My Beloved

Song of Solomon and we're going to read in chapter 6 and verse 3. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He feedeth among the lilies. Now just come over to chapter 2 and we'll read the third verse.

As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the suns. I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste. That's all that I'm going to read.

I sat in the car for a few moments before the meeting this afternoon and I was exercised about a more practical line of ministry but as I listened to the ministry this afternoon I have altered my thoughts a couple of times and so this is not what I really intended initially to speak upon but I think it will go with what has already been said. When you come to the writings of Solomon, Solomon wrote three books in our Bible. He wrote the book of Proverbs as you know, the book of Ecclesiastes and then this beautiful song that Solomon wrote.

I would gather that in the book of Proverbs, Solomon is going to give us a moral picture of life. So there are not very many difficulties or problems that we would face in life here but what Solomon would have an answer for in the book of Proverbs. There's tremendous instruction and help in the book of Proverbs.

When you come to the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon is occupied for a good part of that book on the natural life lived here upon this earth and he makes the cry a few times, vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. But when you come to the song that Solomon has written here, I think you could look at it as a spiritual view of life. I think there are truths in the song of Solomon that are very applicable to us today.

There are two forms of speech in this book that Solomon has written. I learned that in high school a while ago. There is a soliloquy, that's when an actor is on a stage by himself revealing the thoughts of his heart as if no one was listening to him.

You'll find that a number of times in this book. But there is also a dialogue that is expressed between two individuals speaking. And the main dialogue in the book is between the bride and the bridegroom.

That might come fairly close to the Bible study this morning. In this book then the bride is a Shulamite. Our brother had that Shulamite on the outline for the Bible study this morning.

You'll find the Shulamite in chapter 6 and verse 13 of this book. You'll have to sort of dismiss from your mind all of the concubines that Solomon had. And the Shulamite is a bride that is in view in this book, just only the Shulamite.

Evidently at some point in time Solomon, who was a bridegroom, surveying the realm, came across the Shulamite, a shepherdess, and he brought her to the throne in Jerusalem. And he set her upon the throne beside him as his bride. And so when you come to the statement, I am my beloved, that would be her language.

She would look at Solomon and she would say, I belong to him. The language of 1st Corinthians chapter 6 would be applicable here. You're not your own.

You're bought with a price. And so she would understand now that everything that she is and what she has and on the throne beside Solomon is all to the credit of Solomon. He has given her that place.

He says, I am my beloved. Of course, we can take that language, can't we? I am my beloved. I belong to Christ.

And so those words in 1st Corinthians, you're not your own, apply to each of us. We do not belong to ourselves. We belong to the lovely man of Calvary who has purchased us by the shedding of his own precious blood.

But there's something else here. It says, I am my beloved. But you'll notice it says, my beloved is mine.

What tremendous words. But we can take this afternoon, all of Christ is mine. Not only do I belong to him, but he belongs to me.

And so that means that in my life and the little sojourn here, I should spend as much of my time as I possibly can getting to know the one who is my beloved. We will never exhaust him. We'll never come to the end of the wonder of this person.

He is all ours. Someone made the comment at a conference very recently that God will never get to the point where he will have to wring his hands and say, I have no more to tell. The Lord Jesus is inexhaustible.

I want to come to that statement that I read in chapter 2 and verse 3 for a moment. She uses that word beloved again. The word beloved appears 30 times in this book, in the few chapters of Solomon's Song.

23 of those occasions, it is the bride that is referring to the bridegroom as her beloved. Only twice does the bridegroom refer to her as his beloved. And the other five occasions are used by the daughters of Jerusalem in their conversation with the bride.

But she says again, as the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the suns. Now I'm a country boy. I got somehow transplanted close to the city of Toronto.

I don't live in Toronto. I live just outside the suburbs of Toronto, on the border of Toronto. But as a country boy going to a high school, I traveled 14 miles to the school and 14 miles home.

