Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1115
“Tell me, O You whom my soul loves, where You feed, where You make Your flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of Your companions? If you know not, O you fairest among women, go your way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your kids beside the shepherds’ tents.” Song of Solomon 1:7,8.
THE bride was most unhappy and ashamed because her personal beauty had been sorely marred by the heat of the sun. The fairest among women had become swarthy as a sunburn slave. Spiritually it is so full often with a chosen soul. The Lord’s Grace has made her fair to look upon, even as the lily, but she has been so busy about earthly things that the sun of worldliness has injured her beauty. The bride, with holy shamefacedness, exclaims, “Look not upon me, for I am black, because the sun has looked upon me.” She dreads alike the curiosity, the admiration, the pity and the scorn of men. She then turns herself, alone, to her Beloved, whose gaze she knows to be so full of love that her swarthiness will not cause her pain when most beneath His eyes.
This is one index of a gracious soul—that whereas the ungodly rush to and fro and know not where to look for consolation, the believing heart naturally flies to its beloved Savior, knowing that in Him is its only rest. It would appear from the preceding verse that the bride was also in trouble about a certain charge which had been given to her, which burdened her, and in the discharge of which she had become negligent of herself. She says, “They made me the keeper of the vineyards,” and she would wish to have kept them well, but she felt she had not done so, and that, moreover, she had failed in a more immediate duty—“My own vineyard have I not kept.” Under this sense of double unworthiness and failure, feeling her omissions and her commissions to be weighing her down, she turned round to her Beloved and asked instruction at His hands.
This was well. Had she not loved her Lord she would have shunned Him when her comeliness was faded, but the instincts of her affectionate heart suggested to her that He would not discard her because of her imperfections. She was, moreover, wise to appeal to her Lord against herself. Beloved, never let sin part you from Jesus. Under a sense of sin, do not fly from Him. That were foolishness! Sin may drive you from Sinai—it ought to draw you to Calvary. To the Fountain we should fly with all the greater alacrity when we feel that we are foul. And to the dear wounds of Jesus, where all our life and healing must come, we should resort with the greater earnestness when we feel our soul to be sick, even though we fear that sickness to be unto death.
The bride, in the present case, takes to Jesus her troubles, her distress about herself and her confession concerning her work. She brings before Him her double charge, the keeping of her own vineyard and the keeping of the vineyards of others. I know that I shall be speaking to many, this morning, who are busy in serving their Lord and it may be that they feel great anxiety because they cannot keep their own hearts near to Jesus—they do not feel themselves warm and lively in the Divine service. They plod on, but they are very much in the condition of those who are described as “faint, yet pursuing.” When Jesus is present, labor for Him is joy, but in His absence His servants feel like workers underground, bereft of the light of the sun.
They cannot give up working for Jesus, they love Him too well for that, but they pine to have His company while they are working for Him. And like the young Prophets who went to the woods to cut down, every man, a beam for their new house, they say to their Master, “Be content, we pray You, and go with Your servants.” Our most earnest desire is that we may enjoy sweet communion with Jesus while we are actively engaged in His cause. Indeed, Beloved, this is most important to all of us. I do not know of any point which Christian workers need more often to think upon than the subject of keeping their work and themselves near to their Master.
Our text will help us to this under three heads. We have here, first, a question asked—“Tell me, O You whom my soul loves, where You feed, where You make Your flock to rest at noon?” Secondly, an argument used—“Why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of Your companions?” And, thirdly, we have an answer obtained—“If you know not, O you fairest among women, go your way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your kids beside the shepherds’
tents.”
I. Here is A QUESTION ASKED. Every word of the enquiry is worthy of our careful meditation. You will observe, first, concerning it, that it is asked in love. She calls Him to whom she speaks by the endearing title, “O You whom my soul loves.” Whatever she may feel herself to be, she knows that she loves Him. She is black, and ashamed to have her face gazed upon, but still she loves her Bridegroom. She has not kept her own vineyard as she ought to have done, but still she loves Him. Of that she is sure, and therefore boldly declares it. She loves Him as she loves none other in all the world. He only can be called, “Him whom my soul loves.”