Spices, Flowers, Lilies, and Myrrh 2

Get a spiritual taste of him, and then he is as honey and the honeycomb. Take, as it were, a spiritual smell of him, and you shall find that he is "as a bed of spices." Touch him, or hear him, and it shall be just the same; you shall find the most sublime, the highest, the most harmonious feelings your spirit ever knew when you do but approach him with any spiritual sense in full exercise. Our blessed Master may be viewed from every side, and yet he is perfect from every aspect.

We have seen him far 'above' us. There are few things that look well when set up aloft, and gazed at from below; but he does. We shall one day see him 'side by side', and I warrant you that we shall count him lovely then even as we reckon him lovely now. Angels have looked 'down' upon him from above, gazing on him when he was here on earth, and he was infinitely lovely to their vision then. Seen by daylight or by moonlight, seen in the crowd or seen in solitude, seen in our days of sorrow or seen in our times of joy, our Lord Jesus possesses all kinds of lovelinesses compacted into one perfect loveliness, all perfections blended to make one perfection, every sweet concocted and distilled to make one perfect sweetness. Well, therefore, may his spouse pile up the metaphors, and blend sweet spices with fragrant flowers in trying to describe his charms.

Notice that, when the spouse is speaking even of the cheeks of her Beloved, she brings in the idea of ABUNDANCE-- Spices, ay, "a BED of spices;" Flowers-- not one or two, but, according to the Hebrew, "towers of perfume," which I understand to mean those raised beds which we delight to have in our gardens, where there are many flowers set in order, forming charming banks of beauty. No doubt Solomon had some of those in his garden, for "there is nothing new under the sun;" and those raised beds of dainty flowers are fit emblems of the beauteous cheek of Christ, with its delicate tints of white and red. So in Christ there is infinite abundance.

There is also in Christ infinite VARIETY; there is in him all you can want of any one thing, and there is more than all you can want of everything. There is all that your soul could take in of any one thing, and more than your soul could take in if it were multiplied a million times, and could take in a million precious things at once. There is all you ever have wanted, and all you ever will want. Did I say, "want"? There is in Christ all you can desire, for that is one of his names, "He is all desires." When you get to heaven, and have a larger heart than you at present possess, when your soul shall be spacious as the sea, if it could be vast as the universe itself, still Christ would be able to fill it, and still to be himself overflowing with blessing. There is in him abundance, and there is variety. Oh, what a Christ he is! "As a bed of spices, and as sweet flowers."

The spouse's metaphors seem to me also to suggest USE and DELIGHT. She speaks of spices, for which there is practical use in surgery and in medicine, for preservation, and for perfume. And she also mentions sweet flowers, for which there may not be any particular use, but which are charming for ornament, and for the delight of taste. So, dear friends, in Christ Jesus there is all that we want, but there is a great deal more. There is something beside and beyond our actual 'necessities', there are many spiritual 'luxuries'.

I like, at the Lord's table, to think to myself, "Here is bread, that is the staff of life; but what is that in the cup? Wine! Ah! Why not water? Here is more than I need, for I can live without wine but the Lord says that I shall not do so. He will not only give his people the best things, but the best of the best! When our Lord keeps house, he does not allow us just so many ounces of bread, and so many ounces of food, as they do in the workhouse, but he says, "Eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." The Bridegroom cries, "Eat, O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved;" and he does not merely bring out wine, but you know how it is described, "wines on the less well-refined."

Christianity is not the bond-slave's starvation allowance that some people make it out to be-- duty, and doing, and serving, to win Christ, and to keep up your position, and I know not what else besides. It is heirship with Christ, the possession in him of everything, and the privilege of living up to our royal income-- oh, that we could attain to that high style of living! "All things are yours;" then, claim them as your own. God has given you his dear Son, and he has given you himself, for he has said, "I will be their God." Then, live with the joy that a man ought to have who has Jehovah to be his God, and Jesus Christ to be his Savior! The Lord has given us everything; then let us live at the rate of joy that a man ought to have who possesses everything! God bring us to that happy state!

"His cheeks" -- those features of the Beloved which do not at first seem likely to yield us anything-- "are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers," -inexpressibly precious, yielding to us both what we need and what shall delight and overflow our souls.

You see, beloved, what saints think of Christ; let each one of us ask himself and herself, "Do I think thus of him? Do I thus admire him? Is he everything to me?" These are sure marks of a true Christian, that he does love his Master, and he does praise him. There is many a poor child of God who is half afraid that he is not in the number of God's people; but he says, "I do love Jesus. Oh! I would do anything to glorify him." My dear friend, don't you ever get the idea that you love him without his loving you. You may be quite sure that the reason why you love him is because he first loved you; and if you love him very much, you may rest assured that he loves you a great deal more. If you have but a spark of love to him in your heart, he has a furnace of love to you in his heart. If your love to him is but as a single grain, his love to you is abundant as the richest harvest. His love to you is as much above your love to him as the heavens are higher than the earth.

