Song Of Solomon 3:6-11 - Homiletics

The espousals.

I. THE APPROACH OF THE BRIDE .

1 . The question. "Who is this?" We have here one of those refrains which form a striking characteristic of the song. The question, "Who is this?" (the pronoun is feminine, "Who is she?") is three times repeated ( Song of Solomon 3:6 ; So Song of Solomon 6:10 ; Song of Solomon 8:5 ). It indicates always a fresh appearance of the bride. Here the words seem to be chanted by a chorus of young men, the friends of the bridegroom. They are struck with admiration at the beauty of the bride, and the royal state bestowed upon her by the king. She is coming up to Jerusalem from the distant Lebanon country, here described as the wilderness—which word in the Hebrew Scriptures often means, not a desert, but a thinly populated country, fit for feeding flocks, a pasture land. She comes like pillars of smoke perfumed with myrrh and frankincense. Perfumes are burned around her in such profusion that pillars of smoke appear to attend her progress. The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. She is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. She comes up from this lower world to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. The incense of adoration and thanksgiving rises as she moves onward. She is the holy Catholic Church, the great congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the whole world. But the Church is made up of individual Christian souls. And that the Church may come as a whole to Christ the Bridegroom, each soul must come personally, individually. The soul cometh up out of the wilderness, out of the far country, where the world, the flesh, and the devil rule; up to Mount Zion, to the city of God, where is the true temple, where God is worshipped in spirit and in truth, where he manifests himself to them that seek him. And the prayer of the faithful, as they draw ever nearer, is set forth in God's sight as the incense, and the lifting up of their hands as the evening sacrifice. The Lord is pleased, in his infinite condescension, to regard our poor prayers when lifted up in faith as holy incense ( Revelation 8:3 , Revelation 8:4 ), because the great High Priest is praying for us. Our poor prayer joins itself through the power of faith with his prevailing prayer, and therefore rises up before the throne as a pillar of sweetest incense smoke, acceptable to God through Christ. The thought that God is pleased so to honour the prayers of the faithful, that he condescends to seek such worship, worship offered up in spirit and in truth, makes prayer a very sacred thing. The approach of the Christian soul to God is very solemn. The soul cometh out of the wilderness, away from its old haunts; it is ascending up to Mount Zion, to the presence chamber of the King of heaven; it must come with reverence and godly fear, remembering that God's presence is very awful as well as very blessed; it must come with the perfume of holy thoughts and heavenly aspirations, with the offering of prayer and praise rising up like the smoke of holy incense before the mercy seat.

2 . The bed of Solomon. The chorus calls attention to the litter (for such seems here to be the meaning of the word) in which the bride is borne in her progress to the royal city. "It is his litter," they say. They add the royal name itself, "Behold his litter, which is Solomon's," to give emphasis to the honour bestowed upon the bride. The king has sent his own litter to convey his bride to the palace, the palanquin in which he himself was carried. It was King Solomon's; it is the bride's, for the king has given it to her. God has given us all things, St. Paul says ( Romans 8:32 ). If only we are Christ's, then all things are ours—the world, life, death, things present, things to come ( 1 Corinthians 3:21 , 1 Corinthians 3:22 ). And the Lord himself says, "The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them" ( John 17:22 ). It is his will that his chosen should be with him where he is. He gives them now all that is necessary to convey them thither. "God rode upon a cherub" ( Psalms 18:10 ). The Lord will "send his angels … and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" ( Matthew 24:31 ). The angels carried the soul of Lazarus into Abraham's bosom. But we may learn here another very solemn lesson. The litter of Solomon bore the bride up to Mount Zion; the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ brings the Christian soul to heaven. The Lord was lifted up upon the cross. Several ancient writers tell us that in Psalms 96:10 the earliest reading was, "The Lord hath reigned from the wood. " The cross is his throne; it drew, and still draws, all faithful souls to him; it has lifted him up to reign over the hearts of all the best and truest. It behoved him first to suffer, and then to enter into his glory. "He humbled himself even unto the death of the cross; wherefore God also hath highly exalted him" ( Philippians 2:9 ). And he brings his elect to God by the same way which he trod himself. The cross lifts the Christian soul to God.

"Nearer my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee;

E'en though it be a cross

That raiseth me."

The Christian is "crucified with Christ" ( Galatians 2:20 ). He is lifted up by the cross of atonement, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then by the cross of spiritual self-sacrifice, the cross borne with Christ, into the very presence of the King. Nothing else can bear him thither. He must pray, "Thy will be done," before he asks, "Give us this day our daily bread." He must learn from the suffering Lord the inner meaning of his own holy prayer. "Not my will, but thine be done." He must remember that the cross is the cross of Christ; that the Lord, who was himself lifted up upon the cross, sends the cross to his followers to lift them also upwards; that, purified and refined by holy self-denials, and by suffering meekly borne, they may at length be with him where he is, and behold his glory, and sit with him in his throne ( Revelation 3:21 ).

