The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Mendon, Nevada. Song of Songs, chapter 4, beginning in verse 11. What you're about to hear really is God's word given to you as a kingly gift. Please receive it as such. The husband says to the bride, your lips drip nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates. With all choicest fruits, henna with nard, nard with saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all choice spices, a garden fountain, a well of living water and flowing streams from Lebanon. Awake, oh north wind, and come, oh south wind. Blow upon my garden, let its spices flow. Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits. I came to my garden, my sister, my bride. I gathered my myrrh with my spice. I ate my honeycomb with my honey. I drank my wine with my milk. Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love. Well, this is indeed the Word of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated and I invite you to pray with me. Our great God and Father, we pray that You would a second time today smile upon us in the grace of Your Word. That we would receive Your Word God is the very revelation of your heart to us. And even in speaking of it like that, oh God, we're confronted with the reality that we have no right or deserving that you should reveal yourself to us, let alone your heart to us. That's exactly what you've done in your word. You could not be content with your bride not knowing your love for her. And it speaks to your heart, not our worthiness, but your heart. So we pray, oh God, that we would be humbled and amazed yet again at the love that Christ has for us and that that love would transform us Oh, we pray that we would not be left the same kind of people that came in. Yet our hearts are bent that way and our stubborn wills are hardened that way. Oh God, bender of the will of men, conform us to you, we pray. In our Savior's name, amen. Well, I'm certain you've had the experience that I've had. Sometimes we say something that in the moment, I'm using this, just hang on for a second, I'm using this in a positive way, because there'll be a way you can hear this in a negative one. There's times where you say something in the moment that you truly mean, And then upon, well, later reflection or history playing itself out, you realize that you sort of wish you could take it back. I'm not talking like you said a harsh word or a critical word or you got upset. I'm not talking about those kinds. I'm saying there's times where we sometimes praise or build up someone in a way that we go later on, you know, I was off, I was off on that. When I said that person was really good at playing that instrument, I spoke in ignorance, or whatever it is. Sometimes we speak in these grandiose terms, and sometimes just get carried along with the moment, and we say something bigger, greater, grander than, well, in honesty, we either mean in the moment or come to realize later. That is true of you and I, but it is not true of Christ. So you think, well obviously he would never misspeak, and obviously that's true, but I want us to apply it to a certain part of our life. When Christ in his word speaks of his love for you, there isn't an ounce of exaggeration. There isn't a single drop of hyperbole. that there isn't any misinformation, there's no getting carried away with the emotions of the moment and then realizing later that that wasn't in accord with reality. When Christ speaks of his bride, he speaks truthfully. fully, accurate, I mean, in all the ways, every word is meant and true and right and proper. And you might say, well, why are we walking out of our way to, well, to emphasize this? Well, two reasons. The first is this, you and I are tempted when we read of God's love for us to downplay it. You're tempted when you read, you've captured my heart, my sister, my bride, to be like, well, I mean, I think I get the gist of what he's saying. No, no, he really means you've captured his heart. You, his sister and his bride, and in the full ramifications of that, that is not like young starstruck young man praising young foolish girl who's giving the young man a chance when he probably doesn't deserve. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the Savior whose heart incessantly beats towards his people. The second reason I bring it up is that you and I are, maybe the pieces that we did glean we're forgetful of. We're actually going to be reminded, we want to set the tone of this afternoon's message from the very onset. The tokens of his love are actually already set before you. And everything we're going to see in the text this afternoon points your heart right back to the Lord's Supper. If you doubt at all, does he really give fresh tokens of his love and affection? Yes, how can we doubt it? He's said it before us today, and we want to take him, or we need to, we need to take him at his word. One of my favorite Puritans, Samuel Rutherford said, Christ regrets nothing that he has said to his bride. He abides by his word, he calls her his love, he calls her his fair one, he calls her his undefiled one, and he avows it. He abides by it. He will speak much good of you, both behind your back and to your face. Christ tells the watching cosmos, as it were, I love my, I don't know if you could categorize that as like behind your back, but for the illustration, go with it. I love my church. And then to face to face, he says, church I love. That's that theme we wanna track down this afternoon together. We wanna do it under three headings. And the first is just simply this, Christ Jesus delights in his people. He delights in his people. And as you begin to, we'll just drop your eyes down to verse 11 through 15, the entire section from 11, beginning back before 11, but picking up in 11, from 11 through 15, it is the husband speaking to the bride. It is Christ speaking to the believer, and the tokens of love and affection and delight that he lays out for us in this section are staggering. Now some of them, maybe even as, I'm sure this has happened more than once in Song of Songs, as I read the text, you're kinda going, oh boy, this is gonna be interesting. What's he gonna bring out of this today? Well, the imagery that's given might have struck you as odd simply because it's drawing on word pictures or imagery that we wouldn't use in day-to-day language. But I hope, even as you just, if you just look down and scan it, you can see words like nectar and fragrance and Lebanon and garden and spring and fountain and orchard. You've learned this by now. What sort of language is that? What's garden type language? He's describing a people as though she's a place and a place as though she's a person and those great two Old Testament themes are being brought back together. It's not an accident at all. that the church is here described as a garden, and this imagery is not going to get less in Song of Songs, it's actually going to increase in the Song of Songs, and there's these huge themes and motifs that should run through all of this, where Christ is presenting himself as the second God, greater Adam and his bride and his people, the new heavens and the new earth upon which she will dwell as that garden and that place where he will have sweet communion. And so the imagery that's being shown here is Christ enjoying the church like Adam did the garden. And that's why there's that mixing and matching of those metaphors and we'll just, we'll take it apart a piece at a time. If you look at verse 11, She's described as having lips that drip nectar. The idea isn't like that she's got sweet smelling breath. She's being pictured here as like a flower that belongs to God. As a precious, delicate flower to her well-beloved. What a beautiful picture and way of denoting the, and you know you're still talking about a person because he reminds you that he's speaking to his bride, and lest we overemphasize the imagery here and make it too physical in a sense, the image is that of a garden and a flower in full bloom and blossom. The garden themes are everywhere, and then he goes on and he speaks of, Honey and milk are under your tongue, and you might think that's an odd combination, but if you could, now I know I hit on this a lot, and thankfully Charlie does too, if you could just step back and say, you know, I've read, I've been in Christ a good little while, and I've read my Bible from cover to cover, and from cover to cover, and I've done that lots of different times. I wonder in what circumstances those two things are always mentioned. milk, and honey. You would find upon a quick search that every time, without any exception, except for the text that's in front of us, guess what that language is referencing? Well, God says he'll bring his people into a land flowing with Milk and honey. He's actually again conflating the images and the pictures that are given to us of the promised land, of that place in which, and again, it's not about that specific piece of dirt. It's that place where God will again abide with his people. I wish I could say as he did in the garden, but that's underselling it. in a better way than he did in the first garden. And in describing the two together, he's drawing these themes that sometimes in our reading we can separate, and he's pulling them back together. Moses says in Exodus 3 verse 8, Chapter three, verse eight, there you go. I've come down to deliver you out of the hand of the Egyptians and bring them up to a land, good and broad, a land that flows with milk and honey. In every occasion except the two times in Song of Songs, it's about the land. I'd argue even with this in mind, it refers to the land and the place that God is bringing his people. You can see obviously through Song of Songs that The palette with which Christ paints the picture of the bride is drawn from all of the colors of the Old Testament themes and motifs. He's drawing on all of them. And so, if we're not well acquainted with our Old Testament, we might see this language as odd or awkward or just different. Oh, but if we could read our Bible as one big story, as one huge narrative of God redeeming a people for himself and bringing them back to a place where they will commune with him, oh, we'd see all the themes drawing back together. She is his flower in that she drips nectar. She is like the land in that she is flowing with milk and honey. And then notice at the end of verse 11, he says, the fragrance of your