(Missions Conference Shoals) - Part 5 — Paul Washer

The Song of Solomon and the Revelation of God’s Love

Let's open up our Bibles to the Song of Solomon, the Song of Solomon, chapter 4. Before we read our text, I'd like to go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I thank you for this day and a special, wonderful sense of the presence of your Son, a special fellowship and a special reality of Him being God with us.

I thank you so much for what you have done thus far, Lord, in getting glory for yourself. And, oh Lord, I would so wish tonight to speak in your power that you would vindicate your truth, that you would move in the hearts of men.

But, oh God, if you would get greater glory for yourself by stepping back and turning me into nothing more than a babbling fool, if you would get glory for yourself, Lord, by destroying this building and removing this church, then, oh Lord, get glory for yourself.

Oh, dear God, we acknowledge that apart from you, we are nothing, we have nothing. We acknowledge, Lord, that you rightfully take the center throne of the universe and you share that position with no one.

We rightfully, Lord, acknowledge your sovereignty, that you do whatever you desire in the heavens and the earth and under the earth, that if you raise your hand, no man can put it down, and if you put your hand down on the table, no man can pry it up.

That you are God. And, oh Lord, you know this week I have plowed. But, oh Lord, I pray that your people tonight would rejoice, that they would rejoice in the God of their salvation. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, Lord, you know I am so afraid to open my eyes, I am so afraid to end this prayer.

I would rather stay with you. Lord, who is able to speak about your love toward your people? Lord, we've never seen anyone like you. We search as far back in our history as we can go. We've never seen a love like yours.

Oh, Lord, only by your Spirit can these things be revealed to men. Be gracious to us, oh Lord. Do not give us what we deserve, but give us your greatest, Lord. A revelation of you and your glory. Oh, God, help us.

Help us. And, Lord, I pray for wisdom, the power of the Holy Spirit, the filling of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name. Amen. It might seem unusual that I'm actually going to begin a sermon with a smile.

Repentance, Faith, and the True Gospel

But I am so filled with joy over my God and His goodness, His love. I have plowed hard this week. I have preached hard against things that should be preached against. Superficial evangelism in the Southern Baptist Convention.

The promotion of men, the counting of heads, and the damnation of souls because we are building churches on the bones of unconverted church members. I have preached hard against the manipulating use of the sinner's prayer.

Getting men and children to blindly and superstitiously repeat a prayer and then to popishly declare them to be born again. I have preached against the idea of a continuous carnal Christian. That a person can truly be a Christian and yet live in carnality the days of their lives without God's discipline.

We have spoke about the need of repentance and faith. We have spoke about something more than a romantic gospel that shares the physical sufferings about Christ and then manipulates men to come to Him.

Instead we have preached a gospel of the Son of God bearing the sins of men and dying under the wrath of God to satisfy justice, to take away sin, to appease the wrath of God and to reconcile men to Himself.

I have plowed hard. I have told many of you that you are not Christians. But some of you are. Some of you are. And last night we went through the test of 1 John. A book that was used throughout Baptist history to bring assurance to true believers.

Some of you were stricken in your heart and you began to see that it was not well with your soul. Others of you rejoiced because for once in your lifetime your assurance rested upon something more than a prayer that you repeated, hopefully sincerely.

Or some evangelist who told you to write His name in the back of your Bible along with the date of your conversion and show it to the devil every time you doubt. No, we went to the Bible and we found for you biblical assurance that He who began a good work and you will finish it.

And tonight I am so weak, not with regard to strength and not even necessarily spiritually, but I am so weak because I want to do, I want you to see so many things about you. Now the spiritual mind here tonight will hear these words and say, let us be holy, let us run to Him, let us obey, let us seek Him that we might find Him.

The carnal mind will hear these same words and say, let us sin that grace may abound, let us keep doing what we are doing because the love of God will permit it. But if you have been here all the nights you will know that is not true.

That is not true. I am here to tell you tonight that if you are regenerate, if your conversion is true, if you were born in Zion, if you belong to Him, that you can rejoice. You can rejoice more than you ever dreamed of rejoicing.

