The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. If you would please remain standing for the reading of God's Word, turning your Bibles to the book Song of Songs, chapter 1. Song of Songs, chapter 1, we'll begin reading back in verse 15, and we'll read through chapter 2, verse 2. What you're about to hear really is God's word given to you as a kingly gift. Please hear it as such. Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves. Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful. Our couch is green. The beams of our house are cedar. Our rafters are pine. I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among the young women. Well, this is indeed the word of the Lord. Amen, you may be seated. Please pray with me. Our great God and Father, we thank you for the precious gift that is your word. We pray that by your word and by your spirit, you would stir up in our hearts a greater zeal for your name. We pray that you would chasten lesser loves away and that you would pour the oil of your grace on the fire of our faith. which is that you would, as it were, hidden behind the wall, sustain, nurture, and increase the faith of your people. We pray that you would do just that for our love for Christ. We pray that as our hearts draw near to the Lord's table, a kingly gift you've given us, that you would reassure us again and again of your great love for us. We pray this in our Savior's name, amen. Well, there's two kinds of people with which you, I know this probably is not the most normal opening, but there's two kinds of people that you may or, well, don't like watching movies with. Actually, now that I think about it, there's lots more. I'm gonna mention two. The first is the one who quotes the line a half a second before the movie does. You know who you are. The second are the faithful guide, like myself, if you were to watch Lord of the Rings with me, would pause it at moments and say, now, do you see what just happened there? Aragorn wears Boromir's greaves from this point onward to the end. I mean, he's buried. And you would be like, Lord, thank you. That's such a one. is here to guide me through this greatest of all films. In the latter of those two, not really the first one, but in the latter of those two, there's themes that run through stories. Any good story is, it's going to introduce themes, develop themes, and then present them again and again in all of these different situations when you expect it and when you don't expect it. And by the end, that theme that began with these simple few notes has just kind of swelled into this crescendo of plot and character and resolve of conflict, and when done rightly, is just magnificent. And those themes woven throughout a good story are meant to be cherished and caught by the attentive reader. and the attentive re-reader, and then the re, re, re. Every time you read it, you're meant to catch those themes each and every time, those motifs that travel and develop, and at times, the patterns are broken, and at times, the patterns kept, and all of them are meant to serve that greatest purpose. of themes, whatever the movie or the book is. And the Bible's the very same way. The only reason you can have that in literature or in film is when you have a singular, solitary mind behind the story that weaves them in. The Bible's no different. There are themes and motifs that run throughout all of scripture. And if we don't pay attention to them, if we don't cherish them, if we don't love them and acknowledge them and see how they fit, well, it's like taking the Ferrari to go to the grocery store. It's a huge waste. That's probably an odd mixing and matching of metaphors. There are themes in the Word of God that are meant to stir the heart of every son or daughter. Every time we see the Lord Jesus Christ brought to the surface, we should rejoice in him. Every time we see the theme, as we'll see in our text today, the garden theme begun all the way at the beginning and running all the way to the end, and we're to watch the development of that throughout all of scripture, our heart should ache within us. both from a recognition of where we've been, longing back as it were, but then in a much, much greater sense, a longing forward. Each time the garden and temple theme arise to the surface of the Word of God, and like the song, desire driving those motifs, we're meant to come face to face with one just really profound reality. There is so much more that awaits the Christian than what we experience right now. This isn't the end of the story. This isn't the way it's always going to be. There is awaiting each and every, well, I guess all of the children of God, not just a redeemed people, but a redeemed place where he will dwell with those people. And then every time we see that theme bubbling up to the surface, our heart should ache for the Eden that's ahead of us. Our hearts should long for the day when every shadow is chastened away, every thorn burned away, every sorrow and sadness gone, and an eternity with God in the place where God has made us to dwell with Him. Now, do we catch glimmers of that both in God's Word and in the creation that surrounds us? Absolutely we do. We're meant to look around at the mountains and go far more than, oh, that's a nice mountain range, to go, oh, if this be the fallen cursed one, what of the new one? What of the day when the earth that has been groaning to be set free is set free? And he will dwell among them. He will be their God. They will be His people. And they will be in a place where we will dwell forever. That theme, maybe more than any other theme, is the theme that runs throughout the fabric of the Song of Songs. That idea of not just