And oftentimes when I got home, I would get off the bus and change my clothes and go for a walk in the woods. Maybe I have a little of a wandering spirit. I think I could have told you every tree and every pathway through that woods that surrounded our house.

And all the times I have done that, there's something I've never seen. I've never seen an apple tree in the middle of the trees of the woods. It would strike me that this statement would suggest to us that this would be something most unusual, most remarkable.

I would expect to find an apple tree in an orchard. We did have one in our front yard. But to find an apple tree when it's in full bloom amongst the trees of the woods.

Trees of the woods would look rather drab. The apple tree would be a beautiful sight among the trees of the woods. Notice what she said.

As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. The apple tree is a beloved unto us the Lord Jesus Christ. The trees of the woods are the sons.

And as the apple tree would appear out of place in the middle of the trees of the wood, some remarkable thing. That for 33 years the Lord Jesus dwelt on this earth as the apple tree among the trees of the woods. Am I on that clock? I'm going to take you just for a moment to a few of the scenes in the life of the Lord Jesus where he was as the apple tree among the trees of the woods.

I may not exhaust this because I'm going to limit my time. There will be room for another speaker. I want to take you for a moment to the place of his birth.

When shepherds came and shepherds surrounded him. Unusual for shepherds I would take it to leave their flocks alone in the field. Yet they did not.

They came to the place of his birth. They surrounded him. Brother Paisley told us one time that the swaddling clothes were purple and blue and white.

I asked him after where he ever got that from. He said to me brother if you enjoy it don't let anyone take it from you. The apple tree among the trees of the wood the Lord Jesus resting on the breast of Mary.

What a remarkable sight. Scriptures will remind us great are the mysteries of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.

There are mysteries in the Bible that are revealed to us. This is a mystery that is not revealed. That is there are aspects of the virgin birth of Christ the mind of men would be far better not to prod into.

We believe that he was God manifest in the flesh. That every aspect of deity was contained in the form of that infant child upon the breast of Mary. And I don't know what my brethren would think but I'll be very clear on this.

I do not believe that he left his glory behind. I believe that one of the wonders of that sight that met the eyes of shepherds as they surrounded him was that in the form of that infant child was all the fullness all the glory veiled in the form of humanity. Ask me to explain that I cannot explain that.

But I believe that the wonder of it the virgin birth of Christ the infant the Lord Jesus the apple tree surrounded by the trees of the wood the shepherds. Let me take you for a moment to Matthew chapter 2 to a house. And the Lord Jesus is a child.

He's referred to a child as a child a number of times in that chapter. It is not the scene. It's not the manger scene.

It's a house. And wise men come. I know that history would record the names of three wise men.

I understand that. I couldn't give you the names but I know that the names are recorded. I don't believe that either.

Because all of Jerusalem was stirred when the wise men arrived. Jerusalem was a city that was accustomed to the coming and going of multitudes of people. Three individuals arriving in the city of Jerusalem will cause very little of a stir.

I would have to suggest that there were a host of wise men descended upon that city. And they were guided by the star. Take that as a little illustration of the movements of the Spirit of God that guided the wise men to the house where the Lord Jesus was.

Then they began to present their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The apple tree of the Lord Jesus surrounded by wise men. Gold speaks of deity.

Every true worshiper must be a believer in the absolute deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The frankincense, that which means white, speaks of purity, holiness. And every worshiper must be a believer in the absolute impeccability, that is the absolute sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And they presented the myrrh. I don't think that I have ever seen myrrh. Maybe one occasion I did.

But I understand that myrrh is something that is very, very bitter if you try to taste it. But when you put it in the fire, it gives off a very fragrant odor. Myrrh would remind us of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ that he was going to endure at Calvary.

And sometimes perhaps we forget to really grasp or to appreciate as we ought what Calvary meant to the Father in heaven. As the myrrh would be sweet in its fragrance in the fire when the Lord Jesus was enduring the fires of God's judgment. There was a fragrant odor of his obedience even to the point of death that rose to the Father in heaven.