3 . The guard. The king had sent his own guard to escort the bride to her new home. King David had a guard of thirty mighty men; Solomon, it seems, had double the number. All were expert in war; all bore the sword because of fear in the night. From Psalms 10:1-18 , especially Psalms 10:7-10 , we learn that parts of Palestine were in David's time dangerous from bands of brigands. The king had cared for the safety of the bride; the escort was not given her merely for honour. So now the Lord giveth his angels charge over his people to keep (to guard) them in all their ways; so now "the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them" ( Psalms 91:11 ; Psalms 34:7 ). They "shall not be afraid for the terror by night" ( Psalms 91:5 ), for "they that be with us are more than they" that be against us ( 2 Kings 6:16 ). The description of the armed guard reminds us that we too have to fight the good fight of faith, that we have to wrestle "against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness" ( Ephesians 6:12 ). We have to take to ourselves the panoply of God, the armour of light; like the mighty men of Israel who guarded the bride, we must take "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." That sword will save us from the "fear of the night," because it is "through patience and comfort of the Scriptures" that we have hope ( Romans 15:4 ). Thus the Holy Scriptures are not only the sword of the Spirit; they furnish us also with hope, the hope of salvation, which is the helmet of the Christian warrior. To gain that sword and that helmet we must study the Word of God in faith; that living faith which (St. Paul tells us) is the shield whereby we may "quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." If we do our part, quitting ourselves like men, fighting manfully under the banner of the cross, we need fear no evil. Our angel guard, sent forth because of them that shall be heirs of salvation, called in Holy Scripture "their angels," because they have charge over them, as well as God's angels, because he is their God and King, will ever encamp around us and keep us till we appear before God in Zion.

II. THE KING GOES FORTH TO MEET THE BRIDE .

1 . The chariot of the king. The bride approaches in a litter sent for her by the king. Solomon himself goes forth to receive her in his car of state. He had had it made according to his own plans, with that artistic skill and magnificence which were characteristic of him. It was made of the fragrant and imperishable cedar wood brought from Lebanon, the country of the bride. Its decorations were of the richest—gold and silver, and the costly Tyrian purple; in the midst was a tesselated pavement, a gift of love from the daughters of Jerusalem. The bride, the Lamb's wile, shall have the glory of God ( Revelation 21:9 , Revelation 21:11 ). When she is "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband," then, we are told, "the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God" ( Revelation 21:3 ). When Christ, the true Solomon, the Prince of Peace, shall bring his bride, the Church, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the foundation of peace, he will manifest himself to her in his glory. Now he is interceding for us, that then we may be with him where he is, that we may behold his glory. Then, if we are his indeed, we shall see him as he is, and shall be made like unto him ( 1 John 3:2 ). It was a great thing for the poor bride from the Lebanon to be brought into the court of the king whose magnificence filled the Queen of Sheba with wonder and delight. But "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" ( 1 Corinthians 2:9 ). None can tell the blessedness of those happy souls who, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, "shall see the King in his beauty" ( Isaiah 33:17 ); shall sit with him in his throne amid the glories of the golden city; shall see his face, and his Name shall be in their foreheads. Heart of man cannot conceive the exceeding great joy of that moment of most entrancing bliss, when the heavenly Bridegroom shall bring home the Church, his bride. King Solomon issued out of Jerusalem in royal pomp to meet his betrothed. When the marriage of the Lamb is come, "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" ( 1 Thessalonians 4:16 , 1 Thessalonians 4:17 ).

2 . The glory and great joy of the king . The chorus calls upon the daughters of Zion to go forth and see the splendour of the royal espousals. King Solomon has brought home his bride; his heart is glad; his mother has crowned him with the royal diadem; he is happy in the love of his bride. The Prophet Isaiah comforts Zion with the blessed promises that "as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee" "Thou shalt no longer be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah ['my delight is in her'], and thy land Beulah ['married']: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married" ( Isaiah 62:4 , Isaiah 62:5 ). So the Lord "Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for her; that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word,: that he might present her to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that she should be holy and without blemish" ( Ephesians 5:25-27 ). It was for the joy set before him that Christ endured the cross ( Hebrews 12:2 ). The Lord bringeth home the lost sheep rejoicing. He saith, "Rejoice with me ; for I have found my sheep that was lost" "Rejoice with me! " And they do rejoice, the Saviour of the world and the holy angels round his throne. The Lord's exceeding great love for our poor dying souls makes the salvation of those souls very precious in his sight. Nothing can show the depth and tenderness of the blessed love with which he yearned for our salvation except the great agony of Gethsemane, the awful anguish of the cross. Therefore the day of the resurrection of the blessed will be a day of joy in heaven. "Let us be glad, and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready" ( Revelation 19:7 ). He is King of kings, and Lord of lords; on his head are many crowns ( Revelation 19:12 , Revelation 19:16 ). His virgin mother saw him once wearing the crown of thorns; now he wears the crown of boundless sovereignty. He had come down from heaven to seek his bride; now she is with him in his glory. "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied" ( Isaiah 53:11 ).