garments are like the fragrance of Lebanon. Now you might say, well, okay, I've never been to Lebanon. I don't know what Lebanon smells like. I think you can judge from context that he's saying it's a good thing. Like he's not saying like, whew, you smell like Lebanon. Like no, no. That's what he's saying. Well, what he gained in the first half of the verse he loses in the second half of the verse. Like no. He's drawing again on the rich imagery, the forests of Lebanon, where the finest of, well, cedar came from. And where do we find cedars of Lebanon mentioned again? And what's temple motif? So in the one hand, like a garden, and in the other hand, like the land, in another hand, well, like the temple. And what does God do with all of them? He dwells there among his people. And she is clothed with garments that just smell like the cedars of Lebanon or like the temple. And if you were to say, okay, well, in what ways does God describing to me? He's complimenting her on her garments, on her clothing. If we were to say, well, in what is the church closed? Well, we would obviously say from. Just the full testimony of Scripture. You know, the answer to this, Christian, in whose righteousness are you clothed? Well, you're clothed in the perfect, flawless righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he delights to take the rags of our sin off of our backs and place them upon himself and to take his son, kingly, righteous robes, and donned them on the saint. And so, positionally before God, that is how we are seen in the very righteous robes of Christ. But is that the only way that the scriptures picture the saints' clothing? You might say, because you're asking it, I think there's a second way. There is a second way, and it actually flows, you can't really separate them because the righteous position we have in Christ then brings that saint into a position and place in their life as a new creature where we begin to live differently now. We begin to live differently. different lives. This is where you've got to be so careful. Not, so that we have his favor, and so that we deserve salvation, and so that we're acceptable. No, no, the other way around. He has made you acceptable in Christ. He has made you a new creature. He has saved you. Now, it's in that position that the Church of Jesus Christ, both as individuals as well as corporate, live differently. That's why I refuse to receive those accounts, reports, or polls, or whatever, where it says, like, well, the church basically lives like the world. baloney she does. She, yes fallen, yes sinful, but reflect on this. Let's say you've been saved more than 10 years. Are you the same person you were 10 years ago? I pray by God's grace you're not. Has he perfected you yet? Any perfect people? If any of you put your hand up, your spouse will help take it back down. So, no, there's no perfect people. So we can say, is there growth and change in obedience and righteousness and holiness? Yes. Has he brought that to completion yet in the day of Christ Jesus? No, we're not there yet. He comments on her clothing. And it's not the only place in Scripture that does this. There's a scene in Revelation 19, and because we usually only speak positionally, we get a little uncomfortable with this kind of language, but listen to how the church is seen in Revelation 19.8. It was granted her, speaking of the church, to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and purple, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. The image that's given there in Revelation is a people who, yes, have been brought into union with Christ and positionally are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, but who, because of that radical change in their life, live differently. And here, I believe that's what's in mind in this section of Song of Songs, the husband, Christ, is rejoicing in what he sees in his bride. not separating it from what he is making her. He's the one actively involved in this. He's the one who's bringing obedience and holiness and new loves and in areas, new hates into her life and shaping her. Isn't that a husband's duty? When Paul in Ephesians chapter five says, now, the reason I talked about marriage was with view to Christ and his church, is he at work right now in the life of his bride, purifying, washing with the water of the word, so that on the great day, she's without spot and wrinkle, absolutely he is. She's not just complimented on her clothing, her love for him and her obedience, but look at verse 12. A garden locked, Is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed? You might say, this is just really mixing and matching some metaphors here. What does it mean that she is a garden locked? And if you look at the Hebrew word that he uses for locked and you realize it can either mean, well, locked or to put a sandal on. Very flexible language, Hebrew is. You can see why they went with a locked garden, not a sandal wearing garden, but that's neither here nor there. The idea is a walled garden, a protected garden. This is not like your local park where any transient can like pull up there and stay there and it's for common use. No, no, no, no, not this garden. This garden is for the second Adam's