We come now to the ministry of God's Word, so I invite you to take your Bibles and turn in them to the Song of Solomon, Chapter 5. Song of Solomon, Chapter 5. And if you're visiting, we have been working through a series on the Song of Solomon entitled A Love on Two Horizons, A Portrait of Love on Two Horizons. And we find ourselves in chapter 5, and this morning we'll be looking specifically at verses 9 through 16, but in order to establish the context, I'm going to read the entirety of chapter 5. So Song of Solomon, chapter 5, let us give our attention to the reading of God's Word. 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. I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound, my beloved is knocking. Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night. I had put off my garment, how could I put it on? I had bathed my feet, how could I soil them? My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh on the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but found him not. I called him, but he gave no answer. The watchmen found me as they went about in the city. They beat me, they bruised me, they took away my veil, those watchmen of the walls. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with love. What is your beloved more than another beloved, O most beautiful among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved that you thus adjure us? Well, my beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among 10,000. His head is the finest gold, his locks are wavy, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, bathed in milk, sitting beside a full pool. His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet-smelling herbs. His lips are like lilies dripping liquid myrrh. His arms are rods of gold set with jewels. His body is polished ivory bedecked with sapphires. His legs are alabaster columns set on bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." As far as the reading of God's Word, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the Word of our God stands forever, and we are grateful for it. Would you bow with me this morning as we ask the Lord for His help in the ministry of the Word. come before you with this poetic piece of literature that on the one hand, Father, has the potential to cause our hearts to soar in worship to You, but on the other hand, Father, is bedecked with many pitfalls that could take our minds in directions they ought not go. We pray, Father, that you would focus our minds, our hearts, our very souls on the center, which is Christ. As the Shulamite describes her lover, Solomon, we look to the greater Solomon, because Jesus said in His ministry, one greater than Solomon is here. So, Father, help us to look to the one that is the greater Solomon, the anti-type of Solomon, the fulfillment of Solomon, the better Solomon. And may we bow and worship before Him, we pray in Christ's name, amen. Well, last week we saw that the Shulamite was in her bed. She was very comfortable, and her beloved came to her knocking on the door. She did not want to be inconvenienced. She did not want to get up from her warm bed, and so she passed up the opportunity in a moment of vacillation. And then when she had second thoughts, she came to the door and her beloved was gone. And she regretted not following the prompt of her beloved when he called out her name, not only her name. But more importantly, many pet names that he stacked up because of his affections for her. And so she went looking about in the city and she was beaten by the watchman. We saw last week that this is indicative of how the law sometimes punishes us, disciplines us when we are disobedient. And now we come this morning. to her turning her attention to the daughters of Jerusalem. And we've seen this as a refrain throughout the book that she will at times turn to the daughters of Jerusalem. And she gives them an imperative. She gives them a command. She says, if you see my beloved, tell him that I love him. And then we see in verse nine that they respond with a very interesting question. upon being exhorted to find her beloved because her beloved is everything to her, the daughters of Jerusalem say in verse 9, what is your beloved more than another beloved? O most beautiful among women, what is your beloved more than another beloved that you thus adjure us? In other words, that you thus put us under oath. I want to begin this morning by considering what I'm calling a very probing question. I think this is a very important question, and I'm mainly, probably exclusively, going to be on that second horizon this morning, not speaking or thinking of this in the context of the Shulamite and her husband Solomon, but thinking of the church as perhaps the world would ask this of us. What is your beloved that you do not look for another? In other words, why Him? Why is He so important? Why can't you find another? Why can't you find another beloved? Why can't you find another Savior? In other words, why this guy? Why Jesus Christ? What makes Him so great? Why him and not Muhammad? Why Christ and not the spirit of this age? Why Christ and not the pantheon of gods that other religions and people groups throughout all of history have offered to Christians as they consider the deity to whom they will submit themselves? Why Christ and not the carefree, do-whatever-you-want worldview of atheism and agnosticism? Why Christ and not another? And I would submit to you this morning that this question does two things. Mark them down. First, this question shows us that the world is bewildered by our adoration of Christ. The world is bewildered. by our adoration of Christ. In fact, you might say that they would say we're in a cult. Have you ever heard that? I remember years ago when