[0:00] The Song of Solomon, like the Book of the Revelation, is a closed book to many people.
[0:17] And the division between those to whom it is closed and open is not between non-Christians and Christians.
[0:32] Non-Christians dismiss both, but many Christians are mystified by both. And yet, both are a part of the all-Scripture that is given by God and is profitable for instruction, doctrine, etc.
[0:57] It certainly takes spiritual eyes, and it certainly takes some maturity of mind and soul to comprehend the message of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.
[1:17] Anciently, I understand, the Jews did not allow a student rabbi to read this book of the Song of Solomon. Age and maturity were considered necessary before he could profit by it.
[1:40] Certainly, it is a book for full-grown Christians. And if we say that it baffles us, we say either that we are not Christians, or we admit that we are among the little children that John, in his first epistle, puts in contrast with the young men who are established in the faith, and the fathers who are the pillars of the family of Christ.
[2:18] And yet, my friends, to be but a child in the family is to be in the family. And there is a bigger difference between one in the family and one out of the family than there is between child, young man, father, in the family.
[2:42] Within the family, it is a matter of degree and relationship. But outside the family of grace, all is dark.
[2:54] All is dismal. All is hopeless. So I shall take a child-like view of the Song of Songs this evening.
[3:09] I shall see in it only two characters. The bridegroom and the bride. Christ and his church. And you will find that as you read each verse in this Song of Solomon, you have to determine from the context whether it is Christ or his church that speaks.
[3:33] The bridegroom always speaks in the singular, in the first person. I, me, mine. The bride, however, sometimes speaks collectively in the singular, that there is but one church.
[3:55] But sometimes the bride speaks in the plural distributively, speaking for and on behalf of each and every member of the church.
[4:08] And speaks in terms of we and us. And ours. Well, the theme overall in this book is the theme of the mutual communion that exists between Christ and his church.
[4:25] And between Christ's church and Christ. What better, what more relevant subject then for us on a communion evening than this?
[4:38] A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me. What then is there to be seen in this text?
[4:56] I submit that there are two things. First, there is a fact. A plain fact. And second, there is an explanation of that fact.
[5:11] It might be more interesting to take the explanation first, but I shall not take it that way. I shall look at the facts to begin with, and then we shall see the explanation afterwards.
[5:28] The fact that is said before us here in this verse, as indeed throughout the Song of Solomon, is the fact that Christ is inexpressibly, unspeakably precious to Christians.
[5:46] when things are precious, you look for superlative words and terms to describe them.
[5:59] And often, when you can find no word or term in the language adequate for the description, you employ a metaphor or a figure of speech.
[6:14] And that is precisely what is done in the book of the Song of Solomon. Here is Christ's church.
[6:26] Not the Baptist church. Nor the Methodist church. Nor any other humanly designated body. But Christ's church.
[6:40] The totality of God's elect from the beginning to the end of time. Them which thou hast given me, as Christ described them.
[6:55] And here is that church. This whole body of elect and redeemed humanity struggling for adequate terms to describe her beloved head, savior, redeemer, bridegroom.
[7:17] And there are no words sufficiently expressive, sufficiently superlative. So she resorts to metaphor.
[7:32] The use of metaphor, of course, in the Song of Solomon is tremendous. You trace it through from begin to end and list the metaphors that are used.
[7:44] And then begin to analyze them and see the character they portray of the Lord Jesus Christ. and you have a wonderful revelation of his person and his preciousness.
[8:01] A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me. The church then states the fact.
[8:12] She knows the fact. She's not in doubt about it. She feels the fact. She experiences the fact that Christ is unspeakably, inexpressibly, superlatively, precious to his church as a whole and to each member simply.
[8:41] She calls him my well-beloved. And she chooses the figure of myrrh to express her feeling.
[8:54] So let us take this fact and for the present I stay with the fact and I want to turn it round so to speak like a prism against the light and see it in several different lights.
[9:18] To begin with, Christ is inexpressibly precious to Christians in terms of fellowship. What is the essence of the Christian experience with the fellowship of a Christian with Christ?
[9:34] He knows Christ and Christ knows him. That's the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. And scripture and history and biography and experience all combine to agree that nothing gives a Christian so much real joy as fellowship with Christ.
[9:59] if you're a Christian, if you know, if you understand what I'm talking about, throw into contrast your seasons of fellowship with Christ on the one hand, with your seasons of preoccupation with mundane things on the other hand, and especially with seasons when you are angry, or proud, or contentious.
[10:36] You find that you can have sweet fellowship with Christ in adversity and in sorrow and in defeat and in discouragement, but you cannot have fellowship with Christ in seasons of anger or pride or contention.