That God's love towards you is greater than anything you will ever begin to comprehend. You say, well what about heaven? Won't we comprehend it there? Not even there will you comprehend the love of God for it will be there that you will begin an eternity of chasing it down.

Heaven, Glory, and the Song of Solomon

What makes heaven something other than boring? Streets of gold, gates of pearl? After a while streets are just to walk on and gates, well I suppose if you are a child you can swing on them for a long time and enjoy it.

How can we spend an eternity in heaven and it not grow weary? Because every new dawn, if you could say such a thing, as the pastor said this afternoon when we were speaking, every new dawn in eternity will just bring greater and greater measures of the glory of God which will send you into greater and greater depths of ecstasy, of worship and of joy.

And that is why we are going to look at the Song of Solomon. Now some literalist, and I interpret the Bible literally where it should be interpreted but there are places where it should not be interpreted literally.

Let me give you an example. Jesus said, I am the door. That doesn't mean he swings on hinges. Some would say that the Song of Solomon was written only about a man and a woman. The love affair between a man and a woman.

But I would answer them this way. The story of the man and the woman was only written to give us an illustration of the glory of God. Some would say this is only about marriage between a man and a woman.

But why did God create marriage? Except for it to be a revelation in some way of His goodness to His church. So we are going to hear theology, yes, doctrine, true. We are going to talk about passion tonight.

About God's passion for you. That I hope will give birth to a passion in you for God. It starts in chapter 4, verse 7. I want you to imagine this as it is. This is God speaking to you. If you are His child, if you belong to Him, if you are part of His church, this is God speaking to you.

You are altogether beautiful, my darling. And there is no blemish in you. We hear these preachers today who have bad ecclesiology. They don't understand the doctrine of the church nor the new covenants.

We hear these preachers today who say the church is just as full of pornography as the world. The church is just as full of immorality and carnality and worldliness and all sorts of things like that as the world.

The church is going through a horrible period of time in this country. Well, that's absolutely ridiculous. The church of Jesus Christ is altogether beautiful. The only problem is this. What is being called the church today is not the church.

And God's name is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of preachers that don't know the difference between the church of God and unregenerate carnal church members. But here He is speaking to those who truly know Him.

And He says this, you are altogether beautiful, my darling. And there is no blemish in you. But the most sincere among us, the Christian most devout among us would almost balk at this. They would step back and they would say, well, but what about my sin?

What about my failure? What about my striving to be holy and looking in the mirror of God's Word and seeing that I just never seem to measure up? How can He say such things about me? He can say such things about you because of the work that He has done on your behalf.

Imputed Righteousness and the Work of Christ

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on your behalf so that you might become the righteousness of God in Christ. One of the things that's very important, as I've said over and over this week, if you only share half truths, it's better that you would keep your mouth shut or just out and out lie.

And with the gospel, it's the same way. It's not enough to share part of the gospel even if that part you share is true. You have been told, and rightly so, that we are saved, that we are forgiven through the death of Christ on a cross.

And that is true. But in order to get to heaven, you must be more than forgiven. Did you know that? In order to get to heaven, you must be more than forgiven. You must be perfectly righteous. It's not enough that Christ simply carries your sin and takes them away.

But Christ must give you His righteous life. And that is why we are saved not only by the death of Christ, and we are saved not only by the resurrection of Christ, but we are saved by the life that Christ lived on this earth under the law as a man.

That when He walked on this earth, I know you say, He died for you. And He did. But I want you to know that He lived for you. All the days of His life, He lived for you. He lived a perfect life before the Father.

There was not a blemish in Him. There was not a flaw. He was always the darling Son of God. And every time God looked down at His Son, He said, This is My beloved Son in whom I am always pleased. When you believed in Jesus Christ, when God through His sovereign grace regenerated your heart and gave you repentance and gave you faith, and you believed in Jesus Christ unto salvation, you were forgiven by virtue of the cross where He died, but you were declared perfectly righteous before God.

Not only forgiven, but declared perfectly righteous. That life that Jesus lived for 30 some odd years on this earth, that life of perfect obedience was placed on you. So that when the Father looks at you, if you are a true believer, when the Father looks at you, He looks down at you, and He forever and always says, This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

You have heard that Jesus is a greater than Moses. You have heard that He is a greater than Aaron. But did you know that He is a greater than Joseph, His father? No, the patriarch, Joseph. Remember Joseph?

