December 2 - Morning"Thou art all fair, my love." — Song of Solomon 4:7
The Lord's admiration of His Church is very a wonderful, and His
description of her beauty is very glowing. She is not merely fair, but "all
fair." He views her in Himself, washed in His sin-atoning blood and
clothed in His meritorious righteousness, and He considers her to be full of
comeliness and beauty. No wonder that such is the case, since it is but His
own perfect excellency that He admires; for the holiness, glory, and
perfection of His Church are His own glorious garments on the back of His
own well-beloved spouse.
She is not simply pure, or well-proportioned;
she is positively lovely and fair! She has actual merit! Her deformities of
sin are removed; but more, she has through her Lord obtained a meritorious
righteousness by which an actual beauty is conferred upon her. Believers
have a positive righteousness given to them when they become "accepted
in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6). Nor is the Church barely lovely, she is
superlatively so. Her Lord styles her "Thou fairest among women." She
has a real worth and excellence which cannot be rivalled by all the nobility
and royalty of the world.
If Jesus could exchange His elect bride for all the
queens and empresses of earth, or even for the angels in heaven, He would
not, for He puts her first and foremost — "fairest among women." Like
the moon she far outshines the stars. Nor is this an opinion which He is
ashamed of, for He invites all men to hear it. He sets a "behold" before it, a
special note of exclamation, inviting and arresting attention. "Behold, thou
art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair" (Song of Sol. 4:1). His opinion He
publishes abroad even now, and one day from the throne of His glory He
will avow the truth of it before the assembled universe. "Come, ye blessed
of my Father" (Matt. 25:34), will be His solemn affirmation of the
loveliness of His elect. December 2 - Evening"Behold, all is vanity." — Ecclesiastes 1:14
Nothing can satisfy the entire man but the Lord's love and the Lord's own
self. Saints have tried to anchor in other roadsteads, but they have been
driven out of such fatal refuges. Solomon, the wisest of men, was
permitted to make experiments for us all, and to do for us what we must
not dare to do for ourselves. Here is his testimony in his own words: "So I
was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem:
also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I
kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart
rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.
Then I
looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that
I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and
there was no profit under the sun." "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
What! the whole of it vanity? O favoured monarch, is there nothing in all
thy wealth? Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to
the sea? Nothing in Palmyra's glorious palaces? Nothing in the house of
the forest of Lebanon? In all thy music and dancing, and wine and luxury,
is there nothing? "Nothing," he says, "but weariness of spirit." This was
his verdict when he had trodden the whole round of pleasure. To embrace
our Lord Jesus, to dwell in His love, and be fully assured of union with
Him — this is all in all.
Dear reader, you need not try other forms of life in
order to see whether they are better than the Christian's: if you roam the
world around, you will see no sights like a sight of the Saviour's face; if
you could have all the comforts of life, if you lost your Saviour, you
would be wretched; but if you win Christ, then should you rot in a
dungeon, you would find it a paradise; should you live in obscurity, or die
with famine, you will yet be satisfied with favour and full of the goodness
of the Lord. December 2 |