With your congregation, let's open our Bibles this morning to the Song of Solomon, Chapter 5. And we are going to give our hearts this morning by God's grace and with the help of the Spirit to the ministry of His Word. And this morning, I'd like to draw your attention in Chapter 5 of the Song of Solomon to verses 1 through 8. Song of Solomon, Chapter 5. verses one through eight. Let us give our attention to the reading of God's holy, inspired, infallible, and eternal 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 and 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, oh daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with love. As far the reading of God's word, 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, dear congregation, as we ask the Lord for help this morning? Father, help us to see what it is that your spirit inspired this author to communicate to us so many years later in this age of the church. Help us to see Jesus. Help us to hear his voice. Help us to hear that voice as sweet and melodious. Help us to hear the gospel in that voice. And help us to love, Father, giving our hearts unto you, day in and day out, with the help of your spirit and for your glory, we pray in Christ's name, amen. Have you ever had this experience in your life where you find yourself in a season where your heart is soft toward the Lord? Your heart is tender toward His people? You find yourself teachable. You find your ears perking up under the preaching of God's word. You find warm devotional experiences in the word of God by yourself. You find that you're almost drawn, as it were, to your private prayer closet, not begrudgingly, but it's as if you are propelled there. You're in a good season. You're in a tender season. grateful for being there. And then in that season, perhaps the Lord gets you up in the middle of the night and you can't go back to sleep. And you're not, you know, capital C charismatic, you're lower C charismatic. And so, you know, you say like little Samuel in the temple, well, the Lord must be speaking to me, not in a extra revelatory way, but the spirit is impressing something on my heart. and I should get up now, and I should get on my knees, and I should pray, but I don't want to. I'm so warm in my bed, you see, and I don't wanna get up. It's a lot of work, and of course, my phone is right here, and it's just so much easier because I can't sleep to get on that phone and just go through the endless scrolling that I normally do that is mindless and numbing, and so you do. And as those episodes begin to increase, what you find is that these opportunities and windows where your beloved had come to you and you did not get up are turning more and more to you coming to the door and not finding him there. And we read an account of this at the end of Hebrews chapter 12 where it says, don't let a root of bitterness grow up in your heart Like Esau, unholy Esau, who gave up his birthright for a pot of stew, and when he wanted to repent, he couldn't because he found not repentance. Think about that conundrum, beloved, for a moment. He wanted to repent, but he couldn't because he found not repentance. Do you think that that was merely a case of the Lord hardening his heart? No, beloved. It's like in Romans chapter nine. It says both God hardened Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh hardened his own heart. And we can harden our own heart in those seasons when our beloved is coming to us, whether it is in our bed at night when he is prompting us through his sweet spirit to get up or perhaps beloved. What it is is there is a season where people are coming to you and you hear them saying the same things and the same things. And in a moment of teachability, you start to have a dialogue in your head about whether or not you're going to listen and repent, because in your heart of hearts, You know that what they're saying is true. You know it's true, but you proceed to have this conversation with yourself, and by self I mean your flesh. And after a while, your flesh's voice begins to get louder and louder, and the teachable spirit that you had seems to get more and more cowardice, and the flesh wins out, and you have convinced yourself, wonder of wonders, that it's not you that needs to repent, but everybody that has come to you. What have you done, beloved? A moment of opportunity when your beloved has come to you, you have not gotten up out of bed and gone to the door where you heard the knock and opened it up to your beloved. That is exactly what we see here. We have a beautiful picture on the second horizon of the church hearing the knock of her beloved but not listening to it. And I want you to consider this trope, this picture, this image under a few headings this morning. And here's the first one. I want you to consider the church sometimes rebuffs Christ's overtures of love. As I said, Jesus will often bring us conviction or an opportunity to seek his face, and we, out of slothfulness, we, out of sin, respond. And so you know what he does? He withdraws. You say, what do you mean by that, that Jesus withdraws? I have a promise, Josh, at the end of Matthew 28, as Jesus gives the Great Commission, that he will never leave us nor forsake us. So what are you talking about? Oh, make no mistake, friend, Jesus is always with his people, always with his people. But there's a difference between Christ being with his