94-53 Flowers are Lovely

All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. Each little flower that opens, Each little bird that sings, He made their glowing colours, He made their tiny wings. All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.

The cold wind in the winter, The pleasant summer sun, The ripe fruits in the garden, He made them every one. All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. He gave us eyes to see them, And lips that we might tell, How great is God Almighty, Who has made all things well.

All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. All men declare the glory of the Lord, The Lamb upon the cross, I gladly bow the knee, And worship Him all the same, To reconcile man to God, Forever you will be, The Lamb upon the cross. His name is Lord Emmanuel, Emmanuel, His name is Lord Emmanuel, Revealed in love, His name is Lord Emmanuel.

Mother God, I wonder how I fell, Without the knowledge of your parenthood, And your loving care. Now I am your son, I am adopted in your family, And I will never be alone, Because, Father God, you're there inside me. I will sing your praises, I will sing your praises, I will sing your praises forevermore.

I will sing your praises, I will sing your praises, I will sing your praises forevermore. Father God, I wonder how I managed, To exist without the knowledge, Of your parenthood, And your loving care. Now I am your son, I am adopted in your family, And I will never be alone, Because, Father God, you're there inside me.

I will sing your praises, I will sing your praises, I will sing your praises forevermore. I will sing your praises, I will sing your praises, I will sing your praises forevermore. Our reading today is taken from Song of Songs, Chapter 2, from verse 1 to verse 13.

I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens. Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover amongst the young men.

I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. He has taken me to the banquet hall, and his banner over me is love. Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love.

His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me. Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field. Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

Listen, my lover. Look, here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag.

Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice. My lover spoke and said to me, Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone, flowers appear on the earth.

The season of singing has come. The cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit.

The blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. Well, I meant to say that the kids went out a little more quickly than I anticipated.

That flowers actually do talk. I mean by that they have a symbolism and an eloquence of their own. The whiteness of the lily.

The crimson of this rose. You know that Worthing is well famous for a little piece of eloquence contributed to the English language. A phrase without which literature would be impoverished.

Flowers are lovely, dear. You go down onto Montagry Precinct every Saturday and various other days, and we are given this stark declaration, which we know to be true. Flowers are indeed lovely.

Can also be expensive, but they are lovely. And yes, dear, we do sometimes like some to take back to our loved ones. Our beloved Lord actually was saying the same thing, wasn't he? I think he probably would have used a softer intonation.

But I mean here he's got a great amount of people alongside him. It's part of one of the longest discourses that he preached. The second longest sermon that our Lord uttered.

We call it the Sermon on the Mountain. He said, as we mentioned when we looked together in scripture earlier this morning, he said, consider. Consider not only the birds of the air, but consider the flowers of the field.

And the very context of what our Lord was saying indicated that he too had this belief. That flowers are lovely. That flowers have a language that speak in and of themselves to those who are prepared to listen.

In fact, our Lord made the analogy of a delicate flower like that with a man who perhaps would have got the prize for being the best dressed Hebrew of all time. I refer to King Solomon. Now the Savile Row of Jerusalem, whatever the equivalent was, Solomon obviously was a great benefactor.

In royal apparel he would hold his court and people would come and see him. And not only his wisdom, but his splendor in terms of his wealth, his opulence. It must have given some expression in the nature of his wardrobe.

Yet have you seen the most skillfully weaved piece of cloth? Or come up as close as you can with a magnifying glass to beautiful silk and you will discover that the finest of material is frayed at the edges. Magnified a hundred times and you realize that you're dealing with man-made stuff. And man-made stuff pales into utter insignificance compared with God's creation.

Put this under a magnifying glass. Examine this with a microscope. You will not find frayed edging.

The rose as it blushes to full bloom, the Aaron lily as it gives expression to all its whiteness is so exquisitely made that the finest Raymond Solomon had was like cheap corduroy. Compared with this. I think atheism falls at the swoop of a flower.

You cannot believe with any grain of logic that this or that simply came to be. The flower speaks. It speaks of a creation.

It speaks of a creator. Flowers indeed are lovely, dear. They're also most eloquent.

Now here is our Lord Jesus. I believe, predicted in scripture, not every commentator will agree with me. But nonetheless, I think that I could make out a case that when you come to Song of Solomon and the first verse of the second chapter, there is a reference either directly or certainly indirectly to the wonder of our Lord Jesus.

