evening to the Song of Solomon chapter 2 and verse 10. The Song of Solomon chapter 2 and verse 10. My beloved spoke and said unto me rise up my love my fair one and come away. Well as I mentioned before we read these scriptures ultimately These verses are prophetic poetry that speak of New Testament times, the love of Christ to his people and their desires and love for him. And the spouse here, the bride, the church, speaks of her experience of the voice of Christ speaking to her. Now, these words have been said in part to look forward to New Testament times when the wintertime of gloom, of silence, from the last of the prophets, Zechariah and Malachi, to the coming of Christ would be broken. and that those years of silence and somewhat gloomy despair should be broken, and Christ would appear, and then he would go to Calvary, and all the fear of God's wrath would be taken away, and then at Pentecost, there would be that great call of the gospel as it was preached, and many would be drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, it certainly speaks of those things, but all these words also refer to the experience of an individual. A Christian believer, yes, but also those who are what we may call awakened souls, who now have a desire after the Lord Jesus Christ. are beginning to be attracted to him, sensitive to his voice, with a concern to know his love and forgiveness. He speaks to them through his word. Well, that's the case here certainly from verse 10. Here is a precious picture of Christian conversion. There are many such pictures in the scriptures, some of them dramatic. You think of the jailer at Philippi who whipped the apostles back. And then after the earthquake was shaken to his core, despairing of life, crying out, what must I do to be saved? And yet there are other pictures of conversion that show that the route to Christ It can be a dramatic one. It's always transformative, but sometimes it can be much more gentle. We have such a picture here. Let me ask this question before we look at the language of these verses. Are you awakened to the things of God? Are you attracted? Can you honestly say that you are attracted to the Lord Jesus Christ? longing to be one of his people, desiring his love and care, ready to submit to his ordinances in reverence and love, anxious for his forgiveness, and yet feeling perhaps unworthy and still sometimes very cold and indifferent to the ways of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, these verses begin by referring to the Beloved. Look at verse 10. And I want to look at some of the words in these verses. My Beloved. He initiates this conversation, and we could say we must understand that conversion to God is his initiative. It is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not that we are passive. Not that when it comes to Christian conversion, we just sit like a blob and wait for the Lord to wholly transform us. No, it is like a love story. It is a two-way thing. The Lord speaks and calls us and we respond. But the Lord initiates conversion and we must understand that. Before we ever seek him and cry out to him, he has begun to work to draw us to himself. And so let me ask this question this evening before we look at the words here. Have we heard his voice? I don't mean audibly, in our ears. I mean as he speaks to us in our hearts through his word, as we understand that call of the Lord Jesus Christ to sinful souls like ours and our heart is affected and we feel within a deep desire to heed, to respond to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, here are precious words and I trust that the Lord may bless them to some of us here this evening and we shall indeed feel the word, the Lord speaking through his word to us. Firstly, verse 10 begins, my beloved spoke. She delights to repeat his name. Here is the awakened soul. Here is the believer. Or we could even say, here is the church made up of all believers. in the Lord Jesus Christ and she says, my beloved spoke. She delights to repeat his name. He is now the one who has captured her affections and her attention. And so it is when the Lord first speaks to our souls, we are awakened. We feel differently towards the Lord. Suddenly he becomes attractive to us. because of who he is and because of the love that he has displayed to lost sinners at Calvary's Cross. Perhaps you have heard these things. I can certainly remember as a boy hearing much about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It meant so little to me. I might have seen and felt some of the injustice of an innocent man, clearly a holy man, a perfect man, being put to death, and I sensed it on a sentimental and emotional level, but it didn't really affect me. It didn't stir my heart, but there came a time when I began to realize my lost, my sinful condition, and then to think of Calvary, to think of the Lord Jesus Christ, willingly, even though he was the almighty God and could have resisted those cruel hands and thwarted their wicked intentions, yet he voluntarily laid down his life. He allowed himself to be nailed to that cross of wood. He endured the anguish, the suffering. Why? Because of the love that filled his heart to sinners like you and I. Are you attracted to Christ now? You