I was attending John MacArthur's church because I went to college at the Master's University, and many of us would attend MacArthur's church, Grace Community Church. And there was, of course, a Sikh temple up the way, a synagogue up the other way. And I think a temple of love around the corner, I can't remember. It was Los Angeles, so there was just about everything there. And I remember that that morning he had to, on behalf of the church, excommunicate somebody, did it right there in the service, named the guy's name. That's what the New Testament does. I'm not ashamed of that. And he followed up with saying, you know, I was in conversation with somebody the other day and they said that people from the Sikh temple and people from the synagogue said that we're in a cult. because we actually would follow Jesus so much to actually follow His command and excommunicate somebody. Maybe people, when they hear from you that you're in a church that has one of the marks of the true church, church discipline, they think, that's cultish. But why, why would you throw your name in with Christianity? The world doesn't see the beauty that you find in Jesus Christ. They don't see why, like the Shulamite, you find him, in verse 16, altogether desirable. I like other translations that he is altogether lovely. You see pleasure in Him. You see beauty in Him. Not abstract beauty, but objective and subjective beauty. They don't see the world. They don't see why you would give a whole day to worshiping the triune God. Why would you do something like that? Don't you have chores to do? Don't you have errands to run? I mean, don't you know that Home Depot is busiest on Sunday? They don't see why you would forego all the pleasures of this life to follow Him. They don't see why you would invite such acrimony from the world for taking His name upon your lips. Have you received acrimony this week? from perhaps coworkers, from perhaps fellow members of your extended family who cannot believe that you in the world and of this pandemic called COVID would get in together in a room such as this, in such proximity without a mask, and maybe even without being vaccinated. Well, there's a reason why you do something like that, beloved. I get tired of the political slogans that get thrown around, you know, this is essential, that is essential. What I never heard is worship is essential. But is worship essential? Absolutely. It is essential to the very well-being of your soul. Your body they may kill, God's truth abideth still. What matters is your soul, and if your soul is drawn like a moth to the flame to Jesus Christ, the light of the world, then you can't but worship. And the pixels on a TV will not do it. You need your brother or your sister there so you can put your hand on their shoulder, that you can embrace them with your arms and love them the way that the Scriptures call you to love them. So the first thing we see with this question, and I'm not necessarily saying that the daughters of Jerusalem represent the world, I'm just saying this is the kind of question that the world would ask us, would they not? Sadly, it's the kind of question that even those in evangelicalism would ask us. But secondly, this question does a second thing. It challenges us to consider afresh why, if at all, we truly believe that He's altogether lovely. It challenges us to consider afresh why, if at all, we truly believe that He's altogether lovely. What makes Jesus so great that the church would urge the world to find Him? Have you ever asked that question of yourself? What makes Jesus so unique, indeed, like a lily among thorns, that we would even commend Him to one another? here in the church when we've lost our way. Why we would say things like, brother, sister, you're going off the path. Come back to Jesus, your great shepherd. Come back to Jesus who gave His precious blood for you. Come back to Jesus, the lover of your soul. Why would we commend Him to the world and why would we commend Him to one another in our sanctification? Why Him and not another? Why Christ rather than just do whatever you want and make up the rules as you go like so many in our culture do. I've sat in a few Sundays on the high school apologetics class and one of the things that they're putting their finger on, which is so incredibly helpful, is that when you get into conversations with coworkers and friends and family members and those who do not name the name of Christ, and you try to help them to see that what they quote unquote believe and how they live is inconsistent with one another, they get about five minutes in and they say, what? I'm done talking about this. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about consistency. Consistency doesn't matter. I could just do whatever I want. Well, my friends, that answer is good until you get to the doorstep of death. And then when you get to the doorstep of death and you take your last breath and you open your eyes in that intermediate state, and then we fast forward to the last judgment when you were standing before the tribunal of God, consistency matters. There's a bumper sticker. Okay? Consistency matters. Being epistemologically self-conscious matters. Knowing why you believe what you believe and why you believe it and how it trickles into your everyday life matters. If you truly believe that life is precious, then you will abhor things like abortion. I remember on a bike ride years ago with a local bike club. I try to be careful with the people I would talk with, and one of the guys that I was riding next to, we're winding up to get out into the country, out into Pungo before we really let the gas on, and this guy was talking to me, and clearly he was a... A vegetarian, a vegan, all those names. And he was