[10:59] that is a simple statement of fact. Where can you find such sweetness as you find in actual conscious communion with Christ?
[11:14] Of course, as a Christian, you are not dead to natural joys in the works of God and in the gifts of God in nature.
[11:27] Yet, when you find how those things decay or pale, you come to the conclusion that there is no joy like the joy that is to be found in this one whom you know, this person of Christ.
[11:47] You decide that ultimately, though the theology and the doctrine of Christ is important, what is more important is the person of Christ himself.
[12:02] And when you compare him to the revelations of God in nature, you are inclined to say, well, what is the wheat to the child?
[12:16] Or the dream to the reality? Or the shell to the kernel? It is the mark of a member of Christ's church that he finds the highest, purest, sweetest, most enduring joys.
[12:38] in fellowship with his Lord and Savior. And out of such fellowship comes a confession and exclamation like this.
[12:53] A bundle of my is my well belied unto me. Let me turn the prism another way.
[13:08] And I would put it like this and say Christ is unspeakably precious to Christians in terms of sheer and simple goodness.
[13:20] To a Christian, nothing is good without Christ. Christ. You may have plenty, but if Christ is absent, so far as you are concerned, you have a family.
[13:44] The natural sun may shine on your way, but if Christ withdraws himself, all is black and dark as night. you look at the wonders of creation, but if Christ isn't in your view, and in your vision, and in your estimate, then it may as well all be a howling wilderness.
[14:11] Nothing is good to a Christian without Christ. to many, his gifts are enough, but to a Christian, a Christian says, what are the gifts without the giver?
[14:37] Without him, as Faber correctly says, unblessed good is ill. the member of Christ's church finds goodness wherever he finds Christ and nowhere else.
[14:57] That is his definition of goodness, and that makes Christ so precious to him, that he is ready to say, a bundle of myrrh is my well beloved.
[15:15] unto me. I turn the prison yet another way, and I put it to you like this.
[15:27] Christ is unspeakably precious to a Christian when all else fails him, as all else does fail him sometimes, as creature comforts will fail, as men will fail.
[15:49] You can find instances in Christian biography and experience where Christians have known their worst times to be their best times, because their worst times providentially have thrown them nearer to Christ in relationship than anything else.
[16:08] Christ. When Christians have known a bed of sickness turned into a throne of royalty, all by the sufficiency of their Lord Jesus Christ.
[16:24] Christ. Yes, when men cast you off and Christ takes you up, when men hate you and Christ loves you, when men esteem you and Christ, when men despise you and Christ esteems you, when men wound you and Christ binds up your wounds, then Christ is unspeakably precious, incalculably valuable, and when all else fails and Christ does not as he never does, then the soul will die.
[17:08] A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me. I turn the prism in yet another direction and I find this, Christ is unspeakably precious, when a Christian would rather give up anything or anyone else than forsake his master.
[17:38] In that situation, Christ is unspeakably precious. there have been those who have been unable to look in the face those words of the Savior when he said, he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
[18:00] Yet on the other hand, there have been those who have outdistanced that requirement by leagues, but they have loved not their life to the death.
[18:17] And they have laid it down in this world rather than forsake their master whom they would meet in another world. Oh, how precious was Christ to Stephen when they stoned him, to Tyndale of Bill Ward, to Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley in Oxford, Hooper in Gloucester, and to many and many another for whom it was quite literally to live is Christ and to die is gain.
[18:56] It puts us on our metal, does it not, face this question, this question that some of our brothers and sisters in Christ actually face even today in certain parts of the world?
[19:14] Christ or the stake? Christ or the firing squad? Christ. But many a member of Christ's church would rephrase that question.
[19:32] They would see it differently. They would see it as will you live without Christ or will you die with Christ and be with him forever?
[19:47] And they don't hesitate in their answer. Christ is unspeakably precious to a Christian in that situation.
[20:02] A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me. Yet again I turn the prism and I put it to you like this.
[20:16] Christ is unspeakably precious when a Christian wants others to know him. When the effect of Christ upon a Christian is such that he cannot contain and he wishes others to share.
[20:35] When a Christian is so full of Christ and so satisfied with Christ and so delighted in Christ that he longs for others to know him too.
[20:47] when Christ's preciousness is something to be shared as well as embraced. When the vastness of his love is such that there is enough and to spare.
[21:05] When I realize that I lose nothing by commending him to others. when the more his love grows to me the more I know he has to bestow on others.