enjoyment purely. She's not the garden of the world. She's not open to all. She's not public grounds. She belongs only, solely, entirely to the second Adam. And that actually is the way that the first garden, we don't often read it this way. We think of a garden as like bushes and trees and no walls. Well, obviously the garden in the first part of the Bible was a walled garden. You might say, well, on what basis could you say that? If you position a guarding sheriff to guard the entrance to the garden, that seems to have implications that you couldn't just like walk around a bush in, right? Like there's ways in and walls around. Well, that's the picture that's being drawn here. Like Eden, she is a walled garden. She is not for public She is for private. She is for this one, not one open to all the world, not a wall-less garden, but one that is walled. And we'll get to ways in which the people of God are seen in that way in just a few minutes here. But she's a protected people. And again, lest we forget what we're talking about, verse 12, my sister, my bride. That conflation again of the church as a people and being put in a place there. Springs are mentioned, fountains are mentioned. We'll actually get down in verse 15 to a further explanation of this. We'll just set that aside for right now. Verse 13, he describes the bride as an orchard of pomegranates. I'll leave my opinions about pomegranates out of this because it's not helpful. But even though, you don't have to know Hebrew to know, well, this Hebrew word, which I guess kind of argues against itself real quick. That word for orchard, if I were to tell you that word in Hebrew, you'd say, oh, I know that word. It's paradis. Do you recognize an English word in there? Paradise. Do you think it's an accident that he says of the bride, My paradise. Does that not instantly, unavoidably draw our hearts and minds right back to the garden? And the way that the husband here describing her as the very paradise that he enjoys. I mean, he's not stingy with his praise. He's lavish with it. He's describing her as a paradise, a fruitful paradise. He mentions pomegranates, but he says all the choice fruits. She is a fruit bearing people. We'll actually get more to this in just a minute. But this garden is not a barren garden. This garden is not full of thistle and thorn. This garden is a fruit bearing garden. If we could just apply that for a moment to the church. Is the church to be a fruit bearing people? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And here's, sometimes we leave it right there. We're like, yes, I have a duty to bear fruit. What about it? Like, okay, well, push it one more. Does Christ delight in the fruit of his people? Yeah. And does, and we'll, well, I guess shove it one more. Is he the gardener cultivating that fruit like Adam should have done but didn't? Oh, absolutely. And so he is cultivating the fruit in his church, and then he says, and I love the fruits you bear. You say, well, but he brought it about. Yes, because if he didn't, guess how much fruit there would be? Zero. But he's bringing it about in the life of the weakest, smallest Christian. Whether you've been in Christ 80 years or eight days, he is cultivating. and bringing forth fruit. He mentioned spices at the end of 13 and the beginning of 14. Henna, I'm not sure what that is. And nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon. I know what cinnamon is, but that's about the extent of it. You should have recognized one of those from the New Testament. Nard. Sometimes we read our New Testaments like we forgot all about the old. And so when Mary comes before Christ, goes to the cross, and breaks an alabaster jar and anoints him, we're like, ah, weird. Just sprinkle a bunch of nard on him. Why would that be out of place? Is that not what the bride is here? And is that not what the husband enjoys? To be anointed in this way? almost like the New Testament was aware of the old. I wonder how well Mary knew her Old Testament, maybe better than we do. That has marked the church and the church's love for her husband. and it's seen here and it's seen in John chapter 12 verse three and in Mark's gospel as well. Frankincense and myrrh, we've talked lots about frankincense and myrrh as marking every time the husband is there and then, well, wouldn't you know it, the presence of the husband actually impacts the bride as she begins to now take on, as it were, elements of who and what he's like in some ways. Drop down to verse 15, excuse me. A return to the garden theme, a fountain of living water flowing streams from Lebanon. Again, that idea of a fountain, a garden, and it should be drawing back all of our minds, yes, to the first paradise. I mean, there's four rivers mentioned in Eden and an abundance of water, and that's obviously what's being referred to here. And so the church scene is this garden that's flowing with water that's surrounded by walls. And maybe it's at this point we're like, okay, I get it. You think there's a connection with the garden. But does anywhere else in the Bible make this connection? Or is this just like in my homeschooled logger family kind of brain? where I think there's connections that aren't really there. I know