Bitter, bitter to the taste, bitter sufferings to the Savior at Calvary. Gold, the frankincense, and the myrrh. Let me take you to another scene.

A lad now, he's 12 years of age. Tremendous thing. He's now in the midst of learned men.

I have tried to picture that. It's sometimes a useful thing to try to picture the scene. He's surrounded by these men with all of their beards and all of their work, learning, and all of their wisdom.

And he's asking them questions. And you can ask very learned questions. And he's answering their questions.

And they begin to stroke their beards and look at each other and wonder and marvel at the understanding of a lad of 12 who had never sat at one of their feet, who had never learned from them, who had never had the opportunity that Saul of Tarsus had to sit at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the learned rabbis of the day. He never did that. He was God and he was never less than God.

The apple tree among the trees of the woods. What did I think for a moment of a silent man. He's in a room that's not very big, not anywhere like the size of a room that we're in now.

He has been delivered by pilot to the whole band of Roman soldiers. I would understand that if a Roman band of soldiers without its full complement, there are 200 men. These men are not gentlemen.

They are not kind men. They are cruel men. They are ruthless men.

And as the custom of the day would be, pilot has delivered the Lord Jesus into the hands of these men for them to sport with him, for them to belittle him, for them to ridicule him, for them to laugh, for them to spit in his face, for the words of the prophet that have been fulfilled. Not only did he give his back to the smiters, my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, I hid not my face from shame and spitting. The lovely face of Christ covered by the spittle of those wicked, sinful men.

And Isaiah would tell us that he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before shears is done, so he opened not his mouth. Yet as heaven looked on, every blow of the Roman fist that smote the face of the Lord Jesus was witnessed by God in heaven. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sods.

Let me just point to maybe a couple of more scenes. They lead him to a place called Calvary and they crucify him. And he was crucified between two thieves as the apple tree among the trees of the wood.

Bible reading recently in a place up in northern Ontario, Arnstein, we really enjoyed, we're thrilled, as we considered for an hour the cries of Christ from the cross. What words, what cries from the Savior from the cross when he looked at those very men, the man that held the mallet in his hands, the men that stood before him and laughed, and he cried heavenward, Father forgive them for they know now what they do. Thank God that has come down to us, hasn't it? We sinned against heaven and that cry for forgive them has been answered by the Father and in his mercy he delivered us from our sins.

The apple tree among the trees of the wood. I want to know there's just one more scene very briefly. Again it's a very small room and I hope everyone believes this, everyone here.

I hope as we were gathered this morning you appreciated what I'm going to say. In the middle of that room there is a table and on the table there's bread and there's a cup and the Christians have gathered silently, reverently, because they appreciate this that they are gathering in the presence of divine majesty. They're in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the assemblies back our way a number of years ago I arrived early on a Sunday morning. I like to arrive early. And the brother who was standing at the door in a brief conversation made this comment to me.

He said just a few years ago we had a number of widows in our assembly. He said they would be here 30 minutes or so before the meeting would commence. He said I've watched them.

They were sitting silently. I've watched their lips moving. They weren't speaking out loud but they were praying silently as they sat there.

And then he said some of them would have their hymn books open and they would be reading the words of a hymn. He said I've watched many times that as the first hymn was given out those dear widows never turned a page in their hymn book. And the meeting was influenced by the worship and by the exercise of those sisters.

And I wonder sometimes brethren whether we have lost very very much in the gatherings on Sunday morning because we arrived so late or just a few minutes before the meeting would commence. And I have to leave a word with my brethren back home when I get there. When the hour was come he sat down and the twelve were with him.

He graciously gives to us the privilege of setting the time. But when the hour arrives the Lord is there. He is present.

And I hope we all appreciate that and we all understand that that it fills our soul. I will not forget the first Sunday morning that we gathered with a few believers in a small country assembly to remember the Lord Jesus Christ in his presence. And so the man here Solomon says I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

As the apple tree among the trees of the wood so was my beloved among the sons. Just a few thoughts of the apple tree.