of a bridegroom saving for himself a bride, but for that place wherein he will dwell with her. Glimmers of it now. but anticipation for what's ahead. That's what drives our section this afternoon. We want to kind of unfold, this is just the beginnings of those themes, so we don't get too far down the road, but we wanna unfold this theme in three headings this afternoon. The first is that we want to, excuse me, we wanna consider tasting and returning to Eden. We want to consider tasting and returning to eating. This idea that there's present, current experiencing of these things, but that there's much more coming down the road. So if you look over at verse 16, we said in 15 it's the husband, speaking to the bride. It's Christ speaking to the church, extolling her beauty, calling her his love, speaking of the peaceful work of the Holy Spirit that's happening in her life. And then in verse 16, the bride or the church responds, much like the bridegroom spoke to her she speaks back to him extolling his beauty and extolling his delightfulness and just reveling in her relationship with him the second half of verse 16 we run into the the very beginnings of what I'll consider this Eden theme. I don't know what else to call it other than that, right? It's both pointing backwards to what has been and pointing forwards to what will be. She says, our couch is green. Now, by way of a few introductory comments, there are times in the Song of Songs where it's just plain hard to figure out who is talking. Might say it's not hard. My Bible says he, she, he, she. I mean, what's so hard about that? Well, those, you should notice, are in a different font. They're up above the text. That is an editor seeking to help you understand who is talking. It's kind of a big deal to know who's talking, more or less, right? If it's the bride versus the church, that's kind of a big deal. It's all the word of God, but if we're gonna understand it rightly, we wanna know who's talking. Now, the reason I bring that to the forefront of your attention is I think Oh no, I have to use a baseball analogy. Verse 1 is a huge swing and a miss. So, I bring that to your attention. It's not in the inspired text. It's trying to be helpful, and there's times where it's helpful, and there's times where it's not. From verse halfway through 16, it becomes unclear who exactly is speaking. Now I'm gonna argue, I think it's the bride who's speaking in 16 and 17, and I believe it's back to the husband for verses one and two. So the bride here, addressing her husband, says that their couch is green. And we wanna be careful at this point, as I've mentioned over and over again, and I'll continue to mention over and over again, I don't think that the Song of Songs is a marriage manual. I don't think it's a roadmap to courtship and early relationship. I think it's about the bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. I think it's about his church. Now, if it was about a real husband-wife pair, this would be early on in their marriage. The couch is green, they got it for free. And you know, when you're first married, nothing matches. But it was the right price, it was free. It takes years, decades to work out of that. or more than decades, I would suppose. What is she referencing? Well, if you just take 16b and all of 17, what she's painting is the picture of what we'll call a garden as well as a temple. She's referencing the green grasslands upon which she and her beloved husband do dwell. So their couch is green. They're out in the fields, you could say. They are, she is introducing garden-type language into the scene, and this will not be the only place we'll handle this. It'll actually run through most of the Song of Songs. In fact, just for way of maybe piquing your interest, there's times where it says it's describing the woman, and you read it and go, I've never seen a lady that looks like that. That's because God's kind to us. The other is, He's describing the land. If you just take those two themes, the redemption of a people, the redemption of a place, those two track together, because they began together in the garden before sin separated them, and they reunite eternally when sin is removed. It's how the Bible opens, it's how the Bible closes. And here we see Edenic or garden language rising up to the surface, both heralding backwards as well as forwards. She speaks of the relationship happening in a garden. And that being the place where both Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden, in the greenery, in the forest, and it points forward to what would follow down the road. Now, she mentions the couch is green, the beams of our house are cedar, and the rafters, I think the ESV says pine. Hopefully you'll have a note saying that it doesn't say pine, it says juniper. at what she's developing here if you could just look I know it's a little technical here in the middle right after lunch but just hang with me what she's developing is this this linking of two themes that will run throughout all of Scripture what was the very first temple in the Bible it's the garden the garden is the first temple in the Bible and every temple that comes after that is meant to point us all the way back to the garden. Have you ever read the description of either the tabernacle or of the temple and said, gee whiz, I wonder why they carved palm trees and pomegranates into the sides of this thing. It's like they're trying to make it look like a garden. Boy, I wonder why separating where the priest could go and then where the high priest could only go once a year, there's this guarding cherub. I mean, where have we ever read that before? What they're doing, even the direction the thing