wants to give
him.
She looks upon her life as a garden.
She has kept it fenced in.
This virgin bride has kept her life unspotted
and untainted from everybody and everything.
And she has kept all her pent-up
emotions and gifts and graces.
She has now got everything welling up in
her heart, and she wants to give everything
to him.
She shares it with no one else.
She wants him to come, and she wants
him to come into the garden and eat
his pleasant fruit.
Oh, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, don't
let's miss this.
She doesn't tell him like this, look here,
I've got a wonderful apple tree, or a
pear tree, or something else, and I want
you to choose a few specimens from it.
She says, come into your garden and have
what you like.
You choose.
It's all for you.
It's nothing for anyone else unless you want
to share the stuff with other people.
That's all right.
And she does that later on.
But first of all, it's all for you.
One of the things that grieves me as
a minister of the Word is this, that
sometimes we have to plead with men and
women to do things for Jesus Christ.
To give of their substance, to give of
their time, to give of their talents.
And I don't think there is anything which
is more incongruous with a Christian faith than
this, that a minister of the Word or
his fellow laborers should plead with redeemed, ransomed,
blood-bought men and women to pray, to
teach, to preach, to witness.
For the first of the fruits of the
Spirit is love.
Let my beloved come in and take what
he wants.
Can you find it in your heart to
say that this morning?
What he wants?
I don't know what he wants from you.
I may have some indication of what he's
asking from me.
Do you love him?
As he asked Peter of old, lovest thou
me more than these?
Whatever that refers to for the moment.
Is there anything in your life that you
love more than him?
Or can you not find grace to say,
let my beloved come into his garden, his
claimed property, his cultivated territory, and take it
all?
You know, if we can say that, that's
the beginning of communion, a bride's request.
Now we turn for a moment to the
bridegroom's response.
How does he react, this kingly, this royal,
this sovereign lover, how does he react to
a plea of this kind?
Well, you may wonder, unless you have read
and read on.
But if you have read and read on
into this passage, well, then you know the
answer already.
Listen to the text.
He acknowledges his acceptance of the garden as
his own property, and he rewards the love
that so honours him in these words.
I've come, he says, I'm here.
Before you asked me, I was there.
I've come into my garden, my sister, my
bride.
I'm in already.
I'm here.
First of all, he recognizes the yielded life
as his property.
Now I find this exceedingly precious.
She said, notice, let my beloved come into
his garden.
He said, I am come into my garden.
Which means this, you see, the little bit
of garden that she handed over to him,
he was a king, he had a vast
royal estate, her little garden was tiny.
But when she handed over her tiny little
garden to him, he added it to his
vast estate, and he said, mine.
It's mine forevermore.
I accept it, however little it is, however
insignificant it is.
It is my garden.
And he does just that.
Some of us may feel this morning that
we've got so little to give him.
My friend, it doesn't matter how little your
life may be, how mean in your own
sight, or in the sight of others, for
that matter.
The little garden property that is handed over
to him in love and with a desire
to please him, he accepts, and he makes
it part of his royal and eternal kingdom,
and it becomes his.
And he says, I'm come into my garden.
But notice, not only does he recognize the
yielded life as his property, he rewards the
life that is yielded to him.
I'm come into my garden, he says, my
sister, my bride.
Do you realize the significance of those words?
You might have thought, you see, that by
giving up her life, the bride had lost
something.
I tell you, she lost nothing at all.
What he took with one hand, he gave
back with the other, because you notice what
he does.
Oh yes, he says, I'm come into my
garden, you've given yourself to me, you are
mine, you are my beloved, all right.
But now, you're my sister and you're my
bride.
And thereby he addresses her in terms of
the closest relationship and of a committed responsibility.
My sister, not a chattel to be used,
but a sister to be cherished.
My bride, my bride, one with myself, bearing
my name, sharing my life, sharing my destiny.
You see, there's a difference between being merely
loved and being the bride.
We hear of such tragedies in this world
as those of broken engagements.
What we have here is a committed responsibility.
He says, you're my bride.
That means this, you see, that whatever she
has given up to him now belongs to
her still as his bride.
So she's lost nothing, because he acknowledges her
as his sister and as his bride.
All that she had given up is given
back to her in terms of this new
relationship and much else beside.
Because now she has joined her with her
sovereign Lord of all the vast domains that
are under his name.
How very typical of what our heavenly lover
longs to do at this time.
Oh yes, he takes the life that is
yielded to him.
And he says, it is mine, you've given
it over to me, it is mine.
But wonder of wonders, it's given back to
us under the guise of a new relationship,
and we find ourselves heir of God, heirs
of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
Nothing that is given to him is lost.
And then he assures his beloved of his
personal presence, I am come, he says, but
I want to close with this, I can't
linger longer here, precious as it is.
Can I just come to this as we
close this morning?
I am come, my presence, I'm here already.
And he accepts the pleasure that she would
give him.
He accepts the offer to choose.
I am come, he says, I gather, I
eat, I drink.
Yes, he says, there is so much in
the garden of your life that delights me.
There is fruit to gather, there are certain
things to eat, and there are certain things
to drink.
And here in your garden, he says, I
am really enjoying myself.
There are things that please me and satisfy
me, and I am here already.
Brethren and sisters in Christ, this is what
will make this service a communion.
If you and I can find grace together
to open the door of our hearts so
widely that we can say to him, Dear
Lord, who didst love me with an everlasting
love, and purchase my redemption, and thereby my
life, claim your property, come right in.
What do you want of me today?
And he puts his finger on this, and
he takes a little of that, and you
don't begrudge him anything, but you give him
the blank check to choose what he will.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice and open
the door, I will come in to him
and will sup with him, feast with him,
and he with me.
O God, grant it for his name's sake.
Let us pray.
Father of all mercy and God of all
comfort, we desire at this time that in
the light of the greater revelation of a
greater love than that which we have been
considering, we may have a correspondingly greater grace
for the kingly lover of our soul, that
when we survey the wondrous cross on which
the prince of glory died, our richest gains
we count but loss, and poor contempt on
all our pride.
O, for the grace to say, Thine am
I by all tithes.
But, chiefly Thine, that in Thy sacrifice Thou,
Lord, art mine, is there on earth a
closer bond than this, that my beloved's mine,
and I am his.
Give us grace, for Jesus' sake.
Amen.