Oh, that we did but think more highly of Christ! Perhaps it may help us to do so if we consider how worthy he is of that love, and how wondrously his thoughts of us exceed our thoughts of him. I sometimes feel very sad when I think about some who profess to be the Lord's people. Ah, me! there are many who, I hope, may prove to be his people; but they do not reflect much credit on him. Some of God's children are a very queer lot; if we had such sons and daughters as God has, some of us would never be able to bear with them at all; we should be impatient with them, and turn them out of doors, to get on as best they could by themselves.

When you get sick, and sad, and weary of God's people, turn your thoughts to God himself; and if ever you see any spots in the Church, Christ's bride, look at her glorious Husband, and you will only love him the more as you think of his wondrous condescension in having loved such a poor thing as his Church is even at her best. Think how bright he is, how glorious, how surpassing are his charms that they can be seen even through the defects and imperfections of his redeemed ones. We may well marvel that ever such love as his, could have been lavished upon such unworthy beings as his people are.

Do not get depressed and distressed, dear friends, because of your own imperfections, or the imperfections of others; or if you do, quickly rise again to fight against sin under the blessed conviction that there are no imperfections in him, that he is altogether lovely, altogether sweet, and that the day must come when we, who are one with him even now, shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is! Complete sanctification will be the lot of every redeemed soul! If we have known the Lord, and have already had something of his likeness, we shall go on to know him until we are perfect in that likeness. Let that blessed consummation be the subject of our constant prayer and our confident expectation.

II. Now, secondly, and but briefly, let us turn to the other part of our text: "His lips are like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh." These words teach us that CHRIST LISTENED TO IS VERY PRECIOUS. When he is silent, and we only look at him, he is lovely to our eyes; but when he speaks, we can see "His lips are like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh."

Notice, first, that it is well, whenever we hear the voice of Jesus Christ, 'to try to see the blessed Person who speaking'. The gospel is very precious to those of us who know its power; but, beyond all question, Christ himself is even more precious than his gospel. It is delightful to read any promise of the Scriptures, but it is more delightful to come into communion with the faithful Promiser. The time when I can most enjoy a promise from the Word of God is when it seems to me as if it must have been written only yesterday on purpose to meet my case, or as if I could see the eternal pen writing every one of the strokes, and making them all for me.

Whenever you hear one of the Lord's promises, think of the divine lips that spoke it, and you will love the promise all the better because you have thought of the lips that uttered it. The spouse does not say in our text, "His words are sweet," but she speaks of "his lips are like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh." Why should we not believe more in a 'personal' Christ, and why should we not always see the connection between the mercy and the hand that gives it, and between the promise and the lips that speak it?

Some of you may remember William Huntington's story that I have sometimes quoted to you about an old farmer, who, when one of his daughters was married, gave her a thousand pounds as a wedding present. There was another daughter, and her father did not give her a thousand pounds when she was married, but he gave her something as a wedding present, and then he kept on pretty nearly every day in the week sending her what he called "the hand-basket portion, with father's love," and so in the long run she received a great deal more than her sister did. It was not given all in one lump, and then done with; but it kept on coming- now a sack of flour, and then this, and that, and the other, always "with father's love," -so she had far more than the thousand pounds, and she also had far more of his love.

I do like, when I get a mercy, to have it come to me with my Heavenly Father's love, just my daily portion as I need it; not given all in one lump, so that I might go away with it into a far country, as we are sure to do if we have all our mercy at once, but given day by day, as the manna fell, with our Heavenly Father's love every time, a fresh token of infinite grace and infinite love. So, you see, the mercy leads you to think of the hand that gives it, and of the Father who sends it, as in the text it is not the 'words' of the Beloved, but his 'lips' which the spouse says are "like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh."

Notice the comparison in the text-- lilies; not white lilies, of course, but red lilies, crimson lilies, lilies of such a color as are frequently to be seen, which would be a suitable emblem of the Beloved's lips. Christ's lips are peculiarly delightful to us, for 'it is with those who he speaks to us, and intercedes with the Father for us'. When he pleads as the Intercessor on behalf of a poor soul like me, his lips are indeed in God's sight like lovely lilies. The Father looks at his dear Son's lips, and he is charmed with them, and blesses us because of Christ's intercession. And whenever Christ turns round, and speaks to us, shall we not listen at once, with eyes and ears wide open, as we say, "I like to watch his lips as he is speaking, for his lips are to me as lilies"?

I suppose this comparison means that Christ's lips are very 'pure', as the lily is the purest of flowers; and that they are very 'gentle', for we always associate the lily with everything that is tender, and soft, and kind. There is not a thorn about it as there is with the rose; we speak not of it as Herbert did of the rose, --

"Whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye."