What distinguished him from the rest? The love of his father. But what else distinguished him from the rest? That multicolored coat. That beautiful coat. And what did he do with that coat? He hoarded it, he held on to it, and he made it a thing of envy and strife between himself and his brothers.

But we have not been redeemed by a Joseph. We have been redeemed by someone greater than Joseph. Who takes that coat of multicolored righteousness and He lay it upon your shoulders. He dressed you in Him.

Listen to me believer, you know what the problem is? You do not believe me yet. I'm talking about a love so big, a righteousness so strong, something you have never seen before, that it is so hard for you to believe it.

Charismatics love them. I have a lot of friends that are charismatics and they'll always tell me the greatest act of faith is raising the dead. If you can raise the dead, you've got faith. And I always tell them, I go, raise the dead?

That's nothing for a Southern Baptist. Raising the dead, that's an everyday occurrence. And I look at them and I say, you want to know something that requires faith? And I'm going to tell you, the thing that requires the greatest faith, my dear brother, my dear sister, those of you who are beloved of God, the greatest demonstration of personal faith is when you and I look in the mirror of God's word and we see all our flaws and all our failures and all our sin and all our apathy and all our lack of devotion and yet we believe that God loves us as he says he does.

That's the hardest thing to believe. And why is it so hard to believe? I'll tell you why it's so hard to believe. We've never seen a love like that anywhere. No one. Go to the most devout spouse, the most devout father, the most devout child.

You can search through the world with a lantern but you will never find anyone who loves like God loves you. Another thing that you need to see, and I'll just for a moment, husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church.

Love the church. Not an institution. Not a membership role. An organism. Living, breathing members. Christ loved you. And how did he demonstrate that love for you? By giving himself up for you. I want every believer in this audience tonight, I want every believer in this congregation to think this.

I want you to repeat this in your heart. Christ gave himself up for me. For me. For me. He bore the guilt, the sin. For me. He died under the wrath of God. For me. It was for me. It was for me. And when did he do this?

When you were a sinner. When you hated him with every ounce and fiber of your being. He loved you so much. He loved his elect people so much that he laid down his life for you when you would have been the one who nailed the nails and thrust the spear.

So now, tenderhearted believers who would never lift a hand against the Christ, how much does he love you now? How much does he love you now? And he says, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory.

Now, when we say church in all her glory, we lose something. Why? Because when we think about this big group of people, we think about something impersonal. Any believer I could pick out right now, I could tell you to stand, and I can say to you that one day, before all of creation, God will call your name and tell you to come front and center.

Before every principality and power and might and dominion, he will tell you to come front and center, and he will present you to all creation in all your glory. All the glory that he has given you. And he will present you, there will not be a spot or a wrinkle or any such thing.

The future that awaits you, believer, goes so far beyond the tongue of a preacher or the pen of a writer to tell. So he says here, you are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you.

You say, but Lord, how can this be so? The Lord looks back at you and says, child, doubt not the power of that cross. My dear friends, sometimes there is a great deal of false humility among true believers, a great deal of false humility.

Well, I just don't see how he could ever love someone like me. Well, then you haven't seen the cross and you haven't understood the love of God. Doubting God's love is not a sign of humility. It is arguing against what he has declared about himself.

You're not proving yourself humble. You're saying you don't believe God. God has declared over and over and over. As I said in my preaching a few days ago, I said that the cross was a vindication of God.

That it demonstrated that He is righteous. And if you want to know how much God hates sin, look at the cross. Because when His Son bore our sin, God crushed Him. But also, if you want to see how much God loves His people, look at the cross.

Because on that cross, His Son bore our sins and was crushed. So many people think that somehow Jesus Christ came and saved us from the wrath of the Father. And what they don't understand, it was that very Father who sent His Son in love to die for you.

He loves you. Sometimes when I'm preaching this, I just want to give up. And I want to just look at the congregation and say over and over again, He loves you. And to every objection you throw forth at me is to repeat again, He loves you.