think of him there, suffering exhaustion, enduring inner spiritual anguish as one separated, banished by a holy God that he loved in order to win us and to redeem us from eternal ruin. Are we moved? Are we attracted to him? Then surely, we will reflect upon him and say, he is to me a beloved, one I now love and desire his love, too, to be centered upon me. My beloved, she says, spoke. He spoke to me. You know, when the Lord first works in our heart and we realize that the Lord has indeed spoken to us with irresistible power within our soul, we think something like this. The Savior, he has spoken to me. Amazing thought, unworthy as I am. I'm lost. I've lived with a cold heart, willfully rebelling against him, and he's spoken to me. His Word has come with great power and perhaps with sweetness, and it's affected me, and it's softened my conscience, and it's drawn my desires. What an amazing thought, friends, that the Lord should condescend to speak to lost souls, even in these days in which we live. But so it is. I want to look at the words that he spoke. He said unto me, rise up, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come again. Well, some say, as I said at the beginning, that this speaks, at least in a general way, of those days when Christ would come looking forward, the long, wintry, gloomy, intertestamental period between the end of the Old Testament prophets and the coming of John the Baptist and Christ. And the Lord then speaks, and it foretells that in gathering of many souls, the winter is gone. All the storms, all the dangers that are associated with winter It pictures, say some of the writers, the wrath of God. It was such a gloomy thought. How can God and God's wrath be appeased? How can I be set free from such threatening clouds that seem to hang over me? The winter's gone. Christ has suffered and died. And now there is the prospect of a new dawn, a new beginning, for all that seek him and find his love. But these things apply also to the awakened soul. And I trust some of us here, if we are not yet Christians, although it also applies to Christians who perhaps have grown cold and sleepy, it applies to those who are awakened. Let me ask this question. Rise up, says the, that the, Beloved, hear the words of the Lord Jesus to awaken souls. Rise up. What does it imply? Well, it implies, perhaps, that we've lived carelessly, indolently. We don't think of, in the past, we've not thought of the Lord. We are at ease in this lost world. We are, in a sense, spiritually asleep. We're settled in our thoughts, in our plans, and habits. But now, now less so. We're not sure where to turn. We have an increasingly accusing conscience. We feel the burden of our guilt before God. And the ways and pleasures of this world no longer attract or satisfy us as fully as once they did. We long for something more. We realize our need, our deep need of God's pardon. We fear death. We are anxious to be right with God, lest we should suddenly be taken from time and eternity. Do we consider eternal things? Is this an address to us? Does sin trouble us? Actual sins, perhaps? that we reflect upon now, they come like a bright stain upon our thought life, sins that we cannot forget, sins perhaps that we realize are greatly and deeply offensive to God. Or perhaps it's just our very polluted nature, our inclinations in general, our past indifference, and we say, I'm such a wretch. I'm so far from the Lord, so far from deserving his favor and his kindness. All that I am and all that I have done, condemn me before God. I need something more. Well, here is the language of the Lord. Rise up. Stir yourself, in other words. Come away. Look at this next phrase. Come away. Come away from the love of the old life, that godless life where we had not a thought for the Lord, not a concern for eternal things. We followed the fashions and the attractions and the manners of this world with no care for eternal things. But the Lord says to us now, come away. Come to me. It means more than just come away from the world or from the old life that we were living. It means come away to Christ. Come to him, learn of him. Begin to readily accept his rule and his headship over our life. ready to accept his direction and his instruction, come away to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you hear those words? Do they speak to us? Do they say to us in our heart, this is the Lord Jesus Christ. I know this is what I need to do. For years I've followed a different path, but now I realize that he calls me to himself, and that is my desire. I want his love. I desire his correction and his direction. I want to be with him and to be found in union with him. To come, you say, well, how do I come away? If you go to the New Testament, John chapter six, you'll see there that the Lord speaks of coming to him and believing in him. It's one and the same thing. Real believing in him is to come to him. It means to come and rest upon him, to call upon him, believing that he is the only savior, that he's all sufficient to make me right with God, to deal with my sin. The cleansing fountain of his blood can purge all my guilty stains and fit me for heaven, come. Well, perhaps we hear these words and we've heard similar words in