[21:23] When his preciousness to me doesn't make me miserly of his love to me but rather anxious that others should know it, feel it and share it too until all his dead elect are his.
[21:39] In fact as well as decree. In truth as well as in intention. My well beloved is immeasurably precious to his church.
[22:02] That is the fact. in the mind of the bride as she utters these words. So that leads me then in the second place to speak of the explanation of the fact.
[22:21] A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me. And here I want to follow out the chosen metaphor.
[22:33] And in it of course there are two things to be observed. The one is that the Lord Jesus Christ is likened to myrrh.
[22:45] and what were the features of myrrh? Well the first and the obvious thing to notice of course is a continuation of all that I've said already.
[23:02] Myrrh speaks of Christ by its preciousness, by its rarity, by its scarcity, by its costliness. myrrh was a resin, a gun, taken from certain plants or trees, particularly the balsam tree or plant in the near east.
[23:31] A scarce tree than plant and therefore any product from it, a rare and a scarce commodity. Myrrh speaks of Christ by its preciousness and his rarity.
[23:51] And Christ is the Father's only begotten Son, the only one. There's none other like him. And as to cost, well heaven and earth couldn't purchase another Christ.
[24:08] for when God gave his Son, he gave the best that heaven had. And when Christ was taken out of heaven, the Father had nothing more to give.
[24:23] All the precious gift, the whole of deersy in the person of Christ. Not silver or gold.
[24:36] the precious blood. Christ is like myrrh in its scarcity, its value, its rarity, its preciousness.
[24:52] A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me. Again, Christ is typified by myrrh in terms of its pleasantness.
[25:13] A room perfumed with myrrh was pleasant to be in. The nostrils picked up the scent, the mind registered its pleasantness.
[25:27] And of Christ it is written, all his garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia. Everything about Christ ravishes the heart of a Christian and all his ways are pleasantness.
[25:47] Though bitter to him, they are pleasant to his people. Altogether lovely, the fairest among ten thousand to the souls of his people.
[25:59] as all the rivers run into the sea, so all delights worth the name center into Christ.
[26:11] A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me. in terms of pleasantness. Once again, myrrh speaks of Christ by its perfuming effects.
[26:32] It was often used to give a sweet smell to other things, things which of themselves are not sweet. For instance, it was mingled with the fat of sacrifices.
[26:49] Burning fat does not emit a pleasant smell. But the fat was mingled with myrrh. And the ascending odor was perfumed and made sweet.
[27:08] And my friends, Christ has a perfuming effect on the nature, the character, of his people. None of whom are very sweet by nature, but all of whom find that sweetness in him.
[27:28] He perfumes their prayers so that they rise up and are acceptable to God. He perfumes their songs so that they are like vials full of odors.
[27:45] He perfumes the ministry of the word, putting the treasure into earthen vessels and then firing it with the unction of his spirit.
[27:58] He perfumes his people so that they are accepted in the beloved. A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me, speaking of Christ in terms of its perfuming effect.
[28:27] Again, myrrh speaks of Christ by its preserving quality. It was used, it is still used, to prevent corruption, hence its use in embalming.
[28:45] And who can preserve a ransomed soul but Jesus? And who can preserve our dead works and make them good works but Jesus?
[28:58] And who can preserve our vile body, the body of our humiliation? Finally, make it like unto his glorious body, but Jesus?
[29:13] And who can preserve us from sin and ensure the final preservation and perseverance of all the saints? Who?
[29:25] The person, the power, the worth of Jesus Christ, a bundle of myrrh, is my well-beloved unto me in terms of preservation.
[29:41] not only that, myrrh speaks of Christ by its disinfectant quality.
[29:57] Anciently, myrrh was often worn in a little bag hung round the neck in the time of pest and plague. as a precaution, it drove away certain infections.
[30:20] So, surely, with Christ, his people live in a world plagued by sin, the flesh, and devil. somehow, they must be kept clean, somehow, they must be kept spiritually healthy and holy.
[30:39] Christ's people are in the world, they have to mix with unholy, ungodly people. Well, let them take hint and mix more with Christ.
[30:52] And the more they do, the more they will be disinfected by the evil example and evil action of those with whom they have to do.
[31:06] If Christ go with you, when of necessity in daily life you have to go into an unwholesome situation, your trust is in him.
[31:19] He will act as a disinfectant to yourself. It doesn't follow that because the Christian lives in an evil and a filthy world that he must become like the world.
[31:36] He has a disinfectant. A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me in terms of disinfectation.
[31:54] Yet remarked, myrrh speaks of Christ by virtue of its curative effects. At least anciently it was so used for the cure of certain diseases and complaints.
