Love to Jesus

"You whom my soul loves." Song of Solomon 1:7.

OUTLINE

I. THE RHETORIC OF THE LIP-
its reality
its assurance
its unity
its constancy

its vehemence of affection

II. THE LOGIC OF THE HEART-
we love him for his infinite loveliness
we love him for his love to us
we love him for his suffering for us

III. A POSITIVE DEMONSTRATION-
in your daily lives
in your giving
in more extravagant love to Christ

IF the life of a Christian may be compared to a sacrifice, then humility digs the foundation for the altar, prayer brings the unhewn stones and piles them one upon the other; penitence fills the trench round about the altar with water; obedience lays the wood in order; faith pleads the Jehovah-jireh, and places the victim upon the altar; but the sacrifice even then is incomplete, for where is the, fire? LOVE, love alone can consummate the sacrifice by supplying the needful fire from heaven. Whatever we lack in our piety, as it is indispensable that we should have faith in Christ, so is it absolutely necessary that we should have love to him. That heart which is devoid of an earnest love to Jesus, is surely still dead in trespasses and sins. And if any man should venture to affirm that he had faith in Christ, but had no love to him, we would at once also venture to affirm as positively, that his religion was vain. Perhaps the great lack of the religion of the times is love. Sometimes as I look upon the world at large, and the Church which lies too much in its bosom, I am apt to think that the Church has 'light', but lacks 'fire'; that she has some degree of true faith, clear knowledge, and much beside which is precious, but that she lacks to a great extent, that flaming love with which she once, as a chaste virgin, walked with Christ through the fires of martyrdom, when she showed to him her undefiled, unquenchable love in the catacombs of the city, and the caves of the rock; when the snows of the Alps might testify to the virgin purity of the love of the saints, by the purple stain which marked the shedding of blood in defense of our bleeding Lord, blood which had been shed in defense of him whom, though they had not seen his face, "unceasing they adore."

It is my pleasant task this morning to stir up your pure minds, that you, as part of Christ's Church, may feel somewhat in your hearts today of love to him, and may be able to address him not only under the title, "You in whom my soul trusts," but "You whom my soul loves." Last Sabbath day, if you remember, we devoted to simple faith, and tried to preach the gospel to the ungodly; the present hour we devote to the pure, Spirit-born, godlike, flame of love.

On looking at my text, I shall come to regard it thus: First, we shall listen to the rhetoric of the lip as we here read it in these words, "O you whom my soul loves." We shall then observe the logic of the heart, which would justify us in giving such a title as this to Christ, and then come in the third place, to something which even surpasses rhetoric or logic, the absolute demonstration of the daily life; and I pray that we may be able to prove constantly by our acts, that Jesus Christ is He whom our soul loves.

I. First, then, the loving title of our text is to be considered as expressing RHETORIC OF THE LIP. The text calls Christ, "You whom my soul loves." Let us take this title and dissect it a little. One of the first things which will strike us when we come to look upon it, is the reality of the love which is here expressed. Reality, I say; understanding the term "real," not in contradistinction to that which is lying and fictitious, but in contrast to that which is shadowy and indistinct. Do you not notice that the spouse here speaks of Christ as of one whom she knew actually to exist; not as an abstraction, but as a person. She speaks of him as a real person, "You whom my soul loves." Why, these seem to be the words of one who is pressing him to her bosom, who sees him with her eyes, who tracks him with her feet, who knows that he is, and that he will reward the love which diligently seeks him.

Brethren and sisters, there often is a great deficiency in our love to Jesus. We do not realize the person of Christ. We think about Christ, and then we love the conception that we have formed of him. But O, how few Christians view their Lord as being as real a person as we are ourselves, very man a man that could suffer, a man that could die, substantial flesh and blood very God as real as if he were not invisible, and as truly existent as though we could compass him in our minds. We need to have a real Christ more fully preached, and more fully loved by the church. We fail in our love, because Christ is not as real to us as he was to the early Church. The early Church did not preach much doctrine; they preached Christ. They had little to say of truths about Christ; it was Christ himself, his hands, his feet, his side, his eyes, his head, his crown of thorns, the sponge, the vinegar, the nails. O for the Christ of Mary Magdalene, rather than the Christ of the critical theologian; give me the wounded body of divinity, rather than the soundest system of theology.

Let me show you what I mean. Suppose an infant taken away from its mother, and you should seek to foster in it a love to the parent by constantly picturing before it the idea of a mother, and attempting to give it the thought of a mother's relation to the child. Indeed, my friends, I think you would have a difficult task to fix in that child the true and real love which it ought to bear towards her who bore it. But give that child a mother; let it hang upon that mother's real breast, let it derive its nourishment from her very heart: let it see that mother, feel that mother, put its little arms about that mother's real neck and you have no hard task to make it love its mother.