faces is meant to draw us back to where it began and meant to point us ahead to where it's going. When she's describing here, she's not saying like, hey, we're having a picnic out on the grass. No, it's much more than that. She is speaking both of a temple and of a garden. I mean, she uses trees and beams. Well, gardens have trees and buildings have beams. She's mixing the two wonderfully together. Our rafters, ESV says pine. The Hebrew would say juniper. I don't know what kind of, I don't know, I don't know if it's the same gross trees that we have around here. Hopefully they're nicer. Maybe there's less black widows over there, I don't know. But she's referencing, depicting a place that is both a garden and a temple, drawing our hearts back to Eden and creating anticipation for the garden temple that we find in Revelation 21 and 22. That's where all of this is leading, and so as she's reflecting on that reality as the church speaks to the bridegroom, we speak in anticipation of what he has ahead of us, and are there ways in which you and I have foretastes of that now? you can answer yes yeah you might well you asked it so i assume a yes answer yeah there are ways in which we taste it where we experience pieces of it and yet our heart within us aches knowing oh there's so much more coming Does He give us Lord's Days, a day of rest in seven, pointing us ahead to an eternity of rest? Yeah, what is that if not a foretaste? He gives us the Lord's Supper as a foretaste of what meal? Well, the wedding supper of the Lamb. He gives us the singing here on earth. It has a foretaste of the worship that'll happen there. There's ways, like Pilgrim did, where we can gaze and look through the glass and see something like a gate, and see something of the glory of the land. That is the experience of the church here and now. You might say, I don't know. You're probably the only person who's ever thought that. Well, no. Others have as well, and one of them, his name is Jim Hamilton. You might say, I've never heard of him. He's probably a weirdo too. Well, just listen to him for a second. He's actually really smart. He said, Solomon understood the big story that was unfolding across the pages of the Old Testament. This story began in a garden, but because of sin, people were driven from God's presence. Solomon wrote this song to summarize, interpret, and contribute to that hope. He depicted the son of David bringing to pass the promises to Abraham with the result that the king and his bride would enjoy an Edenic relationship. He said you could view the Song of Songs as a poetic summary and interpretation of the whole story of the Bible, of all that God is doing and bringing a people and a place together once again and building into that anticipation. You might say, well is there anywhere else besides the Song of Songs that would build this idea of anticipation for the redemption of both a people and a place. And I would say, well, there's tons of places where it does that. One of them I mentioned to you last week to help undergird that idea that, well, does God ever call himself a bridegroom that rejoices over his people? Well, yeah, he does in Isaiah 62, but earlier in that same passage, listen to those themes of people and place, being brought back together in the end. Isaiah 62.4, but you shall no more be termed forsaken and your land shall no more be termed desolate. But you shall be called my delight is in her and your land married. You can't separate the two. As he's redeeming the one, he'll bring the other one as well. And then just one verse later, he says, as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God rejoices over you. I mean, it sounds like Song of Songs and Isaiah were speaking about the same realities because that's exactly what they are, speaking of the very same realities. And so each time either the bride or the bridegroom indulges in garden or temple language, the heart of the bride should race the thought one day. One day he'll bring us back to a paradise, but this time it won't be lost. This time, the guardian of this garden, the true Adam, won't allow any snakes into the garden. And we won't ever lose that. So when we read these themes, brothers and sisters, our hearts should soar. It should race at the thought of what the greater Adam, the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ is doing, the true right bridegroom of the bride. in response to her extolling the Eden-esque scene, the husband responds, and so we'll note secondly, Christ, the rose of Sharon. The husband responds in verse one of chapter two, I am the rose of Sharon, a lily of the field. Now again, we're gonna have to look at, and I know like you love delving into the nitty-gritties on how your Bible edits some of this. You want to ask, well, who is speaking? Well, it'd be really easy to tell if we had a pronoun that was specific to either a male or female speaker. We don't have that. It would also be easy to tell if a phrase like, my love, used in verse 15, was used, it'd be the husband addressing the bride. Or if we found the phrase, my beloved, we'd say, well, that's only ever used of the husband, so the bride is speaking. Do we find either of those in verse one? We don't find any of them. We do know that verse two is spoken by the husband. You might say, how do we know that? If you look down at the second of the two pairings of the lines, you'll find the phrase, my love. That's what he calls her. And so you can know beyond any kind of doubt that verse two is definitely the husband speaking. Verse one, for most of church history was understood as being Christ. If you were to look at modern commentators or modern English Bibles, you would find