Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3185
“My Beloved is mine, and I am His: He feeds among the lilies. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.” Song of Solomon 2:16,17.
[Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon, upon parts of the same passage, are #1190, Volume 20—A SONG AMONG THE LILIES; #2442, Volume 41—“MY BELOVED IS MINE” and #2477, Volume 42—DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN.]
IT has been well said that if there is a happy verse in the Bible, it is this one—“My Beloved is mine, and I am His: He feeds among the lilies.” So peaceful, so full of assurance, so bursting with happiness and contentment is it, that it might well have been written by the same hand which penned the 23rd Psalm—“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: He leads me beside the still waters.” The verse savors of Him who, just before He went to Gethsemane, said to His disciples, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you…In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Let us ring the silver bell of this verse again, for its notes are exquisitely sweet! “My Beloved is mine, and I am His: He feeds among the lilies.”
Yet there is a shadow in the latter part of the text. The prospect is exceedingly fair and lovely—earth cannot show its superior—but it is not entirely a sunlit landscape! There is a cloud in the sky which casts a shadow over the scene. It does not dim it—everything is clear and stands out sharply and brightly—“My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” That is clear enough, yet I say again that it is not altogether sunlight—there are shadows—“Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away.” There is also a mention of the “mountains of Bether”—the mountains of division—and to have anything like division is bitterness. I see here a paschal lamb, but I see bitter herbs with it. I see the lily, but I think I see it still among the thorns. I see the fair and lovely landscape of assured confidence, but a shadow, just a slight shadow, takes away some of its glory. And he who sees it has to still look for something yet beyond—“till the day breaks and the shadows flee away.”
The text seems to me to indicate just this state of mind. Perhaps some of you may at this time exemplify it. You do not doubt your salvation—you know that Christ is yours. You are certain of that, albeit you may not be at present enjoying the light of your Savior’s Countenance. You know that He is yours, but you are not feeding upon that precious fact. You realize your vital interest in Christ, so much so that you have no shadow of a doubt that you are His and He is yours—but still, His left hand is not under your head, nor does His right hand embrace you. A shade of sadness is cast over your heart, possibly by affliction, certainly by the temporary absence of your Lord. So even while exclaiming, “My Beloved is mine, and I am His,” you are forced to fall on your knees and pray, “Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of division.”
We may occupy the time profitably if God the Holy Spirit shall enable us in speaking upon these matters. We have here, first, a soul enjoying personal interest in the Lord Jesus Christ or, personal interest assured. We have, next, a soul taking the deepest interest in Christ and longing to know where He isor, the deepest interest evinced. And then we have a soul anxiously desiring present communion with Christ or, visible fellowship, conscious communion sought after.
I. We have here, first, PERSONAL INTEREST IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST ASSURED.
I do not mean to try to preach tonight. I should like my text to preach. And the way in which I should like it to preach would be to see how far we can get hold of it. How we can take it word by word and drink it in! Come to each
word as to a well and sit down on the brink and drink a refreshing draught! Come to each word as to a palm tree and eat of the fruit thereof!
The text begins with the words, “my Beloved.” Come, Soul, can you venture to call Christ your Beloved? Certainly He should be beloved by you, for what has He not done for you? Favors rich and rare have been the gifts of His hands— gifts purchased by His own most precious blood! If you do not love Him, my Heart, you are a most ungrateful thing, indeed! You are deceitful, rotten, loathsome above all things and desperately wicked, O my Heart, if Jesus, being your Savior, you do not love Him! He ought to be loved by the most of you here, for you profess to have been redeemed by His blood and adopted into the family of God through Him. You professed, when you were baptized, to be dead with Him— and when you come to this Communion Table, tonight, you will profess that He is your meat and your drink, your life, your soul’s stay and comfort! So, if you do not love Him, what shall I say to you? I will let you say it to yourselves—