people and amongst his people, especially through the means of grace, and we being in fellowship with that voice that comes to us and knocks on the door. You see, sometimes we're not walking in fellowship with the Lord. How do you think it is that things like apostasy take place? How do you think it is that things like hardening of heart take place? Because we come to a place where for one reason or another, or many reasons, to be honest, We harden our hearts against the Lord, and that starts a snowball effect where the hardening continues and continues and continues. So I am not saying that Jesus is not with us. Oh, he is with us. He comes to the door, he knocks. And this is not an individual thing only. You see, Jesus comes to Grace Covenant Church, beloved, and he knocks on our door. And if you looked at our church, could you tell that he is with us? If you looked at our church, could you tell that his presence is among us? I want you to notice in verse two, excuse me, verse one, he comes to his garden, that's the church, we saw that last week, the metaphor of the garden as the people of God. And he gathers his myrrh and eats his honeycomb and drinks his wine with his milk. And then, verse two, We have the voice of the Shulamite on the first horizon and the church on the second horizon. And she says, I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound, my beloved, is knocking. Now I want you to watch this. Listen to me in verse two. Listen to the overture of love that Jesus Christ gives to his church. He says, open to me. And then he stacks up terms of endearment and love. He says, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one. He is just piling on terms of love and endearment. And you know what? Through all of the book of the Song of Solomon, this overture of love, this phrase of Jesus Christ is the most dense section of him giving terms of endearment to his beloved. It's the most dense section. And in all the song, he wants us to hear that he's calling out to us to open the door. But why does the beloved not open the door? Why do we not open the door when the Lord comes to us? Why do we not open the door when he is working on our hearts through his spirit and his word is coming to us in the preaching of God's holy word. It's coming and it's knocking and it's even perhaps in another metaphor like waves battering against the doors of our heart and we refuse to open, why? Can I give you a few considerations? Look at verse two, what does she say? He says, she says, I slept but my heart was awake. And then verse three, look at this. I had put off my garment, how could I put it on? I had bathed my feet, how could I soil them? Oh, we know what this is like, do we not? You go to bed, you're in there for about 10, 15 minutes, you're nice and warm and cozy, everything is perfect. The temperature in the room is great. The level of warmth under your covers is great. Every square inch of your body is perfectly at rest. Your muscles have relaxed and you could feel yourself going toward REM. And then all of a sudden, if you have young children, Daddy, will you get me some water? I don't want to get up. I'm already settled. Yes, I owe this to my son. I owe this to my daughter. Or your wife, your wife or your husband says, well, you go downstairs and get me X, Y, or Z. And you are what? You are inconvenienced. You are inconvenienced. Not only that, but I want you to notice that she says, of her lover, in verse, let's see here. Five. No, I'm sorry. Verse two, it says of the beloved, he says, My head is wet with dew and my locks with the drops of the night. In other words, he's coming at night. He's coming at an inconvenient hour. It reminds me of the parable of Jesus, right? You know, neighbor is in his home, and another neighbor comes, he's knocking on the door, right? It's like 2 a.m., and it's like, who in the world in their right mind comes at 2 a.m.? This is inconvenient, friend. There's a window of time when you do that. After 9 a.m. and before 7 p.m., but don't come outside those operating hours. It is inconvenient for you to do so, and that's what we say. But not only is it inconvenient, it's also the reality that she's just too comfortable. I put off my garment, how could I put it on? I bathe my feet, how could I soil them? You see, beloved, sometimes the Lord comes to us and He calls us to action when it is inconvenient. It's inconvenient, it's you need to go talk to this person because they're in sin or you need to speak words of love and affection to your wife, to your brother, to your sister. You need to give a word of encouragement. You need to stay up late and pray for the soul of your children because you had that falling out with them earlier. You need to pray for your own heart because your heart is starting to get hard and it needs to be tenderized by the spirit of God. But what do we do? We say it's inconvenient. And my question is this, beloved. Just the last few weeks we've been singing this song, and it's been a question, a rhetorical refrain, is he worthy? Is he worthy? Is he worthy? We keep asking that question, and the answer is he is. He is. He is. And so my question for you this morning, for all of us this morning, is is Jesus not worthy of our obedience, even in a time of inconvenience? Is Jesus not worthy of our obedience in a time when it is not comfortable, it is not fun? We just don't want to do it! Yes, He