Christian Life

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would not last long, for He is coming quickly, and the best thing the best speaker could ever say of Him will be put out of date by the majesty of His appearing.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

The Light of Your Delights

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 5 Comments

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

Do you recollect the first sight you ever had of Jesus? It was on a day when your eyes were red with weeping over sin, and you expected to see the Lord dressed in anger coming forth to destroy you. Oh, it was the happiest sight I ever saw when I beheld my sins rolling into His sepulchre and when looking up I beheld Him my substitute bleeding on the tree. Altogether lovely was He that day. Since then providence has given us a varied experience and taken us to different points of view that we might look at Christ, and see Him under many aspects. We look at statues from several standpoints if we would criticize them. A great many in London are hideous from all points of view-others are very well if you look at them this way, but if you go over yonder and look from another point the artist appears to have utterly failed. Now, beloved, look at Jesus from any point you like, and He is at his best from each and every corner. You have been in prosperity: God multiplied your children and blessed your basket and your store,-was Jesus lovely then? Assuredly He was the light of your delights. Nothing He had given you vied with Himself. He rose in your hearts superior to His own best gifts. But you tell me that you have been very sick, and you have lost one after another of your dear ones; your means have been reduced; you have come down in the world: say, then, is Jesus lovely now? I know that you will reply “Yes, more than ever is Christ delightful in mine eyes.” Well, you have had very happy times, and you have been on the mount of hallowed friendship. The other Sunday morning many of us were up there, and thought like Peter that we should like to stay there for ever; and is not Jesus lovely when He is transfigured and we are with Him? Yes, but at another time you are down in the depths with Jonah, at the bottom of the sea. Is not Christ lovely then? Yes, even there He hears our prayer out of His holy temple, and brings us again from the deep abyss. We shall soon lie dying. Oh, my brethren, what brave talk God’s people have often given us about their Lord when they have been on the edge of the grave! That seems to be a time when the Well-beloved takes the veil off His face altogether and sits by the bedside, and lets His children look into His face, and see Him as He is. I warrant you the saints forget the ghastliness of death when their hearts are ravished with the loveliness of Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Altogether Lovely

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 4 Comments

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

Did you ever feel inclined to apologize for Christ? Did He not always stand unbending beneath life’s pressure, upright and unmoved amidst the storms and tempests of an evil world? The vilest calumnies have been uttered against Him, in the age just past which produced creatures similar to Thomas Paine, but they never required an answer; and as for the more refined attacks of our modern skepticism, they are for the most part unworthy even of contempt. They fall beneath the glance of truth, withered by the glance of the eye of honesty. We never feel concerned to vindicate the character of Jesus; we know it to be safe against all comers. No man has been able to conjure up an accusation against Jesus. They seek false witnesses, but their testimony agrees not together. The sharp arrows of slander fall blunted from the shield of His perfectness. Oh, no; He is altogether lovely in this sense-that there is nothing whatever in Him that is not lovely. You may look, and look, and look again, but there is nothing in Him that will not bear scrutiny world without end. Taking the lord Jesus Christ as a whole-this is what our text intends to tell us-He is inexpressibly lovely-altogether lovely. The words are packed as tightly as they can be, but the meaning is greater than the words…if you could labour to conceive something which should be inconceivably lovely, yet still you would not reach to the perfection of Christ Jesus. He is above, not only all we think, but all we dream of.

Do you all believe this? Dear hearers, do you think of Jesus in this fashion? We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen. But no man among you will receive our witness until he can say, “I also have seen Him, and having seen Him, I set to my seal that He is altogether lovely.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