above it, she, they think it's the female speaker. If you were to go into my office and open my reprint of the Geneva Bible, very, very old, you would find a footnote over verse one saying, this is how Christ speaks of his church. You're like, well, that's not subtle at all. They obviously viewed it this way. And so if it's the bride, What is she doing? Well, she's likening herself to a flower in the field or two different ones. And that statement elicits a response from her husband saying, oh, no, honey, you're great. And if you read commentators on this point, modern ones, not older ones, they would say, husbands, say nice things about your bride. Got it. That should be easy, gentlemen, right? Like just as a normal course of life, you have a daughter of the Lord, you should compliment her. While I think that is a very valuable thing in any marriage, I don't think that's what's happening here, right? I don't think that's the ebb and the flow of it. If it's the bridegroom who's speaking, he is stating or pushing the reality of his own beauty and glory right to the forefront, and then affirming his union that he has with his bride. So obviously, I think that's the right interpretation, so that's the one I'm gonna chase down this afternoon. So Christ would be the speaker of verse two. Puritans like James Durham say of verse, excuse me, verse one of chapter two, there we go. James Durham says of verse one, these are the very words of Christ himself. Spurgeon says of verse one, it is our Lord who speaks, I am the rose of Sharon. No words appear more suitable out of his own lips than these. In fact, if you were to even just look at a listing or a gathering of the titles of Christ, on the list you would find he is the Rose of Sharon. But that only comes from this place in the Bible. It's not like there's other places where that's mentioned. He is here put forward as the rose of Sharon and as a lily of the valley. So in putting these titles or taking these titles on himself, He's saying lots of things in a very short, concise way. The first thing that he's saying by describing himself by these two flowers, they're different from one another, but very similar to one another. He is declaring his own beauty. And in declaring this, beckoning all who behold him to exalt and extol and rejoice in his beauty. He declares that he is like the rose of Sharon. He is the lily of the valley. If you remember, there was a scene in the Gospels. It happens in two of the Gospels. We'll just use Luke's Gospel, where in speaking of the way that God cares for his own people, he uses an analogy. And there was something about the analogy that caught my attention with Song of Songs on the Mind. talking about the way that God meets your needs, and then he uses this to illustrate it. He says, consider the lilies of the field. I tell you, even Solomon, all of his glory wasn't arrayed like one of these. Boy, I can't help but think that there's some connections there. Solomon being the one who is here pictured as the greater son of David, I mean, pointing forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus saying when it comes to glory, he couldn't even touch the lily of the field. And then here in our text, he says that's exactly what he is like. speaks of his kingliness too. So if you consider the rose of Sharon, there's some debate as to what color it was. We used to have, outside my office at the church in Kirkland, there was this huge, regal, purple, flowering bush that we had to, like, attack with saws and axes once a year, otherwise it'd take over all of the driveway. And I asked our deacon, what on earth is that resilient thing? He said, it's a rose of Sharon bush, actually. beautiful, deep, royal purples. And those throughout church history have seen the Rose of Sharon as a kingly title, that it would depict his regalness as well as his glory. And then there would be those who would look at the white lily that he uses and say it speaks both of his humility and condescension as well as his purity, that he is white and that he is without any blemish. this would fit perfectly well with the other I am statements that we find of Christ. Especially in John's gospel, you'll find seven I am this and I am that. And more than just simply the statement of a fact, what a boring way of viewing them. If all that we saw in them was Jesus saying like, hey, I'm this, neat fact. No, all of his I am statements are actually invitations, beckonings to all who adhere. You might say, well, how would they function like that? Well, just take a few of them. I am the door. Oh, enter by me. Right? Inherent in the statement is a gracious invitation. Or when he says, I am the way. I mean, he's inviting you to live your life in perfect accord with who and what he is. I am the truth. What is that if not an invitation? Believe on me and you will find eternal life. At every I am statement, it actually calls or invites the listener to respond to that statement. And so if you just take this statement in verse one of chapter two, what is the inherent beckoning or calling or invitation? I'm the rose of Sharon. I'm the lily of the valley. Come, gaze, wonder at my beauty. This is actually one of Spurgeon's favorite texts in all of the song. He preached three different sermons on them. I read all three and he didn't borrow from any of them, right? Every one was just page after page, wondering and gazing upon the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a kind invitation. would argue it might go just one step beyond an invitation to gaze and wonder. I mean, that would be plenty enough, wouldn't it? How often you and I need to be reminded of the beauty of Christ. We're so forgetful. We're