And the illustration is from the realm of nature. I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. I know that it is argued that in the context the words refer to the beloved more than perhaps the lover.

But there is a sense in which all the perfections that the beloved one might find are absolutely inadequate compared with the perfections of the lover. It's the lover who stands for the Lord Jesus Christ. And we can, we'll not be shunted into a sidetrack if we take this expression, the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley, and suggest that it is an Old Testament anticipation of those declarations our Lord made in New Testament times when he said, I am the door, I am the good shepherd, I am the vine.

I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley. Is he a rose, says an old Puritan songwriter? Not Sharon yields such fragrance in all her fields, or if the lily he assumes, the valleys bless the rich perfume. The rose, the lily, they speak first of all of the supremacy of Christ.

For surely the rose is the queen of the flowers. And the lily has a whiteness that is almost unexcelled in the whole of nature. We're told in the word of God of our beloved Lord Jesus, he is the altogether lovely one.

All perfections coalesce, converge in him. Think of anything that's perfect, or nearly so in this world, then put it alongside our Lord Jesus and it looks imperfect. All that is good, all that is pure, all that is beautiful, you find in our Lord Christ.

One Scottish lady says of this pronouncement, I am a lily, I am a rose of Sharon, and a lily of the valleys. As the words are put into the mouth of Christ, he's never so bonny than when he's commending himself. Never so bonny than when he's commending himself.

And he tells us that he is the fairest of all. Men dropped to their knees in the presence of Jesus. Did you know that? Devils knew what it was to ask Jesus to depart from them because they could not stand within the range of his perfection.

A remarkable Frenchman called Renan, last century, who was a skeptic, looked into the life of Jesus. And in a book entitled La Vida de Jesus Christ, he concludes amazingly, rest now in thy glory, noble Galilean, thy work is established, thy resurrection proclaimed. Between thee and God, men will no longer distinguish.

He is the supreme Christ. Of all the lilies, he's the choicest. Of all the roses, he is the best.

Christ is not only good, says Spurgeon, he is the best, not only the best, but he is the best of the best. If he's a flower, he has to be a rose, the queen of the flowers. If he's a lily, he has to be a lily from the valleys of Palestine, the supreme example of whiteness.

So if our scriptures speak of the supremacy of Christ, I argue even more. They testify to his influence. I once, years ago, bought Rowena some scent for Christmas.

I'm not a connoisseur in this sort of thing. And it was down at the local Boots. I wanted to get a sample of the smell.

Now in those days, I didn't realize that you had to press in a spray can. So I shook. Unfortunately, the top wasn't securely fixed.

An interesting aroma pervaded me for a long time. And later when I went into Sainsbury's, I was getting strange looks. The lily of the valley, the rose of Sharon, the influence of Christ, a perfume.

Smell is a kind of feeling. Substances touch sensitive membranes. And we call the sensation that is produced smelling.

Personalities have an influence. Some men, women, they don't have to tell you they're godly. You know.

They come into the room, you feel it. They go out of the room, and they leave something of the presence of Christ with them. I worked my apprenticeship, so to speak, as a minister with a very great and godly man.

When he was in the pulpit, I referred to Reverend Macbeth Patterson. You felt safe. You knew he'd been with the Lord.

You had an anchor for your life through his ministry. No wonder the disciples were panic-stricken when our Lord was carted off like a criminal, having been hounded by the temple police and the Roman guards. The anchorage had gone, and seemingly the influence had gone.

But actually that was not to be the case. For that rose-like life was to be crushed, and from the crushing would come an even greater perfume, the perfume of an ability to forgive sins through the shedding of his blood. I've learned a little more about perfumes since the days when I tried my first escapade into buying the stuff.

And I'm pretty taken by certain manufacturers of perfume who always promote their products in terms of beauty without cruelty. I sometimes think that some of you ladies would hesitate in using the perfumes that you select if you knew the cruelty that had been inflicted upon animals in arriving at that particular commodity. There's something that you can say about our Lord Jesus.

The perfume, the influence of his life came without imposing cruelty on anyone else. The crushing of the rose, the only cruelty was what was placed on him, not anything that he handed out. I am the rose of Sharon, I am the lily of the valley.