He loves you. He loves you. And then he says in verse 8, Come with me from Lebanon, my bride. May you come with me from Lebanon. And journey down from the summit of Amana, from the summit of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards.

Unconditional Love and the Call to Come

Now, with the risk of being risque, have you ever thought about Adam and Eve? There they are in the garden, bare and yet without shame. Bare yet without shame. I've often asked myself, why? Why were they without shame?

Because there was no sin. But it's more than that, you see. For the same reason there was shame after sin entered into the world. You see, when there's unconditional love, when you know the person you're standing before unconditionally loves you, no matter who you are, you can stand before them without shame.

You see, it's unconditional love that makes you strong. It's unconditional love that brings you out of that hole. It's unconditional love that sets you free and gives you peace. And when sin entered into the world, and Adam no longer unconditionally loved Eve, and Eve no longer unconditionally loved Adam, then what happens?

But look at me. I'm not perfect. Like a bride who fears her wedding night because she's afraid that she will appear unseemingly to the groom. And so she stands in the shadows, hoping not too much light, looking for a covering.

What if I'm distasteful to him, she thinks? What if he's sorry? What if I don't measure up? And so she hides in the darkness and desires no light. I see so many believers like that today. But he says, come.

Here in verse 8, he says, come. But he doesn't tell you to come until first he says to you, you are beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you. And you say, but Lord, I've got blemishes everywhere.

And he says, but, love covers a multitude of sins. I only see you with my eyes. And my eyes see you as darling and beautiful and with no blemish whatsoever. I will guarantee you, sirs, that your wives can understand what I'm saying far better than you can.

Oh, isn't it wonderful to finally walk through a door where we really are loved? Isn't it wonderful to finally walk through a door where now the blemishes and all those things just no longer matter because the only thing thundering in our ears is beloved, beloved, beloved, beloved.

And that's what you are. And so when he says, come, come. When he says, follow, follow. When he says, draw near to me, draw near to him. You know one of the things the devil uses more than anything else in the life of a believer?

When a believer fails, when a believer falls, when a believer stumbles, Satan enters in, into their mind, making them think, you've done it now. Or, after we have fallen, after we have sinned, after we have broken promises and everything else, then we spend three, four, five, six days, maybe weeks or months, getting back in the good graces of God before we appear before Him again.

Well, I've done that, but now there is a, well, probation period. I can't think about praising Him now. I mean, after all, look at what I just did. I can't think about coming into His presence. I can't think about telling Him, I love Him.

I mean, after all, look at me. I mean, I should have to wait some amount of time, shouldn't I? And He's constantly looking at you, saying, I love you. I love you. It's a whole other sermon, but I just want to kind of throw this out tonight.

Grace, the New Covenant, and Drawing Near to God

So many people have an Old Testament, Old Covenant idea of our relationship with God. Let me give you an example. Let's say that God wants me to read my Bible. He's leading me to read my Bible. But I decide that I want to go out to my woodshop and work.

Now, there are preachers, and you would expect me to say this because of the things you've heard me say this week. There are preachers who would say, well, you just go on out to that woodshop. God's not going with you.

That's not true. Not only is God going out to that woodshop, God's going to protect my fingers from the saw, and He's going to hand me the boards, and every time I look across that saw that I'm working on, He is going to pour forth love on me and say, Paul, I love you.

I love you. Now, come. I love you. You're not where you ought to be. Come. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Paul. Paul. I love you. I love you. There's a lot of legalistic people that love to hear me preach until they hear me preach this, but I'll not find myself in any man's camp.

I'll preach the judgment of God, but when we've filtered through and we've found the true believers, let's bring on grace. Let's bring on love. He goes, come down. And that's what He's telling you tonight, church.

Church at Muscle Shoals, that's what He's telling you to do. He's saying, come down. Come down from where? Come down from those mountains. Come down from haughtiness. Come down from pride. Come down from all these things that the world boasts in.

And get away from those high places because they're dangerous. Come away from the world and those spiritual dangers. He tells you, He says, there are leopards and lions up in those high places. Get away from there.

Come and follow Me. Walk humbly before Me. That's what God is telling you to do. Now, He's already satisfied your heart. He's already made you strong. He's called you darling. He's found no flaw in you.