is. He deserves all of our obedience all the time. And so what happens, verse 7, I'll come back to the verses in between in a moment, but I just want you to notice, and I confess to you, one of the commentators that I consult, a Lutheran commentator, he says that in all of the song, this pericope, this section, verses two through eight, is one of the most enigmatic and difficult passages to understand. And one of the reasons is this verse seven, where the song says, the watchman, she went to go find Jesus, her lover, he wasn't there, and so now she goes out. Now she's up, now she's inconvenienced herself, now she's no longer comfortable, and she goes out looking for her beloved who has left, and she goes out into the city. Verse seven, the watchman 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. What is this getting at? Beloved, I think what this is getting at is that this is really an expression of how the law comes to us. In fact, the very same phrase, not the exact same word in the Hebrew, but the same phrase, watchman, is used of the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter three and Ezekiel chapter 33. And very simply, God tells Ezekiel this, I have made you a watchman to the people of Israel. And so if I tell you to go and warn them of their sin, that if they do not repent, judgment is coming, you must warn them. And you know what? That message is not going to be funny, Ezekiel. I'm calling you to tell them hard things. You're not going to be popular. You're not going to be one who has many friends and has influenced many because of your kind and sweet words. You're going to be one, in fact, who is hated. But if you do not take up the role of a watchman, then blood will be on your hands. But on the other hand, if you do what I say and they do not listen, well then the blood is on their hands. But you see, when the prophetic ministry of the Word of God would come, both in the old and the new, it first comes to us, beloved, through law. We must be shown that we are in need of grace. We must be shown that we do not add up. We cannot compete with the holiness of God. We cannot get there and we are inadequate. And I think that this is what the law does to us. It does it in the ministry of the Word. The law comes and it beats us up. The law comes and it declares where we have fallen short. And beloved, I would just humbly, humbly extend this exhortation to all of us. Are we really surprised when it comes and does that? Should we really be surprised when the word of God comes and says you're a sinner? You're a sinner. Why would we get our dukes up when the word of God comes and says that? Only self-righteousness within our hearts would prompt us to do so. I'm good. And I want you secondly to see A parallel picture in Revelation 3.20. Please turn in your Bibles to Revelation 3.20. We read this in the response of reading and it's fascinating to me how it parallels this section of the song. As you know, Revelation chapters really one through three are the letters that Jesus writes, as it were, to the seven churches in Asia Minor. And in this section, we see the letter to the church at Laodicea. It begins in verse 14. But in verse 20, as we read, I would call your attention to not only the text, but even your bulletin where it says this, verse 20 says, behold, this is Jesus, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. Now, I don't know about you, beloved, but you know how I've typically heard this verse? Oh, this is an evangelistic verse. Jesus is there knocking on the heart of the unbeliever. And if there's only a doorknob on one side, it's on the inside, because Jesus, he's a gentleman. He's not gonna impose his will on you. So the doorknob's just on the inside, and he's knocking. He's like, oh, please let me in. Please, I have no power over you whatsoever. I'm powerless. Please let me in. I beseech you. Beloved, let me remind you that this is in the letter to a church. So is it evangelistic text? Well, yeah, but to those in the church. Is there a need for evangelistic messages to people in the church? Oh beloved, yes there is, because there are unbelievers in the church. But here's the thing, do only unbelievers need to hear the gospel? Oh no, every single one of us need to hear the gospel. In fact, every time that we sin and fall into a pattern of sin, we once again need to be reminded that the gospel is for us if we would repent and believe. But I find it fascinating, this is not so much an evangelistic text, this is Jesus' message to a church. You know what he's saying? He's knocking on the door and he's saying, hey, let me in, we've got some reform to undertake in this church. You're not hot, you're not cold, you're lukewarm. And you know what it literally says in the Greek? It doesn't say, if you stay lukewarm, I'm gonna spit you out. It says something much more strong than that. It says, if you remain lukewarm, I will vomit you out of my mouth. You see, the translators like to give a euphemistic translation because that's strong. People say, let's tone it down. I don't think we should tone it down. That is a warning and a threat that comes to us counterintuitively in a gracious manner so that we could be woken up from our spiritual stupor and realize this is serious business. This is serious business. I need to repent. I need not to be hot or cold. I need to be hot and not cold. I need to not be lukewarm. I