It is not so- the lily is all tenderness, and is without a thorn, though often it may be found growing among thorns.

The lily also is inconceivably 'beautiful', and so is Christ in speaking to his people. "Never man spoke like this Man." The very words of Christ are the loftiest poetry and the sweetest music. Though they sometimes make us weep, great joy lies deeply hidden beneath the grief he causes to our spirits. "His lips are like lilies."

But, dear friends, the spouse's comparison fails, for she said, "His lips are like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh." This lilies do not do, but Christ does! He is more than a lily, or he is a lily of such a sort as never bloomed on earth except once. He was the only lily that ever dropped sweet smelling myrrh. The spouse says that his lips do that; what does this mean?

Does it not mean that his Word is often full of a very sweet, mysterious, blessed influence? You have come here often, and it is not because I have spoken that there has been a blessing to your souls; but when I have set forth Christ to you-- and I have no other theme but Christ-- there have often come to you mysterious droppings, you have had singular feelings in your spirit, caused by the secret exudations of the Word, the outflowings from the Word, and inflowings into your spirit, causing you to say, "What a change has come over me! I went into God's house very heavy, but I came away quite relieved. I went in there perplexed and worried, and I came away knowing clearly what I ought to do. I went in there cold and chilly, and feeling myself at a distance from God; and I came out ready to dance with the sense of his realized presence." Ah! that change has been caused by some of the sweet smelling myrrh that has dropped from the lips of Christ!

There are many people who meet with us on the Sabbath, who do not care to come out to the week-night services. I take the week-night attendance as somewhat of a test of piety; any hypocrite will come out on a Sunday, but it is not every hypocrite who will come out on a Thursday night, though some do, I dare say. But still the most of them are for a 'Sunday religion' only, but a 'week-day religion' they do not want. That is to say, they will feed on the Word 'after a fashion' and worship God 'after a fashion', when most other people do. But give me that religion that loves to creep out on a week-night, and is willing to take a back seat if it may but get a bit of spiritual food. Give me that man who says, "My soul must be fed. I have been working about all this week, almost worn out with fatigue, and perplexed with a great many cares; it is a delightful thing to be able to get into the house of prayer, to hear about Christ, and to feed on him." Oh, you who eat your morsels in secret behind the door, I believe more in you than in those who sit openly at the table, but who never have a secret feast at all!

"Oh, but!" says one, "I do not hear the Word to profit." No, of course you do not. You see, you are looking to the lips of a man; but if you look to the lips of the Master, you will find that "His lips are as lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh." You may have heard the story of the lady who was present when Mr. Ebenezer Erskine preached at a Scotch communion service; she thought she had never heard such a man in all her life, he preached Christ so sweetly that she was charmed. She enquired where he was to preach the next Sabbath, and she left her own place of worship to go to hear Mr. Erskine again; but it was a dreadfully dry discourse, she said, and she was foolish enough to go into the vestry, and to say to the preacher, "My dear sir, I have been bitterly disappointed in hearing you this morning. I heard you last Sabbath, and you so extolled Christ that I enjoyed the service above measure, and I thought I would come again to hear you, and now I have got nothing." "No, madam," replied the good man, "last Sabbath you went to worship God, and to feed on Christ, so you received the blessing you sought; today, you came to hear Mr. Erskine, and you have heard me, but you have missed the blessing."

Oh, dear friends, beware of going to places of worship merely to hear men! Of course, you must hear a man speaking; but go with this view, that those lips which are as lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh, should be the lips to which you really are listening, and be praying all the time, "Lord, speak to me through the minister, speak to me through the hymn, speak to me through the prayer, speak to me through any part of the service-- ay, speak through the speaker's not speaking if you will, -- only do speak to me, let those dear lips of yours drop sweet smelling myrrh into my soul!" Pray thus, and you shall not be disappointed, you can be sure of that.

This blessing is what you and I must seek after day by day, for we need this myrrh for the healing of the wounds that sin has made; we need this myrrh in our spiritual worship that we may offer it up unto God; we need this myrrh to perfume us, and make our lives fragrant in the midst of our daily cares; we need this myrrh to kill the contagion that abounds in this wicked world, and we shall get it through the Word, when it comes fresh from the lips of Christ. O God, bring us all into this blessed state!

I close by saying that, if there are any here present who do not prize the Word of God, who have no desire to listen to the lips of Christ, I pray God that they may speedily be converted; for if they are not, they shall hear him speak when his lips shall do not be as lilies, but as a flaming fire, and his Word that shall be spoken then shall burn as an oven, and his enemies shall be consumed thereby. God give grace to such as have not believed in Jesus to look to him and listen to him now! "Incline your ear," says he, "and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live." Yes, he says, "Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." May God give his blessing to these words, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

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