He's taken care of that. And now that you're secure in His love, He says, come. Come away with Me. Come down. Come down. The most beautiful and the safest place to be on the face of the earth is humbly and in a childlike way stumbling after your God and seeking to follow Him.

Really, only one thing is required of you, so many of you men that I have listened to. You are so busy. You are so trying to catch His eye, to have Him smile at you. You are so busy to have Him just lay a hand on you and say, OK, you're OK.

But He's already done that. He's not wanting performance out of you. He's not wanting things out of you. He's just saying, come. Come. The greatest title that's ever been placed on a mortal man, I believe, was given to Abraham.

A friend of God. A friend of... I decided a long time ago I wanted to concentrate more on living the Christian life than preaching it. That you can get so caught up in preaching and teaching the Christian life that you're not living the Christian life.

I don't want to be a great preacher and I don't want to be big and I don't want to be important. I would rather go fishing with my God. I have nothing to prove. I have no hoop to jump through. And why is that?

Because I used to jump through all the hoops. And I used to work 18 hours a day. And I used to do everything other than just impale my body upon a cross in order to please my God. And why don't I do that anymore?

Because I am loved. It's over. I don't have to be anything. I don't have to prove anything. Even to you, dear people, I do not have the power to start a revival. I do not have the power to keep one. And if someone were to give it to me, I'd turn it down.

I have nothing to prove. Why? Because I'm loved. Are you loved? Do you know the love of God? And he goes on in verse 9. How does God respond to you? Look at verse 9. You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride.

You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance from your eyes. Now, you want some theology? I've heard people say the whole week all he's done is give us lectures on theology. Well, then let me give you some theology.

Every time, every time my eyes turn towards heaven, God's heart beats faster with anticipation. You say, well, Brother Paul, I have trouble praying. I just don't think God hears me. The only reason I would think God hasn't heard me is because His heart's beating so loud He can't hear my voice.

You say, I like it better when you talk about God as holy, holy, holy. Well, I want to give you the full counsel of God. And I want to tell you that my Christianity is not just theology. It's childlike faith.

And when the Bible tells me that with the very glance of my eye upward towards the face of God, that His heart beats faster, that gives me such encouragement to pray. That gives me such encouragement to pray.

I hear people praying all the time. They say, oh, it's like there's a bronze ceiling over me. Oh, it's like God, you know, is not listening. What do I do? I need to purify myself. I need to do this and I need to do that.

No, you need to hear this Word every time you turn your eyes in an upward glance to the face of the Father. His heart beats faster. It says, You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride. You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes.

And then, look at this, with a single strand of your necklace. Now, why is that important? Why are you so beautiful? Why are you so beautiful? Is it because of yourself? No. It is because God has adorned your life with the necklace of grace.

Do you know why you're so beautiful? Because He gave you the righteousness of Christ. Every time He looks at you, it's a reflection of His greatness and His power. You see, when Christ said it is finished, He meant it.

Would you grab a hold of that? Would you believe it? When Christ said it is finished, He meant it. It's finished. The enmity has been put away. Sin is gone. And you're free. You're free. We're angels in the throne room of God bow their heads and cannot look Him in the face.

And yet you, you run between the folds of His robe. Why? They have a righteousness of angels. You have the righteousness of God. And that's why angels, right now here tonight, angels are peering in. In your life, when you go home, angels will be straining to look in at the righteousness and the grace that has been granted unto you.

The Believer’s Love, Prayer, and Confidence Before God

He goes on to say, now in verse 10, how beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride. Now in verse 7, in verse 7, He said that you were beautiful. Now He's saying that your love toward Him is beautiful.

How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride. How much better is your love than wine and the fragrance of your oils than all kinds of spices. Now wine, oils, and spices, they represent the finest things of this world.

The finest things that God has made. Oh, and He has made some fine things. I have seen sunsets that would take my heart away. I have seen ocean waves beating down on the shore with a rhythm that seemed to capture a sonnet.

And yet God says, of all the finest things I have made on the earth, I desire your love more. Your love is more beautiful to me. You don't believe me, do you? You really don't believe me. Because if you did, well, you'd be dancing on the top of these pews.