going in, I didn't ask him, but he was going into his philosophy of why he was a vegan and he said, all life is precious. All life is sacred and we need to preserve life. I said, do you believe in abortion? Yes. And I'm like, okay. Consistency matters, doesn't it? Consistency matters. So why Christ and not another? Why do we not just go along to get along? I'm going to be honest with you. So many in the church today are doing precisely that. Instead of saying, we need to get the world out of the church because friendship with the world is enmity with God, so many in the church are saying, we need to conform the way we worship and the way we think to the world so that we can befriend them. Beloved, that is not the way it's supposed to be. As Paul would say, that is not the way you have learned Christ. I want as much of the world out of this place as we could possibly get. You want to know why? Because this place, as we are catapulted into the heavenly places through worship, is supposed to be a taste of heaven. And yet God tolerates sinners in heaven through the merit and the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But where's the antithesis in this mentality? We need to be like the world. We need to ask the poets and the artists what they think about our worship so that we can reach out to those with our worship. No, James leaves no room for friendship with the world. Love him or hate him, James told you exactly what he thought, and he said, therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. How's that for not being very latitudinarian? So I thank God for this question, why Christ and not another? And I want to secondly give you five reasons why Christ is altogether desirable. and superior to all others this morning. Five reasons why Christ is altogether desirable and superior to others. And here's the first one. And we see it as you come back to the text. Song of Solomon, chapter five. You're gonna see this in verse 10, 13b and 16a. Why Christ and not another? Because he is unique among 10,000. Look at chapter five, verse 10. My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among 10,000. Jesus Christ is unique in His person. Jesus Christ is man, very man, but unlike every other man, He is God, very God. He is the God-man. He is the God-man that nobody else shares a category with. And He is the God-man coming into the world so that all who have faith in Him can share the category of His righteousness. Jesus is one among 10,000. His mouth and His lips, verse 13b and 16a, are unique as they speak comforting words of life. Look at verse 13b. I'll just read the whole thing. His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet-smelling herbs. His lips are lilies dripping liquid myrrh. Verse 16a, his mouth is most sweet and he is altogether desirable. There's this phrase dropped in the middle of John chapter 7. And it's an interesting phrase. You see, the chief priests and the Pharisees, they sent officers to Jesus to try to trap Him in His own teaching. And they tried to find a way to bring Him in so that they could snuff Him out because He was leading the people in the wrong direction. And the officers went and listened to Jesus. And instead of bringing Him back, they came back empty-handed. And the Pharisees said, why did not you arrest them? And they came back and said this, no one ever spoke like this man. No one ever spoke like this. You see, we were among them, you see. We were among Him, and in the crowd, people were amazed by Him. Can you imagine what would happen to us if we went in there and tried to take Him? They would have ripped us apart. You see, never a man spoke like this man. And we see also when the Roman soldiers later came to take Him away in the garden, Jesus asked them, whom do you seek? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. And when he said, I am, those soldiers were knocked flat on their back. Never a man spoke like this man. He spoke words that were understandable. He spoke words for the common man and the common woman to understand. He used analogies from nature. He talked about the birds of the air. He talked about the hairs upon our head and the sand upon the seashore. He took common examples from life that everybody could understand. But they were also attended with great signs and wonders. What kind of effect did his words have? Well, they had this kind of effect. When he spoke, the lame walked. When he spoke, the mute spoke. When he spoke, the dead were raised. And when he spoke, the blind did see. And when he spoke, sinners were set free. Now, I just ask you this morning, dear congregation, what man, what woman, what figure in all of history did things such as this man? He spoke with his own authority. Crowds were astonished at his teaching, and it was a common occurrence that after Jesus finished teaching, the crowds were astonished, and they said he was teaching as one who had authority, not as their scribes. He spoke on his own authority. Words of eternal life rolled off his lips. You remember in John chapter 6 when Jesus had some hard sayings? He said things like, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood. Remember that? Didn't go over very well. And a lot of his disciples, pseudo-disciples, they left him. And he looked at his small little ragtag band of disciples that were still there. And he said to them, will you go also? And Simon Peter, love him or hate him, though he put his foot in his mouth on many occasion, he got it right this time. What did he say? Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. You have the words of eternal life. Young people, I put before you this morning something that you should never forget. Any man, dear women, who would come and sweep you off your feet with winsome words. men, any woman who would come with all her beauty and seek to sweep you up in mind and heart, just remember this, never a man, never a woman spake as this man spoke. And it's not just how he spoke, it's what he spoke. And it's not just what he spoke, it's that what he speaks gets beyond the barrier of death, hell, and the grave, and past the final judgment, and lives eternally in the new heavens and the new earth, and you can be one of those names that get across that barrier, if you see the beauty in this one. For never a man spoke as He spoke. So why Him and not another? Because grace is poured out upon His lips. Because His lips emit a sweet fragrance of eternal life and joy and security. But then secondly, consider why Christ and not another? Because He is a faithful and matchless head. He is a faithful and matchless head. Look at verse 11. The Shulamite says of Solomon, and we look to the greater Solomon, his head is the finest gold, his locks are wavy, black as a raven. Jesus Christ is a faithful covenant head. What do I mean by that? Very simply, all those whom the Father gives to this covenant head, Jesus Christ, in the covenant of redemption, He will keep all of them and lose none of them. Let me say that again. He will keep all of them and lose none of them. When you in your life experience, and we've all experienced somebody who professed the name of Christ for even many years, and then after some time they just walk away. They could in their heart and in their mind just walk away. It's not that Christ lost that one beloved, it's that that one was never in the hands of the Father. And that one was never given from the hand of the Father to the Son. Because all those who love Jesus Christ preserve their faith to the end. Or shall we say, their faith is preserved to the end. Christ will not let any of his elect lose their way. He will always guard them, he will always protect them, he will always feed them, he will always guide them. And Jesus Christ, because he is a faithful head, because he is the great shepherd of the sheep, he will go after them when they lose their way, and he will comfort them when their cheeks are wet with tears. This is our great shepherd. He knows those who are His, and He is not fooled by the goats within our midst. In fact, He graciously, graciously, He graciously prunes the visible church through church discipline. That's what a faithful head does. And through church discipline, He either preserves His people, those who are going off and falling into the flames of eternal perdition, or He shows that that was their predestined lot from the very beginning. That's what church discipline does. It shows who a person really is. And as a faithful head, Christ lovingly disciplines us by going after us in our waywardness. Remember that. He changes our affections. He gives us, listen, he gives us warnings to stay on the path. He gives us warnings to stay on the path. He gives us warnings to stay on the path. Please, beloved, don't come like some have come to me sometimes and say, when you give me that warning, preacher, you're just being legalistic. Are you trying to scare me? Yes, I'm trying to scare you. I'm trying to put the fear of God in you because somehow it got out of you. And I want it, by God's grace and for His glory, to get back in you so that you could hate not just flames and hell and all the pictures that that brings up, but hell as a place where you are separated from the goodness and the kindness of God's love in Jesus Christ. That's what warnings do. Don't ever think of warnings like the over-exuberant Lutheran that says, oh, don't give me law, just give me gospel. No, the balanced Lutheran and the balanced Christian says, give me law and give me gospel. And after you've given me gospel, give me the third use of the law because I want to obey God out of a heart that He has drawn to Himself. So don't say, stop trying to scare me. And why? Evangelicalism, unfortunately, has fed us the mush and drivel of this thing called cheap grace. Cheap grace is a grace that does not transform. Cheap grace is a grace that does not sanctify. Cheap grace is a grace that does not dominate the heart. But this kind of grace is foreign to the New Testament. You cannot find it. Because the grace that God sends down from heaven through the personal work of Jesus Christ and gets worked into our hearts by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, you know what it does, beloved? It transforms your life. Does it do it right away? No. In some areas it does. But in other areas, progressively, there's always a fight. There's always a fight. There's always a fight with sin because God, through grace, is causing you to hate the sin and to love the Savior. And as a faithful head, our Lord comes in, and you know what He says? He says, all of you is all of mine. And the child of God says, yes, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. Stir up my lukewarm affections and conquer my unyielding heart. So that's the second reason why He is altogether lovely. He is a faithful head, beloved, and we are thankful for it. But here's a third reason why He is altogether lovely, altogether desirable, because His omniscient eyes are ever upon us. Look at verse 12. His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, bathed in milk, sitting besides a full pool. Now, when you consider this picture, Doves beside streams of water, bathed in milk. I admit, I really don't know what that means. Sitting beside a full pool. Do you get a picture of anxiety and running scared? Or do you get a picture of calm and peace and security? Well, I get the latter. Doves beside still waters. When you hear that still waters, what do you think? Psalm 23, right? He leads me beside