I have some wires loose, but is that what's going on? Well, let me read a quote from my friend Isaiah, chapter 58. And Yahweh will guide you continually, and he will satisfy you in the scorched places and make your bones strong. and you will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fill." Wow, it's like Isaiah had read Song of Songs. I have another friend named Jeremiah, and not inconsequentially in chapter 31 about what God's going to do in the future under the new covenant. Jeremiah says, and they shall come and sing aloud on the heights of Zion, and they'll be radiant over the goodness of Yahweh, over the grain and wine and the oil, over the young flocks and the herds, and their life will be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more. just for good measure because three's a good number. I have one more from you. There's a scene where Jesus is at a well talking about, well, oddly enough, marriage. Seems like it fits the context of what we're talking about today. And do you remember what he told the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman who had five husbands and the one she was with now wasn't her husband, so she's obviously in desperate need of some, well, work. She asked him a question. She says, are you greater than Jacob? I can't, like, if I'm just reading, I stop right there and smile. You're not meant to be like, okay, so good question. No, you know who this one is. You're meant to smile and well, at times, truly laugh to yourself. I'm like, that's hilarious because he's the greater Jacob. She doesn't, oh, she doesn't get it. That's okay. Neither do we sometimes. He's the greater Jacob. He's obviously like the true Israel. And she says, are you as good as Jacob the deceiver? He's like, uh-huh. You could say that. His response to her is everyone who drinks Jacob's water, as it were, this water, will thirst again. But the one who drinks the water that I give him will never thirst again. The water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life. Boy, whether it's Jesus, Jeremiah, Isaiah, or Song of Songs, the same picture's used for God's people. a garden protected, water springing up to new life. Isn't that the way that Jesus and Jeremiah and Isaiah all speak of the effects that the new covenant have? The one that God brings his people into and saves through a garden, a well of living water, of flowing streams. You know, I can't help but wonder if Jesus might have even been quoting in John 4 Song of Songs, chapter four, verse 15. That he of flowing waters. It's found elsewhere, but it's found here as well. If you were to summarize all of 11 through 15, you'd say, oh, obviously Christ the second Adam delights in the paradise that is his people, the garden, the walled garden of his people. He delights in their fruit bearing. He delights in their obedience and their righteousness and holiness. He loves it. I mean, just like Adam going through the garden and loving the trees and eating of the fruit and participating and enjoying both through consuming as well as just his presence, you would have that idea of the enjoyment of the garden. Well, isn't that the way that Christ responds to his people? Does Christ love his bride, the church? He does. And does he love the fruit that his people bear? Absolutely. And is he as the great gardener? I mean, again, the connections are just way too many. When he rose from the dead, who did Mary think he was? The gardener. She was accidentally very right. She had one thing in mind, and you as a reader are like, huh, well, look at that, he is. But like, not the way she meant it. I love it, because that actually reminds me of, well, me sometimes, accidentally right. Not very often, but accidentally sometimes. She loves the gardener. Does the church not still love the one who walks among us and brings forth fruits of righteousness? who cultivates, who chases out every serpent as the greater Adam, and who cultivates fruit in the life of his people so that she brings forth and bears, well, pomegranates, choice fruits, henna, nard, saffron, caramel, cinnamon, I mean, just an abundance is made here. Christ delights in his people. The second thing we wanna note this afternoon is this, the desire then of God's people to bear fruit. I hope that each and every one of us, when we're reading of the way that Christ delights in the fruitfulness of his people, I hope and pray that that didn't just have like a intellectual, oh, that's good to know, keep that in mind. that that should actually impact our heart, it should impact what we want, it should impact the way that we love. And so if you were to tell me Christ loves the fruit of his people, what should our response be? I should want to then bear what? Much fruit. He delights in it, he loves it. That is a far, far better motivation or drive in the life of the church over cold duty. Oh, a beating, zealous heart for the Savior? I think that'll outwork duty any day. Husbands, you know this. If you perform out of strict duty versus zealous love, those are not the same. What would she prefer? Well, zealous love, obviously. Not cold-hearted duty, not the, ah. Or maybe I could say with kids, because I don't know, it's not as convicting if I aim it at