The Apostle Paul talks about the savour of our Lord's life, the influence that pervades, a savour of life unto life, of death unto death. What does he mean? Well, if you are influenced by the life of Jesus Christ positively, then what he achieved on this earth and through his death and his mighty resurrection will live on as a benefit for you in time and through to eternity. The rose of Sharon allows a perfume to pervade, an influence to remain, which blesses our world.

I am the rose of Sharon, I am the lily of the valley. I am the rose of Sharon, I am the lily of the valley. Somebody said, writing in a visitor's book, having gone round this remarkable display in which surely the flowers are speaking in language that I would never have realized possible were it not for the inspiration of some of the good and gifted folk who have put these displays together along with an appropriate piece of scripture.

Somebody put in the book as their reaction, better than Chelsea. Presumably they weren't referring to the football club, so I'll take it the flower show. It's not easy to get in there, is it? I mean, it's pretty expensive and you've got to travel some distance and there's a degree of discomfort and you go through a turnstile or at least some check-in point.

But the thing about the rose of Sharon, the thing about the lily of the valley and what these flowers represent is, if I can put it down to one word of conclusion at this point, it is the accessibility of Christ. The rose of Sharon Sharon is not the description of Solomon's palace, garden, walled presumably with gates barring entry and exit. Sharon is an open plain where the animals, as they should, roam freely and without danger.

Sharon is a place where there are nooks and crannies and flowers can grow. Many never seen by mortal eye but offering their praise to God who sees all and who created the world originally to give him praise, both the animate and inanimate creation. I am the rose of Sharon.

No gates, no turnstiles, no demand that you be a member of the Royal Horticultural Society before you can get an audience and look around. The accessibility of Jesus who says, Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If you're thirsty, come and drink.

If you're in need, come with your problems, come with your questions. To me, I am the source of all wisdom. There are no bars.

There are no restrictions. Apart from the restriction of having no qualification to come. And if that seems a bit Irish or a little bit Jewish, because that's what it really is, the latter rather than the former, let me explain.

In the Old Testament, speaking of the accessibility of Christ, in poetic language, Isaiah says, If you've got no money, if you've got no holiness, if you've got no reason to draw near to him in terms of your merit, then you can come, for he's accessible. Without money and without price, it's the only reason why somebody like me can preach. Because of his grace that gives me and you an invitation to come to his Son and to discover the properties of the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley.

Whiteness speaks of purity. Scarlet of blood. Of sacrifice.

There is, I think, a sort of complementariness, if one can coin that word, which speaks about the aspects of character within the person of our Lord. I mean by that, like the Erin Lily, there is a purity that is utterly unsullied. We've made some reference to that.

The Lily is a very strange plant in many ways. It can take its nourishment from the most unlikely sources It could be in a miserable looking squalid swamp. And far from being influenced by its environment, it will still grow steadily in that swamp.

And the contrast of its environment stands out with the beauty of the Lily. Jesus said on one occasion, anyone who convicts me of sin, let him do so. And no one could.

We read of our Lord Jesus that he was able to say that even the devil, the prince of this world comes and has nothing on me. Our Lord is snow white in his perfection, snow white in all that he does. There's nothing that he needs to try to cover up.

There's no bush behind which he needs to go to hide. The whiteness of Christ speaking of his purity. The scarlet of the rose, encased by thorns, speaking for those who've got eyes to see, of the crown of thorn that will be pushed into his brow, and the crimson blood that will flow.

A realization that if I'm right in understanding the poetry of flowers in this fashion, the death of Jesus on the cross was a cruel and a callous death. And in the release of the life of Jesus on the cross as he dies for you, is also the release of his purity, so that he can take upon himself the crimson guilt that is yours. And leave you with the white purity that is ours.

Flowers are lovely, dear. They speak prophetically to those ladies in Montague precinct. But they don't fully understand, I suppose, all the loveliness that the flower of the rose and the lily actually depicts.

But then, there is something that I have to say, of course, that seems to spoil it all. I mean, you go around these displays. They were put up on Friday.

Rumor that the elders did the lot is completely untrue. We just watched and took the congratulations after the ministry had been done. Often the stance of elders.

I say that jokingly. The ladies came and some men and they put everything together in such a wonderful fashion. So that was Friday.

Saturday was yesterday. Sunday today. Monday.

Well, I guess by Monday afternoon we'll have to start to dismantle. You see, if we were to keep all this together for next week, then something of the luster would have faded. Let's turn the clock on a month and bring you all back.

