Songs 4:10, 11 How fair is your love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is your love than wine! and the smell of your ointments than all spices!… The interest which God takes in men is marvellous. Why he should have designed to save men from sin's curse, at such personal cost, is a mystery, and must remain so. It is equally a mystery why Jesus should have set such strong love on the fishermen of Galilee. Notwithstanding their glaring misconduct, "he loved them to the end." In like manner Jesus speaks in this passage of his high appreciation of his people's love. The love of Christ to us is a theme on which any Christian may well become eloquent. But to hear that Christ sets high store on our poor love to him, this staggers our thoughts, and almost seals our lips. Nevertheless it is a fact. Full of blemish and imperfection as we are, he counts us his jewels, his choicest possessions. He finds "his inheritance in the saints." With his generous heart he discerns all the goodness there is in us. He sets high value on our love, and in this way encourages us to give him more. I. NOTE CHRIST'S HIGH APPRAISEMENT OF A CHRISTIAN'S LOVE. 1. The very indefiniteness of the language is instructive. "How fair!" He does not say how precious it is. It is not the language of precise, calculating logic. It is the language of strong feeling. It is the generous ejaculation of the heart - "How fair!" This is spoken after the manner of men. When the intellect is overborne by emotion, we break into an exclamation, and say, almost in a spirit of inquiry, "How lovely! how fair!" As if we would say, "We cannot measure the worth; if any one else can, let him say." 2. It is the love of tender relationship. "My sister, my spouse." This mention of earthly relatives is used by way of comparison. What form of love among us is winsome, valued, precious? For sweetness and purity, what love is like a sister's? For strength and generousness, what affection like that of a wife? Jesus combines these both in his thought. Blend the love of sister and wife into one, and even then this poorly represents the love which Jesus discovers in us glowing for himself. He sets more value upon our love than we set upon the love of our most intimate friend. 3. The language impresses us by a comparison. "It is better than wine." As at a banquet one's bodily sensations are refreshed and quickened and gladdened with choice wine, so Jesus finds a cordial more refreshing, more inspiring, in his creature's love. To his inmost soul this love of man is a luxury. He has many sources of enjoyment in heaven, but this enjoyment is his choicest. The love of his ransomed is his rarest, sweetest joy. When in his lifetime he sat down to meat at the Pharisee's table, the tears of the penitent harlot were more delicious fare than Simon's choicest wine. It is possible that, though the angels "excel in strength," they may be deficient in love. Anyhow, our shallow, inconstant, imperfect love is precious in the eyes of Immanuel; it is a fountain of joy to his heart. II. OBSERVE CHRIST'S APPRECIATION OF OUR HOLY INFLUENCE. How much better is "the scent of thy perfumes than all spices"! In the East the dwellings are not so sweet as in our own land. Want of general cleanliness, want of water, want of drainage, will account for this. As a consequence, unguents and perfumes about the person are very common. So in the hallowed savour of our piety there is a delicate fragrance very acceptable to Jesus. Our influence over others is something undefinable, yet very potent. It pertains to every habit of life, to every tone of voice, to every expression of countenance. It lives in a smile or in a tear; and results, begun in the minutest circumstance, stretch far away into the great eternity. Jesus highly esteems this quiet, mystic influence. It is a fragrant atmosphere created by love, and, like the savour of Mary's spikenard, it fills the house. Obdurate men may ridicule our pious words; they cannot ridicule nor resist the influence of a holy life. Our humility, our heavenly-mindedness, our consecrated zeal, diffuse a delicate perfume, like the subtle scent of roses, which every man of refinement appreciates, and in it Jesus finds delight. It is richer and rarer than all the spices of Araby. III. MARK THE FACT THAT JESUS GREATLY ESTEEMS A CHRISTIAN'S TESTIMONY. "Thy lips drop as the honeycomb." The gift of speech is a noble endowment conferred on us by God. It distinguishes man above the animals. The human voice, either in oratory or in song, has potent enchantment for men. Speech is man's glory. By it he rules a nation. By it he enlightens and inspires the young. By it he moulds the destinies of mankind. Jesus loves to see this endowment consecrated to his cause. He loves to hear our testimony to his goodness. He loves to hear our pious songs. On one occasion Jesus cast out a demon from a man who was dumb, and immediately the dumb man spake. So, when Jesus "sheds abroad his love in our hearts," our lips cannot be silent. The desire to speak of his grace will be like a fire in our bones. A strange impulse stirs within to make all men know of his mighty virtue, and the tongue of the dumb will be unloosed. As the richest, sweetest of all honey is that which drops freely and first from the honeycomb, so the words of our fresh, warm love are very sweet in the car of Jesus. He intertwines the welfare of his kingdom with human speech, for he has ordained preaching to be his great weapon in the sacred crusade with sin. If we did but remember that Jesus is always a hearer - a generous, appreciative hearer - of all that drops from our lips, should we not take care that he heard only what was true and kind and beautiful? Should we not be eager to "order our conversation aright," and to have our speech like the droppings of the honeycomb? IV. MARK THAT JESUS APPRECIATES OUR PURPOSES TO PLEASE HIM. When David conceived the thought that he would build a substantial temple to Jehovah, and the plan began to ripen into resolve, God sent his prophet to say this to David, "It was well that it was in thine heart." We loudly applaud the man who makes heroic self-sacrifice for the cause of Christ; but very likely there is a purpose burning in the soul of some gentle woman to do battle for Christ more noble still, yet which cannot be realized. Well, that secret purpose is sweet as honey to Christ. His searching eye sees it all - sees every right motive, every heavenly disposition, every upward aspiration; and the sight is a delicious joy. It is the fruit of his incarnation. It is the work of his Spirit. Just as every man finds peculiar delight in his work, be it a building, or a painting, or a mechanical invention; so, and much more, does Jesus find exquisite pleasure in his successful work of making us godlike and:Divine. "Honey and milk are under thy tongue." Thy secret thoughts and purposes bring me joy. V. JESUS CHRIST APPRAISES HIGHLY EVERY DISCIPLE'S SERVICE. "The smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon." The scent of pine trees and of cedar forests is peculiarly pleasant, and in this respect Lebanon surpassed all other forests in Palestine. it is in keeping with the symbolism of the Bible to employ "garments" as an emblem of human actions. We have a similar figure in our own language, for we use the word "habit" to denote one kind of apparel, and also to denote a constant line of action. Acts frequently performed become habits. So the "garments of a Christian are his everyday actions - the things he wears wherever he goes." The lesson here is that Jesus finds pleasure in everything we do, however trivial and insignificant. For there is nothing insignificant. You may read a man's character more clearly in the hourly business of every day than in his conduct on Sundays, or than in some great action of his life. The serving woman in a shop, or the drudge in the scullery, or the hodman on the scaffolding, can serve Christ as well as the bishop in the pulpit. Jesus loves to see how faithfully we do little things. In his sight there is nothing little. It gave him untold pleasure to see the farthing which a poor widow dropped into his treasury. He counts every hair upon our heads. He notes when a sparrow falls. This is a mark of true greatness that it never overlooks the tiniest things. If from a disposition of love, and with cheerful temper, we sew a garment or drive a nail, we bring new pleasure to our Lord. "Therefore," says the apostle, "whatsoever ye do, whether in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." Sweetly does old Herbert sing "A servant with this clause Makes drudgery Divine; Who sweeps a room as for thy laws Makes that and th' action fine." = - D. Parallel Verses KJV: How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices! |
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