You say, but my love is so feeble. Have you not read that He knows that you're just dust? And do you not know that every good and perfect gift comes from Him, and if there is any love in you, it's love He gave you to love Him back?

You think your love is so feeble. Stop. Stop thinking that way. Yes, your love is feeble. Yes, your faith is feeble. But where we are feeble, His grace abounds. His love conquers. His love controls. His love takes it all.

He goes on to say, how much better is your love than wine? And in verse 11, how does God respond to our praying? Your lips, my bride, drip honey. Honey and milk are under your tongue, and the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

Here we go back to prayer again. So many believers today, I am convinced, do not have a healthy prayer life because they spend most of their time grumbling and groveling before God. And why are they doing that?

Because they really are not convinced of what He says. I think the greatest heartbreak I would ever know would be for my wife to doubt the love of her husband. What could be a greater reflection on a man than that?

What would break my heart more than anything to believe that my wife was unsure about my love for her, groveling, mumbling, praying for 15 minutes, just hoping to somehow crawl your way back to the good graces of God so that He might cast a glance your way?

I don't know where you learned such things, but you did not learn them from God. Because to Him, your lips drip honey. Honey and milk are under your tongue, and the fragrance of your garment is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

Now, let's go back again. Here we go with garment again. Do you see that? Garment again. Why are you so attractive to God? The garment He has given you. A garment of righteousness. A garment of holiness.

My goodness, dear brother! My goodness, dear sister! God has done good things for you! Accept them! Accept them! One of the hardest things for a man of God to do who is not secure in himself is accept gifts from someone else.

Let me give you a perfect example. The Apostle Peter. Jesus said, Peter, I'm going to wash your feet. Peter said, No, you're not. Jesus said, Okay, then go to hell. Because Peter, if you can't receive from me, then there's only one other option.

Damnation. Well, then Lord, wash my head. Wash all of me. Can you not receive these things? And then again, that demon's head pops up in your heart and says, But I'm not good enough! I'm not right enough!

I'm not smart enough! Yes, we know! We've already got that behind us, haven't we? Like if the devil were to walk in here tonight, he might be here, I don't know. If the devil were to walk in here tonight and take center stage and begin to rail on me, Paul Washer, you're not worthy to preach.

Paul Washer, you're not worthy to pray. Paul Washer, you're not worthy to be standing before these people. Paul Washer, I would just have to literally sit here and just yawn. And when he got done, I would just have to say, You know, haven't we gone through this before?

You're right, I'm not worthy of this, and I'm not worthy of that, and I'm not worthy of this, and I'm not worthy of that, but that's really not the issue. Have you seen my older brother standing over my shoulder?

The one who's made all things new? The one who said, It is finished. Oh, and when he said, It is finished, that had something to do with you, so I would suggest you run out of here. I don't know if you could have been beaten down in your heart any more than I was when I was a child.

There were times I would take a knife and stick it into my stomach until it broke the skin because the only thing I wanted to do was die. And I spent most of my life trying to get love I never got. And then when I became a Christian, I spent a great part of my Christian life trying to win the love of a father until I literally drove myself almost insane to the point of a nervous breakdown as a very successful missionary.

And when all the pieces were laying there on that stairwell in the third floor of that old rickety church in Barranco, Peru, and I had given up, and I said, God, I'm afraid to go to hell and I don't want to go there, but I'm so ashamed of all my failures and everything.

I don't want to go to heaven and see your face and be such a disappointment as I always have been all my life. It was then. You don't have to preach another sermon because I didn't save you to serve, as those silly little preachers say.

I saved you to love you. Now, Rice, I command you, get your dog and go run on the beach for a week. That's exactly what I did. And I've been running and hopping and skipping ever since. I had a man come to me one time, one of those movers and shakers.

You know about them. They're men who can make you very important. And they said to me, you know, you could have a national ministry, international ministry. You could do this and do that and be all these things.

And I let him go on and on and on and on. And then when he finished, I looked at him and said, yes, I could, but if I did that, I wouldn't have any time to go fishing. And they all looked at me like, we thought you were spiritual.