Character of Jesus

The Savior Praising Himself

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

“I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.”-Song of Solomon 2:1.

The time of flowers has come, and as they are in some faint degree emblems of our Lord, it is well, when God thus calls, that we should seek to learn what He desires to teach us by them. If nature now spreads out her roses and her lilies, or prepares to do so, let us try, not only to see them, but to see Christ as He is shadowed forth in them.

“I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.” If these are the words of the Well-beloved -and I have no doubt that they are- then it may be suggested by some that here we have the Savior praising Himself; and it is true; but in no unworthy sense, for well may He praise Himself since no one else can do it as it should be done. There is no human language that can ever set forth His beauties as they deserve to be told. As good John Berridge says:

“Living tongues are dumb at best,
We must die to speak of Christ”

as He should be spoken of. He will never fully be described unless He shall describe Himself. For certain, we should never have known God if He had not revealed Himself; and every good thing that you or I know of Him, He Himself has told us. We make no discoveries of God except as God uncovers Himself to us. If, then, any cavillers were to find fault with the Christ of God because He did commend Himself, I would answer, Does not God commend Himself, and must not His well-beloved Son do the same? Who else is there that can possibly reveal Him to us unless He unveils His own face to our admiring gaze? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2472.cfm

Our Adorable Lord

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

“Yea, he is altogether lovely.”- Songs 5:16

No words can ever express the gratitude we owe to Him who loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins: the love of Jesus is unutterably precious and worthy of daily praise. No songs can ever fitly celebrate the triumphs of that salvation which He wrought singlehandedly on our behalf: the work of Jesus is glorious beyond compare, and all the harps of angels fall short of its worthy honour. Yet I do believe, and my heart prompts me to say so, that the highest praise of every ransomed soul and of the entire Christian church should be offered to the blessed person of Jesus Christ, our adorable Lord. The love of His heart is excelled by the heart which gave forth that love, and the wonders of His hand are outdone by the hand itself, which wrought those godlike miracles of grace. We ought to bless Him for what He has done for us as Mediator in the place of humble service under the law, and for what He suffered for us as Substitute on the altar of sacrifice from before the foundation of the world; and for what He is doing for us as Advocate in the place of highest honour at the right hand of the Majesty on high: but still the best thing about Christ is Christ Himself. We prize His gifts, but we worship Him. His gifts are valued, but He Himself is adored. While we contemplate, with mingled feelings of awe, admiration, and thankfulness, His atonement, His resurrection, His glory in heaven, and His second coming, still it is Christ Himself, stupendous in His dignity as the Son of God, and superbly beautiful as the Son of man, who sheds an incomparable charm on all those wonderful achievements, wherein His might and His merit, His goodness and His grace appear so conspicuous. For Him let our choicest spices be reserved, and to Him let our sweetest anthems be raised. Our choicest ointment must be poured upon His head, and for His own self alone our most costly alabaster boxes must be broken. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

His Mouth is Most Sweet

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments

His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. – Songs 5:16

Oh that I could rise to something better than myself. I often feel like a chick in the egg; I am picking my way out, and I cannot get clear of my prison. Fain would I chip the shell, come forth to freedom, develop wings, and soar heavenward, singing on the road. Would God that were our portion. If anything can help us to get out of the shell, and to begin to rise and sing, it must be a full and clear perception that Jesus is altogether lovely. Come, let us be married to Him afresh. Come, believing hearts, yield again to His charms; again surrender yourselves to the supremacy of His affection. Let us have the love of our espousals renewed. As you come to His table bethink you of the lips of Christ, of which the spouse had been speaking before she uttered my text: “His mouth is most sweet.” There are three things about Christ’s mouth that are very sweet. The first is His Word. The second is His breath. Come, Holy Spirit, make Thy people feel that. And the third is His kiss. May every believing soul have that sweet token of His eternal love.

May some that never knew my Master ask to know Him…Read the Word to find Him. Cry to Him in prayer and He will be found of you. He is so lovely that I should not live without loving Him; and I shall deeply regret if any one of you shall spend another four-and-twenty hours without having had a sight of His divine face by faith. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

I do love Him!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 8 Comments

Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory… – 1 Peter 1:8

Do not, I pray you, deny Christ your love. It is all you can give Him. It is a poor thing, but He values it. He would sooner have your heart than all the gold in Europe. He would sooner have the heart of a poor servant girl or of a poor humble labourer upon the soil than the queen’s diadem. He loveth love. Love is His gem-His jewel. He delights to win it, and if He be indeed altogether lovely, let Him have it. You have known people, I dare say, whom you could not help loving. they never had to say to you, “Love me,” for you were captivated at once by the very sight of them. In like manner many and many have only received one beam of light from the Holy Spirit, and have thereby seen who Jesus was, and they have at once said of Him, “Thou hast ravished my heart with one look of Thine eyes,” and so it has been that all their life long they have loved their Lord. Now, the praise is suggestive still further. “Is Christ altogether lovely? Then do I love Him? As a child of God, do I love Him as much as I ought? I do love Him. Yes, blessed be His name, I do love Him. But what a poor, cold, chill love it is. How few are the sacrifices I make for Him. How few are the offerings that I present to Him. How little is the fellowship that I maintain with Him.”