scripture preached and they've touched a chord and yet we've not risen up and left the old life. We've not come away from the pathway of sin. We've not truly come and yielded to the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting our souls to him, but why not? Well, there are some very encouraging inducements for us here in these verses. And I want to use them really to try and encourage us here this evening if we've never yet come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the first encouragement I set before you is this. We see here the tender affection of the beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 10 again. My beloved spoke and said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one. Well, this is an amazing thought. Here is the eternal son, spotless, holy, who has no sin, who is equal with the father, the holy God himself. And yet he looks upon and he addresses a lost sinner, guilty, undeserving, polluted, and he addresses us as a fair one. Though we are so unworthy, yet he delights to call awakened sinners who desire his love a fair one. How can he do that? Well, he already looks at us as those whom he has died for, whom he has washed the sins away for. And he looks upon us and he calls us to himself. He reads our hearts. He has touched our heart if we long after him. And now he addresses that heart. And he says, in effect, I do not censure you for your sin. I do not condemn you. I've paid the price for all your guilt. Come away, come to me, yield to me, and I will freely forgive you, and I will make you one of my saved people, and I will be with you, and I will treat you as a wife, a bride, and I will be to you a bridegroom. Isn't this incentive enough to us? If our heart is touched and our desires are Christward, then come to him, yield our all to him, rest in him as our all-sufficient Lord, our head, our bridegroom, our heavenly husband. But then look secondly at verse 11, for lo, he says, The winter is past. The rain is over and gone. Well, some take this to mean something like this. In those days, of course, wintertime was not a time to travel. There were storms. There were muddy roads. It was inconvenient, inclement. But now, the winter is over and past. Perhaps there were fears. Perhaps there was a sense of reluctance in the past. We look out of the window, as it were, and say, I don't fancy a long journey today. I'll stay in the warmth and comfort of my present situation. But is this not a journey to take? The journey of faith to come and to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ and to seek his forgiveness? What possibly? could hinder us or discourage us from making such a journey. Is it that we fear the storm clouds of God's anger at our sin? Then the winter is over. Christ has paid the price. We may come. We need not fear those clouds because the sunbeams of his love and grace and salvation shine upon the path to redemption. Come to him. We may think something like this. Well, I'm filled with fears because of who I am. Because in the past, I've dealt harshly with the Lord. I've spoken against him. I've had hard thoughts towards him. How can I come? Those things fill me with gloom and with guilty fear. But the Lord says, the winter is over. Those hard thoughts can be forgiven. Come in confession and I will receive you. The gloom of the old life. This verse intimates the gloom of the old life is at end when Christ calls and the lost and needy sinner responds and comes to him. Perhaps we could say the gloom of a legalistic religion because it is for some. You read of those who all their life, they've been subject to the idea that, well, I must do this. I must do the other if I am to be accepted by God. Martin Luther thought like that. He took himself up to a monastery. He incurred the wrath of his father who wanted him to be a lawyer. But so troubled was he in his conscience, burdened for his sin, he goes to a monastery and he subjects himself there to all sorts of demanding tasks and to all many painful things because he thought that would in some way atone for his guilt, but he found no peace. It wasn't until he read the book of Romans and he discovered there the free forgiveness of Christ, then Luther realizes the winter times past. I may come freely. There's no hindrance, no discouragement. I may come to the Lord Jesus Christ. There was a man called Thomas Halliburton. He became a very famous Scottish preacher in the late 1700s. I mentioned him because his conversion, in some ways, is a wonderful illustration of what we have here. He was a troubled, restless soul. Before his conversion, he wrestled deeply with doubts, religious doubts. He read the wrong books, books that said Well, there is a God, but God just basically, he created the world, he wound it up, he set it in motion. He made the times, the seasons, the days and the nights, but he's abandoned us. He's not interested. And that brought despair to Halliburton. He had a crushed sense later of his sin and his guilt, a fear of death and judgment. A feeling of distance from God, even in religious duties. He still felt so distant. He tried his best, but found no peace. He said, I found myself a poor, dead-hearted creature who could do nothing but sin. But then, although