I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink; drink freely, O beloved.I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Friends Eat, friends! Drink, yes, drink abundantly, beloved.I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.I am come into my garden, my sister, my bride: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends; Drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.
4 sermons cite this verse
… My guess is it doesn't take long. But he says, I have come to my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk. It's like seven uses of the word my. Why is he so happy to talk about this? Because she's his now. Why did he not take that before, earlier? Because it wasn't his yet. Now for the first time, he refers to her as his because she is his and he is hers. And so now they can enjoy the fruits of the garden. She invited him into her paradise, and he accepted the invitation, and it was a blast being in there. And let me tell you something. It just gets better. Speaking from 22 years of practice and perfection and learning to play the violin and learning the north wind and the south wind can both be friends. Let me tell you something. The beauty of this is the way it ages if you continue to honor God with it. …
Further, I want you to notice that the Holy Spirit, being bent upon glorifying Christ, glorifies Him with His own things. Jesus says, "He shall receive of Mine." The Holy Spirit does not go after something apart from Christ in order to bring glory to Christ—if Christ is to be glorified, the crown must be made out of His own jewels—and the jewels must be found in His own mine! So, Beloved, in order to honor Christ, you must go to Christ—you must find Christ's honors in Christ Himself. Even the Holy Spirit, who is Omniscient, does not look outside of Christ in order to find something with which to glorify Him. "He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine." And none of us can ever honor Christ by bringing anything to Him. If we want to honor Him, we must honor Him with that which is already His own. If I want to honor the Lord Jesus Christ at this moment, how can I do it better than by preaching of His own Person, His own Manhood, His own Godhead, His own life, His own death, His own Resurrection, His own Ascension and His own coming again in the glory of His Father with the holy angels? It must be with the things of Christ that we honor Christ! If the Holy Spirit willed to do so, He could bring forth matchless novelties in honor of Christ, but He does not will to do so. He honors Christ with that which is Christ's—and if you and I, standing in the pulpit or anywhere else, want to honor Christ, we must not seek to excogitate some brilliant thought from our own brain, or come before our fellows to display the results of our own wonderful culture—the grand flowers which we have grown in the well-tilled garden of our own highly educated minds! Oh no—Christ must have His own flowers to smell if He is to have a sweet and acceptable posy brought to Him! The ingredients of the incense put into His censer must be all His own—nothing else will be acceptable to Him. Even in the Song of Solomon, you remember that when Christ comes into His own garden, He says, "I have gathered My myrrh with My spice; I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey; I have drunk My wine with My milk." Nothing will so glorify Christ as that which is already His own! The Spirit of God knows this and, therefore, in order to glorify Christ, He takes of Christ's own things and of nothing else. …
Christ and his church, as the bridegroom and bride, rejoice in each other’s love. Wine is spoken of, Psalms civ. 15. as that which maketh glad man’s heart: but the church of Christ is spoken of as rejoicing in the love of Christ, as that which is more pleasant and refreshing than wine, Cant. i. 4. “The king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine.” So on the other hand, Christ speaks of the church’s love as far better to him than wine, Cant. iv. 10. “How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than wine!” Christ and his church rejoice in communion with each other, as in being united in their happiness, and having fellowship and a joint participation in each other’s good: as the bridegroom and bride rejoice together at the wedding-feast, and as thenceforward they are joint partakers of each other’s comforts and joys: Rev. iii. 20 “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me.” The church has fellowship with Christ in his own happiness, and his divine entertainments; his joy is fulfilled in her, John xv. 11. and xvii. 13. She sees light in his light; and she is made to drink at the river of his own pleasures, Psalms xxxiv. 8, 9. And Christ brings her to eat and drink at his own table, to take her fill of his own entertainments; Cant. v. 1. “Eat, oh friends, drink, yea, drink abundantly, oh beloved.” And he, on the other hand, has fellowship with her; he feasts with her; her joys are his; and he rejoices in that entertainment that she provides for him. So Christ is said to feed among the lilies, Cant. ii. 16. and vii. 13. she speaks of all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which she had laid up, and says to him, in verse iv. 16, “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits,” and he makes answer in the next verse, “I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice, I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk.” …
Further, if the Psalms are intended for Christian worship, as surely they are, the Prophetic Spirit, who inspired them, saw that they too would in various places describe that sacred Christian feast, which we feel they do describe; and surely we may rightly call this coincidence between the ordinance in the Christian Church and the form of words in the Psalms, a mark of design. For instance: "Thou shalt prepare a Table before me against them that trouble me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my Cup shall be full." "I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord, and so will I go to Thine Altar." "O send out Thy light and Thy truth, that they may lead me, and bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy dwelling; and that I may go unto the Altar of God, even unto the God of my joy and gladness." "The children of men shall put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. They shall be satisfied with the plenteousness of Thy house, and Thou shalt give them drink of Thy pleasures as out of the river. For with Thee is the well of life, and in Thy light shall we see light." "Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and receivest unto Thee; he shall dwell in Thy court, and shall be satisfied with the pleasures of Thy house, even of Thy Holy Temple." "My soul shall be satisfied, even as it were with marrow and fatness, when my mouth praiseth Thee with joyful lips . . . because Thou hast been my helper, therefore under the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice." …