need to repent of that. And I want you to notice, as we parallel this with the song, isn't it interesting that in verse 17 of Revelation 3, What does the text say? Verse 17, it says, for you will say, I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing, not realizing that you're wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. In other words, you think that you're clothed, you think that you're covered, you think that you're fine, but in reality, you're naked. You're naked, you see. Your nakedness is an inconvenience of eternal proportions. We need to be reminded that we are naked. But not only that, that we are naked, but I want you to notice in verse 17 again, you say, I'm rich, I've prospered. Look at those words, I need nothing. I need nothing, I'm good. This is the stagnant billabong of self-righteousness. I'm good. I don't need no more means of grace. I don't need more Bible. I don't need more prayer. I don't need more of the Lord's Supper. I don't need more of the people of God speaking to my life. I'm good. I've arrived. And we hypocritically quote Paul when he says, not that I have arrived. When in our heart of hearts we think, I have arrived. And you know what it looks like when you think in your heart of hearts that you have arrived? You refuse to accept any criticism. I've arrived. You say, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I would ask you, are you open to correction? Are you open to correction? Is it possible that the things that people come to us with are true, even if it's a percentage? No. We, contrary to not needing anything, we need everything. We need the grace of God. So I want you to see thirdly, that though Christ withdraws, he leaves a map of Myrrh to the means of grace. Though Christ withdraws, he leaves a map of Myrrh to the means of grace. Look at verse four, coming back to Song of Solomon, coming back to Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon, chapter five, verse four, he says this. 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. What do we see here? Well, in verse one, it says that when Christ came to the garden, he took up the myrrh, And then it says that he went to go open the latch, and because she didn't answer, he went away, but that myrrh was left on the latch. The scent of Christ, if I could put it that way reverentially, the scent of Christ, the mark of Christ, the indelible promise of Christ was in the myrrh on the latch. And as we've said before, what does myrrh represent? Well, myrrh is used for a lot of things, but myrrh, one of its main uses is to embalm the dead. It's the gift, one of the gifts that the wise men brought to Jesus as a foreshadowing of His death that He would lay down. And so what I would submit to you this morning is that in this picture of the myrrh that is rubbed on the latch, when she comes out, though Christ is not there, she's not walking in fellowship with him, he leaves her a map through the myrrh. the means of grace, because what is it, beloved? How do I get reminded time and time again of the myrrh which takes me to the cross? It's the means of grace. The myrrh takes me to the means of grace, and the means of grace takes me to the myrrh. It always takes me to the cross. This is why the Word needs to be cross-centered. The sacraments need to be cross-centered. Our praying needs to be Christ mediating. Everything comes back to Christ. This is why Paul said, I resolve to know nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified. What is the antidote for our spiritual antipathy? the cross of Jesus Christ, that we come back once again to the foot of Calvary and we realize that we were miserable and wretched and naked and feeble. And yes, this is the place to remind ourselves that our good works are dirty and filthy rags. Yes, they are. We need to be undone once again. You are not undone once when you are converted, beloved. You are undone time and time again as you stray away from the cross like the prodigal son and find yourself in the pig pen eating the same pods as swine. You find yourself to be undone. You are never not undone as you stray away from Christ, but it's when you come back to Christ that you find that your nakedness is covered. and your impurities are washed and you are forgiven. If anybody confesses his sins, God is faithful and he will forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. So the Myrrh reminds us to go like a map to the means of grace. Come back once again, O Shulamite, to the means of grace. Come back to the preached word. Come back to our time of liturgy. Every single element is word saturated in this liturgy. It is meant to lift our eyes and our hearts and our heads and our countenance back to heaven and to have our hopes stirred by the promises of God. So finally then, What do we take away? Well, in a word, number four, seek the Lord while he may be found. Let me give an application on the second horizon this morning. You know, Song of Solomon is considered to be wisdom literature, and there's a reason for that. Jesus is pictured as wisdom in many respects, and it's in Proverbs 128 and following when the author is speaking of wisdom. It talks about wisdom, Lady Wisdom calling out in the streets, right? Calling out in the streets for anyone who will listen, come. It says in chapter 1 verse 28, when they reject wisdom and then they experience, they reap what they have sown, the wicked reap what they have sown, then Proverbs 128, they will call upon me but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently but will not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. And I would have counseled them if they would not have despised my reproof. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices. Christ, the wisdom of God, calls us through the means of grace. And what we need to do, beloved, is come back to those means of grace time and time and time again. all the while realizing that even in our experience of sitting under the Word and partaking of the sacraments and prayer, it's still going to be incomplete. It's still not going to be perfect. Our times of mountaintop experience, if you want to put it that way, spiritually speaking, are still going to be shot through with our own wretchedness and filthiness. And that's why even as we come to the fount of the means of grace, we need to come armed with the theology of the cross that says now is a time of suffering, not a time of glory. Now is a time of suffering. Like Peter says, beloved, don't be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. but rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. Luther said of the Shulamite here in Psalm 5, that she's representative of the people of God, and he says she is slothful and needs the cross of affliction to rouse her from sin and conquer her flesh. She may feel that God has abandoned her, but his word will be close to her, and she must cling to that. So let me say on the first horizon an application when we think about our marriages. Even our earthly marriages point to the incompleteness of this age. Listen to Christopher Mitchell. He says, an unmarried couple may hope that marriage will put an end to all loneliness and unfulfilled desire. Remember when you thought that? If we could just get married, then everything would be great. If I could just get this loan, if I could just get this house, I mean, we can multiply that ad infinitum, right? If I just get this, then I'll be happy. Yet even after many years of the most satisfying Christian marriage, spouses will still experience various kinds of pain and yearning for a more perfect joy. Human marriage is, after all, an institution that pertains to this present creation which is passing away. Those who by grace alone attain the life of the world to come will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will live like angels before the unfilled face of God. Only then will we search no more. Beloved, your marriage, is a reminder, a constant reminder, even as good as it may be, that there is an incompleteness, there is a lacking, and that we should be looking beyond this time and beyond this suffering to something greater. This is the last thing that I leave you with this morning, beloved. I want you to come back to that door, that barrier that stands between us and Christ. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that Jesus possesses the key of David. That it is not the case that there's only a doorknob on the inside where we are. In fact, I would submit it's the opposite. There isn't a doorknob on the inside where we are. There's only a doorknob on the outside, and it's locked, and the one who has the key is Jesus Christ, and he says this in Revelation 3, verse 7. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, the words of the Holy One, the true One, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have little power and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. You know what the good news of the gospel is? It is this. God will never allow a true elect predestined before the foundation of the world and sealed with the promise of the God through conversion and the sending down of the Spirit. That brother, that sister in the Lord who is genuinely saved will never ultimately end in hardness of heart. They will always come back to the Lord. And so the comfort for us this morning is if you find yourself in a time of lukewarmness, you find yourself in a time of bitterness, you find yourself in a time of a hardened heart, then, beloved, I beg of you, all of us, that you would do this, Lord. Cry out to the Lord and say, Lord, my heart is hard, I have great apathy, I do not desire you, but I pray that you would open my heart and give me feeling again. I pray that you would give me zeal. I pray that you would give me fervor. I pray, Father, that I would not be like unholy Esau, but that I would be sensitive to the leading and calling of your spirit through the word of God, and that you would grant me repentance. He will do that for you this morning if you open your heart and you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Father God, we thank you that there is a fount filled with grace And we thank you, Father, that ultimately no door, no barrier, no wall will be able to stand in the way between you and your beloved because you have destroyed it through the cross of Jesus Christ. You have torn it down. There is not even rubble left. There is only free, unmerited grace and access to the throne of heaven and the holy of holies through Jesus Christ. And so Jesus Christ, come this morning, send your spirit, and arouse our hearts to love you and to find our contentment in you for all the days of our life, we pray in Christ's name, amen. This morning we're going to respond in song, Psalm 136. So let us stand, Psalm 136.