Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2478
“My Beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.” Song of Solomon 5:10.
THE spouse in this verse styles her Lord, “my Beloved,” from which it is easy for us to gather that it is of the utmost importance that our heart’s affection should be really and truly set upon Christ Jesus, our Lord. We must trust Him and we must love Him. Christ on the Cross saves us when He becomes to us Christ in the heart. It is of small service for us to know of Christ if we do not really trust and love Him. It will be of little use for us to talk of Him unless our heart is really welded and knit to Him. Let us, therefore, dear Friends, commence this evening’s meditation with a solemn enquiry made by each one for himself or herself, “Can I call the Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified on Calvary, but who now reigns at the right hand of the Father—can I truly call Him, ‘my Beloved’?” There may be a question raised in your soul by a natural anxiety lest you should presume, but be not content until you have solemnly and seriously searched your hearts, to know whether in very deed and truth an ardent affection burns within your spirit towards the Lord Jesus. It were better for you that you had never been born than that you should live and die without love to Christ. Remember that startling sentence of the Apostle Paul which is so solemn that I can scarcely quote it without tears, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let Him be Anathema Maranatha,” that is, “let Him be accursed at the coming of the Lord.” It will be so with you, dear Friends, however shining your moral attributes may have been, however you may have carved your name upon the rock of history—you will go down to endless misery and shame unless your heart has in it a vital sense of true religion—a sincere love to the crucified Christ of Calvary!
If this important personal enquiry has had its due weight upon our minds, it may lead us to another consideration, namely, that it is a blessed thing, if we love Christ, to be able to speak about our affection for Him as a matter of course and a matter of fact—not as a thing that hangs trembling in the balance, but as an ascertained Truth of God and certainty. The spouse does not speak of “Him whom I hope to love, by-and-by,” or, of “Him whom I trust I shall one day know,” but she calls Him, without question or qualification, “my Beloved.” She is quite sure about this blessed relationship! She raises no doubts and she has no fears concerning it. I do not say that if any man has a doubt about his love to Christ, he need, therefore, necessarily condemn himself, but I do say that he must never be content to continue in such a state!
Perhaps they who love the Master best are the very people who will be the most likely to have such a high opinion of the love which He deserves that they will often chide themselves that they do not love Him at all, when they see how little their love is compared with that perfection of affection which He deserves. We must not affirm that the question of anxiety is sinful—it is painful—and anxiety, if it is not Divinely removed, will become sinful, but the anxiety is not so in itself. Yet, Beloved, I beseech you to press on beyond this stage of your pilgrim journey. Do not be content to live on hopes, fears, perhapses and surmises. You would not like to think that, perhaps, you loved your child, or your husband, or your friend. You would not care to say, “I hopeI love virtue, I hopeI love honesty”—but it is a baser thing, still, for us to allow a question to exist as to whether we love Him who is dearer than our own kindred and who is better than any one moral excellence, seeing that He is the combination of all excellences! O Beloved, seek to reach the blessed heights of full assurance, that each one of you may be able to say of Christ, “This is my Beloved and this is my Friend—I would as soon doubt my own existence as doubt the love that burns within my heart towards Him who has bought me with His precious blood.” Sing, as we have often done—
“My Jesus, I love You, I know You are mine,
For You all the follies of sin I resign. My gracious Redeemer, my Savior are Thou, If ever Iloved You, my Jesus, ‘tis now.”
If we have reached that stage in our journey heavenwards, it will be well if we go on a step further. Loving our Lord and Savior in our heart and being assured of that love in our inmost conscience after earnest heart-searching, it will be well if we have the courage to never hesitate in the avowal of that love. Our love to Christ is so sacred a passion that it is not to be talked of in all companies. We must not cast our pearls before swine, but, on the other hand, it is so ennobling a passion that we need never blush to acknowledge it in any company. If we are ever ashamed of loving Christ, we have good reason to be ashamed of such shameful shame! When you have heard His dear name reviled, did you ever start for fear lest you should be called upon to share His reproach? Did you ever sit silent when you ought to have spoken because Christ was being blasphemed? Did you ever try to make it out to yourself that it was a prudent retirement that shunned the conflict when, in very truth, it was a hatefulcowardice that turned its back upon the Crucified in the hour of His need? I fear that the charge might be brought against the most of us! If so, let us humbly confess it on our knees, alone, and blush before the Presence of our blessed Master. Remember what we sang just now?—