[32:15] Perhaps still, I don't know. but I do know that Christ's name is Jehovah Rophi. I am the Lord that healeth thee, who healeth all thy diseases, thy worst diseases, those that are fatal to the soul.
[32:39] Christ comes, as he did when he was here on earth, and says, be thou whole.
[32:53] A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me. Yet again, I put it like this, Christ is typified by myrrh, and myrrh speaks of Christ by reason of its cosmetic or beautifying effect.
[33:17] You will read that Queen Esther, before she went into the presence of King Ahasuerus, prepared herself and also her attendant virgins with myrrh.
[33:36] And oh, how Christ's people need beautifying. The warts and the wrinkles of the soul and of the character all need the attention of the heavenly beautician.
[33:59] Paul calls upon us in his letter to Titus to adorn the doctrine of God in all things.
[34:12] Well, the Greek word translated adorn is cosmeo and cosmeo is the origin of the English word cosmeti. a man who is all doctrine and no Christ is not very beautiful.
[34:32] But when Christ takes over the grace of the doctrines flow from the doctrines of grace.
[34:45] there is a beautifying effect that Christ has in and upon his people. And here is the explanation of this fact that Christ is inexpressibly precious to his church.
[35:09] The bride chooses her metaphor well. Her bridegroom she says is like myrrh. The bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto thee.
[35:26] Here is the preciousness of Christ. Here is the fact explained. The features of myrrh explain display to us to some extent the fact that Christ is unspeakably precious to Christians.
[35:50] But there is a second thing to be noticed in this metaphor. Not only is the Lord Jesus Christ typified under the figure of myrrh but it is also considered and stated that he is like a bundle of myrrh.
[36:16] Now myrrh might be had as an oil or it might be had in a powdered form as a dried spice.
[36:31] But in either way it began life as resin gum in the twigs and leaves of the balsam tree.
[36:48] Hence the expression a bundle of myrrh. a bundle of sprigs or twigs plucked from the tree or the plant and bound together.
[37:08] And this is the chosen expression in relation to Christ. Why so? Well for one thing I submit because of quantity or fullness not a sprig or a twig but a bundle.
[37:23] Not a little but a lot. The fullness resides in Jesus our head. All fullness dwells in him.
[37:36] He is the enough one. A bundle of myrrh. Again I submit it is put that way because a bundle suggests variety.
[37:50] no two twigs or sprigs or anything are identical in shape or form though they are identical in terms of species.
[38:02] here is a bundle and within the bundle there is a variety of form. Yes and look at the characters of Christ and what variety do you find?
[38:20] He is prophet he is priest he is gay. He is husband he is friend he is shepherd and competent in each character.
[38:39] Look at the virtues of Christ he is gentleness he is courage he is self denial he is love he is faithfulness he is truth he is righteousness not one alone not one alone but all a bundle of myrrh not only for wholeness but for variety again I would put it like this Christ is like a bundle of myrrh because of concentration not a loose bit here and there not an isolated bit but bound up bound up a bundle tied up all these glorious things tied up in
[39:48] Christ and in his person each virtue grace character strengthening God and when the poor woman touched the hem of his garment and was healed at that remote point in his person and anything to do with it all was concentrated on the healing flowed his virtue is as concentrated in its efficiency and efficacy now as it was then a bundle of myrrh and I submit the term the expression is used a bundle because of speciality or distinction in terms of application not common myrrh for everyone but distinguishing and discriminating the church is made up of many here in this book of the song of solomon sometimes as
[41:02] I've said it is expressed in singular sometimes in plural terms the church as a whole is one and yet the church is made up of individuals here is distinguishing and discriminating grace a bundle tied up and labelled with the names of his people from before the foundation of the world a bundle of myrrh is my well below it unto me here then is the fact he is inexpressibly precious to his church and here is the fact explained he is as myrrh bound in a bundle with all its properties and all its attributes and all its qualities it remains only for me to put the question can you say of christ my well beloved he is well beloved of his father he is well beloved of the angels in glory he is well beloved of the church triumphant he is well beloved of thousands yet upon earth you among them a bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me to many christ is as a root out of a dry ground they see beauty in this wicked world but none in christ can you see beauty in christ are you in his church the apostle the apostle peter says unto you who believe he is precious and so he is a bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me and unless we can include ourselves then all is as a dream but if we see ourselves included and can say not only a bundle of myrrh is christ to his church but also to me then we have the blessing of those who know their sins forgiven who are one with christ who are in him and by him reconciled to god the lord make him more and more precious to us for his glory sake amen
[44:17] This time the 24 thing