kids, right? So that's not the way we should respond. Zealous love, ardent love for the Savior of our souls. Now that will fuel a church. That will fuel a believer. That'll actually radically transform the life of a person. The love of Christ as known and experienced in the life of a believer cannot and does not leave that believer unchanged. radically transforms them and the way that they live and the way that they think and the way that they love, it actually transforms all of that. Now, if you just bundle all that together and take one big step back and say, Christ loves, well, fruitfulness, and then just think about your own life for like a second, what's that first thing that greets you? At least in my way of thinking, yeah, but you don't bear fruit like you should. I can't help but read this text and be grieved over it. For me, I don't bear the fruit like I should. I want to. There's times where I don't even want to. How do I respond in that? I mean, maybe there's some people that come to your mind, right? Yeah, I can see how they're like fruitful obedience to Jesus everywhere, but not me. I don't think the bride takes that response. I think she's closer to, well, the response I experience here, and the response I think you would as well, where you're just, you're grieved over the lack of fruit in your life. And the reason I think that that's her response is she gives you her response in verse 16. Awake, O north wind, come, O south wind, blow on my garden, let its spices flow, let him come into the garden and enjoy its fruits. Her petition is to go to him and ask him to send out Well, the wind, the ruach, the spirit, into her life that fruit would be born. I actually think the bride is aware that while she bears some fruit, it's certainly not sufficient for this one. And so who does she go to? Well, she calls out that God would then help her to bear fruit. And so that's the way that we should actually respond, a zeal. for the Lord Jesus Christ that we would live more fully, ardently, zealously for him. And when we see the lack of that in our life, rather than saying like, well, that's just the way it is. I've been working on this a long time, not really grown in these areas is what it is. No, not that cold complacency. This gal is not content in a good way. She's not content to not bear fruit for this one. So what does she do? Well, she calls out. I mean, what's described for us is, in essence, the very substance of prayer. She prays and uses the imagery of the wind going forth, which is often used in Scripture, not least of which in John chapter three, as the spirit going forth as the wind. You don't know where it came from or where it goes, but you see the effects of it. She's using that very same imagery that God would, by His Spirit, work in her to bear fruit for Him. Do you think that's a good Christian prayer? I think it's the only kind that we can be praying. This isn't bootstrap mentality, this isn't legalism, this isn't cold duty. There's desperation in the voice in verse 16. Awake wind, blow, come, I mean all these strong verbs that she's using to stir up fruit in her own life. Charles Spurgeon on this verse says that, of the bride, he says, oh my father, so he's kind of summarizing what the church prays in prayers like this, oh my father, I cannot endure this miserable existence. You've made me to be a flower, to shed abroad my perfume, yet I am not doing it. Oh, by some means, stir my flagging spirit, which we've heard about this morning. While you are thus crying, Christian, you must remember and believe, however, that God the Holy Spirit can stir your spirit and make you full of life again. Never permit a doubt about that fact to linger in your bosom. What Spurgeon's saying is, Christian, if you storm the mercy seat and you go and you say, Lord, I see what I should be, I see what I am, those two are different, Help me. He says, don't let doubt linger that says he won't help you. You've not done this for X amount of weeks, years, months, whatever it is. Little you, little wayward, treasonous you. No, he won't answer that. He might answer that prayer for someone else, he won't answer that. Spurgeon says, don't let such a traitorous doubt lodge here. When you ask your father for bread, he will give bread, not a stone. When you ask him, Lord, I wanna bear fruit for Christ. Do you think he hears that prayer and says, no, it's not really my will? Didn't he say in the New Testament, this is God's will for your life, sanctification? That's fruit-bearing. Whatever word you want to use to describe it. Christ-likeness, sanctification, fruit-bearing, growth and obedience, holiness, right? I mean, all of those all point to the same thing. So Christian, rather than saying like, I'm complacent and don't care is what it is, or I'm down in the dumps of discouragement and hope seems to be like, well, an almost non-existent thing. Wherever you're at, calling on his name, saying, Lord, send the Spirit into my life in fuller, stronger ways that I would be transformed. Do you think he hears it and says no? It doesn't fall on an annoyed father's ear. It falls on a loving father's ear. He's not like an earthly father. He's better. And do earthly fathers know how to give their