Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3480
“While the King sits at His table, my spikenard sends forth its fragrance.” Song of Songs 1:12.
THIS passage may be read in several ways. Literally, when Christ tabled among men, when He did eat and drink with them, being found in fashion as a Man, the loving Spirit broke the alabaster box of precious ointment on His head while the King was sitting at His table. Three times did the Church thus anoint her Lord, once His head and twice His feet, as if she remembered His threefold office and the threefold anointing which He had received of God the Father to confirm and strengthen Him. So she rendered Him the threefold anointing of her grateful love, breaking the alabaster box and pouring the precious ointment upon His head and upon His feet. Beloved, let us imitate the example of those who have gone before. Though we cannot, as the weeping penitent, wash His feet with our tears, or wipe them with the hairs of our head, like that gracious woman—we may be cautious of nothing, of fair adornments, or fond endowments—if we can but serve His cause or honor His Person. Let us be willing to “pour contempt on all our pride,” and “nail our glory to His Cross.” Have you anything tonight that is dear to you? Resign it to Him! Have you any costly thing like an alabaster box hidden away? Give it to the King! He is worthy and when you have fellowship with Him at His table, let your gifts be brought forth. Offer unto the King thanksgiving and pay your vows unto the Most High.
But the King is gone from earth. He is seated at His table in Heaven, eating bread in the Kingdom of God. Surrounded now not by publicans and harlots, but by cherubim and seraphim, not by mocking crowds, but by adoring hosts, the King sits at His table and entertains the glorious company of the faithful—the Church of the Firstborn, whose names are written in Heaven! He fought before He could rest. On earth He struggled with His enemies and it was not till He had triumphed over all, that He sat down at the table on high! There sit, You King of kings, there sit until Your last enemy shall be made Your footstool! What can we do, Brothers and Sisters, while Christ sits at the table above? These hands cannot reach Him. These eyes cannot see Him. But our prayers, like sweet perfume, set burning here on earth, can rise in smoke to the place where the King sits at His table—and our spikenard can diffuse a perfume even in Heaven itself! Do you want to reach Christ? Your prayers can do it! Would you now adore Him? Would you now set forth your love? With mingled prayer and praise, like the offering of the morning and the evening sacrifice, your incense can come up acceptably before the Lord!
And, Brothers and Sisters, the day is coming when the King shall sit at His table in royal state. Lo, He comes! Lo, He comes! Let the Church never forget that. The First Advent is her faith—the Second Advent is her hope. The First Advent with the Cross lays the foundation—the Second Advent with the crown brings forth the top stone. The former was ushered in with sighs—the latter shall be hailed with shouts of, “Grace, Grace unto it.” And when the King, manifested and recognized in His Sovereignty over all lands, shall sit at His table with His Church, then, in that blessed Millennium, the Graces of Christians shall give forth their odors of sweet savor!
We have thus read the text in three ways, and there is a volume in each, but we turn over another page, for we need to read it in relation to the spiritual Presence of Christ as He does now reveal Himself to His people. “When the King sits at His table”—that is, when we enjoy the Presence of Christ—“my spikenard gives forth its fragrance.” Then our graces are in active exercise and yield a perfume agreeable to our own soul and acceptable before God.
In the train of reflection I shall now attempt to follow. My manner must be hurried and should it seem feeble, Brothers and Sisters, I cannot help it. If you get fellowship with Christ, I care little for the merits of my sermon, or the perils of your criticism. One thing, alone, I crave, “Let Him kiss us with the kisses of His mouth”—then shall my soul be well content, and so will yours be also! The first observation we make shall be this—
I. Every Believer Has Grace in Possession at All Times
The text implies that when the King is not present, the spikenard yields no smell, but the spikenard is there for all that. The spouse speaks of her spikenard as though she had it, and only needed to have the King come and sit at the table to make its presence known and felt. Ah, well, Believer, there is Grace in your heart if you are a child of God! When you cannot see it yourself. When your doubts have so covered up all your hopes, that you say, “I am cast out from His Presence”—yet for all that, Grace may be there. When the old oak has lost its last leaf by the howling blasts of winter. When the sap is frozen up in the veins and you cannot, though you search to the uttermost branch, find so much as the slightest sign of verdant existence, still, even then, the substance is in the tree when it has lost its leaves. And so with every Believer, though his sap seems frozen and his life almost dead, yet if once planted, it is there! The eternal life is there when he cannot discover it himself. Do you know—if not, I pray you may never know experimentally—that there are many things that keep a Christian’s spikenard from being poured out? Alas, there is our sin! Ah, shameful, cruel sin, to rob my Master of His Glory! But when we fall into sin, of course, our Graces become weak and yield no fragrance to God. Ah, too, there is our unbelief which puts a heavy stone on all our Divine Graces, and blows out the heat which was burning the frankincense, so that no altar smoke arises towards Heaven. And often, it may be, it is our bitterness of spirit, for when our mind is cast down, we hang our harps upon the willows so that they give forth no sweet music unto God. And, above all, if Christ is absent, if through neglect or by any other means our fellowship with Him is suspended, Grace is there—but oh, it cannot be seen! There is no comfort springing from it. But, Beloved, though we mention this to begin with, we rather choose to pass on and observe that—