drawn off by the dumbest stuff. That's a theological category. Dumb stuff. And we're so forgetful. That's why this world is so alluring to us. It's not that we have too big of a view of it. We have too small a view of him. And if we could, by God's grace, spirit, and word, soar in our view of him, the things of this world would grow delightfully dim. They really, truly would. I think there's one more step that we can make down this road. that is this. If you were to say, well, I wonder how many times the Bible uses that term, Rose of Sharon. That doesn't even have to include the full statement, but that particular word is only ever used two places. Here, and a place in Isaiah. Now because I was sneaky, you've already said these words or taken them upon your lips because I used them for the call to worship this afternoon. Isaiah 35, listen with Eden and Temple, redemption of a people, redemption of a place kind of language on or just listen to it with your ears. The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. Oh my goodness, is this not pointing the head to the end of all things? And the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus. Why they translated crocus here and rose in Song of Songs, I have no idea. They are indeed the very same word. And here in a passage about the bringing in of the new garden temple, what word would he use if not, it will blossom with the rose of Sharon. I'll continue in verse two. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The very glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon. Fascinating. It's like there's one author. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands and make firm feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With the recompense of God, he will come and save you. The only other place this is mentioned is here on the lips of the groom. I'm that rose of Sharon. I'm the one whose coming signals the beginning of the end. I'm the one whose coming declares I will make all things right. I will save you and no one else can. I can't help but wonder if in the language of Eden here in 16 and 1, and the language of Eden and the eternal state in Isaiah 35, I can't help but wonder if there's just one gloriously massive connection. It's like they all lead and go to the same place. Well, thirdly, we want to consider the words of the bridegroom to the church. And if verse two can't make our hearts sore, I wonder if any verse could. The husband says to the bride, as a lily among brambles, so my love among the young women. He says, as a lily. I hope you've not forgotten the imagery in just the course of one verse. How did he just describe himself? Well, yes, as a rose of Sharon, but as a lily as well. He identifies with his people. He describes her similarly to himself, and though her own perspective of herself, all the way back in chapter one, verse six, or verse five, I'm very dark. Verse six, don't gaze at me, I'm dark. That is how she wrestles with her own inward sin. How does he describe her? How does he see her? Not dark as a white lily. as one as though washed with his blood, as though one clothed in his very own likeness. I don't think there's any accident whatsoever that he uses the same flower to describe himself as the same flower that he uses to describe her. that there's union between this bride and this bridegroom, that he is the one who's making that reality true and further in her life as you work sanctification. Spurgeon says at this point, there is no beauty in any one of us but what our Lord has worked. This is not a result of you're so neat that God wanted to just put your picture somewhere special where he could see it. No, this is one whom he's lifted from the muck and the mire of everlasting destruction, and removed their guilt from them, and clothed them in his own righteousness, so that he could say, not in a game of pretend, not in a game of make-believe, I am a lily, and you belong to me. You are in many ways like me. Staggering language, truly is. He says down below, we'll get to the brambles in just a moment, but he doesn't just call her a lily. He calls her my love. Again, the same phrase we saw in verse 15, the same one here, and he'll use it throughout the whole book. How many times does he need to say to her, my love? Couldn't he just say, my love, if the situation changes, I'll tell you. Thankfully, that's not the way God treats us. We're a forgetful people. And aren't we prone to question his love of us? And I trust it's never from his side of things. I trust it's never that we doubt his faithfulness, we doubt his goodness, we doubt that he doesn't change and we doubt this or we doubt... All of our doubting, which side of the fence is it on? What's on our side of things, isn't it? I look at myself and I go, how could he love me? I look at my life and I say, I see nothing lovely about it. And he reminds the church again and again, I love you because of who I am and I don't change. And so again and again, tokens of his love, reminders of his love. Spurgeon says, let your hearts saturate themselves in this honeyed theme. Heaven lies within it. Jesus loves you. captured by that most simple of children's songs that we should never outgrow. A staggering thought, not just a thought, a staggering reality that the very rose of Sharon himself has set his love and affection on you. It goes, how do you even get your mind, let alone your heart, wrapped around such realities without just that inner wrestling back and forth? But this is who I am. Yet he loves you. Well, this is what I've done. Yet he loves you. This is, even after forgiven, I'm still a wreck. Yet he loves you. Again and again, that faithful, persistent pursuit. of