Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1716
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, April 15, 1883
“You that dwells in the gardens, the companions hearken to your voice: cause Me to hear it.” Song of Solomon 8:13.
THE Song is almost ended—the bride and Bridegroom have come to their last stanzas—and they are about to part for a while. They utter their adieus and the Bridegroom says to His beloved, “You that dwells in the gardens, the companions hearken to your voice: cause Me to hear it.” In other words, when I am far away from you, fill this garden with My name and let your heart commune with Me. She promptly replies, and it is her last word till He comes, “Make haste, my Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of spices.” These farewell words of the Well-Beloved are very precious to His chosen bride. Last words are always noticed—the last words of those who loved us dearly are much valued—the last words of one who loved us to the death are worthy of a deathless memory.
The last words of the Lord in this canticle remind me of the commission which the Master gave to His disciples right before He was taken up, when He said to them, “Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” Then, scattering benedictions with both His hands, He ascended into Glory and, “a cloud received Him out of their sight.” As the sermon progresses you will see why I say this and you will detect a striking likeness between the commission connected with the Ascension and the present adieu, in which the spiritual Solomon says to His espoused Solyma, “You that dwells in the gardens, the companions hearken to your voice: cause Me to hear it.”
I. We will get to our text at once, without further preface, and we notice in it, first of all, AN APPOINTED RESIDENCE. The Bridegroom, speaking of His bride, says, “You that dwells in the gardens.” The Hebrew is in the feminine and, therefore, we are bound to regard it as the word of the Bridegroom to His bride. It is the mystical word of the Church’s Lord to His elect one! He calls her “Inhabitress of the gardens”—that is the word. So then, dear Friends, we who make up the Church of God are here addressed, this morning, under that term, “You that inhabits the gardens.”
This title is given to Believers here on earth, first, by way of distinction—distinction from the Lord, Himself. He whom we love dwells in the ivory palaces in which they make Him glad. He is gone up to His Father’s Throne and has left these gardens down below. He came down awhile that He might look upon His garden, that He might see how the vines flourished and gather lilies. But He has now returned to His Father and our Father. He watered the soil of His garden with His bloody sweat in Gethsemane and made it to bear fruit unto life by being Himself laid to sleep in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea—but all this lowly work is now over.
He does not dwell in the gardens as to His corporeal Presence. His dwelling place is on the Throne of God. Jesus has not taken us up with Him—He will come another time to do that—but now He leaves us among the seeds and flowers and growing plants to do the King’s work until He comes. He was a visitor here and the visit cost Him dearly. But He has gone back unto the place from where He came, having finished the work which His Father gave Him. Our lifework is not finished and, therefore, we must tarry a while below and be known as inhabitants of the gardens. It is expedient that we should be here, even as it is expedient that He should not be here.
God’s Glory is to come of our sojourn here, otherwise He would have taken us away long ago. He said to His Father, “I pray not that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the Evil One.” He Himself is an inhabitant of the palaces, for there He best accomplishes the eternal purposes of love. But His Church is the inhabitress of the gardens, for there she best fulfils the decrees of the Most High. Here she must abide, awhile, until all the will of the Lord shall be accomplished in her and by her—and then she, also, shall be taken up and shall dwell with her Lord above. The title is given by way of distinction and marks the difference between her condition and that of her Lord.
Next, it is given by way of enjoyment. She dwells in the gardens, which are places of delight. Once you and I pined in the wilderness and sighed after God from a barren land. We trusted in man, made flesh our arm and then we were like the heath in the desert which sees not when good comes. All around us was the wilderness of this world, a howling wilderness of danger, need and disorder! We said of the world at its very best, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Do you remember how you roamed, seeking rest and finding none? Your way was the path of darkness which leads to death! Then you were poor and needy—and sought water and there was none—and your tongue cleaved unto the roof of your mouth for thirst.