This is Rare Praise

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father 5 Comments

My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. – Songs 5:16

There is no point in our Lord Jesus that you could improve. To paint the rose were to spoil its ruddy hue. To tint the lily (for He is lily as well as rose), were to mar its whiteness. Each virtue in our Lord is there in a state of absolute perfection: it could not be more fully developed. If you were able to conceive of each virtue at its ripest stage it would be found in Him. In the matter of transparent ingenuousness and sterling honesty, did ever man speak or act so truthfully as He? Ask, on the other hand, for sympathizing tenderness and love, was ever any so gentle as Jesus? Do you want reverence to God? See how He bows before the Father. Do you want boldness before men? See how He bears the Pharisees. You could not better anything which you find in Jesus. Wherever you shall cast your eye it may rest with satisfaction, for the best of the best of the best is to be seen in Him. He is altogether lovely at every separate point, so that the spouse, when she began with His head, descended to His feet, and then lifting her eyes upward again upon a return voyage of delight, she looked into His countenance and summed up all that she had seen in this one sentence, “He is altogether lovely.” This is rare praise. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

What is Loveliness?

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

He is altogether lovely. – Songs 5:16

What, I pray you, what is loveliness? To discern it is one thing, but it is quite another thing to describe it…How can I-enamoured, entranced, enraptured as I am with Him whom my soul loveth-how can I speak of Him? He is altogether lovely? Where shall I find words, terms, expressions that shall fitly set Him forth? Unless the Eternal Spirit shall upraise me out of myself I must for ever be incapable of setting forth the Well-beloved… I suppose that, by-and-by, when our Lord had entered upon His active life, and encountered its struggles, His youthful beauty was marred with lines of sadness and sorrow. Still His courage so overshadowed His cares, the mercy He showed so surpassed the misery He shared, and the grace He dispensed so exceeded the griefs that He carried, that a halo of real glory must ever have shone around His brow. His countenance must still have been lovely even when surrounded with the clouds of care and grief. How can we describe even the marred visage? It is a great mystery, but a sure fact, that in our Lord’s marred countenance His beauty is best seen. Anguish gave Him a loveliness which else He had not reached. His passion put the finishing touch upon His unrivalled loveliness.

Brethren, I am not about to speak of Christ’s loveliness after the flesh, for now after the flesh know we Him no more. It is His moral and spiritual beauty, of which the spouse in the song most sweetly says, “Yea, he is altogether lovely.” The loveliness which the eye dotes on is mere varnish when compared with that which dwells in virtue and holiness; the worm will devour the loveliness of skin and flesh, but a lovely character will endure for ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

His All-Conquering Loveliness

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

“He is altogether lovely.” Not only is His teaching attractive, His doctrine persuasive, His life irreproachable, His character enchanting, and His work a self-denying labour for the common good of all His people, but He Himself is altogether lovely. I suppose at first we shall always begin to love Him because He first loved us, and even to the last His love to us will always be the strongest motive of our affection towards Him; still there ought to be added to this another reason less connected with ourselves, and more entirely arising out of His own superlative excellence; we ought to love Him because He is lovely and deserves to be loved. The time should come, and with some of us it has come, when we can heartily say “we love Him because we cannot help it, for His all-conquering loveliness has quite ravished our hearts.” Surely it is but an unripe fruit to love Him merely for the benefits which we have received at His hand. It is a fruit of grace, but it is not of the ripest flavour; at least, there are other fruits, both new and old, which we have laid up for Thee, O our Beloved, and some of them have a daintier taste. There is a sweet and mellow fruit which can only be brought forth by the summer sun of fellowship-love because of the Redeemer’s intrinsic goodness and personal sweetness. Oh that we might love our Lord for His own sake, love Him because He is so supremely beautiful that a glimpse of Him has won our hearts, and made Him dearer to our eyes than light. Oh that all true and faithful disciples of our beloved Lord would press forward towards that state of affection, and never rest till they reach it! If any of you have not reached it, you need not therefore doubt your own safety, for whatever the reason why you love Jesus, if you love Him at all, it is a sure pledge and token that He loves you, and that you are saved in Him with an everlasting salvation. Still covet earnestly the best gifts, and rise to the highest degree of devotion,. Love as the purest of the saints have loved; love as John the apostle loved, for still your Lord exceeds all the loving homage you can pay to Him. Love His person, love Himself; for He is better than all that He has done or given; and as from Himself all blessings flow, so back to Himself should all love return. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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