I cannot tell you how near a man may live to heaven, but I am persuaded that a very large proportion of the bliss of heaven may be enjoyed before we come there. There is one conduit pipe through which heavenly joy will flow, and if you draw from it you may have as much as you will. “Abide in Me” says Christ; and if you do abide in His love you shall have His joy fulfilled in yourselves that your joy may be full. You will have more capacious vessels in heaven, but even now the little vessel that you have can be filled up to the brim by knowing the inexpressible loveliness of Jesus and surrendering your hearts to it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

Do you not love Christ?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life 3 Comments

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. – 1 Corinthians 2:14

If you were to go to some remote island where beauty consisted in having one eye and a twisted mouth, and a sea-green complexion, you would say, “Those people are strange beings.” Such are the people of this world; spiritual beauty is not appreciated by them. This world appreciates the man who makes money, however reckless he may be of the welfare of others while scheming to heap up riches for himself. As for the man who slays his fellow-creatures by thousands, they mount him on a bronze horse, put him on an arch, or they pile up a column, and set him as near heaven as they can. He slew his thousands: he died blood-red: he was an emperor, a tyrant, a conqueror; the world feels his power and pays its homage. As for this Jesus, He only gave His life for men; He was only pure and perfect, the mirror of disinterested love. The vain world cannot see in Him a virtue to admire. It is a blind world, a fool world, a world that lieth in the wicked one. Not to discern the beauties of Jesus is an evidence of terrible depravity. Have you, my dear friend, frankly to confess that you were never enamoured of Him who was holy, harmless, and undefiled, and went about doing good? Then let this come home to you-that the question is not as to whether Christ is lovely or not, the mistake is here-that you have not a spiritually enlightened eye, a fine moral perception, nor even a well-regulated conscience, or you would see His loveliness at once. You are dark and blind. God help you to feel this.

Do you not love Christ? Then let me ask you why you do not? There was never a man yet that knew Christ that could give a reason for not loving Him, neither is there such a reason to be discovered. He is altogether lovely. In nothing is He unlovable. Oh I wish that the good Spirit of God would whisper in your heart, and incline you to say, “I will see about this Christ. I will read of Him. I will look at the portraits of Him painted by the evangelists, and if He be indeed thus lovely, no doubt He will win my heart as He appears to have won the hearts of others.” I pray He may. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

Oh! the Glory! Oh! the Glory!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

Yea, he is altogether lovely. – Songs 5:16

How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. – 2 Corinthians 12:4

Say ye that He is altogether lovely? It is not enough. It is not a thousandth part enough. No tongue of man, no tongue of angel, can ever set forth his unutterable beauties. “Oh,” say you, “but it is a great word, though short; very full of meaning though soon spoken-altogether lovely.” I tell you it is a poor word. It is a word of despair. It is a word which the spouse uttered, because she had been trying to describe her Lord and she could not do it, and so she put this down in very desperation: as much as to say, “There, the task is too great for me. I will end it. This is all I can say. ‘Yea, he is altogether lovely.'” I am sure John Berridge was right when he said-

Living tongues are dumb at best,
We must die to speak of Christ.

Brethren, the praise of the text is insufficient praise, I know, because it is praise given by one who had never seen Him in His glory. It is Old Testament praise this, that He is altogether lovely: praise uttered upon report rather than upon actual view of Him. Truly I know not how to bring better, but I shall know one day. Till then I will speak His praise as best I can, though it fall far short of His infinite excellence. Our text is cloth of gold, but it is not fit for our Beloved to put the sole of His foot upon. He deserves better than this, for this is only the praise of a church that had not seen Him die, and had not seen Him rise, and had not seen Him in the splendour at the divine right hand. “Well,” say you, “try if you can do better.” No, I will not, because if I did praise Him better, the style would not last long, for He is coming quickly, and the best thing the best speaker could ever say of Him will be put out of date by the majesty of His appearing. His chariot is waiting at His door now, and He may soon come forth from His secret chambers and be among us, and oh! the glory-oh! the glory! Paul, you know, stole a glance through the lattices one day when he was caught up into the third heaven. Somebody said to me, “I wonder Paul did not tell us what he saw.” Ay, but what he saw he might not tell, and the words he heard were words which it were not lawful for a man to utter, and yet to live among this evil generation. We shall hear those words ourselves soon, and see those sights not many days hence, so let it stand as it does, “He is altogether lovely.” But when you have thus summed up all that our poor tongues can express, you must not say, “Now we have described Him.” Oh no, sirs, ye have but held a candle to this glorious sun, for He is such an one as thoughts cannot compass, much less language describe. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm

Lovelier with Age

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 1 Comment

His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. – Songs 5:16

O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. – Psalm 34:8

You know there are persons whom you account beautiful when you are young, but when you grow older in years, riper in judgment, and more refined in taste, you meet with others who look far more beautiful. Now, what think you of your Lord? Have you met with anyone in fact or in fable more beautiful than He? You thought Him charming when you were but a babe in grace. What think you of Him now? Taste, you know, grows, and develops with education: an article of virtue which fascinated you years ago has no longer any charms for you because your taste is raised. Has your spiritual taste outgrown your Lord’s beauties? Come, brothers, does Christ go down as you learn truth more exactly and acquaint yourself more fully with Him? Oh no. You prize Him a thousand times more to-day than you did when the first impression of His goodness was formed in your mind. Some things which look very lovely at a distance lose their loveliness when you get near to them: but is it not true that the nearer you get to Christ the lovelier He is? Some things are only beautiful in your eyes for their novelty: you admire them when you have seen them once; if you were to see them a dozen times you would not care much about hem. What say you about my Master? Is it not true that the oftener you see Him, the more you know Him, and the more familiar your intercourse with Him, the more He rises in your esteem? I know it is so; and well, therefore, did the spouse say, “He is altogether lovely.”

Beloved, you shall keep on looking at Christ from all these points of view till you get to heaven, and each time you shall be more enamoured of Him. When you reach the celestial city and see Him face to face, then shall you say, “The half has not been told us,” but even here below Christ is altogether lovely to His people. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1446.cfm