So is it with the Christian. We need Christ not an abstract, doctrinal, pictured Christ but a real Christ. I may preach to you many a year, and try to infuse into your souls a love of Christ; but until you can feel that he is a real man and a real person, really present with you, and that you may speak to him, talk to him, and tell him of your needs, you will not readily attain to a love like that of the text, so that you can call him, "You whom my soul loves." I want you to feel, Christian, that your love to Christ is not a mere pious affection; but that as you love your wife, as you love your child, as you love your parent, so you should love Christ; that though your love to him is of a finer cast, and a higher mold, yet it is just as real as the more earthly passion.

Let me suggest another figure. A war is raging in Italy for liberty. The very thought of liberty nerves a soldier. The thought of a hero makes a man a hero. Let me go and stand in the midst of the army and preach to them what heroes should be, and what brave men they should be who fight for liberty. My dear friends, the most earnest eloquence might have but little power. But put into the midst of these men Garibaldi heroism incarnate; place before their eyes that dignified man who seems like some old Roman newly arisen from his tomb, they see before them what liberty means, and what daring is, what courage can attempt, and what heroism can perform; for there he is, and firmed by his actual presence, their arms are strong, their swords are sharp and they dash to the battle at once; his presence ensuring victory, because they realize in his presence the thought which makes men brave and strong. So the Church needs to feel and see a real Christ in her midst. It is not the idea of disinterestedness; it is not the idea of devotion; it is not the idea of self-consecration that will ever make the Church mighty: it must be that idea incarnate, consolidated, personified in the actual existence of a realized Christ in the camp of the Lord's host. I do pray for you, and pray you for me, that we may each one of us have a love which realizes Christ, and which can address him as "You whom my soul loves."

But again, look at the text and you will perceive another thing very clearly. The Church, in the expression which she uses concerning Christ, speaks not only with a realization of his presence, but with a firm assurance of her own love. Many of you, who do really love Christ, can seldom get further than to say, "O you whom my soul desires to love! O you whom I hope I love!" But this sentence says not so at all. This title has not the shadow of a doubt or a fear upon it: "O you whom my soul loves!" Is it not a happy thing for a child of God when he knows that he loves Christ? when he can speak of it as a matter of consciousness? a thing out of which he is not to be argued by all the reasonings of Satan a thing concerning which he can put his hand upon his heart, and appeal to Jesus and say, "Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you?" I say, is not this a delightful frame of mind? or, rather, I reverse the question- Is not that a sad miserable state of heart in which we have to speak of Jesus otherwise than with assured affection?

Ah, my brethren and sisters, there may be times when the most loving heart may, from the very fact that it loves intensely and loves sincerely, doubt whether it does love at all. But then such times will be times seasons of great soul-searching, nights of anguish. He who truly loves Christ will never give sleep to his eyes, nor slumber to his eyelids, when he is in doubt about his heart belonging to Jesus. "No," says he, "this is a matter too precious for me to question as to whether I am the possessor of it or not, this is a thing so vital that I cannot let it be with a 'perhaps,' as a matter of hap-hazard. No, I must know whether I love my Lord or not, whether I am his or not."

If I am addressing any this morning who fear they do not love Christ, and yet hope they do, let me beg you, my dear friend, not to rest contented in your present state of mind; never be satisfied until you know that you are standing on the rock, and until you are quite certain that you really do love Christ. Imagine for a moment, one of the apostles telling Christ that he thought he loved him. Fancy for a moment your own spouse telling you that she hoped she loved you. Fancy your child upon your knee saying, "Father, I sometimes trust I love you." What a stinging thing to say to you! You would almost as soon he said, "I hate you." Because, what is this? Shall he, over whom I watch with care, merely thinks he loves me? Shall she who lies in my bosom, doubt, and make it a matter of conjecture, as to whether her heart is mine or not? O God forbid we should ever dream of such a thing in our ordinary relations of life! Then how is it that we indulge in it in our piety? Is it not sickly and maudlin piety? is it not a diseased state of heart that ever puts us in such a place at all? is it not even a deadly state of heart that would let us rest contented there? No, let us not be satisfied until, by the full work of the Holy Spirit, we are made sure and certain, and can say with unstammering tongue, "O you whom my soul loves."

