After the conclusion of her lengthly description and passionately cooing over every part of His body, she closes with this one last beautiful summary, "Yea, He is altogether lovely."
Now just as this bride sums up her Lord in this allegorical account, I would like to remind you that the patriarchs, all the prophets, all the apostles, all the confessors of yesterday, tomorrow and the entire body of Christ have left us with no lesser testimony of our Lord.
I want to add this as well, that since all the Bible has been pretty much sealed up and there will be no further additions to it…….. that all the saints since it was closed up…..on earth…..and in heaven, have continued to confirm the exact same declaration made by this charming bride of old……the verdict of each particular saint, and of the whole host of saints as a body, could still be summarized by her lovely words. From the sighs and groans of our suffering brothers and sisters in the persecuted church and from the songs free of groaning and suffering that perpetually come from those immortal tongues before the presence of our Most High God, I could put my ear to their testaments and hear this one-master chorus--- “Yea, He is altogether lovely."
Now I speak to you personally about this text…..I struggled to preach on it. In my thoughts and construction of this message, I felt that - “It is just to high a thought and I will never be able to wrap my brain around it or do justice to it.”
?How do you take so high a statement, with so limited a human ability, and bring it excellence? Or make something so perfect….. better, or something so brilliant….. brighter? Let me ask you as you are reading this….how would you improve on those five lovely words from your experience with your Lord……?
Well, God is good and He helped me in my thinking……….I was a little afraid of the volumes
that I couldn’t say about this verse but I could at least approach it and start
chipping away at it and see where the Holy Spirit
would take me.
· After all ….I
may not be able to grab hold of the whole ocean in my hand….but I can swim in a
part of it and be refreshed by it….
· I may not be
able to hike the whole side of that huge mountain anymore but I can park the
camper on one of those 20 x 20 campsites and enjoy a campfire, the birds singing and that beautiful chunk of earth…
· I might not be
able to understand how some of those magnificent stones were cut and placed so
perfectly on beautiful buildings of old but I can at least stand outside, awestruck, and admire the architects, carpenters, and stone masons of
old and walk through the splendid threshold of their magnificent doorways and
be amazed at their effort and design...
· And in relation
to this scripture, I may never be able to understand the length and breadth
of this verse, but by the gift of divine grace, God has chosen to put it in
my path to stimulate my thought and
encourage my desire to preach on it……… therefore, I need not fear to take it
on as a project for the purpose of meditation.
So no matter what is said, I pray for you the same thing that I desire for myself, that as we walk our individual faith journeys and after all the experiences of life have taken place in our sojourning here...I pray that like this appreciating bride, you and I would be able to say of Jesus, "Yea, He IS altogether lovely."
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