the husband to his bride, of Christ to his church, faithfully reminding a forgetful, doubting, conflicted, torn bride, my love. and it will never fail. How many times do we need to read throughout the Old Testament about the everlasting love, the steadfast love, the covenant love of God, and we can put it in all of this theological language, well, it means he's in covenant, and it means he'll never break it, and it means he's taking the oath upon himself and he cannot change it. We have all of these ways of capturing it, but the song, I think, captures it best. A husband who will never not love his bride with everything that he is. That's how the song presents it. Andrew Bonner says the believer is unspeakably precious in the eyes of Christ. And Christ is unspeakably precious in the eyes of the believer. Inquire what Christ thinks of the believer. Here's what he says. As a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters. Christ sees nothing so fair in all the world as the believer. All the rest of the world is like thorns, but the believer is like a beautiful lily in his eyes. We struggle. We struggle to get our eyes, ears, hearts, hands wrapped around that. There's one more piece that I want to consider. That's that phrase among the brambles. The first level we would say, well, a lily is very much like a sticker bush, thankfully so. They're just not in the same category. And so in comparison to the world, I mean, you get that distinction in the high priestly prayer of Christ in John chapter 17. I pray for the ones he gave me, I don't pray for the world. Same distinction he's making here. He prays for the lily, he doesn't pray for the brambles, right? There's a distinction where in all of the world, the bride of Christ who was given to him by the Father, they have his heart, and his heart ever beats for them, and that is just so plainly laid out here. But as I've mentioned again and again with my constant bringing up of themes and motifs, I can't help but look at that phrase and wonder. If there's not just a whole wide I don't wonder I really am convinced of it a whole lot more going on there than maybe what first met the eye He says is a lily among brambles. It's a that's a that's a old way of saying it as a lily among thorns If you could trace in your mind where this theme of thorns first came to be Where did it first come forth? Oddly enough, in the garden. Oddly enough, when sin and the curse came into the world and disrupted that idea of people and place, that's where thorns began their run as a major theme or motif. And it's actually carried throughout the whole Bible up until the very end where he does away with all such things, including thorns or brambles. And here in the garden theme, we find a reference to thorns. And while we could just stop and leave it and say, well, she's lovely as opposed to pokey or prickly. Well, that might be there, but probably not as fully as what I think is going on. The Puritans obviously would have imported much more significance here. That the bridegroom in order to rescue his lily must pass through the thorns. Do you remember with what Christ was crowned on the cross? Did he not take on the thorn and the curse on himself that he might have for himself a bride? Is not the supper that we have before us today a reminder that he, for the joy that was set before him, bore the crown of thorns for his bride, for the love of his bride. joyfully submitted himself to death, even death on a cross, that he might rescue for himself a people. Not just a people. He might save and rescue the one that he calls my love. Is that not what the Lord's Supper is each and every time we observe it in the life of a church? A reminder I love you. I have always loved you. I have done all that was needed to be done in order to rescue you. And I will, because it points backward into when he laid down his life on the cross, it points to the present sustaining of his bride here and now in the midst of this wilderness, and it points forward to when he will have the place and the people together once again with himself. It's no coincidence that he tells us when he institutes it, observe this, there's a termination date if you remember, until I come back. We don't need it once he comes back, why? He's there. You don't need reminders. You don't need a photo of your wife when she's right in front of you, right? You don't need reminders when the object is right there. We celebrate the supper rejoicing in the love and the sacrifice that Christ has for his people until he brings us and the place and himself together finally again. when he makes an end of all thorns, an end of all sin, an end of all guilt and sorrow and wipes every tear from every face, that's where it's all going. And because he knows his bride is prone to forget both his love and where she's going, he's given her a reminder. Never forget my love, he says. Never forget where you're going. Never forget that he is the table that has all that we need. Let's pray. Our great God and Father, we pray that you would cause our hearts to run to the rose of Sharon. Remind us again at the table of your ardent love for us, oh God, we're prone to doubt it. Remind us again that you are all we need. We're prone to question it. Remind us again that one day we will sit at the table with you, where you will feed your church on rich food and well-aged wine, where we will see your face and never be parted again. Oh Lord, we can hardly think of that reality without saying, come quickly. Hasten, bridegroom, and come for your bride. Until then, make us faithful, we pray, amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. 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