kids good gifts? Yeah. They're not even a faint shadow of this father. So if you pray and say, Lord, oh, do two things. Drive doubt out from my bosom and work fruitfulness in me. Oh, he'll answer it. But don't leave off with a few half-hearted Knockings at that door. Be like the widow of importunity. Beg, plead, pound, wait outside the door. Beg him for it. And he watches, he answers. She desires fresh winds of mercy and grace that would come rushing into her life. And notice it's not just fruit for fruit's sake, but it's always with an eye towards the beloved. It's always with an eye to Christ. Look at the end of verse 16. The awakening of the wind, the blowing upon the garden, the flowing of the spices is all with not a thing in mind, but a person in mind that my beloved would then come into his garden and eat his choice fruits. She wants two things, well, it's three. She wants a drawing near of the presence or felt presence of the beloved of the husband. She wants him to come and abide with her. Is that not still the longing of the church? It's okay for you to say yes. You're like, well, I mean, is that a heresy or something weird? Like, no, no. We should want Christ by means and ministry of his spirit to be with us. And is that not what he said? Lo, I'm with you even to the end of the age. We'll never leave you nor forsake you. Should we not want fresh tokens of his nearness? Or do you think he wants his wife to become content with the feeling of him being far away? And again, my eye is like firmly fixed over here on the supper. Do we not believe that Christ specially ministers in the supper? Yeah, we do. We call it a means of grace for a reason. There's another thing that she's praying for, that Christ would enjoy the fruits of the bride, that her living and who she is would be a joy to him. And you might say like, oh, is it okay for Christians to want to be pleasing to God? Yes, we're the only ones who would ever endeavor to do it. The world is not out there, really bummed out that they're not pleasing to God. The bride of the Lord Jesus Christ balances just two things, I guess. I'm acceptable to him in Christ, and now because of that, oh, I wanna live different. I wanna live different. And then sometimes we can get weird and emphasize one of those to the expense of the other, and I think they should be both understood together. George Burroughs says, What would it be for us? Could we feel that the garden spot of Jesus in the whole universe is the heart of the saint? What he means by garden spot, his most loved garden. is the heart of the saint and the graces of the soul are to him a source of more exquisite pleasure than to us the most precious fruits of the choicest garden. How valuable would we then feel those graces to be? And with what care would we cherish and cultivate them for our blessed friend? Not for self-gratification and not for self-interest and not for the applause of the world, but for the love of our Lord. I think Burroughs is spot on. The church, too often, even in our endeavors, our eyes on the praise of men. Our eyes on some weird, like I can contribute to this thing and my acceptance in some ways. No, no, throw both of them out. He saved me and he's rescued me and he loves me. Oh, I want to live differently now for him. Could you imagine all of that and then leaving it right there and saying, and I'm content not changing at all. That would be a huge disconnect from the gospel that saves, wouldn't it be? Thirdly, consider again, the fruit bearing and the enjoyment, the fruit bearing of the Christian and the enjoyment of Christ. Look at verse one of chapter five. the husband answers. So the conversation, as it were, goes from verse 11 through 15, the husband speaks. Verse 16, the bride gives voice to a petition for greater fruitfulness. And then in 5.1, the husband answers, and he answers well, quite definitively, says, I came to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gathered my myrrh with its spice. I ate the honeycomb and my honey. I drank my wine with my milk." This is basically a picturesque way of, if you start looking at the things he mentions, the things that he praises her for in verses 11 through 15 are the things that he then enjoys, verse 1 of chapter 5. The mention of myrrh, spice, honey, Milk, he adds a few in there, but it's essentially the enjoyment of the bride by the husband. That's his response. So her response, notice if you just compare, I know like sometimes we can be a little into grammar around here, and that's a good thing. What did she say? Awake, verse 16, and come. And then the end of verse 16, let my beloved, what does she want? Him to come to her. What is his answer in verse one? It's a resounding yes. Oh, that you dwell with me. And the answer she receives is, oh, I delight to dwell with you. Oh, I need a nearness of Christ. And he says, oh my love, Yes, resounding yes. Actually, if you just look at all of her requests, all of them are met in verse one of chapter five. So she says, come, O bridegroom. And he says, I am here. And she says, enjoy the fruits. And he says, I will. And so this idea of communion with the Savior, I use that word quite intentionally, communion with the Savior is the resounding