We haven't moved a flower. Let's turn the clock on a year and bring you all back. You'd think bankruptcy must have hit Worthing Tabernacle.

The grass withers. The flower fades. So let's not get over sentimental about the rose.

Let's not get over sentimental about the lily. They do fade. They are part of God's natural handiwork, but they do not partake of immortality.

But what they represent does. Jesus did not say, I am, or rather, I was the rose. He did not say, I was the lily.

He says, I am. He speaks into the present. Because this He will always be.

You see, He is the unending Son of God. In the beginning He was there. And even at the end of this present dispensation He will be there.

The utterly unchangeable, unchanging Christ. That's why Wesley had to say, Thou, O Christ, art all I want. All my needs in Thee I find.

You see, there's no one else to whom you can come. Who has this permanency. Our Lord Jesus is always available.

This side of glory to people like you and me. To do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. To take away the crimson scarlet of our sin.

And to replace it with the purity of His life. The transferred benefits of the obedience of the Son of God. Credited to your account and to my account.

Plenteous grace in Thee is found. Grace to cover all my sin. Let the healing stream abound.

Make and keep me pure within. Thou, O Christ, art all I want. All my hope in Thee is found.

Cover my defenseless head. How does that last line go? When the shadow of Thy blood. Wonderful Christ.

Who offers you and me salvation. Through the benefits of His life and death. And so a woman impressed by the Lord Jesus.

Goes back to her villages and says, come and see. Come and see and listen to a man who told me. Everything that I ever did.

And does not seem to be put off. By what He knew of me. Here then, as I conclude.

Are two flowers. In one sense quite ordinary. Because they do grow wild out there in Palestine.

They're the people's flowers. The lily. You can go as a kid into Sharon and take an armful.

Provided you hit Palestine at the right time of the year. And similarly with the rose. There's an abundant supply of these flowers.

And what they represent. Discovered in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Also has an abundant supply.

For He is the people's Christ. Offering salvation to the people. Not on the basis of what they have been or what they have done.

But on the basis of what He is and what He has achieved. So when you look at the Christ, what do you see? Some saw Him as a root out of a dry ground. No comeliness, no loveliness, no attraction at all.

How blind. But those who stayed on and watched, they discovered. That this Christ with such unpromising beginnings.

Becomes the most beauteous life that has ever been lived. So I ask you. How do you see Him? Come see.

The lily of the valley. Come see. The rose of Sharon.

You see His purity? You see His vicarious sacrifice, His outpoured blood? Do you make Him your own? You come and pluck Him. For that is possible. Pluck the salvation that He offers.

And know what it is. To be born again. To have your sins dealt with.

To be a new person. To know the flower of Christ's beauty. Start to catch some sort of reflection.

In your life. Flowers are lovely dear. You never said it through a word.

Let's pray. Jesus. Name above all names.

Beautiful Savior. Glorious Lord. Emmanuel.

God is with us. Blessed Redeemer. Living Word.

Softly. Jesus. Name above all names.

Beautiful Savior. Glorious Lord. God is with us.

Blessed Redeemer. Fairest Lord Jesus. Ruler of all nature.

O Thou and Merson. Thee will I cherish. Thee will I honor.

Thou my soul's glory. Joy and crown. Fair meadows.

Fairer still the woodlands. Robed in the virtue. And bloom of spring.

Jesus shines fairer. Jesus is purer. Who makes the saddest heart to sing.

Beautiful Savior. Lord of all the nations. Son of God.

And Son of Man. Glory and honor. Praise adoration.

Now and forevermore be Thine. Sweetly in the trees. When I look down.

Above delighted rapture. And feel the moon. And feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul. My Savior God to Thee. How great Thou art.

How great Thou art. Then sings my soul. My Savior God to Thee.

How great Thou art. How great Thou art. And when I dream.

That God His Son was bearing. Sent Him to die. My sense and pain is healed.

That on the cross. Thy burden that He carried. He wept and died.

To take away my sin. Then sings my soul. My Savior God to Thee.

How great Thou art. How great Thou art. Then sings my soul.

My Savior God to Thee. How great Thou art. How great Thou art.

When I shine. Then sings my soul. My Savior God to Thee.

How great Thou art. Then sings my soul. My Savior God to Thee.