Now, notice something else equally worthy of our attention. The Church, the spouse, in thus speaking of her Lord, thus directs our thoughts not merely to her confidence of love, but to the unity of her affections with regard to Christ. She has not two lovers, she has but one. She does not say, "O the many of you on whom my heart is set!" but "O you!" She has but one after whom her heart is panting. She has gathered her affections into one bundle, she has made them but one affection, and then she has cast that bundle of myrrh and spices upon the breast of Christ. He is to her the "Altogether Lovely," the gathering up of all the loves which once strayed abroad. She has put before the sun of her heart a burning-glass, which has brought all her love to a focus, and it is all concentrated with all its heat and vehemence upon Christ Jesus himself.

Her heart, which once seemed like a fountain sending forth many streams, has now become as a fountain which has but one channel for its waters. She has stopped up all the other issues, she has cut away the other pipes, and now the whole stream in one strong current runs toward him, and him alone. The Church, in the text here, is not a worshiper of God and of Baal too; she is no time-server, who has a heart for all comers. She is not as the harlot, whose door is open for every wayfarer; but she is a chaste one, and she sees none but Christ, and she knows none whom her soul desires, except her crucified Lord.

The wife of a noble Persian having been invited to be present at the wedding feast of King Cyrus, her husband asked her merrily upon her return whether she did not think the bridegroom-monarch a most noble man. Her answer was, "I know not whether he be noble or not; my husband was so before my eye that I saw none beside him, I have seen no beauty but in him." So if you ask the Christian in our text, "Is not Such-an- one fair and lovely?" "No," she replies, "my eyes are fully fixed on Christ, my heart is so taken up with him that I cannot tell if there be beauty anywhere else, I know that all beauty and all loveliness is summed up in him."

Sir Walter Raleigh used to say, "That if all the histories of tyrants, the cruelty, the blood, the lust, the infamy, were all forgotten, yet all these histories might be re-written out of the life of Henry VIII." And I may say by way of contrast, "If all the goodness, all the love, all the gentleness, all the faithfulness that ever existed could all be blotted out, they could all be re-written out of the history of Christ." To the Christian, Christ is the only one she loves, she has no divided aims, no two adored ones, but she speaks of him as of one to whom she has given her whole heart, and none have anything beside. "Oh you whom my soul loves."

Come, brethren and sisters, do we love Christ after this fashion? Do we love him so that we can say, "Compared with our love to Jesus, all other loves are but as nothing." We have those sweet loves which make earth dear to us; we do love those who are our kindred according to the flesh, we were indeed beneath the beasts if we did not. But some of us can say, "We do love Christ better than husband or wife, or brother or sister." Sometimes we think we could say with Jerome, "If Christ should bid me go this way, and my mother did hang about my neck to draw me another, and my father were in my way, bowing at my knees with tears entreating me not to go; and my children plucking at my shirt should seek to pull me the other way, I must unclasp my mother, I must push to the very ground my father, and put aside my children, for I must follow Christ."

We cannot tell which we love the most until they have come into collision. But when we come to see that the love of mortals requires us to do this, and the love of Christ to do the reverse, then shall we see which we love best. Oh, those were hard times with the martyrs; with that good man for instance, Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, who was the father of some twelve children, all of them but little ones. On the road to the stake his enemies had contrived that his wife should meet him with all the little ones, and she had set them in a row kneeling down by the roadside. His enemies expected that surely now he would recant, and for the sake of those dear babes would certainly seek to save his life. But no! no! He had given them all up to God, and he could trust them with his heavenly Father; but he could not do a wrong thing even for the felicity of covering these little birds with his wings and cherishing them beneath his feathers. He took them one by one to his bosom, and looked, and looked again; and it pleased God to put into the mouth of his wife and of his children words which encouraged him instead of discouraging him, and before he went from them his very babes had bidden the father play the man and die boldly for Christ Jesus. Ay, soul, we must have a love like this which cannot be rivaled, which cannot be shared; which is like a flood tide other tides may come up very high upon the shore, but this comes up to the very rocks and beats there, filling our soul to the very brim. I pray God we may know what such a love to Christ as this may mean.

Furthermore, I want to pluck one more flower for you. If you will look at the title before us, you will have to learn not only its reality, its assurance, its unity; but you will have to notice its constancy, "O you whom my soul loves." Not "did love" yesterday;" or, "may begin to love tomorrow ,"but "you whom my soul loves," "you whom I have loved ever since I knew you, and to love whom has become as necessary to me as my vital breath or my native air." The true Christian is one who loves Christ for evermore. He does not play fast and loose with Jesus; pressing him today to his bosom, and then turning aside and seeking after any Delilah who may with her witcheries pollute him. No, he feels that he is a Nazarite unto the Lord; he cannot and he will not pollute himself with sin at any time or in any place.

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