yes to the petition of the bride. He delights to dwell with his people. And he loves it when she calls out, oh, for more of you. He loves it. He loves that church. Burroughs says, yet again, the heart is thus prepared and anxiously desired the very presence of Christ. And he says, it'll come to pass. And then he quotes Isaiah 65, verse 24. He says, all right, here's the petition of the bride. Verse 16, oh, that he'd come into his garden and enjoy the fruits. Isaiah 65, 24 says, therefore, this is God speaking, before they call, I will answer. While they're yet speaking, The idea is as the words are still leaving the bride's mouth, he runs in answer. Oh, and yet we think we ask too much of him. We ask too little. Our petitions are small and pinched. Oh, they shouldn't be. He's not harsh, like the servant in Matthew 25 thought, and sadly, like this servant too often thinks. He's not harsh. He's lavish in his love. Now, again, with an even fuller eye on the table that's in front of us, look at, I mean, so just walk through verse one. His presence is in his garden. He reaffirms his union with her in calling her his sister, his covenant with her in calling her his bride. He speaks of the myrrh and the spice, the honeycomb, the honey, the milk. Again, that's new land kind of language. He adds something there, which as Baptists, we're like, I wonder what that Hebrew word means. I drank my wine. We're like, yeah, it couldn't have been wine. It had to be something else. No, it means wine. Do you know that the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the drawing near of him is marked by the abundance of one thing? Wine. The reason why he did it is the first of his miracles to show who he was. When he shows up, there's an abundance of, well, wine. I think there's something there. But notice the end of verse one, and this will conclude. He goes from speaking to her individually. So remember, we've talked about this lots of different times. There's the one and the many when it comes to the bride of Christ. There's the individual Christian and there's the church corporate. Up until now, he's been speaking often in singular terms. Not at the end of verse one, though. Eat, friends, drink. I wonder if there's a place in the New Testament where we're commanded with regards to the presence and communion of the Lord Jesus Christ to eat and drink. Oh, there is. Yeah, it's actually the supper where he says, I'm giving you this gift to not just remember as though it were strict memorial. That's a piece of it, but it isn't the whole thing. where I will commune with you. I will be with you. And guess what I'll do? I'll send forth the Spirit as a means of grace to bring fruit into your life. So what does the supper do when we, by faith, eat and drink? Oh, weak faith is strengthened. Doubts are chastened away. The things that are crumbling are built up. And so often when we think of the supper, we can do it in a far too introspective manner. We're like, am I worthy of it? The answer is always no. So if you think like I've had a beat up, banged up week, doubts everywhere, weakness abounding. Do you know what he's done? He's giving you a means of grace, of strengthening. He's answering the prayers of verse 16. Oh, that he'd send forth his spirit and blow upon the gardens in here and bring forth fruit. He gives the supper, we've said it once, I've said it lots of times, not as a reward to the strong, it's help for the weak. And so if you look at the supper as an atta boy for a good week, it's a perverse view of the supper. If you say, he gave bread and wine so that the faith of the weak Christian like me could be built up and a love for the Savior that often grows cold could be stoked and built up. And he gave it to me and told me to do it Oh, regularly, why? He knew I'd need it regularly. I don't know if you've noticed, baptism is something we do once. By design, the supper is given as a regular feature of the Christian life, why? You and I need grace, and we never outgrow our need for grace. There will never be a time on this edge or end of eternity where we'll say, you know what, I'm pretty good. Other people might need it, but I don't, like no. This side of heaven, I will always need the grace of Jesus Christ. And I'll always need his communion. And hopefully, Noah will, because his grace will sustain it. I will always desire more and more Come, dwell with me, commune with your bride, and be the gardener in the garden, and bring forth fruit in my life and in your life. Let's pray. Our great God and Father, we pray that you would send forth your Spirit even now. And that a sense of your nearness would comfort every heart. Oh God, that you would bring forth fruit in our life. Please work among us. Please stir up the heart of each saint here. Assure them of your love yet again by the bread and the cup. Assure their forgetful, downing hearts that you are enough for them. and that the table of the world has nothing for us. Do this for the glory of our Savior, do we ask it? Amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. For additional sermons as well as information on giving to the ministry of Grace Community Church, please visit us online at gracenevada.com. That's gracenevada.com.