still waters. You see, God's eyes are on his people. He knows everything, beloved, and his eyes are on you for your good. I think of how he speaks of his people in the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32.10. It says, God found Israel in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness, he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. Do you know that if you believe in Jesus Christ, you are the apple of God's eye? God is not your enemy. God does not hate you. God loves you in Jesus Christ. And you are the apple of his eyes. Zechariah 2.8, for thus said the Lord of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye. You see in God's eyes because of Christ you are precious. In other words, God sees us and knows us. that we are but dust. He knows our frame. He knows that we are but dust. He knows that we are weak. Our Lord sees us not for who we make ourselves out to be. Our God sees us not for how we want everybody else to see us, nor does our God see us for who we hope to be. Our God sees us for who we are, beloved. We are naked as we stand before God. And wonder of wonders, He still loves us. Why? Because of Jesus Christ. So His omniscient eyes are ever upon us, His third. But now, fourthly, why Christ and not another? Why is Christ altogether lovely? Why is Christ superior to all other counterfeit lovers? Because fourthly, his cheeks, arms, body, and legs were pierced and bruised for our transgressions. Because his cheeks, arms, body, and legs were pierced and bruised for our transgressions. Look at verses 13 through 15a. His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet-smelling herbs. His lips are lilies dripping liquid myrrh. His arms are rods of gold set with jewels. His body is polished ivory bedecked with sapphires. His legs are alabaster columns set on bases of gold. Now, I need you to follow me here. Again we're looking at poetry and we're thinking of different parts of the body of our Lord. And I want you to understand that though Solomon may not have totally understood what he was saying, he may have, the Holy Spirit was communicating through him something that we need to see. What you need to understand. is that the language that we see here of gold, of precious stones, of sapphires, this is all language of atonement in the priesthood. Let me just explain what I mean by that. And you can just jot it down and go check it out later. Just jot down Exodus chapter 28. Because in Exodus chapter 28, what God does through Moses is he explains how the high priest is to be robed, the garments that he is supposed to wear, the breastplate, and the shoulder plates, and the turban, and all the things that go on the high priest. Let me just say, before I go any further, every single stitch and every single stone was rich with symbolism upon the high priest. It all meant something. It was to be for glory and for beauty. It was to be a message to Israel, and as we descend into the details, what I want you is that first off he had stones of remembrance on each shoulder and on each stone there were engraven the name of six tribes of Israel and on the other shoulder on the stone was engraven the other six tribes of Israel and they were they were fenced in as it were in filigrees of gold. So you have stones okay and The word in Song of Solomon for precious stones is a very generic term, tarshish, which refers to just precious stones. It could be rubies, it could be sapphires, amethysts, whatever. But these stones are laced in with gold, okay? And it was the high priest who is representing those tribes of Israel as he goes into the holy place. What is he doing? Listen, he's serving and praying and splashing blood upon the altar as a mediator. Now not only does he have these on his shoulder, these precious stones, but then also the high priest had a breastplate, listen, of judgment. You can see that in Exodus chapter 28 verse 15 all the way through 30. But this breastplate had 12 stones and they were the 12 tribes of Israel. Each one represented Israel and he bore them, listen, on his body. because he would enter the Holy of Holies as a mediator atoning for their sins. So in both the stones of remembrance and the breastplate of judgment, the names of God's people were engraven upon the priest." Now you need to think about that for a moment. The names of God's people were engraven upon the priest. And all the names that the great high priest bears upon his body. He causes them to bear the name of God in the new heavens and the new earth. Isn't it interesting? In Revelation 14, 1, we hear this, so also the name of the Father is engraven upon the foreheads of the people of God in the new heavens and the new earth. Revelation 3, 12, the one who conquers, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him. The name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven and my own new name. So we see this picture, this figure of the priest writing the names of God's elect, God's people on his own body. And when we look to the great high priest, beloved, do we see marks that bear the suffering and punishment that we deserve? Yes, we do. The nail prints in His hands, the nail prints on His feet, the crown of thorns that went upon His head, the hole in His side where the spirit came through and pierced His heart and blood and water came, intermingled out. All of these are the marks of Jesus Christ as He suffered for His people. But it's not only that. Here's where it gets interesting. It was the great ... Well, in the old covenant, the priest sprinkled blood on the altar, and this was to serve as atonement, but it wasn't his own blood. It was the blood of bulls and goats and lambs. These things could only prefigure a great higher priest. But it was the high priest, the great high priest, Jesus Christ, who left his throne in heaven to take on flesh of this mankind that he might atone for the sins of man, but not with the blood of bulls and goats. but with the precious blood of his own veins. And Peter says this in 1 Peter 1, 18 and 19, he reminds us, you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. So beloved, by his wounds, on his body, The prophet Isaiah says, we are healed. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and by his wounds we are healed. But it was not just there on his hands and on his feet and on his head and his side. We often miss some of the things that were prophesied in the old covenant that don't have a one-to-one correspondence fulfillment in the new covenant. But in Isaiah 50 verse 6, it says this, and this is speaking of the suffering servant. I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. Why are his cheeks precious to those who love him? Because these are the cheeks that he willingly gave over to be beaten. He gave his cheeks over, beloved, as a punching bag so that he could take the wrath of God and not we. This is why, to the beloved, his cheeks are precious. There were precious stones also in Eden and on the breastplate of the high priest, as we've already seen. But what's interesting is in the new heavens, the new earth, as I've already alluded to, the new Jerusalem and the new heavens and new earth will be bedecked with precious stones. And it is not, beloved, that we will simply come into that city. The book of Revelation describes us as that city. We are the precious stones. We are the living stones. that make up the new heavens and new earth. So no other religion, no other spirit of the age, and no other philosophy does a God sacrifice for His people. Search it out. In what religion, in what movement does one give himself up? And even if he does, does it accomplish what the sacrifice of Christ has accomplished? No. It does no good. It does no good in eternity, though it may do some good temporarily. Jesus Christ was not like some demagogue who could stir up the people with a lofty speech to get them what he wanted to do for a moment, for a coup, then only to betray them by breaking promises. No, our Lord is not a demagogue. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and he has given himself for us that we might have all things. So this morning our beloved calls us out with an offer of forgiveness, an offer of rest, an offer of peace, an offer of joy, and an offer of security. But now finally, why Christ and not another? Here's a fifth reason this morning. Because his appearance is that of one who has conquered death, hell, and the grave. His appearance is that of one who has conquered death, hell, and the grave. Look at verse 10a. My beloved is radiant and ruddy, and look at verse 15a, his legs are alabaster columns set on bases of gold, part B, excuse me. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. Solomon describes our Lord on the second horizon as one whose very countenance beams. It radiates, it glows, and in fact, this is what we read of, is it not? In Matthew chapter 17, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John on Mount Hermon, interestingly enough, it is about the closest you can get in the north of Israel to Lebanon. And that's what Solomon says here, his appearance is like Lebanon, the choice is the cedars. But he took Peter, James, and John to Mount Hermon, and what did he do? He transfigured himself before them. He was as the sun shining in all of its brilliance. His clothes became white as light. And when John, the revelator in chapter one of the book of Revelation describes this picture of Jesus, it says that his face was like the sun shining in all of its strength. Beloved, I remind you that when John talks about Jesus coming into the world, he says, light came into the darkness. Light came into the darkness. But what did men do? The darkness rejected it, but John, he had a pretty optimistic view of things. He says in John 1, verse 5, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. I see a lot of darkness today, but this I am assured of, the light of Christ's brilliance and glory will overcome. And this morning I ask you, will you let the darkness of this world overcome the light of Christ within you, or will you see His light this morning for what it is, as the words of eternal life? And would you receive it today through repentance and faith? For these reasons and a million more, beloved, Christ is altogether desirable. Do you desire Him this morning? Do you desire to have more of Him this morning? Are you content with a simple religious facade, with a jumping through the hoops of religious activity? Or are you desirous of a deeper and greater communion with our God? Well, if you are, and I hope all of you are this morning, Come to the fount of living grace in Jesus Christ by turning from your sins and believing in Him. And as the scriptures say, you will be saved. Let us pray. Father God, we thank you for your beloved Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the enlightened eyes that you have given us that allow us to see that He is altogether desirable. And we pray this morning, Father, that as we go out from this place, and perhaps we encounter a question like the daughters of Jerusalem, why him and not another? that we would be able to give 10,000 reasons why Him and not another, and not just in word, Father, but that in the quiet place of our hearts, when no one else is looking, when no one else sees, we see Him as altogether lovely in our words, in our actions, in our affections, and in the warmness of our heart. Would you give that to us this morning, we pray, in Christ's name, amen. Let us stand for our hymn of response,