his conversion didn't happen all of a sudden, it was a gradual thing. He records a turning point. He says, I was made to see the way of salvation is through the Lord Jesus Christ. And my soul embraced it with joy unspeakable. Oh, how sweet he said it was when I cast myself into the arms of the Lord Jesus and to feel the burden of my sin fall off. When I saw the all sufficiency of Christ, I was constrained to love him. My soul was overcome with his beauty. He experienced a new beginning, a new principle of life. It could be said of Halliburton's conversion, the winter time came to an end. There was a new spring, a complete transformation of his thoughts, his feelings, his disposition. He knew joy. He knew peace. He knew fresh hopes. And that's what we have here as a picture. Friends, is our heart still frozen like the winter time? Not that our winters now contain much ice, but for the purposes of this picture, can we say this evening, my heart was once frozen, but now as the Lord speaks through his word, I'm beginning to be softened. I feel differently. I'm not yet a Christian, but I'm not as hard, as cold, as distant as once I was. Look at the next verse. The flowers appear on the earth, verse 12. The time of the singing of birds is come. In the Song of Solomon, the church, the true people of God, are often compared to a garden. Well, imagine the garden here. The wintertime, it's a lifeless garden. Nothing is growing or flourishing. Much is underground, covered away from the hard frosts. But now, spring is coming, and the flowers appear. The singing of birds has come. It's a picture of transformation. And that's the promise here. The Lord, the beloved, says to the stirred soul, come away. Come, rise up, come away from the old life. Come away from your hard-heartedness, your indifference. Look unto me. The flowers appear. New beauty, new grace begins to flourish in the heart and life of the believer. There is a transformation of our nature. There are new delights. The time of the singing of birds has come, new joys. This is what every true Christian convert can bear witness to. Once I was cold, I was lifeless. I had no feeling for God. I had no interest in these things. But the Lord thawed out my heart, as it were, and I began to have feelings for Christ, desires toward him. And then I heard his voice. He said in as many words, rise up, come away, come to me, rest in me. And it was like a springtime in my soul. There were new experiences. My character was changed. My perspectives were transformed. Where once it was all gloom, now there was joy. There was cheer. It was as if the birds were singing in my soul. That's the picture here. Look at verse 13. We must draw quickly to a conclusion. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Our lives, when we are living away from God, they are fruitless. They may appear productive by the world's measure, successful. Perhaps we accumulate wealth and reputation. Perhaps we are admired, but we're not admired by God. There's nothing particularly delightful. We are selfish so often, or proud, or dishonest. But when the Lord works, then our lives bear all the fruits of God's Holy Spirit. There is a new nature, and there is a pleasantness. Well, it's pictured here. But I must close. Look at the end of verse 13. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. The Lord repeats this invitation. And so often, that's the case. The first time the Lord calls us, perhaps even the second, the third, the fourth time when the Lord speaks, we do not heed his tender, loving invitations. We remain filled with doubts or fears or coldness. But the Lord repeats his words, arise, my love. Come to me. Come away. Why would you stay? in this world? Why would you follow its vain ways? Why would you look to this world for lasting peace and joy and satisfaction? It will fail you. It will ruin you. It cannot give you peace in your soul. It cannot fit you for death and eternity. Rise. Come away. Come to me. Rest in me as the only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. My fair one, come to me. These are tender words. I trust the Lord would encourage us this evening if as yet we are still living at an arm's length or at a greater distance from the Lord and say, no, I hear his voice. He calls me in all my lost condition. I am attracted to him. I do desire him as my Lord, my heavenly bridegroom, and I will come assured that he looks upon me with pleasure and he will receive me with the arms of love. Well, let's pray together. Lord, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee for this glimpse of the tender invitations of the Lord Jesus Christ to sinful souls that desire his love. O Lord, melt our hearts, give to us that longing after him, and if we long after him, then give to us that desire, that readiness to heed his invitation, to leave and turn our back upon the old life, and come to Jesus Christ, and rest in him, and yield our hearts wholly to him. O Lord, work within. May we experience that transforming grace and that pardoning love of the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask these things for his sake. Amen. Well, let's close our worship this evening with hymn 385. 385. out of my bondage, sorrow, and night. Jesus, I come. 385.