How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices! Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. – Song of Songs 4:10, 11

When the Lord comes to you, and begins saying, “You are not so humble, nor so prayerful, nor so believing as you ought to be;” you say, “I do not care about this whipping;” but when He comes and begins to praise you, and tells you that “your lips drop as the honeycomb, that all your actions smell of myrrh, and that your love is better than wine, and that the thoughts under your tongue are better to Me than wine and milk,” what will you say? Oh, Lord, I cannot say Thou art mistaken, for Thou art infallible; but if I might say such a thing, if I dared so think Thou art mistaken, I should say, “Thou art mistaken in me;” but Lord I cannot think Thou art mistaken so it must be true. Still, Lord, I do not deserve it; I am conscious I do not, and I never can deserve it, still if Thou wilt help me, I will strive to be worthy of Thy praise in some feeble measure. I will seek to live up to those high encomiums which Thou hast passed upon me. If Thou sayest, “My love is better than wine;” Lord, I will seek to love Thee better, that the wine may be richer and stronger. If Thou sayest, “My graces are like the smell of ointment,” Lord, I will try to increase them, so as to have many great pots filled with them; and if my words drop as the honeycomb, Lord, there shall be more of them, and I will try to make them better, so that Thou mayest think more of such honey; and if Thou declarest that the thoughts under my tongue are to Thee like honey and milk, then, Lord, I will seek to have more of those divine thoughts; and if my daily actions are to Thee as the smell of Lebanon, Lord, I will seek to be more holy, to live nearer to Thee; I will ask for grace, that my actions may be really what Thou sayest they are. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0282.cfm

…the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. – Song of Songs 4:11

What should you think if Jesus should meet you at the close of the day, and say to you, “I am pleased with the works of to-day?” I know you would reply, “Lord, I have done nothing for Thee.” You would say like those at the last day, “Lord when saw we Thee hungry and fed Thee? When saw we Thee thirsty and gave Thee drink?” You would begin to deny that you had done any good thing. He would say, “Ah, when thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee; when thou wast at thy bedside in prayer I heard thee. I saw thee when the tempter came and thou saidst, ‘Get thee hence, Satan;’ I saw thee give thine alms to one of my poor sick children; I heard thee speak a good word to the little child and teach him the name of Jesus; I heard thee groan when swearing polluted thine ears; I heard thy sigh when thou sawest the iniquity of this great city; I saw thee when thine hands were busy, I saw that thou wast not an eye-servant or a man-pleaser, but that in singleness of purpose thou didst serve God in doing thy daily business; I saw thee, when the day was ended, give thyself to God again; I have marked thee mourning over the sins thou hast committed and I tell thee I am pleased with thee.” “The smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.” And, again, I hear you say, “But, Lord, I was angry, I was proud,” and He says, “But I have covered up this, I have cast it into the depths of the sea; I have blotted it all out with My blood. I can see no ill in thee; thou art all fair, My love, there is no spot in thee.” What would you do then? Would you not at once fall down at His feet and say, “Lord, I never knew love like this: I have heard that love covers a multitude of sins, but I never knew a love so broad as to cover all mine. And then to declare that thou canst see no sin in me at all-ah! that is love!” It may melt our heart, and make us seek to be holy, that we might not grieve Christ, make us labor to be diligent in His service, that we might not dishonor Him.

Lord, I will seek to be more holy, to live nearer to Thee; I will ask for grace, that my actions may be really what Thou sayest they are. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0282.cfm

Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. – Song of Songs 4:11

“Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb.” Christ’s people are not a dumb people, they were once but they TALK now. I do not believe a Christian can keep the secret that God gives him if he were to try; it would burst his lips open to get out. When God puts grace into your heart you may try to hide it, but hide it you cannot. It will be like fire in the bones, and will be sure to find its way out. Now the church is a talking church, a preaching church, and a praising church; she has got lips, and every believer will find he must use his lips in the service of Christ. Now it is but poor, poor matter that any of us can speak. When we are most eloquent in our Master’s praise, how far our praises fall beneath His worth! When we are most earnest in prayer, how powerless is our wrestling compared with the great blessing that we seek to obtain! When our song is loudest, and it begins to be something akin to the chorus of the angels, even then how marred it is with the discord of our unbelief and of our worldliness! But Jesus Christ does not find any fault in what the Church speaks. He says, “No, ‘Thy lips, O My spouse, drop us the honeycomb.'” You know the honey that drops out of the honeycomb is the best-it is called the life-honey. So the words that drop from the Christian’s lips are the very words of his life, his life-honey, and they ought to be sweet to every one. They are as sweet to the taste of the Lord Jesus as the drops of the honeycomb.

What is sweeter in the world than honey from the honeycomb? But whatever may be the sweetest thing to the world, the words of the Christian are the sweetest things to Christ…”Thy lips, O my beloved, drop with honey like the honeycomb.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0282.cfm

How much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices! – Song of Songs 4:10

Saith Jesus, “Your love is My wine, your virtues are My sweet smelling ointments.” For now you have a little faith, but oh, how little it is. You seem to have got just faith enough to know how unbelieving you are; you have got love, but somehow you have only got love enough to let you know how little you love Him. You have some humility, but you have only enough humility to discover you are very proud: you have some zeal for Christ, but you have only zeal enough to make you chide yourself that you are so cold; you have some hope, but you have only hope enough to lead you to see how despairing and desponding you often are; you have some patience, but you have only patience enough to teach you how often you murmur when you ought not. “I confess,” say you, “that all my graces are a stench in my own nostrils, and all the good things I trust I have, I cannot look upon them with any pride or self-congratulation. I must bury myself in dust and ashes; and even those things, I can but weep over them, for they are so marred by my own evil nature.” O Jesus, this is condescension indeed, to be pleased with such poor things as we have! Oh this is love, it proves Thy love to us, that Thou canst make so much out of little, and esteem so highly that which is of such little worth! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0282.cfm

“How much better is thy love than wine!” – Song of Songs 4:10

“How much better is thy love than wine!” Now wine when used in Scripture, frequently signifies two things, a great luxury, and a great refreshment. Jesus Christ looks upon His people’s love as being a luxury to Him. When He sat at the feast of Simon the Pharisee, I have no doubt there were sparkling wine cups on the table, and many rich dainties were there, but Jesus Christ did not care for the wine, nor for the banquet. That poor woman’s love was much better to Him than wine…Now, our Saviour has often been refreshed by His people’s love. You remember once He was weary and thirsty, and sat upon the well of Samaria. He needed wine then indeed to refresh Him, but He could not get so much as a drop of water. He spoke to a woman whom He had loved from before all worlds; He put new life into her, and she at once desired to give Him drink; but she ran away first to tell to the Samaritans what she had heard. Now the Saviour was so delighted at her wishing to do good, that when His disciples came, they expected to find Him fainting, for He had walked many a weary mile that day, so they said, “Whence hath He meat?” and He said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” It was that woman’s love that had fed Him. He had broken her heart, He had won her to Himself, and when He saw the tear roll from her eye, and knew that her heart was set upon Him, His spirits all revived, and His poor flagging strength grew strong. It was this that encouraged Him. Nay, I will go farther. When Christ went to His cross there was one thing that cheered Him even in the agonies of death, it was the thought of His people’s love. Are we not told by the apostle Paul in the Hebrews, that our blessed and divine Husband, the Lord Jesus, “for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame?” Jesus was cheered, even in His death agonies, by the thought of the love of His people. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0282.cfm